http://www.telegraph.co.uk
Bob Vaughan-Evans, a director of
Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers' Union, has
been axed to death at his
home.
By Peta Thornycroft in Harare
Published: 11:12PM BST 07 Jul
2009
Mr Vaughan-Evans, who was in his late seventies, was killed on the
eve of
his wife Jean's 80th birthday.
The couple were attacked in
their home in Gweru, Zimbabwe's third largest
city, where Mr Vaughan-Evans
represented the CFU in the Midlands Province.
The CFU president, Trevor
Gifford, said Mr Vaughan-Evans, a renowned
agriculturalist and
conservationist, died from head wounds after he was
attacked by an
intruder.
He said he did not yet know Mrs Vaughan-Evans's
condition.
"She is frail and in a wheelchair from a previous attack, also
in their
home," he said.
Mr Gifford said the couple had been attacked
three times in the last six
months, once for about £15.
President
Robert Mugabe began siezing thousands of white-owned farms in 2000
and now
only a few hundred remain on small portions of their original land
holdings.
"We still do not know details of what happened. Bob was a
very important
member of the CFU team," said Mr Gifford.
Zimbabwe's
crime statistics are seldom disclosed, but there has been a surge
of armed
and violent robberies, particularly since Zimbabwe abandoned its
worthless
currency in January and now uses US dollars or South African rands
http://www.irishtimes.com
Wednesday,
July 8, 2009
INSIDE ZIMBABWE: The latest violence may be linked to a plan to
intimidate
people ahead of a constitutional referendum, writes BILL CORCORAN
.
OMINOUSLY, DESPITE participation by the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC)
in a cross-party government, politically motivated attacks on the
party's
activists by Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe loyalists appear to
have
resumed.
Over the past two weeks, a party source says, a number
of MDC activists from
around the country have contacted the former
opposition party to say they
have been assaulted by supporters of Mugabe's
Zanu-PF party, who, they
allege, are preparing a new wave of violence for
the rural areas.
The increase in violence against supporters of the MDC,
which entered into a
transitional government with Zanu-PF last February as a
means to move past
disputed elections, is feared to be linked to a plan to
intimidate people
ahead of a constitutional referendum.
"Our
intelligence is telling us the joint operations committee [Mugabe's
security
council, which is made up of army generals] has decided to reform
the youth
militia and prepare them for a campaign of 'persuasion' that will
begin in
late September," according to the source.
Article six of Zimbabwe's
three-way powersharing deal, the global political
agreement (GPA), states
that a new constitution created through a
people-driven consultation process
must be passed into law before fresh
elections can take
place.
Reformists from the two MDC parties say a new people's charter is
needed to
govern the nation because the current constitution has been
amended by
Mugabe's party 19 times since it was adopted in 1980.
The
majority of changes have increased Mugabe's presidential powers.
The
early stages of the public consultation process, which began towards the
end
of last month and involved political and civil-society representatives,
as
well as members of the public, have been tense.
Some civil-society
organisations are deeply divided on how best to approach
the process, with
the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the
constitutional lobby group,
the National Constitutional Assembly,
questioning the manner in which it has
taken place so far.
The two organisations are opposed to the use of the
Kariba draft, negotiated
between MDC and Zanu-PF in September 2007 as the
basis upon which a new
constitution will be crafted.
The MDC and
Zanu-PF are also on a collision course over the document, as the
former sees
it as a starting point, while the latter wants it to become the
constitution, as it leaves Mugabe's presidential powers mostly
intact.
Late last month the MDC's national executive said: "The MDC
believes in a
truly people-driven constitution-making process where the
unfettered will of
the people must be reflected."
However, the
state-owned daily, the Herald, argued recently that carrying
out widespread
public meetings to gather public opinion was a waste of money
when there
were "many more pressing priorities crying out for funding".
The
consultation process has been made more difficult by the fact that it
has
started at a time when the transitional government parties appear to be
drifting apart rather than coming together.
In the most recent sign
of a fracture, MDC government ministers boycotted a
cabinet meeting at the
end of June that had been brought forward by Mugabe
so that he could chair
the meeting before flying to Libya for an African
Union summit.
The
MDC ministers were apparently upset that Mugabe was unwilling to allow
the
prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, who should chair in his absence, to
take
control of the meeting.
The recent political attacks, which began with
the assault of an opposition
election agent in the northern Zambezi valley
at the end of last month, have
raised tensions among grassroots MDC members,
with a growing number of them
calling on the party to pull out of the GPA,
which was signed by Zimbabwe's
three main political parties.
The
disaffected members are asking why the party should continue in the
powersharing arrangement it produced when several outstanding GPA issues,
including the ongoing harassment and jailing of party members by the police
and judiciary, remain far from resolved.
MDC welfare secretary Kerry
Kay told The Irish Times that the rule of law
was not being respected by
Zanu-PF, which remains in control of the security
forces and the
judiciary.
"What we are seeing is selective justice. Our members are
being attacked and
jailed, while the Zanu-PF people who looted and raped
last year [during the
disputed general election] are getting away
scot-free," she said.
Much to many MDC members' despair, Tsvangirai has
repeatedly tried to play
down the severity of some of the breaches of the
GPA, including the
resurgence of white-owned farm invasions, by his
political rivals in recent
times.
According to the first victim of
the latest attacks, who travelled from the
rural village of Muzarabani to
MDC headquarters in Harare late last week,
his attackers were definitely
members of Zanu-PF, as they had assaulted him
on a previous occasion during
last year's general election.
The man, whose name has been withheld for
safety reasons, told the MDC his
attackers smashed his arm with the blunt
side of an axe after confronting
him as he walked home from his local
shop.
He is currently in a Harare hospital recovering from surgery to
save his
shattered limb.
On Monday, the MDC received another report
of an attack on one of its
members, who worked as a party chairman in Mranda
Pfungwe in Mashonaland.
The man was attacked by two Zanu-PF war veterans
as he was gardening outside
his house.
He was hit on the head with an
axe by one of the men, and was due to arrive
in Harare yesterday for medical
treatment.
http://news.scotsman.com
Published
Date: 08 July 2009
By JANE FIELDS IN ZIMBABWE
POLICE in Zimbabwe have
arrested two men who raped a 24-year-old woman then
fell asleep at the scene
of their crime.
In a terrifying attack, the men went to the woman's home
in Dulibadzimu
township in Zimbabwe's border town of
Beitbridge.
Posing as detectives, they ordered her to accompany them to
the police
station. Once outside, they dragged her to a bushy area on the
banks of the
Limpopo River, where they raped her - and fell
asleep.
The woman sneaked away to alert her sister and security guards,
who returned
and carried out a citizens' arrest before police
arrived.
The attack shows just how crime is spinning out of control in
once-peaceful
Zimbabwe.
The number of armed robberies and assaults
has surged since a unity
government between president Robert Mugabe's
ZANU-PF and the former
opposition Movement for Democratic Change was formed
in February.
Regular bank raids, hijackings and supermarket shootouts are
prompting
unfavourable comparisons with neighbouring South
Africa.
The latest bank to be targeted was Barclays, in the second city
of Bulawayo,
last Friday. Six men with pistols burst into the building and
terrified
tellers before getting away with $50,000, 126,000 rand and £500.
Kingdom
Bank, in Harare, has been targeted twice.
In Harare's Glen
Norah township, residents are keeping to a 6pm curfew after
a mobile phone
trader was beaten to death by muggers last month.
Giles Mutsekwa,
Zimbabwe's home affairs minister, believes former diamond
diggers and
dealers, who were removed from the Marange fields in a
controversial
security operation last year, are behind the crime. "They are
turning to
this crime because they have to maintain their lifestyles," he
said. "It's a
cause for concern."
Foreign nationals who entered Zimbabwe to take part
in the diamond trade
were also involved, he claimed.
Analysts say
that the surge in crime is linked to super-high inflation; when
Zimbabwe's
worthless dollar was in circulation, criminals found it more
lucrative to
"money-burn" - conduct illicit deals in foreign currency over
the internet -
than steal money that would lose its value in a matter of
hours.
Canny criminals are trading on the fact that Zimbabwean
businesspeople, wary
of central bank raids on their accounts, are bank-shy.
George Guvamatanga,
the managing director of Barclays Zimbabwe, said last
week that Zimbabwe
banks held just £294 million in deposits, while £619
million was kept out of
the system, in homes, safes or offices.
Jane
Mutasa, a Harare businesswoman, was robbed at gunpoint of£12,382 and
her
Mercedes Benz S350 in Harare's quiet Greystone Park suburb, which is
better
known for its pair of roaming leopards than as a haven for robbers.
"I
was ordered to get out of my vehicle by one of the accused persons, who
was
wearing a police uniform and armed with a pistol," she told a court last
week.
There is speculation some of attacks are politically-motivated.
A gang armed
with AK47s raided the home of Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga,
the MDC's
minister for regional integration, who was in Brussels at the
time. The men
attacked and badly injured her husband, Dr Christopher
Mushonga, who is in
his seventies.
Family members told the Standard
newspaper the attackers taunted Dr
Mushonga: "You are from the MDC, we are
Zanu-PF and we have been sent to
beat you up."
And questions are
being asked as to why 45 armed robbery suspects were
released on bail last
month - when rights activists and MDC officials are
regularly denied
bail.
http://www.thezimbabwetimes.com/?p=19452
July 8, 2009
By Ntando
Ncube
A high-ranking member of former South Africa president Thabo
Mbeki's
mediation team during Zimbabwe's political negotiations said on
Tuesday that
the June 2009 presidential run-off election was a
"nightmare".
Speaking at a meeting held in Johannesburg Frank Chikane who
resigned last
week as director-general in the office of the President of
South Africa,
admitted that the SADC-brokered Global Political Agreement
(GPA) was not the
best solution to Zimbabwe's political
crisis.
Chikane accused western nations of withholding developmental
funds from the
inclusive government and of dictating issues to Prime Minster
Morgan
Tsvangirai.
"It is a transitional government," Chikane said,
"it's not perfect. There is
no perfect political solution, there is no
perfect way of solving a problem
but it gives them (Zimbabwe political
parties) the possibility to resolve
their problems.
"There are three
parties that agreed on the GPA but then there are people
who now say they
don't accept it. I don't have a problem with international
support but I
have problem when they dictate. They must allow Tsvangirai to
make his own
decisions at this critical time to help Zimbabwe even if they
don't agree to
some of his decision."
Speaking at the same meeting Zimbabwe political
analyst, John Makumbe, urged
for the establishment of a Truth, Justice and
Reconciliation Commission in
Zimbabwe as part of bringing to justice people
who committed human rights
violations - including sexual abuse against women
- during the run-up to the
second-round presidential election held in June
2008.
Makumbe said the international community was not demanding anything
extra
from the government of national unity, but only asking the parties to
fully
implement the GPA.
"The agreement has defects," Makumbe said,
"serious defects. The GPA is very
defective. It lacks any mechanism of
enforcement. It needs benchmarks. As a
result it is one of the worst
agreements ever facilitated by an African
country.
"South Africa must
remain on the straight and narrow when it comes to
Zimbabwe. I think
President (Jacob) Zuma has more skill than that of Mbeki
and we are going to
appeal to him."
Zimbabwe witnessed some of its worst-ever political
violence after
then-opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai failed to achieve
the margin
required to form a new government after the first round of
elections.
Tsvangirai eventually pulled out of the June election, citing
state-sponsored violence against his supporters. The incumbent, President
Robert Mugabe, proceeded to win the election unchallenged.
The
election was widely condemned, and the ensuing political stalemate was
eventually resolved when rival parties signed the Global Political Agreement
(GPA) in September, resulting in the establishment of a government of
national unity in February.
"Violence is still happening", said
Makumbe. "It is still an outstanding
issue and Zimbabweans themselves know
that the violent are still at large
and doing as they want. The GPA does not
talk about truth and
reconciliation. The healing process will not occur in
Zimbabwe unless the
truth comes out. More needed is justice. Truth and
justices are the
necessary process which will generate healing. Healing and
reconciliation
are products of truth and justice. The truth has to come out;
the person has
to be judged and justice must be administered."
Women
have called on the parties to the inclusive government to institute a
truth
and reconciliation commission, TRC, similar to that set up in South
Africa
to expose apartheid-era crimes, to examine the violence before and
after the
presidential election run-off.
http://www.independent.co.uk
By Tom Peck
Wednesday, 8 July
2009
The Foreign Office minister Lord Malloch-Brown has announced he is
stepping
down as a Government minister at the end of July.
The minister
for Africa, Asia and the UN insisted he still "greatly admired"
Gordon Brown
and that the decision had nothing to do with the "political
situation". He
added that the decision had been made due to "personal and
family
reasons".
But the minister's departure, which adds to a long list of
recent high
profile resignations, is a considerable blow to the Prime
Minister. In a
statement, Lord Malloch-Brown said: "I have always said that
I would not do
this job forever. I have strong personal and family reasons
for moving on at
this time.
"I came into government as a
professional, not a politician.
"My decision to step down at the end of
July is not in any way a commentary
on the political situation. I greatly
admire the Prime Minister and continue
to support him and his
government.
"I joined the Government at his invitation to help promote
his international
priorities. It has been a great privilege to do that, and
to work with him
and with David Miliband."
Downing Street said: "The
Prime Minister is grateful for the outstanding
work that Lord Malloch-Brown
has done as Foreign Office minister. The
Government has greatly benefited
from his exceptional knowledge of Africa,
the respect in which he is held by
an extensive network of close contacts,
and his passion for his
work.
"His support in preparing the G20 London Summit ensured that the
plans set
out enjoyed the widest possible international
support."
Lord Malloch-Brown started his career as a journalist before
working at the
World Bank and then joining the United Nations - rising to
become the deputy
secretary general.
In June 2007 he was one of the
independent so-called "Goats" recruited by Mr
Brown to join his "government
of all the talents". Another, Lord Digby
Jones, resigned after just 18
months as trade minister.
As Africa minister, the peer played a major
role in negotiations over how to
tackle Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe.
His appointment to the government
came as a surprise to many, owing to a
series of clashes with the Bush
administration when he was at the
UN.
He also attracted some controversy, not least owing to his occupation
of a
grace-and-favour home in Whitehall, previously occupied by John
Prescott.
There were also persistent rumours of tensions with his direct
boss, Foreign
Secretary David Miliband.
http://www.voanews.com
By
Blessing Zulu
Washington
07 July 2009
A showdown
loomed Wednesday within Zimbabwe's troubled power-sharing
government as
ministers from the Movement for Democratic Change formation of
Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai vowed to pressure their ZANU-PF governing
partners to meet in full the terms of the September 2008 Global Political
Agreement underlying the government.
MDC sources said a walkout from
a cabinet meeting scheduled for Wednesday is
one option if ZANU-PF and
President Robert Mugabe do not accede to their
demands.
The formation
boycotted a cabinet meeting called by Mr. Mugabe on Monday,
June 29, saying
Mr. Tsvangirai was slighted when the president moved up the
meeting from
Tuesday that week so he could chair it before leaving for an
African Union
summit. MDC officials also cited unresolved issues facing the
unity
government since it was formed in mid-February.
Sources familiar with
discussions in a meeting Tuesday of top MDC officials
said Mr. Tsvangirai
rejected Mr. Mugabe's claim that the prime minister
apologized for last
week's boycott.
Tsvangirai spokesman James Maridadi told VOA that Mr.
Tsvangirai did not
offer an apology, saying the prime minister fully
understands MDC
frustrations over lingering issues.
Such issues
formerly focused on Mr. Mugabe's reappointment in late 2008 of
Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono without consultation with his
prospective
MDC partners, and his appointment at the same time of Attorney
General
Johannes Tomana.
But more recently, Tsvangirai MDC officials have been
disconcerted and
angered by a series of prosecutions of party members of
Parliament, in one
case resulting in a seven-year sentence. The MDC suspects
the judicial
pursuits are intended to whittle down its House
majority.
Political analyst Charles Mangongera told reporter Blessing
Zulu of VOA's
Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the MDC move to up the ante with
ZANU-PF is
overdue.
http://www.nytimes.com/
By CELIA W.
DUGGER
Published: July 7, 2009
JOHANNESBURG - A team assessing Zimbabwe's
compliance with international
standards to prevent the diamond trade from
fueling conflict found that the
nation's military had been directly involved
in illegal mining and that the
authorities had carried out "horrific
violence against civilians," according
to a memo the team gave to Zimbabwean
officials.
The team, sent on a mission to Zimbabwe last week under the
Kimberly
Process, an international undertaking to halt the trade in
so-called blood
diamonds, said its recommendations could include the full
suspension of
Zimbabwe from the process, further complicating the country's
ability to
sell its diamonds on international markets. Already, the World
Federation of
Diamond Bourses has recommended that its members in 20
countries not trade
diamonds from the Marange deposits in eastern Zimbabwe
because of reports of
abuses.
In his confidential memo, the team's
leader, A. Kpandel Fayia, told
Zimbabwean officials that he was so disturbed
by the testimonies of victims
the team met that he had to leave as they
spoke.
"Our team was able to interview and document the stories of tens
of victims,
observe their wounds, scars from dog bites and batons, tears,
and ongoing
psychological trauma," said the memo by Mr. Fayia, a deputy
minister of the
ministry that oversees mining in Liberia. "I am from
Liberia, sir; I was in
Liberia throughout the 15 years of civil war, and I
have experienced too
much senseless violence in my lifetime, especially
connected to diamonds."
He told them, "This has to be acknowledged and it
has to stop."
The memo was provided to The New York Times by a person
with knowledge of
the proceedings, and confirmed by two others, including
one who attended the
team's briefing with officials.
The government
officials, who have adamantly denied any state-sponsored
violence in the
diamond fields, told the state-owned newspaper that they
would try to comply
with the Kimberly Process before the team issued its
final report.
Zimbabwe's deputy mining minister, Murisi Zwizwai, was quoted
as saying
after Mr. Fayia's presentation that Zimbabwe had agreed to remove
soldiers
from the fields "in phases while proper security settings would be
put in
place."
The Kimberly team, which included Liberian, American and Namibian
officials,
as well as representatives of the diamond industry and civic
groups, told
Zimbabwean officials that they should suspend mining in the
Marange fields,
demilitarize the operation and investigate the role of the
military and the
police.
It is hard to predict what the government
will do. President Robert Mugabe,
85, is deeply hostile to Western nations
and international nongovernmental
organizations pressing him to restore the
rule of law.
After meeting the most senior American diplomat for Africa,
Johnnie Carson,
on Sunday on the sidelines of the African Union summit
meeting in Libya, Mr.
Mugabe angrily called Mr. Carson, a former ambassador
to Zimbabwe, "an
idiot."
"You have the likes of little fellows like
Carson, you see, wanting to say,
'You do this, you do that,' Mr. Mugabe was
quoted as saying Monday in The
Herald, the state-owned daily. "Who is he? I
hope he was not speaking for
Obama. I told him he was a shame, a great
shame, being an African-American."
Mr. Mugabe has sought to use his
control of the country's only daily
newspaper to shape public
awareness.
Its story Friday was headlined, "Kimberly team dismisses
negative reports,"
and offered quotes from Mr. Fayia that suggested Zimbabwe
was getting
illegal mining under control. It included no hint that the team
was finding
serious human rights abuses.
Just days before the mission
left for Zimbabwe, Human Rights Watch issued a
report accusing the military
of violently seizing the Marange diamond fields
last year, then organizing
syndicates of miners and smuggling the diamonds
out of the
country.
Some of the people who met with the Kimberly team described in
interviews
what they told its members - and what they never got the chance
to relate. A
man who pleaded not to be quoted by name for fear he would be
killed said he
witnessed the burial of 85 people in a mass grave who had
been killed in the
Marange diamond fields. He offered to take the team to
the grave site, he
said, but was told they were out of time.
Brian
James, the mayor of Mutare, brought two miners from a remote area whom
he
said were shot during the military's operation in the Marange fields. But
by
the time their turn came to testify, Mr. James said, "They felt they were
quite traumatized by what they had seen and heard. Seeing more people wasn't
going to make any difference."
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Cuthbert Nzou Wednesday 08 July
2009
HARARE - Zimbabwe's labour movement on Tuesday accused
the former opposition
MDC parties of selling out on the people by agreeing
to have Parliament
instead of citizens leading the writing of a new
governance charter for the
country.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU) that sired the MDC in1999
accused the former opposition of
exchanging principle for power in a unity
government with President Robert
Mugabe's ZANU PF party - in a sign of
widening rifts between the union and
its progeny that could have far
reaching consequences.
ZCTU secretary
general Wellington Chibebe said the union, other civic
organisations and the
MDC - then a single party led by the labour movement's
then secretary
general Morgan Tsvangirai - agreed at a national working
peoples' convention
in 1999 to push for a people-driven constitution making
process.
The
labour body said it was surprised that the two MDC formations had agreed
to
a Parliament-driven constitutional reform process during talks that
culminated in the inking of the global political agreement (GPA) last
September that led to formation of a power-sharing government last
February.
"The ZCTU is custodian of the resolutions of the national
working peoples'
convention (that preceded formation of the MDC) and will
endeavour to follow
to the book what was agreed then," Chibebe said in a
statement issued ahead
of national convention beginning tomorrow and called
to chart the course of
the Parliament-led constitutional reforms.
He
added: "We have not deviated from what was agreed at the convention of
1999.
This is the song we used to sing with our colleagues in civic society
and
even those in the MDC before they went into government. Even the first
MDC
manifesto speaks about a people-driven process. We wonder what has
changed
now."
The ZCTU, MDC and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
political
pressure group successfully mobilised Zimbabweans to reject a
government
sponsored draft constitution in 2000 - divisions in the alliance
could
weaken the MDCs capacity to wrench concessions from Mugabe and ZANU PF
during the writing of the new constitution.
The union and the NCA
last weekend boycotted a civil society convention in
the capital arguing
that the organisations that organized the conference
were in support of the
Parliament-driven reforms.
Mugabe has said any new constitution should be
based on a draft constitution
secretly authored by the MDC and ZANU PF on
Lake Kariba and known as the
Kariba draft.
Critics say the document
leaves untouched the wide-sweeping powers that
Mugabe continues to enjoy
even after formation of a unity government with
Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime
Minister Arthur Mutambara, head of the smaller
MDC formation.
The
ZCTU said Mugabe "brought our worst fears to life" when he said the
Kariba
draft constitution would be the reference document for the new
constitution.
Chibebe said it was clear from the GPA that the three
political parties
agreed to use the Kariba draft as the main document for
the current process.
"It is foolhardy for anyone to say and think that
parties never agreed to
use the Kariba draft when they appended their
signature to the GPA," Chibebe
said dismissing claims that Tsvangirai last
weekend said the Kariba draft
would not be a reference document.
The
political agreement signed by Tsvangirai, Mugabe and Mutambara clearly
refers to the Kariba draft and totally ignores other draft constitution
produced over the past decade, situation that analysts say means the
document will take precedence over other drafts and probably over what
people may suggest during the outreach programme.
The ZCTU said:
"There is a world of difference between a people-driven
process and
Parliament-led process. The latter is led by people who have
vested
interests and there is bound to be some form of bias towards
individual's
political party's views. The ZCTU is still of the opinion that
a neutral
person should be selected to lead the process." - ZimOnline
http://www.zimonline.co.za
by Cuthbert Nzou
Wednesday 08 July 2009
HARARE - Zimbabwe will tomorrow and
Friday host an international investment
conference expected to be attended
by 100 world-renowned financiers as the
country's inclusive government
battles to revive the comatose economy.
According to the ministry of
economic planning and investment promotion, 700
delegates are expected to
attend the inaugural conference.
The inclusive government, struggling to
raise about US$10 billion to revive
the country's batter economy due to poor
political and economic policies
over the last decade, would use the
conference to showcase the nation's
investment
opportunities.
According to the programme of the conference to be ran
under the theme
Zimbabwe: Redefining the business and investment
environment, President
Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and
his deputy Arthur
Mutambara would address the indaba on the formation of the
inclusive
government, their commitment to it, implementation of the global
political
agreement and would also explain their working
relationship.
The three leaders would also be expected to speak on
Cabinet policy
formulation, perception issues, and the rule of law and
property rights.
Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara address the conference
tomorrow.
Also lined up to speak at the conference are finance and
economic ministries
ministers Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube and Elton Mangoma,
business magnates
and executives; and academics.
Meanwhile, reports
from London yesterday were that (Welshman) Ncube told an
African forum that
Zimbabwe would consider adopting the South African rand
as its anchor
currency.
"We cannot re-enter the Zimbabwe dollar without the economy to
support that,
we need another solution. We cannot continue forever with
multiple
currencies," Ncube was quoted saying. "If we can at least join rand
monetary
union, we will have money allocated to Zimbabwe through that
system. No
decision has been made, we will debate it and see what the best
alternative
is."
Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho all use the South
African rand alongside
their own currencies. - ZimOnline
http://www.voanews.com
By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
07 July
2009
Mozambique said it won't cut off electric power to Zimbabwe
despite arrears
of some US$50 million owed by the Zimbabwe Electricity
Supply Authority, or
ZESA.
Mozambican Energy Minister Salvador
Namburete said the Harare unity
government needs the support of his country
and the region to rebuild its
battered economy.
Blackouts are a grim
fact of life for Zimbabweans as ZESA is unable to
generate the 1,800
megawatts needed to meet the country's demand for
electricity.
Energy
Minister Elias Mudzuri told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri of VOA's Studio
7 for
Zimbabwe that Harare recently paid US$14 million against its arrears.