Yahoo News
by
Godfrey Marawanyiaka
HARARE (AFP) - President Robert Mugabe made a
defiant campaign speech
Saturday a week ahead of perhaps his toughest
election battle, saying
Zimbabwe's main opposition party would never rule
during his lifetime.
Mugabe, 84, the only head of state Zimbabwe has
known since independence in
1980, also threatened to expel companies from
former colonial ruler Britain
after the March 29 polls.
The veteran
leader, whose bid for a sixth term must overcome an economy
crippled by
record inflation, dismissed the electoral aspirations of
Zimbabwe's main
opposition party -- the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC).
"It
will never happen as long as we are still alive -- those (of us) who
planned
the liberation struggle," Mugabe told thousands of supporters at his
first
rally in the capital since hitting the campaign trail last month.
He made
no mention of Simba Makoni, who has broken ranks with the ruling
Zimbabwe
African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) to stand against
Mugabe
as an independent.
Mugabe has called Makoni a "prostitute" for taking him
on and the former
finance minister was expelled from the ZANU-PF last month
after announcing
his challenge.
But on Saturday, his barbs were
directed fully at the MDC and its leader
Morgan Tsvangirai.
"You in
the MDC, it's treasonous to continue assisting the British to make
sure they
have a say here," he said -- although the opposition denies any
direct links
with Britain.
Mugabe warned Britain to stay out of Zimbabwean politics if
it wanted to
safeguard the interests of British companies still allowed to
work in the
former colony.
"They still have companies which are still
here and we did nothing to
them... 400 British companies and so they must
take care, after elections,"
he said.
Britain, which has led
international criticism of Mugabe for violating
political and human rights
in his country and plunging it into a disastrous
economic crisis, says only
40 British firms remain operating in the country.
Mugabe's relations
deteriorated with Western nations after he embarked in
2000 on a
controversial land reform scheme that saw some 4,000 white-owned
farms
seized and handed over to landless blacks.
Mugabe also urged Zimbabweans
on Saturday to help acquire a majority stake
in mining and manufacturing
firms after a new equity law that only allows
firms to restructure or merge
if locals hold 51 percent of shares.
There are fears the law could plunge
the country even deeper into the
economic mire.
Once a net
agricultural exporter, Zimbabwe is currently reeling under food
shortages,
while the economy buckles under a mindboggling annual inflation
rate of
100,000-plus percent.
Both unemployment and poverty rates hover above 80
percent and at least a
quarter of the population has fled misery to seek
economic refuge elsewhere.
Tsvangirai has warned that the March 29 poll
could be rigged in favour of
Mugabe and has threatened to pull out of the
elections if presidential
ballots are counted at a separate venue from
concurrent legislative and
local votes.
He told a news conference on
Thursday that independent investigations had
revealed that 90,000 names
appearing on the roll for 28 rural constituencies
could not be accounted
for.
His MDC has also deplored new electoral regulations passed this week
by
Mugabe which allow police officers into polling stations during the
elections.
The regulations allow policemen in polling stations to
assist illiterate or
physically challenged voters.
The southern
African country's police have often used brutal force against
opponents of
Mugabe and the police boss recently warned that his force could
use firearms
if necessary to crush protests after the polls.
Reuters
Sat Mar 22, 2008 12:36pm
EDT
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe accused the main
opposition on Saturday of forging a
"treasonous" alliance with Britain to
oust him.
The 84-year-old
leader is seeking re-election for another five-year term in
a presidential
race in which he faces former finance minister Simba Makoni
and Morgan
Tsvangirai, who leads the main faction of the Movement for
Democratic Change
(MDC).
Mugabe, a former liberation hero in power since independence in
1980, took
his election campaign to the capital Harare in the final stretch
to the
March 29 general election, the biggest challenge to his rule since he
took
office.
He told thousands of supporters in an open sports ground
in the poor
township of Mbare that Britain was sponsoring the MDC in a bid
to reverse
the seizure of white-owned land for blacks.
"It is
treasonous for the MDC to continue to help the British so that they
have any
influence here," Mugabe told supporters in a speech delivered
mainly in
local Shona.
"They (MDC) still look up to the British in this day and
age. They want to
rule this country, that will not happen as long as we are
still alive, those
of us who fought the liberation struggle," Mugabe said,
predicting the
opposition would break apart after the March 29
poll.
Mugabe has often resorted to a strategy of attacking his Western
foes,
mainly Britain, in a bid to deflect attention away from an economy
critics
say he has left in tatters, analysts say.
The combative
leader repeated threats to punish British companies that still
operate in
Zimbabwe for what he said was London's continued meddling in the
country's
internal affairs.
"They have companies here and so they must take care
because after elections
we will move on them," he told cheering
supporters.
Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF has lost seats to the MDC in Harare
and other major
towns in elections since 2000, but on Saturday the veteran
leader promised
his government would ease prices of basic goods. He donated
public buses and
pledged to equip crumbling hospitals.
Urban workers
have borne the brunt of an economic crisis that has sent
inflation past
100,000 percent -- the world's highest -- and resulted in
shortages of food,
fuel, water and electricity.
Mugabe said foreign-owned companies would be
compelled to cede majority
stakes to local blacks, adding that businesses
were hiking prices to turn
voters against his government.
"These
companies are joking, they don't know us. We ask them, are you with
us or
you are working for someone else?" Mugabe said.
(Editing by Philippa
Fletcher)
By Peta
Thornycroft |
IOL
Basildon Peta
March 22 2008 at 03:24PM
Zimbabwe's main
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has threatened to
pull out of general
elections next week if electoral authorities proceed
with a plan to count
presidential election ballots at a national command
centre instead of
polling stations.
Tsvangirai has also demanded that the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission
(ZEC), which is dominated by ruling party supporters,
account for the tens
of thousands of ghost voters appearing on the voters
roll and three million
extra ballot papers he claimed had been printed to
rig the vote.
In a statement released in Johannesburg and Harare,
Tsvangirai warned
that his party was not ready to be taken for a ride again
and it would pull
out of the elections unless its concerns were
addressed.
He also hit out at at President
Robert Mugabe's last-minute decision
to change the law to allow police to
"help illiterate and disabled voters"
at polling stations. This is a
reversal of earlier legislative changes
agreed in talks mediated by
President Thabo Mbeki.
These ensured that police, accused of
routinely intimidating voters in
elections, would be kept at least 100m away
from polling stations.
Tsvangirai spoke as a confederation of
Zimbabwean civic groups urged
voters to look beyond the Saturday elections
in their quest for
re-democratisation. Meeting under the banner of the
Zimbabwe Solidarity
Forum in Johannesburg this week, the civic groups said
the electoral playing
field was already so heavily tilted in favour of
Mugabe's regime that a free
and fair election was not possible.
Tapera Kapuya, SA representative of the National Constitutional
Assembly,
said those who were arguing that the election environment was much
better
because of less violence were missing the point.
"The key issue
here is the institutional framework of these elections,
that heavily favours
Mugabe," he said.
He questioned how anybody could regard the
elections as being free and
fair when top military officials were openly
scaring voters with threats of
staging a coup d'etat if Mugabe lost the
elections, when the opposition was
shot down from the dominant state media
and when electoral authorities
ignored legitimate opposition concerns to
address the flawed voters' roll.
Kapuya and other speakers urged
Zimbabweans to prepare for the long
road in their fight for democracy,
suggesting that the civic groups are
resigned to Mugabe stealing a
victory.
But in a major reversal of their earlier positions, the
civic groups
suggested a government of national unity could be the best way
forward.
Such a government would then overhaul the constitution,
compensate
victims of human rights abuses and organise proper elections in
future.
Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change faction (MDC)
fears the
plan to transport all ballot boxes to a central counting centre is
a brazen
way to facilitate rigging for Mugabe.
"I will not
participate in the election if counting of presidential
ballot papers is
done at the so-called command centre. It is against the
law," said
Tsvangirai, who is trying for the fourth time to end Mugabe's
rule.
The election commission has said counting of votes and
announcement of
results of council, senate and parliamentary elections will
be done at
polling stations while results of the presidential vote will be
tallied and
announced at a national command centre in Harare.
ZEC chairman George Chiweshe said his commission would wait for
Tsvangirai
to formally raise his concerns with the commission or
alternatively take his
grievances to court.
Chiweshe, a former senior army officer and
judge of the High Court,
who has previously declared his open support for
Mugabe, said he was unfazed
by Tsvangirai's threat. "I do not understand
what he is talking about. They
should put their concerns to us and we will
respond. Since this is
potentially a court case, I would rather wait for
their concerns."
The MDC says it has already filed an urgent
application at the High
Court compelling the electoral commission to
disclose the number of ballots
printed and permit an audit of the ballot
papers.
Tsvangirai claims the commission had ordered state-owned
Fidelity
Printers to print nine million ballot papers against 5.9 million
registered
voters.
The opposition leader said the firm was also
printing 900 000 postal
ballots for the police, army and Zimbabwean
diplomats abroad.
"We need to know why there is such a big
difference. ZEC has to
explain that, hence we have resorted to courts for
recourse. The integrity
and credibility of ZEC and the election result is
very questionable," said
Tsvangirai.
This article was
originally published on page 13 of Cape Argus on
March 22, 2008
Afrik.com, France
If
Zimbabwe were any other country, President Robert Mugabe, would be
out of
office after elections next week on March 29.
Saturday 22 March
2008, by Dingilizwe Mathe
The economy is in shambles with inflation
at more than 100 000 percent and
rising, unemployment is above 80 percent
while food, fuel and foreign
currency shortages have become
endemic.
Social services have all but collapsed and more than half the
country's
estimated 13 million population lives in grinding poverty. No
wonder why the
International Monetary Fund has said the southern African
country has the
fastest shrinking economy outside the war zone.
But
Mugabe, whom analysts blame for not only ruining one of Africa's most
promising economies, but also ruled his country with an iron fist since
independence from Britain in 1980, looks set to win a sixth term successive
in office.
He could win, political analysts and the opposition fear,
not because he is
popular with the electorate, but because of a combination
voter
intimidation, violence against his opponents and outright ballot
rigging.
Already democracy campaigners and the opposition have unmasked a
Litany of
systematic electoral irregularities, which they say are designed
to result
in a pre-determined outcome.
Unseating
Mugabe
University of Zimbabwe constitutional law lecturer, Lovemore
Madhuku says it
is difficult for the opposition to unseat Mugabe in the
election because of
the flawed electoral field, which heavily favours the
ruling party.
The despot, says Madhuku has already manipulated the
voters' roll,
constituency boundaries and the government-appointed Zimbabwe
Electoral
Commission (ZEC), the body that runs elections.
"It will be
difficult for them to win," says Madhuku, who is also chairman
of the
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) an organisation that is
campaigning
for a new constitution for Zimbabwe. "The electoral climate will
not result
in a free and fair election and he (Mugabe) is in charge of the
elections.
The electoral laws, processes are meant to bring one
pre-determined outcome
- a Zanu - PF victory."
Electoral theft
Mugabe will be up against
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the mainstream
faction of the divided Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC), former
minister, Simba Makoni and little-known
Langton Towungana, another
independent.
The electoral theft, says
Nelson Chamisa, spokesman of the main MDC faction
started with the voter
registration exercise last year when civil servants
conducting the exercise
systematically turned away youths, generally known
to be pro-opposition were
denied the right to register. The government adds
Chamisa ensured that there
were few voter registration centres in opposition
strongholds in urban
areas, thus making it difficult for prospective voters
to
register.
To the contrary, registration centres were more in rural areas,
which
generally vote for ruling party.
"Then came the delimitation
process under which Mugabe's appointees
drastically slashed the number of
constituencies in towns and Matabeleland
region where they know we are
strong," Chamisa notes "It is made more
sinister because while cutting
constituencies and drawing up boundaries in
such a way that our support is
diluted, the delimitation process increases
the number of constituencies in
Zanu -PF rural power bases."
Ingenious schemes of gerrymander
Of
Zimbabwe's estimated 5, 9 million voters, about three quarters live in
rural
areas. Soon after the presentation of the delimitation report late
January,
both factions of the MDC protested at what they said was clear
government
gerrymandering.
The report redrew the country into 210 Lower House
constituencies, up from
120 and 90 elective senatorial seats up from 60. Of
the 90 new Lower House
constituencies, a massive 62 were drawn up in Zanu
-PF's rural strongholds
with only 28 going to urban centres where the
opposition draws most of its
support.
The opposition, European Union
and the US have rejected the results of the
2000, 2002 and 2005 elections,
citing massive electoral theft by Mugabe's
ruling party.
Charging
that the Delimitation Commission used a "fraudulent" voters' roll,
Ian
Makone, elections director in the Tsvangirai-led camp says it is strange
that Bulawayo, the second largest city in which the opposition holds all the
eight Lower House seats, now has only 13 yet largely rural Mashonaland East,
Mashonaland West, Masvingo, Manicaland, Mashonaland Central provinces now
have 23, 22, 26, 26, and 18 respectively.
"Like I said when the
delimitation report was issued," Makone notes, "our
elections directorate
has established that of the 210 constituencies in the
House of Assembly, 143
are rural constituencies while just 67 are urban and
peri-urban
constituencies. So technically speaking Zanu - PF already has the
crucial
two-thirds majority in the Lower House before a single vote is
cast."
After the delimitation process, he continues, urban
constituencies in
Harare, Mutare and Bulawayo were merged with portions of
rural areas in a
way to dilute the opposition's dominance.
Campaign
propaganda
Yet the alleged bias is not only limited to constituency
gerrymandering, but
also the right to hold political meetings and rallies
and access to the
public media in a country where the government still has
strong influence in
the press.
While the opposition has staged some
campaign rallies in other parts of the
country, police this week, rejected
an application by the MDC to hold
meetings in Harare and Chitungwiza,
claiming that Zanu -PF had already
booked the venues.
Largely, the
local media industry remains under the government's tight grip.
There are
only two national dailies, and three weeklies, one television
station and
four radio channels, all of which are government-controlled. The
public
media is generally accused of being biased against opposing views and
as
such the opposition is left scrambling for coverage in three
privately-owned
weeklies which have limited circulation.
"We thought that the inter-party
dialogue we are having with Zanu -PF would
even the electoral playing
field," Chamisa says. "But we were wrong. ---
Conditions for a free and
fair election have not been met. That is why we
say any result that comes
out of this election would be contestable."
Voters' roll with names of
the dead
This week, the opposition and civic groups unearthed massive
irregularities
in the voters' roll which still lists long deceased people as
registered
voters.
The voter lists for at least 27 of 70
constituencies civic groups have
examinedshow discrepancies between what the
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(ZEC) has declared as the number of voters and
those on the roll, reflecting
variations as high as 31 percent.
For
instance, Goromonzi South constituency in the ruling party's stronghold
Mashonaland East province has 19 422 registered voters yet ZEC declared that
28086 were registered.
Other affected constituencies include Bulawayo
Central, Gokwe-Nembudziya,
Chikomba East, Bubi and Chipinge East.
In
Harare's Mount Pleasant constituency, a former minister who served in
colonial times, Desmond William Lardner Burke who was born in 1908 and died
in South Africa a few years ago is listed as a registered voter.
The
electoral commission's position
The sorry state of the voters' roll is
now the subject of a court case in
which the MDC wants the ZEC to provide
them with electronic copies of the
lists. They also want to be furnished
with information on the number of
ballot papers printed for next week's
polls.
Paul Siwela, president of the Federal Democratic Union (FDU)
thinks that the
electorate has lost confidence in the electoral process
because of electoral
fraud.
"The electoral process," he notes,
"cannot deliver a new dispensation as
long as the process is controlled by
Zanu -PF's visible and invisible
agents."
He was particularly unhappy
about the fact that an estimated three million
potential Zimbabweans have
been driven into exile because of the prevailing
economic crisis and
political persecution at the hands of government agents.
The Zimbabwe
Election Support Network has also raised concerns at the small
number of
polling stations in the opposition's urban strongholds, saying
this could be
used as a ploy to disenfranchise eligible voters who would
have no chance to
vote at the limited number of polling centres.
Observers
Former
colonial master, Britain and the United States have also joined in
the
chorus casting aspersions over the possibility of a free and fair
poll.
The two countries, as well as the European Union fear that the
conditions do
not guarantee a free and fair election. As if to compound
their fears,
President Mugabe has only invited observers from friendly
countries and
refused to invite westerners claiming the latter are biased
against him.
Democracy activists fear that in the absence of
independent-minded European
and American observers, Mugabe could use that
cover to silently rig the
election in his
favour.
Violence
Another factor that could dash hopes of a free
and fair poll, according to
Human Rights Watch is politically motivated
violence.
In a report released in Johannesburg, South Africa, the
watchdog said
President Robert Mugabe's government had in the run-up to poll
engaged in
widespread intimidation of the opposition to render the election
result
flawed.
"Despite some improvements on paper to the election
regulations, Zimbabweans
aren't free to vote for the candidates of their
choice," said Georgette
Gagnon, Africa director at Human Rights
Watch.
"While there are four candidates running for president and many
political
parties involved, the election process itself is skewed," said
Gagnon.
On Tuesday, this week the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said
cases of
politically motivated violence shot up last January with 300 cases
having
been recorded in that month alone.
Wall Street Journal
By SARAH CHILDRESS
March 22, 2008
Anxious to ensure his
victory in next Saturday's polls, the government of
Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe has banned Western observers, intimidated
the opposition and
bribed starving rural dwellers with food, international
watchdog groups
say.
All that has dimmed hope that despite international pressure and two
strong
opposition candidates, the elections in Zimbabwe will be any fairer
this
time around than in previous years.
Still, the election will be
the first time in Mr. Mugabe's 28-year rule that
he will face a serious
challenger from within his own ranks. The president's
former finance
minister, Simba Makoni, is running against him, as is
longtime opposition
leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mr. Tsvangirai, a dedicated human-rights
activist and trade unionist, has
endured beatings and intimidation for
opposing the government in previous
elections. But his party, the Movement
for Democratic Change, has never
succeeded in defeating Mr. Mugabe.
A
chemist trained in the U.K., Mr. Makoni was fired from the government
cabinet after criticizing the president's economic policy. When he announced
his candidacy in February, some outside observers and Zimbabweans in the
diaspora had held out hope that he might at least be able to loosen Mr.
Mugabe's iron grip on power. Mr. Makoni appeared to be backed by
high-ranking members of the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National
Unity-Patriotic Front.
He also had the support of a breakaway faction
of the MDC, led by Arthur
Mutambara, a businessman and Rhodes Scholar. He
threw his weight behind Mr.
Makoni on the premise that a divided opposition
would guarantee Mr. Mugabe a
win.
The Zimbabwean government agreed --
after negotiations brokered by South
African president Thabo Mbeki and the
Southern African Development
Community, a respected regional body -- to
implement new guidelines aimed at
ensuring a free and fair
election.
But hope that this poll would be different has waned as the
brief campaign
season comes to a close. The government hasn't implemented
the reforms and
has banned observers from countries that it says are
critical of Mr. Mugabe,
which includes all European nations.
"We do
not expect a free and fair election," said Andebrhan Giorgis, senior
adviser
for the International Crisis Group's Africa program. "We're hoping
for the
best, but that's hope against hope."
According to a report by Human
Rights Watch, an independent group, Zanu-PF
supporters have harassed and
beat up opposition supporters. The report also
said that government and
party officials have bribed rural voters with food
and farming equipment,
and withheld it from those who weren't registered
Zanu-PF members. The
government has dismissed the report, saying that Human
Rights Watch is
biased against Zimbabwe.
Both opposition candidates have highlighted the
economic devastation in
Zimbabwe, a country rich in platinum and gold but
wrecked by corruption and
mismanagement. Inflation is the highest in the
world, and people have little
food or running water.
Yet Mr. Mugabe
is still popular in rural areas, where access to unfiltered
information is
scarce and people still remember the president when he first
came to power
in 1980 as a young revolutionary who overthrew white
supremacist
rule.
In a bid to keep those votes, Mr. Mugabe signed a bill into law
this month
that will allow locals to take majority shares in foreign
companies.
Analysts fear the populist move could further devastate the
shattered
economy, similar to his 2000 decision to hand over white-run
commercial
farms to untrained black workers.
From Business Day (SA), 22 March
Sarah Hudleston
A landmark hearing next week,
prior to a final ruling by a Southern African
Development Community (SADC)
tribunal, might decide the future of Zimbabwe's
programme of land reform. It
could, in addition, determine whether white
commercial farmers - who bought
farms after 1980 with the blessing of the
government - can retain ownership
or be compensated for their farms. At the
heart of the case is that land is
being taken from white farmers solely on
the criterion of race, and that an
amendment in Zimbabwe's constitution made
it legal for the government to
expropriate land without compensation. Last
December the SADC's
Namibian-based tribunal prevented President Robert
Mugabe's government from
evicting Chegutu farmer Michael Campbell, his 65
employees and their
families from his Mount Carmell farm - one of the
country's main exporters
of mangoes and citrus fruits.
The interim ruling was made in
accordance with the declaration and treaty
that Harare and the SADC signed
in August 1992 on regional trade agreements.
One of its main points states
that the "SADC and member states shall not
discriminate against any person
on grounds of gender, religion, political
views, race, ethnic origin,
culture or disability". Campbell's counsel,
Jeremy Gauntlett, Jeffrey Jowell
and Adrian de Bourbon, say in their heads
of argument that the regional
court ought to find Harare in breach of its
obligations under the treaty,
after it signed into law Amendment 17 more
than two years ago. The amendment
allows the seizure of white-owned farms,
for distributiion to landless
blacks, without compensation. It also bars
courts from hearing appeals from
the dispossessed white farmers.
Counsel for Campbell argue that
"Amendment 17 plainly discriminates on
racial grounds. Conversely it favours
a class of beneficiaries on a basis of
political connection and favour. It
is thus wholly arbitrary . as well as
racially discriminatory." Despite the
fact that the SADC tribunal had given
a favourable interim ruling, Land
Reform Minister Didymus Mutasa said Mount
Carmell would be handed to a black
owner, and in January a full bench of
judges in the Supreme Court of
Zimbabwe dismissed a constitutional appeal by
Campbell to try to avert the
eviction. Campbell bought the farm in 1974
after leaving SA. In 1999 he sold
the farm to legal entity Mike Campbell
(Private) Ltd of which he was the
main beneficiary. To do this he had to get
a certificate of "No Interest"
from the Zimbabwean government, which gave
him an assurance that the farm
was not earmarked for resettlement. This he
duly received and the transfer
took place 19 years after Zimbabwe's
independence.
In November
1997, before the farm was transferred into a company name with
the
government's consent, a preliminary government notice to acquire the
farm
was issued, but then withdrawn. In July 2001, amid large-scale land
invasions by "war veterans", Campbell received another notice in the
Government Gazette, but it was declared invalid by the high court. In July
2004, a new notice of intent to acquire Mount Carmell was published in the
gazette, but no acquisition notice was actually issued. However, two months
later, "persons purported to occupy the farm on behalf of Zanu PF spokesman
Nathan Shamuyarira, claiming the former minister had been allocated the
farm", the court papers say. After a further three preliminary notices to
take the farm were published in 2004, Campbell applied to the high court for
a protection order. It was granted. Campbell launched proceedings in the
court, challenging the validity of Amendment 17 in September 2005; 11 days
after the challenge was filed, a notice of acquisition was
published.
The SADC tribunal may be the Campbells' last resort.
According to court
papers, the SADC treaty is not directed at economic goals
alone, but relates
to "human rights, democracy and the rule of law". The
papers also argue that
"a failure by member states to uphold the principles
of human rights,
democracy and the rule of law" would cut across the range
of commitments
SADC states had entered into under the constitutive act of
the African Union
and African charter on human and people's rights. Ben
Freeth, Campbell's
son-in-law, said from Mount Carmell that he and Campbell
would attend the
hearing in Windhoek. They were still managing to farm,
although six tons of
mangoes had been stolen in the past two weeks.
"Intimidation is still
continuing. Last month we were invaded and fires were
lit on the lawn
surrounding our houses." He confirmed Shamuyarira wanted to
occupy the
property. "In 2004 he came here under armed escort and told Mike
he could
stay on the farm as his 'boss boy', but that he would own the farm
and its
profits."
The SADC treaty is the second one entered into
by Zimbabwe that has been
tested in the past six months in respect of white
farmers' land tenure. In
October a group of 11 Dutch farmers effectively won
the right to
compensation at the International Centre for Settlement of
Investment
Disputes, a World Bank investment forum. The group, together with
UK-based
AgricAfrica, registered the case. Claims total more than $15m, but
the final
award has not yet been announced. The case was brought in terms of
a
bilateral investment treaty between the Netherlands and Zimbabwe.
According
to the treaty, the Zimbabwean government promised to pay
compensation to
Dutch nationals in the event of a dispute arising out of an
investment in
Zimbabwe. The ruling has set a precedent for similar claims.
AgricAfrica
will now work with nationals of other countries with bilateral
agreements
with Zimbabwe, namely Denmark, Germany and Switzerland.
The Telegraph
By Peta Thornycroft in Chinhoyi
Last Updated: 1:56am GMT
22/03/2008
President Robert Mugabe's regime is stepping up
its intimidation of
Zimbabwe's white farmers as he seeks a sixth term in
office.
A few hundred landowners managed to stay put on small
portions of
their original properties despite Mr Mugabe's land seizures,
which began in
2000 and destroyed commercial agriculture, the backbone of
the economy. But
the president's re-election campaign ahead of next
weekend's election is
driven by the notion that the country's independence
is under threat.
He has long presented the farm confiscations as
part of Zimbabwe's
struggle for freedom.
Deon Theron, a
vice-president of the Commercial Farmers Union, is on
trial in Harare
magistrates' court. He faces a two-year prison sentence if
he is convicted
of trespassing on the farm he bought 24 years ago.
His farm in
Beatrice, about 40 miles south of Harare, used to produce
about two per cent
of all the milk consumed in the capital, but an eviction
order was issued
against the Therons a year ago.
Their property has been targeted by
Elias Musakwe, an executive of the
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. He has planted
maize, which will never germinate,
on the cattle pasture, and is
intimidating the family by parking a tractor
against the Therons' daughter's
bedroom window.
A court ruled this week that Mr Theron could not
fight prosecution
claims that a state document allowing them to stay on the
farm was a
forgery. "It is not fair, it's not fair," said Mrs
Theron.
Scores of white farmers who have survived daily torment
from Mr
Mugabe's travelling "war veterans" are now appearing in shabby
courtrooms
around the country, accused of defying eviction
orders.
Zimbabwean-born George Fick and his wife Jill, who are also
dairy
farmers in Beatrice, went on trial in Harare this week and were told
by the
state that their desire to remain in their home was "frivolous and
vexatious".
"We don't have money to leave the farm or a house
in town or money
overseas," said Mrs Fick. "We have nowhere else to go."
There has been one
glimmer of hope. A ruling in Chinhoyi said that another
farmer, Doug
Taylor-Freeme, had no case to answer as he had been granted an
extension to
his eviction order.
But the rule of law is a hazy
concept in Mr Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Mr
Taylor-Freeme has a gang of men allied
to the ruling Zanu-PF party camped
outside his kitchen door, ordered there
by Chief Wilson Memakonde, a Zanu-PF
senator who has already taken
possession of five white-owned farms.
In Chiredzi, in south-eastern
Zimbabwe, Digby Nesbitt and his wife
Jessie share their home with the area's
assistant commissioner Edmore
Veterai and 15 of his relatives, who moved in
earlier this year.
The Nesbitts say they are determined to stay in
the house because if
they leave they will not be able to return.
The Telegraph
Stephen
Bevan in Pretoria and special correspondent in Zimbabwe
Last Updated: 6:58pm
GMT 22/03/2008
Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai, has accused
President Robert Mugabe of preparing to rig next
Saturday's election as
evidence mounts that he faces a humiliating
defeat.
Mr Tsvangirai, who leads the Movement for Democratic
Change, said that
his party's candidates and supporters were being abducted
and beaten with
increasing frequency.
The Zimbabwe Human Rights
Forum, an independent monitoring group, has
reported 300 cases of political
violence since January.
Mr Mugabe said that he would not let
the MDC rule Zimbabwe. "It will
never happen as long as we are still alive,
those of us who planned the
liberation struggle," he told supporters at a
campaign rally in Harare.
Mr Tsvangirai has accused the government
of packing the voting roll
with the names of dead, or non-existent, voters.
He claimed that more than
1,000 voters were registered to fictitious
addresses in one ward alone.
The Sunday Telegraph has uncovered
evidence of a plot to use army
postal ballots to boost the vote of the
ruling Zanu PF party. Soldiers at
the KGV1 army headquarters in Harare said
last week that they were being
forced to use postal votes and were being
closely watched to guarantee the
way they vote.
An independent
poll put Mr Tsvangirai more than eight percentage
points ahead of Mr Mugabe,
on 28.3 per cent. The other main challenger - the
former finance minister
Samba Makoni - is trailing in third place with only
8.6 per
cent.
It is not clear how much hidden support he has among the 23.5
per cent
who refused to divulge their intentions.
An unexpected presidential contender discusses Zimbabwe's crippling problems and why he feels he can oust Robert Mugabe.
World Press
Ambrose Musiyiwa
Dudley, England
March 21,
2008
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has said that an
unspecified number of
Zimbabwean asylum seekers in Britain will be arrested
and imprisoned when
they are deported from that country.
The
government-controlled Herald in Harare reported that Mugabe had
"castigated
those who tried to tarnish his name alleging political
persecution when they
were mere criminals fleeing the law, saying they
should come back to atone
for their ruinous actions" ("Zimbabwe: No Mercy
for Fugitives From Justice -
President," AllAfrica.com, March 13).
The paper said Mugabe told a
ZANU-PF rally at Hama High School in
Chirumhanzu rural district that some
among those who had sought refuge in
Britain were criminals fleeing from the
law. He emphasized that once the
British government deported them and they
arrived in Zimbabwe, they would be
arrested, and that some of the deportees
would be made to pay fines while
others would be imprisoned.
Speaking
in the vernacular Shona language, he said:
Britain is now full of those
who fled from here claiming that they were at
risk of being arrested for
political reasons. We do not want to arrest any
of those except those who
fled crimes, and those who fled crimes are not the
only ones who went to
Britain, no. There are so many of them that you cannot
count them on your
fingers, a few, those are the ones who have big cases
that they fled from
here. Those one, their cases will never rot. There in
Britain, if they do
not want to come back to admit that "Yes, I stole; I did
wrong," if you are
to pay a fine, then you pay a fine, if the penalty means
you go to prison,
then you go to prison because you stole people's money.
His statement
comes in the wake of letters sent out by the Home Office
informing failed
Zimbabwean asylum seekers that because their applications
for political
asylum had failed and they had exhausted their rights of
appeal, they had no
other basis of stay in Britain and should now make plans
to return
home.
"Your claim for asylum has been refused," the letters say. "I am
now writing
to make sure that you know that the Border & Immigration
Agency is expecting
shortly to be able to enforce returns to Zimbabwe. The
Asylum and
Immigration Tribunal has now found that there is no general risk
on return
for failed asylum-seekers."
Immigration lawyer Taffy
Nyawanza, writing in an article that appears on
Newzimbabwe.com ("U.K.
Poised to Resume Zimbabwe Deportations," March 10),
said the timing of the
British government's new position toward Zimbabwean
asylum seekers was as
unfortunate as it was baffling.
"This is because there is a high stakes
election which is scheduled for Mar.
29, 2008. There has already been wide
publicity of the rising political
temperature, Mugabe's ominous threats to
the opposition, as well as the
beatings of opposition activists and
teachers," Nyawanza said.
He added that since 2000, real or perceived
opposition political party
supporters in Zimbabwe have experienced more
intimidation and attacks in the
periods just before and after presidential
and parliamentary elections:
The main Country Guidance cases, in
particular S.M. (Zimbabwe), already
confirm the existence of an "election
cycle" with reference to the
heightened risk during election periods and the
period immediately after the
election. The tribunal has also accepted that
this is a pattern which has
been followed since 2000 and that before an
election, there is intimidation
of real or perceived opposition supporters
particularly teachers and civil
servants. It also confirms that following an
election, there is
well-documented evidence of the post-election retribution
on political
opponents.
The Independent on Sunday in London
("Britain's Refugee Shame," March 16)
revealed that the mass removal program
that the British government is
currently planning could affect more than
1,000 Zimbabweans who had sought
refuge in Britain.
"The first phase
of the new asylum removal drive will target 500 failed
asylum-seekers from
Zimbabwe living in the northwest of England. In all,
more than 1,000 people
are likely to be affected in the near future, out of
some 7,000 Zimbabwean
asylum-seekers in the U.K.," the paper said.
Legislators, civil rights
groups, and organizations that represent asylum
seekers and refugees have
condemned the plans by the British government to
resume deportations to
Zimbabwe.
Following deportations of Zimbabwean opposition political party
activists
that took place in December, Victoria Helyar-Cardwell, the
correspondence
manager in Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg's office, told
Worldpress.org
that they were doing all they could to raise the issue of
deportations for
Zimbabweans.
"The Liberal Democrats have long called
for the halt on deportations to
Zimbabwe while the political situation is
monitored. The Home Office has let
down Zimbabwean refugees who have fled to
Britain in fear of persecution at
home," she said in an e-mail on Jan.
31.
Movement for Democratic Change (United Kingdom and Ireland) interim
chairperson and Simba Makoni central parliamentary candidate John Nyamande
told Worldpress.org that some failed asylum seekers had committed suicide to
escape from the torture and ill-treatment they would face if deported back
to Zimbabwe.
"The U.K. government must reconsider its position and
give asylum seekers
temporary work permits that become invalid as soon as
the situation in
Zimbabwe is resolved," he said by telephone earlier this
month.
Donna Covey, chief executive of the Refugee Council, told The
Independent on
Sunday that it was unacceptable that the British government
should be
considering forcing asylum seekers to return to
Zimbabwe.
"There has been no improvement in the human rights situation
there, which
remains dire," she said. "We know most Zimbabweans want to
return when it is
safe and to contribute to rebuilding their country. We
should be offering
them a form of temporary status here allowing them to
work and retain their
skills so they're fully equipped when the situation
has improved."
Kate Hoey, Labor M.P. and chair of the All-Party
Parliamentary Group on
Zimbabwe, told the same newspaper that it would be
"ridiculous" if the Home
Office tried to force mass returns of
asylum-seekers.
"The situation in Zimbabwe is worse than ever, and to
send people back in a
blanket way like this is not something that anyone
with an understanding of
the country would support," she said.
Newsweek
A former close ally may offer the best
chance yet of toppling Zimbabwe's
dictator at the ballot box.
'A
Gorbachev Type': Makoni's candidacy is evidence that the system is
fracturing from within
By Scott Johnson | NEWSWEEK
Mar 31, 2008 Issue
| Updated: 1:33 p.m. ET Mar 22, 2008
Politics is dangerous
business in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. So this crowd of
4,000 tired-looking
peasants and factory workers, packed into a soccer
stadium in the town of
Gweru, is understandably subdued. They chat quietly
among themselves,
listening to a popular Zimbabwean song, "We Are Afraid of
the Father," about
a patriarch's violent rages. The tune suits the event-a
rally for Simba
Makoni, the 57-year-old technocrat who is challenging
Mugabe, one of
Africa's last "big men," in elections this week. The crowd
roars when Makoni
jogs onto a giant stage and doffs his blue cap. "I am
taking off my hat so
you can see that I am a man," he says, shouting. "My
name is Simba Makoni!
And I am the one!"
If ever Zimbabwe needed a savior it's now. An
inflation rate that tops
100,000 percent has destroyed the economy. One in
five adults in Zimbabwe is
infected with HIV; women have the lowest life
expectancy-34 years-in the
world. And at 84, Mugabe refuses to ease the grip
in which he's held the
country since independence in 1980. Like dictators
everywhere, he's long
been sustained by cronies who don't much care what
happens to the nation as
long as they get their cut. That's why Makoni's
political insurgency is so
threatening: a former Finance minister, he comes
out of Mugabe's inner
circle. The system, finally, may be turning on
itself.
Makoni is an unlikely giant-killer. Born in rural Zimbabwe, he
excelled at
school and, in the early 1970s, was one of only about 120 blacks
nationwide
admitted to the University of Rhodesia. He protested against
white minority
rule, narrowly escaped arrest and fled to Botswana. He later
emigrated to
England where he earned a Ph.D. in chemistry at Leicester
Polytechnic. Back
in Zimbabwe after 1980, and already close to Mugabe, he
became the youngest
minister in the new government, and later Finance
minister. Until he was
expelled last month for challenging Mugabe, Makoni
was comfortably ensconced
in the ruling party's top echelons.
Now he
claims to have the backing of key figures within the party. Earlier
this
month Dumiso Dabengwa, a former military commander and hero to
thousands of
veterans of the independence struggle-a constituency that has
proved
unfailingly loyal to Mugabe in the past-endorsed Makoni. There are
persistent rumors that retired general Solomon Mujuru, whose wife, Joyce, is
the current vice president, may also be quietly backing him. And one faction
of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has thrown its organization
and money behind him.
Makoni says he's been trying to change the
government for years. As Finance
minister in 2002 he fought to stave off
hyperinflation by devaluing the Zim
dollar but was rebuffed, and later fired
for his efforts. He spoke out when
government thugs beat up opposition
activists in March 2007, even visiting
some who had been hospitalized in
South Africa. Abiathar Mujeyi, a close
adviser, says Makoni's bid has been
"a couple of years in preparation."
Makoni says he only decided to run last
December, after a ruling-party
congress rubber-stamped Mugabe's candidacy.
"My colleagues were frustrated,
they were angry, they were anxious," he
says. "Our leadership ... [is]
preoccupied with staying in power. We don't
look at the suffering."
Not everyone is convinced. Many believe Makoni's
bid is part of a plot by
Mugabe to keep power in the hands of a small and
vested minority, one that
will protect him from The Hague. (Makoni says that
if he's elected Mugabe
would be subject to due process "like any ordinary
citizen.") Morgan
Tsvangirai, the former labor leader who has led the
opposition for nearly a
decade, still commands wide support. And Mugabe
remains a ruthless opponent.
He's approved big pay raises recently for
soldiers, teachers and civil
servants. And he just amended the electoral law
to allow police to enter
polling stations and "assist" illiterate voters.
Mugabe is widely believed
to have rigged elections in 2002 by stuffing voter
rolls and intimidating
candidates.
That the elections are up for
grabs at all speaks to the cracks forming
within the ruling party, much as
the collapse of the Soviet system began
from within. "Makoni is a Gorbachev
type of person," says David Coltart, an
opposition parliamentarian and
supporter. Makoni's advisers say many
establishment types can't go public
yet out of fear. "Mugabe can't trust his
politburo anymore, or his
intelligence or his military," says Mujeyi. "We
talk to them all the time."
One source in Bulawayo, who cannot be named for
fear of retribution,
reported last week that soldiers were tearing down
Mugabe posters near their
barracks. Makoni may be their best chance to pull
down the big man
himself.
With Karen MacGregor in Durban
Toronto Star
Mar 22, 2008 04:30
AM
James Travers
OTTAWA-To drift around southern Africa after a decade
away is to be slapped
hard by a couple of changes. One is the omnipresence
of orphanages that
reveal more poignantly than any United Nations study how
a virus is
infecting the once sustaining structure of extended families.
Another is the
ubiquitous cellphone.
Not much more can be said or
written about HIV/AIDS that's likely to make a
difference. Statistics that
overwhelm and our guilty relief that the worst
of it is over there have
stunned the world's response and dulled its
conscience. But the portable
phone is a different, lifting story with
surprising Canadian
parallels.
Never really the Dark Continent except in European
sensibilities, otherwise
boisterous Africa has been until recently, and in a
singular way, the Silent
Continent. Poorly matched against seasonal rains
and rugged distance,
colonial phones, with their porous insulation and steam
age exchanges, were
better suited for making new crossed-lines acquaintances
than connecting
communities.
An inconvenience for the many, that
disconnect was a political tool for the
powerful few. Without a phone
network, whole regions could be isolated with
just a few
roadblocks.
Robert Mugabe was only one of many African autocrats to
maximize the
advantage. Before morphing from socialist darling to
international pariah,
Zimbabwe's rogue leader shut down Matabeleland to let
his North
Korean-trained troops rampage largely out of
sight.
Atrocities are still too large a part of Africa's story, but now
they're
more easily told, harder to mute. Remarkable for a place where so
many live
on less than a dollar a day, the personal phone is everywhere.
Even those
who can't afford one themselves can use the sprouting
kiosks.
One result of technology's trickle-down is quaintly amusing: The
tree or
hill with the clearest reception draws a crowd of climbers. But the
most
profound outcome, the one that draws first and third worlds closer
together,
is that the unforeseen consequence of affordable technology is the
slow drip
of acid on authority.
Here and there, somebody is always
watching Big Brother. We now know when,
say, Mugabe is mugging his political
rivals and, sooner or later, we find
out when domestic authorities abuse
public trust.
Two examples from opposite Canadian coasts make the point.
In Vancouver, an
eyewitness video recording knocked gaping holes in the
apparently
cock-and-bull RCMP story that it had no option but to use a Taser
in the
fatally muscular handling of Robert Dziekanski. In Halifax, a
passerby
caught a hit-and-run on a camera cellphone leading to the downfall
of Nova
Scotia human resources minister Ernie Fage.
This sort of
thing is not entirely fresh. Nearly 20 years ago the Los
Angeles police
beating of Rodney King sparked riots there and made news
around the world.
But back then it was more the exception than the rule that
someone stumbling
on a crime scene would also be lugging along a video
recorder. Today, with
cameras everywhere and 2 billion cellphones ringing
worldwide, it's a pretty
safe bet that someone arriving at the intersection
of time and circumstance
will be able to preserve for posterity the evidence
as well as the
event.
Among techno-geeks, this is known as "sousveillance," the
delightfully
democratic practice of keeping an eye on those who would just
as soon
operate out of sight. But it might just as well be known as digital
power to
the people.
James Travers' national affairs column appears
Tuesday, Thursday and
Saturday.
Monsters and Critics
Mar 22, 2008, 7:19 GMT
Harare/Johannesburg - Five years
of separation from the country whose
struggles inspired all his music has
wounded the Lion of Zimbabwe, Thomas
Mapfumo.
Speaking down the line
from his home in Oregon, United States, he admits: 'I
feel so
bad.'
Mapfumo is talking about his exile from Zimbabwe, where
he
invented the country's own brand of struggle music during the last
days of
minority white rule in the 1970s, earning him a short prison term
and the
status of national icon.
'I've been away from home for such a
long time,' he sighs.
Mapfumo, 62, is probably the best-known of the
estimated 4 million
Zimbabwean exiles who have been squeezed out of the
country by economic
hardship and/or political oppression over the past
decade.
His fall from grace with President Robert Mugabe's government
began in 1989
when the voice of the chirumenga (struggle in his native
Shona, also the
term for his style of protest music) trained his sights on
the new
government.
In 1989 he released an album entitled Corruption
and for years afterwards
was harassed by the state. Government spies used to
come looking for him at
his home. They also warned one of his friends, who
worked in the presidency:
'The president doesn't like you to go to Mukanya's
(Mapfumo's nickname)
place.'
In the late 1990s he moved to Oregon.
Since 2003, he hasn't been back
Zimbabwe - not even for the funeral of his
mother who died on Christmas Day,
2007.
'I've been hearing a lot of
rumours, you know, about some people trying to
harm me,' he
says.
Mapfumo still sings in Shona mostly and tries to stoke opposition
to
Mugabe's repressive rule but the tone is less angry, more
reflective.
In his 2005 album entitled Rise Up, he urges 'Let's go,
father' while trying
to reason with Mugabe, saying: 'I'm one of your own so
don't hate me for
what I say.'
Several of his more recent songs are
banned in Zimbabwe, where
state-controlled radio prefers his old
revolutionary tunes, but his name is
still spoken with reverence across the
country.
'Mapfumo was the best but they chased him away,' says Eddie, a
taxi driver
in Harare about half the singer's age.
Like many
Zimbabwean exiles Mapfumo is sceptical about the prospects for
change in the
upcoming elections, in which 84-year-old Mugabe is seeking to
extend his 28
years in office.
Asked for his thoughts on former finance minister and
ex-ruling Zanu-PF
politburo member Simba Makoni, who is standing against
Mugabe in the polls,
Mapfumo shoots back: 'How can you trust someone like
that?'
Longtime opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai gets a slightly more
favourable
response. 'We all used to think that Tsvangirai would be given
enough room
to manoeuvre but he seems to be doing not much for the
people.'
Mapfumo, by now a grandfather, continues to tour
internationally, keeping in
touch with his fans through his page on the
Myspace social networking
website and keeping tabs on the situation in
Zimbabwe.
'I have friends who are in the ruling party, even some
ministers, and
police. They sometimes call me on the phone,' he
says.
'I was thinking maybe if there's any chance of these elections
coming out
clean ... maybe if there's a moderate leader, there's a chance
we'll be able
to go back home.'