Zimbabwe Man Charged with Murder of White Farmer
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe, March 30 (Reuters) - A Zimbabwean man was charged on Friday with the killing of white woman farmer Gloria Olds on March 4.
Police said they had arrested 47-year-old Albert Ncube on Tuesday.
State prosecutor John Sithole told a court in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, that Ncube would go on trial on April 19 on charges that he and an accomplice, who has not yet been arrested, shot Olds 20 times while wearing army uniforms.
Police said Ncube was arrested at the Olds farm while allegedly stealing a cow. He was remanded in custody.
The 68-year-old Olds was the mother of a farmer slain last year at the start of President Robert Mugabe's campaign to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks.
Farmers who rushed to the murder scene reported she had been shot several times in a dawn ambush as she opened a gate to her farmhouse and that 30 empty cartridges had been recovered.
Her three dogs were also shot dead and the gunmen fled in her truck. The police have made no arrests so far in the previous killings of white farmers.
Gloria Olds' son Martin was the second of five white farmers killed last year in a land-grab. Two more white farmers were killed in apparent robberies.
Self-styled war veterans, many too young to have served in the liberation war which led to Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980, have occupied hundreds of white-owned farms.
Police refused to comment on speculation in the farming community that Ncube styled himself a war veteran.
Some farmers have abandoned their lands near Harare and Bulawayo in the face of threats and violence from war veterans.
Others continue to farm in an uneasy cooperation with veterans who maintain at least a token presence on many farms earmarked for redistribution.
Mar 21, 2001 (UN Integrated Regional Information Network/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX)-- A state oil official has dismissed media reports of an imminent easing of Zimbabwe's crippling fuel shortage as false, Reuters reported on Tuesday, quoting the state-controlled 'Herald' newspaper.
"It's no use continuing to lie to members of the public regarding the fuel situation in the country," Webster Muriritirwa, managing director of the state oil procurement agency NOCZIM, was quoted as saying. "There is no solution yet in sight for the problem we are facing," he added.
Fuel shortages have plagued Zimbabwe over the past 15 months due to a foreign currency crisis and NOCZIM's heavy debt. Muriritirwa said Zimbabwe's main fuel supplier, Independent Petroleum Group (IPG) of Kuwait, had suspended fuel pumping at the Mozambican port of Beira over non-payment.
President Robert Mugabe's government needs an average of US $40 million a month for fuel imports but has been struggling to pay IPG, which supplies 70 percent of Zimbabwe's fuel.
Oil industry officials reported on Monday that many fuel stations in Zimbabwe had run dry and the situation was desperate in the capital Harare where thousands of motorists were stuck in queues. Businesses and factories are closing or scaling down operations as demand falls and a hard currency shortage makes it impossible to import vital raw materials.
Copyright UN Integrated Regional Information Network. Distributed by All Africa Global Media(AllAfrica.com)
HARARE, Mar 30, 2001 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- Zimbabwe's Department of Taxes is cracking down on shoppers here who are prejudicing the government of millions of U.S. dollars daily in sales tax, The Herald newspaper reported on Friday.
"The operation was scheduled to end on Friday, but we have extended it by another two weeks after realizing that the tax evasion was really alarming. Only a few people are honest and paying their sales tax," Commissioner of Taxes Gershem Pasi told the newspaper.
He said "we now want to carry out the operation in other regions."
The department has recently raised 70.5 billion Zimbabwean dollars (1.2 billion U.S. dollars) for its operation launched between 1999 and early this year to clamp down on tax-evading companies.
Johannesburg, Mar 30, 2001 (Business Day/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX)-- Rich South Africans have been rushing to take their money out of the country in the past year, with the annual rate of capital flight more than doubling.
Finance Minister Trevor Manuel told Parliament yesterday that R17,4bn had left the country between the inception of the investment allowance in July 1997 and the end of last year.
Manuel was answering a question by Democratic Party finance spokesman Ken Andrew.
The figures the first since February last year may explain why government appears to have slowed down the pace of its liberalisation of foreign exchange controls.
While the national treasury denies it is tightening up exchange controls, this is thought to have occurred with the abolition of the asset swap mechanism for investment institutions.
The evidence is that the problems in Zimbabwe and fears of a further plunge in the value of the rand spurred the wealthy to take extensive advantage of the rise in the personal offshore investment allowance last year.
Up until about a year ago the figures showed that only moderate use had been made of the mechanism because, as financial advisers explained, people were reluctant to seek tax clearance from the authorities to use it.
Indications are that R8bn left the country under the allowance from the end of February to December last year. The Reserve Bank said last February that R9,4bn had been invested abroad under the mechanism since its 1997 inception. This implies that the annual rate of flight was about R3,4bn a year until late February last year.
The shock rise in the use of the offshore investment allowance may be part of the reason why government did not raise the limit from R750000 to R1m when the 2001-02 budget was presented to Parliament last month.
Manuel said yesterday that 73814 people had used the investment allowance since its inception. As no previous figure has been given on the number of individuals who took money out of the country under the allowance, there is no indication of how many used the mechanism last year.
Under the investment allowance, private individuals SA residents who are over the age of 18 and have a certificate of good standing from the tax authorities are permitted to take R750000 out. The limit on what individuals are allowed to take out on a onceoff basis has been progressively raised from R200000 in 1997.
The latest outflows are reflected in the strong contraction of the surplus of SA's financial account, often considered the bottom line of the balance of payments. For last year as a whole, the country's surplus on the financial account contracted from R29,5bn in 1999 to R8,5bn. The surplus is a little above the total outflow through the investment allowance between February and December last year.
The latest Reserve Bank Quarterly Bulletin shows a sudden switch from a R10,9bn surplus in the third quarter to a R1bn deficit in the last quarter of the year. While it does not attribute this to Zimbabwe, it does say it was due to heightened risks in emerging markets.
WINDHOEK, March 28 (Reuters) - Namibian President Sam Nujoma on Wednesday lashed out at white commercial farmers who arbitrarily fire their farm workers, saying his government would not tolerate "such imperialist action."
"Today the whites possess 80 percent of the farm land in this country. I don't know if they consider themselves Namibian citizens or if they are just cheating us by claiming that they are compatriots," he said at the opening of a high school.
Nujoma said farmers were challenging the government by telling dismissed workers to go and report to it if they wanted a job.
"We have the capacity to fight you. We will get you. I warn those whites it is the first and last time I hear you insulting us," he said.
Nujoma, president since Namibia achieved independence from white ruled South Africa in 1990, is a close ally of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who has embarked on a controversial programme to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.
Namibia is similar to Zimbabwe in many ways, with most of the best farm land in the hands of 4,500 mainly white farmers while 60 percent of the population ekes out a living from the arid soil.
But Namibian government officials have said there will be no Zimbabwe-style land invasions in the sparsely populated country despite Nujoma's Mugabe-style outbursts against the nation's whites.
From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 30 March
Mugabe bulldozes shanty town opponents
Twisted pieces of corrugated iron and cardboard were all that remained of the homes of some of Zimbabwe's poorest people yesterday after Harare city council bulldozed scores of shacks in a night raid on illegal shanty towns. As they scraped through the ruins, trying to retrieve their meagre possessions, the victims of this draconian policy in Mbare township accused the authorities of punishing them for supporting the opposition MDC, which holds all 19 of Harare's parliamentary seats.
Families were awoken from their sleep by the shouts of policemen at 1am on Wednesday. As they scrambled terrified from their shacks, grabbing whatever possessions they could salvage, a bulldozer began carving its path of destruction. More than 30 shacks were wrecked, rendering up to 150 people homeless. Similar operations were mounted in at least three other locations, leaving hundreds more without shelter. Dudzai Mutimukuru, 24, had no doubts about why she and her three young children were now homeless. "We are MDC here and that is why we are being punished. All of Mbare is MDC so they are coming for us. We are struggling now. We don't have blankets for the children. We don't have anything."
The council, which is run by an unelected commission dominated by the ruling Zanu-PF party, argues that it is merely enforcing the law. But the illegal squatter camps on the 900 occupied white-owned farms remain untouched. President Robert Mugabe has frequently attacked urban blacks for supporting the MDC. By destroying their homes, the bulldozers could force them out of Harare and into the regime's tightly controlled countryside strongholds. Julian Gwaza, 25, whose house was wrecked, said: "They want us to go to the rural areas where they will force us to support Zanu-PF."
From The Star (SA), 30 March
Manuel spells out Zim's debt to South Africa
Zimbabwean parastatals owe at least R179-million to their South African counterparts, with some having run into arrears, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel has told parliament. Asked by Inkatha Freedom Party MP Hennie Bekker whether the South African government had given any loans or credit lines to Zimbabwe, Manuel said the government had given no direct loans. However, the government had provided export credit reinsurance on exports to the Zimbabwean iron and steel parastatal Zisco, through the department of trade and industry's credit reinsurance scheme. The total outstanding on this contract was R30-million, with R3,7-million in arrears. In spite of the arrears, no claims had been received by the South African lender against the insurance fund.
Eskom had provided a credit line to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority. The outstanding balance on this account had fallen from R163-million in July last year to R87-million by February 16 this year. Arrears were covered by deposits under a debt repayment agreement, Manuel said. Telkom had extended a US$8-million (R64-million) credit facility to the Zimbabwean posts and telecommunications department to set up a digital link between South Africa and Zimbabwe. An amount of about R22-million had been drawn on this facility, with the first payment due at the end of March. Manuel also gave details of an overdraft facility given to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe by the South African Reserve Bank.
From The Financial Gazette, 29 March
Mugabe keeps options open on new term
President Robert Mugabe will run for another presidential term if his favoured successor, Parliamentary Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, fails to garner unanimous support within the ruling Zanu PF by the time the party holds its annual conference in December this year, authoritative official sources said this week.
They said Mugabe was keeping his options open on whether to run for another presidential term, preferring to make a decision by the end of the year after checking whether Mnangagwa had made progress in rallying solid support within Zanu PF and nationally to win presidential elections due next year. The sources, within the government and the ruling party, said Mugabe had now acknowledged that there were difficulties in successfully selling Mnangagwa's candidature in Zanu PF and to Zimbabweans in time for the presidential ballot. This factor could force the President to revise his retirement plans as well as his decision on which individuals could succeed him.
"President Mugabe has made clear he wants Mnangagwa to be the president after he retires," a member of Zanu PF's supreme Politburo organ said, preferring not to be named. "But if Mnangagwa fails to garner the party's critical support by the time of our conference in December, Mugabe will contest the elections," the official told the Financial Gazette. Another Politburo member said: "The restructuring which is taking place in the party is to try to fortify Mnangagwa's shaky candidature but if the plan fails Mugabe will go for another term."
Both Mugabe and Vice President Simon Muzenda are in agreement that Mnangagwa should take over because they see him as a strong-willed politician who could guarantee their security after retirement. But most senior Politburo members are unhappy with Mnangagwa's candidature, saying the former security minister does not command solid support within Zanu PF and nationally to win a presidential election. The members are instead pushing for Finance Minister Simba Makoni to be at least a running mate for Mugabe if the President has to run for another term. The renewed power struggles within Zanu PF come amid growing resistance within the party over its fast-track restructuring of leaders running the provinces. Members charge that Mnangagwa is masterminding the purge of the provincial leaders to position himself for nomination to contest the state presidency. Those unhappy with Mnangagwa's ambitions include top politicians from Mashonaland West, Mashonaland East, Harare, Masvingo and the three Matabeleland provinces.
Despite this, the sources said Mnangagwa is working feverishly to convince Mugabe that he has the support of the party and is capable of lifting his national image in time for the December deadline. In his efforts to secure broad-based support within the party, especially in Matabeleland, Mnangagwa is working to enlist the help of former home affairs minister Dumiso Dabengwa to shore up and promote his candidature in the southern provinces. In return, Dabengwa is being pencilled in for the post of vice president. According to the sources, Mnangagwa is unpopular in Matabeleland because residents there blame him for the 1980s atrocities against civilians in the area by the army and the CIO which he headed at the time. The sources say even the invitation to address Parliament this week to Congolese President Joseph Kabila is one of Mnangagwa's many ways to try to build his image nationally and within southern Africa as Mugabe's heir apparent. Mnangagwa, who has made numerous trips to the Congo since Zimbabwe intervened in that country's civil war in 1998, used to be close to slain Congolese leader Laurent Kabila.
From The Financial Gazette, 29 March
Spies trail Banana
Zimbabwe's first president Canaan Banana said this week he is living in fear for his life because he is being tracked by unidentified men suspected to be agents of the government's spy CIO. Banana said the men, some of whom he said drove cars spotting white number plates normally reserved for government vehicles, are keeping a tight surveillance on him. They keep trailing him from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), where he teaches, to his home in Harare's posh Mount Pleasant suburb and when he drives to Mount Pleasant shops nearby. "I am being followed by strange fellows. I really do not know who these people are, but one cannot feel secure with this kind of thing," he told the Financial Gazette.
State Security Minister Nicholas Goche, whose ministry controls the CIO, distanced the organisation from any moves against Banana, saying the former president was not a threat to state security and that there would be no need for the CIO to track him. "We have no reason, none whatsoever, to have any operation against Banana because the former president is not a threat to security," Goche told this newspaper.
The government has in the past used the CIO, notorious for its terror in interrogating suspected anti-government elements, to instil fear in its opponents. The CIO has also been accused of causing the deaths of several Zimbabweans opposed to either the government or the ruling ZANU PF party. One CIO agent, Joseph Mwale, and war veteran Kainos Tom Zimunya were this month accused in the High Court of petrol-bombing to death two opposition MDC activists in the run-up to last June's parliamentary elections. The accusation surfaced during a hearing by the court into a petition by MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai challenging the victory of ZANU PF candidate Kenneth Manyonda in Buhera North constituency last June. Although both Mwale and Zimunya have been summoned to appear in court over the allegation, they have inexplicably failed to do so.
Narrating his encounter with the "men in dark glasses", Banana said that on Monday this week one man driving a Mazda 323 car had followed him for a distance of nearly two kms from the UZ up to Epping Road which leads to his home. Banana's home is guarded round the clock by armed police while a government-supplied driver chauffeurs him around in his state-issued Mercedes-Benz car. Zimbabwe's former ceremonial president also used to enjoy the services of personal bodyguards paid for by the government but has not had such services since his return from prison over charges of sodomy earlier this year.
"I never thought that one day civil liberties and the desired morsel would become such a distant dream. I pray that I will not be forced to join the great trek horizontally (on earth) or vertically (in death)," Banana said. Banana, who said the surveillance has been going on for sometime and that even his wife Janet is being tracked, said he had not raised the matter with the police, although he planned to do so later this week. "This has been going on for sometime, although I have not made a report to the police. I think I will report to Borrowdale police nearby, at least so that there is a record in case something happens to me," he said.
One of the country's best political brains, Banana is credited with uniting rival political parties of President Robert Mugabe and the late nationalist Joshua Nkomo in 1987 to end an armed conflict which threatened to tear Zimbabwe apart. He had not assumed an active political role since being forced out of the presidency by Mugabe, who abolished the ceremonial post of head of state in preference of an all-powerful presidency in 1987. But of late there have been apparent moves by the government to try to block Banana from interacting with or offering advice to its political opponents, especially the MDC.
When Tsvangirai visited Banana in prison earlier this year, severe disciplinary measures were taken against the officers who had permitted the visit while all such further visits by Tsvangirai were summarily banned. Tsvangirai poses the biggest threat to Mugabe's 21-year hold on power when the former labour leader challenges Mugabe in presidential elections due next year. Pressed to say what he thought could have prompted the government to place him under surveillance, Banana said: "Perhaps they want to check on my movements to see who I talk to and who I meet. Why they should do this I do not know. All I can say is: please Zimbabwe do not be tempted to suck and drink the blood of your own children." Three weeks ago, this newspaper exclusively revealed that South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki and his ruling ANC had approached Banana as they explore how best to deal with Mugabe and Zimbabwe's rapidly deteriorating political and economic climate. Mbeki is said to be considering involving Banana, an accomplished peace negotiator, in his future dealings with Harare.
From the Amani Trust, 30 March