Zim Online
Wed 19
July 2006
HARARE - The wife of a Zimbabwe army commander, who is on
a list of
individuals banned from visiting the European Union (EU), last
week evaded
the visa sanctions to travel to France to receive an
award.
Jocelyn Chiwenga, is the wife of Zimbabwe Defence Forces
commander
General Constantine Chiwenga, who together with President Robert
Mugabe, his
ministers and army officials are barred from visiting Europe or
doing
business with European firms.
The EU imposed targeted
sanctions on Mugabe and his senior lieutenants
about four years ago
following a disputed election which was controversially
won by the veteran
Zimbabwean leader.
But last week, Chiwenga successfully negotiated
her way past the
sanctions to receive a little-known award, the Golden
European Quality New
Millennium Award on behalf of her Harare-based
protective clothing
manufacturing company
Zim-Safe.
She returned home last Thursday to a
heroine's welcome at the Harare
International Airport where she was met by
several government ministers.
"At the impromptu reception hosted
for her by husband at the airport,
the government ministers who flocked to
welcome her back were apparently
boasting that the sanctions were not
affecting some of them," said a senior
ZANU PF official who was part of the
delegation that welcomed Chiwenga home.
Chiwenga declined to
comment on how she managed to get a visa to
travel to France.
Efforts to get comment from the French embassy in Harare yesterday
were also
fruitless.
At the height of farm seizures, Chiwenga gave a white
farmer near
Harare a few hours to leave his farm together with horticultural
produce
worth millions of dollars that was ready for harvesting. She is said
to have
also threatened the farmer, telling him she could harm or kill him
because
she had not "tasted white blood for a long time".
In
2003 Chiwenga was in the news again when she beat up a lawyer for
the banned
Daily News newspaper in the presence of the police. She beat up
the lawyer,
Gugu Moyo, for trying to have a Daily News photographer released
by the
police who had arrested him for taking pictures of Harare residents
protesting against the government.
Chiwenga joins a small list
of Zimbabwean government officials or
their relatives who have successfully
breached the EU sanctions to visit
Europe over the past four years raising
questions on the effectiveness of
the targeted sanctions. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wed 19 July 2006
BULAWAYO - Themba Sibanda, 27, is too
ill to walk on his own and
relatives have to carry him around each time he
has to visit the hospital
for treatment for the many opportunistic
infections that frequently attack
his weakened body.
Just four
weeks ago Sibanda - who is HIV positive - was brought to
Mpilo government
hospital almost lifeless after suffering from a severe bout
of malaria. A
doctor quickly prescribed chloroquine course that had Sibanda
up on his feet
just after two days.
But Sibanda's luck ran out this week when he
returned to Mpilo - this
time suffering from acute diarrhoea. He was turned
away because there were
no doctors at the hospital, the largest state
hospital in Zimbabwe's second
largest city of Bulawayo.
"The
nurses said because of his HIV status, only a doctor could
prescribe what
drugs he should take for the diarrhoea and we should come
back when the
doctors' strike is over," Sibanda's sister, Nokuthula, told
ZimOnline.
"He has not been able to sleep for the past two days
because of the
diarrhoea ..only if we had the money to take him to private
clinics," added
Nokothula, despair unmistakable on her youthful
face.
Intern doctors, referred to as junior doctors in Zimbabwe,
are on
strike for better pay and working conditions, the umpteenth time the
interns
who effectively run public hospitals have downed tools to press for
better
remuneration since the country's economic crisis began seven years
ago.
The doctors have defied a government directive earlier this
week to
return to work while their grievances are being examined, insisting
they
would only call off the strike after firm commitment from the
government to
pay them Z$500 million per month, up from a present salary of
$57 million
which is way below the poverty datum line of $68
million.
The doctors also want the government to improve supplies
of essential
medicines and equipment in public hospitals, saying they are
sick and tired
of watching patients die of otherwise treatable diseases
simply because
there are no medicines.
But the strike has dealt
a knock-out punch to the public health system
that was already on its knees
after years of mismanagement and
under-funding.
For example at
Mpilo and the United Bulawayo Hospitals - the two
biggest referral hospitals
in the city and the surrounding Matabeleland and
Midlands province - only a
handful of senior doctors could be seen attending
to only the worst of
emergency cases.
The outpatients departments at the hospitals were
shut down.
It was the same situation at Harare Central hospital and
at
Parirenyatwa, the two biggest hospitals in the capital city and where
ZimOnline reporters witnessed dozens of patients some on wheelchairs being
turned away because there were no doctors.
"It is the poor like
us who have to suffer for this (impasse between
the government and
doctors)," said Lazarus Ndlovu, who said he had travelled
about 100km from
the border town of Plumtree south of Bulawayo but was told
by nurses at
Mpilo to go back and return when the doctors' strike is over.
Deputy Health Minister Edwin Muguti this week attempted to use the law
to
cajole doctors to return to the hospitals, telling them that they
provided
an essential service and were not permitted by law to engage in
industrial
action.
The government's Labour Relations Amendment Act prohibits
providers of
essential services such as doctors and nurses from
striking.
But Hospital Doctors Association president Kudakwashe
Nyamutukwa said
doctors would take no heed of Muguti or the law vowing that
the strike will
only escalate until the government accepts the doctors'
demands.
"The strike has spread and now everyone has joined in, we
will not go
back to work until the government has met all our demands," said
Nyamutukwa.
With no quick end to the doctors' strike in sight,
Nokuthula said
there was little option left for her family except to take
her brother to
traditional healers for treatment.
"We are
devout Christians and it's something we would never have
done .. but the
only other option is to just fold our arms and watch my
brother die," she
said, no doubt echoing the dilemma that many patients and
their families
across Zimbabwe find themselves facing. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wed 19 July 2006
HARARE - A leading South African mining
consultancy firm has
recommended that President Robert Mugabe's government
appoints an
all-stakeholder committee to draw up a plan for black
Zimbabweans to have a
share of the country's mineral wealth.
The Johannesburg-based Venmyn Rand Pvt Ltd, which carries out mineral
project valuations, was writing in an advisory paper to Zimbabwe's Chamber
of Mines that has been battling to convince the Harare government not to go
ahead with plans to seize 50 percent shareholding in all foreign owned
mining firms in Zimbabwe.
The consultancy firm said the
stakeholders' committee should include
representatives from the government,
mining industry and labour and should
be specifically tasked to devise an
indigenisation programme that will
"balance the expectations of all
stakeholders and is in the best interest of
the public, the economy and
political stability."
In May, Amos Midzi, the Mines and Mining
Development Minister, rattled
the mining industry when he announced that the
government had agreed to
pursue a drastic indigenisation programme under
which foreign-owned mining
firms would be forced to surrender up to 51
percent stake to the state and
black-owned mining firms.
Venmyn
said the government's proposed indigenisation programme would
destroy value
in Zimbabwe's mining sector, the only one in the economy which
still had
significant foreign involvement after investors fled the country
because of
political violence and lawlessness.
The South African firm urged
the mining Chamber to request Mugabe to
assure the industry that their
investments were safe in Zimbabwe as an
interim gesture while a fair and
transparent indigenisation programme was
being plotted.
It
said: "In the interim, the mining industry should formally request
President
Mugabe to give assurance that its investments in Zimbabwe are
safe, the cost
of doing business will not rise without consultation,
property rights will
be strengthened in law and the government will protect
mining assets from
being unlawfully invaded."
The Zimbabwe government has given
conflicting signals over its mining
policy with Mugabe at one time saying
the government had not yet agreed on
the indigenisation programme which he
said was still under discussion. But
the Zimbabwean leader has also on
several occasions vowed to ensure
Zimbabweans controlled the larger share of
the country's mineral wealth. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wed 19
July 2006
HARARE - President Robert Mugabe's cash-strapped
government is
planning to forcibly deduct Z$200 000 from all civil servants
and members of
the uniformed forces to fund Heroes Day commemorations which
are set for
next month, ZimOnline has learnt.
In a memo written
by provincial administrator for Harare, James
Chivavaya, which was addressed
to all heads of ministries, the Harare
authorities say civil servants and
those in the uniformed service must
finance this year's Heroes Day
celebrations, held in remembrance of fallen
heroes of Zimbabwe's
independence struggle.
"The Provincial Heroes Committee has made a
decision to ask for
donations from all government employees including
uniformed forces in order
to finance the programme at the provincial heroes
acre.
"May you please assist in this endeavour to ensure that the
funds are
received this month (July)," reads part of the memo which was
circulated
earlier this month.
There are about 160 000 civil
servants in Zimbabwe with a further 68
000 people in the uniformed
forces.
If all pay the stipulated Z$200 000 each, the Zimbabwean
government
will raise about Z$45.4 billion, enough to fund lavish Heroes Day
celebrations around the country's provinces.
With salaries of
between Z$27 million and Z$33 million a month, most
civil servants say any
deductions on their paltry salaries will hit them
hard as they are already
hard-pressed to make ends meet.
"My salary can hardly take me to
the end of the month, even with the
recent increases government awarded us,"
said Austin Muderi, a civil servant
in Harare.
Mugabe's
government has been accused in the past of intimidating
teachers and members
of the uniformed services to contribute cash to fund
lavish ruling ZANU PF
party and government functions in moves the civil
servants said amounted to
extortion. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wed
19 July 2006
BULAWAYO - A Zimbabwean man who is on trial for
allegedly insulting
President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday lost an application
to have his case
quashed with the magistrate remanding him out of custody to
July 28.
Bassanio Chikwiriri was arrested last year in the southern
town of
Gwanda for allegedly insulting Mugabe, whom he blamed for the
collapse of
the country's once vibrant economy. He is denying the
charge.
Chikwiriri's lawyer, Thompson Mabhikwa, last week applied
for a
discharge arguing that there was no prima facie case against his
client.
But Gwanda magistrate, Douglas Zvenyika, on Tuesday
dismissed the
application leaving Chikwiriri to face trial at the end of
this month.
Under Zimbabwe's tough Public Order and Security Act,
it is an offence
punishable by a jail term to insult Mugabe. -
ZimOnline
Mail and Guardian
Godwin
Gandu
18 July 2006 10:59
A former
Zanu-PF provincial chairperson has spilled the beans on
how the ruling party
rigged the 2002 presidential election, which President
Robert Mugabe won
against most expectations.
Dr Daniel Shumba is a retired army
officer, former provincial
chairperson of Zanu-PF and central committee
member who was kicked out of
the party last year, together with four others
after facilitating an
"illegal" meeting that sought to thwart the nomination
of Vice-President
Joice Mujuru as the party's
vice-president.
Now the leader of the newly formed United
People's Party (UPP),
Shumba said Zanu-PF manipulated the postal votes,
which election observers
are unable to monitor properly.
Concerns about vote-rigging are beginning to mount, as the
nation gears
towards the 2008 presidential election, which could see a new
political
candidate from Zanu-PF. Civic groups are pushing for a coalition
to unseat
Zanu-PF, which has been in power for the past 26 years.
Mugabe has repeatedly dismissed concerns about the 2002
electoral fraud,
saying the Movement for Democratic Change were "cry babies".
This week more than 200 members of the reform-seeking National
Constitutional Assembly were arrested across the country for their
involvement in protests to demand constitutional change. By Thursday they
had not been released.
In a detailed reaction to Mail
& Guardian inquiries on how
elections have been rigged in the past,
Shumba said the weakness is that
"nobody has ever been able to account,
monitor and verify the figures of
postal votes".
Mugabe's
apparatus has been able to "exploit [this] at every
turn", he said. "There
has never been a supplementary voters' list showing
the people who cast
postal voters in Zimbabwe."
"That's correct. We have never
had access to postal votes," says
Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN)
chairperson Dr Reginald
Matchave-Hove. "The possibility of rigging is very
very high," he added.
"Accessing [postal votes] has been a mountain to climb
and nobody has the
full picture."
The ZESN says it has
evidence of rigging from the last
parliamentary elections, in which the
figures originally announced by the
government--sponsored Zimbabwe Elections
Commission do not tally.
In the 2002 presidential election
the government's strategy was
to frustrate the urban electorate by reducing
the number of polling
stations. This created queues, which frustrated many
people who eventually
did not vote. An application to extend the -voting
days by two was accepted
by the high court.
But,
according to Shumba's UPP, the area of postal votes needs
to be closely
examined. Manipulation would be used again "because it has
worked
before".
Thousands of ballots are marked in favour of the
Zanu-PF
candidate, Mugabe, from a central point, usually an army base, and
then
posted so that they can be counted as postal votes from residents who
are
physically way from an area in which they normally reside. They were
commonly sent to areas where Zanu-PF is expected to win a large majority so
that the disproportionately big margins do not raise
eyebrows.
A former operative within the Central Intelligence
Organisation
(CIO), who did not want to be identified, told the M&G he
was privy to the
postal vote-rigging strategy.
The
insider said the decision to rig the 2002 election was made
at a joint
operations group (JOG) meeting, prior to the army issuing a
controversial
statement saying it wouldn't salute anyone who had not
participated in the
struggle. "Mugabe was only told [at the JOG meeting]
they were working
something out to make sure the sell-outs never won. He
agreed but never
understood the mechanics involved," the insider said.
The JOG
comprises the army, police, prisons authorities, home
affairs officials and
the CIO, chaired by Mugabe.
To boost votes in the
presidential election, postal votes were
used in strategic provinces
including Mashonaland Central, West and
Manicaland.
Despite the vote-rigging, the UPP will participate in all future
elections.
Shumba insisted the rigging would not prevent
Zanu-PF from being
rejected in the next election.
zimbabwejournalists.com
By a Correspondent
HARARE - THE National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA) says its members
who were arrested last week
and released at the weekend were assaulted and
tortured by the police while
custody and as a result one person is fighting
for his life in the eastern
border City of Mutare.
NCA spokesperson, Madock Chivasa, says the
organisation's members, who
spent four days in police cells had been abused
by the police who wanted
them to reveal the identities of their leaders. The
NCA members refused to
pay guilty fines upon arrest resulting in them being
kept in custody for
four days.
"While we salute the buoyant of
our members who spent more than four
days in police cells in Mutare and
Harare we are deeply concerned by the
barbaric treatment of our members by
the police of assaulting and torturing
them," said Chivasa.
"The police behaved as if human rights do not exist and subjected our
members to inhumane and brutally treatment. In Mutare where our remaining 10
members were released on $500 000 bail today (Monday), one of the members is
battling for his life after he was assaulted by the police to reveal who was
their leader."
"We have since instructed our lawyers to sue
the police," he said.
The torture and assaults apply to Harare
where 128 NCA members were
released on free bail on Saturday. Chivasa says
his members were at times
denied access to food. One of them, a Ms Evidence
John collapsed due to
hunger and inhabitable conditions at the Harare
Central Police Station
cells.
The NCA was denied access to take
her to a private doctor after the
police took her to Parirenyatwa Hospital.
She could not be treated as
doctors were on strike.
"We will be
in the streets soon to demonstrate specifically against
the brutality of the
police. After that we resume our quest for a democratic
constitution," said
Chivasa
The NCA has been at the front of a campaign for a new
home-grown
Constitution in Zimbabwe following the drubbing of the ruling
Zanu PF party
at the 2000 constitutional referendum.
The
organisation has organised a number of demonstrations since then
but still
is to force to government of Zimbabwe to the negotiating table for
a new
document penned with the assistance of all stakeholders in the
country.
By
Tererai Karimakwenda
18 July 2006
It is no secret that the
former Namibian head of state Sam Nujoma is a
firm supporter of Robert
Mugabe and his land reform policy. But many
Namibians were caught off guard
this past weekend when Nujoma reaffirmed his
loyalty to Mugabe then made
threats against the British as he boasted about
Namibia's atomic
capabilities. Speaking at the inauguration of the northern
railway line at
Ondangwa on Saturday, Nujoma said: "The British should be
careful because
they're trying to break down Mugabe's Zimbabwe... If the
English
imperialists make a mistake today to occupy Zimbabwe, I will
instruct Swapo
to go fight for the Zimbabweans."
Phil ya Nangoloh, executive director
of the Namibia National Society
For Human Rights told us he was not
surprised by Nujoma's outburst. He said
Nujoma had been snubbed at the
railway ceremony and felt the need to lash
out. Ya Nangoloh said Namibians
do not agree with Nujoma's views even though
he is still popular and heads
the ruling SWAPO party. He said: "Namibians
realise there is a serious
erosion of human rights next door because many
Zimbabweans are street
vendors here who are telling them what is happening."
Ya Nangoloh informed
us that callers on radio talk shows have shown clear
reservations about
Nujoma's statements. He added that the demolitions of
Operation
Murambatsvina were seen by many Namibians on television so they
know the
real situation that is causing Zimbabweans to show up in large
numbers in
their country.
Ya Nangoloh believes Nujoma creates the impression he is
still in
charge of the country and the current leader Pohamba is his second.
The
former leader has been criticised for becoming more like a dictator in
his
current role as his friendship with Mugabe has grown. Local reports have
quoted Nujoma saying: "We have uranium here and we train our own scientists
and engineers. If they create nonsense, we can make our own atomic bombs."
Ya Nangoloh believes Nujoma was threatening the Kwanyama people, the
majority group from which President Pohamba hails. This same strategy of
instilling fear in his opponents is being used by Robert Mugabe in
Zimbabwe.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
africast
WNDHOEK, July 18 -- Former
Namibian head of state and president of the
ruling Swapo Party, Sam Nujoma,
dropped another bombshell when he said the
country was ready to make its own
atomic bombs in the event of any external
threat.
Nujoma was quoted
by The Namibian newspaper as saying: "We have uranium here
(in Namibia) and
we train our own scientists and engineers. If they
(external forces) create
nonsense, we can make our own atomic bombs."
Nujoma had been speaking at
the inauguration of the northern railway line at
Ondangwa on
Saturday.
Earlier in the month Nujoma had threatened to send Swapo
fighters to defend
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe if "British
imperialists" attacked the
country over the land issue.
"The British
should be careful because they're trying to break down Mugabe's
Zimbabwe...
If the English imperialists make a mistake today to occupy
Zimbabwe, I will
instruct Swapo to go fight for the Zimbabweans," Nujoma
said.
He also
took a swipe at those who warned that Namibia would end up like
Zimbabwe if
it emulated a disorderly land reform programme.
"If they don't like it,
they can leave, go to Britain," he said. - IFS
Where next for land reforms in Africa?
Linda
Nordling
Tuesday July 18, 2006
The Guardian
When white farmers
in Zimbabwe started being driven off their farms at
gunpoint by intrepid
settlers, the country's controversial agenda of land
reform was thrust into
the international spotlight. But what happens after
the news teams
leave?
An answer to this question is being sought in an ambitious £500,000
research
project that is bringing together African researchers and
colleagues at the
Institute for Development Studies (IDS) at the University
of Sussex. Funded
by the UK government and the Economic and Social Research
Council (ESRC), it
will investigate the results of land reform not only in
Zimbabwe but also in
Namibia and South Africa.
The aggressive land
reforms in Zimbabwe have seen the number of commercial
farmers plummet from
more than 4,000 to fewer than 500, and contributed to
severe food shortages
in the once-rich country. But there has not been much
academic investigation
into the effects that could help policymakers in the
region.
"Amazingly, there has been no systematic, cross-country
research on
livelihood change following land reform," says Ian Scoones, an
ecologist at
IDS and a researcher on the project. He will spend the next
three years
collecting and analysing data from land reform sites in the
three regions,
including South Africa's Limpopo Province, Masvingo Province
in Zimbabwe and
the Oshikoto region of Namibia.
After the events in
Zimbabwe, there is now a sense of urgency to look at
land reform in some
detail, he says. "It's an issue that, even if ignored,
won't go
away."
The project will be led from South Africa, by the University of
the Western
Cape on the outskirts of Cape Town. The principal investigator,
Ben Cousins,
who did his PhD in Zimbabwe in the 1980s, says that this kind
of research
has not always been welcomed by the policymakers. A few years
ago, some of
the Zimbabwean researchers involved in the project were locked
up for simply
asking difficult questions.
Cousins does not expect the
same to happen this time. According to him, the
policy processes are
becoming more open to external input and criticism. "In
Namibia and South
Africa, there is a recognition that things are not going
so well. And in
Zimbabwe, they are realising that it is not enough to
redistribute the land,
you must help people to produce on it. It's what some
of us have been saying
for seven or eight years."
But the research will not just shed light on
controversial policies, it will
also break new methodological ground, says
Scoones. Ten years ago, he says,
a similar project would have simply focused
on the economics - how the move
from large-scale export farming to more
diverse small-scale farming has
affected local and national streams of
income.
"We are going to explore with a much more open-ended
methodology," says
Scoones. This will involve looking not only at the
economic viability of the
reforms - although this plays a part - but also
the viability of the new
society structures created by the redistribution.
In particular, looking at
what impact the reforms have had on people's
livelihoods and on poverty
reduction.
Such a holistic view is
essential to understanding the impacts of land
reform, says Scoones. "There
is often an assumption - particularly in
southern Africa, where there is a
long history of large-scale commercial
agriculture - that small-scale farms
are simply scaled-down versions of the
large-scale commercial sector, with
the same needs and ambitions. This is a
misconception."
He gives as
an example visiting a farmer in rural Limpopo. "Such farmers are
almost
always part-time, combining agriculture with an array of on- and
off-farm
activities, linked in very different ways to the wider economy.
Understanding this new setting, and the support requirements it requires, is
an essential challenge for those supporting - and monitoring and
evaluating - land reform."
The results of the project are not
expected to come trickling through until
early 2009. But land reform will
continue to rise up the policy agenda as
climate change and population
change keep putting pressure on the African
continent's natural resources.
"We need to ask how part-time farming,
combined with trade, processing and
other off-farm activities, adds up to a
new type of agrarian economy - one
with new needs and priorities," says
Scoones.
The ESRC/DfID grant has
been recommended for award on scientific grounds,
but is still subject to
final contract negotiations.
New Zimbabwe
By Staff
Reporter
Last updated: 07/18/2006 12:02:00
ZIMBABWEAN opposition leader
Arthur Mutambara says he does not regret
quitting robotics science to enter
politics.
Speaking from Washington DC after meeting Zimbabweans,
Mutambara said recent
electoral setbacks for his faction of the opposition
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) had not made him reconsider his
position.
A small gathering of journalists and Zimbabweans turned up to
listen to the
former NASA rocket scientist in the the suburb of Gaithersburg
in Washington
DC.
Mutambara said: "Many people are asking me why I
left the comfort of the US
where I have a green card or South Africa where I
have a resident's permit
to join the political bandwagon.
"I am happy
to have made such a decision to be in the trenches, fighting
Robert
Mugabe."
Mutambara told the meeting that Zimbabweans in the Diaspora had
an active
role to play in the "struggle" at home.
On the trip,
Mutambara, who met a number of US government officials, was
accompanied by
MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube, Bulawayo South MP,
David Coltart and
Isaac Maphosa, a top party figure based in South Africa.
Coltart told the
same gathering that it was now irrelevant to describe the
two warring
factions of the MDC -- one led by Morgan Tsvangirai and the
other by
Mutambara -- as as pro or anti-Senate.
Coltart said there were people in
the so-called anti-senate, like Isaac
Matongo, who actually supported the
Senate elections while there were others
like Mutambara himself who were
anti-Senate but were now the so-called
pro-Senate group.
Zimbabwean
political commentators say Zimbabwe's opposition is now weakened
following
the split last November.
New Zimbabwe
By Staff Reporter
Last updated: 07/18/2006
10:21:16
ZIMBABWE'S High Court on Monday ordered that immigration authorities
return
a diplomatic passport confiscated from an opposition member as he
attempted
to travel out of the country last weekend, his lawyer
said.
Immigration officials grabbed the travel document of Elias Mudzuri,
a former
mayor and member of the main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC)
at Harare airport, saying he was no longer entitled to it after
being fired
two years ago, according to lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa.
"The
judge ordered that the passport be returned to him forthwith because
there
is no legal basis for it having been taken in the first place," Mtetwa
told
journalists after a closed court hearing on the matter.
Mudzuri was
elected as the capital's first opposition mayor in 2002 but
fired a year
later on charges of misconduct levied against him by President
Robert
Mugabe's government. The MDC has dismissed those charges as
baseless.
Last December the High Court ruled that it was illegal for the
government to
seize passports under a new law barring Mugabe's critics from
travel.
The judgement followed a legal challenge by newspaper publisher
Trevor
Ncube, who contested the seizure of his passport. Observers said
Ncube's
passport was seized because his newspaper published stories critical
of the
government.
On Monday, Mtetwa said the High Court had ruled
that Mudzuri's case "is no
different from the previous case where the state
conceded that the passport
of Trevor Ncube had been unlawfully withdrawn
from him or taken from him".
Mudzuri hoped to regain his passport and
resume a trip to the United States,
Mtetwa added.
State lawyers were
not immediately available for comment.
Last year Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF
party, which enjoys a comfortable majority
in parliament, amended Zimbabwe's
constitution to allow the government to
impose sweeping travel bans on
"traitors" or those harming national
interests.
Analysts said the
move was part of sustained crackdown on critics as the
government struggles
with a deepening economic crisis widely blamed on its
mismanagement.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in
1980, has repeatedly
denounced the MDC as a puppet of the former colonial
ruler and other Western
countries he accuses of sabotaging Zimbabwe's
economy as payback for his
forcible redistribution of white-owned commercial
farms among blacks -
Reuters
New Zimbabwe
By Staff
Reporter
Last updated: 07/18/2006 10:04:37
A ZIMBABWEAN court on Monday
issued and later cancelled a warrant for the
arrest of Justice Minister
Patrick Chinamasa after he failed to turn up for
a hearing.
The
Rusape magistrates court issued the arrest warrant shortly before
lunchtime
and cancelled it three hours latter after the Attorney General's
office said
it had applied in error for the minister's arrest.
Chinamasa is charged
with conspiring to defeat the course of justice.
In a faxed message read
to the court, the AG's office said Chinamasa's
lawyer had informed them that
he would not be able to attend, but that
message had not been conveyed to
the state prosecutor in time resulting in
him applying for the minister's
arrest.
The fax added that the minister's lawyer had told the AG that
Chinamasa
would avail himself in court on August 1.
No reasons were
given for his failure to attend Monday. The trial of five
other accused
persons was also postponed to August 1.
The charges stem from an incident
in which the justice minister allegedly
tried to influence key witnesses to
withdraw charges arising from incidents
of political violence that rocked
Makoni North, which initially sucked-in
Didymus Mutasa, the powerful State
Security Minister.
Chinamasa will be tried together with Innocent
Chibaya, head of the dreaded
Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) in
Manicaland, Cosmas Chiringa, the
district administrator for Makoni, Dennis
Masiya, a senior state
intelligence officer, Simba Muzariri and Robson
Makoni.
Chibaya, Masiya, Muzariri and Makoni appeared before the
Magistrates' Court
in Rusape and were remanded on free bail to July
17.
It is alleged that on December 18 2005 and January 25 this year
Chinamasa
and the four attepted to entice James Kaunye, Leavence Kaunye,
George
Mukundu, Fred Dube, Pedzisai Samanyanga, Wilson Kuwasekera, Emma
Kapundanga,
Nurse Zonke and Idah Chiparange not to give evidence on charges
of political
violence that rocked Makoni in the run up to the 2005
parliamentary polls.
He is alleged to have approached them during the
Zanu PF People's Conference
in Esigodini in December last year and persuaded
them to drop the case.
Ruling party supporters loyal to Mutasa went on a
rampage and beat up war
veteran leader, Kaunye and his supporters for daring
to challenge the
powerful Zanu PF secretary for administration in the
constituency.
Several of Kaunye's supporters were seriously assaulted
apparently at the
behest of Mutasa and his campaign manager Albert
Nyakuedzwa.
Mutasa was later absolved but 23 of his supporters were
dragged to court
over the violent attacks.
Mail and Guardian
Johannesburg, South Africa
18 July 2006
07:17
Striking medical interns in Zimbabwe have defied a
directive to
return to work while their grievances are being examined,
Harare's Herald
newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Its
website said the junior doctors had vowed to return only if
authorities met
their demands that included a 700% pay increase. They also
wanted
substantial loans to buy vehicles suitable for the rural terrain and
allowances commensurate with their work.
The impasse had
left patients stranded with the remaining staff
at hospitals only attending
to emergency cases. The striking doctors were
mostly stationed at
Parirenyatwa and Harare hospitals and downed scalpels
last Tuesday in
protest against their deployment to district hospitals.
On
Monday, the government offered the interns furnished
accommodation and a
district allowance if they agreed to go to the rural
districts. But the
doctors said this was insufficient.
Health and Child Welfare
Minister Dr David Parirenyatwa urged
the doctors to return to work while a
solution to the deadlock was being
worked out.
He said
the doctors should look upon their tour of duty in the
districts as a way of
giving something back to the community that trained
them.
The paper said only emergency cases were being attended to at
the
Parirenyatwa and Harare hospitals on Monday.
At least 250
Zimbabwean medical interns were on strike by
Monday.
"The
strike started off slowly on Thursday last week, but now
everyone has joined
in," said Kudakwashe Nyamutukwa, president of the
Hospital Doctors
Association. - Sapa
The Herald
(Harare)
July 18, 2006
Posted to the web July 18,
2006
Harare
THE Health Services Board is trying to woo back into
service retired health
professionals, especially nurses to beat
shortages.
Acting chairperson of the board Mrs Joyce Kadandara said
efforts were in
place to try and attract even those nurses over the age of
60 back into
service.
Sixty was the retirement age for nurses in the
past.
However, Mrs Kadandara said if they were still able to work, those
over 60
would be welcome to resume their old duties.
"As long as they
feel they are still able to work, we would not mind having
them back in
service.
"This just does not apply for those who are in the country but
even those
who have left to enjoy their retirement elsewhere.
"We
would like to attract them back into the country so they can serve the
nation," she said.
Thousands of nurses have left for the United
Kingdom and other better paying
countries over the years, resulting in
serious shortages.
Mrs Kadandara, a former director of nursing services
in the Ministry of
Health and Child Welfare said the retired nurses would be
able to share
their skills and experience with the younger crop.
She
was speaking at Chitungwiza Central Hospital last Friday where some
private
companies donated top-of-the range equipment and cash to the
hospital.
Government has been mulling over this decision for sometime
now with the
Minister of Health and Child Welfare Dr David Parirenyatwa
having indicated
in the past that recalling retired nurses would fill the
void left by the
exodus of skilled staff at Government hospitals.
He,
however, said a lot of care and scrutiny based on merit and past
performances would be strictly adhered to, to ensure that standards of
nursing would not be compromised.
Despite bonding graduates, the
Ministry of Health keeps experiencing a high
staff turnover.
The Scotsman
FRANK URQUHART
AN AFRICAN under-14s football team has been
banned from taking part in an
international tournament in Scotland on the
orders of the Foreign Office,
which claimed the young players might
abscond.
The 24-strong squad of players from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe had
been due to
take part in the Aberdeen International Football Festival, which
opened in
the city yesterday.
But the squad has been refused access
to the UK amid fears that they posed a
flight risk.
The footballers
from Bulawayo, which is twinned with Aberdeen, were due to
join another 21
teams from Britain, Norway, Belarus, Ghana, the US and South
Africa.
Teams from Bulawayo have played in the festival in the past
without any
access problems.
Gordon Naismith, the festival director,
said the entry applications from the
young Zimbabweans had been denied by
the British High Commission in Zimbabwe
over concerns that some of the group
might not return.
Mr Naismith said: "It is ridiculous to claim under
14-year-olds are a flight
risk."
He added: "They [the Foreign Office]
just thought the youngsters weren't
going to go back to
Zimbabwe.
"You really feel sorry for them, after all the heightened
expectations of
coming to the UK for a short break."
Mr Naismith
continued: "We were looking to break down some of the barriers
the
politicians have put up, so it is very disappointing that they have been
denied visas.
"Aberdeen City Council did not want to be seen to
support the regime in
Zimbabwe, but we were more than happy for Bulawayo to
come across and were
even going to help finance their
accommodation."
He added: "Bureaucracy has gone over the top when they
turn round and say
14-year-old kids can't experience what could be a trip of
a lifetime. The
event is not just about football - it is about understanding
each other's
culture and customs and enjoying the camaraderie with teams
from other
countries. Sadly, the Bulawayo team won't have the chance to do
this."
David Davidson, the Conservative MSP for the North-east, said: "I
find it
absolutely staggering that youngsters could be refused visas as
potential
illegal immigrants. This is an absolute nonsense and flies in the
face of
what we deem to be a free society."
Nku Malusalila, a
spokesman for the Bulawayo team, said: "The British High
Commission has
denied all of us visas. Everyone is disappointed. They say
they don't
believe that we will return home after the festival."
Neil Fletcher, the
chairman of Aberdeen City Council's Bulawayo Trust, also
voiced his
disappointment. "This is a terrible way to treat children who
would have
been looking forward to coming over here," he said. "It's
disappointing for
them, and it's disappointing for us.
"We have had links with Bulawayo for
years with the twinning, and we are
careful about who we allow over here,
and ensure that they go back home."
A spokeswoman for the Foreign Office
said it did not comment on individual
cases.
The Herald (Harare)
July 18,
2006
Posted to the web July 18, 2006
Harare
POLICE in Harare on
Sunday rounded up more than 50 street kids in a move
meant to combat crime
in and around the city centre.
In an interview yesterday, Harare
provincial police spokesperson Assistant
Inspector Memory Pamire said the
rounding up of the street kids was part of
an ongoing operation aimed at
bringing back sanity in the city.
Some of the street children that were
rounded up during the clean-up
campaign escaped from the farms and homes
where they were relocated under
Operation Murambatsvina.
Asst Insp
Pamire said people should desist from giving the street kids and
beggars
money because they usually buy intoxicating beverages, thereby
inciting
violence and eventually disturbing peace as they harass the public.
"The
number of children living on the streets is increasing because of the
money
they get from people.
"We are appealing to the public not to give them
money because we have noted
that doing so would be encouraging them to
remain on the streets," she said.
"These children need basic rights like
education, shelter and health
facilities," said Asst Insp
Pamire.
Asst Insp Pamire also said people should help the poor, but they
have to go
through the right channels such as the Department of Social
Welfare so that
the street kids can be assisted in a proper way.
Most
street children who have been rounded up for more than five times since
May
last year have developed a habit of coming back to the streets.
Street
kids countrywide are in the habit of harassing the public, especially
women
and stealing valuables from them.
Last Friday, The Herald crew witnessed
six street kids snatch a woman's
valuables in a flash along Kwame Nkrumah
Avenue in the city centre.
The woman who identified herself as Pamela
Chokudya lost a handbag worth $10
million containing a 3220 Nokia handset
worth $60 million, $5 million cash,
a plastic bag of groceries and a gold
necklace she was wearing.
The police confirmed the incident and urged the
public to work with them to
remove children from the streets so as to reduce
crime.
The public has hailed the move by the police but they hope for a
lasting
solution to the problem of street kids and beggars.
Police
are targeting street children, illegal vendors, illegal foreign
currency
dealers and touts.
Business Day
Alec
Wescott
--------------------------------------------------------------
CHINESE Premier Wen Jiabao's trip across Africa last month
marked the third
high-level delegation to the continent in a year. His
pickings were
fruitful: 71 agreements ranging from trade to politics to
education. No
wonder he calls Africa "the continent of opportunities". But
is it for
Africa, too? This year alone the International Monetary Fund (IMF)
predicts
China will carry on trade worth more than $50bn with a range of
African
states, and estimates the figure will reach $100bn by 2010.
According to
Beijing, Chinese trade with Africa jumped 35% from 2004 to
2005.
Consider the view from Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe's
new bathroom. While many western and African states have
responded to
Zimbabwe's deepening political crisis by isolating the ageing
autocrat,
Beijing sent him fighter jets and military vehicles worth $200m,
sweetened
with a crate of blue bath tiles for Mugabe's new mansion, in
exchange for
lucrative infrastructure concessions and mining
rights.
Two key questions thus arise: does
Beijing's rapid foray
into Africa exacerbate factors of state weakness in
key countries where
resources have historically been as much a liability as
an asset? And how
can African states reap the advantages of dealing with
China without
undermining African leaders' broader project of improving
governance and
stability on the continent?
In
some places, there seem to be tangible benefits in the
relationship for
Africa. Across the continent, China is investing in roads,
railways,
telecommunications, and hydro-electric power stations, and
building schools,
hospitals, and offices. A new military complex rises on
the slopes behind
Algiers. China is set to build a new railway across Angola
and train
telecommunications workers in preparation for a new fibre-optic
network they
will lay.
But there is a downside, too. Some of
China's key African
partners also happen to be among the weakest states in
the world. Côte d'Ivoire,
the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sudan are the
top three countries
listed on Foreign Policy's Failed State Index. Angola,
Sierra Leone,
Zimbabwe and Nigeria are not much further down the
list.
China is quickly becoming a viable source of
alternative
capital for governments seeking to avoid international pressure
for reform.
Earlier this year, China made a $2bn low-interest loan to the
Angolan
government as part of a "long-term aid package", and it has
subsequently
gained enormous oil drilling rights in new zones across the
country. At the
time, the IMF, along with Britain's Extractive Industries
Transparency
Initiative, had been working on a donor package of it own,
conditional on
increased accountability and transparency in the oil sector.
China's loan
undermined their leverage. According to a recent IMF statement,
Luanda
shelved the latter deal.
China's cosy
relationship with Sudan, meanwhile, included
"$100m worth of Shenyan fighter
planes, including twelve supersonic F-7
jets," according to the Sudan
Tribune, in exchange for "security and the
rights to drill" oil. Khartoum's
complicity in the massive and violent
displacement of Sudanese from the
Darfur provinces by state-sponsored
militias failed to complicate the
deal.
Refugees International, meanwhile, has found
that oil
companies have been forcefully removing individuals in southern
Sudan from
land granted in oil concessions, and have even prevented
internally
displaced persons from returning home following the signing of
the
comprehensive peace accord between the north and the south last year.
China
buys 50%-60% of Sudan's annual oil
export.
As the US Council on Foreign Relations
noted last year:
"China has successfully prevented the United Nations
Security Council from
serious sanctions or other preventive measures in the
face of alleged
genocide and crimes against humanity perpetrated in the
Darfur region." In
September, Beijing worked first to soften a resolution
meant to punish
Khartoum for perpetuating atrocities in Darfur by
threatening to veto it,
then abstained from voting on the final, weaker
draft.
China is not the only source of weapons to
Africa, nor is
it the only country seeking access to the continent's
resources. Neither is
Beijing entirely indifferent to Africa's plight.
Beijing insists that it is
interested only in doing business in Africa and
that its billions of dollars
in investments should be seen as a positive on
a continent that reaps less
than 1% of global foreign direct investment. But
in an age when state
failure counts as one of the greatest international
security challenges,
engagement with the world's most corrupt, inefficient
and repressive regimes
imposes new responsibilities - particularly among the
permanent members of
the security council.
Throughout Africa's postcolonial period, states blessed
with ample resources
have consistently ranked among the world's worst
performers. Revenues from
timber, oil, diamonds and ores have financed
perpetual misery for millions
of Africans. But today, African and
international leaders are, for the most
part, striving to find formulas for
boosting and sustaining economic growth,
ending conflict and improving
governance on the continent. Part of the
challenge is to harness those
resources transparently and constructively.
Employing 10000 Chinese workers
to extract oil in Sudan, rather than
creating critically needed local
employment, does not meet that
standard.
Recently, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zimbabwe's
speaker of
parliament and once a close ally of Mugabe's, observed that,
"With
all-weather friends like the People's Republic of China . Zimbabwe
will
never walk alone". His comment could apply to several of Africa's most
problematic states, and it should be a cause for grave concern among the
continent's policy makers.
Alec Wescott is
an intern on a security and terrorism
research project at the South African
Institute of International Affairs.
zimbabwejournalists.com
By a Correspondent
HARARE - THE opposition
MDC has reported triumphs in its weekend rural
rallies that were addressed
by national chairman, Isaac Matongo and
organising secretary, Elias
Mudzuri.
Nelson Chamisa, the spokesperson for the main MDC camp,
said thousands
turned up for the party's rallies in its nationwide campaign
to interact
with the people around the country on issues affecting them and
the way
forward.
Matongo and Mudzuri addressed about 8 000
people at Magombedze
Shopping Centre in Gutu, Masvingo province on
Sunday.
Masvingo executive mayor Alois Chaimiti and the MDC's
provincial
leadership also attended the meeting.
"At the
meeting thousands of party supporters, including old men and
women, openly
said they were tired of the dictatorship," said Chamisa. "The
people at the
rally said Robert Mugabe had reduced the nation to paupers and
implored the
MDC leaders to expedite the popular resistance programme so
that they can
send a clear message to the regime."
Matongo assured the people
that mass protests promised at the
beginning of the year by the party's
president, Morgan Tsvangirai, were
still on. He explained the MDC roadmap,
which he said was the party's
proposal for a peaceful resolution of the
national crisis. He said Mugabe
risked facing angry and hungry people in the
streets if he refused to accept
the roadmap.
He said the
democratic resistance programme being planned by his party
was aimed at
forcing Mugabe to accept the party's Roadmap to a speedy
resolution of the
Zimbabwe's multi-layered crisis.
The party also reports that thousands
also turned up at rallies by the
leadership of the women's assembly in
Matabeleland North and South.
On Friday, the women's leadership
addressed over 4 000 people at
Gwanda Hall while an estimated 6 000 people
attended another rally at
Dingimuzi primary school in Plumtree the following
day.
On Sunday, the women's leadership was in Hwange where they
addressed
another huge crowd of about 9 000 people at the party's offices
after police
denied them the use of Nengasha stadium on "flimsy
grounds".
"The people's spirits were not dampened. The huge crowd
of singing MDC
supporters only dispersed at around midnight."
Lucia Matibenga the party's National Women's assembly chairperson and
secretary general, Evelyn Matongo, are also on a nationwide campaign to
galvanise the party's structures ahead of the planned action.
"They also took the opportunity to explain the party's roadmap, whose
signposts include a new, people-driven Constitution, a transitional
authority, free and fair elections under international supervision and a
period of reconstruction and stabilization in a new democratic
dispensation," said Chamisa.
This week, the women's team goes
to Nkayi where they are scheduled to
hold eight rallies and several ward
meetings. They will meet grassroots
structures to hear the people's concerns
and to articulate the party's
position regarding the national
crisis.
"The huge crowds continue to tell their own story. The
people are
ready. The people are tired of the dictatorship," said Chamisa.
"The people
have pinned their hopes on the MDC as their only source of
salvation. The
people are determined to save their country. The people are
ready for a new
Zimbabwe. Change is coming."
The opposition was
left weakened after its acrimonious split last
October which saw the
emergence of two MDC parties with the main and bigger
camp being led by
Tsvangirai and a smaller one by Arthur Mutambara.
The
Tsvangirai-led MDC is trying to galvanise support ahead of the
Ukranian-style street protests they are organising. The protests can only
succeed if the people of Zimbabwe heed the opposition's call to get onto the
streets. Tsvangirai has promised to lead the protesters from the
front.
WWF
18 Jul 2006
By Mark Schulman*
Southern Africa just had
one of the wettest summers on record, turning
its usual adobe brown
sun-burnt landscapes into verdant green paradises. In
South Africa's Kruger
National Park, vegetation has grown thick and dried
riverbeds have flooded.
Wildlife haven't had to wander too far in search of
food or
water.
That's great for the wildlife, but not necessarily for the
1.2 million
tourists who come to the world-famous park each year expecting
to spot the
Big Five - lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo - that in
leaner times
are easily found congregating in the open around sparse
waterholes.
But not to fret, even in the best of conditions one
can't miss the
elephants. Not only because they are the largest animal
foraging around the
park - not to mention the largest terrestrial land
animal on the planet -
but because they are numerous. In fact, within the
first few minutes of
entering Kruger's main gate, a large male bull is
easily spotted foraging
among the trees without blinking an eye at the herds
of gawking
holidaymakers - an indication of their high visibility and high
densities in
the park.
"Elephants are such large and
magnificent creatures," said Dr PJ
Stephenson of WWF's African Elephant
Programme, "but they also need a lot of
food and freedom if they are to
survive."
As elephants consume up to 200kg of plant matter in a
single day, when
space is limited, as it usually is, they often come into
conflict with other
animal species, as well as people, who are competing for
many of the same,
often scarce resources.
How many is too
many?
Kruger National Park covers an area of some 20,000km2 - about
half the
size of Switzerland - but it still doesn't seem big enough to
accommodate a
growing elephant population. Unlike many populations in Africa
which remain
endangered as a result of years of poaching and habitat loss,
elephants in
Kruger are growing at a rapid rate. Since the park stopped
culling elephants
about a decade ago as a result of international pressure,
numbers have gone
from 7,000 to over 12,000. According to local officials,
the park's habitat
can only sustain about 7,000 over a long period. Any more
and it will add
pressure to an already fragile and carefully managed
environment.
"With a natural growth rate of 6-8 per cent a year,
the population
currently has the potential to double their numbers every
decade," said Dr
Hector Magome, Conservation Services Director of South
African National
Parks (SANParks), the government department responsible for
managing the
country's 22 national parks.
"Increasing numbers
of elephants are causing major changes to the
vegetation of the park,
destroying trees and reducing habitat available for
other wildlife species.
When elephant numbers go up, tree numbers go down.
At what point do you want
to stop that?"
In the course of their foraging, elephants often
strip the bark of
trees of such important tall tree species as ancient
baobabs, knobthorns -
where birds of prey often make their nests - and
marulas, whose fruit has an
extremely high vitamin C content and is used to
make jam, juices and
alcoholic beverages like the popular South African
liqueur Amarula. Rare
plant species, such as the lalla palm, are also being
damaged.
"Marula trees are endangered due to destructive bark
stripping by
elephants," said Dr Holger Eckhardt, an ecology specialist at
Kruger
National Park. "They can eliminate entire communities of these
valuable
trees in a very short amount of time. Increasing elephant numbers
will cause
increasing pressure on current tall tree
populations."
According to aerial surveys in the park, large trees
are declining by
about 45 per cent in observed areas.
In
addition to tree loss, elephants have been blamed for breaking the
park's
boundary fence and reeking havoc on neighbouring villages, especially
their
crops. The broken fences also allow species like buffalo to leave the
park,
some carrying foot and mouth and bovine tuberculosis which infects
livestock
and have a negative impact on the local economy. Outbreaks of foot
and mouth
disease to the west of Kruger National Park have increased in
recent years.
Managing a recent foot and mouth outbreak cost South Africa
some US$15.5
million.
About 1.5 million people live near Kruger and several
hundred thousand
in bordering Mozambique. Because of these large population
areas, there are
increased concerns of rising human-elephant conflicts.
There have also been
reports of increased elephant attacks on tourists and
personnel.
"Our obligation is to manage and conserve biodiversity,"
added Dr
Magome. "We have to do something to manage the situation, both for
the
ecosystem, the people who live near the park and for those who visit
it."
"Ultimately, the decisions on elephant population management
are all
about choices of what we want. Do we want elephants to be the main
asset of
the park and thus manage for elephants or do we want to manage the
parks for
the entire functioning of the system?"
To cull or not
to cull
Several options are currently being considered by South Africa
and
other southern African range states to tackle local over-population of
elephants. These include range expansion through the establishment of
cross-border protected areas and protection of migration corridors,
translocation to under-populated areas, contraception, and perhaps the most
controversial, culling - the intentional reduction of elephant populations.
Each option has its advantages and disadvantages, each its costs and
constraints.
WWF has for years been working to establish
trans-frontier
conservation areas in Africa to help conserve elephant
migration corridors,
to reduce human-elephant conflict, and to establish
community-based natural
resource management programmes. The global
conservation organization has
also helped establish new protected areas at
the national level, as well as
helped translocate elephants from South
Africa to an under-populated
trans-border park in Mozambique.
But translocation is expensive and labour-intensive and can only help
remove
a limited number of "unwanted" elephants - up to only 14 at a time,
according to Kruger staff. Translocating one elephant can cost as much as
US$8,000. Despite the price tag, many have been taken across the border to
Mozambique, but the elephants have raided the crops of communities still
living in the area, and some have actually found their way back to their
traditional feeding grounds in Kruger - making the whole operation
ineffective. Contraception methods have also been employed over the years,
but this has proven to be expensive and the park's veterinarians say it can
only stabilize populations, not reduce them.
It is because of
such complex challenges that elephant culling is once
again being talked
about to address the problems of elephant overpopulation
and insufficient
space in certain parts of southern Africa. Kruger, as well
as other southern
African parks, used to cull small numbers annually to
maintain populations
at levels authorities considered suitable for their
environment, but stopped
under strong international pressure in 1995 after
populations in other parts
of Africa had been decimated by decades of
systematic poaching. The status
of the species, however, still varies
greatly across Africa. Some
populations remain endangered due to poaching
for meat and ivory, habitat
loss, and conflict with humans, while others are
secure and expanding, like
in South Africa and its neighbouring countries as
a result of successful
management and enforcement.
"No one likes killing elephants, but we
have a responsibility to
maintain biodiversity," said Kruger's Dr Whyte, an
elephant specialist who
has worked in the park for the past 36
years.
"This is the problem with elephant culling. You have the
conservation
management issue to deal with, but there is the emotional side.
A lot of
people identify with elephants, they have family structures similar
to ours;
they look after each other. But in terms of conservation management
of
biodiversity, elephants can have a very significant impact on an
environment."
"We see what happens in other parks when
populations explode," he
added. "We are trying to predict well in advance
before the serious damage
occurs."
Anticipating an
international backlash because of the sensitiviy of
the issue, SANParks and
the South African Environment Ministry have been
debating any potential cull
(no decision has yet been made at the time of
writing this article), taking
in views from a number of stakeholders,
including top scientists, academics,
conservation organizations such as WWF,
animal welfare groups, local
communities bordering Kruger, neighbouring
countries that also have large
elephant populations, and many others.
"We acknowledge the
challenges faced by South Africa in managing its
expanding elephant
population and support the consultative process and
attempt to take on board
all points of view on this very important and
complex issue before making a
final decision," said Dr Susan Lieberman,
Director of WWF's Global Species
Programme.
"Culling should only be considered as a last resort when
all
non-lethal options have been investigated and thoroughly tried and
tested,"
she added.
"It is also vital that African elephant
range states develop
long-term, large-scale national and regional plans for
elephant and land
management that allow elephant populations to exist
without danger to
ecosystems and local communities. These plans should also
provide benefits
to local communities."
Local communities,
local solutions
The elephant story in some of South Africa's
neighbouring countries is
different. In Namibia's north-eastern Caprivi
Strip, where Angola, Botswana,
Zambia and Zimbabwe all meet, there are
thousands of elephants crossing
borders at any given time. In northern
Botswana alone there are an estimated
100,000-plus elephants growing at a
rate of 5 per cent a year, and are
damaging the vegetation in protected
areas such as Chobe National Park at a
record pace. Elephant numbers in this
part of southern Africa far exceed the
population in Kruger and are also
causing huge headaches for wildlife
management and local
people.
"There are definitely too many elephants here and they are
causing a
considerable amount of damage to farmers' crops and even people,"
explained
Beaven Mulani, a field coordinator with the WWF-funded Integrated
Rural
Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) in the Caprivi Strip,
which is
experiencing a rise in elephant-human conflict. Beaven's
grandmother was
killed by an elephant when he was only five-years old and
the issue is close
to home.
"Something like culling would
destroy a lot of elephants," he said.
"If we are talking about conservation
we need to find the right balance. We
must look at the needs of the
communities. The only solution here is to give
hunting quotas to the
conservancies. This will give the communities more
control in managing
wildlife."
Conservancies are a unique conservation system in
Namibia that gives
local communities responsibility and right of ownership
over their natural
resources and wildlife. Registered conservancies acquire
the rights to
sustainable wildlife hunting quotas set by the country's
Ministry of
Environment and Tourism. Wildlife, including small numbers of
elephants, can
either be hunted and consumed by the community, or sold to
trophy hunting
companies, with proceeds going directly to the
communities.
"Communities once received nothing for the use of
their resources, now
they are getting paid for it," said Chris Weaver,
Director of WWF Namibia.
"You can do a lot with the money, like
improving education, increasing
employment, and of course, sustainably
managing natural resources. The idea
is for local communities to manage the
land, wildlife and natural resources
so that they are profitable, and
ultimately, self-supporting."
In the Samambala Conservancy, for
example, the community can earn as
much as $US11,000 for an elephant. In the
nearby Kasika Conservancy, there
are quotas for four elephants, six
buffaloes, two hippos and two crocodiles.
These quotas, if filled, have a
potential worth of over US$80,000.
"Community attitudes towards
wildlife conservation have changed since
the establishment of conservancies
in my region," explained Chief Joseph
Tembwe Mayuni, Chief of the Mafwe
tribe, which lives on the Mayuni
Conservancy in Namibia's Caprivi
Strip.
"As my people see that benefits are going directly to the
community,
they know it is in their interest to look after
wildlife."
Red hot chilli peppers
Although communities in
Namibia have become more tolerant of wildlife
as a result of the
conservancies, it doesn't mean that the human-wildlife
conflict has gone
away. Elephants in many places still disrupt daily life.
Children in the
Impalila Conservancy near the border with Botswana are often
too frightened
to go to school because elephant herds are in the area. As a
result, many
children's education has suffered. Sometimes the conflict ends
in tragedy.
On the Kasika Conservancy in recent years, five people have died
from
wildlife attacks - three from hippos, one from a crocodile, and one
from an
encounter with an elephant.
About 1,600 elephants come across the
border from Botswana's Chobe
National Park each year from June to November
to graze on the lands of the
Kasika Conservancy. Elephants are also among
the main culprits behind crop
raiding, easily damaging a farmer's yearly
income in a matter of minutes.
"My field has been raided several
times," said Moses Maseku from the
Caprivi Strip village of Sikaunga. "This
is a problem, especially as I have
no other income and I get no
compensation. When one elephant comes, more are
sure to follow. I am
expecting more raids. There is nothing I can do."
Elephants are not
just big, but smart. They can easily knock down
fences protecting crops,
even disable electric ones, and are not scared of
loud noises made by
farmers defending their crops. But it seems that they
have one weak spot -
they don't like spicy food.
Chilli peppers have shown to be an
effective elephant deterrent in
Namibia, as well as other parts of Africa
experiencing elephant problems.
Either mixed with engine oil on rope
barriers around the fields or mixed
with dried elephant dung and burned to
make "chilli bombs", the spicy
capsicum seems to work as an effective
anti-elephant repellent.
Albert Stenzi, another farmer from
Sikaunga, has seen his sorghum
fields raided five times in one
year.
"I am going to try and use chilli techniques if I am given
the
chance," he said. "I will try anything at this point to stop the
raid."
Through a WWF-supported project, several conservancies are
now
learning to cultivate several plots of chillies to be used for scaring
off
elephants that raid their crops.
"It's a simple and
effective solution," said WWF's African elephant
expert Dr PJ
Stephenson.
"The success in reducing crop-raiding and increasing
crop yields has
made people more enthusiastic and supportive of
conservation, and has
demonstrated that people can live alongside wildlife
while developing
sustainable livelihoods. And that in turn should help
ensure a long future
for the elephants."
* Mark Schulman is
Managing Editor at WWF International, based in
Switzerland.
END
NOTES:
. The African elephant once ranged across most of the
African
continent from the Mediterranean coast to the southern tip. Although
it is
difficult to assess accurately population numbers, it is thought there
may
have been three to five million African elephants in the 1930s and
1940s.
However, heavy ivory poaching, in addition to habitat loss, saw
elephant
numbers decline sharply in the 1970s and 1980s. Today, it is
estimated that
between 400,000 and 660,000 elephants survive in
Africa.
. In 2000, WWF launched its African Elephant Programme.
With 40 years
of experience in elephant conservation, WWF's current
programme aims to:
increase protection and management of elephants in
Africa; build capacity
within elephant range countries to manage and
mitigate conflict between
humans and elephants; and control the illegal
trade in elephant products.
. WWF has recently supported the IUCN
Species Survival Commission
African Elephant Specialist Group to produce
technical guidelines for the
management of local over-population of African
elephants. This is expected
to be published in early 2007 and will provide
park managers and national
governments with the information they need to
make informed decisions about
the options available to them.
Comment from The Nation (Kenya), 15 July
Wycliffe Muga
Almost every
month, we hear of a historical work that presents the
experience of Kenya
under the colonial government as consisting largely of
fraudulent land
acquisition and brutal torture of the indigenous population
by colonial
troops. These books, which are praised by many though read by
few, no doubt,
bring to light archival details that were not widely known.
Surprisingly,
the books present a one-dimensional image of what really
happened in Kenya
over the past 100 years or so. No history purporting to
assess the complex
factors that were at play in Kenya in the better part of
last century can be
as simple and straightforward as some of the writers
want to us believe. So,
to try and bring about a more realistic picture of
the past 100 years, I
have decided to offer a prize of 100,000 dollars to
anyone who can write
"the other side of the story".
This prize will be given to any writer
who can come up with a defensible
account of the positive contributions that
the colonial administrators, the
early missionaries and colonial settlers,
as well as their heirs, the
present day white Kenyans - made to this
country. In particular, I would
expect this work of history to give due
credit to people like the late Bruce
Mackenzie, independent Kenya's minister
for Agriculture, and Sir Michael
Blundell, who was the most prominent
settler leader in the last years of the
colonial administration. And to
illustrate what I have in mind, let me say
something about Mr Mackenzie and
his achievements as Agriculture minister in
independent Kenya's first
Cabinet. If you ask me what this man did to
deserve the gratitude of this
nation, I would answer that the policies and
programmes that he initiated in
agriculture, ensured that Kenya did not
precede Zimbabwe on a tragic path to
economic ruin.
The economic and political dynamics of Kenya in the
late 1950s and early
1960s were much the same as those exposed later in
Zimbabwe. First, a
minority elite of white farmers who were the backbone of
the nation's
economy, and who had no real desire to give up their privileged
position.
Then, a large population of highly-politicised indigenous
Africans, who had
generations earlier been dispossessed of their lands to
make way for the
white settlers, and who saw political independence as
being, primarily, an
opportunity to get back that land. And finally, the
indigenous leaders of
the newly-independent country, who were only too well
aware that whatever
their credentials may have been as "liberators", their
future careers in
politics depended largely on the extent to which they were
able to deliver
on the promises they had made to their people, and
especially land. What
made Mr Mackenzie something of a visionary is that he
saw clearly from the
start that Kenya's future depended on an immediate and
massive programme for
the transfer of the bulk of the productive land in the
country, from the
white minority to the black majority. And that this had to
be done in an
orderly manner not to jeopardise the supply or quality of the
agricultural
produce on which the country's economy was reliant - and also
without, in
any way, appearing to violate the norms of modern property
rights.
No matter how you look at it, given the colonial histories of
countries like
Kenya and Zimbabwe, no long-term political stability was ever
going to be
possible if there was no such programme. One way or another, a
mechanism had
to be devised which would enable the ordinary man in the rural
areas, to
obtain his small parcel of land, on affordable terms. The "million
acres
scheme" funded by the British government, and other such programmes
carried
out by the Settlement Fund Trustees saw this happen progressively in
Kenya,
over the decades that began in the mid-1960s. And in consequence of
this, we
now have a situation in which the greater part of privately owned
land in
Kenya is in the hands of small-scale farmers. The Kenya Tea
Development
Agency, for example, which serves the interests of small-scale
tea growers
(and which was a creation of the late Mr Mackenzie) accounts for
most of the
nation's tea exports. And after almost 40 years, it is still a
success story
that many other countries have sought to emulate. In colonial
times, tea was
grown exclusively by white settlers in their large
estates.
In Zimbabwe, no such orderly transfer occurred and as a result,
the
political pressures brought to bear on an ageing autocrat, who was
losing
popularity with an electorate that once adored him, led to the land
grabs
that ultimately brought the country to its knees. And speaking of
Zimbabwe,
I think I forgot to mention that the 100,000 dollars prize is a
single note
of Zimbabwean currency. A Zimbabwean, who gave me the note,
assured me that
it could not buy even a loaf of bread in his country, and
that the black
market exchange rate was 300,000 Zimbabwe dollars to the US
dollar. My
intention in offering this unit of Zimbabwean currency was not to
make
anyone rich. Rather it was to provide a piece of paper, essentially
worthless in and of itself, but nonetheless worthy of being framed and hung
up, for its symbolic value in illustrating what Kenya might have become if
it were not for the foresight of people like Mr Mackenzie.