SOKWANELE
Enough
is Enough
Zimbabwe
PROMOTING NON-VIOLENT PRINCIPLES TO
ACHIEVE DEMOCRACY
We
have a fundamental right to freedom of
expression!
Sokwanele
reporter
05 June 2004
A 62 year old widow, Mrs Pat Campbell, was
brutally beaten with sticks at her farm, Sutton Estate, in Banket yesterday.
Her assailant was the rifle-wielding personal guard of Lt. General P.V.
Sibanda. Mrs Campbell’s “crime” was being on the farm of which she is
the lawful owner. In the attack the
General’s side-kick pointed his AK 47 assault rifle at Mrs Campbell and her son
Doug, threatening them both with instant death if they did not leave the farm at
once. To emphasise the point the
soldier whose rifle was aimed at their heads, cocked the weapon.
Earlier the
same day three of Doug Campbell’s employees who had been helping dip Mrs
Campbell’s cattle were ordered to kneel down and were severely beaten with
sticks by the same assailant. When the
beaten and bruised farm employees reported the assault to the local police
station, the police refused to take any action.
They would not even supply a report reference number.
Tragically
Mrs Campbell’s husband, son-in-law and grandson were all killed in a motor
accident five years ago. Since that time
she has run their crops, game and cattle farm on her own. In August 2003 she won her High Court
application challenging the validity of the
Sections 5 and 8 notices served on her.
Her legal action was unopposed.
In February
Lt. General Sibanda posted four of his guards on Sutton Estate, two of whom were to monitor Mrs Campbell’s
every move. They pitched their tent next
to the fence right outside her bedroom window.
It is
understood that Lt. General P.V. Sibanda was already in possession of a number
of other farms before he turned his attention to Sutton Estate. How he squares this with the regime’s
purported policy of “one man, one farm”
is not known.
Following
the brutal assault and death threats Mrs
Campbell fled the property. She left
behind her a number of in-calf cows and the equally vulnerable wild life in the
game park. The few farm employees have also now fled for fear of further violent
attack.
Pictures
available on request.
Visit: www.sokwanele.com
Sent: Saturday, June 05, 2004 5:19 PM
Subject: Have you forgotten so
soon
Dear Family and Friends,
Two years ago the Zimbabwean
parliament passed the Telecommunications Act
which required all Internet
Service Providers to allow government to
monitor the email correspondence of
their subscribers. The Act also
forbade the ISP's from informing their
clients that their emails were
being read by government agents. In March 2004
the Supreme Court ruled
that these clauses of the Act were unconstitutional.
It hasn't taken long
for our government to find a way around the ruling of
the country's
highest court.
This week Zimbabwe's ISP's were told that
they must sign contracts with
our government, a government which owns the
country's telephone system and
therefore holds all the cards. The contract
obliges all ISP's to provide
tracing facilites for what the Zimbabwe
government call "nuisance or
malicious messages or communications." The
contracts will force
Zimbabwe's ISP's to block the content and report
malicious messages to the
government. The contract further states that the
"use of the network for
anti-national activities will be regarded as an
offence punishable under
Zimbabwean law." No one is yet saying just exactly
what "anti-national"
messages are, or who will decide if an email is
patriotic or not, but it
doesn't take much imagination to work this one out.
So far Zimbabwe's
ISP's haven't signed the contract and say they are having
meetings with
the government. This does not inspire much hope to ordinary
email users
like me who have witnessed the results of similar meetings by
the
commercial farmers, the daily independent press, the judiciary,
the
private schools and even the cricket players.
Our biggest ISP said
it would block mails and divulge the source of its
customers' emails if
required to do so by law. Another ISP said that it
was prepared to close down
rather than agree to spy on its clients.
As Zimbabwe's Big Brother
watches us, I find myself turning again and
again to the quotation I used in
"Beyond Tears" and the words are as true
today for Zimbabwe as they were for
a Nazi victim in 1945: "First they
came for the Jews and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew. Then
they came for the communists and I did not
speak out because I was not a
communist. Then they came for the trade
unionists and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist. Then
they came for me - and there was
no one left to speak out for me."
If
I have understood the imminent clamp down on emails correctly, it does
not
only affect mails going out of Zimbabwe, but also those coming in. It
affects
you and me and silences our voices. The voices of Zimbabwe's 3 and
half
million people living in exile in democratic countries around the
world are
absolutely deafening in their silence. I have not heard of
protests, marches,
demonstrations, petitions or lobbying. White
Zimbabweans in exile say they do
not speak out because it will be seen as
racism and sour grapes. Black
Zimbabweans in exile say they do not speak
out because they will be seen as
sellouts and Uncle Tom's. Have you
forgotten, so soon, why you loved
Zimbabwe, because this one really does
affect us all. Love
cathy.
Copyright cathy buckle 5th June 2004 http://africantears.netfirms.com
My
books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears"
are
available outside Africa from: orders@africabookcentre.com
;
www.africabookcentre.com ; www.amazon.co.uk ; in Australia and New
Zealand:
johnmreed@johnreedbooks.com.au
; Africa: www.kalahari.net
www.exclusivebooks.com
From: "Trudy Stevenson"
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2004 12:22 AM
Subject:
Mobile Registration still on - New voters, transfers etc
Encouraged
by some strong rumours that government is finally considering an
overhaul of
the election process to make it more free and fair (!!), please
note that
registration is still on for new voters, birth certificates,
ID's
etc.
I list below the details for Mobile Registration Centres in
Harare where new
voters, transfers, IDs, changes of name etc, details, birth
certificates,
can be done. You do NOT have to go to your local centre - you
can use ANY
CENTRE as long as you bring documentary proof.
To register
as a voter, take your birth certificate, National ID and proof
of
residence.
NB. ALL ZIMBABWEANS WHO WERE 16 - 18 IN 2002 SHOULD NOW
REGISTER.
PLEASE, SCHOOLS & COLLEGES - ENSURE THAT ANY PUPILS WHO HAVE
TURNED 18
REGISTER.
PLEASE, CHURCHES, encourage your congregations to
register.
PASS THIS INFORMATION ON TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE - Print
out and put
up in any public place you can think of where people can read it
- or make a
poster for your own area.
Borrowdale District Office Mon 6
- Wed 8 June
New March Farm 9 - 8 June (maybe they mean 8 - 9
June!)
Gletwyn Farm 12 - 14 June
Courtney Selous Primary 15 - 17
June
Zimphos Primary - 18 - 20 June
Mabvuku community Hall 21-25
June
Old Tafara Community Hall 26-30 June
Kambuzuma Comm Hall 6
June
Kambuzuma Section 5 Pre-school 7-9 June
Nettleton Primary 10 - 12
June
Suinnigdale District Office 13-16 June
Draycott Farm 17-19
June
Chedgelow Farm 20-23 June
Kutsaga Tobacco Research 24-27 June
Glen
Norah A Community Hall 7-10 June
Glen Norah 1 High school 11-14 June
Mbare
Netball Complex 15-18 June
Waterfalls District Office 19-21 June
Highfield
Zimbabwe Hall 22-26 June
Rusvingo Primary School 27-30 June
NB there
are other centres throughout the country.
IOL
'White farmers don't want Zim sanctions'
June 05 2004 at
10:20AM
Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma ruled out
a trade embargo
against Zimbabwe on Friday, saying even white farmers there
were against
sanctions.
Asked whether the South African government
should consider an embargo to
pressurise Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
into moving towards political
change, she said: "No one country can bring
peace and stability to and solve
anything in another
country."
Referring to South Africa's history, she said it was
organisations like the
United Nations which had imposed sanctions against
apartheid, and "not
individual countries".
.. This article
was originally published on page 3 of The Independent on
Saturday on June 05,
2004
IOL
Zimbabwe secretly imports maize
June 05 2004 at
01:50PM
Up to 400 000 tons of maize - some of it from South
Africa - have been
secretly imported into Zimbabwe over the past few months
as the government
stocks up on food for distribution ahead of parliamentary
elections next
March.
Official sources said the imports would be used
to make up the shortfall in
this year's harvest and ensure donors are kept
out of food distribution
efforts.
This would enable Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe's government to apply
food as the key weapon to win
the two-thirds majority it badly needs in
parliament to change the
constitution.
Key donors that helped Zimbabwe at the height of its food
problems had
hitherto refused to give the government any opportunity to use
food as a
political weapon.
The Zimbabwe government stands accused of
misleading the world about its
anticipated harvests this season. It claims it
will harvest 2.4 million tons
of maize, exceeding the country's annual
requirements of about 1.8 million
to two million tons.
A United
Nations crop assessment team that wanted to verify the government's
claims
was kicked out of the country two weeks ago.
But the sources said at
least 400 000 tons of maize had already been
imported and deposited at
selected silos run by state owned Grain Marketing
Board. The sources say the
maize is from South Africa, Zambia and the
Americas.
a..
Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Friday ruled out a
trade
embargo against Zimbabwe, saying even white farmers in that country
were
opposed to sanctions.
Asked whether Pretoria should not consider a trade
embargo as a weapon to
pressurise Mugabe to move towards political change,
she said: "No one
country can bring peace, stability and solve anything in
another country".
Civil society groups and others who were urging
intervention from South
Africa, were "the very same people in Zimbabwe who
had said there should not
be an embargo," she said.
.. This
article was originally published on page 1 of The Cape Argus on
June 05,
2004
New Zimbabwe
What is between Chombo, Makwavarara?
By Faith
Zaba
Last updated: 06/05/2004 22:35:15
PARLIAMENT burst out into laughter
when Mutare North MP Giles Mutsekwa asked
Local Government, Public Works and
National Housing Minister Ignatius Chombo
what he found in acting Harare
mayor Sekesai Makwavarara that made him
continue to subvert democratic
processes.
Even Chombo could not help but smile at the question, which
Speaker of
Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa said was not a policy
issue.
Chombo this week suspended 13 MDC councilors for defying a
ministerial
directive not to conduct elections to choose a deputy mayor, who
would have
replaced Makwavarara.
Makwavarara resigned from MDC early
this year after her party ordered her to
relinquish her post as acting mayor
in protest against the dismissal of
elected mayor Elias
Mudzuri.
Chombo had issued a directive saying no elections would be held
until 2006.
The acting mayor is currently residing in a council rented house
in Gunhill
and is driving a council vehicle.
On another related
question, Kuwadzana MP Nelson Chamisa asked Chombo if it
was government
policy to victimise and make people suffer in cities won by
opposition
parties.
He also wanted to know if it was government policy to use the
Minister of
Local Government as an instrument to deal with the opposition in
Zimbabwe.
Chombo said all local authorities were governed by the Urban
Councils Act.
He said any person who violated the rules and regulations
prescribed in the
legislation would be dealt with.
"The Minister of
Local Government is the one who is mandated to superintend
and implement the
Urban Councils Act and all local authorities," Chombo
said.
Earlier,
before, Chombo arrived in Parliament, Harare North MP Trudy
Stevenson had
asked the acting Leader of the House, Joseph Made if it was
government policy
to violate legislation like the Urban Councils Act, which
she said provided
for elections every year.
She said the government interfered with the
democratic process in Harare
when it prevented the council from conducting
the elections to choose a
deputy mayor and councillors to various
committees.
In response, Made failed to give an adequate answer, but
instead spoke at
length about how MDC has mobilised its councillors and about
how his
government would not tolerate such actions.
"The government
will not stand back and allow a situation where the
generality of the
population suffers as a result of that. As soon as you
realise that you have
got to approach each area with that reasonableness,
the government will not
stand by.
"Ultimately at the end of the day it is government's
responsibility to make
sure that there is peace and tranquility and that the
population does enjoy
the services that are supposed to be provided," said
Made to interjections.
Seeing no connection between the response and the
question, Gwanda North MP
Paul Themba-Nyathi asked Made what question he was
responding to.
In an attempt to justify the response, Made said he was
responding to
comments made in the question about democracy.
"So if
you attach some other comments to your question that are not really
related
to the issues that you are raising and insinuating that we are there
to
ignore our own Acts, that is not the case and that is not our policy,"
he
said.
On another issue St Mary's Member of Parliament Job Sikhala
called on all
Zimbabweans to openly debate the person who should succeed
President Robert
Mugabe.
He told Parliament this week that this
person, whether he is from Zanu PF or
his party MDC, should be "new
blood".
Sikhala was contributing to debate in which the House was
congratulating the
recently elected Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika and
expressing its
appreciation for the peaceful atmosphere that surrounded the
elections.
"I urge people of Zimbabwe to openly debate who should take
over the reigns
of power in our country and which new blood should run this
country. I do
not care whether that new blood comes from Zanu PF or
MDC.
"The new blood should run the country in a manner not in old
fashioned
liberation war movement type of rulership that is similar in some
of the
despot countries. We urge some of our unrepentant brothers in Africa
who
still want to cling to power forever, to learn lessons from a new crop
of
leaders. I would also urge others in the different political parties
that
when we are injecting new blood we must be free to debate about," he
said.
Debating the same motion, Gokwe North MP Eleck Mkandla of Zanu PF
thanked
the Malawian government for inviting the Speaker of Parliament
Emmerson
Mnangagwa to witness the election process.
"I would like to
thank the people of Zimbabwe for giving better advice to
Malawi by allowing
to include the Speaker of Parliament in their processes.
If they did not
believe in us, they would not have invited us.
"I would like to say that
all leaders are chosen by God and the Malawian
people were given a leader by
God. Even us we were given our leaders by
God," he said.
He said like
the people in Malawi who lost the election, MDC should learn to
accept
defeat.
"You talk and talk and rather than discussing issues of
development in your
country. If you want a leader of tomorrow you need to
learn from other
countries and from international laws," Mkandla
said.
From the Tribune
kubatana.net
Offering understanding of unfinished business
Reviewed by
James Muzondidya, www.africanreviewofbooks.com
June
04, 2004
James Muzondidya is a lecturer in the history department at the
University
of Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's Unfinished Business: Rethinking
Land, State and Nation in the
Context of Crisis
Amanda Hammar, Brian
Raftopoulos & Stig Jensen, eds.,
2003 Weaver Press, Harare xi + 316
pages
The 'Zimbabwe crisis' has become the subject of intense debate both
inside
and outside Zimbabwe, and explanations for its origins, forms and
outcomes
have been many and varied. What is, however, disappointing is that
despite
their multiplicity, these explanations have done little to improve
our
understanding of the complexity of the problems confronting the country.
The
main problem being that many of these explanations have not only
been
parochial and partisan but also imagined; seeking to interpret the
present
problems out of history and context.
Moving away from the
tradition of narrow and partisan explanations which
abound on the topic, this
study, bringing together expertise from various
scholars, policy analysts,
development practitioners and activists who have
all researched and written
on Zimbabwe for years, analytically examines the
crisis through its
complexities and contradictions while also trying to
suggest solutions to it.
Zimbabwe's Unfinished Business's central thesis is
that the "crisis is
multi-layered, and is rooted in the complex relationship
between
contestations over land, processes of rule and state-making,
and
constructions of nation and citizenship". It consists of nine chapters
which
all address three interwoven themes in Zimbabwe's current history:
the
question of justice and equity with regards to land and resource
ownership
and redistribution; the restructuring and reconfiguration of the
state; and
nationhood and citizenship in the postcolonial state.
"A
different kind of imagination of farm workers and discourse of
citizenship
and nationality is needed which allows for their full
incorporation into the
postcolonial nation state" The opening chapter by the
two editors of the
book, Amanda Hammar and Brian Raftopoulos, introduces the
main themes
addressed by the study and lays out the lead arguments of each
chapter. It
also provides a compact historical overview of events and
processes leading
to the current crisis. The second chapter by Eric Worby
focuses on the
current regime's obsession with the twin questions of
sovereignty and regime
security which has not only led to the sidelining of
many other important
issues of national development but has also resulted in
the exclusion of
other groups from their citizenship rights. Worby argues,
essentially, that
President Robert Mugabe, by evoking memories of
colonialism, nationalism and
the 1970s war, has successfully used the
question of national sovereignty to
legitimise his authoritarian,
unaccountable and often violent exercise of
power. Yet, this sovereignty,
Worby further informs us, is not much about
protecting the Zimbabwean
people's security from the threat posed by
"racially grounded imperialism in
the guise of Western, neo-liberal
orthodoxy". It is more about regime
security and control of power and its
exercise by a much weakened and
beleaguered state.
Jocelyn Alexander's
third chapter examines the changing relationships
between contestations over
land and land use, processes of state-making,
definitions of nationalism and
constructions of citizenship throughout the
post-independence period. She
specifically compares and contrasts the
current phase of violent and forceful
land occupation begun in 2000 with the
earlier occupations of the 1980s and
1990s. Apart from observing that the
earlier and current phases of land
occupation differed, Alexander correctly
notes that there have been profound
shifts in official and public discourses
over land and land occupations, in
the nature and scope of social movements
seeking to claim land and the role
of the state in the management of land
occupation. Such changes are well
documented in other important works on the
land question in Zimbabwe,
especially those done by the Zimbabwean expert on
land and agrarian studies,
Sam Moyo (Moyo 1995, 1998, 2001, 2003). Alexander
posits that the changes
denote the "critical shifts in the stakes, terms and
alliances marking
Zimbabwe's unfolding politics of land", a proposition
difficult to argue
against given the insurmountable evidence she presents to
back up her
argument.
Focusing on local government and its continued violent
disruption by
supporters of Zanu PF who include war veterans, youth militia,
party
politicians and some government bureaucrats, the fourth chapter, by
Amanda
Hammar, is yet again another rich contribution to the debate about
the
current crisis. Noting that the sphere of local government has long
been
characterised by contradictions, conflicts and contestations, Hammar
argues
that the scale, terms and intensity of the present disruptions aimed
at
asserting both the state and ruling party's control over resources
and
populations is unprecedented and has radically altered the formal
practices
of both politics and government. Reflecting on consequences of the
ongoing
crisis and disorder Hammar argues that it has produced specific forms
of
governance in which the use of irregular and unregulated power by
certain
groups has come to be regarded as normal and the system of local
government
itself has been reconfigured in terms of the structures of power
and the
modalities of its exercise.
The fifth and sixth chapters of
the book, by Blair Rutherford and Brian
Raftopoulos, respectively, discuss
the issue of nationhood and citizenship
and the shape it has taken in
Zimbabwe's current crisis. Rutherford's
chapter focuses on farm workers and
shows how this group, comprising mainly
Malawian, Zambian and Mozambican
immigrants and their descendants, has been
marginalised in the dominant
politics of belonging and citizenship in the
postcolonial state. He argues
that the moral consciousness and political
behaviour as well as civic and
legal rights of farm workers and their
descendants has always been defined
through a process of historical
imagination which anchored their identity in
their location on the farms and
their presumed relationship with white
farmers. In terms of belonging, since
independence farm workers have not
easily fitted into the postcolonial
nation and as such have been largely
excluded from the national project of
development and its associated
institutional arrangement. This has had
devastating consequences for farm
workers in the context of the present
crisis, during which they have been, in
large numbers and often violently,
displaced by and excluded from the land
resettlement process. Rutherford
argues for a different kind of imagination
of farm workers and discourse of
citizenship and nationality which allows for
their full incorporation into
the postcolonial nation state and increases
their access to jobs, education,
land and other resources.
Brian
Raftopoulos' chapter, on the other hand, focuses on the ways in which
the
ruling Zanu PF government has sought to define nationhood and
citizenship in
the current crisis. He argues that the party has resorted to
an increasingly
authoritarian nationalism and selective interpretation of
the past to define
nationhood in a way that not only shuts down the space
for alternative
perspectives, but also marginalises other groups. In this
grand Zanu PF
strategy aimed at re-asserting the party's political
dominance, nationalism
has been redefined from the top down and all those
with alternative views and
not subscribing to government political discourse
have been subjected to
violence and oppression. Raftopoulos' chapter also
suggests that a central
part of this process and politics has been a growing
exclusivity around the
concept of citizenship, reformulated not only around
essentialised categories
of race and ethnicity but also through the ruling
party's increasing attacks
on foreign residents and their descendants,
mainly farm workers. Raftopoulos
concludes that the Zanu PF strategy,
formulated against the backdrop of
mounting pressure from impoverished
workers and peasants, protesting students
and a disgruntled bourgeoisie, is
being adopted at a time when there is a
serious breakdown of national
consensus on the discourse and politics of the
liberation struggle: the
discourse of political rights on the one hand and
economic redistribution on
the other. This is a poignant observation which to
a larger extent explains
the current impasse.
The seventh chapter by
Nelson Marongwe, focusing on conflicts over land and
natural resources across
state lands, communal and resettlement areas, and
large-scale commercial
farms, provides a solid analysis of the land
occupations that illustrate
their historical, social, political and economic
contexts. It bases its
analysis on fieldwork conducted on the post-February
2000 land occupations of
white commercial farms. The chapter highlights an
important dimension to the
occupations, including the motives of the
occupiers, the influence of outside
interests, forms of mobilisation and
types and scales of occupations. Of
particular interest in this chapter is
its analysis of the complexity of the
occupations, especially with regard to
the respective roles and influences of
the war veterans, the ruling party
and local factors in the occupations.
Marongwe's analysis in this section
presents a complex picture of the
occupations which shows that while the
state encouraged and supported the
occupations for its own political project
the process had its own internal
dynamics over which both the state and its
war veteran allies sometimes had
no control.
Mandivamba Rukuni and Stig Jensen's chapter addresses the
long-term effects
of the land occupations and the 'fast-track' resettlement
programme and
tries to suggest measures needed to redress the problems. They
argue that
the current "fast-track" programme has not only been chaotic but
also
destructive to the economy and that a successful land reform programme
is
dependent on establishing political stability, a sound economic
base,
relations of trust and sufficient institutional capacity to undertake
the
reforms. Contending that tenure security, in terms of individual and
group
rights to land, is the very basis of political and social power, the
chapter
also suggests fundamental changes in land tenure needed to guide the
process
of land reform.
The final chapter of the book, by Ben Cousins,
examines the significance and
effects of Zimbabwe's crisis in the broader
context of post-colonial reform
and social transformation in the region. The
central thesis of the chapter
is that the post-liberation governments of
Southern Africa have dismally
failed to address the structural, social and
political legacies of colonial
and apartheid rule, especially when it comes
to introducing meaningful
social transformation and addressing the imbalances
in the distribution and
ownership of land, a deeply contested economic and
political resource in the
region.
Drawing on the experiences of both
land reform and democratisation in the
region, he argues that the process has
been stalled largely because of the
shortcomings in current approaches and
the polarisation of positions on the
subject. This polarisation has seen, on
the one hand, the emphasising of the
"protection of private property under
the rubric of good governance and
effective neo-liberal economic management",
and on the other, the invocation
of identity politics and authoritarian
nationalism to call for radical land
redistribution, but often masking
corrupt and exclusionary practices.
Neither of these polarised positions,
Cousins further argues, has the
capacity to provide solutions to the current
crisis in "developmental
democracy" facing the region, thus making imperative
the search for
alternative approaches which focus on reducing poverty and
undermining the
foundations of structural inequality while simultaneously
deepening
democracy.
This is a well researched and excellently written
book that provides a
nuanced and balanced analysis on the contemporary crisis
in Zimbabwe. Unlike
most texts on the crisis which are mainly informed by,
and also reflect, the
deep polarisation that exists in the country today,
this book neither
reproduces the narrowly nationalist rhetoric of Zanu PF nor
adopts
uncritically the liberalist counter-position. It rather provides
some
provocative insights on the major issues and forces at play and argues
for
the analytic inseparability of questions of land, state, nation
and
citizenship. Zimbabwe's Unfinished Business is a good recommendation
to
anyone interested in understanding the complexities of the crisis
in
Zimbabwe.
Proposed email and internet censorship by the Zimbabwe
government
Kubatana.net
June 04, 2004
It comes as no surprise that
the Zimbabwe government is turning its
attention to censoring email and
internet communications. Freedom of
expression has been under siege in
Zimbabwe for the last few years.
Increasingly Zimbabweans find their human
rights infringed upon in a variety
of insidious ways.
Just think about
it for a second. You have to give notice to the police if
you intend to hold
a public meeting. You can be harassed by the State if
gathered in groups of
more than two. Wearing a pro-democracy T-shirt might
get you beaten up by
intolerant thugs. The Daily News was unceremoniously
shut down. Editors from
independent newspapers are routinely harassed and
intimidated.
And, by
the way, our television and radio stations parrot the ruling
party
line.
So it's small wonder that the Zimbabwe government has
recognised that email
and internet communications remain one of the only
avenues through which
Zimbabweans can share information. Their latest move is
a clear indication
of two things. First, their paranoia. Democratic
governments should be
encouraging rather than limiting the right of their
citizens to communicate,
disseminate and access information. Second, the
ruling party is yet again
illustrating its weakened position in Zimbabwean
politics. As we approach
Parliamentary Elections it is clear that Zanu PF is
afraid that free
expression will inhibit their success at the polls rather
than assist their
election campaign.
Quite clearly Zanu PF is actively
promoting an unfair election environment
that will ultimately call into
question the legitimacy of the Parliamentary
Elections.
Curiously, as
Zimbabweans face increasing repression it also gives us the
opportunity to
show our mettle. Let's look at what we can do as ordinary
citizens who
believe in our right to access and share information.
Very few
Zimbabweans use email and the internet to send political messages
or share
their political views. Most often people discuss politics at work,
church and
when they socialise. What the ruling party should realise is that
they can
make it harder for Zimbabweans to communicate on a mass basis but
they can't
stop people talking.
Let's be clear: it is not illegal to receive human
rights and civic
information either via email, through the post or by leaflet
dropped in your
post box. If this were the case then all newspapers carrying
an opinion
different from the ruling party would be banned. We might be on
our way
there but we're not there yet.
So an act of defiance, an act
of faith, and certainly an act of patriotism
in the hope for a new democratic
Zimbabwe will be YOU asking to remain on
important email mailing address
lists. These include Kubatana.net, National
Constitutional Association (NCA),
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU),
Crisis Coalition in Zimbabwe, Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ),
Media Institute of Southern Africa
(MISA), Zvakwana, Sokwanele, ZWNews, and
others.
Both ISPs and the
ruling party do not have the capacity to check the content
of all electronic
communication. One of the ruling party's tactics is to
issue inflammatory and
scary directives whilst having very little capacity
to follow through on
their threats. They hope that people will get scared
and will censor
themselves. Don't let them manipulate and frighten you!
Yes, they can use
"sniffer" programmes that flag certain words and draw
attention to that
specific email. The content of that email might then be
perused by
peeping-Jonathans. The effort that is required to manage this
type of
snooping is enormous, so one tactic is to flood the email system
with emails
that contain so-called dangerous words to make the ruling
party's job that
much harder. For example every time you send an email put a
sentence
like
It is time for mass action: mobilise and fight the HIV/AIDS
epidemic. Be
part of the movement for respect and dignity: stay-away from
unprotected
sex.
at the bottom of your email.
If enough people
do this, sniffer programmes will pick up on key words that
the censors will
have deemed "malicious" and they'll soon be bored by
ploughing through loads
of innocuous messages.
Another tactic you can use if you're afraid of
receiving or imparting
information is to create a web based email address.
Hotmail and Yahoo
addresses are free and they're internet based. Being
internet based means
that your messages do not pass through Internet Service
Provider's mail
servers. Perhaps you don't have access to the internet at
work but you could
always use an internet café once a week in order to stay
informed. And if
you can't be bothered to go this extra mile then you should
reflect on
whether you believe freedom of expression is worth protecting and
fighting
for. Or not.
Kubatana.net calls upon all Internet Service
Providers to roundly reject any
attempts to have their subscribers' email
communications monitored. We are
pleased to share with you this excerpt from
a recent Zimbabwe Internet
Service Provider Association (ZISPA)
statement:
ZISPA wishes to confirm that there is no monitoring of any
sort of any
e-mails by any of its members at the moment and that none of its
members
have signed the proposed contract amendment.
ZISPA Press Release,
"Monitoring of e-mails" dated 3 June 2004
Keep on talking. Keep on
communicating. Kubatana.net facilitates email and
internet activism
workshops. Get in touch with us if you have a group of 10
people who would
like to learn more about using email for advocacy.
From VOA News, 4 June
Zimbabwe hospitals criticized for keeping
babies, mothers until bills are
paid
Harare - Zimbabwean officials
have reacted angrily to news reports that
leading hospitals are detaining
newborn babies and their mothers until they
pay their bills. This method of
bill collection has been going on in
Zimbabwe for some time. The minister of
health, Dr. David Parirenyatwa, told
the state-controlled newspaper The
Herald that his ministry has not gone
into the legality of the custom but in
no way condones the practice. He was
reacting to a story in the same paper
which said 28 newborn babies with
their mothers were being detained at Harare
Central Hospital until their
hospital bills were settled. Hospital
superintendent Dr. Chris Tapfumaneyi
defended the detentions saying the
hospital could not just let the women go
without settling their bills. He
said the hospital is owed millions of
dollars by some patients who simply
disappear after being discharged. It was
reported that, following the
ministry's intervention, the hospital had
ordered the release of the women
being held for non-payment. However Dr.
Tapfumaneyi could not be reached for
comment. Another doctor who works at
the hospital said the unorthodox
practice of holding patients for payment is
not new. The doctor, who spoke to
VOA on condition of anonymity, said it is
also not unusual for hospitals to
demand payment from relatives of the dead
before they can claim the body. The
doctor said hospital officials can use
their discretion if patients or their
relatives claim they cannot pay. At
independence in 1980, Zimbabwe introduced
free health care for low-income
patients but as the country's economy
deteriorated in recent years,
hospitals began to insist that everybody had to
pay.