Reuters
Sun Mar 18, 2007 10:14 AM GMT
HARARE (Reuters) - A
Zimbabwean opposition legislator was badly beaten on
Sunday as he tried to
travel to Belgium, a day after his colleagues were
stopped from taking a
medical trip to South Africa, an official from his
party said.
Nelson
Chamisa, spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change headed by
Morgan
Tsvangirai, was at Harare airport on his way to an Africa, Pacific
and
Carribean-European Union parliamentary meeting when about eight men
pounced
on him.
"He was badly beaten by men who jumped out of two unmarked cars
at the
airport," said William Bango, Tsvangirai's spokesman.
Chamisa
was receiving treatment at a Harare hospital on his eye and left jaw
and had
lost a lot of blood, Bango said.
On Saturday, police stopped two other
MDC leaders, Sekai Holland and Grace
Kwinje, boarding a flight to South
Africa for medical checks after they were
beaten in police custody a week
ago, their lawyer said.
Arthur Mutambara, the leader of a splinter MDC
faction, was also stopped
from travelling to South Africa, where he spends
part of his time working,
an MDC official said.
Police were not
immediately available for comment.
Police arrested Tsvangirai and dozens
of opposition and civic group leaders
for holding an illegal rally several
days ago, defence lawyers say.
A court hearing on Tuesday was cancelled
after a state prosecutor ordered
Tsvangirai and others be treated in
hospital.
Reuters
Sun 18 Mar 2007 8:24:12 BST
By Andrew Quinn
CAPE TOWN,
March 18 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's economic collapse is likely to
accelerate
with inflation topping 5,000 percent by year-end as President
Robert
Mugabe's government loses control of a crisis already rippling across
Africa, a senior IMF official said on Sunday.
International Monetary
Fund Africa Director Abdoulaye Bio-Tchane said
Zimbabwe's government had
shown little sign of coming to grips with its
mounting economic problems,
promising more hardships amid sharply rising
political tensions.
"It
depends on how much the people in the country can take," Bio-Tchane told
Reuters in an interview.
"The question is how far it could fall. The
last four years we've seen GDP
falling by more than 35 percent. Inflation is
running at more than 1,700
percent and our estimate is by the year's end it
could move even beyond
5,000 percent."
Bio-Tchane's forecast came as
Mugabe's government comes under rising
international condemnation over a
violent crackdown on the opposition this
week.
In response, the
United States and other nations threatened to tighten
sanctions against
Mugabe and other senior Zimbabwean officials.
Mugabe, 83, has warned
against any "monkey games" by those he called the
stooges of his Western
critics and said police would now be well armed to
deal with violence caused
by the main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change
(MDC).
Bio-Tchane said Mugabe and Zimbabwe Central Bank Governor Gideon
Gono
appeared unable to stem the economic slide, which has turned one of
Africa's
most promising economies into a basket case beset by frequent
shortages of
food, fuel and foreign exchange.
"It is one step
forward, two steps back," he said, saying Gono was fuelling
the crisis by
expanding the already enormous fiscal deficit to some 40
percent of GDP this
year, printing floods of new cash and subsidising
struggling state-run
firms.
"They need to rein this in," he said. "But obviously they need
more than
that. You can't let the economy function if people are not free to
operate,
if their rights are not secured, including human
rights."
"You will always find a few people who will benefit from this
system, so
therefore it may continue. I can't give a date when the whole
thing will
stop or collapse. But it will certainly continue falling. This
will continue
impoverishing people, people will continue losing their jobs,
continue
losing their purchasing power."
HOLDING AFRICA
BACK
Bio-Tchane said Zimbabwe's woes were already felt across Africa as
millions
of economic refugees stream out of the country, mostly to
neighbouring South
Africa, while economic growth is hampered by the loss of
regional trade and
investment opportunities.
"It's holding the
sub-region back, and it is holding the whole Africa region
back," he said.
"This was a booming economy, this was a net exporter of
goods and services
in the past. Now exports are falling. It is a country
that is a net importer
today."
He added that it appeared some countries were helping to bankroll
Mugabe
through loans or other deals.
"We don't have evidence of the
sources, but clearly they are getting some
financing," he said.
The
IMF and other key Western donors, including the World Bank, suspended
aid to
Zimbabwe more than six years ago over Mugabe's economic policies that
are
blamed for the economic meltdown.
Western donors withdrew aid and other
assistance, accusing Mugabe of
widespread human rights violations and for
seizing white-owned farms, which
has turned the country from a regional
bread basket to a nation barely able
to feed itself.
Despite the
problems, Bio-Tchane said Zimbabwe could quickly access outside
help once it
made the necessary economic reforms.
While the IMF in February maintained
its suspension of financial and
technical assistance to Zimbabwe, Bio-Tchane
said efforts to repay some $129
million in arrears to the fund had kept open
its chances to obtain immediate
international help.
"They could be
quickly eligible for technical assistance. And for funds, I
must say, in the
case of Zimbabwe it is really the political commitments of
the government
that are preventing everyone from cooperating."
Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2007 5:34 PM
Subject: Australian Aboriginal Leaders
Condemn Zimbabwe Bashings
Some of Australia's most eminent Aboriginal
community leaders, artists,
educators and performers have expressed their
horror at the brutal bashing
and torture of Zimbabwean grandmother Mrs Sekai
Holland and other
opposition leaders at the hands of the Mugabe regime in
Harare.
Many Aboriginal Australians who were involved in the
anti-apartheid
movement in the early 1970s have strong and fond memories of
Sekai
Holland. She was a staunch supporter of the Aboriginal Land
Rights
movement and the 1972 Aboriginal Embassy.
Naomi Mayer's of the
Redfern Aboriginal Medical Service said that Sekai
was and is a strong but
gentle person of principle and great integrity and
that it was outrageous for
a grandmother to be brutalized in this manner.
Mrs. Mayers said that both the
Redfern Legal Centre and the Redfern
Aboriginal Medical Service has written
to the South African High
Commission (the major international sponsor of the
Mugabe regime)
expressing concern for the safety of Mrs Holland and other
opposition
leaders in Zimbabwe.
Other Aboriginal rights leaders and
Aboriginal community members who said
that they were shocked and outraged by
the actions of the Mugabe
Government included, Jenny Munro, Lyall Munro, Gary
Foley, Sol Bellear,
Gary Williams, NSW MP Linda Burney, novelist and
historian Tony Birch,
Kaye Bellear (widow of Aboriginal District Court Judge
Bob Bellear),
novelist and Miles Franklin Award nominee Alexis Wright,
artists Richard
Bell and Sam Wickman, , barrister Lloyd McDermott, and
veteran campaigners
Lowitja O'Donohue, Evelyn Scott, Faith Bandler, Hans
Bandler, Lester
Bostock, Dulcie Flower, Euphemia Bostock, Joyce Clague and
Colin Clague.
Activist and historian Gary Foley, who knew Sekai from the
late 1960s said
that it was particularly ironic that the ANC Government of
South Africa
were propping up the Mugabe regime at a time when the Zimbabwe
government
is brutalizing a grandmother who once stood beside Australian
Aboriginal
activists to fight against South African apartheid.
Mr.
Foley said that Mugabe has dismissed criticism from the West as just
'white
racists'. "Well it is time for Mugabe and his thugs to realize
there are
black people in the west who also condemn his actions. Fascism
is fascism,
whether its face is white or black!"
The Aboriginal Australians also
called on the Australian government do
more to ensure the safety and security
of Sekai Holland and her opposition
colleagues in Zimbabwe. They said the
Australian government, which had
rushed in to help depose Sadam Hussein have
an obligation to take more
firm action against a worse tyrant in
Zimbabwe.
for further info: gfoley@kooriweb.org
Yahoo News
HARARE (AFP) - Arthur Mutambara, leader of the breakaway
faction of
Zimbabwe's opposition party, will be charged with inciting public
violence
after being re-arrested Saturday, officials said.
The leader
of a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) breakaway faction was
arrested at
Harare International Airport as he was travelling to South
Africa where his
family is based.
"He (Mutambara) is being charged with inciting public
violence," Harrison
Nkomo, his lawyer told AFP Sunday.
"These are the
same charges which he was charged with last week, which the
high court ruled
against. We are now seeking for his immediate release from
the police cells
as we have written a letter to the police and the attorney
general's
office."
Mutambara was among 49 others, including the leader of the other
MDC
faction, Morgan Tsvangirai, who were beaten by police after being
arrested
last Sunday, when police prevented a mass prayer meeting.
On
Monday last week, a High Court judge ordered police either to take the
opposition leaders to court by 12 noon, or to release them from
custody.
Mutambara and other opposition and civic leaders were
nevertheless brought
to court well after the judge's deadline.
The
opposition activists were later released into their lawyer's custody
after
the state failed to formalise charges against them.
Nkomo said they would
file an urgent High Court motion on Monday seeking the
release of
Mutambara.
Meanwhile, police said they had identified members of the gang
that
masterminded the bombing of Marimba police station in the capital last
week,
press reports said.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told the
state-run Sunday Mail that they
had managed to identify the suspected
opposition activists behind the
firebomb attack, which seriously injured two
policewoman.
Billings Gazette
Published on Sunday, March 18, 2007
Guest
Opinion:
By FREDERICK
TSOTSO
GUEST OPNION
Zimbabwe - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
appears cornered. Faced with a
rapidly imploding economy, growing opposition
from within his own ZANU-PF
political party and an increasingly militant
opposition, he is throwing
caution to the wind and lashing out in all
directions.
The country appears to be on the brink of degenerating into
chaos. The
recent police attack on Mugabe's political opponents was the
president's way
of reacting to the growing public anger against him and his
ruling party
that's being fueled by the country's economic
meltdown.
The arrests and beatings of Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change, along with other political and
human-rights
activists, has only served to once again focus international
attention on
the rapidly deteriorating nation and Mugabe's repressive
regime.
Runaway inflation
So far, the aging president has rejected
all of the opposition's demands and
instead has responded with the use of
force.
Some local observers contend that the latest violence may have
actually been
orchestrated by government authorities who believe that the
growing
political instability will allow Mugabe to either cancel or postpone
the
presidential vote scheduled for next year.
Mugabe, who turned 83
last month amid great pomp and fanfare, has announced
that he would seek
another term of office if asked to do so by the ZANU-PF
party.
Critics blame Mugabe for the once prosperous country's current
crisis. The
annual rate of inflation last month topped 1,700 percent - the
highest in
the world - and the unemployment rate is estimated at 80 percent.
There are
chronic shortages of food, medicines and fuel.
"This is a
political game that is being played," said Alois Chaumba,
national chairman
of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace. "There
is no way we could
have free and fair elections because of the amount of
intimidation going on
at the moment."
While the MDC alleged that the police had killed three of
its members who
were en route to a prayer meeting, authorities would only
confirm one death.
The police alleged that the prayer meeting, organized
by the Save Zimbabwe
Coalition - an emerging alliance of opposition parties,
civic groups and
church organizations - was in fact an anti-Mugabe political
rally that
violated the nation's draconian Public Order and Security
Act.
Torture by police
But it was the sight of a beaten and
battered Tsvangirai in court that has
sparked international outrage. Even
the justices on the Zimbabwe bench were
forced to acknowledge that the MDC
leader had clearly been tortured at the
hands of the police.
"These
actions are symptomatic of a rogue regime that has lost all
semblances of
sanity and decency," said Innocent Gonese, the MDC legal
affairs
secretary.
There is growing sense of despair on the streets of the
capital.
"Seven years ago Zimbabwe was a wonderful country," said
Tevedzerai Marecha,
an office worker in Harrare. "Now we are in hell; we are
slowly hurtling
toward civil war."
Frederick Tsotso is a journalist
in Zimbabwe who writes for The Institute
for War & Peace Reporting.
The Australian
Christina
Lamb
March 18, 2007
IT IS a shock to see someone you know on the front
pages of the newspapers
looking battered and bruised, with one eye closed
and swollen and jagged
stitches across his skull.
The picture of Morgan
Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's opposition leader, told us far
more than any words
about the lengths to which President Robert Mugabe will
go to quell
criticism..
Yet for anyone familiar with Zimbabwe's despotic regime, it was
not really a
surprise. The first time I met Tsvangirai I was heavily
pregnant and he had
narrowly escaped being thrown out of his 10th-floor
office window by Mugabe's
thugs. Both of us were coming to terms with a new
situation.
We sat in the scruffy office that served as headquarters of
the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), of which he was president, and
he told me
that he had been working at his desk a few days after leading a
general
strike against tax increases when seven men had burst
in.
Tsvangirai, 55, is a powerfully built former miner, but they smashed
his
head with a chair, then pushed him towards the window. He was convinced
that
had he not raised the alarm by shouting to his secretary, he would have
died
"Hell hath no fury like a government on its last legs" was the opinion
of
the Zimbabwe Standard newspaper after that attack. Tsvangirai was of the
same opinion. The army had had to be deployed to deal with Zimbabwe's first
food riots and he was convinced that Mugabe's days were
numbered.
Shortly afterwards, in September 1999, he launched the Movement
for
Democratic Change (MDC) - the first real opposition that Mugabe had
faced
since leading the country to independence from Britain in
1980.
Every time I have met Tsvangirai since, he has asked about the
"baby". Last
summer, sitting in the garden of his bungalow in Avondale, amid
the clamour
of some of his six children, he inquired as usual. "Morgan, that
baby is now
seven years old," I laughed. "That shows how long all this has
been going on
for."
During that time Zimbabwe has notched up a series
of unenviable records. It
has the world's highest inflation and
fastest-shrinking peacetime economy.
Mugabe's violent programme of farm
seizures has turned the former
breadbasket of southern Africa into a land of
hunger with the lowest life
expectancy anywhere - just 34 for women and 37
for men - and the highest
percentage of orphans.
How has Mugabe been
able to hang on as his country falls apart? I have
covered the last three
Zimbabwean elections - parliamentary in 2000 and
2005, and presidential in
2002 - and there was a tide of anger against
Mugabe and his Zanu-PF. Yet a
combination of rigging and state control of
the media ensured victory for
the ruling party in rural areas, even if it
had to concede the cities to the
opposition.
Although it seemed clear to outsiders that Mugabe was not
going to allow
mere elections to remove him from power, Tsvangirai has
appeared shocked by
each defeat. After the third stolen election, MDC
candidates gathered at the
party's Harvest House headquarters in Harare and
were horrified to discover
that there was, as they put it, "no plan
B".
Why have Zimbabweans not taken to the streets as people did in
Yugoslavia
and Ukraine to force out unpopular leaders? If ever there was a
chance it
was after the voting in 2002 when youths wandered the capital
waving red
cards like football referees to signify that Mugabe's time was
up. But
Tsvangirai did not take it, saying he did not want to be responsible
for
causing a bloodbath.
Zimbabwe has been a frustrating story to
cover over the past few years.
First there are the difficulties of entering
clandestinely and interviewing
people without putting them at risk. But one
of the saddest aspects has been
watching the rest of Africa give standing
ovations to Mugabe.
I had always felt irritated that Zimbabweans were
endlessly complaining that
the West should intervene. Why did they not do
something for themselves?
But in May 2005, I happened to be in the
country at the start of Operation
Murambatsvina (Drive out the Filth) when
government bulldozers began
destroying hundreds of thousands of homes in
shanty towns, supposedly in the
name of urban beautification. In fact it was
because of the fear that the
inhabitants might rise up.
I looked on
in horror as people with blank faces watched everything they had
worked for
being smashed to pieces. Later, as the police got bored, they
instructed
people to take axes to their own homes and throw their belongings
on the
fires. Nobody protested and I realised just how oppressed the
Zimbabweans
were.
Many of the people who might have risen up have gone. An
astonishing 3.4m
Zimbabweans have left the country, 70% of the working
population.
Those who remain are for the most part weak, hungry and sick.
Almost a fifth
of the population is HIV-positive. In Zimbabwe this develops
into full-blown
Aids far faster than elsewhere because of a lack of drugs
and nutrition. The
attention of these people is focused on
survival.
Amid such horrendous conditions, the opposition played into
Mugabe's hands
by splitting in November 2005. This was largely caused by
Tsvangirai's
high-handedness in overruling a party decision to contest
Senate elections.
There are now two rival MDC factions, although they came
together last
Sunday for a prayer meeting, which is perhaps why Mugabe's
thugs broke it up
so violently, killing one MDC activist and badly beating
Tsvangirai and
others.
The last time I saw Tsvangirai he was bleak.
"Mugabe has no exit plan," he
said. "His only plan is to hold on to
power."
The pictures of Tsvangirai's smashed and swollen face have
refocused
attention on him and revitalised his own resolve. "Far from
killing my
spirit, the scars they brutally inflicted on me have reenergised
me," he
wrote afterwards.
Perhaps more importantly, the international
condemnation might finally
provoke action from neighbouring South Africa,
which provides Zimbabwe's
electricity and could literally switch off the
lights.
With so many Zimbabweans dying that bodies are being left in
mortuaries
because people cannot afford to bury their relatives, the words
of
Archbishop Desmond Tutu had particular resonance. "What more has to
happen
before we who are leaders, religious and political, of our mother
Africa are
moved to cry out, 'Enough is enough?' " Tutu
asked.
Christina Lamb is the author of House of Stone: The Story of a
Family
Divided in War-Torn Zimbabwe (Harper Perennial)
The Sunday
Times