• Memories of home play my tune again
• JAG Open Letters Forum
• A Day In the Life of Mafikizolo Jonathan Moyo
• Aids is politics in Zimbabwe
• 'Imposters' play soccer international
• Battling it out in Zim
• FG Woos Southern African Farmers
• The insult
• Zim depositors panic at crackdown on banks
• Zimbabwe's rabbi revives community
• Six Zimbabwe Banks Unable To Honor Checks In Financial Crisis
• UK Activist Seeks Pinochet-Style Arrest of Mugabe
• Doctors And Nurses Return to Work
• Mugabe meets Megawati in Jakarta
• Zimbabwean farmers put down roots in Zambia
• Stopping connivance with official lies
• Dispossessed want 20% of SA's farmland
• Indonesia 'understands' Zimbabwe's land-grabs

A Day In the Life of Mafikizolo Jonathan Moyo
07/01/04
ON Monday night, I retired to bed early hoping to wake up refreshed for a
long journey to the north of England. No sooner had I dozed off did I get
into a nightmare! I dreamed that somehow I had been transformed to be
President Robert Mugabe's Minister of Information and Publicity, the erudite
but rudely ignorant Jonathan Moyo.
As Jonathan Moyo aka 'Mafikizolo', I got to my lavish office at nine in the
morning. I opened the large refrigerator and took a long gulp of the Scotch
whiskey I had left diluted with imported tonic water the previous day. After
the brief encounter with the gift of the Scottish people of Britain, I felt
ready to start work.
I took a copy of the latest issue of the Herald newspaper and browsed
through. I was riled by the non-inclusion of the impromptu speech I had
given during a dress rehearsal for the video shooting of my latest musical
composition on the virtues of extolling the fatherly leader from Zvimba.
Without any amount of self-praise, I can safely conclude that the jingle is
a masterpiece. It took all my imagination in allegro, soprano, innuendo,
alto, moderato, andante, adagio and all other complex stuff that makes up
the subject of music. Instinctively, I picked up the phone to call the
editor of the Herald for a word on his omissions.
After the harsh words with the ever-learning editor of the Herald, I picked
up the phone again to harangue the Chief Correspondent Rueben Barwe for not
focusing on me during the launch of a rural based newspaper for Murombedzi
village. The energetic correspondent apologized profusely and suggested that
we re-do the television footage from the comfort of my office. Knowing that
the chance to appear on national television was up for grabs, I accepted the
offer without reservations.
The prospects of appearing on national television to remotely launch a rural
newspaper is a grand idea. I know that my detractors claim that I have a
monopoly on appearing on national television. I do not regret this; I
actually take it as a compliment! Who am I anywhere? Am I not the Minister
of State for Information and Publicity in the President's Office? Where
would you expect me to spend my time? In the president's office? No; that is
almost a coup detat! I have to spend most of my time regulating and giving
information to the nation using the state organs of publicity.
From my ever busy facsimile machine I retrieved four documents from the four
heads of the nation's radio stations. Each document was a detailed schedule
for the day with details on what music will be played, when, why and for how
long. I drooled with self-importance as I discovered that seventy-five
percent of the music time would be the clear variations of my compositions.
The schedules also gave details on all phone-in programs for the day for the
public. My plan for pre-selected callers seemed to have been embraced with
zeal as the list proved. Only people with proven loyalty to the party were
listed as possible contributors in the phone in programs.
Having satisfied myself that the nation was going to listen to acceptable
propaganda from the radio service and watch party dogma on national
television, I then called the intelligent officers to map out a way to ban
or interfere with subversive material on the internet. Well, I have to admit
that I have never claimed to be a computer genius, but I know that internet
could be tempered with for the purpose of national security and sovereignty.
It is not a secret that after successfully banishing the Daily News to the
obscure streets of Johannesburg and a one-off in Abuja, the internet has
become the medium of choice for spreading malice against the dear president,
myself and the ever humorous Chinotimba!
The head of computer espionage from the security department was quick to
brief me that the internet could be monitored using sophisticated equipment
that could be obtained from the USA. I prodded him for the possibility of
getting such equipment; even if it were of an illegal generic release from
the People's Republic of China. The intelligence officer promised to brief
me later on the day. If I can avoid giving back to the Americans those
American Dollars we are taking from the people, I would. At that point, I
wondered why the Chinese Yuan did not attract as much financial weight as
the green buck in international financial circles!
When the intelligence officers had left my office, it dawned on me that the
previous night I had tuned into very damaging radio broadcasts on shortwave.
I was just playing with the tuner when the mention of Zimbabwe got my
attention. There in clear terms, some imperialist in London was barking that
Mugabe and I were like Hitler and Gobbels. Whilst the kind president has
metaphorically accepted to be called Hitler ten times, I think that
comparing me with Gobbels is a bit on the silly side. As such, radio
stations that spew malicious comparisons should be blocked from the
airwaves.
It was then that I decided that we beam to the people of Zimbabwe a stronger
signal at the same frequency to the foreign broadcasts in order to counter
them. Experts in my department told me that radio receivers would naturally
lock on the strongest signal. For the better part of the day, I remained
pondering the possibility of even beaming Hondo Yeminda jingles to London!
This way, the Queen, Tony Blair and all of West Minister would feel the
cruelty of interfering with other nations' airwaves! I formally declared
that this project will be planned, implemented and managed by me.
I spent the better part of the afternoon pondering on what new law I could
promulgate for the further sustenance of the fatherly leader and our
vanguard party. I could have dreamed on proposing a law that would make it
compulsory for all citizens to wear a breast badge with the smiling face of
the great leader. My learned wanderings on this subject were interrupted by
a call from the airwaves monitoring bureau. They wanted to tell me that the
imperialist broadcasting corporations were at it again. I would have asked
the electricity people to give us a deliberate black-out to make it
impossible for citizens to listen to the vulgarity from the imperialists.
As the end of the office day was approaching, I received a call from the
greatest leader ever born asking me what I thought on soccer as a strong
field of political play. I advised the leader that it was an untapped field
were my propaganda machine could reap rewards. I reminded the astute leader
that as we were the fowl party, some people were bound to say we were up to
playing foul political games with the nation's most followed game. The
consolation is that the most supported party has a right to exploit the most
followed sporting activity in order to remain the most viable political
entity. The most eminent leader hung up the phone in satisfaction!
At the point Mugabe hung up the phone on Jonathan Moyo I work up. I was
sweating and shivering at the same time. I could not really stomach the idea
of being Jonathan Moyo, not even in a dream! I could not stand the ridicule
that the man has to endure for a paltry ministerial post in a dying regime
that terms itself a war cabinet! I could not want to spoil my obscure
reputation by being top in the deck of wanted war criminals. I could not be
part of murder of democracy!
The wickedness of dreams! I would want to dream dreams; not nightmares in
the form of Jonathan Moyo and his master, Robert Gabriel Mugabe -
hopemasola@hotmail.com

The federation's president Humberto Torres told a press conference he would
be investigating the matter which has been labelled by Zimbabwean newspaper
The Herald as "one of the great frauds in the history of football".

"This is a serious matter," Torres said.

"That could cause us problems with FIFA as they might believe we had
authorised this team to represent us as the national side.

"These players did not have this authorisation, we are going to study this
matter in fine detail," he added.

He admitted the federation were aware of a match in Zimbabwe concerning a
Salvadorean First Division side Isidro Metapan, but in no sense of the word
was it the national side.

Salvadorean daily Diario de Hoy, citing Zimbabwean press reports, claimed
three of the players didn't actually have a club and the remainder played
for several different teams and were coached by former national coach
Ricardo Guardado.

The match was the beginning of the hosts' preparations for the African
Nations Cup which runs from January 24 to February 14 in Tunisia.

Working as a journalist in Zimbabwe today is something of a challenge, it
might euphemistically be said. Zimbabwean editors have to tip-toe their way
through a legislative minefield designed to cause them and their
publications as much harm as possible.

The misnamed Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, passed
after President Robert Mugabe's disputed re-election in 2002 -- ostensibly
to stop the media "lying" about him -- has transformed the practice of
journalism into a criminal enterprise by specifying a wide range of offences
that any self-respecting newspaper would have difficulty avoiding. Causing
public disaffection towards the president is just one.

Looking out for unwary offenders is a media and information commission,
which is the chief weapon of Mugabe's menacing Minister of Information,
Professor Jonathan Moyo.

He appoints all seven members of the commission, which is headed by a state
newspaper columnist, Dr Tafataona Mahoso, who laments the fall of the Iron
Curtain and makes no secret of his hostility towards the independent media.
Other members include former state-media editors and journalism lecturers at
state institutions. The commission is responsible for licensing journalists.

The state lost several high-profile court cases under the Act in 2002, but
won its first significant scalp last year when it closed the Daily News, the
country's only independent daily, for operating without a licence. The
Supreme Court, which is widely seen as sympathetic to the executive, has
declined to hear the Daily News's appeal against the constitutionality of
Mugabe's media legislation, but a lower court has ruled that the media
commission is improperly constituted and its members biased. The government
has ignored the court's ruling that the paper should be allowed to resume
publication.

The closure of the Daily News should not be seen in isolation. Since Mugabe
lost the 2000 referendum on a new Constitution that would have legitimised
his dictatorship and came within a whisker of losing the subsequent
parliamentary election, he has embarked on a campaign of vengeance against
political opponents. While commercial farmers and their workers were
previously the main victims of his wrath, more recently lawyers and civic
activists have been in the firing line.

At the same time the government has been anxious to manage the message. It
accuses the independent press of tarnishing the government's reputation and
"demonising" Mugabe. Inevitably, newspapers that have exposed the ruling
Zanu-PF's career of misrule and violence have been threatened with closure.

The question we are most commonly asked is whether this has led to a degree
of self-censorship. While we are obviously keen to avoid giving hostages to
fortune, we cannot at the same time be any less bold than our readers.
Mugabe holds no terrors for a younger generation of Zimbabweans who are
quite clear as to how he has pauperised the nation while enriching his
followers. Mugabe has lost every single electoral contest he has fought in
the capital since 1996. His blandishments about sovereignty and land have no
purchase here.

So editors have a duty, not only to tell it like it is, but to recognise the
popular imperatives around them. None of our readers are saying: "Please
don't be so critical of the president." And Mugabe certainly doesn't mince
his words when referring to us. Nor is this an equal battle.

In addition to an energetic propaganda department in the office of the
president, Zimbabwe has a powerful state media, which runs a stable of
long-established newspapers and enjoys a monopoly of broadcasting. The
country is thus treated to a steady torrent of invective against civic
activists and outspoken journalists. We are accused of working with the
British and Americans to unseat Mugabe. We are the targets of hate speech
and personal vilification in the columns of newspapers like the Herald and
the Sunday Mail that are mouthpieces of Mugabe and Moyo.

These same papers have misled the country into believing 300 000 people have
been resettled under the badly managed land reform programme when the
president's own audit revealed only 134 000. They have downplayed the
seriousness of the food crisis Zimbabwe is facing and misrepresented the
views of senior United Nations officials and diplomats based in Harare. None
of this has raised objections from the media commission.

While civil society in South Africa has provided important moral support for
the struggle for democracy north of the Limpopo, there is not always a full
understanding of the issues at play. Some South African editors for instance
cannot understand why those of us working in the independent media are
reluctant to get into bed with hate-mongering state publicists, closely
allied to Mugabe's intelligence network, masquerading as journalists. South
African editors have even collaborated with government journalists in
Zimbabwe to form a rival editors' forum to the one already in existence
because they feel our scope is too narrow. In fact we have repeatedly said
our door is open to all editors who subscribe to the principles of a free
press.

But the most disappointing aspect of South African attitudes to Zimbabwe is
the notion that Mugabe should be indulged to render him more amenable to
dialogue. Behind this convenient smokescreen the steady subversion of the
rule of law and erosion of democratic institutions has intensified. Lawyers
have been assaulted in police stations when visiting their clients, trade
unionists have been arrested for exercising their right to freedom of
expression, and women have been jailed for protesting the soaring cost of
living.

South African President Thabo Mbeki's quiet diplomacy is so quiet as to be
inaudible. When he does find his voice, as on the ANC Today website, it is
to express sympathy with Mugabe's predicament and claim Zanu-PF has been
unfairly treated by its critics whose attachment to human rights values he
deplores.

With the closure of the Daily News, independent weeklies now carry a heavier
burden in getting news to the public that the government media won't
publish. Whatever Mugabe may throw at us, the Zimbabwean media -- at least
that part of it still operating freely -- remains committed to the struggle
for democratic rights. We have a very clear obligation to the majority of
Zimbabweans who want to see change. Democracy can't function in the absence
of an informed electorate. And without accountability the government can do
what it likes.

Mugabe has the armed forces, a suborned police and a compliant judiciary. We
have the one thing we know he cannot suppress: an idea whose time has come.

Iden Wetherell is editor of the Zimbabwe Independent and chairperson of the
Zimbabwe National Editors Forum.

Wednesday January 07, 2004 06:54 - (SA)

HARARE - Panicky Zimbabwean depositors have been moving their money from
some recently established commercial banks following an announcement by the
central bank that it is investigating the operations of banks suspected to
be experiencing liquidity problems, officials said.

"It's bad, our deposits are moving up and down," an official at one bank
said.

The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe announced last week that it had launched an
extensive review of the operations of some banking institutions, leading to
the closure of a leading asset management company on New Year's Day.

Another banking official said only big clients were moving their deposits to
the traditional banks such as Standard Chartered and Barclays.

State media reported that these long-established traditional banks had been
turning down cheques issued by the banks suspected to be under investigation
by the central bank.

Zimbabwe has about 16 registered commercial banks. About two-thirds of them
have been established in the past decade.

The central bank has warned that in the process of its review of the
financial sector, "some banking institutions may experience liquidity
difficulties as they justify their assets (or) liability mixes".

The bank said it was probing the banks in an effort "to rid the sector of
speculative and non-core banking activities which had become rampant in this
sector".

On New Year's Day the central bank shut down Century Discount House and
cancelled its banking licence after it failed to pay out some funds owed to
investors.

Two directors of ENG Capital, which had in April last year bought Century
Discount House, were arrested and they appeared before a court yesterday.

Cuthbert Muponda, 32, and Nyasha Watyoka, 32, were accused of defrauding
several clients of more than 61 billion dollars (about 76 million US
dollars).

The state alleges that the clients' money, which was intended for investment
on the money market, was used by the two to buy properties in Zimbabwe and
overseas as well as to import luxury vehicles.

AFP

In the four months since becoming spiritual leader of the Bulawayo Hebrew
Congregation in Zimbabwe's second-largest city, Rabbi Nathan Asmoucha has
had more than his share of challenges.

Shortly after his arrival in the sub-Saharan African nation, the century-old
synagogue burned to the ground, with the flames consuming prayer books and
other ritual objects, though not the Torah scrolls.

Several Jewish families from the dwindling community then decided to
emigrate because of the country's deteriorating economic situation, and a
harshly written anti-Semitic article appeared in the local press falsely
accusing Jews of hoarding increasingly scarce staples such as fuel.

But the 33-year old native of Vancouver, Canada, who received his rabbinical
ordination in Israel, remains undeterred.

"The most important thing," he said in an interview this week while
attending a rabbinical seminar in Jerusalem, "is to reunite the community.
We can create a sense of togetherness if we know how to stick together." But
sticking together may prove increasingly difficult, as Zimbabwe's Jewish
community continues to shrink.

From a peak of 7,000 in the mid-1960s, the number of Jews remaining in the
country has fallen to an estimated 450, with 300 residing in the capital
Harare and the remaining 150 in Bulawayo. Two-thirds of the members are over
the age of 65.

Though Bulawayo continues to boast a Jewish day school, only 8 of its 180
students are actually Jewish. The school principal is a non-Jew, and just
two members of its faculty are Jews.

As the country's only rabbi, Asmoucha must also travel to Harare to perform
life-cycle ceremonies such as weddings and funerals for the community there.
He also serves as a shohet (ritual slaughterer) for fowl, with other kosher
meat being brought in periodically from neighboring South Africa.

Despite its small membership, the Bulawayo synagogue continues to have
weekly Sabbath services, as well as a daily minyan for the afternoon and
evening prayers. Morning services also take place on Mondays and Thursdays,
when the Torah is read.

"I walk around with a kippa and have no problems," Rabbi Asmoucha said,
asserting that anti-Semitism is largely non-existent.

The biggest problem, it seems, is economic, as Zimbabweans have endured
several years of hyper-inflation and severe shortages of basic goods such as
food and fuel. Unemployment is reportedly over 70 percent, with inflation
exceeding 500% annually.

"A lot of people have left this past year," according to Asmoucha, noting
that virtually all of those Jews who remain now have relatives living
abroad. "The tragedy of the community is that there are so many elderly
people stuck in Bulawayo with children spread throughout the world." Whereas
the Zimbabwean dollar was once on par with its American counterpart, the
official rate is now over 800 per US dollar. A loaf of bread can cost as
much as Z$3,000, while filling up a tank of gas can run as high as
Z$200,000.

"People are depressed because of the economic situation," he said. "They
don't know what to do." Since the Bulawayo synagogue went up in flames on
October 4, between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, the rabbi and his flock have
had to hold services in the local Jewish community center, though plans are
afoot to construct a new house of worship.

"There is a lot of sentiment to rebuild, but the community has decided to
build a new synagogue in a suburb of the city, where many Jews now live,"
said Asmoucha. "There is no way we can build what was. And for 150 people,
nor do we need to."

Though he believes that "ideally, the best place for the community is
Israel," Asmoucha said "that isn't realistic for the older members."

"My responsibility," he notes, "is to keep a viable community going as long
as possible. And I think we can do it."

      Copyright © 2004, Dow Jones Newswires

      HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)--More than a third of Zimbabwe's commercial
banks are unable to honor their customers' checks, threatening to cause
gridlock in the southern African nation's already troubled financial sector,
economists said Wednesday.

      For the past two weeks, six of the 16 institutions have been suspended
from the daily clearing of interbank debt because they don't have the cash
to pay other banks.

      Some stores have issued lists of banks whose checks they will no
longer accept, independent economist John Robertson said.

      "This was a crisis in the making for the past year," he said.

      Last year, the government kept maximum interest rates at a fifth of
the official inflation rate, now running at 625% - one of the highest levels
in the world.

      Many Zimbabwean businessmen were borrowing money at cheap rates and
buying forward in expectation of a quick profit as prices increase due to
inflation, Robertson said.

      They were investing in limousines, real estate, building materials and
foreign currency. But a sudden drop in demand coupled with sharply rising
interest rates at the end of last year left many unable to repay their
loans, he said.

      In a Dec. 16 policy statement, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono said
the institution would no longer intervene to keep interest rates down.
Lending rates surged from below 100% to over 500%.

      "There are very real dangers of gridlock," said Anthony Hawkings, an
economics professor and leading banking consultant.

      He said the amount of money owed by the suspended banks to the 10
still trading was bound to increase, exacerbating liquidity difficulties and
threatening the viability of some institutions.

      Officials at the affected banks couldn't be reached for comment
Wednesday.

      Information Minister Jonathan Moyo on Wednesday dismissed South
African and British media reports that the banking crisis could trigger
"economic meltdown," calling them "the hallucinations of a wishful thinker."

      In an article in the state-run Herald newspaper, he said a slump in
the black market rates for foreign currency showed the economy was
recovering. The U.S. dollar currently buys 4,500 Zimbabwe dollars, down from
about 6,000 Zimbabwe dollars last month. The official exchange rate is
824-1.

      Moyo said a government clampdown on cross-border traders who buy
comparatively cheap Zimbabwean goods for resale in neighboring countries was
behind the drop.

      Analysts said the troubled banks and indebted businesses were selling
hard currency and other assets to try to repay their loans, contributing to
the drop in the unofficial exchange rate.

      The six suspended banks, the largest of which is Trust Bank, are all
new institutions started by local businessmen.

      The government has eased banking regulations in recent years to assist
Zimbabweans, including one prominent ruling party politician, to open their
own finance houses.

      The government accuses international institutions like Standard
Chartered Bank (SCZ.ZM) and Barclays Bank (BARC.LN) of profiteering and bias
against local black entrepreneurs.

      But most Zimbabweans still prefer banking with more established
institutions.

      Last week, the ENG Capital asset management group collapsed amid fraud
allegations, and the central bank closed one of its subsidiaries, Century
Discount House. Two ENG directors have been arrested.

        Zimbabwean farmers put down roots in Zambia

            January 07 2004 at 02:01AM

            By Zarina Geloo

      Lusaka - Exiled white Zimbabwean farmers have helped Zambia break a
crippling food shortage that saw millions rely on food aid last season.

      The roughly 100 Zimbabwean exile families have settled in central
Zambia's fertile maize-growing district of Mkushi. Even critics have
conceded they have revolutionised commercial agriculture by introducing
hi-tech commercial techniques through partnerships with local landowners.

      They have been so successful that Zambia's Investment Centre has
issued certificates for 31 Zimbabweans to begin commercial farming in their
own name and on their own, newly-acquired land.

      Now Zambia's government intends luring even more disillusioned
Zimbabwean farmers across the border - regardless of possible strains to
relations between Lusaka and Harare.

            'People initially saw them as the enemy'
      "People initially saw them as the enemy, seeking refuge in Zambia.
Because they were white, people were also scared that racism would
resurface," said Deputy Agriculture Minister Chance Kabaghe.

      He said that even people in the government thought there should be
solidarity with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and that the farmers
should be refused entry.

      "But we saw them as potential investors who could improve our food
security. We have now been vindicated."

      The exiles fled to Zambia after being forced off their properties in
Zimbabwe during the fast-track land reform programme that began in 2000.

      They rented land from the locals or went into partnership with owners
who did not have the capacity to till huge tracts.

      The official support for the Zimbabweans forms part of a wider,
multi-pronged strategy to revive Zambia's agricultural sector, reeling from
the effects of two successive droughts, with a shortfall of 635 000 tons of
grain last year. - African Eye News Service/IPS

2004: Stopping connivance with official lies
07/01/04
FOUR quotations will suffice. "Freedom is the right to tell people what they
do not want to hear," writes George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier.

From Nadine Gordimer we quote: "Repressive laws can no longer, by any
standards, be divided between those that affect writers and those that do
not."

Her second and final one, in this case, goes like this: "For the word,
written or spoken, is our precious common property".

From Poland we quote radical poet, Czelaw Milosz: "What is poetry which does
not save nations or people? Connivance with official lies!".

As we enter the year 2004 we affirm, through the above four quotations, our
tmost commitment to the noble principle of freedom. We have, therefore,
elected to take stock of the past twenty three years - a period of steady
and painful throttling of the free word, the banning of the media, sheer
blood letting and the seizure of our national broadcasting space by
rapacious and vindictive few villains.

We look back to wonder by what alchemy a nation of supposedly literate
populace has been reduced into a captive audience of few people. How we have
been hit by a magical schism pitting a powerful minority against a pathetic
and powerless majority.

If we are all agreed in the wisdom that a nation shall be judged by the food
it eats, words it utters, things it does, songs it sings and the friends it
keeps what
shall we be deemed to be today? Who are we if all our space for working,
playing and self expression has been seized and narrowed down into a mere
zone for a few men and women masquerading as custodians of freedom and
democracy?.

What have we become if we have no more friends left and our government is
banning journalists and registering newspapers at the G.P.O so it can close
them?

The answers lie in the four adages.

At this website it is our belief that the first casuality of paranoid
tyranny is free speech. To clear the ground for maximum oppression the word
should not
be heard. It should be obliterated and prickled. To it, everything bad has
to be done and attached.

Once a nation can not speak to its self and its newspapers are closed by the
police and its journalists are hunted down, driven into exile and ridiculed,
tyranny takes root and blooms. At once the thin line between the rights of
the Fourth Estate and the rest of the citizenry becomes invisible.

That a nation's airwaves, newspapers, publishers, bookshops, record
companies, footballers, academics and musicians operate at the mercy of a
makeshift office run by a vindictive and paranoid handpicked minister should
instill a sense of outrage in all of us today.

It is our hope that 2004 will be the year Zimbabweans reviwe and renew their
commitment to ending chaos and tyranny. It should be the year our poets,
writers, academics and journalists should take Milosz's words seriously.

There should be no room for "academics" and "musicians" who turn President
Robert Mugabe's delusional graveyard speeches and rhetoric into their
intellectual property and songs.

It should be the year violence and propaganda are rendered meaningless.

At New Zimbabwe.com we affirm our commitment to safeguarding free speech to
forestall the flourishing of all forms of fundamentalism - be it political
or religious. Zimbabwe should be free to chose, laugh, wonder, ask, refuse,
accept, protest, talk, write and to play. The word, written or spoken,
should indeed be our precious common property.

Those whose bows and arrows are out to get at the free word we warn and ask:
Haven't you see how much attention words get when they are banned? What use
is there to bark at a computer and the entire telecommunications system?
We will therefore let the words out.

By Alistair Thomson

Families and communities evicted by the apartheid state are claiming 40 to
50 percent of commercial farmland in some provinces and around 20 percent
nationally, the land claims chief said on Wednesday.

Currency traders have cited foreign media reports that land restitution
would be accelerated ahead of elections this year as a concern for foreign
investors given the land grab in next-door Zimbabwe, which South Africa has
vowed not to repeat.

A new law that has focused attention on land issues will allow the
government to expropriate land for restitution where negotiations on a
"willing buyer, willing seller" basis fail.

The New York Times reported that in KwaZulu-Natal up to 70 percent of
farmland was subject to land claims - a figure Chief Land Claims
Commissioner Tozi Gwanya said was exaggerated partly because many claims
concerned conservation land.

"This figure is just exaggerated. The real figure is around 40 to 50
percent," Gwanya told Reuters, saying Limpopo and Mpumalanga provinces had a
similar figure.

"A rough estimate is 20 percent of national farmland is subject to claims,"
he said. "We think that a significant percentage of those claims are going
to go through as valid."

The white apartheid government used land acts to evict black South Africans
from their land, and after the end of apartheid with free elections in 1994,
those who lost land had until 1998 to lodge claims to get back their land or
a comparable property.

Already 45 096 of a total 70 000 claims have already been settled,
representing 810 292 hectares. The rest are meant to be settled by the end
of 2005.

A separate redistribution scheme hopes to ensure 30 percent of farm land is
transferred to the victims of apartheid by 2015.

Farmers who give up lands under restitution settlements get their market
value but any subsidies granted to them by previous governments are deducted
from the final payment. In some cases, farmers continue farming the land and
pay rent to the community.

Land reform in Zimbabwe has been much more acrimonious with legal seizures
and illegal occupation of white-owned farms slashing commercial farm
production and contributing to food shortages.

Gwanya said President Thabo Mbeki would sign the new expropriation
legislation into law once he returned from leave, but said the powers would
only be used in five to 10 percent of outstanding claims, and only as a last
resort.

He said 155 000 hectares of KwaZulu-Natal were due to be handed back to nine
separate communities in February or March in one of the biggest transfers to
date.

Indonesia said on Wednesday its shared colonial past with Zimbabwe meant it
could "understand" that country's controversial programme of seizing
white-owned farms and giving them to blacks.

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda made the comments after attending a meeting
between President Megawati Sukarnoputri and Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe, who is visiting Indonesia on an unofficial trip.

Mugabe's government has confiscated more than 5 000 white-owned farms for
redistribution to impoverished blacks since 2000, sparking widespread
international condemnation. He is also under international pressure for
alleged human rights abuses and poll rigging.

Wirajuda said Mugabe had explained the reasons for the land programme to
Megawati during the two leaders' brief meeting at the state palace in
Jakarta.

"As a country that has also experienced land reform and a colonial past, we
understand," said Wirajuda. "We have empathy toward the problems that
Zimbabwe is facing."

Indonesia was ruled by the Dutch for more than 350 years before winning its
independence in 1945. Wirajuda said Mugabe would attend an Asian-African
conference in Indonesia next year to mark the 50th anniversary of the
grouping's inaugural meeting.

The 1955 conference in the Javanese hilltown of Bandung was hosted by
Megawati's father, Indonesian's founding President Sukarno. It led to the
birth of the Nonaligned Movement, which today groups 116 mainly developing
nations.

Mugabe is due to fly back to Zimbabwe on Friday, Indonesian officials said.
He has no other official appointments.

Mugabe's land reform programme, along with erratic rains, have crippled
Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy, and helped plunge the nation into its
worst political and economic crisis since 1980.

Mugabe says the land reform programme is an effort to correct colonial era
imbalances that gave much of the country's most productive land to the
descendants of British, South African and other white settlers.

Mugabe quit the Commonwealth in December after leaders, including British
Prime Minister Tony Blair, voted to extend by a year Zimbabwe's 12-month
suspension for election irregularities and human rights abuses. - Sapa-AP