TO ALL EX RHODESIAN / ZIMBABWEANS and Friends of that country
Dear
friends,
I hate doing this sort of thing, as I am sure you chaps are
already
contributing one way or another to those who find themselves in a
ghastly situation in Zimbabwe.
We were hoping that if you were not
able to assist in any way, then
perhaps we could ask you if you could
forward this email to anyone you
feel might be in a position to
assist.
Kind regards
Lin
Mehmel
==================================================
Distressed
Pensioner's Appeal Fund
P.O. Box 99
Groot Drakenstein
South Africa
7680
Fax: +27 21 867 0895
E-mail: lmehmel@mweb.co.za
Trustees : L
Mehmel, Dr J Driver-Jowitt, J & N Gaynor, L van der Byl, L
McKenzie
assisted by: E West, T Begemann
March 1 2006
TO
ALL EX RHODESIAN / ZIMBABWEANS and Friends of that country
Dear
friends,
The plight of pensioners trapped in Zimbabwe
This Fund
has been supporting over 50 destitute, elderly pensioners in
Zimbabwe for
more than 2 years. We have provided them with food parcels,
delivered
through Meals on Wheels. There are many pensioners in that
country who are
unable to leave because of their financial circumstances
and their
ages.
Once a month a food parcel of dry goods (including tea, coffee,
powder
milk, sugar, soya compound, soup, canned fish / meat, oil, jam, flour
and vitamin pills if they are available. Soap and lavatory paper brings
its own modicum of self-respect.) is delivered to their homes which
enables these pensioner to fend off starvation.
Over the next few
months we will be sending you one or two emails on the
plight of some of
these pensioners and we sincerely hope you will sign
up a monthly electronic
donation into the Fund's bank account, to help
us raise the R 10 000 that we
need to feed these people each month. A
once off donation would also be most
welcome.
We also hope that you will help us recruit any ex Zimbabwean
friends who
you may be in email contact with.
100% of what you donate
will go directly to the pensioners in Zimbabwe.
There are no admin costs
other than a few bank charges.
Our initial aim is to recruit just 100
regular, monthly donors, who if
they each donated R100 a month, would raise
what we currently need to
feed these pensioners. Once we have secured 100,
we will then look for
further donors to enable us to care for the many other
pensioners in
that country who need our help.
The Funds bank account
details to enter into you internet banking are,
The Zimbabwe Rhodesia
Relief Fund (DPA)
Barclay Bank PLC
Account: 30997706
Branch code 205
300
United Kingdom
OR
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe Pensioner's
First
National Bank, Paarl, South Africa. Project
Account: 62058039788
Branch
code 200 110
South Africa
Please try and put yourself in the position
in which these pensioners
find themselves. Accept and realise that we are
virtually their only
source of assistance. Please help us look after the
Zimbabweans who have
not been as fortunate as many of us have been, in
re-establishing our
lives outside that country.
With kind
regards
Lin Mehmel O.L.M.
Chairman and the Committee
By
"We would be
better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the
liberation struggle.&n! bsp; We don't
want all these extra people."
Didymus Mutasa – Zimbabwe’s Minister of State for National Security,
Lands, Lands Reform, and Resettlement – August
2002
Operation Murambatsvina has been, “…a
long cherished desire.”
Like a snared animal, attacking even those
who would free Zimbabwe,
According to the United Nations Report on
the Fact-Finding Mission to Zimbabwe to Assess the Scope and Impact of Operation
Murambatsvina, there are, “three main categories of victims – those who have
lost their homes, those who lost their livelihoods, and those who lost
both.”
There can be little doubt that this list
will soon contain a fourth main category, those who have lost their
lives.
Beginning officially on May 19, 2005,
Operation Murambatsvina (“Operation Drive out the Filth”), having already left
700,000 homeless, and directly impacting the lives of a further 2.4 million, is
simply the most recent manifestation of the Mugabe/ZANU-PF’s systematic
progression toward a governmental policy of overt mass
murder.
Make no mistake, what we are currently
witnessing in Zimbabwe—even now, Operation Murambatsvina continues to
unfold—constitutes nothing less than the first stages of a centrally organized
program of mass murder on a scale of the genocides of Rwanda and
Darfur.
With a diligence akin to that of Hitler’s
Germany, where valuable resources were diverted from the war effort—even as the
Eastern Front collapsed under the onslaught of the Red Army—in order that the
trains could continue to transport their pitiful cargos to the death camps, the
Mugabe regime squanders what few assets it is still able to squeeze out of the
freefalling Zimbabwean economy, to fuel a policy that aims at the elimination of
all potential opposition, an opposition that Augustine Chihuri, the Zimbabwean
Police Commissioner, has described as a, “crawling mass of maggots bent on
destroying the economy.”
Use of such dehumanizing language is one of
the surest early warning signs of genocide.
The Devil is in the
Details
Genocide
is a process and not an event. The
In October 1980, when then Prime Minister
Mugabe signed an agreement with the North Korean President, Kim Il Sung,
providing that the North Korean communists would train what was to become the
elite “5 Brigade” of the Zimbabwean army, he launched an intentional, organized
process of genocide.
5 Brigade, comprised largely of
Shona-speaking members of the armed wing of what is now the ZANU-PF, and
organized along the lines of Hitler’s SS—standing outside of the army chain of
command, and answering only to Mugabe himself—unleashed the Gukurahundi (“the
early rain which washes away the chaff before the spring rains”), the regime’s
first, and still unpunished, genocide.
While an accurate death toll for the
Gukurahundi is all but impossible to ascertain, with thousands of bodies
disposed of in mass graves and thrown down abandoned mine shafts, it is
estimated that at least 20,000 people were murdered by members of 5 Brigade, the
ZANU-PF Youth Militia, the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), and the
Police Internal Security Intelligence Unit (PISI), all active participants in
the killings.
What is known, and documented, about the
Gukurahundi, is that it constituted the Mugabe regime’s first overt use of food
as a weapon of suppression, with over 400,000 Zimbabwean citizens driven to the
brink of starvation before 5 Brigade was withdrawn and disbanded in
1986.
The
Gukurahundi, while mainly about consolidation of raw political power, the
establishment of a one-party, Mugabe/ZANU-PF led government, and the suppression
of any opposition—by whatever means necessary—was also genocide. Its’ victims were almost exclusively
Matabele.
Having ruthlessly acted to cripple those he
saw as threatening the ZANU-PF government in the 1980’s, Mugabe turned to
consolidation of his political power by co-opting Zimbabwe’s parliamentary
democracy, and its’ judiciary, hoping to turn both into rubberstamps for his
dictatorship.
Now,
It is winter in the southern
hemisphere.
Action not
Discussion
As with Sudan and Niger, discussions about
the situation in Zimbabwe have been taking place within the international
community’s halls of power. The UN has
compiled a damning report, the US and UK, in concert with other nations, have
called on the Mugabe regime to cease and desist, while NGOs around the world
have identified the specific steps that can be taken to end this grave
humanitarian crisis. Yet the power elite
in Zimbabwe have shown open contempt at demands that it end Operation
Murambatsvina, a program of destruction that
Given
Facing a Zimbabwean
Genocide
In fact,
Never Again or Again and
Again?
What remains is for the world’s governments
to decide whether they want to look back on this time in pride at having acted
to avert another humanitarian disaster, a “tsunami,” as its victims have named
it, a program of mass murder, to call it what it is, or in shame, at their
collective complicity in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The dying has already begun in Zimbabwe. Will the “Never again,” invoked so piously
after Rwanda, once more translate into “again and again?”
As Judith Todd, the Zimbabwean human rights
activist observed in June 2005, “If, in bitter winter, you deprive people and
their children of shelter, and thus also their food and clothing and warmth; if
you deprive them of their tools of trade and their means of survival, you do
this for one reason only; you intend them to die….The regime will not stop with
what we know so far of Operation Murambatsvina.
They will not stop until they are stopped!”
Kevin Engle, an independent researcher,
has lived in Zimbabwe. Gregory Stanton,
President of Genocide Watch and James Farmer Professor of Human Rights at the
University of Mary Washington, Fredericksburg, Virginia, has conducted genocide
prevention training in Zimbabwe.
Calvin College Chimes
A call for action in a
forgotten country
By Chris Kreft -- Guest Writer
When I was in high
school, I had a friend named Zinzii. She belonged to the
Ndebele, a tribe
that makes up about 20 percent of the population of
Zimbabwe. She was
generally a happy person, she enjoyed life and she seemed
like any other
student. But she also had a dark secret. In 1984, most of her
family was
wiped out, murdered by soldiers of the state. She lost uncles,
cousins and
grandparents. Her immediate family escaped to the capital city
of Harare to
try to start over.
The government denied any reports of the ethnic
cleansing - indeed, most of
the population of Zimbabwe would not believe
that a massacre had occurred
and believed the claims of violence were
falsifications made by enemies of
the nation. Thousands had been killed,
hundreds tortured and raped. As a
result of the atrocities, the main
Ndebele-led opposition party agreed to
merge with Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU
party. ZANU has never acknowledged the
attack on the Ndebele.
Despite
this tragedy, post-independence Zimbabwe was well on the way to
becoming a
breadbasket for the surrounding nations of southern Africa.
President Robert
Mugabe was magnanimous in his public statements, desiring
unity between the
minority white population, the majority Shona tribe and
the Ndebele. His
stance led to investor confidence in the nation, as well as
an expanding
agricultural sector. Zimbabwe became a shining star with the
promise of
success well within its grasp. This would not be another failed
African
state.
Yet ZANU's lust for power that was evident early in Zimbabwe's
history was
ultimately to turn this promise into a horrifying tragedy.
Twenty years
later, the political system is rife with corruption,
clientalism, violence
and fraud. Government officials have channeled
national resources and
revenue to their own pockets, becoming extremely
wealthy while devastating
the economy and the livelihoods of the
poverty-stricken citizenry. Elections
are marked by the beatings, jailings
and killings of opposing candidates and
voters, expulsion of election
monitors from the country, and severe
oppression of the free press. Police
and army forces rarely intervene, as
they are kept under tight rein by the
government. Indeed, the security and
armed forces often take part in the
violence and intimidation.
Yet these are only a few of the injustices
brought to bear on the population
by the ruling party. Land reform programs
that expelled skilled white
farmers and replaced them with government
officials have driven agriculture
into severe decline, to the point that
Zimbabweans today face starvation on
a massive scale. Government policy and
drought have meant that about one
half of Zimbabwe's 12 million people do
not have the food they need - a
situation which is exacerbated by the
government's interference with and
siphoning off of food aid from the
international community. Food aid is
frequently delivered on the basis of
political allegiance. The list of
tragedies goes on and on.
The
United States' government shows little concern for the situation in
Zimbabwe. Preoccupied with its own issues such as the war in Iraq, the
rebuilding of New Orleans and its concerns over nuclear proliferation in
North Korea and Iran, it sees Zimbabwe as low on its list of priorities. It
is a nation unlikely to become a breeding ground for terrorism directly
against the United States, and holds no significant strategic
location.
Yet I believe God cries for this nation and for its suffering
people. Are
we, as Christians, only able to care for the suffering of others
when it is
within our own interests? Micah 6:8 tells us what God requires of
us: "to
act justly, to love mercy and walk humbly with your God." It is that
first
requirement which I hope people here can identify with and really help
make
a difference.
I ask you to care. To learn about the cases of
injustice in the world and to
fight them. International pressure,
particularly from Western powers, is
vital to the restoration of peace and
justice to nations like Zimbabwe.
Write letters to those that can do
something about it. Above all else,
please remember my country in your
prayers. Have a heart for my home.
Zim Daily
Friday, March 31 2006 @ 12:30 AM BST
Contributed by: correspondent
As the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) gears
for mass confrontation with President Robert
Mugabe's inept regime,
opposition deputies are sharply divided over the ways
and means the proposed
mass protests should take. Top party sources told
Zimdaily that there were
radical deputies who were strongly opposed to the
fundamental strategy of
the MDC of peaceful-co-habitation with Zanu PF. This
group is said to be
lobbying for street protests.
However
the group calling for a mass stayaway argues that a
combination of
parliamentary and legal pressure together with a
deteriorating economic
situation due to the sanctions will get them
peacefully into power. The
deputies argue that there are not enough
protesters willing to take to the
streets to force Mugabe from power. "They
argue those who would turn up for
street protests would be arrested, hurting
the long-term prospects for
growing the party," said a source.
Sources said Morgan
Tsvangirai has said "I am not afraid to go
to jail myself." Tsvangirai has
not yet openly indicated the route he wants,
but he is on record saying "its
one thing to be courageous and another thing
to make wreckless decisions in
a way that won't be sustainable." Zimdaily
heard there was a group calling
for "Ukraine Style Orange Revolution" but
the opposing group is said to have
charged "Zimbabwe is not Ukraine - We
have to be
realistic."
Sources said the MDC was making wide
consultations on the issue.
Some political analysts accuse the MDC
leadership of lacking will, strategic
vision and personal courage to
successfully spearhead a people's power
revolution. "I assure you that 70
percent of Zimbabweans are grossly unhappy
about the situation they are in
and there is growing anger against the
government and the ruling party
leadership," Heneri Dzinotyiwei, a leading
University of Zimbabwe (UZ)
political commentator said.
"But the challenge is to (craft)
an approach where we have a
popular movement." Analysts say worsening food
shortages and general
economic hardships would continue to feed into the
anger of the majority,
who have been impoverished over the years. "It is
going to be a sudden
explosion of mass anger because we are reaching the
threshold of the
people's patience," Eldred Masunungure, chairman of the
political science
department at the UZ said.
In his
acceptance speech delivered to about 16 000 enthusiastic
MDC supporters at
the City Sports Centre a fortnight ago, Tsvangirai warned
of "a long
bustling winter across the country." "From today, fellow
Zimbabweans, kindly
save a penny and stock up where possible. A storm is
upon the horizon,"
Tsvangirai said. "I promise to lead from the front. I
promise to use all
available resources and will-power to see off the tyranny
in Zimbabwe today;
to assist in putting together the building blocks for a
new Zimbabwe and a
new beginning," he said.
But Masunungure said: "Such a
programme will need good
organisational skills, courage and self-drive. He
has put his reputation on
the line and it has to work because it could
damage his standing,"
Masunungure said. Analysts say the Mugabe regime, with
its party cadreship
and the state has the capacity to easily crush any
attempted mass uprising.
Last week Home Affairs chief, Kembo Mohadi, told
Zimdaily: "This treachery
has now gone beyond all forms of decency and must
be stopped. The courts
must take note of Morgan Tsvangirai's open call for
violence which, in
essence, constitutes high treason.
"
Zimdaily heard that "MDC middle class leadership" is
demobilising its
radical base, denouncing the jambanja route. Analysts say
the
commodification of resistance through NGO civic society has also
neutralised
civic society. This includes the trade unions which are further
suffering
from a corrupt unaccountable leaders, disillusioning the
membership.
Zim Daily
Friday, March 31 2006 @ 12:28 AM BST
Contributed by: correspondent
Reserve bank governor Gideon
Gono's financial institution, CBZ
Holdings has raked in a massive Z$1,6
trillion after tax profit,
representing a staggering 381% turnover growth.
The massive profit growth
means the central bank chief joins the elite
so-called "trillion dollar
club" in Harare. Gono's CBZ Holdings subsidiary
CBZ Bank Limited made nearly
$1,49 trillion in after-tax profits in the six
months to December 31, an
overall increase of nearly 381% percent on the
previous comparable period,
where the bank made $310
billion.
The profits, described as "excessive" by some
analysts, arose
because the bank paid depositors almost zero interest and
threw these cheap
funds into the money market, which was yielding as much as
700 percent. CBZ
Bank managing director and chief executive officer, Nyasha
Makuvise, who is
Gono's handpicked strategist, said the group was now
focusing its attention
on consolidating the business while also seeking
alternative investments
that complements the group's current
portfolio.
"We are pleased with the results considering the
operating
environment which characterised the period under review," Makuvise
said in
audited financial results.
"We have now set our
sights on consolidating the group while
also looking out for other
investments. We are not in a rush to acquire any
business, we will only do
so after taking a lot of issues into considering,"
he added. CBZ Bank's
balance sheet grew by 429% to close the financial year
at $13,88 trillion
while deposits increased by 498%. CBZ's asset manager,
Datvest, after tax
profit increased by 216% to close at $136 billion while
funds under
management increased by 710% from $610 billion to $4,9
trillion.
CBZ declared a dividend of $340 per share. The
Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe decided that last year's cheap borrowing was one
reason for
inflation. Over the past six years, banks paid interest of zero
to 10
percent while rates on the market were around 300 to 500 percent.To
discourage speculative borrowing, the central bank introduced what it called
financial bills, short-term paper with interest rates of 320 percent.
Analysts say the financial bills, intended as a deflationary measure, are
proving the reverse.
The government still has to pay
interest that is accumulating.
More than Z$1.3 trillion matured on one day
in December. Analysts say high
interest rates have pushed several
"indigenous" banks into financial
difficulties. Several quality indigenous
banks were infected by depositors'
fears, which led to a flight to the
"safety" of Zanu PF aligned banks such
as CBZ, First Bank and Zimbank. As
the central bank tightened liquidity and
borrowing became more expensive,
rewards to depositors remained static.
Minimum lending rates
are still around 600 percent while
deposits get 10 percent at most. Mast
Stockbrokers economist Jonathan Waters
rapped "excessive" bank profits.
"Banks had swathes of cheap cash this year,
which they either lent out at
500 to 600 percent or put into financial
bills. "In essence, they stole
their depositors' funds as they paid them
next to nothing, and then lent it
out at massive margins to the productive
sector, who they squeezed in order
to make these excessive profits." The
staggering riches of CBZ is certainly
cheering shareholders such as Gono as
they wallow in astonishing prosperity
while the masses are starving.
TCS Daily
By
Marian Tupy : 31 Mar 2006
Editor's Note: This
article is the Part Two of a series on
African corruption and foreign
aid.
The callousness of African leaders often beggars
belief.
An acquaintance of mine used to be a U.S.
diplomat. Among the
tasks he was given during his diplomatic career was to
negotiate the
delivery of American food aid with the Southern Sudanese rebel
leader John
Garang. For much of the period between 1962 and 2004, Sudan was
engaged in a
bloody civil war between the Arabs in the north of the country
and
Christians in the south. Millions of people lost their lives and many
more
were starving.
My acquaintance sought Garang's
permission for the United States
to commence the food relief operation.
After much negotiation, Garang
graciously agreed to have his people fed
courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. He
then demanded to know how much of an
import tariff he could impose on the
U.S. food aid without irking the
American government. My acquaintance
informed him that making money out of
American food aid was "out of the
question." It should be mentioned that
John Garang was a highly educated
man -- he received a PhD in agricultural
economics from the Iowa State
University -- and was generally considered to
be one of Africa's more
enlightened leaders.
Import
tariffs are among the most damaging means by which
African political elites
inflict pain on their subject populations. Many
African leaders have called
for further trade liberalization in the past.
But, although they urge an end
to protectionist policies in rich countries,
African leaders refuse to open
their own markets to foreign competition. For
example, the African Union
(AU) meeting in Libya last June called for "the
abolition of [the rich
countries'] subsidies that stand as an obstacle to
trade." The meeting
produced no concrete results on intra-African trade
liberalization, however.
That is unfortunate, because Africa remains one of
the most protectionist
regions in the world. While rich countries reduced
their average applied
tariffs by 84 percent between 1983 and 2003 (to 3.9
percent), African
countries only reduced theirs by 20 percent (to 17.7
percent). Strikingly,
some of the highest tariffs on African exports are
imposed by other African
countries.
The World Bank has recently estimated the
value of Africa's
income growth resulting from full liberalization of global
merchandise
trade. Taking 2001 as the base year, the authors estimated that
by 2015
annual income growth in Africa would be $4.8 billion greater than it
would
have been had no trade liberalization taken place. Trade
liberalization in
rich countries would only account for $1.92 billion of
those gains. The rest
would come out of trade liberalization in the poor
countries, including
Africa itself. Accordingly, the World Bank found that
income gains from
regional trade liberalization in Africa would account for
$1.75 billion by
2015, or more than 36 per cent of all the gains that Africa
stands to
receive from full liberalization of global merchandise trade. To
put it
differently, Africa stands to gain almost as much from regional trade
liberalization as from greater access to rich countries'
markets.
African leaders are often oblivious to the
negative effects of
trade protectionism. They see trade through the prism of
vested domestic
interests. Speaking at the AU meeting, for example, Uganda's
trade
ambassador Nathan Irumba urged African leaders to "reject the
straightjacket
of radical tariff reductions, which would pose terrible risks
for our
domestic industries and jobs." The hungry multitude in dirty rags
that could
be fed and clothed more cheaply does not feature in Mr. Irumba's
thinking or
the thinking of those like him. But the most revolting example
of African
leader's callousness must surely be taxation of foreign medicines
and
medical equipment.
Death and Taxes in
Africa
The United Nations' Human Development Index
(UNHDI) measures
human development or basic living standards on a scale from
0 to 1, with 0
being the lowest and 1 being the highest score. The score for
Africa south
of the Sahara was 0.468 in 2003. In contrast, the score for the
world's
richest countries was 0.929. In fact, Africa's score was lower than
that of
the developing world as a whole (0.655). According to the UNHDI,
Africa lags
behind most of the world in practically all indicators of human
well-being.
Africans suffer from shorter life spans; higher infant
mortality; a higher
incidence of HIV, malaria, and tuberculosis; and higher
incidence of
undernourishment. Yet, African governments have a dirty little
secret -- the
role they themselves play in making the suffering of their
people even
worse.
In a recent paper entitled "Taxed
to Death," Roger Bate, Richard
Tren and Jasson Urbach from a
non-governmental organization called Africa
Fighting Malaria, estimated the
amount of taxes that governments of some of
the world's poorest countries
impose on imports of medicines from overseas.
In 2005, the authors found,
the combined value of the import tariff and
value added tax on foreign
medicines was 38 percent in Kenya, 36.2 percent
in Tanzania, 31 percent in
Uganda and 28 percent in Nigeria. In Zimbabwe,
where AIDS and government's
ruinous policies have caused the life expectancy
to fall from 56 years in
1993 to 30 years in 2005, the government taxes
foreign medicines at a rate
of 22.5 percent.
The per capita GNI in Kenya, Tanzania,
Uganda and Nigeria was
$460, $330, $270 and $390 in 2004. (In Zimbabwe,
inflation runs at 600
percent per year, making determination of living
standards difficult). The
combined effect of low incomes and high tariffs on
imported medicines makes
access to essential medicines in Africa difficult.
According to the authors
of "Taxed to Death," at least half of Kenya's and
Nigeria's citizens lacked
access to essential drugs in 1999, while at least
20 percent of Tanzanians
and Ugandans had no access to vital medicines when
they needed them.
Or consider the case of the war-torn
Democratic Republic of
Congo (DRC). According to a January 2006 report in
the British medical
journal The Lancet, the conflict in the DRC was killing
approximately 38,000
people each month. Yet, the combined value of taxes on
foreign medicines in
the DRC was 21.8 percent in 2005. To buy U.S. medicine
worth $100 (transport
costs included), in other words, a Congolese citizen
would have to pay 8.8
percent import tariff and 13 percent value added tax,
bringing the overall
cost of the medicine to $123. The gross national income
(GNI) per capita in
the DRC, it should be noted, was $120 in
2004.
The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) initiative on
"Open Access
to Enhanced Healthcare" would eliminate tariffs on all products
classified
in Chapter 30 of the World Trade Organization's harmonized system
of
exports, as well as many Chapter 29 items. Goods classified in Chapter 30
include manufactured pharmaceutical products, while goods classified in
Chapter 29 include basic organic compounds that are used in the manufacture
of pharmaceuticals. If successful, the USTR initiative would see tariff
elimination with respect to life-saving vaccines, antibiotics and vitamins,
and a variety of medical and dental equipment, not to mention such simple
items as gauze and bandages.
The response of African
governments will be keenly watched. They
will have a choice between
improving the lives of the African people and
preserving the system of
political patronage that benefits corrupt officials
and domestic production
monopolies. The same applies to non-governmental
organizations, such as
Oxfam, which have been calling on Africa to retain
its tariffs on imports
from abroad. For if tariff reduction on medicines and
medical goods makes
moral, not to mention economic, sense, why not extend
the same logic to
clothing, food and industrial machinery -- all of which
would make the lives
of African masses more bearable? The office of the U.S.
Trade Representative
has issued a direct challenge to the protectionists
around the world. What
will their response be?
Marian L. Tupy is assistant
director of the Cato Institute's
Project on Global Economic
Liberty
The
Herald (Harare)
March 30, 2006
Posted to the web March 30,
2006
Victoria Muringayi
Harare
DELAYS in the construction of
the Great Limpopo bridge continues to be a
stumbling block in the completion
of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park,
with tourists facing difficulties
in accessing Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou
National Park.
The Great Limpopo
Transfrontier Park is a mega park comprising the Kruger
National Park in
South Africa, Limpopo National Park in Mozambique and
Gonarezhou in
Zimbabwe. Great Limpopo and Kruger national parks have a
direct road network
that links the two parks while Gonarezhou does not have
a link with the two
making Zimbabwe the least developed between the three
countries. The mega
park will only become fully operational when animals and
people from the
three countries are able to move freely between the
countries without any
restrictions.
Visitors from Kruger and Limpopo are still facing problems
in crossing to
Gonarezhou national Park due to the lack of a direct road
network. Parks and
Wildlife Management Authority director general, Dr Morris
Mtsambiwa said,
"tourists from the two parks need to travel quite a
considerable distance
from Great Limpopo and then to Ngundu where they will
get a direct link to
the Gonarezhou national park." "The tourists from South
Africa and Mo
zambique will get easy access and less fuel is required to
travel as it will
be one way but they have to travel long distances to get
to the Zimbabwean
side because there is no direct road link on the Limpopo,
and this is a
major draw back hence the need to construct the bridge as
early as
possible," Dr Mtsambiwa said.
In addition he said the
authority this year will be focusing more on the
construction of the bridge,
the position of the bridge has already been
approved, the board and the
management are still looking for funds for the
construction. The Limpopo
bridge construction will also benefit South Africa
and Mozambique hence the
three countries are jointly looking for funding.
Parks and Wildlife
Management Authority has been given a $100 billion grant
from the Government
this year and it expected to get additional funding for
its projects. The
authority so far has received $15 billion from the $100
billion grant, and
$10 billion has been disbursed to the Rural Electrif
ication Agency to cover
the authority's outstanding debt on electricity
installations while $5
billion has been used for acquiring equipment for the
refurbishment of
lodges at Gonarezhou and also servicing of road networks in
the park.
Construction of the bridge is expected to be complete before the
World Cup
soccer tournament scheduled for 2010 in South Africa.
Mozambique and
South Africa have developed their parks and tourists are
already flocking
into the two parks with Kruger receiving at least 1,3
million tourists
annually. Were it not for delays in the construction of the
bridge, Zimbabwe
would also be receiving many tourists and benefiting from
the park. Last
year, the parks authority embarked on a refurbishment
programme at
Gonarezhou which covered electrical installations, the
construction of road
networks and the building of infrastructure around the
area. The megapark is
a 95 000 square-kilometre park with South Africa
holding 58 percent,
Mozambique 24 percent and Zimbabwe 18 percent.
New Zimbabwe
By Concerned
Zimbabweans
Last updated: 03/31/2006 13:00:59
TWENTY six years after
independence, in the wake of a protracted people's
rebellion against
colonial rule and struggle for self-determination dating
back to 1890 which
was benchmarked by 15 years of a costly armed
insurrection between 1965 and
1980, Zimbabwe is once again at the crossroads
pregnant with a people's
revolution: chimurenga che vanhu or umvukela
wabantu.
The stark
reality in Zimbabwe today that cannot be denied by any responsible
person
across the political divide is that the organization and management
of the
national economy has collapsed along with the delivery of essential
public
services at a time when our country has become more isolated from the
international community than at any other time in its history.
This
in turn has taken a devastating toll not only on the performance of
business
enterprises and public institutions many of which have been
crippled beyond
their purpose but has also destroyed the livelihood of
ordinary people who
can no longer make ends meet in very harsh economic
conditions. Chronic
suffering among Zimbabweans has become endemic.
To repeat, the living
disaster for Zimbabweans today is that the
organization and management of
the national economy has collapsed together
with key public institutions
while we have become isolated as a country as a
direct result of the bad
policies of the ruling few in Zanu PF.
Even the opprobrium of Rhodesia
was not as isolated as we have become. This
disaster is a monumental
crisis.
What makes this bad situation worse is the unprecedented fact that
the
ruling Zanu PF government does not have the national vision, political
will
and technical competence to resolve the crisis. Widespread paralysis
has
become the order of the day in the public service.
The manifest
symptoms of this crisis include inflation that last February
hit 782%, and
is now threatening to break the four digit barrier,
unemployment that is
over 85%, poverty that is over 90% with rampant
corruption that has become
the norm in officialdom.
Basic goods and commodities, including fuel and
maize meal, have become
either unavailable or unaffordable. As things stand,
the United Nations
estimates that some four million Zimbabweans are in
desperate need of food
while more than 3 000 die a week due HIV/AIDS related
illnesses including
malnutrition.
Zimbabweans are now finding it very
hard to access or afford health care or
to send their children to school.
This has been worsened by the wanton
destruction by the ruling Zanu PF
government of the homes or livelihood or
both for 18% of the population that
survived on what was before then a
thriving informal
sector.
Meanwhile the business community has lost confidence in the
national
economy, that is now being treated as an outcast by international
markets,
as the high interest rates in a hyperinflationary environment have
combined
with poor access to forex and uncertain property rights, especially
over
land and mining, to make Zimbabwe the worst country in the world
outside a
war zone to do business with.
As already mentioned what
makes this bad situation for Zimbabwean businesses
and consumers worse,
apart from or even in addition to international
isolation, is the
unprecedented fact that the ruling Zanu PF government is
clueless about what
to do as it is without a requisite national vision,
political will and
technical competence to understand the unfolding crisis,
let alone to
resolve it. The Zanu PF government is totally bewildered and
absolutely
overwhelmed by the crisis and this explains why there is now
widespread
paralysis in government.
A major reason why the government bureaucracy is
now bewildered and
overwhelmed by the crisis arising from the collapse of
the national economy,
and its international isolation, both caused by the
ruling few in Zanu PF to
the point of paralysis, is because the resolution
of the crisis now requires
much more than policy firefighting by bureaucrats
or tinkering with economic
symptoms such as inflation and corruption that
have been glibly declared by
government as the country's two competing top
enemies.
What is now required is a thorough going structural reform of
the country's
system of national and local governance and a redefinition of
the rights and
responsibilities of citizens in constitutional terms along
with a
comprehensive structural reform of the national economy from one
based on
the delivery fiction of the centralized state to one based on the
realities
of the market against the backdrop of the dynamics and challenges
of
technology and globalization.
In effect what is required is a new
national consensus, to wit, a new
societal order driven by a new social
contract rooted in the values of
democratic nationalism; values that forever
pay homage to the legacy and
gains of our heroic liberation struggle while
respecting the individual
human being, building strong local communities and
staying alive to the
power of the market economy and the advantages of
technology in a globalized
world in which we, as Zimbabweans, must pursue
our dreams while also
discharging our commensurate international
responsibilities and meeting our
obligations.
We know for a fact that
many Zimbabweans, who for understandable historical
reasons dating back to
our liberation struggle are either members of Zanu PF
or have supported Zanu
PF, are disappointed and even dismayed by the
inescapable fact that the
leadership of the ruling party has over the years
become too self-indulgent
and too selfish to the point of becoming too
irresponsible about issues of
national governance as now evidenced by the
collapse of our national economy
and the unprecedented international
isolation of our country. Virtually all
of the original ideals of Zanu PF as
a liberation movement have been
compromised and corrupted by a clique of
individuals who have substituted
themselves for the ruling party and even
the country under self-serving
claims of sovereignty.
While our country is burning, and the people are
suffering to the core,
these self-serving individuals in power are busy
preoccupying themselves
with petty issues around President Robert Mugabe's
succession that has
already been arranged in favour of Joyce Mujuru and are
in the process
corrupting the law through the making of cynical piecemeal
constitutional
amendments to further entrench their political positions
while abusing some
elements of national security forces to settle scores
against perceived
enemies.
That is why Zanu PF today does not have
any shared ideology and why the only
thing keeping the ruling party together
precariously is the mere fact of
controlling the government. Sadly, that
government is now in an
irretrievable paralysis, unable to deliver the
required goods and services
to the people and unable and unwilling to
reform.
It would be a tragedy and a travesty of human responsibility if
the
corruption and abuse of Zanu PF by the clique of individuals in power is
allowed to lead to the wholesale damnation and indiscriminate condemnation
of the many members and supporters of Zanu PF who have also, like everyone
else, fallen victim to the machinations of the ruling few in
government.
Zanu PF, after all, is just a name. More to the point, Zanu
PF is now beyond
internal reform as amply demonstrated by the dramatic
events of November
2004 leading to the so-called Tsholotsho Declaration. The
many in Zanu PF
who are among the suffering Zimbabweans have no reason to
die for a name
that now specifically and exclusively represents the few
individuals who are
in power and who are against the necessary political and
economic reforms.
Therefore the new national consensus, as a People's
Revolution, must
particularly embrace the many in Zanu PF who have been
crowded out and who
are now among the suffering Zimbabweans due to the
collapse of our national
economy and the international isolation of our
country caused by the ruling
few in Zanu PF.
Outside Zanu PF, the
emergence of a new national consensus has been blurred
and blunted by the
recent unfortunate divisions that have rocked the
opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), leaving it with two
factions.
These
divisions have serious negative national implications in two respects.
In the
first instance, the ruling few in Zanu PF have been buoyed by the
divisions
which they have conveniently interpreted to mean the death of the
opposition. That is why there is now palpable arrogance in the ranks of the
ruling party regarding attitudes towards the opposition in general as the
belief in the ruling party is now that the real challenge is within Zanu PF
in terms of the ongoing factional and tribal struggles to succeed President
Mugabe. Even voter apathy, such as was witnessed in the recent Chegutu
mayoral election and Bulawayo council by elections, have been interpreted by
Zanu PF propagandists to mean that support for the ruling party is
growing!
Secondly, in addition to giving Zanu PF a false sense of comfort
which has
become a breeding ground for the new arrogance of power in the
ruling party,
the MDC divisions have dispirited not just the members of the
MDC as it
originally was but, and even more damaging, the divisions have
also
dispirited the general population which is directly being affected by
the
collapse of the economy caused by the ruling Zanu PF few. Yet the
general
public, reeling from the harsh economic conditions, was beginning to
look to
the opposition for alternative constitutional, institutional and
policy
remedies.
This development has been further complicated by the
very worrying fact that
the MDC divisions have been reproduced and spread
within civil society
groups, the media and donors active in funding NGO work
in Zimbabwe all of
whom have taken sides in support of one or the other of
the two feuding
factions. The development could not have come at worse time
given the
effects of the economic and institutional collapse on ordinary
people
everywhere across the country and it does not assist the growth of
the
democratic process in any way.
As a result, the national mood in
Zimbabwe is now thoroughly dispirited and
thus circumspect about the
capacity and prospect of the opposition to be
united and focused given the
task at hand.
There is no serious minded Zimbabwean who believes that a
divided opposition
can dislodge the ruling few who are using the name of
Zanu PF to destroy the
economy and to cause the international isolation of
our country in pursuit
of their selfish and corrupt ends for more personal
power.
As recent experiences in countries like Zambia, Malawi and Kenya
readily
show, it is not possible for a divided opposition to foster
democratic
change and to engender democratic constitutionalism and good
national and
local governance.
This is particularly so in a country, such
as Zimbabwe today, where the
national economy and public institutions have
collapsed and where essential
services such as food, health, education,
housing and transport are no
longer available or affordable. In such a
situation, what is necessary in
the opposition is a nationalist democratic
movement that becomes EVERYONE'S
PARTY! This is what a People's Revolution
is all about.
In fact, the collapse of the economy and public
institutions, the increased
international isolation of Zimbabwe, the policy
paralysis in government, the
ideological alienation of the majority of Zanu
PF members and supporters and
the dispiriting divisions in the opposition
have all combined to create very
dangerous social conditions that could
spark spontaneous violence and plunge
Zimbabwe into social chaos and deep
seated instability.
Zimbabwe today needs everyone's party, bringing
people together across the
political divide as the summation of a People's
Revolution, to provide the
new national consensus based on a new national
vision for a new viable and
sustainable societal order with ethos that are
just and equitable. This
would play a major part towards conflict
prevention.
The People's Revolution would address the collapse of public
institutions
and the economy and the international isolation of Zimbabwe by
designing and
implementing the necessary comprehensive structural and policy
reforms in
both national governance and the economy.
To get started,
there is a critical need for some neutral organization
preferably a national
NGO or some clergy representatives or, because the
crisis now admittedly has
an intrinsic international dimension, even the
International Crisis Group
(ICG) to urgently facilitate dialogue among key
representatives of
opposition parties and civic society groups along with
key opinion makers
towards the formation of EVERYONE'S PARTY as an
expression of the People's
Revolution in response to the collapse of public
institutions and the
national economy including the international isolation
of Zimbabwe caused by
the ruling few in Zanu PF who are opposed to political
and economic
reform.
A critical step in this regard would be the identification of a
"neutral"
rallying point that could be supported by everyone across the
political
divide, and could be an effective mobilization tool, given the
breadth and
depth of the economic crisis on the ground and its negative
impact on
everyone regardless of their position in society.
One such
possible rallying point is the call for the harmonization of
presidential
and parliamentary elections by 2008. This call should
specifically be made
as a response to the deepening plight of the consumers
and businesses in
Zimbabwe. There is an urgent need for new popular politics
and new
mobilization strategies built around the worsening all inclusive
plight of
consumers and businesses.
Already, there is a growing national consensus
that presidential and
parliamentary elections should be held concurrently.
The few in Zanu PF who
are controlling the government have hinted that they
might table
constitutional amendments to harmonize presidential and
parliamentary
elections in 2010.
Under the Zanu PF proposal, when
President Mugabe's constitutional tenure
expires in March 2008, which is
less than 24 months away, Zimbabweans would
be denied their right to vote as
Zanu PF would use its controversial and
contested technical two-thirds
majority in Parliament to vote for a
"transitional President" to serve
between 2008 and 2010. That transitional
president would be the unelectable
Joyce Mujuru whom Zanu PF queen makers
fear cannot win a popular election
within 24 months and therefore needs to
be protected from a popular vote
until she is able to use the patronage
spoils of being president in office
to try and win votes.
Allowing Zanu PF to postpone presidential elections
to 2010, thus denying
Zimbabweans their birth right to vote for a President
of their choice
between 2008 and 2010 would be an attack on the fundamental
voting rights of
the people and should not be accepted under any
circumstance.
It is in this regard, that the calling for the
harmonization of presidential
and parliamentary elections to take effect by
2008 by the People's
Revolution would be an important strategic rallying
point. This would also
have an added advantage of agenda setting for
democratic forces regarding
not only the need for a new democratic
constitution, whose content should be
agreed ahead of the 2008 harmonized
presidential and parliamentary elections
for implementation within 100 days
of a new democratic order after the
elections, but also for the design and
adoption of a new market based
economic recovery programme supported by the
international community.
Here is a summary of the concluding point: (1)
There is a need for a neutral
facilitator to bring together key
representatives of political parties,
civic society groups, business
organizations and key opinion makers to
brainstorm over the creation of a
united opposition front representing the
People's Revolution;
(2) The
united opposition front, the People's Revolution would come about in
order
to specifically find a solution to Zimbabwe's collapsed public
institutions,
national economy and the international isolation of the
country by
addressing the worsening plight of consumers and businesses;
(3) To
galvanize the nation and mobilize popular support for the People's
Revolution to solve address the collapse of public institutions, national
economy and international isolation of Zimbabwe, there must be a political
rallying point which is acceptable across the political divide and the one
rallying point suggested here is the harmonization of presidential and
parliamentary elections by 2008 and this would open the floodgates for real
democratic action in favour of the much needed political and economic
reforms;
(4) the united front would then use this rallying point to
secure agreement
on a new constitution and new economic blueprint for the
country to take
effect within 100 days of the new government after the
harmonized elections;
(5) Because there is now less than 24 months before
the expiry of President
Mugabe's term in March 2008, and because conditions
that could spark
spontaneous violent conflict are now present, action must
begin now.
PEOPLE'S REVOLUTION, CHIMURENGA CHE VANHU, UMVUKELA
WABANTU
New Zimbabwe
DANIEL FORTUNE MOLOKELE: THE VIRTUAL
NATION
By Daniel Fortune
Molokele
Last updated: 03/31/2006 13:01:52
IN MYentire life, I
would not have imagined myself writing such a kind
of passionate appeal to
the MDC as Zimbabwe's opposition.
But the events of the last few
weeks have made it necessary for me to
do so. This appeal has been
occasioned by the bad news that contrary to my
hopes and expectations, the
two MDC groups have now started to undermine
each other
unnecessarily.
Indeed, if the media reports and emails I am
receiving are anything to
go by, then there is certainly no love lost
between the two groups.
But before I proceed any further, I feel
that I need to qualify myself
first. I am writing this letter as a concerned
Zimbabwean citizen. I am also
writing this letter as an active member of the
pro-democratic forces that
have fought the Zanu regime in the past decade
also. I have also been a key
member of the fledging Diaspora civic society
movement especially here in
South Africa.
I also need to hasten
to add the fact that I am not specifically a
member of either of the MDC
groups. In fact, I was never a member of the
original MDC as from 1999 till
its unceremonious demise on 12th October
2005.
I am writing
this letter because I believe that in spite of the
serious setback that the
Zimbabwean opposition politics has suffered in the
last six months or so, I
still believe that the MDC has a key role to play
in the fight for a new
democratic dispensation in Zimbabwe. I still believe
that both the MDC
groups and other non-Zanu PF political platforms we have
can still be
re-organised and galvanized for a continued assault on the
regime.
However, for that to happen, I believe that the
opposition in Zimbabwe
must totally guard against the danger of losing focus
on the real challenges
facing them. The opposition must focus on going back
to the drawing board
and come up with a revised strategy to re-engage the
despotic regime. The
opposition must invest its resources in rationalizing
and mitigating the
ghastly consequences of the October 2005 devolution. It
must seek to unite
itself against a common challenge that we all have come
to know as Zanu-PF.
It is thus so sad for me to realize that there
has been a disturbing
rise in the number of public clashes between the two
MDC groups. Of late,
both the media and my mailbox have been awash with
allegations and
counter-allegations emanating from both sides of the MDC
divide. Matters
have now come to a head with the reports that the Zimbabwe
Republic Police
had to be called over so as to avert a potential bloody
public clash between
the two groups. This sad event is said to have happened
on the sidelines of
a Chitungwiza rally that had been organized by the AGO
Mutambara led group.
There are also reports that members of one of
the factions recently
ambushed a car being driven by members belonging to
the other group. It is
further alleged that they violently took the vehicle
from them and drove it
away.
What causes a big heartache for me
is that many Zimbabweans have been
injured and even killed over the years
due to State sponsored terror at the
hands of the Zanu-PF regime. Official
MDC estimates insist that over 300
cadres have died since the MDC was
launched in 1999. Many more have been
victimized, raped, tortured and forced
to leave the country.
I know for certain that the MDC has a lot of
its cadres here in South
Africa who were forced by the brutality of the Zanu
regime to cross over the
Limpopo. Some of them are now living in abject
penury and are social
delinquents that desperately need to be rehabilitated.
Some even need
immediate trauma therapy treatment. The point is that there
are a lot of
people out there who have been prepared to pay even the
ultimate price of
sacrificing their lives for the new Zimbabwe we have
always aspired to have.
The news that the MDC is now fighting
against itself in the dusty
streets of Chitungwiza is such an affront to
their sacrifices over the
years. Surely some who are dead like Talent Mabika
and Tichaona Chiminya
must be turning in their graves!
The
point I am trying to say is that this is a very sad development
that we all
need to view with great alarm and despondency. In fact if we are
not very
careful, there is now a high possibility that members of either MDC
groups
might die soon due to the internecine public clashes between the two
groups.
It is one thing for a Zimbabwean to die in hope for a
new democratic
dispensation but it is another for them to die due to clashes
between the
MDC groups. No political party, be it Zanu, pro or anti-Senate
MDC, Zapu,
UPM, UPP et cetera is worthy dying for. Indeed, no politician, be
it Robert
Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara, Jonathan Moyo, Paul
Siwela,
Daniel Shumba, et cetera is worthy dying for.
All the
political parties and politicians who lead them are nothing
without the
people they are supposed to lead. They cannot expect themselves
to be voted
by dead voters. They cannot expect themselves to count the
coffins instead
of the ballot papers for them to achieve their ambitions.
Each Zimbabwean
life must be considered so precious by all of them so as to
ensure that this
culture of political violence comes to an end. To that end,
all of them must
not only condemn violence in public but must also confront
it in the privacy
of the ranks of their party faithful.
I therefore appeal to both
Tsvangirai and Mutambara; please stop the
unnecessary war against
yourselves. Please try to mend your differences and
lead our people to a new
Zimbabwe that does not tolerate any form of
political violence and
hatred.
Daniel Molokele is a Zimbabwean Human Rights Lawyer and is
based in
Johannesburg. He can be contacted at zimvirtualnation@yahoo.com
New Zimbabwe
By
Staff Reporter
Last updated: 03/31/2006 13:00:56
THE Associated Newspapers
of Zimbabwe (ANZ) has lodged papers with the High
Court seeking it to be
deemed registered after the information minister
Tichaona Jokonya and the
Media and Information Commission failed to
deal with the matter as directed
by the same court.
Earlier this week, it was reported that ANZ lawyers
were seeking to have
their application reviewed by an independent panel, and
indeed their legal
team had confirmed the developments.
However, the
lawyers appear to have revised their ambitions upwards in court
papers seen
by New Zimbabwe.com on Thursday, but filed earlier in the week.
In a
judgment delivered on February 8, Justice Rita Makarau set aside the
MIC
decision to deny the publishers of the now defunct Daily News and Daily
News
on Sunday and ordered that the application be considered again.
Although
section 66 (3) of the Access to Information and Protection and
Privacy Act
(Aippa) stipulates that the application ought to be heard within
a month,
the time lapsed with no action on the part of the MIC, resulting in
the
matter spilling back into the High Court.
"It is ordered that applicant
is deemed registered as a mass media service
in terms of section 66 of the
Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act, Chapter 10:27," reads
part of the outline of an order sought by
ANZ.
They also seek the MIC
to be ordered to issue ANZ a certificate of
registration and to pay the
costs of the suit.
The ANZ added that it had resorted to legal action
because various
communications to Jokonya had been ignored.
The
drawn-out legal wrangle between the ANZ and the MIC has gone from court
to
court ever since The Daily News and its Sunday edition were first banned
by
the MIC in September 2003. In February 2004, the battle reached the
supreme
court, which took more than a year to issue a decision.
The supreme court
finally issued its ruling on 14 March 2005, quashing the
MIC's ban on the
newspapers and forcing it to reconsider the ANZ's request
for a licence
within 60 days. Although this deadline expired on 15 May, the
MIC waited
until 16 June to consider the ANZ's request.
After two days of
deliberations, on 16 and 17 June, MIC chairman Tafataona
Mahoso refused to
make any statement aside from saying the newspapers would
be notified when a
decision had been made. He did not explain what that
meant. The MIC finally
announced its refusal to give the ANZ a licence on 18
July, as a result of
which the ANC immediately challenged the decision
before the Harare high
court.
The MIC's decision was subsequently criticised by a member of the
MIC board
after he had resigned. The former board member said the
chairperson was
pressured into refusing the licence by Zimbabwe's Central
Intelligence
Organisation (CIO).
New Zimbabwe
By Lebo
Nkatazo
Last updated: 03/31/2006 13:00:53
TRUANT suspended Harare's
director of waste management and Local Government's
Minister Ignatius
Chombo's blue-eyed-boy, Leslie Gwindi, has been found
guilty of indiscipline
on four of the five charges he was facing.
Gwindi, a former council
spokesperson before his elevation to the post of
director, however escaped
the absentism charge, but was convicted on other
charges arising from
failure to respect his suspension conditions. These
included continuing to
access council fuel while on suspension.
Gwindi's reign as director of
waste maangement was punctuated by
accumulating rubbish and on the streets,
and a deadly outbreak of cholera
which claimed claimed at least seven
lives.
His fate now lies in Chombo's hands as a board within his ministry
has the
final say on council decisions.
This is not the first time
that Gwindi has run into problems at Harare's
Town House.
In 2002 he
was sacked by council, then under MDC mayor Elias Mudzuri, but
the Zanu PF
apologist said, revealed to be HIV positive in court by a former
girlfriend,
refused to surrender the official car, cellphone and office
keys.
Mudzuri's council had contended that Gwindi's appointment by
the government
appointed Elijah Chanakira Commission was
irregular.
However, Chombo brought him back through the backdoor after
dismissing
Mudzuri and MDC's Harare councilors.
The Herald
(Harare)
March 30, 2006
Posted to the web March 30,
2006
Harare
PALTRY wages in the agricultural industry have seen an
increase of the use
of child labour, particularly on A2 farms where workers
are making their
children work as labourers to supplement family
income.
In an interview yesterday, General Agriculture and Plantation
Workers Union
of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) deputy general secretary Mr Gift Muti
said cases of
child labour were on the increase in poorly paid families. "A
survey we
carried out between January and March has revealed that there has
been a
steady increase in instances where children provide cheap labour on
A2
farms. This is a direct result of the harsh economic climate as the
parents'
meagre wages cannot send the children to schools," he
said.
He also said the now rampant use of the "Learn and Earn" concept,
whereby
children receive education in return for their labour, was more of a
veiled
form of child exploitation. "Commercial farmers have been abusing the
idea
of a "Learn and Earn" programme; for instance, they have been offering
the
children task-related labour, rather than the time-related one. This
means
that in most cases the children are working when they are supposed to
be in
school. "The long hours, thus, mean t hat the children's academic
performances tend to be below average, a situation that is perpetuating the
poverty cycle among farming communities. Therefore, GAPWUZ, together with
the agricultural National Employment Council and the Agricultural Labour
Bureau (ALB), are currently on the negotiating table for another upward
review of farm workers' wages. We believe that an effective salary structure
is the best way of dealing with this problem. In two weeks time, we should
be able to outlay the results of our negotiations," he said.
Salaries
for farm labourers were reviewed early last month from a minimum
wage of
$665 000 to $1,3 million a month, but have remained far below the
poverty
datum line, which is around $21 million a month.
The Herald
(Harare)
March 30, 2006
Posted to the web March 30,
2006
Wenceslaus Murape
Murehwa
COMMUNAL farmers in
Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe have cultivated more than 12
million plants of
jatropha curcas as the national bio-diesel project gathers
momentum.
The project translates to 4 000 hectares of the plant. In
an interview, UMP
district administrator Mr Gibson Munhuwei said some
farmers who had
initially grown jatropha as part of their fencing system,
were already
preparing to harvest the seeds. "As you must be aware, UMP is
in zone one
for jatropha production because there are extensive plants and
villagers
experienced in growing them. Villagers were mainly using the plant
as a
hedge, but many of the plants are well established and some of the
villagers
are ready to harvest the seeds," said Mr Munhuwei.
On how
they managed to plant in excess of 12 million plants, he said the
district
had made it mandatory for every primary school child in UMP to
cultivate 10
plants, secondary school pupils 15 plants, village heads 1 000
plants,
headman 2 500 plants and every chief 5 000 plants. "These targets
have been
successfully applied throughout the whole constituency of UMP and
we never
had any serious problems with seedlings and cutt ings because the
jatropha
is found in abundance here. The local authority has also
established its own
plantation of 1 000 plants, while heads of Government
departments have put
up 1 000 plants," said Mr Munhuwei. "Ever since it was
announced that
jatropha is now a cash crop, there has been an unprecedented
scramble for
the plant in the constituency. Everyone is zealous about the
prospects of
lining their pockets with sales from the seeds, and they are
really yet to
believe it until the first tonne is paid for from the area,"
said Mr
Munhuwei.
He said the database of what has been planted in UMP makes the
district
arguably the biggest implementer of the jatropha-biodiesel
feedstock
production project launched by the Inter-Ministerial Taskforce on
Fuel and
Power Import Substitution last year. "We profoundly hope that
non-governmental organisations will donate to us an oil processing, soap
making and bio-diesel plant like the one donated in Mudzi by the Canadian
International Development Agency. Everyone is free to come and assess
progress we have made on the ground," said Mr Munhuwei. The developments in
UMP came at a time when critics have been saying that Zimbabwe will take
long to come up with enough jatropha feedstock and have the capacity to
produce fuel. The advantage of UMP is that it has parts which are virtually
semi-arid and degraded, conditions that suit the jatropha plant and a
blessing in disguise to villagers in the drought prone area who stand to
harvest for up to 50 years from the plants. Analysts have been pointing out
the need for a national feed-stock production programme for jatropha, and
initiatives by communities on their own -- like in UMP -- will go a long way
in helping the country achieve its objectives of having 10 percent of fossil
diesel consumption per year coming from bio-diesel.
The Herald
(Harare)
March 30, 2006
Posted to the web March 30,
2006
Bulawayo Bureau
Harare
FARMERS are seeking a maize
producer price of at least $15 million a tonne
from the $2 million gazetted
last year, citing high production costs.
The Ministry of Agriculture is
expected to announce the new price soon and
industry officials say they have
already submitted their recommendations.
Zimbabwe Farmers' Union (ZFU)
president Mr Silas Hungwe yesterday said that
farmers wanted "a viable
price" after experiencing a tough 2005/6
agricultural season. "A favourable
maize producer price is important in
ensuring that farmers are able to
sustain operations," Mr Hungwe told
Business Chronicle in a telephone
interview. "Our members are of the view
that a maize producer price of about
$15 million a tonne will be ideal,"
said Mr Hungwe.
The Government
has urged farmer organisations to consult their members about
the producer
prices. Mr Hungwe said that a high inflationary climate was
likely to erode
profits from the sale of the commodity. "The current $2
million producer
price for a tonne of maize is no longer sustainable and we
feel that a huge
adjustment will enable farmers to prepare adequately for
the 2006/7 season,"
he said. Mr Hungwe said that the Government had assured
them of a realistic
maize producer price adjustment during consultations. An
official with the
Indigenous Commercial Farmers' Union (ICFU) said that the
organisation was
seeking a producer price increase of between $10 million a
tonne and $15
million a tonne. "We have not yet finalised our consultations
with members
but we hope for a better producer price which will also boost
earnings for
the farmers," he said.
The official said that farmer associations would
soon meet to agree on a
common producer price, which would improve maize
deliveries to the Grain
Marketing Board (GMB). "A favourable producer price
is crucial because
farmers are faced with continued increases in the prices
of fertilizers as
well as fuel shortages," said the ICFU official. At least
2 million tonnes
of grain are expected this year against a national demand
of about 3,6
million tonnes. The shortfall is expected to be imported.
Meanwhile, the GMB
Boar d is planning to diversify its operations and
venture into stockfeed
production to widen its portfolio and earnings base,
its chief executive
officer has said. Retired Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel
Muvuti told Business
Chronicle in a telephone interview on Monday that the
GMB was in talks with
the Ministry of Agriculture as well as stakeholders in
the poultry industry
about setting up a stockfeed milling division. "The GMB
is considering
establishing a stockfeed production unit but that plan is
subject to ongoing
discussions with interested parties," he said.
The
Ministry of Agriculture was considering proposals to that effect, he
said.
Rtd Lt-Col Muvuti noted that the poultry industry has been
experiencing
production constraints due to the limited supplies of
stockfeed, adding that
a reliable supply chain would help restore
confidence. The shortages have
resulted in the poultry producers buying
inputs at prohibitive prices,
leading to poor investment in the sector as
costs cont inue to spiral.
"Stockfeed products continue to be scarce due to
the depressed agricultural
output but the GMB is considering contracting
farmers for this purpose,"
said Rtd. Lt-Col Muvuti.
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
Takunda
Maodza
issue date :2006-Mar-31
THE battle for ownership of MDC
properties thickened this week amid claims
by Arthur Mutambara's faction
that suspected thugs linked to Morgan
Tsvangirai's camp hijacked one of its
vehicles in Harare.
The incident reportedly occurred in the city's
Central Business District
(CBD) on Wednesday when a gang of about 10 people
pounced on two MDC
pro-senate officials threatening them with unspecified
action.
MDC pro-senate provincial spokesperson (for Chitungwiza province),
Morgan
Changamire, yesterday claimed Tsvangirai's camp had turned
barbaric.
"Ten members of Tsvangirai's youth militia pounced on two MDC
officials in
central Harare and seized a party vehicle.
"The group headed
by Barnabas Ndira waylaid the MDC officials, threatened
the driver, forcibly
took the car keys and drove away," Changamire said.
According to the
pro-senate camp's information department, the confiscated
vehicle was a
Mazda Hardbody. It said the case had since been reported to
Harare Central
Police Station.
Changamire denounced the alleged development, describing it
as an
orchestrated plan by their rivals to weaken their party.
"This act
of criminality is not isolated from Sunday's attempt to disrupt
the MDC
rally in Chitungwiza and the subsequent threat issued by
Tsvangirai's (camp)
spokesperson Nelson Chamisa that he would ensure that
our party would not
hold any rallies in any party of the country," he said.
He also claimed that
Chamisa, the legislator for Kuwadzana, coordinated the
gangsters that
attempted to disrupt Mutambara's rally at Huruyadzo shopping
centre in St
Mary's in Chitungwiza last Sunday.
"Our sources on the ground have alerted us
of an orchestrated plan by the
Tsvangirai group to try and weaken our party
through disruption of our
rallies, intimidation of our members and seizure
by force of party
properties in our possession.
"We are convinced that
the forced seizure of our vehicle yesterday
(Wednesday) by Tsvangirai's
militia is part of their grand plan to weaken
our party," said
Changamire.
He said Mutambara was on record condemning all forms of violence
and urged
the police to ensure the culprits "are swiftly brought to book and
the
vehicle brought back to its legitimate and rightful
owners."
Yesterday, MDC pro-senate secretary-general, Welshman Ncube,
confirmed the
alleged incident and castigated Tsvangirai's camp for
resorting to violence
to solve political differences.
"Yes, our vehicle
was hijacked from Michael Mukashi (an organising
secretary) by Barnabas
Ndira and a group of thugs from the Tsvangirai camp.
The matter was reported
to Harare Central Police Station on the same day,"
Ncube said.
He said
the act reflected the central dispute their faction always had with
Tsvangirai of preferring violence when settling differences.
"The
question of MDC properties would be resolved either through
negotiations or
in the courts. Until such a time that happens, the status
quo remains. We
have never sought to take Harvest House or party vehicles
from them like
they are doing," Ncube said.
Police chief spokesperson, Assistant
Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena, would
neither deny nor confirm the alleged
offence, saying he needed to verify
facts first.
Chamisa said the
allegations were a fabrication and unfounded.
He said: "We find it difficult
to comment on other political parties. The
person who is making those
allegations is one Changamire and I do not even
know him. They have a
tendency of associating Tsvangirai with any misfortune
that befalls
them."
Chamisa said Tsvangirai was busy strengthening his faction and
implementing
resolutions adopted by their congress held this month at the
City Sports
Centre in Harare.
"I do not have the mandate to respond to
serious charges of car hijacking.,"
said Chamisa, who also accused the
pro-senate camp of seeking cheap
publicity.
This is not the first time
that MDC youths have seized property seconded to
senior party
officials.
Last year in May, during the height of internal squabbles that
eventually
led to the opposition party splitting, a number of party-issued
vehicles
were forcibly taken away from top officials by youths.
Attempts
were made to wrest cars from Ncube and Gift Chimanikire, now the
pro-senate
national chairperson.
Some provincial party leaders also had their vehicles
confiscated.
When the MDC split over whether or not to participate in last
year's
senatorial elections, Tsvangirai's faction remained based at the
MDC's
traditional headquarters, Harvest House in Harare, while the other
camp
shifted base to Bulawayo but has since relocated to the
capital.
Both factions claim to be the real MDC and continue to hold separate
rallies
across the country under the same banner.
Daily Mirror, Zimbabwe
The
Daily Mirror Reporter
issue date :2006-Mar-31
THE Department of Parks
and Wildlife Management Authority is facing funding
problems that have
negatively affected its mandate to protect wild animals,
the Parliamentary
Portfolio Committee on Public Accounts said yesterday.
Presenting a report on
the value for money audit on the protection and
conservation of wildlife,
the chairperson of the committee, Priscillah
Misihairabwi-Mushonga, said the
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of
Tourism and Environment, Margaret
Sangarwe, had confirmed that the
department was facing funding
problems.
"Your committee also observed that the authority was dismally
failing to
protect wildlife beyond the precincts of its boundaries,"
Misihairabwi-Mushonga said.
She added that the committee had been told
that the problem was as a result
of cutting of funding from
treasury.
"When it was a government department, it had a national social
responsibility in terms of managing wild life throughout the country.
Now
that it's an Authority that is no longer getting money from treasury
and it
has to make money to survive, it is becoming more and more difficult
for
them to execute their mandate outside the parks because it means you
have to
deploy some people outside the protected zone and the parks area and
they do
not get income from there," the legislator quoted Sangarwe as having
said.
During the period covered by the audit report (1996-2000), the
committee
noted, there was an increase in poaching activities, especially in
Masvingo,
Matabeleland North and Midlands.
In the period, 209 elephants,
138 buffaloes and 108 Impalas were killed and
Misaiharabwi-Mushonga raised
concern at the connivance between locals and
foreigners in the illegal
activity.
Misihairabwi-Mushonga, however, said the records provided in the
period were
not complete and could not show all statistics related to
poaching
activities.
"Some of the information like patrol records,
monthly and annual reports
showed variances in the number of animals
poached. Officials from the Parks
and Wildlife Authority informed your
committee that it was difficult for
them to get information on poaching in
private land particularly for species
like impala," she added.
The
increase in poaching was also attributed to lack of training of scouts,
the
advanced average age of the scouts and lack of adequate communication
and
other equipment necessary for the effective and efficient operations of
the
authority.
Misihairabwi-Mushonga said the land reform programme had worsened
the
problem as some people were resettled in wildlife areas when they were
not
interested in wildlife management.
On the Transfrontier Park being
developed by South Africa, Zimbabwe and
Mozambique, she said the country had
to prioritise the project by improving
and investing in
infrastructure.
The park would result in the opening up of boundaries between
Gaza in
Mozambique and Gonarezhou in Zimbabwe and Kruger in South Africa to
create
the world's largest wildlife sanctuary.
Meanwhile, the Minister of
Higher and Tertiary Education, Stan Mudenge,
supported the increase in
tuition and other levies at public universities
saying the government was
still heavily subsidising the cost of higher
education.
Most
government-owned universities increased their fees to between $30
million
and $90 million a semester this year.
The increase resulted in student
unrest at the National University of
Science and Technology (Nust), with 28
students now facing disciplinary
action over the matter.
Mudenge said his
ministry would continuously consult with the Ministry of
Finance to improve
students' payouts.
The questionnaire attached to this
letter is a very important document.
This is a
questionnaire on the experiences of farmers and their workers, and is the first
stage of a three-stage research process being undertaken by JAG. The data from
this questionnaire will be supplemented by some interviews with people who are
available in Zimbabwe. This stage of the research process aims at being able to
give a complete overview of what has happened for farmers and farm workers over
the past 5 years. It is the simple story of what happened, and is similar to the
kinds of research studies done recently on Operation
Murambatsvina.
The second stage will involve the
compilation of a dossier for submission to various human rights bodies in the
world. After receiving back your completed questionnaire, JAG’s lawyers will reconfigure your submissions
into the form of an affidavit. This
affidavit will be returned to you, for you to attach your signature in the
presence of a lawyer, who will then attach his/her stamp and signature.
These affidavits will be used by
JAG as supporting evidence when we present our demands for compensation for
damages to various international human rights bodies.
The final stage is the ongoing
completion and compilation of the Loss Claims Document, which will aim at the
longer term and the possibility of a compensation/restitution process for the
loss of land and damages.
Nothing in this questionnaire is
meant to contradict or supplant the Loss Claims Document, and it is only meant
for advocacy and lobbying purposes only.
All the findings
from this first stage will be compiled into a detailed report on the experiences
of farmers and their workers. The report will be as widely circulated as
possible so that all relevant bodies and parties are aware of the extent of the
damages and losses incurred by farmers and their workers over the past 5 years.
All names and farm identities will be protected and held in the strictest
confidence.
Please read the
instructions for completing this questionnaire. We do not believe that it is a
very difficult questionnaire, and we have tried to keep it as simple as we can
without losing important material. It does not ask for the detail of your
experiences – not because we believe that these are not important, but because
it would make the questionnaire into a Loss Claims Document, which is designed
to follow this initative.
With your support this is a
challenge we will win. This is the first
stage in the battle in the war for justice and
restitution
Instructions for completing this
Questionnaire.
Firstly, remember this is a survey
and not a loss document, so you merely give answers to the best of your memory.
You do not need to refer to any documents or records that you
have.
Secondly, just rely on the best
memory that you have about events and losses and amounts of
money.
Thirdly, when it comes to
estimating damages in money, just work with the best “ball-park” US$ figures of
the value at the time that things were stolen or lost or whatever. Use your
memory as best that you can and do not try to go to records. This is what will
be done in the Loss Claims Document, and any views that you express in this
questionnaire will not conflict or invalidate statements that you make in the
Loss Claims Document.
Personal
information:
If you wish all this information to
be confidential or anonymous, please leave blank the sections relating to your
name and the name of your farm. This
information will be kept confidential anyway.
Section
1:
This section deals with the human
rights violations experienced by you, and your family. It is meant to get
statistical information about the events, and is not meant to be a human rights
report in the sense of the details of what happened to you. This will enable us
to compare the experiences of the farmers with similar experiences of other
victim groups in Zimbabwe over the same
time period.
Section
2:
This section deals with the human
rights violations experienced by your employees. It is meant to get statistical
information about the events, and is not meant to be a human rights report in
the sense of the details of what happened to them. This will enable us to
compare the experiences of farm workers with similar experiences of other victim
groups in Zimbabwe over the same time period.
Section
3:
This section deals with the various
ways in which you attempted to get the support of the courts and the law
enforcement agencies in dealing with various illegalities. Again, it is an
attempt to get a statistical overview of what happened and not a human rights
report. This will leave out many very important personal details about your
experience, but these details will be compiled later in the Loss Claims
Document.
Section
4:
This section deals with the losses
and damages that you incurred. As indicated above, you should rely on your
memory and not see this as requiring either the detail or the exactness required
in the Loss Claims Document. Here we are trying to get an economic estimate of
the damages as a whole, but only an estimate, as the full details of the losses
and the damages will emerge in due course from the Loss Claims Document.
Remember, as we said in the
covering letter, we are primarily trying to tell the story of the experiences of
farmers and farm workers over the past 5 years. The information will fill in the
gaps in the international community and public’s knowledge of what happened, and
tell the most complete story of what happened.
QUESTIONNAIRE ON THE EXPERIENCES OF
COMMERCIAL FARMERS AND FARM WORKERS.
Date: |
|
Name: |
|
Age: |
|
Nationality: |
|
ID
Number: |
|
Address: |
|
|
|
|
|
Telephone
Numbers: |
|
Cellphone
Numbers: |
|
|
YES |
NO |
Were you forced to renounce your
previous Zimbabwe citizenship? |
|
|
Name of
farm: |
|
Province: |
|
District |
|
|
YES |
NO |
Are you still living on the
farm? |
|
|
What number of full-time employees
did you have? |
|
What number of part-time employees
did you have? |
|
What number of employees family
members lived on the farm? |
|
|
YES |
NO |
Do you know who currently occupies
your farm? |
|
|
Was this person directly involved in
any actions involved in taking over your farm or in evicting
you? |
|
|
1.
Personal:
1.1
Have you or any of your family
experienced any of the following?
|
YES |
No
of people affected |
Murder |
|
|
Assault |
|
|
Torture |
|
|
Rape |
|
|
Unlawful arrest [arrest without a
charge] |
|
|
Unlawful detention [detention longer
than 48 hours] |
|
|
Abduction or
kidnapping |
|
|
Disappearance |
|
|
Death
threats |
|
|
Forced attendance at political
meetings |
|
|
Political
intimidation |
|
|
Held
hostage |
|
|
Forced to join ZanuPF or make
contributions to ZanuPF |
|
|
Had pet animals killed or
maimed |
|
|
Deliberate killing or maiming of
wildlife |
|
|
Displacement |
|
|
2.1
Perpetrators:
Were any of the following involved
in the above?
|
YES |
No
of people involved |
Police |
|
|
Uniformed
Branch |
|
|
Riot
Squad |
|
|
Support
Unit |
|
|
CID |
|
|
PISI |
|
|
Army |
|
|
CIO |
|
|
War
Veteran Youth
Militia |
|
|
ZanuPF
member |
|
|
Farm
employee |
|
|
Member of
Parliament |
|
|
Provincial
Governor |
|
|
Provincial
Administrator |
|
|
District
Administrator |
|
|
Member of President’s
Office |
|
|
Other
[specify] |
|
|
2.
Workers:
2.1
Have any of your employees or their
families experienced any of the following?
|
YES |
No
of people affected |
Murder |
|
|
Assault |
|
|
Torture |
|
|
Rape |
|
|
Unlawful arrest [arrest without a
charge] |
|
|
Unlawful detention [detention longer
than 48 hours] |
|
|
Abduction or
kidnapping |
|
|
Disappearance |
|
|
Death
threats |
|
|
Forced attendance at political
meetings |
|
|
Political
intimidation |
|
|
Held
hostage |
|
|
Forced to join ZanuPF or make
contributions to ZanuPF |
|
|
Young persons forced to join ZanuPF
Youth |
|
|
Denied food relief if not member of
ZanuPF |
|
|
Specific intimidation of workers in
authority on the farm |
|
|
Displacement |
|
|
2.2.
Perpetrators:
|
YES |
No
of people involved |
Police |
|
|
Uniformed
Branch |
|
|
Riot
Squad |
|
|
Support
Unit |
|
|
CID |
|
|
PISI |
|
|
Army |
|
|
CIO |
|
|
War
Veteran Youth
Militia |
|
|
ZanuPF
member |
|
|
Farm
employee |
|
|
Member of
Parliament |
|
|
Provincial
Governor |
|
|
Provincial
Administrator |
|
|
District
Administrator |
|
|
Member of President’s
Office |
|
|
Other[specify] |
|
|
3. Legal
actions:
|
YES |
NO |
Did you object to the designation of
your farm? |
|
|
Did you contest your designation in
the Administrative court? |
|
|
Date that legal challenge
made |
|
|
YES |
NO |
Did you acquiesce or concede under
duress to the acquisition of part or the whole of your
farm? |
|
|
Were you forcibly evicted from your
farm? |
|
|
|
YES |
NO | |
Did you ever obtain a court order to
continue using your farm free from interference? |
|
| |
Date of court
order(s) |
|
| |
Number of court
order(s) |
|
| |
How much in US$ have you spent on
legal fees and lawyers? |
|
|
|
YES |
NO | |
Did you ever try to get the police
to enforce a court order? |
|
| |
Number of
times |
|
| |
|
YES |
NO | |
Was it
successful? |
|
| |
|
YES |
NO | |
Did you ever try to get the police
to stop violence or intimidation against yourself or your
workers? |
|
| |
Number of
times |
|
| |
|
YES |
NO | |
Were the police ever
helpful? |
|
| |
Number of
times |
|
|
|
YES |
NO |
Did you ever see the police
intimidated themselves? |
|
|
Were sympathetic or professional
policemen transferred away or removed from duties? |
|
|
4. Damages
suffered:
4.1
Farm
owner:
Loss of
property |
Value in
US$ |
Estimate in US$ the value of all
moveable property stolen, or damaged
beyond repair by illegal actions.
Include forced sales due to extortion. |
|
Loss of property from
burnings |
Value in
US$ |
Estimate in US$ the value of all
immovable and moveable property burned completely or damaged beyond repair by
illegal actions. |
|
Loss of
livestock |
Value in
US$ |
Estimate in US$ the value of all
livestock stolen or killed illegally. |
|
Crops |
Value in
US$ |
Estimate in US$ the value of all
crops stolen or destroyed. |
|
Loss of
earnings |
Value in
US$ |
Estimate in US$ the amount of total
income lost in the time that you have been unable to conduct normal farming
operations. |
|
NOTE: This should be purely
profits after tax and should be based on the last full and
unaffected farming year. It should also include anticipated increases in profits
were you able to have continued farming.
Costs of medical
treatment |
Value in
US$ |
Estimate in US$ the amount of
medical expenses incurred by your family or your workers from injuries due to
violence. |
|
4.2 Farm
workers:
|
YES |
Number |
Were any of your employees forced to
renounce their citizenship? |
|
|
Redundancy
pay |
Value in
US$ |
How much in US$ did you pay out to
your former employees when you had to leave your farm? |
|
Wages
lost |
Value in
US$ |
Estimate the total amount of wages
in US$ that your full-time and part-time employees have lost since you had to
discontinue farming. |
|
Note: This should be based on the last full
farming year.
|
YES |
NO |
Did your employees lose their homes
due to illegal destruction or burning? |
|
|
Did your employees lose property due
to theft or extortion? |
|
|
Social amenities
Lost |
YES |
NO |
Did you provide any of the following for your workers? |
|
|
Solid structure housing
[brick] |
|
|
Toilet
facilities |
|
|
Piped
water |
|
|
Electricity and/or lights |
|
|
Vegetable
gardens |
|
|
Farm
store |
|
|
Creche |
|
|
Orphanage or orphan
care |
|
|
Adult
education |
|
|
Sponsored
sport |
|
|
Social benefits
Lost |
YES |
NO |
How many
pupils? | ||
Did you provide a school on your
farm? |
|
|
| ||
Did you subsidise children attending
another school if you had no school on your farm? |
|
|
| ||
Has the school been
downsized? |
|
|
| ||
Has the school been
closed? |
|
|
| ||
Social Benefits
Lost |
YES |
How much in US$ did the school cost
per year? |
| ||
Did you have a school on your
farm? |
|
|
| ||
Social Benefits
Lost |
YES |
How much in US$ did the clinic &
medical cost per year? |
| ||
Did you have a clinic & medical
care on your farm? |
|
|
| ||
|
|
How much in US$ did this cost per
year? |
| ||
Did you provide AIDS awareness
training/teaching on your farm? |
|
|
| ||
Deaths |
Number
died |
| |||
Do you know how many of your former
employees have died since losing their jobs on the
farm? |
|
| |||
Do you know how many direct family
members of your former employees have died since losing their jobs on the
farm? |
|
| |||
JOB OPPORTUNITIES: Updated March 30,
2006
Please send any job opportunities for publication in this newsletter to: JAG Job Opportunities; jag@mango.zw
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Tanzania
Ad inserted 9 February 2006
A vacancy exists for a farm manager on a
mixed farm in Tanzania.
Our core business is vegetables for export
however various other crops and livestock operations are undertaken.
The
right candidate should have at least 5 years farming experience in East/Southern
Africa, preferably with horticultural experience.
Responsibilities would
include daily farm management, record keeping to Eurepgap specifications, farm
security and community liaison.
The candidate should be either single or
accompanied without children.
To start immediately.
Package: $1500
per month, medical aid and usual benefits of farm management positions. Work permit to be provided by the
employer.
Company details to be found at www.gel.co.tz
Please send CV to: lizzie@gel.co.tz
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Ad inserted 16 February 2006
WANTED; Millwrights, Electricians, Diesel Mechanics,
Refrigeration
Specialists, Town Planners and Quantity
Surveyors
Recruit Global will assist in looking for a job and sponsorship
opportunities for the
right candidates wanting to move to
Australia.
Australia is experiencing a major skills shortage in all states,
we will provide
services to assist in, visas, trade recognition
tests,
sponsorship, relocation, financial advice.
Contact us today at
Aussiemigrant
www.aussiemigrant.com
Brendon@aussiemigrant.com
Rebecca@aussiemigrant.com
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Ad inserted 16 February 2006
The applicant
should be a single female, unmarried, widow, or divorced, and must have a caring
nature, and be interested in cooking and the welfare of an elderly
lady.
Free
accommodation will be provided in a beautiful period house, circa 1700, own
bed-sitting room with television, fridge and microwave and washbasin, tastefully
furnished with bookcases and easy chair, and adjoining bathroom. Use one of the sitting rooms in the
house.
Food will be
provided for main meals, as part of the contract.
The Housekeeper
will be responsible for the general running of the house, and its cleaning. She will prepare and cook meals, and do some
shopping. Use of car will be available
for this purpose. She will act as a
companion to Mrs H L Franklin who is aged 88 years, a refined lady, who is a
widow.
Mrs Franklin has
a Private Nurse who attends to her personal care in the
mornings.
There will be
some laundry work of personal items for Mrs Franklin, at present all bedding
goes to the laundry.
This job would be
suitable for someone who requires a comfortable home in a small village in rural
Shopshire. Nearest shops in the village
including a Post-Office, General Stores, Butcher, Pubs, Doctors, and Anglican
Church. Nearest Market Town, Church
Stretton, 6 miles South. Nearest large
town, Shrewsbury, 6 miles north. Nearest
Railway Station, either Church Stretton or Shrewsbury.
Shropshire is an
Agricultural Country and there is no Industry, the surrounding countryside is an
area of outstanding beauty and cultural importance.
The
Housekeeper/Companion will have an average of two half days a week off and at
least two hours per day in either morning or afternoon at leisure, by mutual
arrangement.
Mrs Franklin’s
son, Mr Howard Franklin lives next door at Dorrington Court, and is normally
around most days and often takes meals with Mrs Franklin. Mr Franklin is retired, but still travels as
a Lecturer in Cruise Ships several times a year, and does after Luncheon
speaking engagements in Great Britain.
Salary of Five
Hundred Pounds Sterling per calendar month and totally free board and
lodging.
Person travelling
from Overseas will be helped with their airfare.
The contract as
Companion/Housekeeper will be for a minimum period of eight months, to be
extended.
Please apply with
details of yourself and any relevant information to:
HOWARD FRANKLIN
Esq.
Dorrington
Court
Dorrington
Shropshire,
SY57JD
Telephone 01743
718143
Email:
howard@howardfranklin.freeserve.co.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 22 February
2006
PARTNER :
FARMING OPPORTUNITY ZAMBIA
Ex-Karoi farmer looking for a partner to
invest in a promising farming organization situated 16 kilometres from
Lusaka. Currently farming seed-maize,
paprika, Soya-beans and vegetables. The
farm is 340 hectares with approximately 100 hectares utilised. Excellent water available for
expansion.
Interested parties please contact: jogs@zamtel.zm / 096 444 466
(Zambia)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 2 March 2006
Looking for someone to fill this position. One side of
the company is Haigar Tyre and Fitment Centre – small company with only 3 on the
payroll. We are looking for an elderly man – probably retired and looking for
something to keep himself busy – he will be required to basically be there to
order tyres, stock, monitor cars that come in for alignment etc; mainly be in
the office on the phone – no great physical work.
If you are interested please give Darrell Haigh a call
on 331726 or 011 220 606. Many thanks.
We are also looking for a reliable driver
?????
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 16 March 2006
FARM MANAGER, HARARE SOUTH - TOBACCO/MAIZE. TO START ALMOST IMMEDIATELY. MUST BE CONSCIENTIOUS AND COMPETENT.
CONTACT be1371@mweb.co.zw with
C.V.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 23 March 2006
Maintenance Manager wanted for busy dairy & cropping farm 30kms
outside Harare. Position includes maintenance of tractors, boreholes etc,
running
of workshop and buying of spares. Office work available for spouse.
Small house available on farm with other company perks. Suitable
applicants
please phone 091 202692 or email account@kefalos.co.zw
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 23 March
2006
Farm
Manager
Farm located 12km from Gweru city centre. We are looking for a
horticultural manager with experience in flowers mainly roses. Will also be
required to assist in
potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages and paprika. Good
accommodation is provided on the farm, also good perks for the right
candidate.
Interested qualified persons should contact Evans/Bongi +263 9 889420
fax
+263 9 889421, goldsoil@adtech.co.zw.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 23 March 2006
Wanted
Looking for a maid/cook to work in the Ballantyne Park area. Must be
able to read and write and have some cooking experience. Duties also, include
general housework and childminding. Accommodation is offered and would suit
someone without any dependants.
Please contact on jonskill@mweb.co.zw or 494404 or 091 248460.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 30 March 2006
If you were a successful former Tobacco grower now sitting in town but wanting to get back into Tobacco, please make comms and write to:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 30 March 2006
DOMESTIC HOUSEWORKER REQUIRED AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.
Preferably a single woman who can speak English well and who can assist with the cooking and undertake general housework, i.e. ironing, cleaning, etc.
The person must have contactable references.
Single quarters will be provided on site with very good conditions.
Contact 884270
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 30 March 2006
We have a vacancy for a managerial couple on a
well-established citrus farm, good package for the right couple with usual farm
perks. Please send C.V to fergs@netconnect.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 2 March 2006
Young Lady aged 19 years, educated to ZGC level:
Diploma in Silvana beauty academy, Diploma in modelling, and have just completed
computer courses, in excel - word - etc, willing to learn and do anything. Hard
working, out going and enthusiastic. Please contact: Rochelle Vermaak 091 347 982 or email: ed@zol.co.zw or caps@zol.co.zw
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ad inserted 16 March 2006
ZAMBIA/MOCAMBIQUE/MALAWI
I am a specialist in tractor service/repairs, with 32 years experience, having worked for several years in hands-on and management positions, for such companies as Bain New Holland and Duly's. After leaving Duly's, I become self-employed (since 1990) with similar work. Our work has consisted of repairs/service work carried out at our workshops in addition to field service work as and when required. In addition to the above my business includes the sourcing of spares and organising outwork such as injector pumps, clutches, brakes and engine machine work being carried out by those companies offering the best service. One department of our business specialises in the service/repair work of all tractor steering related components such as steering boxes, orbital valves, rams, hoses, etc.
I would like to stress that I wish to work on a contract basis, preferably for a farming syndicate or a large, well established farm set-up as I have been self employed for 16 years and have a commitment towards children who are being schooled locally. I am seeking such work outside of Zimbabwe as we feel the economics of our country have made it impossible to continue a viable business. My wife and I wish to keep our home as a base for the stability of our children. We would like to travel back to Zimbabwe every 3 to 4 weeks to be with them.
We hope the above meets with the approval of those looking for a contractor for this type of work.
For further information contact Doug or Tracy Edwards - tracspray@zol.co.zw or 068-22463 / 011212454
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the latest listings of accommodation available for farmers, contact justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw (updated 30 March 2006)