ABC Australia
Wednesday, January 29,
2003. Posted: 10:22:24 (AEDT)
Geldof looks to bail England out of
Zimbabwe matches
Pop star turned charity fundraiser Bob Geldof
is behind an attempt to get
England out of their controversial World Cup
match in Zimbabwe.
Geldof and a human rights organisation, the Aegis
Trust, are launching a
public phone donation to raise the one million pounds
($2.79 million) they
say would cover the financial penalties England would
face if they boycotted
their Harare match on February 13.
British
Prime Minister Tony Blair has led calls for England to pull out of
Zimbabwe
in protest at the human rights abuses of President Robert Mugabe.
Geldof,
who shot to global fame as the organiser of the Band Aid concerts
and record
which raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia back in 1985,
said England
had a moral duty to withdraw from Zimbabwe.
"On a day in which perhaps
thousands will die of state-sponsored famine, the
English nation as
represented by their cricket team will be guests of their
perpetrator, Robert
Mugabe," the Irishman told Tuesday's London Evening
Standard.
"Against
these facts a game of cricket is wholly absurd. We must withdraw. I
wholly
endorse this appeal for you to pick up the telephone and buy this
game off,"
the former lead singer of the Boomtown Rats insisted.
On Monday,
England's players insisted they wanted the fixture moved to South
Africa
where the bulk of the February 8 - March 23 tournament's 54 fixtures
are
taking place.
VOA
Zimbabwe Arrests Two American
Journalists
VOA News
28 Jan 2003, 21:56 UTC
Zimbabwean
authorities have arrested two American journalists and a
Zimbabwean freelance
photographer in Bulawayo, the country's second largest
city.
Reporters
Dina Kraft of Associated Press, Jason Beaubien of the National
Public Radio
and free lance photographer Tsvangirayi Mukwazihi were arrested
Tuesday while
on a field trip, organized by the U.N. World Food Program.
They were
picked up outside the building that houses the government's Grain
Marketing
Board. The authorities say the reporters will be released as soon
as they
show they are in the country legally.
The lawyer, representing the
journalists, says his clients were accredited
to report on the WFP sponsored
field trip.
Last week, the Zimbabwean government allowed more than a
dozen journalists
to enter the country in response to a WFP request but
refused to accredit
British and Australian journalists.
Meanwhile, the
Harare government has released five foreign church workers
who were arrested
on Friday. They were accused of entering the country
illegally as
journalists.
The five, two Germans, a Kenyan, an American and a Finnish
citizen, have
been ordered to leave the country.
News24
Horses saved from butchers
28/01/2003
22:38 - (SA)
Eagan Williamson
Pretoria - Wet Nose, an animal
rescue centre located outside the city, is
battling to keep neglected and
abused horses from Zimbabwean butchers.
Tracy Forte, president of the
non-governmental organisation, on Tuesday said
there was a growing black
market demand for horses to be sold to abattoirs.
"This is a huge
problem, and we are trying to save as many horses as
possible from such
inhumane treatment," she said.
The horses, left behind by farmers whose
land had been occupied by so-called
war veterans, were being subjected to
violence and abuse.
"Often the horses roam the fields for days and they
are frightened and
traumatised when approached by humans."
Usually
they are in a terrible condition when they arrive in South Africa.
Wet Nose
treats the horses and puts them up for adoption by private owners.
Forte
said the adoption process was very successful. Only 14 of 42 horses
rescued
from Zimbabwe were still in the care of the centre.
"Because of their
poor condition when they arrive, it sometimes takes a
while to treat them,
and it is very expensive to transport and feed them and
provide them with
medical care."
Often the horses are in such poor condition that they are
no longer suitable
for riding.
It costs R2 000 to adopt one of the
horses. For additional funding, the
centre relies on
donations.
Another 14 horses will enter the country at the end of
January. Several more
horses are being kept in Harare until Wet Nose is able
to relocate them.
The
Herald
President set to be appointed ZNLWVA national
chairman
Herald Reporter
THE Zimbabwe National Liberation War
Veterans' Association will appoint
President Mugabe as national chairman at a
congress set for next month.
The association's acting chairman, Cde
Patrick Nyaruwata, said yesterday
that the constitution would be changed at
the congress to allow for the
President of Zimbabwe to become the chairman
automatically so long as he was
associated with the struggle.
"But we
will make it clear that any president not associated with the
liberation
struggle will not lead us. The privilege will be for those who
fought in the
liberation struggle."
Cde Nyaruwata said the war veterans had also
decided to make the late Vice
President Cde Joshua Nkomo the patron of the
association posthumously.
Cde Nkomo, the commander-in-chief of the
Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary
Army during the armed struggle, died in July
1999.
The move to make President Mugabe the chairman of the war
veterans
association effectively means there will not be elections for the
position
at the congress next month.
Cde Nyaruwata said the agreement
to make the President the national chairman
was reached at a meeting early
this month.
The election of the organisation's national executive was
going to be the
major highlight of the congress.
The ZNLWVA had been
under an interim executive led by the late Cde Chenjerai
Hunzvi and
subsequently by Cde Nyaruwata since 1999.
The organisation's constitution
stipulates that elections to choose a new
leadership should be held once in
every three years.
But the war veterans agreed to hold elections after
the presidential
election in March to avoid divisions in the association that
would
jeopardise Zanu-PF chances in the crucial election.
"We want to
fight together with the President as united war veterans," said
Cde
Nyaruwata.
"This is why we want to involve him so that we are together in
this fight."
The war veterans held a meeting with the Minister of Lands,
Agriculture and
Rural Resettlement, Cde Joseph Made yesterday to urge
commercial farmers to
take their commitment to offer help for the land reform
seriously.
Dear Fellow Zimbabweans,
I have
observed developments in the media regarding the 'dialogue' between
the
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) and Government ministers. I have also
had
sight of CFU statements in this regard. As I no longer represent farmers,
I
have remained a silent observer. However after watching the ZBC News
tonight
(Tuesday 28th Jan) I feel compelled to comment.
The
misdirected Land reform programme has resulted in Zimbabwe moving from
bread
basket to basket case. The cherry-picking of prime farms in Zimbabwe
by
government fat cats has reduced many innocent souls to berry-picking
to
stay alive.
Is this the Land reform programme that the CFU members
now suddenly support?
Whilst I do not stand in judgement of farmers
seeking compensation, many
have lost everything, I do appeal to them to
ensure that the issue of
compensation is not used for political gain. Let it
be known that current
propaganda trends are tantamount to attempting to
administer a cardiac
arrest to a regime whose soul is long
gone.
Zimbabweans, pure of heart and soul will have their day of
reckoning.
Farmers who insist that they are loyal Zimbabweans would do well
to remember
that their allegiance is better served assisting those living on
berries
than fattening up the obese.
I made this appeal to farmers in
a communiqué on 18th October 2002 and the
cautions still
hold:
Meanwhile, they (farmers) must commit themselves to focusing their
energy on
the core issues enshrined in the Zimbabwean Constitution. The
constitutional
issues and human rights are a solid basis to envelope the
agricultural
plight and communicate through the quagmire. If we are to
resolve this
impasse, which plays itself out under the guise of land or
agrarian reforms,
we must couch our message in pressing for a return to a
democratic Zimbabwe
with all its characteristics: good governance, the rule
of law, the respect
for human and property rights allowing dignity, and where
the freedom of
expression is canonised.
They should take stock of
their position and fully recognise and draw
unlimited strength from the fact
that it is their God-given and democratic
right to own property and earn a
living and their right to call themselves
Zimbabweans or investors to
Zimbabwe that has been eroded. To do this
effectively they must take their
place amongst civic society and with other
Zimbabweans to defend their human
rights. It is not a crime to demand
justice, peace and
freedom.
Dialogue has been exhaustively conducted by many. It is however,
not being
carried out on a fair and democratic negotiating platform so it
will not
yield the desired results. No amount of dealing or signing of
sub-division
forms will provide honour where there is none, and just serves
to feed the
appeasement crocodile. We can only resolve the conflict if we
have a fair
and equal negotiating platform and equally important and
communicated views.
Calls to acceptance of foreign compensation under
these conditions will be
selling out Zimbabweans right to a Democratic
win-win solution.
Ends
Jenni Williams
Bulawayo 28th January
2003
Contact Jenni Williams on Mobile (+263) 91 300456 or 11213 885 Or on
email
jennipr@mweb.co.zw
or Fax (+2639)
63978 or (+2634) 703829
Office email prnews@mweb.co.zw
A member of the
International Association of Business Communicators. Visit
the IABC website
www.iabc.com
Comment
from ZWNEWS, 29 January
France and Mugabe: déjà vu - all over
again
By Michael Hartnack
As Robert Mugabe cosies up to
France, and France cosies up to Mugabe, there'
s a sense of déjà vu - all
over again. During Ian Smith's white-minority
Rhodesian regime, the French
almost outdid Portugal and apartheid South
Africa as breakers of U.N.
mandatory sanctions imposed from 1965 to 1979.
There's a double irony in
France insisting on inviting Mugabe to
French-African summit on Feb.19,
effectively acting as a bridgehead for him
within the European Union whose
travel ban on Zimbabwe leaders and their
cronies comes up for renewal Feb.
18. If Zimbabwe were an ex-French
territory, Les Paras would likely have
given Mugabe and his wife, Grace, the
"coup de grace" three years ago when he
began seizing white-owned farms and
stepped up repression of political
opponents. A French-brokered deal with
rebels in the Ivory Coast - which
prompted violent demonstrations in Abidjan
this week including torching the
French Embassy - is the latest example of
France's hands on,
send-in-the-troops approach to its former African
colonies. France says it is
inviting Mugabe to discuss "human rights".
During the era of sanctions
against Smith's Rhodesia, France also went
through the diplomatic motions,
closing its consulate in the then-Salisbury
in 1970. Otherwise it was pretty
much business as usual. Frenchmen from
Mauritius and Madagascar settled in
Rhodesia, bringing special expertise in
sugar production. Some were killed on
their farms by guerrillas. French
veterans of the Algerian and Vietnam Wars
joined the Rhodesian army. French
Alouette III helicopters, continually
re-supplied with spares through shady
middlemen, were the mainstay of
Rhodesian anti-insurgency operations and
Rhodesian pilots trained on
supersonic Dassault Mirage jets in South Africa.
Citroens and
Renaults, assembled in Rhodesia, suddenly appeared on the
streets in place of
British makes. Smith rode around in an unobtrusive
convoy of two Peugeot
404s, escorted by four bodyguards, while the same
model replaced British-made
Austin Westminsters. French fabrics were on sale
in the expensive department
stores. In the late 1960s, new season Beaujolais
wine was available. The
telephone book advertised "official agents for the
French aircraft industry",
headed by Wing Commander Roy Simmonds, an ultra
right-wing member of
Parliament for Smith's Rhodesian Front. Despite pious
denials, it was clear a
powerful element in the French establishment was
seeking to transfer Rhodesia
to its economic sphere of influence from that
of Britain. Similarly, France's
attitude to Mugabe gives the impression that
a longtime policy toward Third
World countries is in force: favour our
businessmen and your human rights
record won't be a problem.
At the Feb. 19 summit expect a massive
propaganda offensive as Mugabe struts
his stuff before the Great Nation.
Apart from shopping, always a favourite
activity, Mugabe will use his Paris
trip to ram down the throats of his
people the message that the world has now
accepted as a fait accompli his
stolen 2002 presidential election, his
seizure of the white farms, his
terror tactics against opponents. This has
been the theme of the
state-controlled media during the past week with visits
by Nigerian foreign
minister Sule Lamido and South Africa's Nkosazana
Dlamini-Zuma. In public,
the pair merely said that relations were cordial and
they brought
confidential messages from presidents Olusegun Obasanjo and
Thabo Mbeki.
With Australian Prime Minister John Howard, the two presidents
form the
"troika" due to review Zimbabwe's year-long suspension from
Commonwealth
councils imposed after the election last March. Mugabe appears
supremely
confident of the outcome - calling Howard during a visit to Lusaka
January
14 "the product of genetically modified criminals bent on
eliminating
Aborigines.'' In other words, it does not matter what racist
abuse he
employs - Mugabe trusts his friends will always chortle behind their
hands
and back him up.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change,
said France, South Africa and Nigeria bore a
heavy responsibility for
buttressing Mugabe's regime. "The people being
starved to death are not
white; the majority of victims of the killing
machine are not white; those
who languish in jail and are subjected to daily
torture and inhuman
conditions are not white; those in the rural areas are
not white," he said.
While Lamido and Zuma guarded their tongues before the
media, both were seen
being feted on successive nights at Amanzi, the most
expensive restaurant in
Highlands, Harare. Diners saw them exuberantly
enjoying the company of
Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge, Agriculture Minister
Joseph Made and Mugabe's
propaganda chief Jonathan Moyo, who recently called
South Africans "filthy
and uncouth". There were about 10 people in each
dining party. Amanzi bills
usually come to at least Zimbabwe $10 000 a head -
which represents 400kg of
mealie meal at the controlled price or about 60kg
on the black market
operated by ruling party fat cats who receive
preferential supplies. Let us
hope the wine was not French, at prices running
into five figures.
Dear Friends,
The Aegis Trust in association with Bob Geldof and Yann Martel
have launched the Zimbabwe Fund.
The Zimbabwe Fund asks people to donate one pound per
person so that the England Cricket team's fine for not playing in Zimbabwe is
sorted out.
The English team have taken the lead in refusing to endorse
the Mugabe regime by stating that they would prefer to play their cricket match
elsewhere.
and please tell all your contacts in England about
it.
Donate 1pound by dialing: 0906 12 00 005
Spread the word.
Thanks,
Bev
29 Jan
2003 00:00
Zimbabwe crisis dims anti-hunger gains in
Africa
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Massive food aid has helped stave off
hunger in
southern Africa and avert mass starvation so far, but Zimbabwe's
policies are
deepening the AIDS-crippled region's crisis, United Nations
officials said on
Wednesday.
Once a breadbasket making up its neighbours' production
shortfalls,
Zimbabwe's commercial farming sector has been decimated by
President Robert
Mugabe's seizures of white-owned land for redistrubution to
landless blacks,
triggering an unprecedented economic and political
crisis.
"Through the incredible generosity of donors, food has been put
in place over
the last several months in such a way that massive starvation
and death has
not occurred," said James Morris, United Nations humanitarian
envoy for the
region.
Around 15 million people in Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho,
Mozambique and
Swaziland are at risk of going hungry -- nearly half of them
in
Zimbabwe.
Winding up a tour of four of the region's countries suffering
food shortages,
Morris said there were already signs of an improvement in
the food situation
in Zambia and
Malawi.
"I'm less optimistic in Zimbabwe of their ability to produce
food," Morris
told reporters in
Johannesburg.
"There's just no question that the change in the makeup of the
agricultural
picture in Zimbabwe has affected
everybody.
"They would claim they have planted more hectares of
crops...(but) the
productivity of commercial farms is five, six or seven
times what it is for a
communal farm," he
said.
Morris said Zimbabwe, which has suffered months of fuel and food
shortages as
the government struggles to find foreign exchange, should float
food prices
and allow private operators to import and distribute
food.
"They need to import something approaching one million metric
tonnes of food
a year and they don't have the foreign exchange to do that.
And if they don't
allow the market to operate I don't know how they are
going to do that," he
said.
Morris said Zimbabwe's foreign relations were suffering because
of concerns
it was interfering with the distribution of humanitarian aid,
though he was
confident distribution of United Nations food aid was not
being interfered
with.
"There is still considerable concern...that there may be some
political
guidance in the distribution of the government's food. I raised
this issue
with President Mugabe," Morris
said.
GRIM
REAPER
Morris made his tour of southern Africa along with U.N. envoy
for HIV/AIDS in
Africa, Stephen Lewis, who said the pandemic had combined
with the food
crisis to create what had been dubbed "new variant
famine".
"The sense of destruction is positively surreal in this
interlocking of AIDS
and hunger. Death has become the fulcrum of society,
everywhere it is
evident," Lewis
said.
"The image that comes to mind is of the Grim
Reaper."
Lewis said the crisis was the start of the social collapse
threatened by
AIDS, which had claimed the lives of seven million of the
region's farmers
over the past 10 to 15
years.
"What happens when your education sector goes? What happens when
your health
sector goes?," he
said.
"It feels like an overall societal
collapse."
Lewis said the spread of AIDS and HIV, the virus which causes
it, was being
fuelled by "predatory sexual male behaviour" across Africa,
including
widespread sexual abuse within the
family.
"There is clearly in Africa a phenomenon of inter-generational
sex...(which)
has in a significant measure been driving the epidemic," he
said, calling for
improved legal protection for women to help fight AIDS.
Blair in bid to ostracise Mugabe
29/01/2003
18:12 - (SA)
London - The regime of Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe is a threat to
everyone in the country and Britain is doing everything
possible to
ostracise it, Prime Minister Tony Blair said on
Wednesday.
"It cannot be emphasised too often that that regime is a
threat most of all
to Zimbabwean people and not simply to white Zimbabwean
people but to black
Zimbabweans as well," Blair told the House of
Commons.
"It is a tragedy. We are doing whatever we can in every
international forum
in order to try to ostracise the Mugabe regime," the
prime minister said.
Britain has led an international outcry against
Mugabe's government in the
wake of controversial land reforms and a
presidential poll last March which
observers said was rigged.
Blair
did not respond directly to a challenge to act against the decision of
France
to invite Mugabe to a Franco-African summit in Paris next month.
"The
humanitarian situation (in Zimbabwe) now is becoming dire. There
are
literally millions of people who are starving or at risk of starvation in
a
country which is rich with potential natural resources," Blair
said.
France caused a furore last week by inviting the Zimbabwean
president to the
summit on February 20 and 21, two days after the current
sanctions expire.
EU foreign ministers failed earlier this week to renew
the sanctions, which
include a travel ban, despite evidence that a food
shortage is being used to
starve opponents in Zimbabwe.
In Paris, the
foreign ministry said on Tuesday France's invitation to Mugabe
to Paris next
month still stands, but Paris wants agreement with its
European partners over
the issue.
"We have a certain number of things we want to say to Mugabe
and that's
normal," French foreign ministry spokesperson Francois Rivasseau
said,
responding to strong protests from Britain and other
countries.
Britain was joined by Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark in
strong
opposition to a Mugabe visit to Paris. -
Sapa-AFP
The Australian
Zimbabwe jitters set
in
January 30, 2003
AUSTRALIA'S World Cup tour of Zimbabwe
hung in the balance last night after
Players Union boss Tim May revealed
there was widespread concern among
players about safety issues.
May
expressed the players' reservations at a high-powered meeting with
Australian
Cricket Board chief executive James Sutherland, ACB general
manager Michael
Brown in Melbourne yesterday.
"You can say we have growing concerns but I
don't want them to be
exaggerated," May said yesterday.
"The players
have some concerns but that does not mean they are not going
to
go."
As the Australians fly out this morning bound for cricket's
gala event in
southern Africa, players who have maintained the party line
have now started
to splinter with Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist admitting
they have
concerns about safety and security.
"There are some
concerns, There's no doubt about that," Ponting said
yesterday.
"I
think whenever you travel in any part of the world, there's always
some
concerns."
The ACB is keen for the February 24 cup match in
Bulawayo to go ahead but,
if the players ultimately decide they don't want to
go, the game could be
moved to South Africa or the team could forfeit the
points.
If the game is abandoned, the ACB faces a huge compensation
payout to the
International Cricket Council.
While the ACB continued
to push the party line yesterday, it's believed to
have some serious concerns
about for the safety and security of its players
in Zimbabwe, leaving the
tour extremely doubtful to go ahead.
Last year the ACB maintained Test
tours to Zimbabwe and Pakistan would go
ahead before pulling out at the last
minute.
"Obviously the situation and climate in Zimbabwe has somewhat
changed,"
Sutherland said. "There is uncertainty within the group to exactly
what the
circumstances are.
"We've made that commitment and we've said
all along the safety of our
players for any tour is a paramount concern. If
we have a problem with that
we will take necessary action.
"If we
can't fix the problem we will make the decision not to play there.
We've done
that before and I think that should be an indication we are
prepared to do
that here and now."
Journalists intending to travel to Zimbabwe have now
been warned they may be
prime targets for militant aggression in the
country.
The Australian players' fears escalated after a move by the
English players
to have their February 13 cup match against Zimbabwe in
Harare transferred
to South Africa.
This was fuelled further when the
US urged Americans to consider fleeing the
strife-torn country.
The US
upgraded its travel advice amid growing concern about the safety and
security
of Americans in the famine-ridden country led by rogue President
Robert
Mugabe.
The ACB also took advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs
and Trade
yesterday but DFAT has not upgraded its advice since January
10.
Australians who wish to attend the first match have been asked to
maintain a
high level of personal security amid concerns about civil disorder
and
crime.
"The deteriorating economic situation is leading some
people to desperate
and criminal activity, and has increased the risk of
incidents of civil
disorder," DFAT warns.
"Increasingly serious food
shortages are also of concern."
Pressure was also growing fast on the ICC
last night to make a unilateral
decision on World Cup matches in Zimbabwe and
Kenya. Six games are set to be
held in Zimbabwe and two in
Kenya.
Commercial Farmers, Land Committee Talks to Resolve Unnecessary
Differences:
Kamushinda
The Herald (Harare)
January
29, 2003
Posted to the web January 29, 2003
Harare
PROMINENT
banker Mr Enock Kamushinda, yesterday hailed a meeting between the
Cabinet
Action committee on land reform and the Commercial Farmers Union
saying it
will help resolve unnecessary differences and ensure the country
moved
forward.
"The meeting is a welcome development," he told The
Herald.
"It will help break the unnecessary impasse. This meeting must be
commended
as a meeting between Zimbabweans who are determined to resolve
their own
differences."
At a meeting held on Monday, the Government
assured white commercial farmers
interested in farming that they would get
land to do so while in turn the
farmers reiterated their support for the land
reform.
Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Minister Cde Joseph
Made chaired
the meeting.
CFU president Colin Cloete and director
Hendrieck Olivier attended the
meeting.
Mr Kamushinda said it was now
important for Government to proceed with speed
to discuss with banks and
organise a meeting between banks, the Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe and the
Ministry of Finance to raise money and start making
payments for movable
property which the farmers had offered.
"The Government promised to pay
for movables and they ought to be seen to be
paying so as to demonstrate
their commitment to the whole world," he said.
"The Government must meet
its share of the burden in terms of the promises
it made under the land
reform."
He said it was also important to expedite the applications for
white farmers
who were still interested in farming in the country just as it
was for the
rest of the people under the A1 and A2 resettlement
schemes.
Mr Kamushinda urged the CFU to send a delegation to the UK to
inform the
British that the fast track land reform programme was now over and
that they
should process compensation for white farmers quickly.
"The
British government should not punish white farmers," he said.
"They have
an obligation to pay them and the whole world knows it.
"They should not
continue to inconvenience them by reneging on the promise
that they
made."
He said the perception that blacks cannot farm was being wiped off
as most
of them were managing to surpass the farming records that were set by
former
land-owners.
"And we thank God for the rains he has brought to
support the land reform
and new farmers," he said.
"We stand ready to
raise money to pay white farmers for their equipment and
to even go further
and make sure that the infrastructure they left is
protected and used to
increase agricultural production for both domestic
consumption and
export."
SABC
Tear-gas used to break up
Zimbabwe
meeting
January 29, 2003,
19:45
Zimbabwean police fired tear-gas to break up a meeting called by
Harare's
opposition mayor today and civic groups warned of nationwide
protests against
President Robert Mugabe during the cricket World Cup
next
month.
Police cordoned off the offices of Harare mayor Elias Mudzuri
and barred
people from entering for a meeting to discuss water shortages,
the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC)
said.
"They then fired tear-gas at the residents and indiscriminately
assaulted all
the people including those who were simply passing by," the
MDC said in a
statement.
Mudzuri was elected MDC mayor of Harare last March in council
elections held
alongside presidential polls that the MDC and some Western
governments say
were rigged by Mugabe to ensure his re-election. Police
arrested Mudzuri
earlier this month for holding an illegal meeting without
the approval
required under tough new laws the MDC says are aimed at
stifling
democracy.
The incident at Mudzuri's office comes amid a growing
controversy over the
six World Cup matches to be played in Zimbabwe
next
month.
The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) a coalition of church
and student
groups, rights organisations and political parties said it
planned nation
wide pro-democracy protests during the World
Cup.
"The aim is not to disrupt the cricket World Cup, but with or
without the
cricket games the programme will go on," Douglas Mwonzora, an
NCA
spokesperson, told
reporters.
"If the games are disrupted as (a result) of our programme then
that is
regrettable, but we are not going to suspend our programme,"
he
added.
Australia's cricketers said today they were increasingly worried
about
playing in Zimbabwe, while the English team has requested to pull out
of
their match against the home nation in Harare on February
13.
Zimbabwe is grappling with its worst economic crisis fuelled by
record
unemployment and severe food shortages since Mugabe came to power
on
independence from Britain in
1980.
Previous NCA protests have mostly flopped with critics blaming
poor
organisation and co-ordination with the
MDC.
Police have accused the opposition of planning civil unrest
ahead of the
World Cup matches in order to force a change of venue. The MDC
has denied the
accusation. - Reuters
VOA
White Farmers Must Get
Compensation from Britain, Says Zimbabwe
Peta
Thornycroft
Harare
29 Jan 2003, 17:17 UTC
The Zimbabwe
government has told the Commercial Farmers' Union that if it
wants
compensation for farms seized in the country's controversial land
reform
program, it will have to get it from Britain, the country's former
colonial
ruler.
When the leaders of the farmers' Union went to meet with a new
task force of
seven cabinet ministers earlier this week, they expected to
discuss ways to
reverse the sharp drop in agricultural production since their
farms were
taken.
Instead, the government officials wanted to discuss
the issue of
compensation for the confiscated
land.
Colin Cloete
The president of
the Union, Colin Cloete, says the ministers asked him to
press the British
government to pay compensation to farmers who were evicted
from their
homesteads, often violently, in the land reform program.
The government
has seized more than 90 percent of white-owned farms,
homesteads and
equipment since 2000, and Zimbabwe's commercial agriculture,
which provided
40 percent of the country's foreign currency, has
since
collapsed.
Under the law governing the seizure of white-owned
farms, the government is
obliged to pay the farmers for all improvements they
have made, such as
buildings and irrigation systems, but not for the land
itself. The
government has always said the farmers would have to ask Britain
to
reimburse them for the land, but now it says Britain should fund
the
compensation for the improvements as well.
The government admits
that fewer than 200 farmers, out of more than 3,500,
have been compensated
for even a portion of the improvements on their farms.
The government says it
has no money to pay any more compensation.
Britain has said it will help
finance Zimbabwe's land reform only if the
program is legal and
transparent.
After the meeting with the ministerial task force, the Union
leader, Mr.
Cloete, said the Union is in no position to ask a foreign country
to
compensate people like himself, a Zimbabwean, whose property was taken
by
his own government.
The Union says many former farmers are now
living in towns, and are
destitute, while most of the land they once farmed
is fallow because the
newly installed farmers lack both the money and the
skills to cultivate it.
The government described the meeting with the
farmers Union as good, and
said efforts were made to sort out the question of
compensation.
On Wednesday, Mr. Cloete was in court in Chegutu, 120
kilometers south west
of Harare. He was standing trial for remaining in his
home, and growing
crops, after the expiration date of his eviction
notice.
Mail and Guardian
Diplomat says
Zimbabwe will abide by peer
review
Donwald Pressly | Cape
Town
29 January 2003 14:02
The
Zimbabwean Consul General in South Africa, Godfrey Dvairo, told South
African
Members of Parliament here today that his country had no problem
with the
peer review mechanism of the African Union.
In a briefing to members of
the foreign affairs portfolio committee of the
national assembly on the
"internal situation" in Zimbabwe, Dvairo defended
his country's record, which
he said had five years ago been touted as an
example of a stable and
prosperous country -- but since the land reform
program attempts had been
made to present it as a pariah of the world.
Asked by Democratic Alliance
MP Colin Eglin -- the longest serving South
African parliamentarian --
whether Zimbabwe would abide by the peer review
mechanism, Dvairo said the
mechanism was an instrument of the New
Partnership for Africa's Development
(Nepad), which in turn was associated
with the African Union.
"We are
a member of the AU, Nepad is an initiative of this union. We
subscribe to
everything that is contained in that initiative in a way that
has been agreed
to by the rest of the continent. The short answer is we are
willing to
subject ourselves to that peer review exercise," he said.
Amid an
avalanche of international criticism of Zimbabwe, the diplomat said
that the
government was legitimate, there was a multi-party system and the
courts were
"open".
"A lot of lies, disinformation and rumour mongering have muddied
the picture
of that situation in Zimbabwe. Very often it is difficult for
people to tell
exactly what the situation is like. It is not an exaggeration;
we have a
constitutionally elected government in Zimbabwe, its legitimacy has
been
certified by this very parliament and other responsible members of
the
international community. We are a sovereign state; we are not a rogue
state
as is often presented by the media and Zimbabwe's
detractors".
"The situation we find ourselves in is one which basically
illustrates the
double standards that are applied to states who have the
power and those who
wish to interpret international law and its principles in
accordance with
the furtherance of their own narrow interests," he said, in
apparent
reference to Britain and the United States.
Referring to the
land reform program -- which the opposition argue has seen
thousands of
commercial farmers and farm workers displaced -- he said:
"Because of the
bold step that we took in Zimbabwe in bringing the fight
against colonialism
to its logical conclusion, the government and leadership
of Zimbabwe have
been demonised and vilified. Our land reform program has
elicited the wrath
of the United Kingdom, our erstwhile coloniser, and
its
allies.
Zimbabwe's economy has been battered by sabotage to punish
the government
for embarking on that program."
Eglin thanked him for
his "spirited defence" of Zimbabwe, but noted that
South African
parliamentarians were able to access other information about
the country from
among others business interests, opposition
parliamentarians in Zimbabwe and
other interest groups and a contrasting
view of the country had been the
outcome.
But Dvairo said that "apart from petrol and food queues
everything else
seems to be ticking over in Zimbabwe".
At the
insistence of Britain and the United States the Bretton Woods
institutions
had cut off financial support to Zimbabwe but he believed that
the economy
would return to normal "with balance of payments support".
Asked by the
Freedom Front's Corne Mulder, if he would welcome an
international media
group to the country to see the situation for
themselves. Dvairo said: "They
would be very welcome."
He defended registration of journalists, saying
that the government merely
wished to know who they were and that they did not
have some hidden
agenda. - I-Net Bridge
News24
Mugabe the problem
guest
29/01/2003 11:20 - (SA)
Lisbon - Portugal
says it is in favour of putting off a European
Union-Africa summit, which it
is set to host in April, because of the debate
about whether or not
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe should be allowed
to
attend.
Portuguese foreign mnister Antonio Martins da Cruz told
journalists at a
meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels he had "the
clearest signs" that
if Mugabe came to the Lisbon summit several European
leaders would stay
away, reported the Lusa news agency.
At the same
time, many African heads of state had indicated they would
boycott the summit
if the Zimbabwean president did not attend, he added.
As a result, Da
Cruz said he backed the postponement of the summit for "the
time necessary"
to await conditions that would be more likely to lead to a
successful
event.
"It doesn't make sense to hurt dialogue with Africa," he
said.
The 15-member EU imposed a visa ban on the Zimbabwean leadership
last
February when violence flared in the run-up to a presidential poll
widely
condemned as rigged.
Chirac invites Mugabe to France
In
theory, the sanctions should be renewed on February 18, maintaining a
travel
ban on Mugabe and about 70 other senior Zimbabwean officials.
But, French
President Jacques Chirac clouded the matter by extending an
invitation to
Mugabe last week, arguing that his presence at the February
20-21
Franco-Africa summit would help promote democracy, justice and human
rights
in Zimbabwe.
Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands and Spain reportedly said
they would not
attend the Lisbon summit if Mugabe was allowed to
attend.
But several African states, including Nigeria and Sudan, have
rallied behind
the Mugabe regime, and threatened to boycott the EU-Africa
summit unless
Mugabe is there, too.
Talks at the EU-Africa summit,
which has been tentatively set for April 4
and 5, are expected to focus on
ways to boost trade between the two regions,
the fight against poverty and
Aids, as well as debt relief.
The gathering is intended to be a follow-up
to the first summit of EU and
African countries held in Cairo in 2000, which
hosted leaders from 67
nations. The EU is Africa's biggest foreign-aid donor.
- Sapa-AFP
MSNBC
Zimbabwe opposition leader gets up close to fuel
crisis
By Stella Mapenzauswa
HARARE, Jan. 29 -
Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai toured fuel
queues and
sympathised with stranded commuters in Harare on Wednesday in his
first major
walkabout since losing to President Robert Mugabe in polls
last
year.
Tsvangirai, a former trade
union leader who heads the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), hit the
streets just days before he and two senior
MDC officials go on trial on
Monday to face charges of plotting to
assassinate
Mugabe.
''We love you Morgan. You are
the country's true president,'' one man
shouted before he rushed into the
crowd to push his way onto a waiting
bus.
Other commuters told Tsvangirai of
the transport blues which have
persisted since fuel shortages hit the country
in 1999 and intensified late
last
year.
Zimbabwe is in the grip of its
worst economic crisis since
independence from Britain in 1980, with record
unemployment and severe food
shortages threatening nearly half of its 14
million people with starvation.
''We are
hungry Mr. Tsvangirai. We have nothing to eat,'' another man
told the MDC
leader.
Once a breadbasket making up its
neighbours' production shortfalls,
Zimbabwe's commercial farming sector is
reeling from the state seizure of
white-owned land for redistribution to
landless blacks, triggering an
economic and political
crisis.
''There's just no question that
the change in the makeup of the
agricultural picture in Zimbabwe has affected
everybody,'' James Morris,
United Nations humanitarian envoy for the region,
told reporters in
Johannesburg after a recent visit to
Zimbabwe.
The Mugabe government has
blamed the food shortages on a severe
drought affecting southern
Africa.
TRIAL NEXT WEEK
One woman
told Tsvangirai how she spends up to 10 hours getting to
work and back home
each day since the fuel crisis intensified last
December.
''The problem is that we have
learned to adjust to our problems and
this should stop. But don't worry, this
year we will free ourselves,''
Tsvangirai told the
woman.
It was the MDC leader's first
major public walkabout since he lost to
Mugabe in presidential elections last
year which the opposition and some
Western nations say were
fraudulent.
''We've gone through an
unprecedented year of difficulties in 2002
and I think that 2003 must really
begin to be a year when the people
themselves come out their lethargy and
start organising themselves to deal
with the problems which they face,''
Tsvangirai told reporters after
Wednesday's
tour.
The MDC leader, the party's
Secretary-General Welshman Ncube and
Secretary for Agriculture Renson Gasela
were charged with plotting to kill
Mugabe last
year.
The three men have denied the
treason charge, which is based on a
secretly filmed meeting between
Tsvangirai and a Canadian security company
employed by the Zimbabwe
government.
The defendants say the video
tape was doctored to misrepresent a
conversation led by the Canadian
advisers.
Please send any material for publication in the
Open Letter Forum to:
Open Letter Forum <justice@telco.co.zw>
JAG OPEN LETTER FORUM AND
COMMUNIQUE
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
KWEKWE
The
wife of a commercial farmer who had traveled to Kwekwe with her
daughter with
a view to obtaining a provisional driving license resulted in
a vicious
attack by a civilian who was approached by the pair and asked to
assist in
direction to the VID. The civilian, who had been picked up at the
police
station, once the daughter was dropped off at the VID requested to
be
returned to the police station. The attack took place during the
return
journey.
This is the second serious assault of a commercial
farmer's wife in as many
weeks. Farming families are cautioned to be aware of
these two incidents,
and the fact that the breakdown of the rule of law is
continuous and
becoming more widespread into urban areas. Effort should be
made no to take
unnecessary risks, and thereby increase
vulnerability
**************************************************
If
there is any farming family packing up to leave for Britain in the next
few
weeks who wouldn't mind a reporter trailing the family and recording
the
trip, please contact us on one of the JAG hotlines. Please pass this
message
on to those who do not have access to the JAG mailing
list.
**************************************************
Letter 1:
J.L.Robinson
The Director
CFU
director@cfu.co.zw
Dear
Sir
I believe that the CFU leadership, together with CFU Council, have
been
very busy of late. Their activities include two meetings with
government
Ministers and a CFU President's Council meeting today, 28 Jan.
03.
Having covered so much ground with government Ministers, and the
leaders of
commodities and regions within the Union, could I please ask you,
the
Director, to give us a POLICY DOCUMENT at your earliest
convenience. I
shall wait for it because I have been criticised for
believing the articles
published in the Herald.
Your assistance in
this matter will be most gratefully received.
Yours
faithfully
J.L.Robinson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions
of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Justice
for Agriculture mailing list
To subscribe/unsubscribe: Please write to
jag-list-admin@mango.zw
Cricket: English sink deeper in Zimbabwe
controversy
Huw Richards
International Herald Tribune Thursday, January 30,
2003
LONDON Nasser Hussain, the captain of the England team, is
not a man with
whom to get into a staring match. Yet that is precisely where
his employer,
the England and Wales Cricket Board, will find itself Thursday,
when the
International Cricket Council will discuss a statement by the
England team
that it does not want to go to Zimbabwe for a World Cup game
scheduled Feb.
13 in Harare.
.
Until Monday, when they issued their
statement, the players had been
prepared to be guided by the cricket board,
which wants to play the game.
The players stopped short of saying they would
not go - that would have
placed them in danger of a breach of contract - but
their stance makes it
unlikely the game will be played, unless the ICC is
prepared to move it to
South Africa.
.
The English cricket
administrators will be aware that playing the game means
dragooning an
unwilling and unhappy team into a trip, and a match, for which
its safety
cannot be guaranteed.
.
Worries about personal safety were certainly a
factor. The players' minds
will have been concentrated by a briefing from the
British Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, in which there were references to
the possibility of
action against them by opposition groups in
Zimbabwe.
.
In their statement, the players pointed specifically to the
moral and
political arguments against playing in Zimbabwe that their
employers had
explicitly ducked.
.
A cynic might dismiss this as window
dressing: Elite sportsmen are not noted
for their concern with the state of
the world. It was a cricketer, the
former England captain Mike Gatting - now,
ironically, one of the loudest
supporters of a boycott - who dismissed South
African anti-apartheid
demonstrators as "a lot of people jumping up and
down."
.
Recent events have shaken the England players out of the cocoon
in which the
top sportsman lives. They have been bombarded with information
by protesters
and the media. Some have clearly taken the trouble to find out
what all the
fuss is about. Hussain and Ronnie Irani, an all-rounder in the
England
squad, spent last summer as Essex teammates of Zimbabwe's top player,
Andy
Flower.
.
Their action is also a further expression of the growth
of player power. The
England team spokesman, who also drafted the players'
statement, was Richard
Bevan of the Professional Cricketers Association.
While trade unionism
recedes in traditional sectors, it continues to prosper
in elite sport.
.
This is not a fluke. While international cricketers are
better rewarded than
they have ever been, their employers continue to take
them for granted. The
sale by the ICC of exclusive sponsorship rights for the
World Cup to the
Global Cricket Corp., without considering that this cut
across existing
contracts for leading players, is typical.
.
The rulers
of cricket continue to overload the international program. The
England
players arrived Tuesday in Johannesburg direct from a grueling
and
disheartening tour of Australia. Similarly, their 1996 World Cup campaign
in
India and Pakistan was tacked onto a long tour. After their failure in
that
competition, the England captain, Mike Atherton, warned that this
should
never happen again. But for the very next World Cup, the English
authorities
have done exactly the same thing.
.
Presented with a moral
and political challenge, the English cricket board
chose to treat Zimbabwe
solely as a financial and contractual issue. Yet it
is those financial and
contractual constraints, with cricket reliant on
income from television and
sponsorship contracts, that give players their
leverage. It means that there
is much more than World Cup pool stage points
at stake.
.
The English
cricket board is fearful of ICC sanctions if it fails to fulfill
a fixture.
The ICC, in turn, fears that the Global Cricket Corp., which
bought the
rights to the World Cup at the top of the now-collapsed market,
will seize
any opportunity to claim a breach of contract and tear up
the
deal.
.
So the breach between the English board and the England
players is just one
of many staring matches under way, each participant
waiting for its
adversary to blink.
.
England's quandary is not
expected to win much sympathy Thursday. The ICC
position is that it will only
sanction the moving of a game if there is a
security risk - a possibility
under consideration for the two games
scheduled for Kenya. Its view remains
that it is safe to play in Zimbabwe,
but matches can, if necessary, be
switched on as little as four days'
notice.
ABC
Australia
Thu, Jan 30 2003 12:03 PM AEDT
Zimbabwe 'a
police state': Mayor
Police in Zimbabwe have fired tear gas to
break up a meeting at the offices
of the Mayor of Harare.
Police
assaulted and arrested several people who were trying to hold talks
with the
Mayor. The crowd was dispersed before the meeting could begin.
Hundreds
of residents had gathered at the offices of Harare Mayor Elias
Mudzuri to
discuss water shortages but they were turned away when the riot
police
arrived.
Mr Mudzuri says Zimbabwe has become a police state.
Under
the Government's security laws, meetings of more than five people can
only be
held with the authorisation of police.
In the southern city of Bulawayo,
two foreign journalists and a local
photographer were arrested and held for
more than seven hours after they
attempted to photograph the distribution of
food aid.
The reporters were fully accredited by the Government and were
released
without charge.
Daily News Illegal: Moyo
The Herald
(Harare)
January 30, 2003
Posted to the web January 30,
2003
Harare
THE Daily News and its reporters who have not been
registered are operating
illegally in breach of the Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy
Act, the Minister of State for Information and
Publicity, Professor Jonathan
Moyo, said this week.
Responding to the
court application filed by Associated Newspapers of
Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd,
publishers of The Daily News, Professor Moyo is arguing
that the newspaper
and its reporters were required by the Act to register
and be accredited with
the Media and Information Commission (MIC).
He said the ANZ had chosen
not to apply for registration and its reporters
have not applied for
accreditation.
"The applicant is therefore by choice operating a media
business in
contravention of the Act," said Prof Moyo.
"In other words
the applicant has taken the place of Parliament and this
honourable court,
adjudged the Act unconstitutional and proceed to ignore
the same
completely."
The Daily News has challenged the media law as
unconstitutional.
In its application filed in the Supreme Court, the
paper said the provisions
of the Act relating to the registration of mass
media owners are
unconstitutional and should be declared so.
It argues
the law infringed on Zimbabweans' right to freedom of expression.
But in
his response, Prof Moyo said the Act under which the media houses
and
journalists should be licensed before operations was made law in
this
country at the date of the instant application.
"I am advised
that unless and until a piece of legislation is either
repealed by an Act of
Parliament or declared unconstitutional and therefore
nullified by this
honourable court such piece of legislation retains the
force of law obliging
all citizens to obey and respect it," stated Prof
Moyo.
"I know of no
country where a citizen has the option to respect a law if it
suits such a
citizen or ignore the same with impunity if the piece of
legislation fails to
meet the expectations of such citizen."
The minister will argue that it
is unacceptable in this country and for the
court to tolerate The Daily News'
attitude to breach the country's law.
Prof Moyo will further argue that
The Daily News is going to court with
dirty hands, simply for a rubberstamp
of its prior decision to disrespect
the Act which is the country's existing
piece of law.
He will also urge the court to register and restate the
Zimbabwean position
on the lawless attitude by refusing to entertain the ANZ
application.
MIC chairman, Dr Tafataona Mahoso who also filed an opposing
affidavit in
support of the minister said The Daily News had, in utter
disregard of the
Act, not bothered to apply for
registration.
"Applicant's journalists have similarly ignored the need to
apply for
accredita- tion.
"It is clear that the applicant has
unilaterally declared the Act a non-law
and therefore not to be complied
with," said Dr Mahoso.