• High Court throws out NCA urgent application
• Mugabe’s speech fails to inspire nation
• ZANU PF candidate’s eligibility questioned
• Crisis more complex than meets the eye
• A new beginning?
• Leading firms 'handle loot of farm squatters'
• Printing cash isn't going to help
• Panicking Zanu PF 'chefs' strip country of assets
• Zimbabwe appeals for food aid
• Zimbabwe political tension eases
• Zimbabwe's leaders need to rise above zero-sum game
• NGOs fear clampdown
• JAG PR Communique
• JAG Compensation/Restitution Communique
• JAG Open Letters Forum No. 120
• The People Take On the Great Leader in New Play

Hlatshwayo said he could not grant an interim order compelling police in
Masvingo to allow the NCA to hold a public meeting at Chevron Hotel, pending
the determination of the urgent application because doing so would have been
tantamount to granting a final order without giving the police the chance to
answer.

The NCA last week gave the police notice of its intention to hold a meeting
in Masvingo as part of its series of meetings throughout the country to
discuss various issues including the need for a new constitution for
Zimbabwe.

On Tuesday, a Masvingo senior police officer wrote to the NCA saying the law
enforcement agency was not going to sanction the meeting because “the time
you intend to hold your meeting is not conducive for the public.”

Under the government’s draconian Public Order and Security Act Zimbabweans
must seek police permission before holding political gatherings.

The police have have been accused of using POSA to prevent the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change party and other government opponents from
holding public meetings with their supporters.

NCA lawyer Ray Muzenda had told Hlatshwayo in the court application that the
decision by the police in Masvingo to prevent the NCA meeting impeded on the
civic body’s freedom of assembly and association.

The civic alliance’s chairman, Lovemore Madhuku, said the decision by the
court yesterday refusing to grant an interim order against the police
effectively upheld the police’s ban on the meeting.

Madhuku said: “This smacks of political decision-making by the court.

“It’s surprising that the same court which granted the government an order
last month to stop the MDC’s “final push” without giving the MDC a chance to
respond, says it could not grant our order because the police had not been
given a chance to reply.”

Court Reporter

      They said while Mugabe touched on some of the issues, he appeared to
lack a clear and focused strategy to resolve the problems which they said he
only referred to in general terms during his speech to mark the opening of
the fourth session of the fifth Parliament.

      But Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF applauded his speech saying it sign-posted
the way to economic recovery and social prosperity for Zimbabweans.

      Janet Maupa, 53, from Murehwa communal lands who was at Parliament on
Tuesday, told the Daily News: “I am not sure whether or not our situation
will at all improve.

      “The problems in the country are too big for one person and I believe
with prayer, we will be able to overcome our problems. I don’t think the
President is aware that we are short of almost everything including our own
bank notes. This has never happened before.”

      A bank teller with a Harare commercial bank, who left his work to
witness the opening of Parliament by Mugabe, said he was disappointed by
what he said was Mugabe’s failure to acknowledge and take full
responsibility for the fast deteriorating economic and social crisis in the
country.

      MDC Member of Parliament Ben Tumbare-Mutasa said Mugabe’s speech
lacked focus as it dwelt on the general.

      Tumbare-Mutasa, who is legislator for Seke constituency, said: “The
speech was not specific. He failed to really explain the problems and
challenges being faced by the ordinary people.

      “It would have been more relevant if he had addressed specific
economic issues such as the acute shortages of cash, the rising inflation,
unemployment and violence because this was a different session. He should
have demonstrated that we are in a precarious situation that needed honest
men who accept the truth.”

      MDC parliamentarians and the opposition party’s leader Morgan
Tsvangirai abandoned their boycott of Mugabe and attended his address to the
House on Tuesday.

      Tsvangirai later said the apparent shift of position on Mugabe by his
party was meant to create a conducive environment for dialogue between
Zimbabwe’s two biggest political parties to find a solution to the deepening
crisis.

      Another MDC legislator, Renson Gasela, said Mugabe had failed to give
detailed information on how his government was going to avert starvation in
Zimbabwe.

      Gasela said: “The nation needs to be assured that next year there will
be enough to eat. The address was too general to address the food needs of
Zimbabweans.”

      The government has appealed for 700 000 tonnes of food from
international donors after poor rains and chaotic land reforms combined to
slash food production by 50 percent.

      But ZANU PF MP for Makoni North constituency Didymus Mutasa said:
“President Mugabe’s speech marked a turn of attitude on everyone. The
presence of the MDC MPs in Parliament means they want to make things work
well.

      MDC chairman for Masvingo Shaky Matake told the Daily News yesterday:
“We have information that Chademana was not on the voters’ roll and to us
one cannot be on the roll on the nomination day.

      “We have since instructed our lawyers to take the matter to court.”

      Presiding officer Ignatius Mushangwe had to extend deadline for
nomination by almost two hours on Monday this week to allow Chademana to
submit his papers.

      Mushangwe yesterday said: “It is true that you cannot contest in a
ward that you are not registered as a voter but you can apply for transfer
and a special certificate will be issued to you. These special certificates
are issued to candidates only and this what happened in this case (Chademana
’s case).” Council elections in Masvingo and other towns are scheduled for
30 and 31 August.

      Own Correspondent

      The fact of the matter is that the crisis is not only perceived but is
directly felt by virtually everyone and everywhere. Moreover, even if the
crisis were a matter of mere perceptions and not the reality, people’s
perceptions are often more significant than the reality.

      In some situations, perceptions are incongruent with the reality on
the ground. However, in today’s Zimbabwe, both the perceptions of a crisis
and the reality of it converge.

      In short, the Zimbabwe crisis is much more than a matter of
imagination; it is no longer an

      illusion.

      This is not to suggest that the crisis affects everyone equally. Every
crisis has its gainers and losers. It is the gainers who are apt to deny the
reality of the crisis for the simple and self-serving, but perfectly
understandable, reason that the prolongation of the crisis translates into a
prolongation of their enrichment or advancement of their interests.

      While the crisis has plunged the vast multitude of Zimbabweans into
misery, it has simultaneously yielded many benefits to a strategically
positioned minority. Of utmost significance is that the gainers or
beneficiaries of the crisis are both state-aligned – i e in government and
the ruling party and close associates – and in the opposition.

      In this sense, there is a convergence of interest (strange though it
may be) in the indefinite prolongation of the crisis. Both the opposition
and the state elite circles are fishing in troubled waters and harvesting
handsomely.

      Given this scenario, any resolution of the crisis has to contend with
the forces that accrue benefits from it. The Zimbabwe crisis is therefore
more multi-faceted, multi-layered and complicated than meets the naked eye.

      The vital question therefore is: who in government, the ruling party,
the opposition and, indeed, in civil society, is benefiting from the crisis
and has a stake in its perpetuation?

      These elements will place roadblocks of all types in their valiant
efforts to torpedo the early resolution of the crisis because it is in their
interest to do so.

      So, at a time when the generality of Zimbabweans are desperate for a
speedy and sustainable resolution of the crisis, this cross-cutting elite
may be desperate to nullify any efforts to

      arrive at such a resolution.

      The logic of this is that the brighter and more hopeful the prospects
for an amicable solution, the more determined and forceful these forces
become to throw all sorts of spanners into the works.

      The long and short of it is that there are those with a vested
interest in the continuation of the crisis and that these elements are both
inside and outside the government. In a sense, the crisis unites them; it is
a unifying factor.

      The fundamental difference is that one faction of this elite is
governing and the other is not but seeks to govern. This is the unhappy
paradox of the Zimbabwe crisis. For this elite, the deeper the crisis, the
higher the yields.

      Early in the last century, Italian social scientists saw society
divided into two major groups, the elite and the non-elite. The former was
further sub-divided into the governing and the non-governing elite, while
the non-elite comprises the masses or the povo, in local parlance.

      The gladiation for power is essentially an elite affair, that is, a
struggle between the governing and the non-governing elite, with the
non-elite being used in a struggle that is really not theirs and from which
they seldom directly benefit.

      The MDC’s tactical move to end its year-long boycott of parliamentary
addresses given by President Robert Mugabe is all the more important because
of the poisoned climate that exists in Zimbabwe after the government last
month detained MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his top leadership for no
reason other than that they sought to lead a peaceful anti-government
protest.

      We sincerely hope that the MDC’s magnanimity in the face of
persecution of its members by the government will be reciprocated by Mugabe
and his officials so that, in the words of the MDC, a conducive atmosphere
is created in the country for a “dignified exit for Mugabe from the
political scene”.

      Only foolhardy and irrational Zimbabweans – not to mention their
unmitigated disloyalty and unpatriotism to the cause of the motherland –
still honestly expect our Old Man and his team to come to grips with a
crisis that the latter created and nurtured in Zimbabwe in the past two
decades.

      The time has long passed for Mugabe and his administration to accept
the painful reality that they have done their bit for Zimbabwe – many would
say ruined the country in the process – and that they have to immediately
give way to a new beginning.

      A new political leadership at the helm of Zimbabwe and new ideas that
build and bind the nation together are sorely needed to pluck this beautiful
and economically rich land out of the deep economic and political hole which
the present leadership has dug it into.

      Yet there are obvious hurdles and dangers that both the MDC and Mugabe
’s governing ZANU PF will have to overcome if meaningful talks to resolve
Zimbabwe’s crisis are to take place.

      First, hawkish elements from ZANU PF spoiling for a fight-to-the-death
against the MDC and the maintenance of the untenable status quo will have to
be sidelined if the envisaged talks are to produce the desired results.

      In tandem, hardliners within the MDC advocating strong-arm tactics
against the government will have to keep their cool and give peace a chance,
aware as they should be of the many-sided intricacies of the crisis and that
ZANU PF, even at this eleventh hour, still holds the upper hand.

      Both sides will have to tone down their poisonous vitriol and take
concrete steps that form peace-building blocks on the irreversible one-way
route to a new and democratic Zimbabwe which, despite understandable
misgivings, must still define a place and role for a departing Mugabe.

      A truly honest and impartial mediator, who is trusted by both
belligerents, will have to be found to bring the two sides to a negotiating
table and to read the riot act, if necessary, to those who step out of line
in the hope of benefiting in whatever form from Zimbabwe’s chaos.

      No doubt, many in the MDC will only be too aware that ZANU PF’s
history shows the ruling party too often as being unwilling to accommodate
the genuine interests of its rivals, preferring to bludgeon them into
submission and then swallowing them to make the peace of the dead.

From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 23 July

Leading firms 'handle loot of farm squatters'

Chiredzi - Two South African corporate giants are under fire for allegedly
handling large consignments of produce stolen from Zimbabwe's white farmers
by supporters of President Robert Mugabe. The mining group Anglo American, a
London-listed FTSE 100 company, and the sugar company Tongaat Hulett are
both accused of processing sugar cane stolen from white farmers who are
under threat of dispossession under Zimbabwe's chaotic "land reform".
Farmers in south-eastern Zimbabwe say Mr Mugabe's "settlers" are routinely
stealing their crop and sending the cane to mills owned by an Anglo American
subsidiary, Hippo Valley Estates, and by Triangle Ltd, owned by Tongaat
Hulett. The farmers claim they have repeatedly reported the theft to the two
companies and to the police in Chiredzi, 300 miles south-east of Harare, who
they claim refuse to take action. "We are victims of the government's
madness over land, and now British and South African companies are
processing cane stolen from us," said Peter Henning, 63, a farmer whose land
has been "listed" for nationalisation. In their defence, the companies say
it is pointless to let the cane just rot, and say they are bound by
Zimbabwean law to process the produce.

The crux of the issue is that when farms are "listed" for government
take-over, a lengthy legal process is triggered before the Zimbabwean
government can claim the deeds. The government says just 300 white-owned
farms out of 6,000 listed have been processed to finality. But in the
meantime, Mr Mugabe's supporters are helping themselves to the fruit of the
land regardless, farmers claim. None of the 50-odd white-owned, 240-acre
sugar cane farms adjacent to Hippo Valley Estates has been legally taken
over, but white farmers say they cannot harvest their crop because their
workers are kept away by the threat of physical violence. In its defence,
Anglo American says it is an innocent party caught in the middle of the land
tug-of-war, and denied that it was using the legal tussle for its own
profitable ends. "We are stuck in the middle of a very difficult legal
dispute," said its external relations director, Edward Bickham. "We are
obliged to accept cane under Zimbabwean law, because it goes off if you
don't." Anglo American added that it had not paid for cane if ownership was
disputed, but had asked the courts to determine who should receive payment.
It also said the sums involved were not millions of pounds, and that Hippo
Valley had sent letters of support to farmers trying to have their farms
delisted for takeover.

Hippo Valley had provided sanctuary to 10 evicted commercial farmers and
their families, and fuel to others, it added - although farmers said they
had been charged commercial rates in both cases. "This is a complex matter,
and we will resolve it through the courts," said Anglo American's Zimbabwe
chairman, Godfrey Gomwe. Triangle's managing director, Simon Cleasby, who
takes the same position, said it was against the law to refuse cane
delivered by a "licensed grower". But a barrister in Zimbabwe, Adrian de
Bourbon, said the "licensed growers" were the white farmers, not the
settlers, and added that the law allowed mills to decline to accept cane if
they had "reasonable cause". "The disputed ownership of the cane is a
reasonable cause," he said. Eric Le Vieux, 38, another farmer involved, said
the two companies had been sent letters from lawyers insisting that trade in
the stolen cane stop. "They have said we can see them in court," Mr Le Vieux
said. "The system has brought chaos to Zimbabwe." Crops and livestock have
been stolen from hundreds of former white farmers violently evicted from
their homes in the last three years. But according to the pressure group
Justice for Agriculture, the sugar cane saga is the first in which
corporates are accused of handling stolen produce. Its spokesman, John
Worsley-Worswick, said: "Farmers and their workers in the Chiredzi area have
been beaten, arrested, lost their homes and livelihoods and their future
prospects."

Printing cash isn't going to help

The government's July 18th injection of Z$12bn (US$14.6m) into Zimbabwe's
financial system - and the announcement that a Z$1,000 banknote is to be
printed for the first time - is likely to create as many problems as it
solves. There is no doubt that the shortage of banknotes is creating
increasing difficulties for Zimbabweans. Banks are unable to supply notes to
their customers; ATMs work only in the city centres; and there are long
queues at the banks and building societies as people wait for cash to be
deposited by other customers before they can withdraw money. However, with
inflation already running at 365%, the move will have little impact on cash
availability. It is also likely to exacerbate inflation, which has risen
from 199% at the end of 2002. Huge food - and fuel - price increases are
imminent. As it is, it is virtually impossible to buy petrol or diesel at
filling stations at the office price of Z$440 (5.3 US cents) a litre. With
the exception of commuter bus operators, which are allowed to buy diesel at
the official price when it is available, people are either paying a
black-market price in Zimbabwe dollars or using foreign currency to pay an
importer. The government has agreed in principle to allow the oil
multinationals to import fuel and sell it at market prices, but the scheme
has still be finalised. When it is, petrol prices will treble, with
far-reaching knock- on effects for the rate of price rises.

At the same time, huge increases in the price of maizemeal, the food staple,
and wheat are imminent. In the black market, the price of bread has more
than doubled in the past month, while coal prices have also doubled. All of
which suggests that inflation will be well above 400% by August, or possibly
even the end of this month. Economists are divided over how long it will
take the rate of price increases to reach four- digits, but even the
optimists expect inflation to reach 700-750% by year- end. Devaluation is
also very much on the agenda - despite official denials. Towards the end of
July business and government will meet to discuss further devaluation from
the current rate of Z$824:US$1 to around Z$1,400:US$1. Representatives of
Zimbabwe's main export industry, tobacco, says that the sector needs a rate
of at least Z$1,600:US$1, as farmers are getting Z$4m for every hectare of
tobacco they produce--half their production costs. By October, when the next
crop is planted, costs will have reached Z$10m a hectare. Without rapid--and
substantial--devaluation tobacco production, already running at one-third of
its peak levels, will fall further from an estimated 90m kg in 2003 to 60m
kg in 2004. All of this is grist to the mill of the South African and US
presidents, who discussed the Zimbabwe "issue" early in July. The greater
the economic pressure on Mugabe, their argument runs, the easier it will be
to get the intransigent 79-year-old to step down and head off for political
asylum. However, that assumes a much greater recognition of economic reality
in Harare than is, in fact, the case. Being in, or close, to government is
paying handsome dividends for a large number of senior officials in the
ruling Zanu PF. Corruption and crony capitalism is serving them very well -
why should they want to change a winning streak?

Panicking Zanu PF 'chefs' strip country of assets

Kumbirai Mafunda

Panicking high ranking officials of the ruling Zanu PF party are allegedly
systematically stripping down the country of most of its valuable assets as
they realise that President Robert Mugabe's reign is coming to an end, it
emerged last week. Economic experts said the entire country was being
methodically plundered by high-ranking Zanu PF and government officials who
plan to eventually flee the country and retire in comfort with their
offshore holdings. In separate interviews with Standard Business, government
critics said some Members of Parliament and Cabinet ministers were on a
massive looting spree. "Asset stripping is a process when regimes are
preparing to depart from government. It is a key aspect of a failed
government and is taking place on a day-to-day basis," said Tendai Biti of
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). "It is a process in which public
assets are transferred to private hands, the private hands being the very
same cronies that have been controlling the public sector," charged Biti,
the MDC's secretary for economic affairs. The black Zanu PF cronies have
graduated from petty middle-class businessmen to real bourgeoisie owners of
the means of production," he added. He said asset stripping was taking place
in various forms with the government's haphazard land grab exercise
providing new scope for the scam.

Biti said recent reports of Zanu PF officials owning vast tracts of land at
the expense of the landless was testimony to the asset stripping exercise.
He said certain quarters with government links had muscled in on strategic
national utilities. "Asset stripping is taking place in many forms. We saw
that with the land reform programme where we have Zanu PF MPs, government
ministers and governors owning about seven farms each," Biti said. Biti, the
MDC legislator for Harare East, said another form of asset stripping had
emerged in the form of forced asset transfers, especially those belonging to
state enterprises. Government ministers and ruling part legislators have
recently acquired significant stakes in public and private quoted companies
as part of the government's privatisation process. "There is a strategic and
deliberate attempt within the ruling elite to amass as much wealth cutting
across as many sectors of the economy as possible. They are establishing a
monopoly that guarantees control even in the event that they lose political
power," said one independent economic commentator.

A civil society spokesperson said senior Zanu PF officials had already taken
positions in the ownership of the media, telecommunications, banking, real
estate and farming. "In farming they have literally taken over the entire
agro-industry," he said. "They understand that transition or political
change is inevitable so they want to underwrite and predetermine the course
of that political change." The spokesperson said civic organisations were
currently compiling a dossier of some of the underhand deals and forced
sales of shares to make reports to Transparency International Zimbabwe
(TIZ). TIZ chairman, John Makumbe, said corrupt Zanu PF officials were
finding safe havens for offshore banking in neighbouring SADC countries such
as South Africa, Namibia and Botswana where they have non-resident accounts.
Other state assets had already been sold to Libya and companies such as its
Tamoil, a Libyan firm involved in fuel deals with Zimbabwe. "Nobody actually
knows what has been sold to Libya, the number of farms and the percentage of
shares Libya holds in Zimbabwean firms is a mystery," Makumbe said. Zanu PF
refused to comment on the allegations levelled against its members. Party
secretary for information, Nathan Shamuyarira, said he had nothing to say

            Political tension between the Zimbabwe government and the
opposition eased this week after reconciliatory gestures from both sides,
but officials said today the parties have not yet resumed substantive talks.

            Zimbabwe is grappling with a deep political and economic crisis
blamed by many on President Robert Mugabe's government. The crisis has
worsened since Mugabe's controversial re-election last year in a poll
rejected as fraudulent by Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader.

            President Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo, the Nigerian
President, have been trying to get Mugabe and Tsvangirai's parties to the
negotiating table to ease apolitical crisis manifesting itself in often
violent electoral contests, isolation by Western powers and withdrawal of
international aid.

            In what many hailed as positive gestures, this week, for the
first time in three years, opposition lawmakers did not boycott Mugabe's
speech on Tuesday marking the opening of parliament. Even Tsvangirai, who is
on trial for allegedly trying to have Mugabe assassinated, attended the
session.

            The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which holds just over
a third of the 150 seats in parliament, said it had decided to attend to
create an environment for political dialogue. Mugabe made no mention of this
possibility in his speech.

            Although Mugabe issued his usual warning to his political
opponents that anyone who tried to destabilise his government would face the
"full wrath of the law", analysts said by his fiery standards his speech was
very restrained.

            The 79-year-old former guerrilla leader, who dismisses
Tsvangirai as a "pathetic puppet", did not call the opposition any names in
the main speech and in a subsequent statement at a state banquet for
legislators.

            Instead, he said parliament should be treated as an "honourable
house" for all political players, and that the MDC MPs' presence during his
address augured well for the country.

            The tightly controlled state broadcaster ZBC has since Tuesday
put a positive spin on what it calls a "sign of thawing of relations and
that talks are possible". But the chief spokesperson for Mugabe's ZANU-PF
party said "substantive negotiations" could only take place when the MDC
drops its legal challenge and recognises Mugabe's government.

            Mugabe's government walked out of political talks with
Tsvangirai's MDC in April 2002 after the opposition went to court to
challenge the election result, saying the South African and Nigerian
mediation efforts must wait until the courts have ruled on the case.

            The election petition has been set for hearing in November.

            The MDC said this week it was working to resume talks with
ZANU-PF and that Tsvangirai had strengthened a negotiating team led by
Welshman Ncube, MDC secretary-general, in readiness. - Reuters

The Daily News (Harare)

July 24, 2003
Posted to the web July 24, 2003

SUPER Patriots And Morons, a play about His Excellency, the Super Patriot,
who has ruled his small African nation as a dictator since it attained
independence from the colonialists will be shown in 10 provinces in
Zimbabwe.

The play will kick off tomorrow in all the provinces. Each province has its
own cast and for the past 16 days Rooftop Promotions has been conducting
rehearsals for the actors and actresses.

Also in attendance and helping with the rehearsals were seasoned actors
O'Brian Mudyiwenyama, Jasen Mphepho, Mackay Tickeys and Daves Guzha.

Super Patriots And Morons will also be staged in Harare at the Mannenberg on
29 July.

His Excellency, the Super Patriot, has ruled his small African nation with
an iron hand and has successfully muzzled the Press, cowed the judiciary,
and is intolerant of the opposition that he sees as a front of the
neo-imperialists.

All this, in the determined pursuit of perpetuating his personal rule. The
country is his, in the true sense of the word.

When this crumbles, bastardising the country's socio-economic fabric, the
Super Patriot's world starts giving in, thus triggering a series of logical
questions from the populace.

Led by a pregnant woman Shami, the people, who see the Super Patriot as the
source of their pathetic predicament resolve to take the Dear Leader head
on.

The ground is set for a dramatic confrontation. The Super Patriot with every
state machinery at his disposal to defend his personal rule, and the people
with nothing to lose but their misery.

It is a case of the people versus the powerful Great Leader.

What is at stake is their respective existence. Both sides have no room for
compromise in this battle for the ultimate survival. He who wins lives.

Produced by Daves Guzha and directed by Calle Kjellgren, the play which will
take place in Harare features Daves Guzha, Mackay Tickeys, O'Brian
Mudyiwenyama, Jasen Mpepho and Eyahra Mathazia.