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From Panorama (BBC), 2 March
A day in the life of the camp
Zimbabwe's National Youth Service is described by the government
as a peace
corp designed to lift youngsters out of poverty and educate them.
However,
stories which emanate from those who have been through the training
camps
tell a different story. They speak of beatings, rapes and being taught
to
intimidate and kill political opponents of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu
PF
party. Estimates vary, but there are believed to be at least six
permanent
camps in Zimbabwe. This number can fluctuate - and there are often
reports
of hundreds of youth training camps springing up around the country
in the
run-up to an election. These can be temporarily occupied schools,
farms,
business centres and army barracks. A typical camp is run by a war
veteran,
that is someone who fought in the independence struggle against Ian
Smith's
government in the 1960s. It is believed that there are usually a
further
four or five war veterans operating under him in various camp
management
positions. As well as this, there are also "elite" members of the
youth
militia who hold positions of seniority. These usually consist of
people who
have already been through the camps. Accounts given by former camp
recruits
seem to indicate that the camps all have at least one senior female
figure
who takes the role of matron. It is also thought that some of the
larger
camps have a medical block.
Inside the camps, the
curriculum is largely decided by the camp commanders.
Although they do use a
'manual' titled 'The Third Chimurenga' written by
Robert Gabriel Mugabe and
the structure and subject do seem to be uniform
across the different camps.
The education does usually involves some kind of
political education and
lessons in sovereignty and history. One camp
instructor revealed that they
don't want the students getting hold of
information from independent papers
as they get "misguided" about them. Some
former camp recruits have claimed
that newspapers, books, radio, TV or even
blank sheets of paper and pens are
banned in the camps, unless used for
taking notes of the classes. The weekly
routine also involves a lot of
physical training, including many hours of
running. This seems very much the
same in all camps: they get woken at the
crack of dawn and have to run 10km
and do 200 press-ups. In some camps it is
believed they have to run with
heavy sacks uphill as well. All recruits are
given some kind of weapons
training - usually with sticks and sjamboks, a
type of rubber whip, but
conversations with some former youth militia
indicate that there is a more
sinister form of training. Some recruits are
taught how to beat people, many
are believed to be taught how to kill and
other groups are taught torture
techniques - usually involving water and/or
electricity. Panorama
interviewed dozens of former youth militia who spoke
about life in the
Zimbabwe youth training centres. The following stories are
from people who's
stories were not used in the main documentary. Their names
have been changed
and their anonymity
protected.
James
Well this guy came late in the camp, he
came late night so and he was drunk,
so then he was shouting too much in the
camp, so they - firstly they took
four guys in the hall, they say to this guy
that they should beat this guy
before they put him into the electricity. Then
the four guys beat this guy,
he was crying, they beat him in the hall. And
they were beating him with
some sticks in the head and after that they take a
bucket, they say he
should take a bucket of some water and then we should
rinse him to be awake.
Then they call others, other youths they should put
him to electricity,
where they doing the in the hall showing us how the, how
they do in the camp
if you do something wrong. So they put him electricity
after he was crying
then he was injury in the chest and his chest is not Ok,
he was my friend.
Q: How badly did they torture him?
A:
I'm sure they torture him about just for twenty minutes, twenty minutes,
in
the morning they do it for about for ten minutes, in the night they
torture
him, in the night then he was sleeping, then in the morning when we
awake
they say to him to wake up and other four guys beat him again.
Q: And this was all because he was drunk?
A: He was drunk and he was talking
too much, he was shouting in the room in
the hostel, in the
hall.
Peter
It was during the night when we were just
sleeping in that same room. There
were boys and girls and then it was in a
corner where I used to sleep, then
Zanu PF took guys, the others which I say
they came from Mashona, the other
commanders, they came and then they told me
that I must have sex with that
girl and I said no, I can't have sex with that
girl without his permission
and without - you can't force me without my
permission to have sex with him.
I do not have sex with him, with her for I
can get Aids or whatever. I don't
even know I have got Aids, I can give Aids
then they said you, you are still
supporting MDC and then they started
beating me with whips and boots and
shamboks. Then that's when they wounded
me in this right hand and even
sometimes my teeth, I have got a problem with
my teeth.
Q: Were other girls being raped that night?
A:
Yes they were taken to the tents where the other commanders were
sleeping,
the other boys were, who had been beaten, then they had sex with
the girls.
It was a Thursday and then we were going to attend a Zanu PF
rally in Esewong
and then we were deployed to go to the shops. Others were
deployed to go for
school children to go to the rally. Then the school
children, some of them
were refusing to go to the, to the meeting point.
Then they started beating
the boy, when I was a metre away in the shops and
the school are close, just
eight hundred metres away and when I was forcing
the other people to go to
the shops, I saw a gathering of people beating
someone. Then I asked, when I
asked my colleague they told me that it's a
school boy who was aged around
fourteen or fifteen. There he was being
beaten using shamboks, whips, sticks
and stones. It was a gathering of so
many Zanu PF supporters around, 40, 50,
around that boy who was being
beaten. Then from that point it was said he was
taken to the clinic, then
the nurses were not allowed to treat the boy up to
a point that when they
said the boy was died.
Sent: Friday, March 05, 2004 3:47 PM
Subject: List of advertisers
Congratulations 80th Birthday Mugabe
Herewith and below list of
advertisers (Trinity Engineering a double page in
colour!) who spent
considerable sums to place birthday greetings to Robert
Mugabe in the Herald
and Sunday Mail this year.
CONGRATULATIONS 2004 FEBRUARY
21
THE SATURDAY HERALD
1 ROYAL BANK
2 THE NATIONAL
INVESTMENT TRUST OF ZIMBABWE
3 ICL ZIMBABWE LIMITED
4 AMC (AMALGAMATED
MOTOR CORPORATION)
5 BARCLAYS
6 LOBELS BREAD
7 MINISTER OF INDUSTRY AND
INTERNATIONAL TRADE, DR S.C. MUMBENGEGWI
8 ROAD MOTOR SERVICES PVT LTD,
BULAWAYO
9 MINISTER OF TRNSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS, HON C.C MUSHOHWE
10
SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES DEVELOPMENT
11 ZIMPOST
12 TELONE
13 THE
FORESTRY COMMISSION BOARD
14 ARDA
15 ZIMBABWE NATIONAL ARMY
16 ZANU-PF
MIDLANDS PROVINCE
17 SPORT AND RECREATION COMMISSION
18 CFI HOLDINGS
LIMITED
19 THE JEWEL BANK
20 ASHANTI GOLDFIELDS ZIMBABWE LIMITED, FREDA
REBECCA MINE, BINDURA
21 POTRAZ
22 NOCZIM
23 THE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE
AND MEMBERS OF THE ZRP
24 SEDCO
25 TRUST BANK
26 FINHOLD
27 MINERALS
MARKETING CORPORATION OF ZIMBABWE
28 P.O.S.B.
29 ZIMRA
30 AIR FORCE OF
ZIMBABWE
31 NRZ
32 G.M.B.
33 ZIMBABWE NATIONAL LIBERATION
34
MUNICIPALITY OF CHINHOYI
35 THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY AND MARKETING BOARD
36
METROPOLITAN BANK OF ZIMBABWE LIMITED
37 THE SECRETARY OF ADMINSTRATION, CDE
E.D. MNANGAGWA
38 MACSHERP MILLING AND BAKERY PVT LTD, KADOMA
39
COMPETITION COMMISSION
40 ZIMBABWE NATIONAL FAMILY PLANNING COUNCIL
41
ZIMDEF
42 THE CHIEF SECRETARY AND STAFF OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT AND
CABINET
43 THE MINISTER OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT PUBLIC WORKS AND NATIONAL
HOUSING, HON
DR I.M.C. CHOMBO
44 ZIMRE HOLDINGS LIMITED
45 RURAL
ELECTRIFICATION AGENCY
46 NETONE
47 CENTURY HOLDINGS
48 ZIMBABWE POWER
COMPANY
49 ZIMTRADE
50 NSSA
51 RASOLE OIL PVT LTD
52 SMM HOLDINGS
PVT LTD
53 BLUE RIBBON FOODS LIMITED
54 CHEMPLEX CORPORATION LIMITED
55
AIR ZIMBABWE
56 ZESA
57 CMED PVT LTD
58 PAZ
59 ZIMBABWE CRICKET
UNION
60 AGRIBANK
61 CITY OF HARARE
62 CHITUNGWIZA MUNICIPALITY
63
STANDARD CHARTERED BANK
64 PARLIAMENT OF ZIMBABWE
65 MIGDALE HOLDINGS PVT
LTD
66 ZINWA
67 CITY OF MUTARE
68 ZIMBABWE OPEN UNIVESITY
69 COLD
STORAGE COMPANY LTD
70 PREMIER SERVICE MEDICAL AID SOCIETY
71 EMPLOYERS’
CONFEDERATION OF ZIMBABWE
72 TANAKA POWER PVT LTD
73 SHELTER INCORPERATED
PVT LTD
74 INNSCOR AFRICA LIMITED
75 URBAN DEVELOPMENT BOARD
76 CITY OF
KWEKWE
77 ZIMSEC
78 MOTEC HOLDINGS
79 ZIMBABWE NEWSPAPER 1980
LIMITED
80 ZIMBABWE PRISON SERVICE
81 CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY OF
ZIMBABWE
THE SUNDAY MAIL – 2004 FEBRURY 22
1 ZANU-PF’S DDC
4 IN HARARE
2 MINISTER OF HOME AFFAIRS
3 MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
4
ZIMBABWE TOURISM AUTHORITY
5 ZIMBABWE NATIONAL ARMY
6 ROAD MOTOR SERVICES
PVT LTD
7 ZUPCO
8 ZIMTRADE
9 THE COTTON COMPANY OF ZIMBABWE
LIMITED
10 DAIRIBORD
11 INTERFIN HOLDINGS LIMITED
12 MINISTER OF
SPECIAL AFFAIRS, LAND REFORM AND RESSETLEMENT IN THE OFFICE
OF THE PRESIDENT
AND CABINET, HON J.L NKOMO
13 THE CHIEF SECRETARY OF THE OFFICE OF THE
PRESIDENT AND CABINET
14 BYCO PRIVATE LIMITED
15 SIRDC
16 FARM AND CITY
CENTRE
17 TRINITY ENGINEERING
From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 5 March
Zanu PF scrambles to win approval
Dumisani Muleya
Harare - After exhausting the
land reform programme theme as a vote-catching
gimmick, Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe has embarked on an
anti-corruption crackdown as yet another
ploy ahead of next year's
parliamentary election. Mugabe himself took the
initiative to situate the
anti-corruption campaign at the vortex of national
discourse and effectively
made it the centrepiece of his election drive. He
recently announced that
the general election would be held next March. Mugabe
said he would retire
in five years but would remain in politics. Zanu PF
officials such as
Chinhoyi MP Phillip Chiyangwa and party central committee
member James
Makamba and a number of businessmen have been netted in the
current
crackdown on corruption. New Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, who
is
battling to re-organise the country's chaotic financial system and put
the
economy on a path to recovery, is brandished by government as the
messianic
corruption-buster. Mugabe's government is already showcasing Gono's
moves as
evidence of reform and national rehabilitation.
Zanu PF
is desperately trying to whitewash its appalling political and
economic
record and repackage itself as a party. Anachronistic tendencies
and
hysterical anti-Western sabre-rattling are being toned down,
despite
intermittent vitriolic outbursts motivated by international pressure
and
political grandstanding. The language of reform has not only been
embraced
by Gono, currently meeting Western donors to market his
economic
reconstruction measures, but also by government hardliners. This
week
government spokesperson and Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said
Zimbabwe
will repay its long-standing debts to the International Monetary
Fund (IMF)
to avoid losing its membership. Moyo said the move was designed to
"increase
our credit rating". The IMF last year threatened to expel Harare
for failing
to service its debts. Although Mugabe is decidedly anti-IMF, he
realises the
country has no choice but to deal with the Bretton Woods
institutions. Last
week he said it was better to deal with the World Bank.
His "look East"
policy has clearly failed as countries such as Japan and
China have
increasingly moved towards the West. This failure by Mugabe to
adapt to
global realities has been at the centre of his policy contradictions
since
independence from Britain in 1980. When he came to power he tried, to
no
avail, to reshape Zimbabwe's politics along socialist lines by
aligning
himself with the Soviet bloc and Stalinist states like North Korea,
while
the economy was assertively capitalist and linked to Western
economic
systems. The result was a damaging clash between his political
vision and
economic reality. Mugabe's economic technocrats and advisers would
come up
with market-oriented policies, only for him to dump them at funerals
and
rallies on the wave of his customary populist rhetoric.
A
political cost-benefit analysis of Mugabe's current election strategy
shows
that there is more for him to lose than to gain. The strategy,
although
currently making a positive impact, could, in the long-run, yield
negative
returns unless properly managed, especially insofar as its impact
on Mugabe's
succession battle is concerned. The succession struggle has been
raging for
some time now but no clear and indisputable heir apparent has
managed to
emerge although Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa has
often been
touted as the anointed successor. However, Mnangagwa now seems to
be damaged
goods after reports that he was under investigation for
corruption involving
precious minerals at the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This has left his
rivals rubbing their hands with glee and poised to
capitalise on this chink
in his armour. Mnangagwa's rivals are seen as
Special Affairs Minister John
Nkomo and Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi.
Former finance minister Simba
Makoni has also been mentioned. The ongoing
graft-related arrests and
investigations have fuelled Zanu PF infighting and
spawned a dog-eat-dog
political combat. Personal and political scores appear
set to be settled
through the campaign. However, Mugabe has always been a
volatile demagogue
and sometimes unpredictable, in particular in his
penchant for doing the
unthinkable. Zanu PF insiders are beginning to
suspect that he could be
trying to manoeuvre Gono through the backdoor as a
possible successor. Gono,
using delegated power, is now powerful and, some
say, ambitious. Top Zanu PF
officials who have tried to threaten him to
avoid investigation have hit a
brick wall and been forced to retreat.
Although Gono is an upstart in the
Zanu PF scheme of things, fears abound in
the ruling party that he is being
packaged by Zanu PF royalty as Mugabe's
successor.
Reuters
Zimbabwe brands BBC torture film "unfounded rubbish"
Fri 5
March, 2004 18:55
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's
government has denied
forcing young people into camps and teaching them to
beat and kill
opposition activists.
A BBC documentary screened on
Sunday said young people had been brutalised
in camps and made to attack
Mugabe's opponents, and that around half the
girls interviewed said they had
been raped regularly in the camps.
"What unfounded rubbish... there are
no cases of rape in the training
centres and the centres are free and open
for any form of investigation and
verification," Zimbabwe's Youth and Gender
Minister Ambrose Mutiviri told a
news conference on Friday.
"No youth,
not even one, has ever been coerced to join the National Youth
Service
programme. The question of compulsory and coercive recruitment...
borders on
an effort to create an impression of gross human rights abuse and
perhaps
create enemies for Zimbabwe in the process," Mutiviri said.
On Wednesday
the ruling ZANU-PF party's secretary for youth Absolom
Sikhosana dismissed
the report as "cheap propaganda".
The main opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC), the most potent
challenge to Mugabe's 24-year rule,
has accused camp-trained youth militia
of a series of violent, politically
motivated attacks against its supporters
in the run-up to 2002 presidential
elections the veteran leader
controversially won.
The BBC said Mugabe
wanted to make the training compulsory for all young
Zimbabweans in a bid to
help his ruling ZANU-PF party beat the MDC in
parliamentary elections due in
2005.
"Our president is popularly elected through secret ballot... no
sane
government would set up institutions of torture and violence and expect
to
continue gaining the support of its people," Mutiviri said.
The MDC
issued 15 demands on Friday as a prerequisite to taking part in the
2005
polls, including the "complete disbanding of the youth militia" and
the
repeal of tough media laws seen as intended to muzzle Mugabe's
critics.
Mugabe's government, which banned the BBC from working in
Zimbabwe in 2001,
accuses private Zimbabwean and Western media of waging a
propaganda campaign
against him in retaliation for his seizure of white-owned
commercial farms
to hand over to landless blacks.
Zimbabwe's economy
is suffering from chronic shortages of food, fuel and
foreign exchange.
Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from Britain in
1980, says it has
been sabotaged by his enemies.
Sunday Times (SA)
Impose sanctions on Mugabe: Zimbabwe
cleric
Friday March 05, 2004 14:56 - (SA)
South Africa
should impose sanctions on crisis-ridden Zimbabwe to force
President Robert
Mugabe into peace talks with the opposition, a senior
Zimbabwean cleric
said.
In a radio interview, Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo,
Zimbabwe's
second city, said just as the world helped establish a new
democratic
government in South Africa through sanctions, Pretoria could do
the same
with its northern neighbour.
"South Africa was helped by the
sanctions imposed by the international
community. We (Zimbabwe) should also
be helped by South Africa," Ncube, one
of the most outspoken critics of
Mugabe's government, told SABC public
radio.
Ncube suggested South
Africa's giant power utility ESKOM should warn that
electricity to Zimbabwe
would be cut off if there was no progress on long
delayed talks between
Mugabe and the opposition.
"Zimbabwe is owing billions in electricity
(bills). They just would need to
be told: 'Hey you people, settle your
affairs or else we cut off'. Then
Mugabe would be forced to dialogue with the
opposition because Mugabe is
refusing to talk to them," Ncube
added.
Mugabe slammed the door on proposed negotiations with the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) last month, dealing a new
blow to the
"quiet diplomacy" tack taken by South Africa to try to resolve
Zimbabwe's
long-running political crisis.
The Zimbabwean leader, in
power since independence from Britain in 1980,
has accused the former
colonial power of bankrolling the MDC in a bid to
oust him from power and
return imperialist interests to the former British
colony.
Zimbabwean
church leaders, including Ncube, last year slated Harare's
"irresponsible,
inhuman, violent (and) partisan" methods of land
redistribution, and accused
it of fueling a culture of violence.
But Ncube warned that "violence"
against the government would only worsen
the situation in Zimbabwe,
where
inflation has soared above 620% and aid agencies say chronic food
shortages
were widely due to
Mugabe's agrarian reforms, including redistributing
white-owned farms to new
black farmers.
"There would be a danger in
this (violence) that if you look at places like
Liberia," Ncube
said.
"The key is this that we are trying to look for peaceful means of
change."
AFP
Catch-22 for the MDC
Mail & Guardian
(Johannesburg)
ANALYSIS
March 5, 2004
Posted to the web March 5,
2004
Dumisani Muleya
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) is locked in a
conundrum over whether or not to
contest next year's general election under
the current electoral framework
and in the prevailing political climate.
Fierce debate is raging in the
MDC and in civil society as the opposition
gears up for its third national
electoral test since its launch in 1999.
The MDC contested and
controversially lost the 2000 parliamentary and 2002
presidential elections
amid allegations of vote-rigging and violence.
MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai said his party was currently pondering the
election
dilemma.
"The debate is going on and we want it to sink to the grassroots
so that
there can be wide consultations, but we don't want it to kill our
momentum
and allow inertia to set in," Tsvangirai said.
"Both
arguments for and against boycott are justified. What is the point
of
contesting an election in which the winner is predetermined? At the
same
time, what would a boycott achieve? That is the
predicament."
Zimbabwean Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has said
government will not
introduce electoral law reforms to level the playing
field.
He has claimed the MDC wanted to boycott the election "because
they know
they will be trounced. Boycott or no boycott, the election will go
ahead,"
he said.
Those who want a boycott argue that an MDC
involvement would only serve to
legitimise an election that will predictably
be won by Zanu-PF - courtesy of
a flawed electoral system open to
manipulation and political violence and
intimidation.
If the MDC pulls
out, proponents of this view argue, an exacerbated
legitimacy crisis would
consign Zanu-PF into deeper isolation - both at home
and abroad - and thus
impair its ability to function effectively to sustain
its arbitrary
rule.
The other view is that there is absolutely nothing to be gained by
a
boycott.
Opponents of a boycott say it would only serve to secure
Zanu-PF an absolute
majority and, with it, the power to amend the
Constitution as and when it
wishes to consolidate its power.
Political
analysts warn that if the MDC boycotts the poll it will be
voluntarily
electing to banish itself to the political wilderness where it
risks
redundancy and disintegration.
They say this strategy will not work
because Mugabe no longer really cares
about the issue of popular legitimacy
as he has been ruling regardless.
Mugabe recently said he could retire in
five years time - which means he is
prepared to hang on to power by his
fingernails until he finishes his
current term.
"One of the major
problems which we face in Zimbabwe is that we have a lot
of opposition to the
opposition. We have many opposition people more opposed
to the MDC than
Zanu-PF," Tsvangirai said.
"The other problem is that we are fighting a
former liberation movement.
It's always difficult in that kind of environment
to abandon the electoral
process in favour of civil resistance and
defiance."
COD Backs Zimbabwe's MDC
New Era (Windhoek)
March 5,
2004
Posted to the web March 5, 2004
Catherine
Sasman
Windhoek
THE Congress of Democrats on Wednesday vowed its
allegiance to the Zimbabwe
opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), in its "struggle to
restore democracy and the rule of law" in that
country.
In the same breath, President of the CoD, Ben Ulenga, condemned
the
government of Robert Mugabe for "trampling on human, political and
civic
rights of the people of Zimbabwe, which have escalated in recent
months".
Ulenga said it was important to resolve the political crisis
in Zimbabwe and
to "prevent any further melt-down of the Zimbabwean economy,
and the
resulting deprivation it brings in that country".
"Zimbabweans
are entitled to the same rights to freedom of association and
rule of law
which we take for granted here in Namibia. And it is only by
speaking out
loudly and unambiguously on the excesses of the Mugabe regime
that we can
give true expression to the letter and spirit of our
undertakings under both
Nepad and the AU," commented Ulenga.
William Bango, visiting Special
Personal Assistant to MDC President Morgan
Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe, said his
party was still debating whether or not it
would partake in the scheduled
presidential election early next year. "The
open space for democracy has
shrunk since 2000 and we ask ourselves if we
should go to elections under the
same conditions or boycott it," Bango said.
He also said that it would be
unlikely for the MDC to take a unilateral
decision on the matter, saying that
a broad coalition of organisations were
part of the discussion.
He
further said talks between the opposition and the ruling party, Zanu-PF,
had
broken down, and that no further talks were possible since June last
year.
"This process cannot continue in this format. The economy has shown
a
downward spiral of 40 percent in six consecutive years, only four out of
12
hospitals in the country are operating, HIV/AIDS and hunger wreak havoc
in
the country."
Bango said 11 million hectares of farmland have been
nationalised since
2000, but that food security was a problem. About 19
million hectares cover
communal land area. He also said that MDC supported
the idea for the
institution of a non-partisan land commission to, among
other things, do a
physical audit of "who is where" on the land, a legal
audit, and to work out
a tenure system.
Bango said Zimbabwe was not in
a land crisis but a crisis of governance.
News24
'SA should pull plug on Zim'
05/03/2004 13:56 -
(SA)
Johannesburg - South Africa should impose sanctions on
crisis-ridden
Zimbabwe to force President Robert Mugabe into peace talks with
the
opposition, a senior Zimbabwean cleric said Friday.
In a radio
interview, Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's
second city,
said just as the world helped establish a new democratic
government in South
Africa through sanctions, Pretoria could do the same
with its northern
neighbour.
"South Africa was helped by the sanctions imposed by the
international
community. We (Zimbabwe) should also be helped by South
Africa," Ncube, one
of the most outspoken critics of Mugabe's government,
told SABC public
radio.
Ncube suggested South Africa's giant power
utility Eskom should warn that
electricity to Zimbabwe would be cut off if
there was no progress on long
delayed talks between Mugabe and the
opposition.
Cut off the power
"Zimbabwe is owing billions in
electricity (bills). They just would need to
be told: 'Hey you people, settle
your affairs or else we cut off'. Then
Mugabe would be forced to dialogue
with the opposition because Mugabe is
refusing to talk to them," Ncube
added.
Mugabe slammed the door on proposed negotiations with the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) last month, dealing a new
blow to the
"quiet diplomacy" tack taken by South Africa to try to resolve
Zimbabwe's
long-running political crisis.
The Zimbabwean leader, in
power since independence from Britain in 1980, has
accused the former
colonial power of bankrolling the MDC in a bid to oust
him from power and
return imperialist interests to the former British
colony.
Inhuman and
partisan
Zimbabwean church leaders, including Ncube, last year slated
Harare's
"irresponsible, inhuman, violent (and) partisan" methods of
land
redistribution, and accused it of fuelling a culture of
violence.
But Ncube warned that "violence" against the government would
only worsen
the situation in Zimbabwe, where inflation has soared above 620%
and aid
agencies say chronic food shortages were widely due to Mugabe's
agrarian
reforms, including redistributing white-owned farms to new black
farmers.
"There would be a danger in this (violence) that if you look at
places like
Liberia," Ncube said.
"The key is this that we are trying
to look for peaceful means of change."
News24
MDC lays down law for 2005 poll
05/03/2004 21:07 -
(SA)
Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) on
Friday demanded that more than a dozen conditions be met
before it considers
taking part in next year's general
elections.
Party spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said in a statement that
the MDC wants
an independent electoral commission, fresh voter registration
supervised by
the UN and the repeal of strict press and security
laws.
"Before the elections... the MDC will review the position and
reserves the
right to take whatever appropriate action in defence of
democracy," Nyathi
said in a statement.
The party would also like to
see the removal of "partisan officials" and the
military from the running of
the elections, as well as amendments to
electoral laws so that they meet
standards set in the region, Nyathi said.
The reopening of the country's
main independent daily, the Daily News, a
pro-opposition newspaper that was
closed down for operating without a
licence, was another prerequisite, he
said.
State media in Zimbabwe are accused of giving little prominence
to
opposition parties, with the Daily News seen as the only platform
for
alternative views.
Zimbabwe's government, which accuses the
opposition party of being a
creation of former colonial power Britain bent on
removing President Robert
Mugabe from power, is unlikely to give in to the
demands.
Next year's election is due to be held in March next
year.
They will be the first parliamentary polls since the
violence-marred
election in 2000 in which the newly formed opposition took
almost half the
contested seats.
Venezuelan News
The Mugabization of Venezuela State
By Francisco
Toro
One day, when the time comes to write the history of this last week,
hard
questions are going to be asked. People who have spent a
lifetime
criticizing puntofijismo, attacking the old regime for its human
rights
abuses, will have a hell of a time explaining why those human rights
abuses
were an outrage when they were in opposition but have become "gallant"
now
that they are in power. Vicepresident Jose Vicente Rangel continues to
deny
that there are ANY cases of torture and blames absolutely anyone at all
-
from the protesters themselves to their mayors - except the people
commiting
the actual abuses.
Tarek William Saab, clearly having
forgotten his brief experience as a
political prisoner in 2002, sees no
problem with the National Guard abuses,
and says it's the guards whose rights
are being abused. (Poshitos)
Over the last week, Venezuela has seen
multiple, consistent reports of
torture (including beatings, electric shocks,
the use of harsh skin
irritants during interrogations, the use of tear-gas
canisters in enclosed
spaces) as well as random shootings by state security
forces into
residential buildings and, at the last count, nine extra-judicial
killings
in a week.
When brought to task, government spokesmen
brazenly blame the victims,
explaining they have a plan to destabilize the
country and praising the
"gallantry" of the armed forces in suppressing them.
The victims, needless
to say, can rest absolutely assured that their
attackers will not be
punished for what they've done. That's the chavista
way...
I have been sporadically criticized for comparing Chavez with
Robert Mugabe.
People tell me I'm exagerating. I wish they were right. But
for a week now,
directly after Mugabe's G15 visit - when Chavez went out of
his way to
praise him personally - we've seen Chavez borrow heavily from
Zimbabwe's
repertoire of repression tactics. The government's new M.O. -
arrest,
torture, release - has been a staple of political life in Harare for
years.
The single-minded, single-track attack on the opposition as
"foreign
puppets" is also lifted straight from the Mugabe (and Castro)
playbook.
It's true that Mugabe's Zanu-PF supporters have been less shy
about
mass-scale murder than Chavistas in Venezuela. However, it's worth
pointing
out that 4 or 5 years ago, when the political crisis started in
earnest in
Zimbabwe, their level of violence was not so different from what
we see now
in Venezuela. They're just further along down the same
road.
Certainly, once the country's legal and investigative institutions,
from
CICPC (judicial police) to the prosecutors to the courts, have all
been
hollowed out and packed with revolutionaries, there are no
procedural
guarantees worth a damn to opposition supporters
anymore.
Even today this process of purging and packing continues, like
it did in
Zimbabwe in the late 90s, with independent-minded judges
being
unceremoniously fired to be replaced with advocates of
revolutionary
justice. A total breakdown in the rule of law, from the ground
up. Rather
than protecting citizens, we can look forward to courts being
turned into
yet another instrument of repression. In due time, Mugabe picked
out the
opposition's leader, Morgan Tsvangarai, and had him tried for
treason. Their
past, our future?
Meanwhile, many who should know
better continue to provide propaganda cover
for a regime that's plainly past
deserving it. With every passing day they
undermine their own credibility. In
the fullness of time, people like Larry
Birns, Greg Palast, and many others
will be called to account. Questions
will be asked of them. They will have to
answer, they'll have to explain
what, personally, they did to stop the human
rights abuses they knew were
taking place all around them. And they'll have
to accept that they a-sided
with the abusers and b-did nothing to stop the
violence.
Things to keep in mind, down the road, when you hear them
report in
anguished tones of high moral righteousness about the terrible
excess of the
Carmona dictatorship, say, or what happens at Guantanamo
Bay.
JAG OPEN LETTER FORUM
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
Please
send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
justice@telco.co.zw with "For Open Letter
Forum" in the subject line.
JAG OPEN LETTER FORUM 4TH MARCH 2004 - JAG
OLF
241
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prelude
text
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
1: Subject: "For open letter forum"
Retrospect!
Four years ago on
Feb. 27th, we, and our nearest neighbours were sitting on
our verandah after
a Sunday lunch,looking over our lovely garden across the
the dam towards the
Mavuradona mountains beyond, when out of the blue a
screaming howling mob of
200 odd, arrived at our gate brandishing sticks
and pangas,shouting that they
had come to take our farm ,and that we had
two hours to get off.Once again we
had the dubious "honour" of being one of
the first farms invaded,as it had
been the first attacked in the 1972 war.
So started the nightmare when the
demise of Zimbabwean commercial
agricultural would slowly grind almost to a
close. Insidious and so well
planned, that even the town folk and world
didn't realise the magnitude of
the exercise, and in some cases still
don't!
Justified as the emotive "land back to the people " cry, 4000
odd
commercial farmers lost not only their farms, but their homes
and
livelihoods,as did the thousands of farm workers. Families and
communities
split up and moved to other parts of the world. So many others,
ill or dead
from stress related illnesses.
Four years of "hanging in",
moving a lifetime of belongings from place tp
place,selling off implements
(when you could) and furniture ,digging into
the "nest egg" to survive, of
living in little "boxes" in town, neurotic
farm dogs and cats, all yearning
for that space and freedom of the farm.
Some luckier than others with a
secure bank balance and already owning a
house or flat in town. Others
destroyed, homes trashed,belongings
stolen,unable to move their farming
equipment off the farms. Brave people
killed defending their
property.Property that was all legally bought
through the laws at the time.
After all, were the towns not built on the
same land originally that the
farmers are accused of "stealing"? Brilliant
farmers who built up their farms
usually from nothing to become leaders in
the agriculture industry, now
thrown into "early" retirement , their
confidence shattered,wondering what to
do next. Others moved to all parts
of the world to make new lives. Trying to
forget and start again. Some
adjusted and getting there, others
unhappy,homesick and battling. The
"young" ones coping better, with more
enthusiasm than the older "sell by
date", whose "get up and go, has got up
and gone", and are now 4 years
older! (as we are!!)
So where do we go
from here? Is there still light at the end of the tunnel?
Does any one really
care about the fate and welfare of 4000 odd white
farmers? Are most of us
ever going to feel truly settled and happy in our
new
lifestyles?
What have we learned during these 4 years?
That nothing
is forever in Africa?
Unlike the rest of the civilised world where you
can be born in a country,
love your country, own land and build up a dynasty
for future generations,
here on a political whim you can have done all that,
and lose it in a
flash. Is it all based on a simple "locally" used phrase
"Ma'jealous",
commonly used to excuse any thing from burning a neighbours hut
to killing
a spouse in the rural areas.? Is that what it really was all
about,
jealousy? Jealous of seeing successful farmers, big dams,nice houses
and
sheds, hectares of well grown crops.
Or because the tenacious
white farmer in his "arrogant" way has merely
clung on and defended his home
and farm that he has built up from sheer
hard work and versatility? A
business man in the commercial sector who does
that is praised, but a farmer
condemned. Whatever the cause, or the future,
those 4000 odd farmers have one
thing in common - Versatility! When one
see's what most of those ex farmers,
here and elsewhere in the world are
doing,they have to be admired. "Whinging"
farmers or not, they are getting
on with life however hard. Many starting
businesses and jobs totally
foreign to their previous lives, those still on
farms battling to survive
with all the odds against them and endless
political daily hassles and
requests/demands. Not many sitting with a begging
bowl wailing for help as
many other people in the world in a similar
situation would be, but getting
on with life and survival. AND guess what
they haven't totally lost their
sense of humour or their inbred hospitality,
(although on a lower key), and
however much people may criticise,wherever
they go,what ever they do, they
will do it well and carry on the farming
community spirit of helping each
other .
All this has been said and
thought about many times I know, but suddenly
realising it is 4 years ago
already, makes one think.
On that note, we can still say we are proud to
have been part of that era
and somehow will get through it all. However thank
goodness for E mail to
be able to keep in touch, but boy, it does take a lot
of time writing all
round the world!
Chris and Dawn Pohl( ex
Centenary)
Our sentiments entirely, Chris and Dawn. The commercial
farming
community in Zimbabwe have an awful lot to be proud of in terms of
their
contribution, commitment and involvement in the building of a once
great
nation and society. The exemplary and civilized fashion in which we
have
faced unprecedented provocation and victimisation together with our
farm
workers over the past four years, bears irrefutable and irrevocable
witness
to this. That the world and public international opinion has been
so
thoroughly duped by the propaganda spewed out daily along the lines that
we
"stole 70% of the land" and that the land was being "redistributed to
its
rightful owners" and that we are recipients of our "just desserts" is
a
travesty of justice of such magnitude when coupled to the farm
worker
plight and victimisation, that one reels with disbelief at the
audacity and
naivety involved. As the truth emerges and is more generally
accepted
internationally and regionally as to the implications of this man
made
disaster, people who have been duped will inevitably find
themselves
complicit in one of the biggest crimes against humanity ever
perpetrated -
genocide - to say nothing of the ethnic cleansing, and on a
scale,
possibly, never seen before in Africa -
EDITOR
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
2: Subject: JAG Open Letter Forum 3rd March 2004 -JAG OLF 240
If any
reply comes to this letter I wish to know their whereabouts.
Myrna's mother
and my father were brother and sister and I have only heard
this news by this
letter as I lost contact with them years ago.
Regards
Lesley C
Edwards
Legacy Hotels & Resorts (Pty) Ltd
Tel: +27 11 806 6866
Fax:
+27 11 806 6833
E-mail: ledwards@legacyhotels.co.za
Website:
http://www.legacyhotels.co.za
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
3. Subject: Can you help
A friend of mine, Linda Wainwright, is trying
to locate relatives who were
farmers in Gweru some years back. Their family
name is Futter.
If anyone has any information that might lead us to them,
could they please
e mail m2@simpson.to.
Margaret
Simpson
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions
of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES: Updated 4TH MARCH 2004
Please send any job opportunities
for publication in this newsletter to:
JAG Job Opportunities <justice@telco.co.zw>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
Advert Received 27th February 2004
Subject: Employment opportunity in
Broadacre farming in the South East of
Western Australia
Having constantly
seen and heard the in the media the plight of
landholders/primary producers
in Zimbabwe I feel there would be an
opportunity for a farming family who are
interested to continue their
agricultural pursuits here in
Australia.
To explain a little about ourselves we own two farms totalling
4000
hectares predominantly cropping wheat, barley, canola and
lupins.
Machinery used in this enterprise Case IH tractor 9280, Cat 480R
Lexion
harvester, Case Magnum 255, 48 foot Concord seeder, 2 way plough and
others
too numerous to mention.
We farm approximately 80 kilometres
from a regional centre called
Esperance, population 13 000 on the south coast
of Western Australia.
Climate is mediterranean, rainfall 400-450
millimetres. Cropping is all
dryland with seeding operations in April-June
and harvesting in
November-January. I am prepared to teach the willing with
prospects of
them moving on to become a farm manager in a very successful
area.
We can provide a farm work vehicle a large relatively new brick
home solar
hot water, satellite television SEC power and rainwater
for all
domestic purposes.
A school bus service is available to the local primary
school. A bus is
also available to Esperance for high school
students.
Wages will be determined on experience and length of employment
.
Hoping we can interest a family with mutual benefits for both
parties.
Contact details are as follows;
Phone/Fax 0890
712192
Mobile 0429 786068
Email rose_vermeersch@bigpond.com.au
jorola@bigpond.com.au
Our ref:Tim
Jarvis
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Advert Received 1st March 2004
Position Specification
CareerConnectionsHeadhunting & Psychometric
Assessment Services
17th
February 2004.
OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE MANAGER
REGIONAL TRANSPORT
& LOGISTICS COMPANY
THE ORGANISATION
Our client is a large
regional transport and logistics company operating a
fleet of 28
trucks/tankers. With a turnover of US$ 10 million per annum the
company is
set to grow by 25% in the next 3 years, expanding its fleet to
50
trucks/tankers in the short-term.
Transporting 7,500m3 of fuel per month
on the Mwanza-Geita (NW Tanzania)
route, our client has built a reputation of
being amongst the liquids
transporters in the region with depots located in
Mwanza, Geita, Isaka,
Mombasa and Dar es Salaam.
As part of the
Company's goal to become the Region's most efficient, cost
effective and
highest operating standards liquids transporter, our client
is recruiting an
Operations & Maintenance Manager to manage and build on
its established
customer base of multinational oil companies and vegetable
oil
manufacturers.
THE LOCATION
Mwanza / Geita, Tanzania.
THE
POSITION
The Operations and Maintenance Manager will be responsible for
the
management of the operations and maintenance of the entire fleet
including
spares, servicing and electronic testing of the trucks to ensure
they are
maintained in excellent condition.
Although the position is
based in the Mwanza-Geita area, the Manager will
have regional responsibility
for the management of the whole fleet and
resources. The Manager will be
expected to travel and be stationed for
periods at new locations to set up
operations and supervise the development
of the Company's new network of
locations.
The Operations & Maintenance Manager reports directly to
the Managing
Director and, within the framework of the Company's objectives
and action
plans, the key responsibilities will include:
· Maintenance
of trucks/tankers.
· Management of the fleet.
· Health & Safety
policies.
· Customer service and relations.
· Expansion and business
development.
· Staff and driver management and development.
KEY
RESPONSIBILITIES
The Operations & Maintenance Manager's key
responsibilities include:
· Maintaining and efficiently managing the road
transport fleet.
· Managing the maintenance and repair facilities and support
staff at
various depots.
· Developing and implementing effective Health,
Safety and Environmental
policies.
· Overseeing customer relationships in
the delivery of the road transport
services.
· Participating in the
management team to grow the business in the Region
including identifying,
setting up and managing new network locations.
· Mentoring and building
competence of staff /drivers in vehicle use and
maintenance.
KEY
PERFORMANCE CRITERIA
· Maintenance targets.
· Servicing efficiency
targets.
· Fleet efficiency targets.
· Achieving Customer delivery
targets.
· Achieving sales targets.
· Turnover and business growth.
·
Correct team performance.
· Effective management of budgets.
EXPERIENCE
AND BACKGROUND NEEDED
· A qualified professional mechanical engineer with
hands on experience in
managing and maintaining large trucks/tankers.
· At
least 3 to 5 years experience in fleet management.
· Working knowledge of
Actros Trucks with a high competency in their
mechanical and electronic
systems, would be an added advantage.
· Knowledge of mining operations would
be an added advantage.
· A proven track record in ability to deliver on
maintenance and operations
targets.
OTHER VITAL QUALITIES
· Ability
to work both independently and in a team with a high level
of
initiative.
· A self-motivated and energetic manager able to lead a
team of local and
expatriate staff
· Willingness to travel
extensively.
COMPENSATION
A highly competitive package is on offer,
including housing, travel and
full medical.
PROCEDURE FOR
CANDIDACY
Online registration only. Please log onto the following
website, register
and upload your CV.
www.high-fliers.com
For more
information, please email: zia@careerconnections.co.ke
Zia
Manji
Recruitment
Manager
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
3.
Advert Received 1st March 2004
Please place this in your Job
Opportunities.
Position Offered
Manager required for export rose and
vegetable project very near Mutare.
Excellent package offered, including
executive house. Previous experience
in farming required but not necessarily
roses or vegetables.
SMS Text to 091 350034, with phone number and/or
email.
Thanks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.
Advert Received 1st March 2004
Subject: tobacco Primary Manager
positions
Can you help me get in touch with Tobacco Primary Managers. I have
some
excellent positions in Dubai.
I will be grateful for any assistance
in this matter. Any email addresses,
advertising addresses,
anything.
Ria
0828905908
-----------------------------------------------------------------
For
the latest listings of accommodation available for farmers, contact
justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
(updated 4TH MARCH
2004)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Justice
for Agriculture mailing list
To subscribe/unsubscribe: Please write to jag-list-admin@mango.zw
JOB
OPPORTUNITIES: Updated 26th February 2004
Please send any job opportunities
for publication in this newsletter to:
JAG Job Opportunities <justice@telco.co.zw>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
1.
Advert Received 20th February 2004
Employment offered
1.
Assistant to Production Manager
We are a busy agro-based company dealing
mainly in exports and are looking
for a Production Assistant. This position
would be most suited to persons
with production experience. Computer
knowledge in excel is essential.
The incumbent would be responsible for
overseeing a work force of around
100, production planning, chasing job
deadlines, quality control, checking
vehicles being loaded for exports.
Contact browneng@africaonline.co.zw
(stating
Assistant to Production Manager)
2. Assistant to Sales Engineer
A
position is offered to assist in the layout and construction of
tobacco
curing systems. This person would be required to travel within the
region
so would be most suited to a young, single person (with a valid
passport!).
This position might suit a young, ex farm manager. Experience in
tobacco
would be beneficial. Contact browneng@africaonline.co.zw
(stating Assistant
to Sales Engineer)
3. Cook
We are based in
Lochinvar (near Southerton Police Station). We require a
cook to prepare
meals for management staff (6 to 8 people) and make tea for
all office staff
(around 20 people). Also, general cleaning of the
offices. Must have
contactable references. Contact
browneng@africaonline.co.zw
-----------------------------------------------------------------
2.
Advert Received 23rd February 2004
We are a young married couple with two
sons aged 12 and 14. We are looking
for work preferably in a safari
conservancy situation. I have experience
in the motor trade, cattle
ranching, wildlife and agriculture. All of
which are at managerial levels.
My wife has experience as a book keeper
and preschool teacher. Both our sons
and very well mannered and have a
passion for wildlife. Should you want more
details please contact us on
011211373. Thankyou. Terrance and Corrina
Wardley.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3.
Advert 23rd February 2004
WANTED:
Executive Secretary, P/A
To be
executive assistant to the CEO/MD of a number of businesses
Computer Skills
Word/ Excel/ Powerpoint a must.
The successful candidate will have good
organizational ability and be able
to multi-task in a dynamic
environment.
Pleasant working conditions and competitive package offered for
the right
applicant.
Please send CV's to:
The CEO
Pvt. Bag
604E
Harare
Zimbabwe
Or email: ted@houses.africaonline.co.zw
-----------------------------------------------------------------
4.
Advert Received 23rd February 2004
ADMINISTRATOR required for retail
outlet/coffee shop opening 1st March 2004
in Avondale.
Duties will
involve general administration, wages, cash taking,
reconciliation and
banking.
The administrator will work in conjunction with a retail manager
and
restaurant manager.
Retail/restaurant experience would be an added
advantage.
Hours of work expected to be from 7.30am to 3.00pm five days a
week
excluding Thursdays and Sundays.
Please reply by email to ianmunn@mweb.co.zw or fax C.V.'s to (04)
481081,
for the attention of Ian
Munn.
----------------------------------------------------------------
5.
Advert Received 24th February 2004
Beautiful coffee shop/ Restaurant,
"The Yellow Nasturtium" in the Northern
Suburbs to rent, very quiet, lovely
views and relaxing surroundings. Very
good turn-over.
Available from the
1st March 2004.
For more information please contact Jane Calder on
499119
Many thanks JAG, really appreciate it, might interest a farmer's wife
as it
is a really lovely
place.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
For
the latest listings of accommodation available for farmers, contact
justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
(updated 12th February 2004)
IPS News
The Relentless March of the Military Men
Wilson
Johwa
BULAWAYO, Mar 4 (IPS) - A silent revolution, with far-reaching
political and
social implications, is underway in Zimbabwe. In many divisions
of the
public service including the judiciary, and state-run companies,
military
men are on the ascendant.
Their upward march is so swift and
focused that one member of their ranks is
in the running for the position of
vice-president, currently vacant. If the
appointment goes through, it will
place an ex-general in line to succeed
President Robert Mugabe.
And
the list goes on. The head of Zimbabwe's dreaded intelligence service is
a
former brigadier. Two judges are ex-military, and one of the eight
provincial
governors is a former general.
Other key civilian posts taken up by
former soldiers include that of
secretary in the Ministry of Transport (the
appointee was previously a
colonel). The head of the state grain procurement
agency, the Grain
Marketing Board (GMB), is an ex-military man, as is the
commissioner of the
prison service.
In a cabinet reshuffle last month,
Mugabe appointed four soldiers to
ministerial or deputy ministerial
positions. The military's tentacles are so
widespread that one of the two
"assessors" helping a High Court judge decide
the fate of opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai has the rank of major.
Tsvangirai is currently on trial for
allegedly plotting to assassinate
Mugabe ahead of the 2002 presidential
election.
Less evident - but perhaps more important - is the scope of the
military's
influence further down the bureaucratic chain.
Many depot
managers at the GMB are ex-soldiers. And since 1998, when the
prisons
department was turned into a commissioned service similar to the
police and
army, military men have been appointed in senior positions, much
to the
chagrin of long-serving officers.
"It's demoralizing as everyone is
looking to be promoted," remarks a junior
prisons officer.
Analysts
believe that Mugabe has a variety of goals in appointing soldiers
to civilian
posts. Political survival is undoubtedly one of his aims - and
in this
respect the strategy appears to have paid off.
On the eve of the 2002
presidential election, senior officers released a
statement saying that the
military would not support a president who lacked
liberation war credentials
- a clear reference to Tsvangirai. Former defence
force chief, General
Vitalis Zvinavashe, reiterated this partisan stance in
his valedictory speech
made last December.
Political commentator Themba Dlodlo of the National
University of Science
and Technology says Mugabe also has his retirement
prospects in mind.
"For him to survive after his rule he needs to have
these people in power
because they are his supporters and they cannot
prosecute him for the
atrocities he has committed in the country," Dlodlo
told IPS.
As far as opposition member of parliament and shadow Minister
of Defence
Giles Mutsekwa is concerned, the president's motives are even more
complex.
He believes that drawing the military into civilian life has the
effect of
enmeshing it in Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, "so that
as the
economy collapses, those in the military will also be
blamed".
Since the start of 2000, food production in Zimbabwe has
declined
significantly - in part because of a controversial programme aimed
at
redistributing land owned by minority white farmers. Some of
this
confiscated land has been allocated to black peasant farmers;
however,
high-ranking officials have also been accused of helping themselves
to
several of the best properties. Aid agencies are now gearing up
to
distribute food aid in Zimbabwe for the third successive
year.
Other aspects of Zimbabwe's economy are also in decline, leading to
mass
unemployment and inflation that tops 600 percent.
But, while
officers may be specialists in guns, grenades and fighting
battles, they
generally lack the skills or training to take over civilian
functions. "Why
they are allowed to lead these organisations purely because
they were
generals or colonels, surprises me," Mutsekwa says.
Dlodlo agrees:
"Theirs is a rule by force and that will not lead us
anywhere."
He
notes that the ease with which military men have slipped into
leading
positions may have a lot to do with the fact that the ruling ZANU-PF
itself
is less a political party than a paramilitary organisation. "You can
see
from the way they behave, and how they act, they're still operating
as
though they're guerillas."
Most of Zimbabwe's top brass are
veterans of the 1970's war against white
minority rule and are fiercely loyal
to ZANU-PF.
With new recruits to the army now coming from the country's
infamous youth
training camps, there appears to be little hope that the
military will turn
into an impartial body at any point in the near
future.
The camps, which have been in existence since 2001, are portrayed
by
government as places where school leavers are imbued with patriotic
values.
However, critics maintain the camps are used to transform youths
into
militants who terrorise government opponents.
Preparations for
the 2002 poll and the 2000 parliamentary election were
marred by widespread
violence, most of it aimed at supporters of the
opposition Movement for
Democratic Change. (END/2004)
Daily Dispatch (SA)
EDITORIAL OPINION
Human agencies &
food
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation secretary-general, Jacques
Diouf,
this week said a lack of sufficient rain in east and southern Africa
would
exacerbate the food crisis in these parts of the
continent.
"Nearly 75 percent of the poor live in rural areas and
agriculture employs
nearly 60 percent of Africa's total workforce," he
said.
Agriculture is the primary industry anywhere, and the prospect of
drought
does indeed scare people - as happened in South Africa last
year.
In 2002 Africa spent R125 billion on food imports and received 2,8
million
metric tons of food aid. Food aid into Africa has been
ongoing.
Yet today hunger casts its shadow over the continent. A bad
situation has
been exacerbated by a mix of global trends and internal
dynamics, and 23 out
of 53 African states currently face serious food
shortages.
Drought is an easy scapegoat because it is readily
understood.
Africa's food problems, especially over the past 30 years, go
much deeper,
however.
The fact is that Africa's import bills have to
be reduced by raising the
export of farm products. Africa cannot compete with
developed countries
where farmers enjoy fantastic state subsidies, and who
can then dump their
products here.
Also R125bn is better spent on
agri-production locally than on importing
food.
The global trend in
politics and business invariably enriched
market-dominant minorities
(Eritreans in Ethiopia, Tutsis in Burundi, whites
in South Africa, Chinese in
Indonesia, the Ibo in Nigeria, etc).
In agriculture too, elites - either
"outsiders" (whites, Asians) or
indigenous minorities - benefit from the new
world order. Tiny elites
account for Africa's agricultural exports that
constitute 22 percent of
total exports.
The "traditional" majority
response has thus been against: 1) market
liberalisation, for opening the
market means the developed world, where
producers enjoy fantastic subsidies
or tax breaks, can dump their produce
and products on Africa and local
producers can export foodstuff; 2)
democratisation, which, while it benefits
people generally, does not
necessarily lead to economic participation (South
Africa may have had a
political miracle, but we still have 40 percent
unemployment); and 3) market
dominant minorities, often using ethnic-based
violence - to wit Hutus on
Tutsis, black Zimbabweans against whites there,
Acholis targeting Uganda's
government favoured tribes, animist Africans
against Muslim Africans in
Sudan.
Closely related is the reality of
civil war.
In Liberia, Sudan, Congo and Ethiopia, to name a few, ongoing
civil wars
continue to hamper food production.
Civil strife further
ensures that food aid becomes an instrument of war, as
war lords raid
incoming food aid - as in Sudan and Somalia, a few West
African states - and
so deny rivals food, or use it to recruit "warriors".
In Zimbabwe land
and food aid are similarly used to buy allegiance and to
punish the
market-dominant minority - which provide the food crops from
economically
viable farms.
These responses negatively affect
agri-production.
Drought is natural, but is not natural to Africa only.
In Africa, human
agencies exacerbate the food crisis and these need to be
recognised and
addressed.
Workers Online
Don't Give Up the Fight
Get Up, Stand Up is
the logo of choice on a popular range of subversive
condoms. Ken Davis from
Union Aid Abroad reports from Zimbabwe's second city
********
Getting
through immigration is the first test, trying not appear a farmer,
a
unionist, a journalist, a human rights activist. Then customs - hiding
the
rice, flour and sugar in the bottom of my bag to give to
friends.
Getting from the airport to town is the another question, will
there be any
petrol? Changing money has become a drama, with the foreign
exchange bureaux
outlawed, and new threats to anyone caught changing money on
the street.
Officially the US dollar was fixed at 55 Zim dollars, but now
it exchanges
for $1000! And inflation is nearing 1000%. Workers on a basic
wage of
$50,000 Zim per month, cannot afford to go to work. A bus fare one
way is
$1,000, a loaf of bread when you can get it is $4,000. Staple foods
are in
short supply: corn meal, wheat flour, sugar, oil, rice, pasta, salt
and
bread. Newspapers, only $2 a couple of years ago, now sell for $800
--
that's if they haven't been declared illegal, like the Daily
News.
Around 3000 people die in Zimbabwe each week from AIDS, and it
seems every
household has taken in children whose parents have died. But who
can pay
school fees for 2004, or feed extra mouths or purchase uniforms
or school
books?
Despite repression, the trade unions have been
running a model national
training program so that union delegates and
officers can promote safe sex
and solidarity with workers who have
HIV.
The unions are demanding roll-out of HIV treatments, as in Brazil,
but they
know the once-proud health system has broken down, with many doctors
and
nurses gone to earn hard currency in other countries, rather than
staff
clinics or hospitals that have no medicines.
According to one
report, only 900 doctors remain for a country of over 11
million people, and
more than half of the dialysis patients have died due to
a lack of
supplies.
Health workers are not the only ones to have fled Zimbabwe.
Officially 3.4
million citizens (a quarter of the population) are out of the
country. There
are hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans in London and in
Botswana, and two
million south of the border in South Africa, selling
handmade wire
decorations, embroidery, or working on farms.
Bulawayo's
city council is run by the opposition (labour-backed) Movement
for Democratic
Change, so the unions were allowed to hold a Labour Forum in
the town hall, a
rare opportunity to bring together hundreds of trade union
members, now that
all gatherings other than church services are illegal
without police
permission. Even so, it is only the brave, and the secret
police, who turn
up.
The chants are the same as in South Africa in the 70s and 80s:
"Amandla,
Ngawethu!" - Power to the people!
From the stage, general
secretary Wellington Chibebe, blends humour and
satire with determination and
political clarity. The strikes and marches
have so far been hit by severe
Repression. Chibebe reminded the workers that
immediate responses from unions
around the world, particularly COSATU in
South Africa and the ACTU in
Australia, have seen trade unionists have been
released relatively promptly
after being arrested for planning protests,
rather than being held and
tortured for long periods.
The ZCTU regional secretary says she was in a
women's march recently that
was stopped by police with dogs that bit chunks
from women's legs. As they
beat the women the police asked "why don't you get
thousands to march and
get it over with? If you keep having small
demonstrations, we just have to
keep beating you".
People sing the
song written by the women's drama team: "ZCTU Ndlovu
Mafohloza", --ZCTU is an
elephant that destroys (obstacles), and everyone
rises to toyi-toyi (dance)-
One man asks "why does he (Mugabe) say he
liberated us? Now we are living in
hell." One young worker chants "Another
Zimbabwe is possible!", and then says
what Zimbabweans want is what happened
last year in Georgia, a peaceful mass
action to overthrow a dictatorship and
call free elections. An older woman
says we must all march on Salisbury,
deliberately using the colonial name of
the capital.
The governing elite is angry: an opposition group called
"Enough!" has been
distributing condoms with Bob Marley's lyrics "Get up,
Stand Up" on them,
recalling the moment when Marley sang at the independence
celebrations in
Harare in 1980. When Mugabe celebrated his 80th birthday last
month, they
circulated cards with Mugabe's address and carrying a photograph
of two
frightened, sickly children. "There is no reason to celebrate your
80th
birthday," it said on the back of the card. "HIV/Aids, poverty and
hunger
are robbing our children and our country of a future. Why don't you
care?"
Citing the torture and rape of protesters during the last cricket
tour, the
opposition in Zimbabwe is calling on Australia not to send its
team, since
the president will use it to pretend that the situation is
normal.
Meanwhile, Mugabe supervises the construction of what has been
dubbed
"Gracelands", a vast new palace in honour of his young wife near
Harare.
Pambazuka News 146:
Fahamu (Oxford)
March 4,
2004
ZIMBABWE IN MARCH 2004: FOUR YEARS FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE
PLUNGE
Mary Ndlovu
Time is out of joint in Zimbabwe. We have gone
through the looking glass and
live in a state of schizophrenia. We read one
thing in the state media, and
experience something quite different on the
ground. The new farmers are said
to be creating a revolution, but there is no
farm produce in the shops, no
agricultural goods to export. Our "enemies" who
want to sabotage our economy
are feeding us, while our own rulers destroy
productive capacity, pillage
our natural resources, and even make money
illegally exporting the food on
which the people depend for
survival.
Time moves too fast. In a day lives are turned upside down. A
government
decree quadruples tariffs on virtually every imported good,
destroying
businesses, crippling industries relying on imported components,
wiping out
the means of survival for hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans who
have been
eking out a living through cross-border trade. In a week the
only
non-government daily newspaper is off the street, on the street and off
the
street again. In a month prices double in the shops, and 20,000
Zimbabweans
die of AIDS. In a year inflation soars from 220% to 620% and your
used car
depreciates by doubling its Zimdollar value. And in a year the
public mood
changes from hope and expectation of relief from the madness to
deep,
debilitating despair.
On our side of the looking glass, the
mounting catastrophe has political,
economic, social and cultural components.
Most objective observers would
trace the economic problems back at least to
the late 1980's. Certainly the
introduction of structural adjustment at the
beginning of the 90's can be
seen as the process which eroded the living
standards of Zimbabweans, and
spawned the first broad-based opposition party.
It also generated pressure
from interest groups such as war veterans and
ambitious black businessmen
who felt they had waited too long to share in the
country's wealth. The
government's response to these developments sent the
country into the
downward spiral which today ensnares us. Instead of taking
the criticism and
the pressure and sitting back to plan a coherent strategy
of how to deal
with the inter-related issues, ZANU PF panicked, saw their
ruling position
threatened, and from 1997 on have responded piecemeal,
reactively and
irrationally, bringing us to the tragedy which unfolds before
our eyes.
They gave in to pressures from those groups with which they had
racial and
historical affinities, that is the "indigenous businessmen" and
the war
veterans, while viciously attacking those in the political opposition
and
civil society who dared to demand policies that would serve the needs of
the
people at large. These were accused of wanting to sabotage the
economy,
acting as agents of foreign powers, fomenting discord and trying to
reverse
the gains of the liberation war. Because the government half believed
their
own fantasies, they became quite incapable of drawing appropriate
strategies
to handle the economic crisis, and became obsessed with simply
retaining
political power. Every economic policy became twisted to suit the
immediate
needs of ZANU PF, while the needs of the consumer, the producer,
the
employer and employee were disregarded. Basic economic sense was thrown
to
the winds, commonplace economic imperatives defied. ZANU PF returned to
the
militarist leadership and rhetoric of the liberation war.
The
economic slide was precipitated by the 1997 surrender to the demands of
war
veterans, but it became a plunge from the beginning of the seizure of
land
from white commercial farmers in February 2000. Angered by the
negative
results of the referendum on a new constitution in that month, ZANU
PF
devised a malicious but brilliant strategy designed to recover
domestic
support, provide new sources of patronage, fulfill the promises of
the
liberation struggle and attract international support from
traditional
allies of the 1970's. In their panic they rushed headlong to
seize
agricultural land from white farmers by violent means, afraid to wait
for a
legal process to unfold. They justified this by the philosophy of
armed
struggle and the injustices perpetrated by colonizers in the hundred
years
before Independence. Law was no longer necessary; the end justified
any
means.
It is exactly four years since the officially sanctioned
land invasions
began. During that time the economy has shrunk to less than
half its
previous size, while inflation has risen to 620%. Added to the
pre-existing
economic crisis, the destruction of a substantial portion of
commercial
agriculture has brought a sharp decline in foreign exchange
earnings, and
severe food shortages. Government's attempts to manipulate
prices, interest
rates and foreign exchange rates have produced chaos -
artificial shortages
of price-controlled goods and a booming black market,
illegal export of
basic goods to neighbouring countries, closure of factories
and other
businesses, especially those related to agricultural production.
The lack of
foreign currency reduced ability to import essential consumer and
capital
goods and the general decline of the economy starved government of
revenue.
At the same time runaway inflation led to a need to print ever
larger
amounts of bank notes which government could not afford. The result
was the
crippling cash shortage in mid 2003. High inflation coupled with
low
interest rates impoverished pensioners and anyone else dependent on a
fixed
income, and initiated a flight of savings from banks into foreign
currency.
What could no longer be obtained in banks by any but the privileged
few, was
readily available on many street corners in the major cities at up
to 8
times the official rate.
Those privileged few were having a
heyday, amassing fortunes of gigantic
proportions by accessing foreign
currency from the banks at official rates
and selling it on the black market.
A new class of economic parasites was
being created. We began to hear of 25
room mansions, stables of Mercedes
Benz cars, cupboards full of designer
suits. The owners did not hide; they
boasted of their wealth in the face of
the people whose situation was
becoming daily more desperate.
The year
2003 was a dreadful one for most Zimbabweans. While the government
tinkered
at the edges of the economy and finally brought staple foodstuffs
back to the
shelves and solved the cash crisis by introducing bearer cheques
as temporary
legal tender, they failed to bring inflation under control. By
the end of the
year it had reached 600%. And the economy continues to
shrink. The October
beginning of the 2003-4 planting season heralded new
disasters in the future
as agricultural inputs were simply not available to
most of those wanting to
farm. But the failures on the economic front were
compensated for in the
political arena. In spite of the ability of the
opposition still to win local
government elections in most urban areas, ZANU
PF could make use of its new
draconian security and media legislation, the
support of a loyal army and
police and national service militia to block out
the opposition from rural
constituencies. And in the urban councils held by
the MDC, ZANU PF has used
its control of national resources to interfere and
create havoc in local
government, dividing and frustrating opposition
controlled councils,
particularly Harare, and making them lose public
support. The mass action
threatened by the opposition never got started in
the face of government
terror, and ZANU PF remains firmly in charge. The
political tide running in
favour of the opposition seems to have been
halted. A combination of severe
repression, patronage through allocation of
land and positions that give
access to public resources, and ever more
strident racial and xenophobic
rhetoric have kept the forces of opposition
off balance and out of
step.
Now, in March, 2004, four years on from the beginning of the
plunge, where
do we stand, and what is the outlook for the next twelve
months?
Economically, we are still spiraling downwards. This year
agriculture is
expected to produce only 1/3 of the nation's staple maize
requirements.
Exportable crops such as tobacco and paprika, are down to a
small fraction
of what was previously produced. Industrial capacity
deteriorates and
unemployment rises. While donor aid feeds those people in
rural areas whose
own crops fail through poor rains and lack of inputs, an
ever greater
percentage of the urban population fail to cope, enter the ranks
of the
destitute and are in need of food aid themselves even while food sits
on the
supermarket shelves.
Not only goods, but also services are
either not available or unaffordable.
Starved of government finance, social
welfare has long ago collapsed as a
point of last resort for the destitute.
Hospitals have no equipment or
medicines and few qualified staff. A patient
with a fracture is told to
bring plaster of paris before his bone can be set.
Schools have poorly
functioning infrastructure, broken desks and toilets,
paint peeling from
walls, no laboratory equipment or books. Yet they charge
fees that have
forced many, in both rural and urban areas to withdraw their
children. The
mission boarding schools, once the pride of Zimbabwean
education and the
training ground for the professional classes, are
deteriorating rapidly,
unable to sustain quality with the fees that the
dwindling middle classes
are able to afford. Both the major state
universities have been crippled by
repeated staff and student strikes, and at
present neither is holding
classes.
While high fee paying private
schools manage to maintain reasonable
standards, private health care is
faltering on the brink of collapse.
Doctors' fees, hospitals and medicines
are unaffordable except for the elite
and many procedures are no longer
provided in the country. Employees on
medical aid are not better off as the
doctors and medical aid societies
quarrel over rates and payment procedures,
leaving the patients to pay cash
and claim later. When a simple consultation,
laboratory test and
prescription may cost half a month's salary, or more, it
will be rational
for a worker to terminate medical aid subscriptions and it
will not be
surprising if all the medical aid societies collapse completely
before this
year is out, leaving health care accessible only to the very
rich.
Government's response to the failures of service providers was
predictable -
punish headmasters who try to keep their schools running by
allowing fee
increases in line with inflation, criminalize doctors who charge
cash. It is
hardly surprising that many educational and medical professionals
have left
the country.
They are not alone. A recent survey showed that
3.4 million Zimbabweans - ¼
of the population - lives outside the country.
Professionals have left with
their families to find work where there is
greater security and they can
command a higher standard of living. Young
people have left to escape the
dejection and boredom of joblessness and to
find tertiary education which
does not require the completion of a "national
service" which brutalizes and
indoctrinates. Mothers have left their children
behind while they live in
squalor and do menial jobs to send home the
precious "forex" which buys
food, clothing and pays school fees. Pensioners
go to do care work because
they cannot survive on their pensions. Others have
gone to earn the money to
buy a house. They leave behind families broken,
rudderless, a prey to the
immorality which has gripped the country. Led by
the orgy of violence and
rape characterising the land seizures, national
service training, and
election "campaigning", we - especially our younger
generation - have lost
the ability to distinguish right from wrong. Might is
right; if you can
exploit your fellow before he or she exploits you, fine.
And then we have
the example of our "businessmen" who amass wealth without
any skills, any
work, by manipulating a corrupt system. Dealing is the name
of the game, and
he who plays it well prospers. "Cry Beloved Zimbabwe", was
the lament of the
WOZA women who were stopped by the police from distributing
roses on
Valentine's Day. "Let love overcome hate" was their stifled message
that few
were allowed to hear.
The New Year produced a surprise as a
new monetary policy announced by the
Reserve Bank Governor began to take
effect. Suddenly we found members of the
corrupt elite, even a designer-suit,
25 room mansion ZANU PF M.P., behind
bars on allegations of fraud and foreign
currency dealing. Government
announced a war on corruption. Was this an
attempt to win favour among the
people, with an eye to the 2005 elections? or
simply the public
manifestation of a power struggle within ZANU PF as the
succession issue
hots up, or even a desperate need to raise foreign currency
at any cost? The
population is sceptical, and waits to see. A real war on
corruption would
have to bring down far more known crooks and thieves from
their high places.
At the same time, there has been an attempt to bring some
sanity to the
foreign currency market by introducing a state-controlled
auction. This
effectively devalued the currency by 75%, bringing the official
exchange
rate up and the black market rate down, at least temporarily. But it
has
negatively affected exporters, importers and consumers and will
certainly
fuel inflation further. We are set for another round of
catastrophic price
rises. Where the problems are essentially political
piecemeal policies
cannot rescue us. A modern economy cannot thrive in the
absence of political
stability, without smooth linkages to the international
players.
On the economic side then, 2004 is likely to bring us only
misery. What of
the political? It is encouraging that through all the
intimidation and
violence the opposition MDC has managed to survive, maintain
its structures
and has held together in spite of a wide internal divergence
of ideological
positions. It contains some individuals who have worked at
great personal
risk to bring change. Furthermore, they deserve credit for
firmly adhering
to principles of non-violence, restraining their youthful
hotheads who would
prefer to answer violence with violence. It is clear,
however, that
elections marked by state violence and terror will not bring
change unless
the electoral ground rules are completely rewritten, and that
is certainly
not going to occur in the present circumstances. What about the
mass action
route? Besides the opposition party, MDC, several civil
society
organisations have raised their voices against government policies.
These
include the labour federation, ZCTU, the National Constitutional
Assembly,
some of the churches which have country wide membership
organisations, and
several other NGO's. All of them, including the MDC, are
divided between the
activists who want to take to the streets and the
lobbyists, who want to
push for some kind of "talks" with
government.
Those in favour of street action are in a weak position. 2003
demonstrated
that while people were prepared to protest by staying away from
work, they
were not ready to take to the streets and face the riot police and
possibly
the army. Activists watched events unfold in the Georgian capital
Tbilisi
with envy, but have been forced to admit that Zimbabweans are simply
not yet
willing to take the risk. Small demonstrations organized by the ZCTU,
the
NCA and WOZA, a group which organizes grassroots women, invariably
resulted
in arrests or police brutality or both. The masses have shied away
from such
action, and without the masses, this tactic cannot shift ZANU PF in
any way.
But the bravery of the few, especially when they are women, keeps
the
opposition visible and raises sprits and hope.
Dialogue between
ZANU PF and the MDC has been held out as the solution by
neighbouring African
countries, particularly South Africa. The purpose of
such inter-party talks
would be to agree to end human rights abuses,
re-establish the rule of law,
and rewrite the electoral rules so that a new
election could produce a
government accepted as legitimate domestically and
internationally. Then a
start could be made to repair the economic damage.
Such talks would have to
be brokered by foreign mediators.
For the MDC, talks would be the best
solution, but so far they have proved
elusive. For obvious reasons ZANU PF is
not interested and has deliberately
held out the impression to the South
Africans that they were committed while
doing absolutely nothing. But it is
now becoming clear that in the end this
is the only way that a solution will
be found.
ZANU PF appears to think that they have outwitted the
opposition and can
hang on to power until 2005, when they will conduct an
even more violent and
dishonest election which will see them clear for
another five years. Even
now they are making preparations. A new Presidential
decree has introduced
the power of detention without bail, on mere suspicion,
where there is no
evidence of wrong-doing. Youth militia training is being
stepped up to
provide a reserve of shock troops. The United Nations was asked
to provide
funding for the election, but the request was quickly withdrawn
when they
proposed to send a delegation to study the situation on the ground.
The MDC,
under severe constraint from forces of terror, unconstitutional
laws, and a
compliant judiciary, and the unwillingness of their members to
engage in
civil disobedience, is hobbled. It can not do much more than to
hold its
supporters together, plan policies to implement if they do gain
power, and
work hard, as they are now doing, to persuade African
governments,
particularly that of South Africa, to apply the pressure for
internationally
accepted elections.
Hence the deep despair of the
population. Most Zimbabweans face the year
with little hope for any early
solution. But there are signs that the logic
of economic failures may finally
bring the whole edifice crashing down.
Maybe enough Zimbabweans will decide
that "enough is enough" and provide the
critical mass in the streets to
topple ZANU PF. The "war on corruption" has
now exposed the rot at the core
and could develop into an uncontrollable
internecine struggle. The
distortions in the Zimbabwean economy have
impacted heavily on the region.
President Mbeki, like Obasanjo in December,
might finally decide that it is
not worth the embarrassment of continuing to
support Robert Mugabe, whose
galloping paranoia occasionally turns on Mbeki
himself. Or, a serious illness
or even death of the 80-year-old Mugabe might
open an opportunity for a South
Africa assisted return to legitimacy, and an
end to the madness. "An idea
whose time has come cannot be stopped".
The time for democratic change in
Zimbabwe has not yet come. But time does
move fast in Zimbabwe. The
unexpected occurs on a daily basis. While today
we may see little hope,
tomorrow or next week will surely be different, for
ultimately time is on our
side.
* Send comments on this editorial - and other events in Africa -
to
editor@pambazuka.org
*
Previous editorials from Mary Ndlovu
- Zimbabwe's March: Pambazuka News
105, 2003
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=105
-
March, Zimbabwe's month of destiny: Pambazuka News 55, 2002
http://www.pambazuka.org/index.php?issue=55
*
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