The Times
March 17, 2007
Jam Raath in Harare
President Mugabe ordered police to
be deployed "fully armed" yesterday to
deal forcefully with unrest in
Harare. He also threatened to expel Western
diplomats who showed support for
the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change.
Mr Mugabe, whose
comments were reported on state radio, heightened tension
at the end of a
week in which police dealt brutally with protests against
his regime,
inflicting serious injuries on Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC
leader.
It
was an open challenge to opposition politicians who earlier agreed to set
aside 18 months of infighting, that left their parties bitterly divided, to
challenge Mr Mugabe.
Political and civil leaders, some of whom bore
the scars of savage beatings
inflicted by the President's security forces,
stood together on a podium to
mark what they said was "the final stage of
the final push" to force him out
of office.
"Sunday was the
demonstration of commitment to working together; there is no
better place to
demonstrate unity than in the battlefield," said Arthur
Mutambara, the
leader of a breakaway faction of the MDC. There were loud
cheers when Mr
Mutambara declared: "We have our differences but we will
manage them. Arthur
Mutambara will not stand in an election against Morgan
Tsvangirai; Morgan
Tsvangirai will not stand against Arthur Mutambara. "I
hope, Robert Mugabe,
you sick old man, you are listening," he said.
Mr Tsvangirai, who suffered a
severe head injury when security forces broke
up Sunday's Opposition rally,
was unable to attend yesterday's act of
reconciliation because of his
injuries, although he was later released from
hospital in a
wheelchair.
However, Tendai Biti, his secretary-general, sitting next to
Mr Mutambara,
endorsed the statement. The MDC break-up in 2005 was "tragic,"
he said. "We
have been seeing [in recent weeks] beginning to emerge the
unity of
opposition. This is the endgame."
Mr Mutambara said: "We are
in the final stages of the final push. We are
going to do it by democratic
means, by being arrested, beaten, but we are
going to do it. We are
continuing with defiance in spite of what Robert
Mugabe says. We are talking
about rebellion; war."
Asked whether this meant setting aside the MDC's
long commitment to
nonviolence, he said: "You can do your own
interpretation. Mugabe is
fighting against his own people. That is war
against the people. Already
there is violence."
Mr Mugabe, 83, who
has been in power for 27 years since Zimbabwe's
independence from Britain,
appeared to be preparing for further
confrontations when he gave orders for
police to carry guns. A curfew is
being enforced in some parts of Harare
between 8pm and dawn.
Yesterday there were reports that the unrest had
spread to Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe's second city, where police reported an attempt
to sabotage a
railway line, and said that youths had set up roadblocks in
townships.
Earlier this week a defiant Mr Mugabe said that critics in the
West could
"go hang" in the face of strong international condemnation of his
violent
treatment of opposition protestors. Yesterday he gave a warning to
Western
diplomats not to intervene in Zimbabwe's domestic affairs or risk
expulsion.
His comments are believed to refer to Andrew Pocock, the
British Ambassador
in Harare, and Thomas Dell, the US Ambassador. Yesterday
Britain called for
a briefing of the UN Security Council on "the appalling
events" in Zimbabwe.
Emyr Jones Parry, Britain's Ambassador to the UN, said
that Britain would
also raise the crackdown on the Zimbabwe Opposition
before the Human Rights
Council in Geneva.
Desmond Tutu, the South
African Nobel laureate, said that African leaders
should feel ashamed for
their silence on this week's violence in Zimbabwe.
"We Africans should hang
our heads in shame," said Archbishop Tutu. "How can
what is happening in
Zimbabwe elicit hardly a word of concern, let alone
condemnation, from us
leaders of Africa?
Bloggers' view
"Mugabe is a tyrant and
murderer and any rational society should be urging
that he be summarily put
up against a wall, shot and then thrown in a
garbage dump, not 'reconciled'
with. Well I guess we should look on the
bright side: things will not be so
violent in Zimbabwe one year from now as
all Mugabe's opponents will either
be dead or Mugabe will be hanging on the
meat hook that he deserves by
then
Perry de Havilland
"Mugabe is a dictator inflicting a
harsh regime on his people. We have taken
a stance on similar dictators in
the past ... why aren't we doing something
about this one?
Jane
Williams, Cheshire
"Zimbabwe has become George Orwell's Animal drunk
with power and the poor
people of Zimbabwe have no hope while a mad man like
Mugabe is in charge
Clive Thompson, London
"God is indeed
working in Zimbabwe, and the regime is terrified by His
presence!!
Kerry Kay, Dep. Sec. Health, MDC
"Morgan
Tsvangirai is a Western sponsored "terrorist", he plotted in London
to
assassinate Mugabe and overthrow the elected government. The only reason
the
British Government is antiMugabe is they still consider Zimbabwe to be
Rhodesia
stephi.blog.co.uk
"We risk grave error if we keep
on choosing not to listen to the concerns of
the common man in Zimbabwe,
opting instead for premeditated standards of
what democracy should be
like
zimpundit
VOA
By Peter Heinlein
United Nations
16
March 2007
Britain is calling for a U.N. Security Council
briefing on events in
Zimbabwe, including the crackdown on government
opponents. But as VOA
correspondent Peter Heinlein at U.N. headquarters
reports, the Council
president, South Africa, is resisting the
request.
Britain's U.N. ambassador, Emyr Jones-Parry, Friday, said the
widely
condemned recent events in Zimbabwe, the attack on opposition
leaders,
including Morgan Tsvangirai, and what he called 'the impossibility
of the
present situation' warrant the Security Council's attention. He says
the
Council should be formally briefed by the U.N.'s political
department.
"It is right the situation should be brought to the Security
Council of the
United Nations," he said. "That's what the briefing will do,
actually
making sure that the focus of attention here is on the appalling
events of
the last week, and the economic meltdown of a country, who, by
it's own
figures, its inflation rate is 1,740 percent, and the implications
of that
for the ordinary people of Zimbabwe, and potentially for the
region."
But the request for a briefing immediately ran into opposition
from regional
power South Africa, which holds the rotating Security Council
presidency
this month. South Africa's U.N. ambassador, Dumisani Kumalo,
called the
British request 'surprising,' and said his country sees no need
to bring the
issue of Zimbabwe before the Council.
"We did put South
Africa on record that we do not believe that the issue of
Zimbabwe belongs
to the Security Council, because it is not a matter of
international peace
and security," he said.
In the past, China, Russia and several African
nations have opposed bringing
Zimbabwe before the Security
Council.
Britain demanded and received a Council briefing nearly two
years ago on
Zimbabwe's controversial urban slum demolition drive. In a rare
protest,
several ambassadors walked out of the Council chamber after a
motion to hold
the briefing passed by a narrow margin.
British
ambassador Jones-Parry argued Friday that the earlier vote
effectively
placed Zimbabwe on the Council's permanent agenda.
"Remember, Zimbabwe is
a formal agenda item," he added. "Yes, it was agreed
last year. It was
agreed by a majority vote in the council, formally."
U.N. diplomats noted
Friday that, if South Africa succeeds in delaying a
briefing on Zimbabwe,
conditions could change next month, when Britain
assumes the Security
Council presidency.
Jones-Parry said Britain is also pursuing the
Zimbabwe issue at the U.N.
Human Rights Council in Geneva. The United States
and Australia have also
joined the call for increasing sanctions on
President Robert Mugabe's
government.
In a related development, Nobel
Peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu
issued a statement saying Africans
should hang their heads in shame over
what is happening in Zimbabwe. He
questioned how African leaders could show
so little concern.
News
reports from Harare say the injured opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai,
was discharged from the hospital Friday, and he and other
opposition leaders
vowed to keep battling against President Mugabe's rule.
VOA
By Patience Rusere
Washington
16 March
2007
Organizers of the Save Zimbabwe Campaign, an umbrella
organization of
political and civil society opponents of President Robert
Mugabe, said
Friday they will hold more prayer meetings despite the police
crackdown on
their first attempt last Sunday.
Save Zimbabwe officials
said they have been contacted by organizations that
want to hold such prayer
meetings in their localities and have asked the
group's help.
The
campaign held a news conference in Harare today at which the secretary
general of the Movement for Democratic Change faction of Morgan Tsvangirai,
Tendayi Biti, recounted the experience of opposition leaders in the police
custody following their arrest Sunday at the prayer meeting called in
Highfield by the campaign.
MDC faction leader Arthur Mutambara was
present and National Constitutional
Assembly Chairman Lovemore Madhuku
outlined future strategies.
Campaign spokesman Jonah Gokovah told
reporter Patience Rusere that events
of the past week have unified the
opposition, which underwent a split in
late 2005 over issues of strategy and
conflicts among some of its leading
figures.
VOA
By Carole Gombakomba
Washington
16 March
2007
Rights lawyers have filed a notice of intention to sue
the Zimbabwe Republic
Police on behalf of the Save Zimbabwe campaign and
opposition officials
alleged to have been severely beaten while in police
custody from Sunday
through Tuesday.
Members of the Save Zimbabwe
Campaign were arrested and assaulted by the
police as they attempted to hold
a prayer meeting in the Harare suburb of
Highfield.
Those injured
included Movement for Democratic Change founding president
Morgan Tsvangirai
, National Constitutional Assembly Chairman Lovemore
Madhuku, senior MDC
officials Sekai Holland, Grace Kwinjeh, Nelson Chamisa,
Tendai Biti, Willas
Madzimure and William Bango, and about 50 supporters of
the
party.
Tafadzwa Mugabe of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said the
notice was
delivered to the assistant police commissioner at the Harare
Central police
station who was in charge of operations on Sunday when the
police actions
began.
Lawyer Mugabe told reporter Carole Gombakomba
of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe
that the aim of the suit is to hold the
police accountable for their
actions.
Financial Times
By Tony
Hawkins in Harare
Published: March 16 2007 18:41 | Last updated: March 16
2007 20:41
A common sight for early morning joggers in Harare's northern
suburbs these
days is that of black Zimbabweans sifting through plastic
rubbish bags
outside plush homes in search of food scraps or anything they
can use or
sell.
It didn't used to be like this. But inflation of
1,730 per cent - rising
towards 5,200 per cent by year-end, by the
International Monetary Fund's
count - has forced all but the super-rich to
tighten their belts.
The evidence is everywhere. Thousands - probably
hundreds of thousands - of
families depend in part on informal income to
survive. Many teachers have
become cross-border traders, spending their
weekends and holidays travelling
to and from South Africa or Botswana to
supplement their meagre pay. Dozens
of middle-aged white women spend months
of the year earning sterling as
carers in the UK.
Cecilia Shiri works
part-time as a gardener in neighbouring Botswana to
supplement her teacher's
salary. For a day's work, she earns 50 Botswanan
pula, or Z$75,000, less
than half the monthly salary offered to striking
teachers last
month.
Last month, Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of Zimbabwe's
Progressive
Teachers' Union, estimated that graduate teachers were earning
"four and a
half bananas a day".
"I can't survive on my salary," she
says. "When I weed in the fields, I don't
think about the plight of my
children but how [changing money in] the black
market can help us survive
these never-ending hardships."
The poverty datum line (PDL) - the
official poverty level - for a family of
five is Z$260,000 a month (£11 at
the black market rate) - more than three
times the minimum wage for a farm
labourer of Z$82,000. There are no
reliable figures for the monthly average
wage but a bank economist estimates
it at less than Z$200,000 - also well
below the PDL.
Many Zimbabweans rely on remittances from relatives
working abroad. Official
figures put the net inflow at more than US$100m
(£51.5m) annually, but
because virtually all deals are done on the black
market the actual inflow
is believed to be substantially higher.
The
difference between official and black market exchange rates is vast. One
US
dollar will officially buy Z$250 but the parallel market quotes a rate
of
about Z$12,500. A rate of Z$2,500-Z$3,000 would better reflect Zimbabwe's
economic situation, according to a bank economist.
This huge gap
between exchange rates has turned Zimbabwe into a nation of
money changers.
"It is the only game in town," says an affluent young
black
businessman.
Like other African states that have slumped to basket-case
status, the
income gap between the affluent rich and the mass of the
population is
widening by the month. Three-quarters of Zimbabwe's population
live on less
than US$1 day, unemployment exceeds 40 per cent of the
workforce and life
expectancy, at 35, years is the world's
lowest.
However, for the politically well-connected, Zimbabwe offers a
lifestyle
un-matched in much of Africa. They are the ones who can obtain
foreign
exchange at official rates to import and sell at vast profit smart
Japanese
vehicles in Harare's burgeoning car dealerships.
In many
societies such disparity between haves and have-nots would be enough
to
bring people on to the streets.
Whether the example of Morgan Tsvangirai,
the opposition leader, - who was
released from hospital yesterday after
being beaten by police after a
protest meeting in Harare - will inspire his
supporters to risk the wrath of
the Zimbabwean security forces remains to be
seen.
Meanwhile, President Robert Mugabe yesterday threatened to expel
western
diplomats who support Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic
Change. He
said he had told his foreign minister to "read the riot act" to
diplomats.
If they did not "behave properly ... we will kick them out", he
said.
Zim Online
Saturday 17 March 2007
By
Menzi Sibanda
BULAWAYO - Zimbabwean police on Friday arrested seven
suspected opposition
supporters who are accused of staging violent protests
in the second city of
Bulawayo last Thursday.
Police spokesperson
Wayne Bvudzijena said the seven were among a group of
opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters who barricaded
the main railway line
in the city on Thursday morning.
"There have been some arrests and the
police are still looking out for more
suspects. These are clearly MDC thugs
whose actions are deplorable. They are
inviting trouble for themselves,"
said Bvudzijena.
Bvudzijena said the suspects will be taken to court on
Monday facing charges
of public violence.
Meanwhile, the police
released two senior MDC officials, Lovemore Moyo and
Samuel Sipepa Nkomo who
were arrested on Wednesday night for allegedly
holding an illegal political
meeting in the city.
Political tensions are on the rise in Zimbabwe
following last weekend's
brutal torture of opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai and several other
senior officials of his party by security
forces. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Saturday 17 March 2007
By
Farisai Gonye
HARARE - The Zimbabwe Exiles Forum (ZEF) says it will renew
this week's
torture of Zimbabwe opposition leaders to renew efforts to have
President
Robert Mugabe indicted for human rights abuses in international
courts.
The Pretoria-based rights group last year failed to have Mugabe
prosecuted
in Canadian with the Canadians saying the Zimbabwean leader could
not be
dragged before the courts because he was a serving head of
state.
Gabriel Shumba, the ZEF executive director on Friday said his
organisation
was already liasing with Canadian lawyers to press the country
to revisit
its decision not to indict Mugabe following this week's events in
Harare.
"The latest torture and state-sanctioned savage attacks on
opposition and
civil society activists vindicates our position that Mugabe
must be hauled
before regional and international courts," said
Shumba.
Morgan Tsvangirai, who heads the main opposition Movement for
Democratic
Change (MDC) party, together with several senior officials of his
party,
were severely tortured while in police custody.
Images of a
bruised Tsvangirai triggered international condemnation of the
Zimbabwean
government this week.
Shumba said his organisation would also seek to use
legislation in other
countries to indict Mugabe.?
"ZEF is now
intensifying its lobbying and advocacy efforts towards the
issuance of an
international warrant of arrest against Mugabe and those
serving under him.
We will soon urge the Canadian government to review its
stance regarding the
commencement of criminal proceedings against Mugabe.
"The contempt with
which court orders are treated in Zimbabwe is another
evidence why justice
cannot be obtained inside the country, apart from the
fact that the
judiciary is hugely intimidated and in many instances
deliberately biased in
favour of the government," said Shumba. - ZimOnline
Business Day (Johannesburg)
OPINION
March 16,
2007
Posted to the web March 16, 2007
Aubrey
Matshiqi
Johannesburg
ROBERT Mugabe is not going to rule Zimbabwe
forever. He is either going to
leave voluntarily or be forced out of
office.
If he does not vacate the presidency voluntarily, a popular
uprising, an
electoral defeat or dynamics within Zanu (PF) will free
Zimbabweans from the
pernicious effects of his misrule.
If recent
reports are anything to go by, he intends seeking another
presidential term
next year. This is another indication of how impervious he
has become to
external opinion and is evidence of the failure of diplomatic
approaches in
all forms to bring about a resolution of the crisis.
Given Mugabe's
intransigence, neither the proponents of quiet diplomacy nor
its detractors
should take credit for what seems to be a deepening crisis
for the Mugabe
regime. The deepening crisis results from neither external
intervention nor
quiet diplomacy on the part of African leaders but from the
realities of an
economy on the verge of collapse and a struggle icon gone
mad. Debates about
what the South African government should do or should
have done are academic
and pointless if they are still influenced by the
illusory notion that tough
talk and tough action would have made an
impression on the Zimbabwean
despot.
I still maintain, as I argued five years ago, that no amount of
external
intervention can be a substitute for required levels of resistance
on the
part of Zimbabweans themselves. Whatever external forces do or say
must be
in support of the efforts of Zimbabweans to rid their country of
undemocratic rule as the first step towards Zimbabwe's social, political and
economic renaissance.
To this end, Zimbabwean civil society, both
factions of the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) and other opposition
forces, have strategic and
tactical choices to make about the form
opposition to Mugabe must now take.
These strategic and tactical choices
must in part be anchored in the
understanding that the Zimbabwean state is
characterised by an imbalance: on
the one hand its capacity for repression
and on the other its inability to
satisfy citizens' basic needs.
The
capacity of the state for repression should inform the nature of
mobilisation as well as the forces that should be mobilised. The failure to
deliver basic services, coupled with the imminent collapse of the economy
and a restless population, present opportunities for new ways of engaging
the Mugabe government.
These new opportunities will pose serious
challenges to both nonstate and
in-state actors in the country. Civil
society formations and the opposition
must find ways of working together to
harness the growing spirit of protest
and resistance among ordinary citizens
to ensure that the mobilisation of
Zimbabwean masses does not become a
phenomenon limited only to the urban
areas.
They must also anticipate
possible shifts in the balance of support for
Mugabe within the security
forces and how these shifts will affect the
repressive capacity of the
Zimbabwean state, and therefore, the nature of
tactical advantages that this
may present to a united opposition.
Furthermore, the inability of the
Zimbabwean state to pay its public
servants opens up a range of
possibilities for the building of tactical
alliances, including the
reconfiguration of opposition forces. It also means
decisions must be made
about whether Zanu (PF) or elements within it should
be engaged when
resistance to Mugabe begins to undermine the unity and
cohesion of the
ruling party.
But members of the ruling party are themselves faced with
difficult choices.
They must choose between aligning themselves with the
movement for democracy
and the unsustainable option of buying more time for
their leader. They must
appreciate that the achievement of personal
political goals will at some
point be in conflict with Mugabe's agenda.
There will come a time when the
advancement of Zanu (PF) leaders' political
careers will depend on them
distancing themselves from Mugabe or face the
alternative of sinking with
him.
Ultimately, Zimbabweans who are
thirsty for a return to democracy must forge
a broad-based alliance of
opposition forces as a basis for the adoption of a
process aimed at
constitutional reform and the launch of a national
conversation about the
shape of a post-Mugabe order.
Such a conversation will also have to be
about whether opposition forces
should support participation in the 2008
presidential election if Mugabe
reneges on his undertaking to step down. In
addition, tactical decisions
must be made about the content of an opposition
platform to build positively
on the failures of the MDC.
All these
strategic and tactical considerations must take into account the
fact that
Mugabe's age has not affected his ability to inflict pain and
suffering on
Zimbabweans who refuse to worship him. Zimbabweans must,
therefore, prepare
themselves for more police brutality and the torture of
opposition
leaders.
The current opposition momentum will have to be maintained under
conditions
of severe repression and the impotence of external
actors.
There must, therefore, be less emphasis this time on
international publicity
campaigns to focus more urgently on the task of
internal mobilisation. The
help of Africa and the world must be sought in
support of practical
expressions of unity by Zimbabweans around the idea of
building a new
Zimbabwe.
News24
16/03/2007 20:35 -
(SA)
Cape Town - President Thabo Mbeki's "dithering, inaction and
often tacit
support" was largely to blame for the bloody shambles in
Zimbabwe, said
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon.
"Let me put this
bluntly: Much of the blame for the present lamentable
condition of Zimbabwe
must be laid at President Mbeki's door," he said in
his weekly newsletter,
published on the DA's SA Today website on Friday.
For reasons of
sentiment as well as practicality, Mbeki was the one person
outside Zimbabwe
with the greatest possible leverage over its president,
Robert
Mugabe.
"We are that country's biggest trading partner and, as rotating
chair of the
United Nations Security Council this month, able to place the
matter
squarely on the world's agenda.
"Yet Mr Mbeki's dithering,
inaction and often tacit support have let us all
down - both the people of
Zimbabwe and the people of South Africa, who live
every day with the
disastrous consequences of Mugabe's wrong-headed
policies," said
Leon.
His sharply critical comments come in the wake of the arrest,
beating and
torture last weekend of Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai by
members of Mugabe's security establishment.
"While the
world condemned (this), the African Union confessed to being
'embarrassed' by
Zimbabwe (and) for two days, SA remained
deafeningly
silent.
'Justifiable howls of outrage'
"On Tuesday,
foreign affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa issued a bland if
not wholly
predictable statement: Zimbabwe's problems should be solved by
the people of
that country.
"Amid justifiable howls of outrage, deputy foreign minister
Aziz Pahad
sounded a little tougher: he urged the Zimbabwe government to
'respect the
rights of all Zimbabweans and leaders of various political
parties'.
"Yet the damage to our already tarnished reputation as an
honest broker in
the Zimbabwean conflict had been done. Pahad's statement was
too little, way
too late."
Leon said Mbeki had ensured Zimbabwe was
provided with a steady supply of
electricity and fuel, "despite Mugabe's
inability to pay his bills and his
continued economic
mismanagement".
In June 2003, Mbeki had explicitly promised the World
Economic Forum the
Zimbabwe crisis would be resolved "within a year" and that
talks between
Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were
taking
place - a claim that was furiously denied by both parties.
In
July that year, Mbeki had gone further, reportedly promising United
States
President George W Bush that Mugabe would "step down" by December,
and
assuring him: "We have urged the government and the opposition to
get
together. They are indeed discussing all issues. That process is going
on".
Hindsight confirmed Mbeki had been "merely drawing the heat off
Mugabe and
buying him time".
Ransacking of public purse
SA had
said little despite the naked assault on civil liberties and free
political
action in Zimbabwe, a clamp-down on the courts and the media,
Mugabe's
ransacking of the public purse, and the wholesale perversion of
land "reform"
in the interests of Mugabe's cronies.
"Most telling of all has been our
government's continuous policy of
whitewashing the shamelessly rigged
elections there in 2002 and 2005.
"While foreign observer missions -
including the DA - condemned these
ruthless exercises in state terror, Mr
Mbeki and the ANC hailed them both as
legitimate, warmly congratulating
Mugabe on 'a convincing majority win' and
a 'peaceful, credible and
well-organised election which we feel reflects the
will of the
people'.
"In what Orwellian world of doublespeak could the bloody
shambles to our
north... be described as peaceful, never mind credible or
well-organised?"
Leon asked.
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
16 March
2007
A technical committee of Zimbabwe's Tripartite
Negotiating Forum was
scheduled to meet Tuesday to try to iron out
differences on the wage-price
protocol of the Kadoma Declaration that
prevented signature of the
socio-economic pact this past week.
The
declaration was drafted in the Midlands town of Kadoma in August 2001.
On
Friday, business and labor representatives were taking issue with a
report
in The state-ruin Herald newspaper quoting Labor Minister Nicholas
Goche as
saying that TNF members would sign the Kadoma Declaration on
Tuesday.
Officials of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the
rival Zimbabwe
Federation of Trade Unions said the declaration was adopted
Thursday by
business, labor and government, but that the parties could not
agree on the
wage and price stabilization protocol that is tied to the
declaration,
drafted in 2001.
ZFTU Secretary General Kenias
Shamuyarira said the pact could be signed
Wednesday if technical committee
members meeting on Tuesday could surmount
differences over the language and
terms of the wage-price protocol.
Rampant inflation which reached an
annual 1,729% in February has been the
bane of business and labor alike, and
impeded progress in negotiations.
Labor wants prices held down and wages to
keep pace with inflation, but
businesses say they cannot freeze prices while
inflation climbs or make
untenable wage commitments.
ZCTU Secretary
General Wellington Chibebe told reporter Jonga Kandemiiri
that the meeting
Tuesday will involve only the specialist committee on wages
and
prices.