Zim Online
Tue 11 July 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwean police on Monday
arrested and detained a
legislator of the main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party
over last week's brutal assault of a top
official of a rival faction of the
same party.
Timothy Mubawu,
who is the legislator for Mabvuku constituency for the
larger faction of the
MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai, is being held at Harare
central police station
on charges of inciting public violence, his lawyer
Alec Muchadehama told
ZimOnline last night.
The police claim that a blue truck used as a
getaway vehicle by people
who assaulted fellow MDC legislator, Trudy
Stevenson, belongs to Mubawu.
Stevenson, who sustained severe
injuries during the attack in Mabvuku,
belongs to the smaller faction of the
MDC led by academic, Arthur Mutambara.
She is the party's Member of
Parliament for Harare North constituency.
Under the
government's Criminal Codification and Reform Act, Mubawu
faces up to 10
years in jail if found guilty of inciting public violence.
Muchadehama said Mubawu turned himself in, in the afternoon on Monday
after
hearing that the police wanted to question him over the attack on
Stevenson.
The legislator had spent the rest of the day being interrogated
by the
police who later decided to lock him up in the cells for the night.
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Tsvangirai-led MDC, Nelson Chamisa,
accused
the ruling ZANU PF party of orchestrating the attack on Stevenson in
a
desperate bid to tarnish officials of the main faction of the opposition
party that is widely regarded as posing a more potent threat to the ruling
party and President Robert Mugabe's government.
Chamisa also
said that Mubawu did not own a blue truck as was being
claimed by the
police.
"We are convinced that ZANU PF is the author of the
violence in
Mabvuku .. for the record, Mr Mubawu does not have a blue truck
and he was
attending a church service at the time the alleged assault was
carried out,"
said Chamisa
The government - itself accused of
using militias, the police and army
to commit violence on supporters of both
factions of the MDC - has played up
the attack on Stevenson since last week
in an attempt to show the world that
the opposition was in fact the one
behind political violence in the country.
The MDC, that came
closest to ending Mugabe and ZANU PF's 26-year rule
in elections in 2000 and
2002, split up last year after disagreeing on
whether to contest a senate
election controversially won by the ruling
party.
Tsvangirai
wanted a boycott of the poll which he said was pointless
because it would be
stolen by ZANU PF and was a waste of money in country
facing severe
hunger.
But his deputy Gibson Sibanda, secretary general Welshman
Ncube and
other top leaders wanted to contest the election because the
national
council of the MDC had voted to participate in the poll and also
because
they felt boycotting would be tantamount to surrendering political
space to
ZANU PF.
However, analysts saw the senate poll as only
having helped bring out
in the open deep seated differences in the top
leadership of the opposition
party over what strategy to use to unseat
Mugabe.
While there have been previous clashes between supporters
of the two
MDC factions, last week's attack on Stevenson is the first high
profile case
of violence involving the two sides since last October's split.
- ZimOnline
Zim Online
Tue
11 July 2006
HARARE - Zimbabweans will have to contend with rising
prices of goods
and services in the foreseeable future amid warnings by
analysts that the
June slowdown in the rate of inflation is only on paper
and not supported by
major improvements in economic conditions.
The country's annualised rate of inflation, the highest in the world,
trekked backwards to 1 184.6 percent in June from an all time record high of
1 193.5 percent in May.
But analysts immediately dismissed the
latest decline in the rate of
change of prices as not reflective of the real
situation on the ground and
called for a major review of the government's
skewed foreign exchange policy
as well as far-reaching political and
economic reforms to address the
economic meltdown.
"Judging by
the rate at which prices have been going up, the new
(inflation) numbers are
a world apart from the reality on the ground," said
respected Harare
economist James Jowah.
Massive price increases during the past
month were recorded for fuel,
urban commuter fares and basic foodstuffs like
drinks.
The price of some brands of orange syrups leapt from about
Z$425 000
per two-litre bottle to more than $800 000 for the same quantity
while
commuter fares rose from an average $60 000 a trip to between $100 000
and
$120 000 for the same trip.
The major driver of price
increases during the past month was the
continued slide in the value of the
Zimbabwe dollar on the foreign exchange
market.
It slipped from
around $340 000 for every United States dollar on the
unofficial foreign
currency market when the last inflation figures were
released in mid-May to
the current $450 000 against the US unit.
The bulk of the trade in
foreign currency takes place on the illegal
but thriving unofficial or
parallel market compared to the official
inter-bank market where the
greenback has been fixed at Z$101 195 for more
than three
months.
"This points to growing underlying pressure for the general
price
level to rise even further in the coming months unless there is a
serious
attempt to address the problem of the weak exchange rate," noted a
senior
official with a financial institution who asked not to be named for
professional reasons.
The Harare authorities have resisted
pressure to devalue the local
unit fearing that such a move would push up
their own cost of servicing the
government debt believed to be around US$4
billion.
The government has also interfered with the running of
companies by
fixing prices of basic commodities, a situation that has forced
most
manufacturers to go underground, only supplying their products to a
robust
black market.
Hyperinflation highlights an acute
economic crisis gripping Zimbabwe
for the past seven years and which has
also spawned shortages of fuel,
electricity, essential medicines, hard cash
and just about every basic
survival commodity.
Western donors
and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change
party, blame the
crisis on repression and wrong policies by President Robert
Mugabe such as
his seizure of productive farms from whites for
redistribution to landless
blacks.
The farm seizures destabilised the agricultural sector -
the mainstay
of the economy - and caused severe food shortages after the
government
failed to give black villagers resettled on former white farms
skills
training and inputs support to maintain production.
But
Mugabe, the only ruler Zimbabweans have ever known since
independence from
Britain 26 years ago, denies mismanaging the country's
once vibrant economy
and says its problems are because of sabotage by
Western governments opposed
to his seizure of white land. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Tue 11
July 2006
HAMASKRAAL - A South African non-governmental
organisation (NGO),
Cross-Over Projects, has donated a 10-hectare farm to
the Johannesburg-based
Zimbabwe Pastors Forum (ZPF) to use to start income
generating projects to
support thousands of Zimbabwean refugees living in
South Africa.
The farm in Hamaskraal, about 30 kilometres north of
Pretoria, was
last Sunday handed over to the ZPF that is among several
groups looking
after the interests of Zimbabwean exiles living in South
Africa.
Speaking during the hand-over ceremony, Cross-Over
representative,
Elizabeth Gordon, said the church should use the farm to
ease the suffering
of thousands of the refuges, many of whom have no shelter
or means of
livelihood.
Gordon said: "This farm is big enough
to cater for several hundreds of
the Zimbabwean and other refugee
communities if fully utilised.
"Viable projects such as piggery,
poultry, animal husbandry and crop
farming would help create dozens of jobs
for the disadvantaged people."
There are hundreds of thousands of
Zimbabwean refugees who are living
in South Africa after fleeing hunger and
political repression at home.
But the refugees have often
complained of ill-treatment at the hands
of South African government
officials whom they accuse of xenophobia.
South African churches,
which have been highly critical of President
Robert Mugabe's government,
have often chipped in to assist Zimbabwean
refugees with for example,
hundreds of people being housed at the Methodist
Church in central
Johannesburg. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Tue 11 July 2006
JOHANNESBURG - A South African
court will on Thursday rule whether to
grant bail to a Zimbabwean student
who is accused of attempting to hijack a
South African Airways plane last
month.
The 21-year old Zimbabwean, Tinashe Rioga, is facing charges
of
contravening aviation regulations after he attempted to hijack the plane
which was traveling from Cape Town to Johannesburg last month.
A South African magistrate, Suzette Marais, said she will hand down a
ruling
on Rioga's bail application on Thursday after hearing submissions
from the
student's defence lawyer Josua Greef yesterday.
The state
prosecutor is however opposing the granting of bail to Rioga
arguing that
the accused was facing serious charges.
The state says the matter
is a Schedule 6 offence under the Criminal
Procedure Act requiring Rioga to
satisfy the court that "exceptional
circumstances" exist before bail could
be granted.
Rioga, a student at the University of Cape Town,
allegedly seized a
cabin crew member during flight and threatened to kill
her unless he was
allowed into the cockpit. He wanted to divert the plane to
Maputo,
Mozambique.
But he was over-powered during the flight
and was subsequently
arrested. - ZimOnline
IOL
July 10 2006 at
06:18PM
Harare - Zimbabwe's towering inflation rate has shed 8,9
percent in
the first half of the year, showing a sliver of recovery since it
started
spiralling upwards a year-and-a-half ago, officials said on
Monday.
The country's rate - described as the highest in the world
outside a
war zone - dropped to 1 184,6 percent from 1 193,5 percent,
Central
Statistics Office official Cyril Parirenyatwa announced in
Harare.
Citizens however continued to pay high prices - with goods
on average
"about 13 times as expensive in June 2006 as they had been twelve
months
before," said Parirenyatwa.
"A bundle of goods and
services that cost 100 000 Zimbabwean dollars
in June 2005 would on average
cost 1 184 600.00 in June 2006," he said.
The dip in
inflation is the first since December 2004 when figures
dropped to 624,8
percent before rocketing upward again.
Zimbabwe's inflation rate
crossed the 1 000 percent threshold to reach
a world-record high of 1 042,9
percent in April.
It sparked off a spate of price
increases.
The price of bread climbed by more than 50 percent to
130 000
Zimbabwean dollars (about R8,50) while public transport fares
doubled.
Officials at the government agency said despite the
decline, prices
were not expected to drop.
"A decrease in the
rate of inflation does not mean prices dropped, but
simply means that they
increase slowly," Reese Mpofu, a second CSO official,
said.
On
a year-on-year basis items that recorded price hikes were domestic
power,
electricity, gas, and other fuels by 184,8 percent, purchase of
bicycles
58,9 percent and electrical appliances 45.7 percent.
Zimbabwe is in
the throes of an economic crisis, characterised by
spiralling inflation,
soaring poverty levels, an unemployment rate hovering
at over 70 percent and
chronic shortages of fuel and basic goods.
More than four million
of Zimbabwe's 13 million inhabitants also face
food shortages, according to
United Nations agencies. - Sapa-AFP
From PBS Frontline/World (US), 27 June
Prominent human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa has spent
years defending
Zimbabwean journalists, many of whom have been arrested for
their work.
Mtetwa represented journalists from the Daily News, Zimbabwe's
only
independent daily newspaper, until it was shut down by the government
in
2003. She has also defended international correspondents, including
British
and American journalists arrested inside the country while reporting
on
Zimbabwe's increasingly controversial elections. In this interview,
Mtetwa
talks about her ongoing efforts to protect press freedoms and the
risks her
job entails, including her own arrest and her assault while in
police
custody in 2003. She also explains how the ruling Zanu PF Party
continues to
"mutilate" the country's legislature - it has amended the
constitution 17
times - to stay in power. In 2005, Mtetwa received the Press
Freedom Award
from the New York-based Committee to Protect
Journalists.
What motivates you? And why on earth would somebody want
to do your job when
the ruling party keeps on stacking the legal odds so
heavily against you?
Beatrice Mtetwa: Why do I do it? Well, certainly
not for money, there's not
much of that. I just feel very strongly that we
need to continue showing up
the system for what it is. We need to make sure
we've got a record of this
period in the history of this country. We need to
litigate, we need to go to
court to say the law says this, and see how it is
interpreted because I feel
very strongly that if anyone were to look back at
this - you know, some of
the cases we take to court - they have very good
records to show how things
were done. It is easy to say a judge is not being
impartial; it's easy to
say that, if you've taken a case before them and you
see how they've made a
decision. We go to the Supreme Court all the time
with constitutional
challenges, not because we expect to win. But for me it
is very important
that we must give the Supreme Court judges the opportunity
to confirm what
they are there for. We take the cases there; we know we are
going to lose
them, not because it's a bad case, but because the judges are
politically
compromised. And you are only able to say, "See what we mean?"
Because the
judgment will be there, it will speak for itself. And we'll be
able to use
it in the future to say that this person is not fit to be a
judge in this
new era. They should be out.
Are human rights
lawyers ever threatened by the ruling party, or the police?
Have you ever
been harassed yourself?
You do get threatened; you do get harassed. I
was beaten up one time by a
policeman. I've been shoved around. But I do not
consider that I've had it
as bad as some of my other colleagues because,
generally, the police know
that if you do something to me, I'm not going to
take it lying down. I'll
publicize it, I'll do everything that needs to be
done to be sure that
everybody knows what happened to me. And also, I worked
for the government
in the 1980s, and you find that a lot of the people who
are in these
positions of authority are people that I know very well.
Sometimes it's a
bit difficult for those in authority to be as rough with me
as they would
like to be. Because they know that I am not a political
person, that I'm
doing this job... because it is the right thing to do, not
because there is
any glory or cash to it and not because I'm trying to
antagonize the
government. No, I'm doing it because it's a job that's got to
be done.
Can you describe what happened when you were say you were
beaten by a
policeman?
I was assaulted by a policeman in October
2003. I had been in a car
hijacking. In retrospect, I think I probably had
been followed. I had an
attempted hijack on the first of October in 2003 and
then a second one on
the 11th of October. And these were people that had
been following me. And
when the police were called, instead of the policeman
coming there to really
assist me, he said, "Oh, it's you. Human rights
lawyer. Now we are going to
show you who you are." They locked me up, and
they said this happened to me
because I was drunk. I said, "Fine, if I'm
drunk, take me to have a
Breathalyzer test or a blood test" - which they've
got to do within two
hours. But they didn't. They drove around with me, and
he beat me up. His
attitude was that when you talk about police brutality,
you'll now be
talking from experience. I wear glasses normally, and he
smashed my glasses
in and the glass was broken. It was actually quite
traumatic, and I think
that was actually the worst I've ever had in terms of
being beaten up.
Have you ever been under
surveillance?
Oh, yes, quite a number of times. I always feel that I
am under
surveillance - when they think that I might lead them to one of my
clients
when they don't know where he is. When Andrew Meldrum, the American
journalist, said they were after him, I was under surveillance because they
thought that I would lead them to where he was. I used to think this was
very silly because the last thing that I would do if I knew where he was
would be to drive to where he is. And it's very funny because they
[surveillance people] always use the same cars; they just stick out like a
sore thumb. So you're able to have a nice joy ride and check out how they're
going to react in certain instances. So the job does have some light moments
when some of the state officials bungle things. I'll tell you one story when
they bungled big time. They wanted to deport one American evangelist, and
obviously there was no basis for deporting her, but she was suspected of
conniving with opposition politicians, so they started an operation they
called Operation Zion. When they went to her premises to start the operation
to have her deported, they left the entire file behind on her premises. She
called me, and I said, "Just keep it." It was hilarious because it had
everything, all their notes saying this is what we'll say she did, the
entire plan... When we went to court to stop her deportation, we just used
their notes saying that this has all been dreamed up. Nobody even came to
defend that case.
Robert Mugabe, for all his brutality, is
probably...
Oh, he's very bright, he's very effective.
It
seems as if there are a multitude of functioning laws in Zimbabwe . Are
they
more form than function?
The most incredible thing about Zimbabwe is
that it looks like it is there,
like it is working, like things are being
done properly. The government
doesn't go out there and do things without
following the law. What they do
is go out there and change the law and make
it to what they want it to be.
So there's all this veneer of respectability,
you know, of a system that
works. Why is it necessary, for instance, to
amend the constitution to oust
the jurisdiction of the courts when
agricultural land is acquired? Because
the government wants to say, "We are
acting in terms of the law." But is
that a fair law? Of course not. The
government wants to be legitimate, and
for it to be legitimate, it will go
out of its way to make laws that will
legitimize the illegitimate. That's
basically how they're doing it.
How has this affected the fairness of
elections?
We've got elections every couple of years, but the
electoral laws are
absolutely unbelievable because they are made to suit the
particular system
that the government favors. The government appoints the
electoral officials,
who will run the elections the way they want them to
be. Zimbabwe is a
signatory to the election guidelines that the Southern
African government
community signed. When the elections came last year, we
actually presented
the government with a report on the elections and how
unfair the whole
electoral system was and how the election laws do not
actually follow the
guidelines that we agreed to in 2004. The government's
minister of Justice
responded by filing papers saying that those are mere
guidelines and that we
are not bound by them. Yet they are the minimum
standards for the conduct of
elections in the region. Why should you pass
laws that do not comply with
the minimum standards that you have agreed to
as a region if you actually
want truly independent elections?
Has the
president ever said anything directly about you?
I don't think he
even knows I exist.
I'd be surprised if he doesn't - everyone else
does. Describe some of the
things known to have happened to people in police
custody.
When people are in police custody, anything can happen. You
can get beaten
up; you can be tortured; you can be denied access to your
relatives, food,
lawyer; you may not be taken to the toilet. I had one
client who I went to
see in prison custody; he was given torn prison
uniforms that exposed his
private parts, and this wasn't just torn, it had
actually been worn
previously by someone who had had diarrhea and it had not
been washed. It's
just so dehumanizing. It's not enough that you've been put
in custody; they
really, really want to break your spirit.
Do
people in opposition groups face a lot of legal restrictions?
The
problem with Zimbabwe right now is that from looking at it and
considering
the political landscape, one can say, yes, there is political
diversity. But
there's so much you can't do. The laws that the government is
creating make
it virtually impossible for you to function properly, whether
in opposition
or as a human rights defender. The Public Ordinance Security
Act
criminalizes normal meetings that people must have if they are in
politics.
That law has never been applied to people in the ruling party. So
opposition
politicians have difficulty just meeting their constituencies
because they
must first go and inform the police that they want to have this
meeting.
They cannot organize protest marches because the law criminalizes
that. You
must get authority from the police to organize a normal march.
And, of
course, you are not going to get that. We had the mayor of the
capital city
of Harare arrested a couple of years ago because he was holding
a meeting
with residents of Harare in counsel property; these were counsel
premises.
And the police went and arrested him and said it was an illegal
political
meeting. Fortunately, the courts refused to place him on remand
because the
judge said, "Well, if a mayor cannot go out and meet residents,
which is
what he's there to do, that's his job, then I don't know why he'd
be there.
The police have no business stopping this kind of meeting." So
clearly, if
you are in opposition - and this was an opposition mayor - the
government
creates by way of legislation, by way of zealousness and general
harassment,
a way of stopping people going to meetings. There are so many of
these
examples that on a practical level, opposition politicians cannot
function
normally.
Who makes the law in Zimbabwe today?
The ruling
party currently has a majority in parliament, and obviously,
whatever laws
the government wants to pass, they pass... Whether the law is
constitutional
or not, they can disregard any protest that the law might be
unconstitutional because they'll be able to railroad it through using their
majority status. The constitution is very easy to change in Zimbabwe if you
have at least a 75 percent majority, and the ruling party has that. So
basically, the ruling party is making the laws and obviously they make laws
that suit them, that ensure they continue being in power, that ensure they
make life as difficult as possible for those they perceive as being in
opposition or those who are opposed to how they are running the
country.
How many amendments have there been to the constitution? And
what effect has
this had?
The constitution has been mutilated at
least 17 times as of last year, and I
have no doubt there will be a further
mutilation. I use the word
"mutilation" deliberately because the ruling
party has not amended the
constitution to give people greater rights,
greater freedoms. With every
amendment, they have eaten away at the freedoms
that have been there -
sometimes, in fact, to reverse the gains that have
been made in court. Prior
to the Supreme Court being reconstituted, we had a
lot of very good
constitutional judgments where the Supreme Court would
interpret the
constitution to give greater rights to people. Each time the
Supreme Court
gave a judgment that gave greater freedoms, the ruling party
would run back
to parliament to pass an amendment that would take away the
right that the
Supreme Court would have given. So we've had a lot of
amendments brought in
specifically to try to defeat what the Supreme Court
would have given. The
most recent amendment, No. 17, was basically to say
that if your land is
taken from you, sorry, the courts have no jurisdiction
whatsoever. Whichever
way you look at it, it's clearly unconstitutional
because if the government
takes an action against you and deprives you of
certain property rights, you
should be able to get a court to determine
whether they are fair or not,
particularly in Zimbabwe's situation, where
the land issue has been used to
benefit a few well-connected
individuals.
to be continued...
Business Day
Posted to the web on: 10 July 2006
Dumisani
Muleya
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
recent dramatic surge of Zimbabwe's domestic debt from Z$15-trillion to
nearly Z$43-trillion has painted a grim picture of the economic situation
and cast an increasing pall over prospects of an economic
recovery.
Latest central bank statistics show the public debt was
Z$42,9-trillion on
June 16. The debt was Z$21-trillion on June 2 and
Z$27-trillion on June 9.
This means, if we assume a population of
15-million, the debt per Zimbabwean
stands at about Z$2,8bn. Officially,
Zimbabwe has 12-million people but some
estimates say if locals in foreign
countries are included, the figure is
more likely to be
15-million.
Zimbabwe's running national budget is $124-trillion. The
budget deficit is
expected to be 4,6% as government anticipates collecting
Z$110-trillion in
revenue and spending Z$123,9-trillion. This shows the
extent of the debt
problem.
The country's debt has continued to
skyrocket against a background of
deteriorating macroeconomic fundamentals
and the socioeconomic situation.
The central bank's overnight accommodation
recently stood at 850%, the
inter-bank rate at 693,3%, and treasury bill
yields at 510%. Inflation is
1193%, while the exchange rate has crashed to
about Z$400000 to the US
dollar.
Apart from domestic debt, some
of it in the form of securities borrowed from
the central bank, Zimbabwe's
foreign debt is US$3,9bn. This means the
country is caught up in a debt trap
detrimental to the already battered
economy. The situation is worsened by
the fact that Zimbabwe is isolated
internationally and cannot get foreign
direct investment, donor funds, or
debt cancellation - all crucial to
economic growth.
The domestic debt has become a problem not only because
of its massive size,
but also the rate at which it is mounting. The other
problem is that a large
portion of the debt is in short-term bonds that
attract high real interest
rates, and this creates a debt vicious
circle.
The government amassed the debt by its uncontrolled social
expenditure
patterns and by profligacy. President Robert Mugabe's regime is
notorious
for dishing out money like confetti every time there is an
election, to buy
votes. It also spends recklessly for other political
reasons, for instance
paying former combatants in the anticolonial struggle
to placate them when
they show signs of unrest.
The government
recently printed money on a massive scale to pay an army of
restless
soldiers and civil servants. This brought the government wage bill
to more
than 40% of the budget.
The fiscal and monetary consequences of the debt
are enormous - it always
leaves the government facing bankruptcy, even
though Mugabe holds the view
that a government cannot become broke because
it can always print money.
While this is true in the most simplistic of
terms, it betrays economic
ignorance. Printing large sums of paper money not
backed by wealth is a sign
of bankruptcy.
Given the situation, it
would be difficult, if not impossible, in the short
to medium term to
improve the fiscal position from a chronic deficit to a
surplus in order to
reduce the growing threat to the economy from Zimbabwe's
huge debt
burden.
While there are a number of options that can be exercised to deal
with the
debt, there are no easy answers. The government can divest itself
of some
nonperforming national assets and use the proceeds to reduce the
debt.
Privatisation and commercialisation are the main options - although
they
always carry a political cost.
The domestic debt has grown
rapidly over the past six years, with an
increasing deficit. Since
independence from Britain in 1980, Zimbabwe has
always had a debt problem,
but the situation has been worsened by Mugabe's
pretentious socialist
spending policies.
Government has never been able to marshal enough
revenue to finance its
expenditure. This has resulted in deficits that have
had to be financed
either by borrowing from the domestic market or
externally.
Because the government has been overborrowing locally and
cannot borrow from
outside, it has now resorted to printing money to finance
its expenditure
and pay interest on the debt. This has become highly
inflationary,
contributing to the havoc in the economy.
Unless the
government deals with the debt problem soon, it may well find
itself locked
in a terminal fiscal crisis that could easily feed into the
country's myriad
other social and political troubles, and cause further
problems for Mugabe's
politically bankrupt regime.
Muleya is Harare
correspondent and Zimbabwe Independent news editor.
Sadly we have two deaths to report
of relatives of supporters - an
indication of the collapse of Zimbabwe's
health service. No sooner had we
taken a collection for the funeral of
Tafara's mother, who died this week,
than Geraldine, taking a call from
Zimbabwe, collapsed in tears when told
her aunt had died. We may look a
cheerful group, dancing and singing on a
lovely summer's day, but the pain
of being separated from loved ones is ever
present. We are never far from
what happens at home. Everyone is trying to
get money together to send home
to help their families.
We were saddened by the news of the violent
attack on Trudy Stevenson, a
supporter of the Vigil, and have sent her a
message of sympathy. We were
also appalled by the failure of Kofi Annan to
confront Mugabe at the African
Union Summit in the Gambia and the failure of
African leaders to show
commitment to good governance.
The Vigil was
glad to have two stars from Qabuka - Patson and Terri-Ann -
enhancing the
singing. The play received a 3 star review in the Times this
week. Thanks
to Nomuhle who came all the way from Liverpool. Unfortunately
she could
only stay a short time because she was summoned home because her
child was
not well. Another visitor was Peter Tatchell, the human rights
campaigner.
He was warmly welcomed by his friends at the Vigil. But the
biggest star
was the oldest person ever to sign our petition - a 99 year old
lady who had
worked in Zimbabwe. What was amazing was that she was able to
get around on
her own. She had just come from a wedding.
Am American student from
Columbia who is doing an article on the Zimbabwean
band Mann Friday was with
us to gather background information. She
interviewed several people
including on e of our Vigil co-ordinators "Dumi
of the Vigil". He told her
how his involvement in the Vigil had given him
purpose. The band played at
a fundraiser for us some time back.
Vigil supporters took part in the
overnight demonstration outside the Asylum
and Immigration Tribunal this
week. We are anxiously awaiting the verdict
on the landmark Zimbabwean
asylum case which is expected at the end of the
week.
The Vigil is
increasingly in touch with activists around the world.
Givemore Chari, the
President of the Bindura SRC, has been corresponding
with us. He reports
that he is now safely in South Africa after crossing
the Limpopo in fear of
his life. He wrote "What the Vigil is doing is
greatly appreciated by all
students and Zimbabweans".
For this week's Vigil pictures:
http://uk.msnusers.com/ZimbabweVigil/shoebox.msnw.
FOR
THE RECORD: 46 signed the register.
FOR YOUR DIARY: Zimbabwe Forum,
Upstairs at the Theodore Bullfrog pub, 28
John Adam Street, London WC2
(cross the Strand from the Zimbabwe Embassy, go
down a passageway to John
Adam Street, turn right and you will see the pub).
Monday, 10th July, 7.30
pm, there will be two speakers:
1. Anna Meryt will report on the
meeting at the House of Lords
chaired by Baroness D'Souza to commemorate
victims of organised violence in
Zimbabwe held on Monday, 26th June, UN
International Day in Support of
Victims of Torture.
2. Harris
Nyatsanza will report on the proceedings on the case of AA
versus the Home
Office at the Asylum and Immigration Tribunal and also on
the 24 hour
solidarity vigil.
Vigil co-ordinator
The Vigil, outside the
Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place
every Saturday from 14.00
to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of
human rights by the current
regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in
October 2002 will continue
until internationally-monitored, free and fair
elections are held in
Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk
zimbabwejournalists.com
By Mathew Nyashanu and Grey Samakande
BIRMINGHAM - HAVING boasted one of the most magnificent health
delivery
system for decades, today, Zimbabwe's health delivery system is
dilapidated
beyond repair.
Despite the fact that President Mugabe's government
inherited a
working health delivery system from the colonial government,
they have
failed to sustain and expand the existing
infrastructure.
This was all caused by poor governance and massive
politics of
patronage where management was compromised by nepotism and
corruption.
Political appointments in key health institutions made
it impossible
for the experienced and well-trained workforce to discharge
their duties
without disruption. Many doctors, nurses and healthcare workers
have
gradually seen their professions being eroded away both professionally
and
in monetary value.
The preaching of socialism by President
Mugabe in the early years of
independence made it possible for the
government to destroy the healthcare
infrastructure.
Many
people who could have even paid for health services were treated
free of
charge in exchange of their endorsement of Zanu PF come election
time.
Because of poor insight into management, the government
never realised
that they were driving the health delivery system into
oblivion. All
descending voices of healthcare workers were marginalised and
labelled
reactionaries by the pro-socialist government of President
Mugabe.
Zanu (PF) failed to realise that the cornerstone of a good
health
delivery rested upon well-paid workers.
The signs of a
mutilated health delivery system surfaced in the run up
to the war veterans'
land occupation. The same period saw the development of
a strong trade union
movement within professions.
The well-trained healthcare
professionals realised that their services
were badly needed in developed
countries like Britain, USA and Australia.
This was followed by a
mass exodus of healthcare workers, which has
left the country with a
skeleton staff to serve the health delivery. Instead
of increasing
incentives for the doctors and nurses leaving the country,
President
Mugabe's government is launching a scathing attack on the
professionals
while thousands of people are suffering from uncontrolled
diseases.
At all his rallies, the President tells his
supporters that the
problem is Tony Blair. One political scientist said that
President Mugabe
doesn't realise that people have a burning question about
his obsessed cry
about Tony Blair.
If he regards himself as the
leader of Zimbabwe, then he should be
able to deliver without blaming any
external power. If he believes that the
problems are a product of
Tony
Blair, he should also accept that he has failed as a
leader.
If the present state of affairs in the system continues
unabated, many
people are going to die. A way forward to save the health of
the people is
now completely in the hands of President Mugabe who only
should step down to
pave way for a civil government.
zimbabwejournalists.com
By Selbin
Kabote
SO much has been said about the New Partnership for
Africa's
Development (NEPAD) and the role it can play in the continent's
development.
NEPAD is an ambitious programme and the issue as to whether it
is totally
worthless or not, is still very much unproven at this
stage.
I am expressing this opinion with certainty since so far,
the
implementation of NEPAD as an economic reform programme has been moving
at a
very slow pace.
The African Renaissance programme, which
was authored by the South
African President Thabo Mbeki, became the New
African Initiative, before
finally being re-Christened NEPAD.
Under NEPAD, African countries would receive aid from the West to
fight
poverty and underdevelopment. The programme also intends to facilitate
a
surge of foreign and local investment.
However, in return, Africa
has to ensure that there is an end to
corruption and the brutal treatment of
opposition political parties, the
judiciary, the churches, the media and
other groups of individuals who hold
different views from the African
leaders.
What I have been observing during the past few years is
that one of
the biggest problem facing NEPAD and Africa at this stage is the
inability
of African leaders to reach clear decisions on what they are
trying to
achieve even through the peer review mechanism. Under this
mechanism,
African leaders are supposedly going to review each other's
policies and
open themselves up.
At the moment, if you go
around, you hear a lot of people giving as an
example the political and
economic problems in Zimbabwe, and "Saying does
this not make the talk about
democracy and promoting development in Africa,
a waste of time", if the West
is not willing to make a stand on it.
I am of
the opinion that if the West is going to set a series of goals
for Africa to
achieve, then one has to decide what defines the goals.
Against this
backdrop, I feel that in defining goals, one has to ask
questions like,
"Were the elections that were held in Zimbabwe, Nigeria and
Zanzibar, during
the past few years fair or flawed?
So until you set your base level
and decide how the people are going
to determine whether they have achieved
that base level, then it is very
difficult to offer constructive criticism
on NEPAD.
If NEPAD is to live up to the expectations of African and
Western
political observers, then they should also be some reforms in
international
trade, which need to be urgently addressed. However, even if
the reforms are
addressed, that alone would not solve Africa's problem of
being isolated
from the global community. In my opinion there is need for a
lot of more
domestic reforms to go alongside the reforms in the
international trading
structure.
On how NEPAD can progress
against the background of xenophobia and
corruption in some African
countries; I think results in this area could be
determined on where you set
the benchmarks.
If NEPAD says democracy is a good thing and many
African leaders
agree, then one has to explain what is meant by democracy,
which in my view
is a difficult concept. I think the other problem is that
democracy does not
just happen. It can take years or decades to grow and to
become established.
"Issues like corruption, the suppression of the media
and xenophobia are
difficult issues that have to be dealt with within the
NEPAD secretariat,
and peer review mechanism.
I am of the view
that there is need for democracy and its weaknesses
to be defined within the
various countries, and steps taken to overcome
them. I am strongly convinced
that if NEPAD is to succeed as a blueprint for
Africa's development, it is
therefore very important to define what
democracy means to different African
countries. Efforts should also be made
to determine the benchmarks used to
define democracy.
For example, South Africa may be accepted as a
democratic country,
which however has a problem of corruption and
xenophobia, then under NEPAD,
President Thabo Mbeki, should then put in
place programmes aimed at
resolving the problems or try to reduce
them.
I am of the opinion that when this has been done, the peer
review
mechanism will then judge the progress that he makes over time in
meeting
those goals. My final analysis is that there is no clarity on the
issue of
benchmarks, and this is what NEPAD will have to clearly define if
it is to
have some credibility.
People's Daily
The British mining company African
Consolidated Resources (ACR) has
raised 4 million pounds (about 7. 35
million U.S. dollars) for investment in
the Zimbabwe's mining industry, the
company said in a press release on
Sunday.
ACR has diamond,
platinum and gold claims rights in Zimbabwe, and has
successfully raised
capital from the sale of 33 million shares, which were
quoted at 12 pence a
share in London.
The company said the money will be ploughed into
its ongoing
exploration and investment programs in Zimbabwe. It also said
Zimbabwe's
mineral reserves are considerably undervalued and under-
exploited owing to
the lack of both capital investment and modern
exploration processes.
The company becomes the latest entrant in
Zimbabwe, which has shown
vast potential and continues to lure international
investors.
Ian Fisher, executive chairperson of ACR, said his
company will step
up its activities in Zimbabwe, though the perceived
negative sentiments that
were being fanned by some sections of the
international community that were
sceptical of the proposed empowerment
policy by the Zimbabwean government.
The Zimbabwean government has
firmly stood by its decision to
indigenize the mining industry by making
sure that laws are staked in favor
of the locals.
The mining
sector has been one of the major contributors of foreign
currency to the
national economy and it contributes approximately 8 percent
towards
Zimbabwe's gross domestic product (GDP).
Source:
Xinhua
Business In Africa
Posted Mon, 10 Jul 2006
Harare - Stung by high inflation and
interest rates of more than 1 200
percent, gold mining companies in Zimbabwe
appealed to the Central Bank at
the weekend for an urgent review of a state
price subsidy, warning the
industry would collapse if this was not
done.
Gold accounts for a third of Zimbabwe's total foreign currency
earnings.
But producers were reeling under a harsh economic environment
characterised
by high inflation and interest rates, and shortages of foreign
currency and
other essential inputs.
The gold miners' appeal to the
Central Bank was lodged by the Chamber of
Mines, an umbrella mining industry
body, which warned that companies in the
sector were on the verge of
collapse.
It said producers' viability would be restored with a support
price of
Z$6.8mn (about $67) per gram, up from the current
Z$2.5mn.
The demand for a price review comes a week after one of the
country's
biggest gold producers, Falcon Gold, said it was considering
shutting down
due to viability problems.
It also comes in the wake of
reports that most companies have scaled down
mining operations to stay
afloat.
Last year, gold production fell 40 percent from 21 300kg in 2004
to 13
000kg.
The Chamber of Mines cited rising operating costs for
the demand for a price
review, amid sharp increases in labour, electricity
and fuel costs.
The Central Bank, which has the sole right to buy all
gold produced in
Zimbabwe, had in the past turned down the requests of the
gold miners,
accusing them of smuggling the precious mineral out of the
country.
Experts suggest that the environment would make smuggling
inevitable, as the
rewards for producing through legal channels were
unacceptably
low. -panapress
Washington Post
By Fred Hiatt
Monday,
July 10, 2006; Page A17
When communism collapsed in 1991, no one expected
democracy to triumph
everywhere and instantly. But no one expected the other
side to fight back,
either. After all, what was "the other side"?
Yet
when President Vladimir Putin hosts the first summit of Group of Eight
leaders in Russia this week, the most notable thing won't be that his
country has failed to become the consolidated democracy that the G-7
countries expected when they invited Russia to join a decade ago. What will
be remarkable -- but has been little remarked on -- is that Putin has become
a leader and an emblem of an active movement to combat the spread of
democracy.
"What seems to be the case," Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.),
chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told me, "is that
governments that are
authoritarian have decided to fight back."
Lugar
chaired a hearing last month on "The Backlash Against Democracy
Assistance,"
which is the title of a report he commissioned from the
National Endowment
for Democracy, a private, federally funded organization
created in 1983 to
promote democratic institutions around the world. The
organization found the
backlash to be most pronounced in what Carl Gershman,
NED's president, calls
"hybrid regimes": autocracies that maintain some
nominally democratic
processes, usually including elections, and that
generally claim to be
democracies.
Many of these regimes tolerated civic groups promoting
freedom and human
rights during the 1990s and allowed them to receive help
from democracy
promoters in the United States and other nations. But after
the Rose
Revolution swept away the corrupt regime of Eduard Shevardnadze in
Georgia,
followed by the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, Putin and other
leaders
decided they could no longer take any chances.
They
concluded, Gershman said in a recent talk, that, as Abraham Lincoln
noted in
a different context, "a government cannot endure permanently half
slave and
half free." And so they accelerated their harassment of civic
groups, radio
stations, political parties and any other independent
voices -- with
arbitrary detentions, visa bans, impossible funding rules,
intrusive
registration requirements and more.
For the most part, the regimes claim
that these measures are aimed only at
protecting state sovereignty,
defeating terrorism or countering espionage.
That's good news, in a funny
way; most of them still feel compelled to
describe themselves as democrats.
Even now there is no "other side,"
ideologically speaking.
But it
also makes the measures difficult to combat. Post reporter Peter
Finn's
account last week of how the Kremlin has eliminated Radio Free
Europe/Radio
Liberty broadcasts from most Russian radio stations without
formally banning
the programming -- instead harassing, insinuating and
threatening to revoke
licenses -- provides a good example.
And the rebounding dictators are
learning from each other. In January Putin
signed legislation regulating
nongovernmental organizations that will give
30,000 bureaucrats the option
of revoking the registration of any
troublesome group. Now Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela and Robert Mugabe in
Zimbabwe are pushing similar legislation.
China reportedly sent researchers
to Uzbekistan and other former Soviet
states to compare notes on democracy
countermeasures; meanwhile, Belarus's
dictator, Alexander Lukashenko,
"reportedly acquired China's latest internet
monitoring and control
technology while in Beijing in December 2005," NED
reported.
The man who helped provoke all this -- Georgia's democratic
president,
Mikheil Saakashvili -- was in Washington last week warning that
Putin and
his ilk may be interested in more than defense; they may want to
roll back
democracy in Georgia, Ukraine and beyond. Bush, who spent two
hours with the
Georgian, appears to understand this.
Putin is, in
fact, working hard to undermine democratic Georgia, a nation of
fewer than 5
million people bordering Russia on the south. He has banned
imports of
Georgian produce, wine and mineral water; he is manipulating
secessionists
inside the country. Saakashvili's success in promoting
economic growth and
diminishing corruption may be too dangerous an example
for Putin to
abide.
A key question for this week will be whether the G-7 leaders make
clear that
undermining neighboring democracies is not an acceptable policy.
France and
Germany will be reluctant to allow principle to interfere with
commercial
interests, which lie with Russia, not some tiny nation to the
south. So it
will be up to Bush.
Saakashvili seemed to be delivering
just such a message when he handed Bush
a photocopy of a 1936 letter his
government had discovered in the KGB
archives. The letter, handwritten by
leaders of fiercely independent people
of the mountainous Khevsureti region,
was addressed to the "Great American
Government." It bewailed the
encroaching Bolsheviks, who were forcing the
locals onto collective farms
and preventing them from practicing their
religion.
"We won't
surrender as long as a single Georgian in Khevsureti is alive,"
they wrote.
"We'll defend ourselves with swords and daggers. . . . We hope
you will help
us. You are the only ones who can . . . ."
The letter never reached
Franklin Roosevelt, of course, and all its
signatories were promptly
murdered by the KGB (then known as the NKVD).
Times have changed, thank
goodness. But history hasn't ended, and the spread
of democracy still can't
be put on autopilot.
fredhiatt@washpost.com
New Zimbabwe
By Mutumwa Mawere
Last updated: 07/10/2006 07:17:43
LAST
week I was privileged to be one of the speakers at the Brightest Young
Minds
(BYM) conference in Johannesburg.
I also attended a Gala Dinner for the
100 students at the Presidential Guest
House on Saturday night.
For
my column this week, I could think of no better subject than to share
with
you my presentation to the BYM.
When I was invited to speak to the BYM, I
did not know anything about the
organization but was given discretion to
choose my topic. I was impressed by
the theme behind the BYM and the
sponsors who saw the need to bring 100
young men and women together for a
week to exchange ideas on how to
contribute to Africa's promise.
For
me, it was a great experience to share my insights with these minds on
Africa's challenges and promise and the role of the youth in shaping and
defining Africa's destiny.
I started my presentation by acknowledging
Africa's rich history and
resource endowment. With 54 countries, Africa is
continent with a lot of
promise and yet full of challenges and
contradictions. South Africa, being
the youngest country in the continent is
leading the way in redefining the
continent's corporate architecture in
terms of the ownership of economic
assets as well as in changing the
composition of the board rooms of Africa's
key corporate
players.
What was striking about the BYM class of 2006 was the skewed
representation
of white students compared to blacks. Notwithstanding the
small number of
black students represented in the team, I was impressed by
their input and
confidence.
I told the students that life is nothing
but a nuisance of time. However,
when great minds decide to apply their
minds for the collective good, life
can have meaning not only to the current
generation but to the future
generations.
Each generation has the
obligation to create the footprints that tomorrow
can be used as references
to yesterday's generation. Being the luckiest
generation to be alive, twelve
years after the birth of South Africa, the
obligations are quite onerous not
only because there are few examples of
success stories in Africa but because
the contemporary history of Africa has
been defined by conflicts, economic
failure, and an apparent inability by
many African leaders to take
responsibility for their failure to provide
leadership and choosing the easy
road of blaming former colonial masters.
I used Zimbabwe's history to
illustrate some of the key issues that may help
them better deal with South
Africa's potential growing pains and
opportunities. Zimbabwe is one of the
luckiest countries to produce two
strong individuals in the pre-colonial and
post-colonial eras who both have
complained against the former colonial
power for different reasons.
On 11 November 1965, Ian Smith and his team
chose to declare independence
from Britain unilaterally. Like the USA, Smith
knew the consequences and yet
he had the courage to take the lead. One is
never sure what the real cost of
UDI was to the people of Zimbabwe. However,
as Smith signed the declaration
of independence, his team was already at
work looking at the economic and
political implications. Sanctions were
imposed but soon the world was
impressed with how the settler community
managed to regroup and create what
was described in 1980 as a sophisticated
industrial and financial system
outside South Africa. Zimbabwe also produced
Mugabe who was one of the
liberators and was supportive of the sanctions
regime against UDI.
In 2000, Zimbabwe attracted the attention of the
international community for
different reasons. The economy was already in
intensive care and the land
reform was in earnest. However, the
institutional response to the sanctions
regime sets Mugabe and Smith apart.
One was able to organize a small
privileged settler community to take
responsibility and move on and the
other has not been able to get out of the
quagmire. The inherited economic
and financial system is fast crumbling
while sovereignty is the primary
focus with no discernible economic strategy
underpinning the policy choices.
I told the students that the white
population in post-colonial Africa is
analogous to animals in a zoo. Their
number can increase through either
reproduction or immigration.
The
latter is controlled by blacks and yet even after 26 years of
independence,
the genius of Mugabe has not been able to provide any economic
solution to
the perceived white problem. If one assumes that Zimbabwe had a
problem with
about 5,000 white farmers who controlled most of the productive
land, what
should have been a better response to the land question? Can
animals in a
zoo be a real threat? In terms of actuarial analysis, would
whites still
pose a threat to a growing black population in 50 years for
instance? Why
was there a hurry to resolve the land issue in this
generation? Was the
urgency worth the cost? If not, why was the country
condemned to poverty in
the interest of resolving the rights of only 5,000
people who cannot
reproduce themselves in sufficient numbers to pose a
threat to the
majority?
In the case of South Africa, about 4 million whites still pose
a serious
strategic threat to more than 42 million blacks to the extent that
laws are
being enacted to protect the rights of the majority. In as much as
South
Africa has produced the Old Mutuals, Sanlams, Liberty (even before
Mandela
was freed), I asked the students why post-colonial Africa has failed
to
produce new mutuals in the form of institutions to underpin black values.
The Asians have demonstrated what is possible in one generation and yet
countries like Zimbabwe have chosen to focus for 26 years on the minority
without creating conditions and policies conducive for the majority. While
we may disagree with Ian Smith, no one can argue that the Rhodesian economy
in 1980 was good for his constituency and yet 26 years after independence
can we rationally argue that the Zimbabwe of today is what its liberators
had in mind? If not, should the blame be on the bilateral dispute with
Britain or should it be on the brightest minds in Zimbabwe and indeed in
Africa that have failed to call a spade a spade.
I told the students
that the knowledge, execution and capital gaps that
confront and
characterize contemporary Africa need to be bridged through an
investment in
improved literacy. On the knowledge front, there are many in
Africa who
genuinely believe that Zimbabwe is a victim of white conspiracy
and
imperialist maneuvers. They argue that if whites had never visited
Africa,
the continent would have done better. Even the older African
countries still
hold this view and believe that animals in zoos where blacks
are gate
keepers are a threat. If this proposition is accepted, then the
probability
of Africa taking ownership of its destiny is remote.
I challenged the
students to critically examine the African journey from the
womb of
colonialism to today. If we look at the people in whose hands Africa's
resources are, one would be shocked to find out that the majority are
alienated from what God has given to Africa not because of a conspiracy but
because of bad policies. I made the point that it is important to look at
the interplay between bad policies and development. If our students and
scholars were in the engine room their input will go a long way towards
better putting in place an environment where leaders are made accountable
for bind stewardship instead of allowing them to play victims even where
evidence suggest otherwise.
The corporate civilization of Africa
still has to be written and it is
important that an investment be made to
ensure that such a civilization will
include black players. Is it not ironic
that black corporate citizens are
more often called criminals and crooks
than genuine businesspeople? You will
find that more in known about the new
black businesspeople than the real
players in the South African economy. You
will find more said about the
likes of Ramaphosa, Motsepe, Sexwale than
Rupert, Oppenheimer etc. While the
former represents new money (only twelve
years old), the latter represents
more mature and old money and yet very
little is known and written about it.
I told the students that they should
study Africa's history in its entirety
rather than focus on selective
issues. Africa needs genuine role models and
even those who have chosen the
political theatre as their vocation have also
been labeled
criminals.
At the dinner on Saturday, I was encouraged when the students
said to me
that they were greatly inspired by my presentation and had spent
the rest of
the week debating the issues that I had flagged. As we continue
to grope for
solutions for our beautiful continent, we cannot help but
admire the inert
capacity that is available and yet not utilized. I made the
comment sometime
back that God made minerals and hid them and our job is to
find them in the
strange places of the world. The conflicts in Africa and
myriad of problems
may just be a sign that there is a plan for future
generations in Africa to
benefit from the endowment. Imagine an Africa free
of conflicts and bad
leaders, what would have happened to its minerals and
its great minds?
Mutumwa Mawere's weekly column appears on New
Zimbabwe.com every Monday. You
can contact him at: mmawere@global.co.za
By Violet Gonda
10
July 2006
Consumers were last week hit by another price increase as
the economy
continued to deteriorate. The price of beef went up from about
ZW$500 000 to
ZW$1.5million per kg. Beef prices had already shot up two
months ago from
ZW$300 000 to ZW$500 000. This means the cost more than
doubled in the last
2 months.
Our correspondent Simon Muchemwa who
visited several supermarkets and
butcheries in Harare said the prices vary
depending on where you are. He
said it is more expensive in supermarkets
like Bon Marché, TM and OK where a
kilogram of beef is going for around
ZW$1.5million. But on the outskirts of
the capital it is about ZW$750 000
per kilogram.
The depreciation of the national herd has resulted in
the price of
beef gradually going up as demand gets greater. Although the
government
blames the economic crisis on targeted sanctions imposed by some
western
governments and on the drought, analysts lay the blame largely on
Robert
Mugabe's policies, in particular the failed agrarian
reform.
The former head of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) Renson
Gasela said
the effects of this are now with us and this is why there is a
shortage of
beef in the country. The agricultural expert said it takes a
long time to
grow a national herd and a lot of it had already been decimated
by the
drought in the early 90s. A programme had been put in place to revive
the
herd after the drought but Gasela said: "The herd that had been grown
was
adversely affected by the land reform programme."
He said
the destructive policies have meant that for example the
"commercial herd,
which used to support the Cold Storage Commission (CSC) so
that it was able
to keep abattoirs operative and export to the European
Union, was decimated
to less than 100 000 from around 500 000."
Gasela said at its peak
both the commercial and communal herd
consisted of millions.
Zimbabwe has one of the fastest shrinking economies in the world with
inflation nearly 1200%. The crisis is having a serious effect on the general
population. The average monthly family basket is estimated at ZW$45million
but the average consumer earns between ZW$20 & ZW$25 million a
month.
Meanwhile it's reported that the government has begun a
crackdown on
people using fake passports to cross the border to neighbouring
countries.
It is estimated that at least 100 Zimbabweans h it by economic
hardships are
crossing into South Africa illegally every day to source
commodities that
are in short supply in Zimbabwe.
The state
controlled newspaper the Sunday Mail reported that Plumtree
police arrested
24 people who intended to cross into neighbouring countries
using
counterfeit emergency travel documents (ETDs).
SW Radio
Africa Zimbabwe news
Trocaire, Ireland
10 July 2006
In the first of a series of reports
from
Zimbabwe, Trócaire's Orla Fagan
meets some of those who have
lost
their homes and livelihoods under
the Zimbabwe regime's
'Operation
Murambatsvina' evictions.
Click here to to read Trócaire's
Zimbabwe
Country Profile.
In May 2005 the ZANU-PF government of President
Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe
implemented Operation Murambatsvina, a forceful
eviction
of more than a half million citizens from their dwellings in Harare
and the
demolition of their homes.
At the time President Mugabe
reasoned that the demolition took
place because he wanted a better standard
of housing for his citizens.
Outside help was offered to build housing for
the victims of the evictions
but it was rejected because the standards did
not meet the Zimbabwean
government's requirements.
However, no
provisions had been made for the dwellers in Murambatsvina who
have been
left without homes, posessions and livelihoods. A year after the
bulldozers
moved in and destroyed the lives of so many in the space of 20
minutes, the
people affected are suffering greatly. The government has
abandoned them and
they are left struggling to earn a living and fend for
themselves and their
families.
Nelson Pachawo, 25, is a victim of Operation Murambatsvina. He
moved to
Harare when his parents passed away in 1998 and he was left to
provide for
himself and his two sisters. Nelson settled in Murambatsvina and
after
working in various odd jobs, gathered enough capital to open a small
street
shop. Here he earned his living and supported his wife and young
baby. While
life had its difficulties, they had a roof over their heads and
a shelter
for their firstborn.
"The day the bulldozers came," Nelson
told Trócaire, "I lost everything..my
home, my business, my possessions.
Myself, my wife and our baby were left
homeless and destitute in the space
of 20 minutes." The Pachawo family now
lives in transitory accommodation and
in September they will be forced to
move on. Nelson sells t-shirts in the
neighbourhood but there isn't enough
income to sustain the family. "I can't
see a future," he continued.
"Everything I had worked so hard for is all
gone now. I don't know what will
become of us."
Another young
man,
Tajadzwa Masendeke, (pictured right)
came to Murambatsvina in 2000
with
his mother, who has since died. They
came to Harare because they
couldn't
earn enough to feed his two sisters and
one brother, who remained
in the country
with Tajadzwa's grandmother. "I am very
angry with what has
happened to me,"
he said. "I had a window framing
business and I could
afford to eat three
meals a day. Now I'm lucky if I get two
meals a day
and most days I eat only
once." He continued: "I am fortunate I have a room
to stay at night. I share
this room with nine other people and some of my
friends now sleep in night
clubs because there is nowhere else." Tajadzwa
now runs a small barber shop
from the room but police constantly harass him
because he has no licence.
Some victims of the demolition have been
fortunate to come into contact with
local non-government organisations that
provide them with basic skills to
enhance their opportunities to make a
living. For most of the victims, life
remains a struggle and their only hope
is for a change of government and the
dawn of a new era which will bring
democracy to Zimbabwe.
The Guardian
As the new
elephant in the room, China attracts all the attention. But a
couple of
powerful beasts are already on the premises.
Jonathan Fenby
July
10, 2006 01:20 PM | Printable version
If I see another article or hear
another broadcast announcing the inexorable
rise of China, I may well start
to emit the kind of low moan usually
associated with England talking
penalties.
By the end of the 20th century, the mainland's emergence as a
major new
global presence was palpable. What has happened since is that the
numbers
have got bigger and Beijing's confidence has grown. But the
currently
fashionable equation that follows - that China's rise means it
will
inevitably become a superpower to rival, or surpass, America - is far
from
certain. Yes, the world balance is changing, and the US has got itself
into
all kinds of trouble under Bush. But longer-term, the rebalancing of
the
globe has been mainly to the detriment of Europe. America, as Europeans
so
often forget, is a two-ocean power, and the picture in the Pacific is not
as
cut-and-dried as it may seem, despite being on Beijing's home
turf.
As the new elephant in the room, China naturally attracts all the
attention.
But there are already a couple of powerful beasts roaming the
premises.
American forces may be overstretched by Iraq, but the US nuclear
presence,
its fleet and bases, are still a determining element in the east
Asian
strategic balance. US technology, military and civilian, is streets
ahead of
China's, and its growth in these areas shows no sign of slowing
down.
Japan is still the world's second-biggest economy, enjoying
recovery from
its long recession. Even if constitutional restrictions apply,
it has large
and highly efficient armed forces, including a navy that is
better than
China's. It has recently become involved in Iraq.
When
Koizumi steps down in the autumn, his successor is likely to go further
in
the hawkish stakes, and that usually consists mainly of talking tough to
Beijing. If it wanted to, Japan could almost certainly arm itself with
nuclear weapons in a matter of six months or so.
Australia counts
itself Washington's best friend. Countries such as
Singapore, the
Philippines and Thailand want to make the most of China's
rise, but they are
also keen to keep on goods terms with the United States,
offering military
co-operation in some cases.
Taiwan depends on the American link for its
survival in its present
democratic form. Off to the west, India, which has a
pretty impressive
growth record itself, has been declared Washington's
strategic partner and,
while opening mountain border crossings to China, has
got the Bush
administration to agree to supply it with nuclear technology
(even if
Congress is taking its time to give approval).
There are,
naturally, many ways in which the countries mentioned above have
developed a
dependence on China. Beijing funds the US federal deficit from
its $900bn in
foreign reserves. Japanese companies rely on mainland assembly
lines.
Australia's mining companies boom on the back of sharply ratcheted
prices
charged to China for their minerals. Trade between China and India is
expanding fast.
But, in terms of the realpolitik that rules after the
popping of the new
world order balloon, the widely proclaimed coming
dominance of China has got
quite a few hurdles to cross. With the domestic
economy seriously
unbalanced, and the Communist party counting on growth to
give it a form of
legitimacy, the mainland needs the world quite as much as
the world needs
it.
Energy dependency forces the mainland to pay
escalating prices to keep the
economy running The limits of China's economic
negotiating clout were shown
in the unceremonious collapse of its bid to
keep down iron ore prices this
year. Its domestic banking and financial
system are still well below what an
economy of its size needs. Exports come
largely from foreign-invested firms.
Piracy acts deters the supply of
advanced intellectual property. A serious
downturn in the US and European
house markets would have a big knock-on
effect via the impact on consumer
demand. Western protectionism may yet
cause similar
problems.
Although the mainland faces no threat of invasion, soaring
spending on the
People's Liberation Army shows how much China wants to
become a big military
power. But the PLA depends on Russia for weapons, and
Putin is careful about
what he sells. All of Chirac's lobbying efforts could
not get the European
Union to lift its arms embargo. On Taiwan, Hu Jintao
has been obliged to
adopt a softly-softly approach, and the PLA has kept its
finger away from
the missile trigger since Bill Clinton saw it off in
1996.
Diplomatically, China has collected some pretty dodgy friends -
Burma,
Zimbabwe etc. It has a seat on the security council, but nothing to
equal
the alliances America still enjoys in the region (and the growing ties
with
India). The Shanghai Group linking Beijing with the autocracies of
Central
Asia is held together by one thing: a desire to keep America out of
the
region.
The inability of Beijing to restrain its "little
brother", North Korea, is
deeply embarrassing. To which one might add that
true superpower status may
prove a touch tricky for a regime which faces
tens of thousands of popular
protests a year as it scrambles to keep a lid
on debate; which presides over
a yawning wealth gap and a major urban-rural
divide; which is fighting a
losing battle against pollution and a barely
more successful one against
corruption, and which cannot bring itself to
confront its past. Not to
mention the D word, democracy, or the A one,
accountability.
The mainland of the early 21st-century is sometimes
compared to the Germany
of the late-19th century as it seeks a greater place
in the world to
displace the old order. The answer to the kind of problems
outlined above is
that they will go away as China powers ahead, though how
this will come to
pass is never quite stipulated. For sure, like Bismarck's
Reich, China's
rise will continue, albeit with bumps along the way. But,
when it comes to
the world beyond crude economics, Beijing has a lot more to
do to justify
the prophecies. After all, it knows how the Kaiser ended
up.
New Zimbabwe
By
Staff Reporter
Last updated: 07/10/2006 20:21:35
ZIMBABWE has expanded the
scope of its sodomy laws.
An intimate hug or smooch between people of the
same sex may now constitute
a crime.
The dramatic changes to the
country's criminal law, which took effect last
Saturday, are contained in
the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act of
2004 passed by parliament
two years ago but which only took effect last
Saturday.
It creates 15
new crimes, abolishes others and redefines sodomy and rape.
Lawyers,
police officers, prosecutors and judges complain that they were not
adequately trained or informed about law reforms in the two-year gap between
their passage and adoption.
Before the changes to the law, sodomy,
under Section 73, referred only to
anal sexual intercourse between males.
The code has expanded the scope of
this crime.
It now includes not
only acts of anal sexual intercourse, but also includes
any act involving
physical contact between males that would be regarded by a
reasonable person
as an indecent act.
Professor Geoff Feltoe of the University of Zimbabwe,
in a commentary on the
new criminal code, says a seemingly intimate embrace
or hug between two men
would presumably be construed as a
crime.
Zimbabwe has refused to bow to pressure from gay groups to abolish
its
sodomy laws. President Robert Mugabe regularly lashes out at gays and
lesbians, and once famously called them "worse than dogs and
pigs".
The reforms also include the redefinition of crimes of assault,
culpable
homicide, while new crimes which include unauthorized borrowing,
making off
without payment, inciting or assisting suicide, computer-related
crimes
(cyber crimes), threatening to commit specified crimes, obstructing a
public
official, among others, have been created.
The crime of rape,
Section 65, continues to be a crime that is committed by
a male who has
non-consensual sexual intercourse with a female. However, the
crime has been
extended to cover a situation where a male has non-consensual
anal
intercourse with a female.
A new sexual crime, aggravated indecent
assault, has been created. This
crime is committed where a male or female
commits an indecent assault
involving non-consensual penetration with intent
of any part of the body of
the victim or perpetrator. It is more serious
than the crime of indecent
assault, which does not involve any such
penetration.
In his analysis, Professor Feltoe said the crime of assault,
which had a
distinction between "common assault" and "assault with intent to
cause
grievous bodily harm", (GBH), has been abolished. All assaults -
except
indecent assaults - now fall under the single crime of assault. The
seriousness of the assault will now be a matter of sentence.
A new
crime, negligent assault (Section 90), has been created. This covers
situations where the accused person did not intend to inflict serious bodily
harm but was negligent in causing such harm.
Inciting or assisting
(Section 50) is another new crime that has been
created which consists of
inciting another to commit suicide or assisting a
person to commit
suicide.
The traditional practice of handing over of a female person to
settle a debt
or delict has seen the creation of a new crime called pledging
a female
person.
It is now a crime to borrow or use without
authorization any property
belonging to another. The crime, unauthorized
borrowing, used to cover use
of a car or boat only but now includes any
property.
Another new crime, making off without payment, has been
created. This crime
will cover situations where "services" rather than
"goods" are stolen. Also
within the scope of this crime is the consumption
of goods for which payment
after consumption is required but has not been
made: in these circumstances
the intention to "deprive another person
permanently" of ownership,
possession or control is incapable of proof,
because it may only have been
formed after the goods were consumed and
therefore no longer capable of
being owned, possessed or controlled by
anybody.
Threatening to commit specified crimes (Section 184) is another
new crime in
the code. A person who threatens to commit such crimes as
murder, rape,
kidnapping or other crimes specified in the section will be
guilty of an
offence.
A person commits this crime where he or she
threatens to commit the crime,
intending to inspire or realising that there
was a real risk of inspiring in
the person threatened a reasonable fear or
belief that the accused would
commit the crime concerned.
Theft by
false pretences as a crime has been abolished and in future what
used to be
theft by false pretences would be treated as cases of fraud by
the
courts.
The crime of stock theft has also been changed. Now there is the
continuing
nature of theft and stock theft. Previously the law on theft
provided that a
person continued to commit the crime of theft for as long as
the stolen
property remains in the possession of the thief, but the code
drastically
changes this rule to provide that theft or stoke theft continues
to be
committed, regardless of whether the offender has lost possession of
the
property. A thief may be tried in whichever magisterial district he/she
last
possessed the property.
On the uttering (Section 137 (2)),
although the Common Law crime of forgery
is retained, the code abolished the
existing crime of "uttering", which
basically is passing off as genuine a
forged document and provides that in
future uttering will be treated as
fraud. If the utterer also forged the
document in question, he or she will
be liable both for forgery and fraud.
Sections 162 and 168, that deal
with computer-related crimes, create a
series of new crimes pertaining to
the deliberate misuse of computers,
credit cards, passwords and personal
identification numbers. Such misuse
creates the potential for fraud,
sabotage and other harm to the public
interest. Such crimes are often
collectively described as "cyber crimes".
Subornation of perjury is no
longer chargeable under Common Law. The Common
Law crime of subornation of
perjury has been abolished. Instead, if person X
incites person Y to commit
perjury, person X will be charged with incitement
to perjury or if the
incitement succeeds and person Y gives false testimony,
person X will be
charged as an accomplice to the perjury committed by person
Y.
The
code also caters for the Common Law crime of incest (with modifications)
but
also now accommodates Customary Law notions of incest under a crime
called
sexual intercourse within a prohibited degree of relationship
(Incest,
Section 75).
Other new crimes include corruptly concealing from a
principal a personal
interest in a transaction, obstructing a public
official, impersonating a
police officer or public official, deliberately
supplying false information
to a public authority and negligently causing
serious damage to property
among others.
Previous crimes like
housebreaking, arson and malicious injury to property
and contempt of court
have either been codified or completely reformulated
to become unlawful
entry into premises, malicious damage to property,
defeating or obstructing
the course of justice, respectively.
Professor Geoff Feltoe says the
"adoption of the Criminal Law Code by
Parliament is a landmark development
for the Criminal Law of Zimbabwe" which
now has its own unique homegrown
definitions and essential elements of some
Common Law and statutory crimes
aimed at addressing local crime trends.