Zim Online
Tuesday 12 June 2007
By Farisai
Gonye
HARARE - Zimbabwe's hardliner Minister of Lands Didymus Mutasa on
Monday
repeated threats to expel the few white farmers left in the country
and said
a United Nations (UN) report warning of more food shortages in the
southern
African country would not deter the Harare government.
"The
position is that food shortages or no food shortages, we are going
ahead to
remove the remaining whites. Too many blacks are still clamouring
for land
and we will resettle them on the remaining farms," he told
ZimOnline by
phone.
Mutasa, who is also in charge of state security and distribution
of
government food aid, said the Harare administration was under pressure to
return some farms to whites or that it "spares those remaining because we
are facing food shortages".
The Lands Minister, who is one of
President Robert Mugabe's closest
confidantes, did not say who was
pressuring Harare to return seized farms or
stop evicting remaining white
farmers but he vowed "we would rather all die
of hunger, but knowing full
well that the land is in the hands of black
people."
He defended
falling production on former white farms given to blacks as a
learning curve
and promised the cash-strapped government would do more to
provide resources
and farming skills to new black farmers in order to boost
production
beginning next season.
A report released last week by the UN Food and
Agriculture Organisation and
the World Food Programme said more than four
million people or about a third
of Zimbabwe's population of 12 million would
face serious food shortages by
early next year.
Critics blame
Zimbabwe's food crisis directly on Mugabe's haphazard
fast-track land reform
exercise that displaced established white commercial
farmers and replaced
them with either incompetent or inadequately funded
black
farmers.
Food production plunged by about 60 percent as a result while
chaos in the
agriculture sector because of farm seizures also hit hard
Zimbabwe's once
impressive manufacturing sector that had depended on a
robust farming sector
for orders and inputs.
Most of Zimbabwe's firms
have operated at about 30 percent of capacity since
the beginning of farm
seizures in 2000, this in a country where unemployment
is more than 80
percent. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Tuesday 12 June 2007
By Regerai
Marwezu
MASVINGO - Three Zimbabwean clergymen had a weekend to forget
last Sunday
after they were detained and interrogated by state security
agents for
distributing toys and sweets to children in Masvingo
town.
In a bizarre case highlighting deep levels of paranoia in
government, the
state agents accused the three, Reverend Sonykis Chimbuya,
Pastor Peter
Bondai and Pastor Mugondi, of distributing opposition campaign
material.
Mugondi and Bondai were only released after they were
interrogated for more
than three hours while Chimbuya was kidnapped and
dumped along the
Masvingo-Great Zimbabwe highway hours after his
arrest.
The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) agents accused the
three
churchmen of distributing campaign material for the opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party, Zimbabwe's biggest
opposition.
Narrating his ordeal to ZimOnline yesterday, one of the three
pastors said
they were arrested by the state agents while distributing some
sweets and
toys to children in Masvingo town.
"They just came to us
and picked us one after the other. They asked us about
the material we were
distributing to various church organisations," said one
of the
churchmen.
"One of us was kidnapped and was only released after they had
proved beyond
doubt that the items we were distributing were in fact toys,"
he said.
The three clergymen said they were now living in constant fear
after their
harassment at the hands of the CIO agents last
weekend.
The CIO agents had also demanded that the three write down their
sermons and
present them to the secret agents for vetting before
delivery.
State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa could not be reached for
comment on
the matter.
President Robert Mugabe last month warned
church leaders to steer clear of
politics after Catholic bishops denounced
the Zimbabwean government over its
human rights record.
Mugabe has
had a long-running spat with Bulawayo-based Catholic archbishop
Pius Ncube
whom he accuses of dabbling in politics under the cloak of
religion. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Tuesday 12 June 2007
By Menzi Sibanda
BULAWAYO -
At the crack of dawn, 35-year old Thabani Zulu, wakes up and
rushes to meet
some friends at a spot in the sprawling working class suburb
of Nketa in
Zimbabwe's second biggest city of Bulawayo.
On this dark and wintry early
morning, Zulu together with six of his friends
begin their 15-kilometre walk
to work in Bulawayo's Belmont industrial zone.
With transport costs
ballooning to unbearable levels each month as part of a
general worsening of
economic hardships, hard-pressed Zimbabweans say they
have no choice but to
walk to work on some days of the month to save on
transport
cost.
This has seen many workers forming "walking clubs", aptly called
'Sisedubeni
sonke', in the vernacular Ndebele language, which roughly
translated means
'we are together in this suffering'.
The 'walking
clubs' are a vivid illustration of how things have collapsed in
Zimbabwe.
"The cost of living is just too high and one cannot really
afford to invest
your entire salary, no matter how small, on transport
alone," says Zulu as
he sets the pace with a sprightly walk.
"What
happens is that we team up as workers and leave our homes around 5 o'clock
in the morning for work. We are seven in our group and we have nothing to
fear even when we travel at night.
"We realised that traveling as
individuals was very risky . . . That is why
we decided to come together to
form this group," says Zulu.
Zimbabwe, once a shining model of economic
success in Africa, is in the grip
of a severe economic crisis most critics
blame on President Robert Mugabe's
mismanagement of the economy.
The
economic crisis has manifested itself in widespread poverty, rising
unemployment and the world's highest inflation rate of over 3 700 percent
and which is expected to rise further when government statisticians release
new figures this week.
The few Zimbabweans who are still lucky to
hold on to a job are struggling
to make ends meet. For some of these
workers, one way of cutting costs is to
walk to work.
The average
Zimbabwean worker earns about Z$400 000 a month, way below the
Z$1.7 million
that the consumer rights body, the Consumer Council of
Zimbabwe says an
average family of five needs per month to survive.
The workers say they
would rather embark on these arduous trips to and from
work to beat high
transport costs.
Transport operators last week hiked fares by 50 percent
with a single trip
from most suburbs in Bulawayo to the city centre now
costing $15 000, up
from Z$10 000 that commuters used to pay
previously.
For Sibangani Dube, walking to and from work is physically
taxing but
financially rewarding.
"I earn $400 000 a month and it
would not make sense to squander all that
money on transport costs. Although
one gets very tired after walking to and
from work, at least one gets his
salary 'intact' at the end of the month,"
says Dube.
Zimbabwe's
economic crisis has since the beginning of the year triggered
wildcat
strikes by workers pressing for more pay. Doctors, nurses as well as
teachers have all downed their tools this year demanding better
salaries.
Although the Zimbabwean government relented to worker demands
to raise
salaries, the salary increments have since been eroded by run-away
inflation.
Even those in middle management positions in companies are
feeling the heat
from the current economic crisis.
A company manager
who spoke to ZimOnline says he has had to resort to
cycling to work as he
can no longer afford to buy fuel for his car.
"It's quite ridiculous that
a manager has to travel by bicycle. It makes one
lose respect in the
community. But what can we do in this economy?" he says
with a
grin.
Respected Bulawayo-based economic commentator Eric Bloch says
government
must quickly address the crisis to stem off the continuing flight
of skilled
manpower from the country.
"If they are a serious
government, they should work hard to improve the
welfare of workers.
Everyone is struggling . . . that is why we are
experiencing an
unprecedented exodus of professionals," said Bloch.
With no solution in
sight to Zimbabwe's eight-year economic crisis,
thousands of other workers
here in Bulawayo will soon join these mushrooming
walking clubs to cut on
transport costs. - ZimOnline
Newsweek
He's been targeted by nasty rumors and
threatened with death. But Archbishop
Pius Ncube is still stepping up his
efforts to speak out against Zimbabwe's
autocratic government.
Web
Exclusive
By Scott Johnson
Newsweek
Updated: 6:20 p.m. ET June 11,
2007
June 11, 2007 - It's Sunday morning at St. Mary's Cathedral in downtown
Bulawayo and the pews are crowded. Pius Alick Ncube, archbishop of the
Roman Catholic Church here in Zimbabwe's second-largest city, peers out at
the assembled parishioners over the rims of a pair of thick bifocals and
takes a breath. Then he bellows forth his rage. "This government doesn't
have the holy spirit," he fumes. "They know what I think of them." A
collective sigh moves through the crowd. In the farthest aisles, men and
women clutch at each other, laughing and snickering. A few exchange knowing
glances. "I'm not going to let them off the hook," Ncube continues. "These
men are liars. They are murderers. They are only working to make themselves
rich."
It is not easy to be a voice of opposition in Robert Mugabe's
Zimbabwe;
legions of secret police and government enforcers make sure of
that. When
opposition activists do speak out they are often kidnapped and
beaten and
left in the open, or by the roadsides miles from their homes.
Many
thousands more have fled over the years. But Ncube, a bespectacled
quiet
man who lives next door to St. Mary's, where he preaches, has stayed
behind
in his hometown, a bastion of anti-Mugabe opposition. And every day
that he
does, he gets angrier and angrier at what he says are government
crimes
against the people. "This government kicked 700,000 people out of
their
homes, these were good homes, some of them had running water, some of
them
had electricity," he rails to the faithful, and then pauses as the
crowd
nods its head in a collective sign of approval. "And the government
tore
these houses down." Ncube is referring to what has become known in
Zimbabwe as Operation Murambatsvina, a 2005 government "slum-clearance"
operation in which entire housing settlements were torn down en masse, their
residents--many of them opposition supporters--forcibly removed and told to
disappear. Many thousands of the victims remain homeless. "How can they
have the holy spirit if they don't care for their own people?" Ncube
asks.
Ncube has made it his personal mission to deliver prayers that indict
Mugabe. For his critical public stance, Ncube, who speaks in a quiet,
deliberate voice and often keeps his eyes lowered to the side, has earned
increased scrutiny from the state. He believes his phone is tapped. He has
received death threats. State agents routinely follow him around on his
visit to local parishes or public events. They even recently paid a visit to
his home beside the church. But Ncube is undeterred. "I will not excuse him
anything," he says. "Mugabe is an evil man and the only way for him is to be
kicked out of power."
The once-quiet country priest has stepped up
his rhetoric in recent months.
In early March, Ncube and several other
bishops met in Quera, about 100
miles from Bulawayo, to discuss what role,
if any, the church should play in
Zimbabwean politics. On April 5, the
Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference
issued a pastoral letter criticizing
Mugabe for his human-rights violations.
Entitled "God Hears the Cry of the
Oppressed," the letter was read out in
churches across Zimbabwe. Government
officials promptly described the letter
as malicious and inaccurate, but
Ncube was buoyed by the reaction from his
flock. "They were very pleased,
they told me, 'for so long we were wishing
you would talk'," Ncube says.
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
11 June
2007
Two more activists of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change
held in Harare in an alleged bombing plot were granted
bail Monday, but
police continued to hold them on charges other than those
covered by the
magistrate bail ruling.
Bail of Z$1 million (US$20)
was set for Amos Musekiwa, who is accused of
complicity in the March bombing
of ZANU-PF offices in Mbare. Bail for
Ishmael Kauzana, accused of bombing a
Marimba police station, was set at
Z$10 million.
Lawyer Alec
Muchadehama, representing the two men, said the magistrate also
dismissed a
case in which five other activists who have since been released
were charged
with firebombing the ZANU-PF offices in Mbare.
Muchadehama told reporter
Carole Gombakomba that other cases, including that
of Glen View
parliamentarian Paul Madzore and other opposition members
accused of
receiving paramilitary training in South Africa, would be heard
later this
week.
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
11 June
2007
Striking junior and senior resident doctors at
Zimbabwean state-run
hospitals in Harare and Bulawayo said Monday they would
return to work
Tuesday following the receipt of government bank deposits in
their accounts
over the weekend. Other health care workers and hospital
support staff
returned to work last Thursday.
The residents had
demanded that their monthly salaries be increased to at
least Z$70 million
plus car loans of US$3,000. It was not clear whether the
government met
those demands - a representative of doctors said he could not
disclose how
much was paid to the residents because negotiations with the
Health Minister
are still in progress.
Hospital Doctors Association President Amon
Siveregi told reporter Carole
Gombakomba of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that
the residents' decision to
return to wards was also prompted by the
knowledge that patients were
suffering.
VOA
By Ndimyake Mwakalyelye
Washington
11 June
2007
There is some movement in European diplomacy to lower
objections to the
attendance of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe at an
EU-Africa summit
scheduled for later this year, so that the gathering will
not be derailed as
it was in 2003 when African leaders boycotted the planned
event over
Zimbabwe's exclusion.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel was
quoted as saying at last week's Group of
Eight summit that Mr. Mugabe's
"unspeakable acts" and policies to which the
European Union objects "cannot
be the case that we do not work with a
continent."
Set for December
in Lisbon, the EU-Africa summit will be the first in seven
years.
A
European Union official told VOA that something of a consensus was
emerging
that the summit should proceed even if Mr. Mugabe insisted on
showing
up.
The African Union has insisted that neither Zimbabwe nor Mr. Mugabe
be
excluded from the summit, implicitly threatening another boycott.
Meanwhile,
outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair has taken a softer
line on
Zimbabwean participation, mainly because South African President
Thabo Mbeki
is now mediating the Zimbabwean crisis at the behest of the
Southern African
Development Community.
Senior correspondent Luis
Costa Ribas of Portugal's SIC Television told
reporter Ndimyake Mwakalyelye
of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that that while
Portugal does not support Mr.
Mugabe, it wants to see the summit to go ahead
as planned.
Sydney
Masamvu, an International Crisis Group senior analyst for Southern
Africa,
said Merkel's statements indicated that some in Europe saw too much
economic
potential in Africa to risk another summit failure over the
Zimbabwe
crisis.
VOA
By Irwin Chifera and Patience Rusere
Zaka East
& Washington
11 June 2007
Zimbabwe's ruling
ZANU-PF party retained a parliamentary seat up for grabs
in a by-election in
the Zaka East constituency of Masvingo Province marred
by low turnout and
charges that opposition supporters were intimidated by
authorities.
ZANU-PF's Livingstone Chineka, a retired brigadier
general, won with 11,152
votes to 1,117 for Nicholas Shanga of the United
Peoples Party and 622 for
Lameck Batirai of the Zimbabwe People's Democratic
Party. Police and
election observers said the vote was generally peaceful,
but UPP officials
said Central Intelligence Organization agents threatened
its supporters and
representatives at a number of polling
places.
Correspondent Irwin Chifera reported on the contest for the seat
which fell
vacant in March when the ZANU-PF incumbent, Tinos Rusere,
died.
Though the Zaka East by-election did not feature significant
political
violence, some observers said the intimidation of non-ZANU-PF
activists fit
into an emerging pattern as the ruling party steps up its
campaign for
elections in early 2008. Local elections will be held in
January, and
presidential and general elections follow in
March.
Economist and political advisor Eddie Cross of the Movement for
Democratic
Change faction of Morgan Tsvangirai said intimidation is on the
rise in
rural areas where his party's organizers are increasingly banned
from
holding rallies and local chiefs and headmen have received orders from
above
to block MDC political activities.
VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
has also received credible reports that in
opposition strongholds like
Binga, Matabeleland North, non-governmental
organizations have been accused
of campaigning for the MDC and forced to
shut down
operations.
Programs Manager Pedzisai Ruhanya of the Crisis in Zimbabwe
Coalition,
recently in Zaka East, told reporter Patience Rusere he sees more
violence
ahead.
zimbabwejournalists.com
11th Jun 2007 21:25 GMT
By Dennis
Rekayi
HARARE - Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Gideon Gono, has
reiterated that
inflation is Zimbabwe's number one enemy, with 33 percent of
it relating to
food and food items alone.
Speaking at a ceremony to
handover farming implements beneficiaries of the
land reform programme, Gono
said it followed therefore that "our attempts to
boost agricultural
productivity on the ground is actually an ancillary and
incidental part of
our core business".
Gono said "the task of feeding the country and
therefore reducing inflation
through increased food supply cannot be left to
one Government institution
or ministry, one province, one group of people,
one political party or
gender. It has got to be a shared
responsibility".
He defended the central bank for getting involved in
almost every facet of
the country's economy.
"Many may wonder why
Your Central Bank gets involved in some of these
activities which, on the
face of it, appear to be outside our core mandate
of inflation fighting," he
said.
"Many may also wonder why the Central Bank and its staff spent
their time
outside the Bank visiting farmers and miners, visiting provinces
and mines
instead of staying in our beautiful offices, enjoy our tea and
fold our arms
in the face of the many challenges facing our
economy."
Apparently turning to President Robert Mugabe, who was at the
function, Gono
said: "May I take this opportunity to clarify and say, Your
Excellency that
when a country is under siege, as indeed we are, the Nation
expects us to do
more than sitting and drinking tea from our
offices."
He said farmers getting assistance from the RBZ and the
government would
lose their implements and support if they did not put it to
good use.
"Once we have given out loans, we need and are expected to follow
them up to
ascertain usage on the ground, hence our visiting districts and
provinces
throughout the country," he said.
Gono said senior civil
servants, ordinary farmers in the various districts,
members of the
judiciary and the clergy who are farmers have also not been
forgotten from
this programme.
"We have earmarked 20% of the tractors and implements to
our war veteran
farmers, allocated some tractors and implements to women and
youths farmers
who are excelling in their districts and recognized our
traditional chiefs
from each district in the country where cropping takes
place. We have also
recognized our legislators whether they be Members of
Parliament, Ministers
or Senators"
Under Phase 2, Gono said, we plan
to cover the same spectrum until all key
farmers are resourced.
He
said the implements were on hire-purchase basis and "if no primary
productivity at the beneficiary's farm is taking place, we reserve the right
of repossession and reallocation of the equipment".
"We say this
because there will be some beneficiaries who will be tempted to
receive
these tractors, implements and harvesters only to make exorbitant
sums of
money through leasing them out," said Gono.
"We are not discouraging
hiring out to neighboring farms but we expect that
when we visit
beneficiaries, we see improved farming methods, improved
yields and output
deliveries at the individual level."
The DDF has received 22 new tractors
and implements for use in the districts
and provinces, Gono
revealed.
Mugabe was the guest of honour at the handover ceremony held at
Farmec
Warehouses in the heavy industrial sites.
Ghana web
Accra, June
11,GNA- Zimbabwean civil society organizations on Monday called
on President
John Agyekum Kufuor to, as Chairman of the African Union (AU),
use his
office to ensure peace and tranquility in Zimbabwe.
The Zimbabwean
crisis, according to the group, should be high on the agenda
of the
forthcoming AU Summit in Accra. Speaking to newsmen in Accra, Dr
Lovemore
Madhuku, Chairperson of the National Constitutional Assembly of
Zimbabwe and
leader of the group said the AU was the appropriate organ to
take up issues
relating to the Zimbabwean crisis.
He said all Africans should intervene
in the economic lapses and human
rights abuses confronting the country
saying, "the call for democracy,
freedom of speech and expression and the
respect for human rights must no
longer remain the task of only Zimbabweans,
but a collective responsibility
of the entire continent." Dr. Madhuku also
called for constitutional
amendments to the Zimbabwean Constitution which
would be done through a
comprehensive discussion and debate
proposals.
"All that we are asking for as Zimbabweans is the rights to
free and fair
elections and the opportunity to assert our rights to debate",
he added. 11
June 07