JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE URGENT LEGAL COMMUNIQUÉ - 11th June 2004
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
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LEGAL
COMMUNIQUÉ
Herewith today's (Friday 11th June 2004) Listing of Section 8
Acquisition
Orders published in the Herald under Lot No. 7 pertaining to 16
properties.
There is a repeat of Lot 2 which was also repeated on the 4th
June 2004
A repeat listing of Section 5 Notices under Lot 145 and 146
pertaining to
259 and 23 respectively.
Collection of Section 8 Orders
for lodgement of Section 5 Notice objection
letters can be effected at the
following address which is not given in the
Herald:
Block 2
Makombe
Complex
cnr. Herbert Chitepo Street/Harare Street
Harare
See Mr.
Pazavakombewa
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LAND
ACQUISITION ACT (CHAPTER 20:10)
Vesting of land, taking of materials
and
exercise of rights over land
NOTICE is hereby given, in terms of
paragraph (iii) of subsection (1) of
section 8 of the Land Acquisition Act
(Chapter 20:10), that the President
has acquired compulsorily the land
described in the Schedule for
resettlement purposes.
J L
NKOMO,
Minister of Special Affairs in the President's Office in Charge of
Lands,
Land Reform and
Resettlement.
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LOT
7 SECTION 8 11TH JUNE 2004
Lumagundi
11.6.2004. 1. 470/76. R J
Van Rensburg and Sons (Private) Limited:
Lomagundi: Farm Upper Romsey of
Romsey: 753,5218 ha
11.6.2004. 2. 5629/84. Orlando Franz Meyer: Lomagundi:
Lot 1 of
Noitgedag: 503,2440 ha
11.6.2004. 3. 2220/77. Huesca (Private)
Limited: Lomagundi: The
Remainder of Dundrennan of Manengas: 578,5439
ha
11.6.2004. 4. 5741/86. R S C Farming (Private) Limited:
Lomagundi:
Petruswil: 948,0821 ha
11.6.2004. 5. 4473/57. Allan Wallace
Williamson: Lomagundi: Remaining
Extent of Manengas: 820
morgens
Chipinga
11.6.2004. 6. 1083/74. Shanti Estate P/L:
Chipinga: Lot 2 of
Leliesvlei of De Rust of Avontuur Extension: 125,6000
ha
11.6.2004. 7. 3230/77. Watershed Estates (Private) Limited:
Chipinga:
Lot 12A of Newcastle: 318,6532 ha
Makoni
11.6.2004.
8. 4596/81. Masori Investments (Private) Limited: Makoni:
Remaining Extent
of Maidstone: 1 113,3764 ha
11.6.2004. 9. 513/88. Alveston Estate (1985)
(Private) Limited: Makoni:
Lot 4 of Lawerncedale: 838,3100
ha
Umtali
11.6.2004. 10. 4412/78. Michael Boswell: Umtali: Lot
12 of Bomponi:
707,5200 ha
11.6.2004. 11. 2699/2000. Brandhill
(Private) Limited: Umtali: Lot 7
of Lot 1 of Mazonwe: 272,7641
ha
11.6.2004. 12. 6696/92. P D Hulley (Private) Limited: Umtali: Lot 1
of
Orkney of Howth: 438,0069 ha
Urungwe
11.6.2004. 13.
485/89. Nyaudza Farm (Private) Limited: Urungwe: The
Remaining Extent of
Wingate Estate: 633,3208 ha
11.6.2004. 14. 7782/88. D M Younghusband
(Private) Limited: Urungwe:
Foliot: 1 254,8864 ha
11.6.2004. 15.
4575/88. Tengwe Estates (Private) Limited: Urungwe:
Fumeira Estates:
582,5291 ha
11.6.2004. 16. 3534/78. Cosmo Farms (Private) Limited:
Urungwe:
Remainder of Chimburukwe: 1 022,8593
ha
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THE
JAG TEAM
JAG Hotlines:
(011) 612 595 If you are in trouble or need
advice,
(011) 205 374
(011) 863 354 please don't hesitate to contact us
-
(011) 431 068
we're here to help!
263
4 799 410 Office Lines
JAG OPEN LETTER FORUM 11th June 2004
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
Please
send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
justice@telco.co.zw with "For Open Letter
Forum" in the subject
line.
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JAG
OLF
275
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THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
The market is not an invention of capitalism. It has existed
for centuries.
It is an invention of civilization.
Mikhail S.
Gorbachev
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OPEN
LETTERS FORUM
Letter 1. RE: OLF 274 Letter 3: Big Brother
Dear
Little Brother - Watching
Your simile of people as chameleons is very
apposite. From my own
observations this is particularly so Zimbabwe at this
heightened time of
social and economic stress, where the core-values of each
person are tested
to see if they are there at all, and what they really mean
when personal
actions put the values to the acid test when deciding "right"
from "wrong"
choices on a daily basis.
However, beware those that -
like "Little Brother - Watching" -
automatically equate "Non-Chameleons" with
people holding Christian values
- we are all part of the Human Zoo with our
own camouflage, and warts and
all! There are Christian "Chameleons" in the
Human Zoo too!
yours
Watching Chameleons and Little
Brother"
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Letter
2. Subject: Please
Hi All,
As you all probably know the Reserve Bank
Governor Gidion Gono is
addressing a meeting (Rally) in London to ask all
those who have fled
Zimbabwe because of the violence, to submit the money
that they are sending
to their relatives through the proper channels. This is
so the Zimbabwe
government can use this forex to fight democracy, in other
words kill and
maim the opposition. What a cheek, "we want your money to kill
your
relatives, but you cannot vote".
Please I ask you all to get
those in England to go to this meeting and tell
Gono what we think of him and
this repressive government.
Regards
Gerry
Whitehead
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All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions
of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
JAG TEAM
JAG Hotlines:
(011) 612 595 If you are in trouble or need
advice,
(011) 205 374
(011) 863 354 please don't hesitate to contact us
-
(011) 431 068
we're here to help!
263
4 799 410 Office Lines
MDC
PRESS
11 June
2004
Closure of Tribune underlines The Partisan Political Agenda of Zimbabwe's Media
Watchdog
The decision by the
government controlled Media and Information Commission (MIC) to close down
the Tribune
newspaper is not only a politically motivated strike it also signifies yet
another attack on citizens’ constitutional right to receive and
impart information of their choice.
This latest move to
muzzle the independent media was based on the spurious premise that the Tribune had
changed ownership and directors without seeking authorisation from the MIC.
The MIC has yet again
shown its true colours as a formidable enemy of freedom of speech; its primary
purpose is simply to advance a narrow, elitist, political agenda and root out and
silence opponents by abusing ‘legal provisions’ contained within its terms of
reference. The MIC, as currently constituted, would have no place in a
functioning democracy.
In his recent interview
with Sky
News, Robert Mugabe claimed
that the people of Zimbabwe ‘are able to say things
that they would want to say about the
government’. Clearly they are not, given that the closure of the Tribune
represents the third paper (that has been critical of the government), to be
closed this year following the closure of the Daily News
and Daily News on
Sunday.
Whilst Robert Mugabe is trying to hoodwink the world into believing that
Zimbabwe is a haven for freedom of speech
his government is busy trying to concoct ways of emasculating the independent
media ahead of the parliamentary elections, scheduled for March 2005.
The on-going closure of
objective channels of information by the ruling authorities dilutes
people’s capacity to make informed choices at the ballot box; a factor which
undermines the legitimacy of any election process.
Paul
Themba Nyathi
Secretary
for Information and Publicity
VOA
Zimbabwe Publisher Vows to Fight Closure
Tendai
Maphosa
Harare
11 Jun 2004, 16:25 UTC
The publisher of an
independent weekly newspaper, which was shut down by
Zimbabwe authorities,
says he will appeal the decision.
The publisher of The Tribune, Kindness
Paradza, says the government's
decision to suspend the newspaper's license
for a year was based on faulty
evidence and will be
appealed.
Zimbabwe's Media and Information Commission, which issued the
suspension,
said the publisher failed to notify the government of changes in
its
ownership and name, and attempted to mislead the commission in violation
of
Zimbabwe's controversial media laws.
But Mr. Paradza says he
complied with the notification requirements, and
called the suspension a blow
to the freedom of the press in Zimbabwe.
"Those allegations are not
valid, in our opinion, because they were meant
just as compliance, and this
is what we did. We have since complied with
whatever they wanted us to do; we
have supplied M.I.C. (the Media and
Information Commission) with all the
information," Mr. Paradza said.
The publisher, who is a member of the
parliament for the ruling Zanu-PF
party, has publicly criticized the media
law. The Tribune, which first
published in 2002, also did not shy away from
taking an independent
editorial line on government policies.
The
Tribune was on the streets Friday as usual, but Mr. Paradza says he has
not
ignored the order to cease operations.
"The notice, which came to us, was
not a formal notice. It was just a form
of a press statement, and that press
statement, which came to us was not
addressed to anybody, but it's a
statement given to all other news media,
and it does not give us a timeframe
to say we should stop publishing by what
date. That's why we published," Mr.
Paradza added.
The suspension of The Tribune came a day after four
directors of another
banned newspaper, The Daily News, went on trial on
charges of publishing
without a license. The newspaper, and its sister
publication, The Daily News
on Sunday, were closed down last year, when their
publishers defied the
licensing authority, saying the media law requiring
registration is
unconstitutional. Mr. Paradza said The Tribune is properly
registered, and
said he will ask the court to allow him to continue
publishing, pending the
appeals court decision on the suspension of his
license.
Zimbabwe: Plight of Working Children to Be Researched
UN
Integrated Regional Information Networks
June 11, 2004
Posted to the
web June 11, 2004
Bulawayo
A new labour survey is set to highlight
the situation of working children in
Zimbabwe.
About 140 enumerators
are currently engaged in a three-week National Labour
Force Survey being
conducted by the Central Statistical Office (CSO), with
support from the UN
Children's Fund (UNICEF). It is expected to cover more
than 10,000 households
in Zimbabwe's 10 provinces.
The survey will not only deal with the
employment situation of adults, but
also of children.
UNICEF and the
CSO agree that the national survey will provide greater
insight into the
situation of working children by indicating how many are
involved in economic
activity, the type of labour they are engaged in, what
conditions they work
under, and whether these could be potentially dangerous
to their physical and
emotional development.
"We hope the information gathered during this
survey will give us a better
understanding of the problems faced by working
children and, in turn, help
us be better able to identify practical ways to
minimise the risk to their
physical, emotional and social well-being," said
Dr Festo Kavishe, UNICEF
Representative in Zimbabwe.
Kavishe is hoping
the information from the sample survey "will guide us in
finding better ways
to support households, especially vulnerable children,
to cope without being
forced into exploitative child labour", while
researchers would like to paint
a national picture of population
characteristics such as education, activity
status, employment, hours
worked, income, work-related safety, and health and
housing.
"It is important that we strengthen the quality of our research
to reflect
the evolving situation in Zimbabwe," said Lazarus Machirovi,
director of the
CSO. "With the largest segment of our population under the
age of 18, not
only do we have a moral responsibility to make sure they are
accurately
reflected in our work, but any research without their situation
included
would be incomplete."
According to a joint press release from
UNICEF and the CSO, the 1999
National Child Labour Survey found that 26.3
percent of children aged 5 to
17 years were working.
Studies indicate
that orphaned children in this group are much more at risk.
As their parents
fall progressively ill from HIV/AIDS the family becomes
poorer and the
children take on an increasing number of responsibilities.
Desperate to earn
a living, they are often forced to work in exploitative
and dangerous
conditions.
A UNICEF report, "Africa's Orphaned Generations", said a
higher proportion
of children in Sub-Saharan Africa were working than in any
other region,
where 29 percent of children aged 5 to 14 were economically
active.
Leeds Today
Don't let mum fall into hands of Mugabe thugs
BY
CHARLES HESLETT
FORMER Zimbabwean MP Charles Duke knows the dark side
of Robert Mugabe's
regime - he has a two-inch wide dent in his head to prove
it.
Now the 70-year-old is backing a bid by mother-of-seven Deirdre
Humphreys,
43, to stay in Leeds after she was refused asylum.
Mr Duke and
wife Jill fled the troubled country five years ago and found
sanctuary in
Wetherby.
Unlike Mrs Humphreys, the couple hold British passports.
But
they were touched when they read about Mr Humphreys's plight in the YEP
in
April.
She escaped the Mugabe-backed gangs who took over many white-run farms
in
Zimbabwe in 2000, fleing to West Yorkshire with her youngest
daughter,
Jessica, 13.
Last year she applied for asylum after her work
permit ran out. In its
reasons for refusal, the Home Office said that Mrs
Humphreys would only face
risk of violence or death if she tried to live on
the family farm and said
the capital, Harare, was safe.
Mrs Humphreys said
her partner's association with the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change
(MDC) - meant she would be arrested as soon as she set
foot back in the
country and possibly killed.
Mr Duke, an MP under former Prime Minister Ian
Smith from 1985, who then
became a minister in Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF government
in 1987, agreed.
He said: "Deirdre is in a position of many people I know; a
lot who are my
friends, who have lost their farms. If she went back there she
would be
branded an MDC supporter, even though it was her partner who was
involved
with that party.
"She would not be able to get a job to support
herself. Secondly I know what
Mugabe's secret police are like.
"When I
first crossed the floor I was welcomed with open arms. But, later
on, I was
deemed out of favour and Mr Mugabe stopped talking to me."
Born in Southern
Rhodesia, as well as being an MP Mr Duke was a millionaire
geologist and
owned two gold mines and three houses. He fled the country
penniless after he
was beaten with lead piping about the head by a gang of
men while on a field
trip. He believes the attack was government-backed.
"I can't go back there.
Look what happened to me and I was a minister in the
Zanu PF.
"Deirdre
definitely qualifies for political asylum. If she was forced to go
back I
would genuinely fear for her and her daughter's safety.
"Her life would be at
risk."
charles.heslett@ypn.co.uk
11
June 2004
SABC
Harare residents blame minister for water shortage
June 11,
2004, 12:24
Residents of the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, are facing
serious problems of
water shortages and delayed refuse collection. Residents
blame Ignatius
Chombo, the local government minister, for the ongoing
difficulties. They
say Chombo is dismissing elected councillors, in a move
seen as more of a
personal than a business nature, without ensuring smooth
operations in the
city.
Authorities, however, say the latest water
cuts in most of the suburbs of
the town are due to mechanical faults at the
treatment plant that services
Harare. They say another obstacle in the water
supply system is the shortage
of machinery spare parts and chemicals used to
treat water before human
consumption.
The municipal workers dispute
this saying the problem due to bad judgment,
human error, poor management and
corruption in the supply of water treatment
chemicals. Residents further
complain of worsening destruction of the
capital city's infrastructure, most
of which remains without maintenance.
They say the situation will only
improve if both the government and city
respect each other's jobs and commit
all efforts to serving the people.
Chombo fired Elias Mudzuri, the mayor
of Harare, earlier this year, and six
councillors, before suspending 13
others, for alleged corruption and
mismanagement. The remaining councillors,
mostly from the opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, are now boycotting
council meetings,
bringing municipality business to confusion.
SABC
Zimbabwean opposition not fading: MDC
June 11, 2004,
12:39
By Chris Msipa
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), in Zimbabwe says it is
not fading and there is no fighting going on
among its members as has been
suggested.
Welshman Ncube, the party
secretary-general, says the claims are coming from
the ruling ZANU(PF), which
is applying what he calls its old tactics of
trying to undermine opponents
when it sees fit. He says the MDC is not
experiencing any difficulties, as
the group is busy preparing for the
forthcoming elections, which are expected
in March next year.
The opposition politician was speaking in an
interview with the SABC in the
capital, Harare, after reports of what
commentators describe as a state ploy
to gag the opposition ahead of the
polls. The government labels the MDC a
front of the former colonial power,
Britain, and has fired Elias Mudzuri,
the first opposition mayor of Harare,
before sacking Francis Dhlakama, of
the western city of Chegutu.
The
two city fathers and their entire councils are accused of corruption
and
mismanagement, while they claim interference from the government has
been
disturbing the smooth administration of their cities. Political
commentators
say the detention of MDC members of parliament and their
supporters, as well
as the group's lack of favourable media coverage are the
major obstacles the
party faces.
Water Cuts Hit Parts of Harare
The Herald (Harare)
June
10, 2004
Posted to the web June 10, 2004
Harare
Mechanical
problems at Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Works are limiting the
flow of
treated water to Harare, causing the usual cut in supplies to the
eastern and
northeastern suburbs and temporary cuts in southern suburbs as
their supplies
are then diverted east.
The latest cuts come as the Municipal Workers
Union lashed out over what it
described as poor management, human error, bad
judgment and a scam in the
supply of treatment chemicals from some
companies.
Two compressors at Morton Jaffray broke down on Monday around
3am
compounding the supply problems that face eastern and northeastern Harare
at
the best of times.
These areas receive their water in several
stages from the water works.
Water is pumped from Morton Jaffray to the
city, and then to Letombo and
from there to the rest of the northeastern
third of Harare and all Ruwa.
Whenever supplies fall below demand, these
areas see the cuts first.
Supplies are then disrupted to those who draw
directly from Letombo as water
is diverted to the further-flung reservoirs,
although in recent weeks the
policy has been to reduce pressure sharply
rather than cut altogether, so
frequently have there been problems of one
sort or another.
If this does not work then residents of the southern
suburbs have cuts or
reduced pressure for shorter periods as their water is
diverted to Letombo
for onward pumping.
Harare City Council director
of works Mr Pyschology Chiwanga said because of
the technical fault
experienced at the water treatment works, the city was
pumping at reduced
capacity.
"We are currently not pumping from Alex (Alexandra Park) due to
the low
level. We are running one pump from Orange Groove to Greendale, one
pump
from Letombo to Greendale and one pump from Letombo to Donnybrook," he
said.
Yesteday Epworth, Ruwa, Msasa, Mabvuku, Tafara, Chisipite, The
Grange,
Greendale, parts of Borrowdale, Queensdale, Hatfield and Highlands
had no
water as the council juggled supplies.
Residents in the
low-density suburbs were having to rely on neighbours with
boreholes or
resorted to water in swimming pools.
Ruwa, Mabvuku and New Tafara
residents were yesterday drawing water from
unprotected wells.
Ms
Joyce Machokoti of Ruwa said her family boils the water before use.
She
said water supplies to Ruwa were very unreliable as these can only
be
restored for a few minutes in a week.
Mrs Barbara Gogoma of New
Tafara said her family, as have most families in
eastern Harare, had bought
huge containers to store water for domestic use.
The water is only used
in the event of cuts in supplies.
She said the family fetches water from
open wells for use in the garden,
toilet and to do laundry.
"People in
this area (New Tafara) have not had peace with water supplies for
a very long
time. Supplies are either restored for only a few minutes and
after that we
go for days without water," she said.
Yesterday some callers from Hogerty
Hill, Philadelphia and Chisipite
complained to The Herald over the
unexplained water shortages.
"You should expose the rot at council. What
are those people doing? They
should give us value for money," said one male
caller who identified himself
as a resident of Hogerty Hill.
Some of
the residents complained that they received huge water bills yet
there was no
water for the greater part of last month in the northern and
eastern
suburbs.
According to a status report on the water situation in the city,
one of
Harare's 16 water reservoirs was above 48 percent full as of
Wednesday.
The Hogerty Hill reservoir was at zero percent, Alexandra Park
16,9 percent,
Donnybrook 1,3 percent, Philadelphia 1,4 percent with Emerald
Hill having
the highest of 48 percent.
But Municipal Workers Union
chairman Mr Cosmos Bungu said the perennial
water problems are a result of
human error and poor judgment.
In a document addressed to acting Mayor
Clr Sekesayi Makwavarara, Mr Bungu
outlined the various problems affecting
the governance of the city and
workers' morale.
"As workers, we wish
to advise your honour that the alleged water problems
of Harare are man-made,
hence the challenge that the issue has to be
thoroughly investigated," he
said.
Mr Bungu said it was worrying to note that almost 90 percent of
the
equipment at Morton Jaffray Water Treatment Works is not
functional.
He said workers were now made to do manually, some steps in
water
purification.
He gave as an example, the carrying of 50
kilogramme bags of hydrated lime
by workers on their backs. He said a number
of the workers at Morton Jaffray
get hurt and are usually retired on medical
grounds.
"Employees have to resort to their experience in treating the
water and yet
machinery needed to do the job costs much less than what is
hired," he said.
Mr Bungu said council employed a number of experienced
engineers and
artisans but these employees were not being innovative in the
face of
challenges.
He said workers at Firle Sewage Treatment Works
were having to use their
hands to treat raw sewage.
"Imagine having to
spend eight hours a day shovelling or sifting raw sewage
without adequate
protective clothing," said Mr Bungu.
Mr Bungu asked Clr Makwavarara to
investigate an alleged scam in the
purchase of water treatment
chemicals.
He said council was losing billions through underhand
activities involving a
supplier who he alleges procures chemicals on the
pretext that he would be
taking them to South Africa and yet he would be
supplying Harare City
Council.
He alleged that the company forges
documents on entry into Zimbabwe saying
the chemicals would be in transit to
South Africa.
This is done to avoid the payment of duty to the Zimbabwe
Revenue Authority.
The chemicals are later delivered to Morton
Jaffray.
He said payment for the chemicals is done promptly.
"At
the moment, we are told there is an over supply of the chemical and
lorries
that deliver it are queuing to offload. The longer the lorries are
parked
there, the more the cost to council," he said.
Mr Bungu said the chemical
suppliers were overcharging council and that the
burden was being transferred
on to ratepayers.
Clr Makwavarara said she would only be able to comment
on the allegations
after seeing the document.
Special envoy for humanitarian needs to visit region
[ This report does
not necessarily reflect the views of the United
Nations]
JOHANNESBURG, 11 Jun 2004 (IRIN) - The UN
Secretary-General's Special Envoy
for Humanitarian Needs in Southern Africa,
James Morris, is to return to the
region on Tuesday to lead a mission aimed
at taking stock of future
humanitarian requirements, a UN press release
said.
Morris will visit four countries - Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland,
and
Namibia - affected by the "triple threat" of food insecurity,
weakened
capacity for governance and AIDS. The seven-day interagency mission
will
follow up on the findings of his previous visits in September 2002,
January
2003, and March 2004.
A visit to Zimbabwe was scheduled to
take place on Tuesday, but coincided
with a cabinet meeting, and no
government officials were likely to be
available to meet with him, the press
release noted. "An alternative
schedule is being proposed but in the
meantime, plans are proceeding for the
special envoy to meet ambassadors and
UN agencies in Harare," it added.
The special envoy's mission comes at a
time when a US $615 million UN
Consolidated Appeal for southern Africa
remains "seriously underfunded",
with only US $327 million (53 percent) in
confirmed donations to date. "In
particular, funds for non-food items, such
as medicines, healthcare,
education, water and sanitation supplies are
desperately needed, with only
16 percent of resources for these items having
been raised," said the press
release.
World Food Programme regional
director Mike Sackett told IRIN on Friday
there were ongoing drought-related
food emergencies in Lesotho, southern
Malawi and the lowveld region of
Swaziland. Regarding the outlook for
Zimbabwe, he said WFP was "still
analysing the food security situation".
According to preliminary results
of the 2004 Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO)/WFP Crop and Food Supply
Assessment Mission to Lesotho,
cereal production was sharply down at 49,000
mt, compared with 119,000 mt in
the 2002/03 season, and a five-year average
of 156,000 mt. Lesotho's cereal
deficit this year, after subtracting
anticipated commercial imports and
existing stock levels, was an estimated
26,000 mt.
Late and erratic summer rains, a smaller area cultivated than
in previous
seasons, the government's removal of input subsidies, and the
failure of the
2003 winter crop were identified by the food assessment
mission as among the
factors contributing to the dramatic decline in
production.
Cereal output in Malawi was estimated at 1.8 million mt, down
from the
2002/03 season's yield of 2.0 million mt, leaving an uncovered
deficit of
85,000 mt. Swaziland's harvest was forecast at 61,000 mt - 8,000
mt less
than the previous season, with a cereal deficit of 22,000 mt that
includes
already committed food aid.
In Zambia and Mozambique, further
to the north, where more rain was received
during the growing season, "the
situation is considerably better than last
year", said Sackett. According to
FAO, these two countries would not require
additional food aid.
From Focus (Helen Suzman Foundation), June 2004
Al-Qaeda and the Zimbabwe
nexus
continued from 10 June issue
The printing of Qadaffi's 1
September 2001 speech in The Herald had caught
the eye of several MDC
members. "When September 11 occurred I went back and
looked at it again," one
of them told me. "Then we noticed an Afghan we call
Mr Moosa." Moosa, who was
in the motor trade, had got into a trifling
dispute with a florist near his
premises over parking spaces. Amazingly, the
CIO immediately materialized and
warned off the florist: Mr Moosa was, they
said, a very important person and
under the government's protection. The
same happened when some of Moosa's
workers threatened a strike. Again the
CIO arrived in force to warn the
workers that they had better not dream of
upsetting a person enjoying
president Mugabe's protection. "We managed to
get through to a person in the
ministry of foreign affairs," my MDC contact
told me. "He confirmed that
Moosa was a special case and that 'we're looking
after him'. For us that was
virtual confirmation that he was effectively the
Afghan - and thus, at that
time, the Taliban -ambassador, perhaps even the
al-Qaeda ambassador. He
clearly has a hot-line to Mugabe which in turn means
they have an on-going
deal." They then discovered that Moosa's office did no
actual business."It
was just a front company, providing a phone, fax,
e-mail, a bank account and
it took delivery of containers. There couldn't be
an open Taliban embassy
here, so they had this disguised one instead."
One of the MDC activists
deputed to watch Moosa was 'Richard', who works out
every morning in a Harare
gym. In early September 2001 Richard noticed that
Moosa and two Afghan
companions had begun to frequent the same gym. On 12
September 2001, the day
after the attack on the twin towers, he walked
across the gym to where
Moosa's party were exercising and asked them what
they thought of the
previous day's events. "They were vehemently
anti-American and clearly
pro-Taliban," Richard told me. "They said the
Americans had got exactly what
they deserved. They seemed to be bursting
with a mixture of elation and
bitterness. To be frank I think they blurted
out more than they meant to
because they disappeared from the gym for a few
days after that. "Then in the
week following they reappeared, this time with
eight other Afghans. These
guys looked tired, as if they'd been travelling,
which I guess they had,"
Richard reported. "One of them was wearing a Tamil
Tiger T-shirt. My
immediate guess was that these were escaping Taliban or
al-Qaeda. I've had
military training myself and these men were fighters. If
you're a fighter
you've got to stay fit, even if you're stressed and
travelling. That's why I
think they were at the gym. They only came that
once and then disappeared."
At this I went back to another CIO source who
put out feelers among his
former colleagues in the CIO. One of them, he
confirmed to me a few days
later, had told him that in mid-September he had
been asked to produce ten
false passports for the same number of Libyans.
These were delivered on 20
September. When I queried whether the recipients
were genuinely Libyans it
became clear that all that was really known was
that they had previously been
travelling on Libyan passports. The tie-up
between these ten passports and
the eleven men seen by Richard at the gym
hardly needs emphasis, particularly
since Richard must have seen them in the
week of 12 to 19 September - as they
waited for their new passports, with
which they could then leave Zimbabwe
with fresh identities.
One also has to remember that Zimbabwean military
involvement in the
Democratic Republic of Congo had given Mugabe and the top
Zanu PF elite
control over several diamond mines there, including a joint
venture with Al
Shanfari's Oryx Group in the Senga Senga mine. According to a
confidential
study prepared by Kroll Associates in 2002, "Al Shanfari and
Oryx launder
diamonds for several Lebanese traders linked to al-Qaeda". Thus
here too
there was a direct - and profitable - relationship between Mugabe
and
al-Qaeda, providing, incidentally, a route through which payment for
other
services could also be made. In fact al-Qaeda involvement with
blood
diamonds goes back some way before 9/11. Two al-Qaeda operatives named
by
the Washington Post (3 November 2001) as having been involved in the
DRC
since the mid-1990s are Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and Fazul Abdullah
Mohammed.
Ghailani, a Tanzanian, was also the man who bought the truck used
in the
truck-bombing of the US embassy in Dar-Es-Salaam in 1998 while Fazul
turns
out to be one of the many aliases used by Haroun Fazil, the
mastermind
behind the Nairobi embassy bombing. Thus both the key architects
of the East
African embassy bombings emerged from an al-Qaeda network active
in southern
Africa for some years before that, one which will have had many
points of
contact with the ruling Zimbabwean elite. This throws a new light
on
Zawahiri's alleged visits to Zimbabwe prior to 9/11 - he was
clearly
travelling to an area in which he already had operatives and at least
a
rudimentary infrastructure. This would certainly have increased
the
likelihood that al-Qaeda would have wanted to use Zimbabwe for
the
transit-and-laundering role we have seen.
Another straw in the
wind was the revelation that closed circuit TV cameras
within the Planet
Hollywood restaurant in Cape Town had recorded the image
of a known al-Qaeda
suspect lolling against the restaurant's bar a month
before the bomb-blast
there. The police, who identified the man as a
Moroccan based in Zimbabwe,
strangely refused to act on this information. It
is tempting to link this
attitude with Pretoria's rapid volte face on the
issue of 9/11. By January
2002 ANC pressure on ex-president Mandela had
forced him publicly to recant
his previous condemnation of Bin Laden, while
deputy president Zuma announced
that the ANC no longer saw 9/11 as a
terrorist act but as a blow in a wider
struggle against imperialism. He
simultaneously denounced Britain and America
for their war on the Taliban
which, he said, was aimed "against innocent
Afghan civilians". Given
president Mbeki's support for president Mugabe it is
possible that Pretoria
was not keen to see a line of enquiry opened up in the
Planet Hollywood
affair which led back to the presence of al-Qaeda activists
in Zimbabwe. In
Harare again in late 2003 I was struck by the US embassy
posters offering a
$2 million reward for Haroun Fazil. Quite clearly, the FBI
believe either
that he may be in Zimbabwe or that there may be people there
who know him. I
decided that this merited a visit to Zimbabwean CID
headquarters in the vast
police camp adjacent to Mugabe's presidential
palace. I eventually found the
office I was looking for, with a Wanted poster
of Fazil from Interpol - and
a CID poster showing a copy of Fazil's passport.
For, it emerges, Fazil
travelled to Nairobi to carry out the bombings which
were to kill and maim
thousands from Harare, on a Zimbabwean passport. The
possibility that
Zimbabwe may have provided some sort of support base for
both the East
African and 9/11 atrocities - perhaps even for the Planet
Hollywood bombing
too - is perhaps not surprising. Mugabe has, after all, not
scrupled to use
terror against his own people. The real question is whether
South Africa's
NIA has taken note of what is happening and whether president
Mbeki, in the
strong support he has lent Mugabe, has realized the full
implications of
what he is doing.
townhall.com
Land Nationalization in Zimbabwe Unnerves Some in South
Africa
Johannesburg, South Africa (CNSNews.com) - Zimbabwe's government
has
announced its intention to nationalize all remaining private-owned
land,
unnerving some people in neighboring South Africa as President Robert
Mugabe
pushes ahead with his controversial "land reform"
program.
Land Minister John Nkomo said the new policy was abolishing
land title
deeds, replacing them with 25- and 99-year government land leases
for
wildlife and commercial land respectively.
Nkomo said the
government did not believe that land should be used "for
speculative reasons"
and that was why it was better to have 99-year leases.
In the
Zimbabwean capital, Harare, land expert Sam Moyo said the
announcement had
put to rest any hope that white farmers whose land has been
confiscated in
recent years would receive compensation.
Moyo also said the
announcement was "not as dramatic as it sounds." It had
long formed part of
the government's comprehensive land reform program, and
had to take place at
one time or another.
The program, designed to ensure fairer
distribution of land between the
white minority and black majority, began in
1997 and accelerated in 2001,
just before disputed presidential
elections.
Commercial white farmers' lands were taken by the
government -- at times by
force -- and handed to black peasants and Mugabe's
political allies.
The program saw food production drop to
historically low levels and ignite a
socio-political crisis that has seen a
near collapse of the Zimbabwean
economy.
Many whites in South
Africa are concerned similar actions may occur here.
Dr. Kraai van
Niekerk, an opposition lawmaker and former Minister of
Agriculture, warned
this week against nationalizing land in South Africa.
Speaking in
parliament, to jeers from lawmakers for the ruling African
National Congress
(ANC) party, van Niekerk said land reform in South Africa
should not only
involve transformation of ownership but also consider issues
like
sustainability and the productive capacity of the land.
Seventy-six
percent of the population of Africa's military and economic
powerhouse is
black, while whites account for around 13 per cent. The
remainder are of
Asian extract or mixed-race "coloreds."
Ten years after the election
which brought majority-rule democracy to South
Africa, official statistics
say 87 per cent of land is owned by around
40,000 white
farmers.
President Thabo Mbeki's government has adopted a policy of
"willing
buyer-willing seller," but the approach has been criticised by
some
politicians as being ineffective in ensuring reasonable redistribution
of
land.
Under that policy, only four percent of the black
population has been
resettled.
Mugabe's policies have drawn
condemnation from around the world, but South
Africa -- the country with the
biggest potential influence -- has been
criticized for refraining from
criticizing Zimbabwe, instead adopting an
approach of "quiet
diplomacy."
David Monyae, a teacher at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand
University, said one
of the reasons Mbeki has taken this stance is that any
interference in
Zimbabwe would open him to domestic criticism that he is
ignoring the land
problem in his own country.
"This could ignite
violent land demands by the South African
landless
community."
Another factor influencing South Africa's
foreign policy towards Zimbabwe,
Monyae said, was a reluctance to interfere
because of the destructive role
played by the former apartheid regime which
intervened in the affairs of the
region's emerging democracies.
zimobserver.com
Outrage as Mugabe official arrives in
London
by STAFF EDITOR (6/11/2004)
The British
Government was accused yesterday of allowing a senior member of
the Zimbabwe
regime into Britain on a mission to raise badly needed hard
currency for
President Mugabe. The arrival of Gideon Gono, the head of
Zimbabwe's Central
Bank and a man described as "Mugabe's banker", prompted
Tories and the
Zimbabwe opposition to demand that sanctions be tightened
against key figures
in the regime.
Mr Gono, who has made little secret of his travel plans,
is on a tour of
Britain to persuade the estimated 400,000-strong Zimbabwe
community here to
use a new government service when they send money to
relatives back home. By
offering the same exchange rate as the black market,
the scheme could inject
millions of pounds in hard currency into the
Government's bankrupt coffers.
The Foreign Office said yesterday that
Britain's sanctions policy against
Zimbabwe was co-ordinated with the
European Union and the Commonwealth.
Although Mr Gono is forbidden from
travelling to the United States, he is
not on the list of 95 Zimbabwean
officials banned from visiting the European
Union. "Gono's visit to the UK
underlines the need for EU targeted sanctions
to be expanded to include all
individuals who play a leading role in
perpetuating the illegitimate rule of
Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) Government,"
said Welshman Ncube, the
Secretary-General of the Movement for Democratic
Change, the main opposition
party.
Michael Ancram, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said that Britain
should have
acted unilaterally to stop Mr Gono from coming to London. "We
have always
called for the sanctions to cover not just those directly
involved in the
regime, but also those who support the regime financially,
because the
regime without financial support would be very severely
weakened," he told
the BBC.
Late last year Mr Gono was appointed
Governor of the Central Bank and
achieved what no one has previously been
able to do. He persuaded President
Mugabe to adopt sensible economic
policies.He slashed the Zimbabwe dollar to
a quarter of its value and
introduced public auctions of foreign currency,
rapidly increasing foreign
currency inflows. Mr Gono went on to cut money
supply, manage interest rates,
liberalise gold sales, launch a crackdown on
corruption in a rotten financial
sector and introduce a mass of other
measures that previously would have been
considered frankly dangerous under
Mr Mugabe's regime. Mr Gono's chief
accomplishment has been to persuade Mr
Mugabe that dictators do not survive
in economic collapse and that if he did
not abandon the policies of the past
24 years he would be out of State House
within months. Mr Mugabe publicly
asserts that the economy - still with the
world's highest inflation (500 per
cent) and fastest shrinking GDP - is
"recovering".
Privately Mr Gono
tells friends that "the President says I have his full
support". His most
popular scheme has been to tap into the "diaspora dollar"
of hard currency
earnings from the 3.5 million Zimbabweans who have fled
abroad. Many keep
their families back home alive by sending hard currency
remittances, which
are exchanged at the black market rate. Mr Gono is
offering them rates
comparable to the black market, and has sucked in US$16
million into state
reserves in the past two months.
In a regime controlled for the past 24
years solely by the decree of its
leader, now aged 80, advice is rarely
heeded. Mr Gono is reckoned to have
more influence over Mr Mugabe than anyone
else. This week, Mr Gono's image
suffered a blow when the South African
Sunday Times cited him as the
controller of a slush fund in the state-owned
Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe
that dealt illegally in foreign currency and
handed out cash to ruling party
bosses, including the Mugabe family.
aliran.com
Mahathir and Mugabe: The cat is out of the bag
At
last the cat is out of the bag! It took the former Prime Minister
Mahathir
Mohamad 15 days to shed some light on an issue that had remained
shrouded in
mystery. It must have been the best kept secret - the Malaysian
government
and the cabinet did not seem to know anything about it! When the
news
regarding Mugabe's lavish 25-bedroom mansion and the fact that Malaysia
was
partially funding the construction of this RM18.6 million palace was
first
disclosed, the country was in the dark.
Even the Number Two man in the
government knew nothing about it! Deputy
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib
Abdul Razak claimed that he was not aware of
it. He was quoted as having
stated, "I have no information about that. I
will check." Even Parliament was
not privy to this information. Deputy
Foreign Minister Joseph Salang Gandum
informed Parliament that he was
unaware of this. He is on record as having
stated, ".I don't think the
government would have funded the
mansion."
The Foreign Minister who has been in that office for some time
should have
known something about this. After all, it concerns foreign
relations with
another country and that must surely be within his purview.
While the
present Deputy Prime Minister may with some justification plead
ignorance
about this matter, what about the Prime Minister who was Mahathir's
Deputy
Prime Minister? Did he know anything about it or was he equally in the
dark?
This is an extremely odd situation. Ministers are in the dark, the
Cabinet
knows nothing about it and Parliament is none the wiser. We are
talking
about the country's wealth and assets. Can it be just given away by
an
individual without sanction from the government? It is not private wealth
to
be donated as and when one is inclined to do so.
This is why it is
so upsetting to read Mahathir saying, "Yes, we did give
Zimbabwe, but what's
wrong with that?" What does he mean by "WE"? It is more
like "I" The entire
country is in the dark and how can he claim that "we"
gave the timber? And
let's not forget Mugabe is not "Zimbabwe." The gift was
for Mugabe's private
mansion and not for Zimbabwe, the country.
It is even more bewildering to
read him stating that there was nothing
extraordinary about the gift, which
he described as "usual practice" in
promoting Malaysian timber. Is this how
we promote our Malaysian timber? It
is more like exporting our timber without
a valid permit for the
construction of a private palatial mansion that does
not accrue any benefit
for the timber industry.
Is it a fact that it
is a "usual practice" to promote the timber industry in
this fashion? If so,
how many Heads of States have benefited from this
promotion of the timber
industry? It is very telling that Mahathir did not
disclose the value of the
timber that was given away to Mugabe. And what
kind of timber have "we"
presented him with? Does this gift run into
millions of ringgit and if so how
many millions?
Mahathir is also accountable to the public for his action.
He must come
clean by providing facts and figures to justify why a guy like
Mugabe, who
is regarded as a tyrant and a despotic dictator, deserves this
"gift" from
Malaysians. This is just one example of the wealth that was
squandered at
the expense of the poor and the deserving.
P
Ramakrishnan
President
11 June 2004
This statement was sent to the
local media including The Star and the Sun.
We have stopped sending
statements to the New Straits Times as they have
never been carried.
News24
Zim 'wrecking' border park
11/06/2004 10:47 -
(SA)
Johannesburg - The land redistribution policy of Zimbabwe's
President Robert
Mugabe was threatening to turn the transfrontier parks
project from a
showpiece into a wreck, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon
said on
Thursday.
Addressing the Johannesburg Press Club, he said an
owner of large tracts of
conservancy land in Zimbabwe had approached him to
address the matter in
South Africa.
"The consequences are way beyond
property ownership... I hope (Nelson)
Mandela, (Thabo) Mbeki, and (Anton)
Rupert will do something to stop this
showpiece becoming a wreck."
On
Thursday Leon criticised the 99-year lease programme being introduced
in
Zimbabwe as an "appalling step backwards".
He said nationalising
all farmland in Zimbabwe would be an immediate red
flag to potential
investors in Southern Africa, and could not but affect
South Africa
negatively.
Tom Orford a friend and contemporary of Rupert Fothergill past away
recently.
He was involved with Operation Noah, one of the first few in the
game
department, started Kyle National Park, was Alan Savory's partner (head
of
opposition to Smith) and brought the first white rhino into Zimbabwe. He
is
best known for his wild life work. I am presently writing a book about
him
and would like any stories, info, dates, times etc. (however
insignificant),
or your interaction with him. Please e-mail Bryan at
bush@netconnect.co.zw