http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
March
7, 2009
Martin Fletcher:
Analysis
The two-lane road between Harare and Beitbridge, Zimbabwe's main
border
crossing to South Africa, is one of the most dangerous I have driven.
It is
deeply cratered. Speeding, exhaust-belching lorries, which would never
pass
a British MoT, grotesquely overloaded trucks and trundling donkey carts
jostle for position. Vehicles break down frequently. Many have one
headlight, or none. At night the road is even more terrifying.
This
was where Morgan Tsvangirai narrowly escaped with his life yesterday,
and
his wife was killed. It may well have been an accident. Scores happen
every
day on that road. People are regularly injured or killed. The problem
is
that Robert Mugabe's regime scarcely deserves the benefit of the doubt,
especially if reports that the police confiscated MDC film of the accident
scene are true.
Mr Mugabe's henchmen have had his opponents killed in
car crashes before.
They have spent years trying to silence Mr Tsvangirai
through assassination
attempts, trumped-up treason charges, death threats,
beatings and torture.
They are now being asked to share power with this man
and for some that is
too much to stomach.
Ever since the unity
Government was set up in mid-February a shadowy group
of military and
security chiefs has been conspiring to undermine it. The big
question is
whether it is acting with the secret blessing of the wily Old
Crocodile, or
whether Mr Mugabe has simply lost control of his own party.
http://www.voanews.com
By Patience Rusere & Ntungamili Nkomo
Washington
06 March
2009
Zimbabweans expressed sorrow and shock late Friday at the death
of Susan
Tsvangirai, wife of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, in a highway
crash in
which Mr. Tsvangirai was injured, some voicing the suspicion that
the
collision between the car in which the Tsvangirais were traveling and a
tractor-trailer combination might not have been an accident.
There
was no immediate statement from Mr. Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic
Change party on the crash and party officials said there were no
plans to
issue one.
Sources within the party who declined to speak on the record
expressed
suspicions about the incident in which the articulated truck
swerved from
the oncoming lane into the three-car convoy in which the
Tsvangirais were
traveling, clipping their middle vehicle.
Elections
Director Dennis Murira of Mr. Tsvangirai's MDC formation gave an
account of
the crash to reporter Ntungamili Nkomo of VOA's Studio 7 for
Zimbabwe.
Differences between Mr. Tsvangirai and President Robert
Mugabe over the
detention of MDC officials among issues have sharpened just
three weeks
after the formation of the national unity government formed as a
solution to
the country's post-election crisis.
Hard-liners in Mr.
Mugabe's long-ruling ZANU-PF party are believed to have
opposed the
formation of the unity government and to be intent upon bringing
it
down.
Spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, an
assistant
commissioner, said the crash occurred around 5 p.m. on the highway
from
Harare to Masvingo.
Bvudzijena confirmed that a truck headed for
Harare veered into the lane in
which the prime minister's vehicle was
traveling and sideswiped the Toyota
Land Cruiser. According to Bvudzijena
and others the vehicle rolled over
three times before coming to
rest.
Murira said Susan Tsvangirai was declared dead on arrival at a
hospital in
Beatrice, south of Harare. He said Tsvangirai sustained only
minor scratches
and bruises.
But, said Murira, "the devastating news
is that he has lost his beloved
wife, a woman who was of immense
significance to the party, a woman who on
several occasions managed to
comfort a number of us who were victims of this
struggle."
Mr.
Tsvangirai was traveling to Buhera, Manicaland province, where he had
planned to spend the night and attend a party meeting Saturday at the
Murambinda Business Center.
A statement issued by the MDC formation
led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur
Mutambara said the party was "shocked
and deeply sorry" at Susan
Tsvangirai's death, describing her as a
"wonderful, warm, down-to-earth
mother of the nation."
Earnest
Mudzengi, director of the National Constitutional Assembly, told
reporter
Patience Rusere of VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the death of
Susan
Tsvangirai, 50, was "painful and shocking" coming so soon after
Tsvangirai's
swearing in as prime minister.
He said he had known Susan Tsvangirai
since 2000, one year after the
formation of the MDC, and said she was
extremely supportive to her husband
in his years leading the opposition,
especially when he was arrested and
badly beaten by police in March
2007.
Mudzengi said he would not venture to say whether the crash was
anything
other than an accident, but "many people who I have talked to,
their first
question would be was this not a politically motivated accident"
in light of
tensions within the unity government.
Ordinary
Zimbabweans mourned the death of Susan Tsvangirai.
A Kadoma resident who
gave his name only as George said he learned of her
death through a text
message and said he hopes she will be recognized as a
national
heroine.
Tawanda Maurise of Mutare said he heard of Mrs. Tsvangirai's
death on VOA's
Studio 7 and expressed the hope that the fatal crash will not
derail the
unity government.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
March
7, 2009
Jan Raath in Harare
President Mugabe's secret police are putting
pressure on Zimbabwe's already
subdued judiciary to ensure that Roy Bennett,
one of Morgan Tsvangirai's
most important aides, remains in
prison.
Their campaign of intimidation is pushing the country's
three-week old
"unity" Government towards dangerous instability as
hardliners assert their
control, Western diplomats say.
On Wednesday
a magistrate, Livingstone Chipadza, signed the warrant for Mr
Bennett's
release from Mutare prison on the instructions of a Harare High
Court judge.
The former farmer has been held there since February 13, days
before he was
due to be sworn in as deputy minister of agriculture. He faces
charges of
"banditry, terrorism and sabotage".
On Thursday secret police arrested Mr
Chipadza for "criminal abuse of
office". He remained in jail yesterday and
his lawyers were prevented from
seeing him, said Trust Maanda, of Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights.
Prison officials had delayed Mr Bennett's
release throughout Wednesday even
though the US$2,000 (£1,400) bail had been
paid and the release warrant
signed. "They said they were waiting for
instructions," Mr Maanda said.
The apparent theft of the bail papers
resolved the officials' dilemma.
"We were with the prison superintendent
when two senior prisons officers
came in," Mr Maanda said. "They said they
wanted to see the liberation
warrant and the bail receipts and would be back
in three minutes. Then they
vanished into the night and we haven't seen the
papers since."
Then two officers of the police "law and order" section
arrived at the
Supreme Court while the only judge in the building was
presiding over the
State's latest attempt to obstruct Mr Bennett's bail.
They had driven up in
a well-known red van that was used to abduct activists
of Mr Tsvangirai's
Movement for Democratic Change.
They asked
officials for the Chief Justice. When told he was out, they spoke
privately
to the court registrar, and left. "The woman came out ashen. She
was
terrified," said a witness who asked not to be named. A lawyer said: "I
don't know what they said but their intention is to intimidate the
judges."
It is accepted that the country is being run behind the scenes
by "a third
force" comprising the fully politicised Joint Operational
Command of the
heads of the armed services, intelligence and prisons. Their
aim is to
ensure Mr Mugabe holds full authority, irrespective of the
establishment of
the coalition Government.
Mr Bennett is a former
member of the security forces of the former white
minority Rhodesian
Government. But he is unusual among Zimbabwean whites. He
speaks Shona
fluently, and has been inducted in a traditional ceremony by a
chief in his
home area of Chimanimani in southeast Zimbabwe, as a headman.
Both times
he stood for Parliament, he humiliated his opponents in Mr Mugabe's
Zanu
(PF). "It's not just that he's a political threat," a senior Movement
for
Democratic Change official said. "They hate him with a passion because
he's
white and he's better at being black than they are."
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Own
Correspondent Saturday 07 March 2009
HARARE - The Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) has filed an urgent
application at the High
Court challenging the decision by the Registrar
General (RG)'s department to
charge fees for passports and emergency travel
documents in foreign
currency.
ZLHR lawyer Rangu Nyumurundira told Zimonline that he had filed
the
application at the High Court seeking to set aside the RG's decision to
demand payment for the documents in American dollars.
"We filed an
application today on behalf of particular litigant who failed
to get a
passport. The RG's office, RG Tobaiwa Mudede and the Ministry of
Home
Affairs are the respondents," said Namurundira.
"In the application we
are starting that the fees are too exorbitant and out
of reach for ordinary
Zimbabweans and therefore violet freedom of movement
of the
people."
A Zimbabwean passport now costs US$670 while a passport for
children costs
US$420 and on top of this is a supplementary charge of US$20
for the
application form.
An emergency travel document valid for only
six months costs US$70 and can
only be used to travel to a select few
African countries.
The government has allowed the use of the US dollar
and a basket of other
foreign currencies in Zimbabwe. But the local dollar
remains legal tender. -
ZimOnline
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
by Sebastian
Nyamhangambiri Saturday 07 March 2009
HARARE - Zimbabwe's
High Court on Friday ordered the immediate release of
three men held under
protective custody in a case of banditry and terrorism
involving some
members of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party and
human rights
activist Jestina Mukoko.
"I order the immediate release of Fannie Tembo,
Lloyd Tarumbwa and Terry
Musona from police custody or the custody of any
other state agent," said
Justice Ben Hlatshwayo delivering
judgment.
"This order stands enforceable notwithstanding the noting or
filing of an
appeal."
The three MDC activists have been missing since
October last year after they
and other party activists were abducted by
state agents from their
respective homes and accused of plotting to
overthrow President Robert
Mugabe.?
They have been held incommunicado
until this week when the High Court
allowed relatives to visit them as
police insisted they were being kept in
custody for their own safety after
they betrayed their colleagues by
agreeing to cooperate with the
state.
Human rights lawyers Chris Mhike and Innocent Chagonda took the
state to the
High Court to release the trio arguing that the three were
bread winners for
their families and the state had not provided their
families with assistance
while they were in custody.?
The state
represented by Nelson Mutsonziwa had opposed the application
saying the
three would be state witnesses when Mukoko's trial starts.
Top Zimbabwe
human rights campaigner Mukoko was released on bail this week
in what
analysts said was an encouraging sign that Tsvangirai's calls for
political
prisoners to be freed were finally being heeded.
Mukoko, a former state
broadcaster and now director of human rights
organisation Zimbabwe Peace
Project (ZPP), and the MDC activists are charged
with attempting to recruit
people for military training in neighbouring
Botswana to overthrow Mugabe
and his ZANU PF party. - ZimOnline
http://www.zimonline.co.za/
S
by Nokuthula
Sibanda Saturday 07 March 2009
HARARE - South Africa's
government is considering opening a credit line
facility to its crisis hit
northern neighbour Zimbabwe, Finance minister
Trevor Manuel has
said.
In an Interview with Financial Mail Manuel published Friday, he
said the
credit line facility made sense since most of the goods needed to
restock
retail outlets in Zimbabwe would be sourced from in South
Africa.
"We will look at the credit facility," the FM quoted Manuel as
having said.
"There is an old (Reserve Bank) credit line from 1967 that goes
back to
(Rhodesia's) unilateral declaration of independence, and we are
exploring
using that."
Newly installed, Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai has estimated it needs
US$2 billion now to get farms, schools and
hospitals working, and another $5
billion later to fully rebuild the
economy.
President Kgalema Montlathe's government has already availed 300
million
rand in farm support to Zimbabwe in a bid to revive its once
prosperous'
agricultural sector.
Despite the power sharing deal
between President Robert Mugabe and Prime
Minister Morgan Tsvangirai many
Western donors, remain skeptical about the
new unity government saying they
needed to see reforms before they can
provide support.
The United
States and the European Union have extended targeted visa and
financial
sanctions against Mugabe and members of inner circle. - ZimOnline
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
March
7, 2009
Andrew Norfolk
A mother and her two daughters who say they sought
sanctuary in Britain
after fleeing persecution in Zimbabwe face deportation
because an
immigration judge says they are lying.
Priviledge, Valerie
and Lorraine Thulambo, who were living in Sheffield,
have been in a
detention centre for three months and are likely to be thrown
out of the
country in April.
They have told tales of torture, rape and the murder of
close relatives by
thugs from Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu (PF) party, but
the UK Border Agency
has decided that the account is "wholly
fabricated".
Because the Thulambos came to Britain on Malawian passports,
they are being
treated as Malawian citizens and are due to be deported to
Malawi. Mrs
Thulambo, 39, says her passport was fraudulently obtained and is
convinced
she and her girls will be sent from Malawi to Zimbabwe to face
torture and
persecution.
Immigration officials say there is no reason
to believe her claim, but
campaigners for Zimbabwean asylum seekers say that
it has already happened
at least once. Britain has not forcibly removed any
failed asylum seeker to
Zimbabwe since 2006, but supporters of the Thulambos
accuse the agency of
using Malawi as a backdoor.
Mrs Thulambo said her
husband - a supporter of the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC)
- was dragged to a police station and beaten so
savagely in the face and
genitals that he returned a broken man. She said
she watched her brother die
in agony after a Zanu (PF) gang, outraged by his
refusal to reveal a wanted
relative's whereabouts, forced him to drink rat
poison. Speaking from Yarl's
Wood detention centre, in Bedfordshire, she
cried as she told The Times of a
mob's visit to her Harare home.
As she was beaten and sexually assaulted,
she said her daughters, then aged
11 and 9, were taken into another room and
raped. It is a harrowing
narrative that has won the family support from Nick
Clegg, the Liberal
Democrat leader and their former MP, and friends in
Sheffield where they
were active in their local church.
Mrs Thulambo
was hoping to train as a nurse. Violet, 21, passed three
A-levels and won a
place at university to study law and Lorraine, 18, was at
college. She
wanted to become a social worker. A family friend, Helen
Fisher, says the
Thulambos have "spent their time in Britain trying to
improve their
situation because they wanted to contribute to British
society".
Such praise does not impress immigration officials. "It is
in my view
entirely clear that [Mrs Thulambo] has presented a wholly
fabricated account
of her alleged persecution," an immigration judge said in
2004.
At the heart of the case is the Malawian passport used by Mrs
Thulambo when
she came to Britain in 2002. Her daughters came two years
later. The Border
Agency says the passport is genuine. Mrs Thulambo says it
was obtained by
bribing a Malawian official. It states that she was born in
Malawi and is
the daughter of Macca Thulambo, a Malawian. ButThe Timeshas
seen birth and
marriage certificates, whose authenticity is not disputed,
which state that
Mrs Thulambo was born in Harare, and that Macca was her
husband.
She says that she had a clothes shop in Harare and that Macca -
born in
Zimbabwe to Malawian parents - was an accountant. They made frequent
journeys between Zimbabwe and Malawi until the late 1990s.
With her
brother and her husband dead, Mrs Thulambo says she was advised to
seek a
new life in Britain.
The prosecution's case has ammunition aplenty. Mrs
Thulambo came to Britain
on a Malawian passport, she did not appeal for
asylum immediately and she
used forged papers to obtain work as a
carer.
Thus far, the Home Office has not been swayed by a 220-signature
petition, a
Facebook campaign that has 2,000 members and a prayer vigil at
St Mark's
Church in Sheffield.
When Lorraine learnt last month of the
rejection of a judicial review
application, she tried to hang herself in her
room at Yarl's Wood. The
family's final chance will come at a hearing on
April 6 .
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees says Zimbabwean citizens
"with
fraudulently obtained Malawian passports" will normally be "delivered
to the
authorities in Zimbabwe".
Mrs Thulambo said: "We finally felt
safe and England was starting to feel
like home. Now it feels like your
country is throwing us to the lions."