The ZIMBABWE Situation Our thoughts and prayers are with Zimbabwe
- may peace, truth and justice prevail.

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nasdaq.com

      In Broke Zimbabwe, Bank Can't Afford To Print New Money

      HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)--In a sign of Zimbabwe's dire economic straits,
the central bank was unable to print new money because the heavily indebted
government failed to give it enough hard currency to import special paper,
inks and security seals, state radio reported Friday

      Zimbabwe lurched closer to economic collapse as banks ran out of
money, fuel and power shortages worsened, factories slowed production and
even pay phones were being scrapped because inflation has made calls too
expensive for coins.

      Shortages of the largest-denomination banknotes, 500 Zimbabwean
dollars, left banks without enough cash for regular withdrawals.

      The official exchange rate of 800 Zimbabwe dollars to the U.S. unit.
The black market, or "parallel" exchange rate, is 1,400-1.

      "We have reached an extremely serious situation. If it continues like
this, the economy will soon come to a complete standstill," said James Jowa,
chief economist at the independent Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.

      Acute shortages of gasoline have worsened, with vehicles lined outside
empty gas stations for up to three days.

      Industries and businesses are reporting growing absenteeism by staff
who can't get transportation to work.

      Industrial production is estimated to be more than 60% below capacity.
Inflation has soared to a record 228% this year and unemployment is nearly
70%.

      Production has been further hurt by regular power outages, known as
"load shedding," by the state electricity utility since April 20. Some
factories have been without power for six hours a day.

      Energy Minister Amos Midzi told state television Thursday that
regional power suppliers have classified Zimbabwe as "an unreliable
customer" and reserved the right to shut off power at short notice.

      Acute food shortages have been blamed on erratic rains and the often
violent confiscation of thousands of white-owned commercial farms since
2000.

      Foreign aid, investment and loans dried up in protest at political
violence, state-orchestrated human rights abuses and disputed presidential
elections last year that independent observers said were rigged.

      Foreign funding accounted for nearly half the hard currency inflows.
The rest came from tobacco harvests, tourism and mining, all now sharply
depleted.

      "The government is broke. There's no chance at all of recovery without
a political settlement and support from the international community," Jowa
said.

  Dow Jones Newswires
  05-09-031301ETCopyright (C) 2003 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
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CNN

Zimbabwe economy teeters on brink
Friday, May 9, 2003 Posted: 2:31 PM EDT (1831 GMT)

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Zimbabwe lurched closer to economic collapse Friday
as banks ran out of money, fuel and power shortages worsened, factories
slowed production and pay phones were scrapped because calls have become too
expensive for coins.

The central bank was not able to print money because the heavily indebted
government failed to give it enough hard currency to import special paper,
ink and security seals, state radio reported Friday.

Shortages of the largest denomination, the 500 Zimbabwe dollar bill, left
banks without enough cash for regular withdrawals.

A box of matches costs 15 Zimbabwe dollars, or two U.S. cents at the
official exchange rate of 800 Zimbabwe dollars to the U.S. dollar. The black
market rate is 1,400-1.

"We have reached an extremely serious situation. If it continues like this,
the economy will soon come to a complete standstill," said James Jowa, chief
economist at the independent Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.

Acute shortages of gasoline have worsened, with vehicles lined up outside
empty gas stations for as long as three days. Some vehicles are abandoned by
owners in what drivers call "hope" lines.

Industries and businesses report growing absenteeism by staff who can't get
transportation to work. It simply isn't available, says the Confederation of
Zimbabwe Industries.

"The number of man-hours lost as a result is incalculable. Man-hours also
lost as a result of workers spending many hours in fuel queues is
mind-boggling," said Farai Zizhou, acting head of the confederation.

Industrial production is estimated to be 60 percent below capacity as
Zimbabwe faces its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980.
Inflation has soared to a record 228 percent this year and unemployment is
nearly 70 percent.

Production has been further hurt by regular power outages, known as "load
shedding," by the state electricity utility since April 20. Some factories
have been without power for six hours a day.

The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority announced last month that supplies
of power imported from the Congo and neighboring Mozambique, Zambia and
South Africa were being reduced because Zimbabwe failed to pay for imports
in foreign currency.

Energy Minister Amos Midzi told state television Thursday that regional
power suppliers classified Zimbabwe as "an unreliable customer" and reserved
the right to shut off power at short notice.

Zimbabwe imports 35 percent of its power requirements.

Many stores and offices in downtown Harare closed Tuesday during a six-hour
power outage that jammed elevators and cashpoints, shut down refrigerators
and froze computers at firms without back-up power.

Zimbabwe's coal-fired and hydroelectric generating stations have been hit by
breakdowns and shortages of spare parts and equipment.

Acute food shortages have been blamed on erratic rains and the often violent
confiscation of thousands of white-owned commercial farms since 2000.

The state telephone company says it has begun ripping out its pay phones.

It said in a statement last week that the largest coin -- 5 Zimbabwe
dollars -- was far too low in value for spiraling call charges. The company
said it was trying to set up computerized "phone shops" and public card
phones but warned "this will depend on the availability of foreign
currency."

Jowa, the chamber of commerce economist, said not much of that was in sight.

Foreign aid, investment and loans dried up in protest at political violence,
state-orchestrated human rights abuses and disputed presidential elections
last year that independent observers said were rigged.

Foreign funding accounted for nearly half the hard currency inflows. The
rest came from tobacco harvests, tourism and mining, all now sharply
depleted.

"The government is broke. There's no chance at all of recovery without a
political settlement and support from the international community," Jowa
said.
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From The Guardian (UK), 9 May

Reporter willing to face questions, says lawyer

Steven Morris

Lawyers acting for the Guardian's Zimbabwe correspondent, Andrew Meldrum,
insisted yesterday he was willing to be interviewed by bona fide officials
following proper procedures. Meldrum's legal team suspect immigration
officials intended to deport him when they turned up in force at his home
after dark on Wednesday night. They have tried to contact the immigration
authorities to find out why they wanted to speak with Meldrum, an American
citizen, but have so far been unable to do so. Meldrum's lawyer, Beatrice
Mtetwa, said: "He remains willing to answer questions to bona fide officials
provided they follow proper legal procedure which requires that they state
their inquiry upfront." Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian's editor, said: "We
are extremely concerned about the intentions of the Zimbabwean immigration
authorities in pursuing our journalist Andrew Meldrum. We can only conclude
that this is an attempt to intimidate Andrew and undermine the operation of
a free press in Zimbabwe, something the international community should
condemn in the strongest terms." He has written to the foreign secretary,
Jack Straw, the US ambassador, William Farish, and international press
organisations urging them to intervene.


According to Ms Mtetwa, a convoy of at least three vehicles arrived at
Meldrum's home at 8pm. He was not present. When the officials were asked why
they were there they said Meldrum was "wanted for questioning". They refused
to say what the questioning was about. The immigration officials left to get
reinforcements. Ms Mtetwa said the visit to Meldrum's home was similar to
previous cases "where nighttime visits by large numbers of officers
invariably led to arrest, detention and deportation". She has written to the
immigration authorities confirming Meldrum's willingness to be interviewed
at the immigration offices in Harare in working hours, once he is told what
the questioning is about. The Zimbabwean authorities have been attempting to
imprison and deport Meldrum for more than a year. Last July the high court
in Harare rejected a move by the government of President Robert Mugabe to
have him deported. The previous week a magistrates court acquitted Meldrum
of charges brought under a new press law which threatened to punish
journalists writing "falsehoods". Shortly before Meldrum's house was visited
by immigration authorities on Wednesday, Zimbabwe's supreme court struck
down key sections of the law under which Meldrum had been prosecuted. Three
journalists have been expelled from the country over the past two years.
Meldrum is one of the last international journalists reporting from inside
Zimbabwe. He holds permanent resident status, having covered the country for
the Guardian for 22 years.
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VOA

Zimbabwe Opposition Leader Continues to Challenge Election Results
Peta Thornycroft
Harare
09 May 2003, 17:19 UTC

Zimbabwe's opposition leader has gone to court to try and force authorities
to move forward with his legal challenge to President Robert Mugabe's
election victory a year ago.

Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Friday filed
papers in the High Court demanding that his legal challenge to the 2002
presidential elections begin.

The presidential election took place in March of last year. The opposition
said the election was seriously flawed and, as the law required, filed a
legal challenge 90 days after the results were announced.

In his petition on Friday, Mr. Tsvangirai accuses state lawyers of failing
to comply with court rules. He says, among other things, the state still
refuses to provide ballot papers and boxes from the disputed election.

He also says a pre-trial conference held last September did not lead to a
trial date and no judge has yet been assigned to the case. Mr. Tsvangirai
says all of these breaches of procedure are illegal.

Last week, Mr. Mugabe and the presidents of three African countries asked
Mr. Tsvangirai to drop his election challenge to facilitate peace talk
between the ruling ZANU-PF and the opposition party.

Mr. Mugabe said he would not talk to Mr. Tsvangirai unless he took the step.
But the opposition leader responded that he would not withdraw the challenge
unless an infrastructure was agreed for a transitional authority leading to
fresh elections in Zimbabwe.

In his petition Mr. Tsvangirai, who lost the election by 15 percent of the
vote, said he would object to a judge presiding over the case who was also a
beneficiary of Zimbabwe's controversial land reform program.

Mr. Tsvangirai said any judge who had been given a farm by Mr. Mugabe's
administration would be biased against him.

One of the beneficiaries of Mr. Mugabe's land reform program is the second
most important legal figure in Zimbabwe, the president of the High Court,
Judge Paddington Garwe. He would normally hear a case of this importance.

If Mr. Tsvangirai's application is granted, the trial will have to begin
seven days later.
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BBC
 
Zimbabwe short of banknotes
A 500 Zimbabwe dollar note
Banks are issuing smaller notes

The Zimbabwe government can no longer afford to pay for the ink and special paper needed to print the local currency according to the state-controlled Herald Newspaper.

It said the government had no foreign currency to pay for the materials, which have to be imported.

Local money will now be added to the long list of shortages in the country.

Long queues of people waiting outside banks to withdraw cash are already a familiar sight in the capital, Harare.

A petrol station in Harare
This petrol station has had no fuel for a week

The shortage of banknotes will add to the frustrations for people who are already coping with shortages of fuel and basic commodities.

The newspaper report said banks had resorted to issuing the small 100 and 50 Zimbabwe dollar bills (worth 12 US cents and six US cents).

But that is unlikely to help in a country where inflation stands at 228% and prices increase weekly.

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British Foreign Secretary to Visit


UN Integrated Regional Information Networks

May 9, 2003
Posted to the web May 9, 2003

Johannesburg

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will visit South Africa next week to
conduct bilateral talks and visit community development projects.

This follows a visit to the region last week by Walter Kansteiner, the US
assistant secretary of state for African affairs, to open a trade
information office in Botswana for countries eligible for the African Growth
and Opportunity Act.


An update on Zimbabwe will be on Straw's agenda, which will also include
developments in Iraq and other matters, British High Commission spokesman
Nick Sheppard said on Friday.

President Thabo Mbeki travelled to Zimbabwe earlier this week to join his
Malawian and Nigerian counterparts for a series of meetings with President
Robert Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change over the
country's political and economic crisis.

Straw's visit follows a meeting between the South African president and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair two months ago, and an agreement that the
two would meet again to continue discussions.

Relations between Britain and Zimbabwe are currently strained over the
country's land reform programme, which Zimbabwe says Britain, as the
country's former coloniser, must pay for.
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ifex.org

  Source: Media Institute of Southern Africa
  Date: 09 MAY 2003
  Country/Topic: Zimbabwe
  Person(s):
  Target(s):
  Type(s) of violation(s): legal action
  Urgency: Bulletin
(MISA/IFEX) - The following is a 7 May 2003 MISA-Zimbabwe statement:


MISA-Zimbabwe statement on the repealing of Section 80 of AIPPA

The Zimbabwe chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa
(MISA-Zimbabwe) welcomes the striking down of Section 80 of the Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). We regard this as a
victory for all those who believe in, and are fighting for, freedom of
expression and the rights of media workers.

We note that since the enactment of the AIPPA Bill, MISA-Zimbabwe and other
media stakeholders have been calling for the repealing of not only Section
80, but the entire Act. We believe the Act does not contain any ingredients
that promote access to information.

Since the enactment of the AIPPA in March 2002, over 34 charges have been
brought against journalists and other media persons under Section 80. It was
also clear that the section was being abused to target private media
journalists only. Section 80 rendered the practice of journalism criminal
and impossible.

To date, all efforts to commence dialogue with the concerned ministry have
proven unsuccessful. It is therefore with great relief and vindication that
the courts have seen it prudent to strike this section off the statutes
books. Section 80 was in many aspects similar to some sections of the
repealed Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA). There is no doubt that the
government simply re-introduced legislation that it knows was declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court a few years ago. MISA-Zimbabwe hails
the consistency that has been shown by the Supreme Court so far.

The striking of Section 80 gives us hope that the courts will find many of
the AIPPA sections that negatively affect the work of journalists equally
unconstitutional.

MORE INFORMATION:



For further information, contact Zoe Titus or Kaitira Kandjii, Regional
Information Coordinator, MISA, Street Address: 21 Johann Albrecht Street,
Mailing Address; Private Bag 13386 Windhoek, Namibia, tel: +264 61 232975,
fax: +264 61 248016, e-mail:
research@misa.org or kkandjii@misa.org,
Internet:
http://www.misa.org/
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SABC

            Ending Zimbabwe crisis will take pain, sacrifice: Mbeki
            May 09, 2003, 13:30

            The longer Zimbabwe's problems remain unresolved, the more
entrenched poverty will become, and the greater the degree of social
instability, President Thabo Mbeki said today.

            Writing in the African National Congress' online publication,
ANC Today, he said it would take pain and sacrifice on the part of
Zimbabweans to end the economic crisis in that country. Mbeki added that,
contrary to what some in South Africa claimed, the crisis did not originate
from the desperate actions of a reckless political leadership. "It arose
from a genuine concern to meet the needs of the black poor, without taking
into account the harsh economic reality that, in the end, we must pay for
what we consume."

            Mbeki, commenting just days after he and the presidents of
Nigeria and Malawi held talks with Robert Mugabe, with Zimbabwe's President,
and the opposition's Morgan Tsvangirai to help resolve the crisis, said
social instability would rise as the poor tried to respond to the pains of
hunger.

            The more protracted this instability, the greater would be the
polarisation and generalised social and political conflict in Zimbabwe. "To
respond to this, the state will inevitably have to emphasise issues of law
and order, even as it has ever fewer means to address the needs of the
people.

            "As it responds in this manner, the less it will have the
possibility to address anything else other than the issue of law and order.
The more it does this, the greater will be the degree of the absence of
order and stability."

            Unaffordable fuel subsidy
            This was not because of demonic people in the Zimbabwean capital
"harbouring evil hearts". To come out of the crisis, the people of Zimbabwe
would have to make serious sacrifices, as demonstrated by the recent sharp
increase in fuel prices as the government reduced the unaffordable fuel
subsidy. Mbeki said he remained convinced the people of Zimbabwe had to
decide their own future.

            "Our own experience as a movement (the ANC) tells us
unequivocally, that no lasting solution to the challenges that face Zimbabwe
can be found, unless that solution comes from the people of Zimbabwe
themselves.

            "It tells us that no Zimbabweans with any pride in their
country, and respect for themselves, will accept that another should
determine their destiny."

            South Africa would never treat Zimbabwe as its tenth province.
This country would continue to encourage the ruling Zanu-PF and the Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) to negotiate a common response to Zimbabwe's
challenges, as was done earlier this week. "We were pleased and inspired
that the leadership of Zimbabwe itself holds the same view.

            "Accordingly, we hope that all obstacles to the resumption of
the dialogue between ZANU-PF and the MDC, if any exist, will be removed, so
that the talks can begin," he said. - Sapa
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Financial Times

      America promises aid if Zimbabwe reforms
      By John Reed in Johannesburg
      Published: May 9 2003 17:09 | Last Updated: May 9 2003 17:09


      America is poised to pour economic aid into Zimbabwe if an African-led
diplomatic effort launched this week brings a "credible" blueprint for
political change, a top US diplomat said on Friday.


      "Zimbabwe will need a tremendous amount of reconstruction, and if the
process leads to a breakthrough, we are ready to jump in with both technical
and financial resources," Walter Kansteiner, assistant secretary of state
for Africa, said in an interview on Friday.
      On Saturday Mr Kansteiner wraps up a tour of southern Africa focused
largely on efforts to end the stalemate between Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe and his opponents. On Monday a mission to Harare by three African
leaders extracted pledges from Mr Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai to hold talks.

      US assistance for Zimbabwe might include technical aid to rebuild
infrastructure, help in rebuilding civil society and organising new
elections, as well as direct bilateral aid, Mr Kansteiner said.

      Asked about US preconditions for aid, he said: "There would have to be
a credible and legitimate process unfolding, and a transition occurring."
However, he added: "I don't see any red lines."

      In dangling the carrot of US aid in exchange for a political
settlement between the warring camps, the remarks go beyond previous
American diplomatic pledges. Formerly the US had said it would withhold any
help for Zimbabwe until Mr Mugabe resigns and new elections are held.

      With Zimbabwe's economy in free-fall, US and UK diplomatic pressure
for an African-led political settlement is intensifying. The crisis is
expected to top the agenda when Jack Straw, UK foreign secretary, visits
South Africa next week.

      Mr Kansteiner called this week's diplomatic mission led by South
Africa's Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria's Olesegun Obasanjo, and Malawi's Bakili
Muluzi, "a significant beginning: "I think it marks a real engagement and
involvement, and I'm quite hopeful," he said.

      His remarks are more upbeat than most opinion within the region after
this week's talks, which failed to bring a previously rumoured pledge from
Mr Mugabe to step down. The Zimbabwean leader also said he would only meet
Mr Tsvangirai if he drops a legal challenge to his re-election last year.

      Some Africans also fear a heavy-handed US attempt at coercive "regime
change" in Zimbabwe. "The people of Zimbabwe must decide their own future,"
President Mbeki said in a weekly letter published Friday on the website of
his African National Congress.

      Mr Kansteiner dismissed the notion, saying: "What we want is regime
legitimacy - for the voice of the Zimbabwean people to be effectively
heard."
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Dear Sir,
It must be a terrible thing in one's dotage to know that all you have worked for, striven for,
is worthless, that all the world knows that you are a tired old man with nothing to show for your almost 80 years but hatred, sycophancy, from the people you are supposed to be leading to whatever your twisted mind considers your treasured goal.
 
Hiding in the depths of your palace in fearful self-imprisonment, only appearing cowering in the most heavily armoured vehicle in the world, knowing how your people "love" you;
or protected by a host of microphones on a rostrum, heavily guarded by a bunch of hoodlums in uniform.   Barking, frenzied, spewing hatred like a terrified, sick minded dog barking at shadows, at everything that moves.
 
Watching your hated rival walking fearless, made riotously welcome in the streets of the townships where you dare not go for fear they might tear you limb from limb (as possibly they well might.
 
How are your stomach pains, your headaches?  Worse, much worse?    You might be an object of pity if there had been the slightest pity shown by you for those you and your henchmen tortured, raped, beat to a pulp.    But no; only now an object of derision - and hatred.
 
Keep on having your sleepless nights, old man, tortured by your fears, your insecurity.
Tortured now by the wild rejoicings of the people of Iraq that they are free from the rule of the Middle Eastern Beast, Saddam Hussein.   And knowing that the people of Zimbabwe will similarly rejoice when the Beast of Southern Africa is no more.   You will, of course,
recall that the Beast is one with the mighty Beelzebub below, the Devil himself.  
 
And recall - "those whom the gods would destroy they first make mad".   Feel it coming on, old man?    Or are you way past that stage by now?   The curses of millions of your people
are upon you, and there is no escape from the punishment those curses will bring you.
 
Anon
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news24

Tsvangirai seeks passport
09/05/2003 16:23  - (SA)


Harare - Lawyers for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Friday they
were trying to secure his passport, confiscated by the state last year, to
allow him to travel to Malawi next week.

The Movement for Democratic Change leader wants to meet Malawian President
Bakili Muluzi over the stalemate do discuss the stalemate in talks with
President Robert Mugabe's government.

Tsvangirai was invited on Tuesday by Muluzi the day after he visited
Zimbabwe with South African president Thabo Mbekei and Nigerian
president-elect Olusegun Obasanjo in an attempt to bring the MDC and
Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party to negotiations aimed at ending the country's
crisis.

However, he can only go if he gets back his passport, confiscated since last
year when he was indicted for trial on charges of plotting to assassinate
Mugabe.

Tsvangirai's attorney, Innocent Chagonda, said on Friday he was applying to
the high court for the release of the passport.

The application would include Welshman Ncube, secretary-general of
Tsvangirai's opposition Movement for Democratic Change, who is a co-accused
in his trial, and party vice-president Gibson Sibanda, facing charges of
helping to organise a national strike in March last month.

The MDC wants the two officials to accompany Tsvangirai to Malawi, but they
also had their passports seized after criminal proceedings were opened
against them.

William Bango, Tsvangirai's spokesperson, said the pro-democracy leader had
been invited by the Malawi high commissioner in Harare on Tuesday, the day
after the three African leaders' visit.

Expectations that the three would lean on the 79-year-old Mugabe to
relinquish his 23-year grip on power evaporated when he said he would not
talk to Tsvangirai unless he withdrew the MDC's court challenge to Mugabe's
widely disputed victory in presidential elections last year.

Chagonda said the meeting with Muluzi in Lilongwe was provisionally
scheduled for Friday next week, and Tsvangirai planned to leave Zimbabwe on
Thursday.

Tsvangirai's treason trial resumes on Monday, and Chagonda said he would
apply for the hearing to be postponed on Thursday and Friday to allow
Tsvangirai and Ncube to travel to Malawi.

The two, as well as MDC agriculture secretary Renson Gasela, have pleaded
not guilty but face the death penalty if convicted. - Sapa-DPA
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JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE PR COMMUNIQUÉ - May 9, 2003

Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet: www.justiceforagriculture.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

In today's Herald newspaper the full page Government advert exhorts the
people not to subsidise lawlessness and violence and to insist on the rule
of law.  This is ludicrous considering the State sponsored break down of
the rule of law, particularly in the Agricultural areas of Zimbabwe over
the past four years.  It is just as ludicrous when one considers the State
sponsored Genocide carried out by the Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland in the
early 1980's.

The people in the rural areas, farmers and their farm workers, members of
the opposition and indeed millions of Zimbabweans have experienced enormous
economic losses as a direct consequence of the state sponsored break down
of the rule of law.  Zimbabweans have suffered physical and mental torture
over a protracted period and many have lost their lives as a result.

This is part of the advert "Don't subsidise their lawlessness and violence.
Insist on the rule of law. If you suffered any injury, loss or damage to
property or if you suffered any economic loss as a result of the illegal
stayaway and violent mass action, you have a legal right to be compensated
by those who organized, encouraged or supported the illegal stayaway.
Consult your lawyer on what you should do or call us for more information
at: Dept. of Information and Publicity, Office of the President and
Cabinet.  Phone: 4-703891 or Fax: 4-790402".

Well this could be interesting for farmers and their farm workers who have
been illegally and unconstitutionally deprived of their rights by the state
sponsored machinery.  Deprived of their home, their assets, their income,
their profession, their pension, their right to unbiased recourse to the
law for crimes perpetrated against them even their right to be heard on
court prior to eviction without conviction, their right to live peacefully
without fear of violence, eviction and persecution.

Perhaps now is the time to take the Government at its word, and see if
their definition of the Rule of Law applies to every Zimbabwean citizen
across the board???

JAG is preparing a Rule of Law Case which seeks to prove not only that
there has been a breakdown in the rule of law in the agricultural regions
of Zimbabwe but that this has been state sponsored and inspired and that
state law enforcement agencies such as the ZRP and NDF's have been
complicit in this, either by active involvement or omission of or
dereliction to duty in upholding the rule of law.

Submission of this case is now imminent and in the light of the ludicrous
claims above - URGENT!!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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To subscribe/unsubscribe: Please write to
jag-list-admin@mango.zw
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JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE LEGAL COMMUNIQUÉ - May 9, 2003

Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet: www.justiceforagriculture.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Rule of Law Case - URGENT

Farmers Association and Provincial supporting affidavits:

(To be read in conjunction with JAG legal communiqué of 8 May 2003 for
individual affidavits).

These affidavits need to tie the affidavits from your farmers' association
area or province together giving an overall impression of the extent of the
rule of law breakdown.  Topics that might be covered are general but it is
good to give specific examples of the general topic by referring to an
attached affidavit from one of your farmers or workers or a specific
experience that you had in this time.

Some of the topics may include answers to the following questions:

· Have farmers and their workers been prevented from reaping their crops in
your area?  If so, give a general picture and refer to an affidavit of a
specific farmer's or give a first hand account of a situation where you
were involved with such a situation.

· Have farmers and their workers been prevented from planting crops in your
area?  If so, refer to an affidavit from a specific farmer or give a first
hand account of a situation where you were involved with such a situation.

· Were farmers and/or their workers arrested without section 8's or with
nullified section 8's in your area?  If so, give a general picture and
refer to an affidavit from a specific farmer or give a first hand account
of a situation where you were involved with such a situation.

· Were farmers barred from returning to their homes and businesses by the
magistrates?  If so, refer to an affidavit from a specific farmer or give a
first hand account of a situation where you were involved with such a
situation.

· Were unlisted farmers demarcated and settled by the authorities?  If so,
refer to an affidavit from a specific farmer or give a first hand account
of a situation where you were involved with such a situation.

· Were farmers and/or farm workers subjected to forced evictions from their
homes while the police either stood by or assisted the invaders?  If so,
give a general picture and refer to an affidavit from a specific farmer or
give a first hand account of a situation where you were involved with such
a situation.

· Were farmers and/or farm workers subjected to beatings, pungwes or even
murders while the police failed or refused to react and arrest the
perpetrators?  If so, give a general picture and refer to an affidavit from
a specific farmer or give a first hand account of a situation where you
were involved with such a situation.

· Was maize for farm usage confiscated leaving farm workers with no food
while the police stood by or aided the individuals involved?  If so, give a
general picture and refer to an affidavit from a specific farmer or give a
first hand account of a situation where you were involved with such a
situation.

· Was grazing systematically destroyed by fire so that cattle had to be
sent for slaughter and ranching operations closed down while the police
failed or refused to arrest the perpetrators?  If so, refer to an affidavit
from a specific farmer or give a first hand account of a situation where
you were involved with such a situation.

· Were farmers forces to pay SI6 payments where they had no intention of
closing their farms down or laying off their workers?  If so, give a
general picture and refer to an affidavit from a specific farmer or give a
first hand account of a situation where you were involved with such a
situation.

· Have particular policemen been involved in "leading" the invaders or
police stations been manned by invaders?  If so, give a general picture and
refer to an affidavit from a specific farmer or give a first hand account
of a situation where you were involved with such a situation.

· Have police refused to take reports and give out RRB and CRB numbers?
If so, give a general picture and refer to an affidavit from a specific
farmer or give a first hand account of a situation where you were involved
with such a situation.

· Have police refused to carry out eviction orders of settlers or other
court orders that might have brought farming operations back to normal?
If so, give a general picture and refer to an affidavit from a specific
farmer or give a first hand account of a situation where you were involved
with such a situation.

I'm sure there are other topics that you may wish to bring in to show how
the rule of law has broken down in your area.  No affidavit will be fully
comprehensive but please attempt to do something on it as a matter of
urgency.  Two or three pages will be more than adequate.

As individual farmers reading this communiqué please check whether your
farmer representative at association or regional level is willing to assist
with this exercise as a matter of extreme urgency.  The Quinnell case seeks
also to show the general rule of law breakdown and we have a deadline to
meet in two weeks.  This is a major step towards restitution/compensation
and its success depends on whether you choose to bring out the evidence or
not.

Leviticus 5:1 "If a person sins because he does not speak up when he hears
a public charge to testify regarding something he has seen or learned
about, he will be held responsible"

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JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE LEGAL COMMUNIQUÉ - May 9, 2003

Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet: www.justiceforagriculture.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

A further 38 farms (see below) were listed today for compulsory acquisition
under Section 5 notice in The Herald.

Farmers are advised that they must object to all Section 5 notices and make
every legal effort to have their Section 8 orders set aside in the High
Court even reissue Section 8 orders which have a 7 day maturity.  Those
farmers who had the first section 8 set aside in the High Court using the
Tengwe Estate precedent of bond holders or registered real right Holders
are less vulnerable in that both section 5 notice and section 8 order are
rendered invalid.  Hence a new process of acquisition has to be initiated
and the first Sec. 8 under each new process has a 90-day maturity period.
Most vulnerable are those who had their Section 8 orders set aside using
the Simon and Simon precedent of section 7 process being out of time in
that this sets aside the section 8 order and leaves the section 5 notice
valid if it is still under 2 years old. This allows for a re-issue section
8 order with a 7 day maturity.

However many farmers had both strategies available for challenge and before
the 25th October 2002 amendment number 2 these farmers were advised to work
back chronologically in the legal challenges i.e. challenge under Simon and
Simon first. This means that those farmers with both strategies available
having received re-issue Section 8 orders might still have grounds to
challenge if the new process under

Amendment number 2 has not been followed.  Likewise those farmers with no
procedural grounds to challenge could initiate a constitutional challenge
citing 2 precedents from the Quinnell case that are applicable; knowing
full well that the issue will be resolved by the Quinnell case, long before
their constitutional challenge comes to Court.  The interim relief ruling
granted to Quinnell should be applied and granted.  Likewise urgency should
be claimed.

Farmers requiring clarification on this should contact me urgently
(011-612595).

Likewise a recent legal communiqué relating to the new amendment (25th Oct)
is available electronically or from our office in hard copy.

Anyone requiring information on the latest listing please do not hesitate
to contact our offices on 04 799410.

J. W-Worswick
Vice Chairman,
JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE.

BULALIMAMANGWE 1
BULAWAYO 1
CHARTER 1
GOROMONZI 1
GWELO 1
HARTLEY 1
LOMAGUNDI 7
LUPANE 2
MAKONI 10
MARANDELLAS 3
MATOBO 2
MAZOE 1
UMZINGWANE 1
WANKIE 1
GWANDA 4
SALISBURY 1

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Hoovers

Libyan investors due in Zimbabwe for talks on "acquisition of assets"

May 9, 2003 3:18pm

Libyan investors are coming to Zimbabwe at the end of the month to re-open
stalled negotiations on the acquisition of assets here, including the
strategic Mutare to Harare fuel pipeline, the Zimbabwe Independent can
reveal.

Government sources this week said officials from oil conglomerate, Tamoil,
together with other Libyan investors, were edgy after President Mugabe's
Independence Day interview when he hinted at his retirement.

"They would like to secure assets as soon as possible to protect themselves
against any eventuality," a source said.

Apart from interest in the petro-chemical industry the Libyans have
expressed interest in agro-processing, the hospitality industry and banking,
but the prize assets with strategic importance to the North Africans are the
pipeline and holding tanks in Mabvuku. The Libyans would like to take
control of the assets to further their influence in the local fuel industry
through a joint venture company with Noczim [National Oil Company of
Zimbabwe] called Tamoil-Zimbabwe.

Negotiations between the Libyans and government over the fuel handling
facilities stalled in December after the two parties failed to agree on the
value of the assets. Government negotiators called for a proper audit of the
assets before any deals could be signed. This resulted in Tamoil cancelling
credit facilities thereby cutting off supplies to Zimbabwe. Since the
beginning of the year, Zimbabwe has been importing fuel from Kuwait in an
over-the-counter arrangement.

Government sources this week said the Libyans would this time around have
their Zimbabwean counterparts at a disadvantage. Supplies have over the past
two weeks reduced to a trickle with Harare totally dry last weekend as
Noczim failed to raise foreign currency.

"The Libyans can dangle goodies in the face of government -like a line of
credit -and the pipeline is gone," an industry source said.

The source said this could guarantee supplies in the short term but there
was the clear and present danger of the Libyans building an empire and
killing off competition.

"If they take over the pipeline, it is very likely that the pipeline will
only be used to transport Libyan fuel."
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Why Africa Only Has Four Months to Rescue Zimbabwe

allAfrica.com

OPINION
May 9, 2003
Posted to the web May 9, 2003

Allister Sparks
Johannesburg

Now that President Thabo Mbeki and his colleagues, Nigeria's Olusegun
Obasanjo and Malawi's Bakili Muluzi, are at last engaged in a serious effort
to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis, it is time to look ahead to a post-Mugabe
era and try to assess the country's recovery prospects.

How much of the economic damage inflicted by Mugabe's madness is permanent,
how much is recoverable, and how long might a recovery process take?

Even a rough assessment reveals one stark fact which Mbeki and his
colleagues should note. Time is of the essence. There is a tight window of
opportunity, between June and September of this year, when a fairly swift
recovery will still be possible. After that it will become rapidly more
difficult and full recovery will be less likely.

Already some of the damage is permanent. Zimbabwe has suffered a serious
loss of skills, especially in the industrial sector and in the professions.
Some 60% of the country's trained professional people - engineers,
accountants, lawyers and doctors - have left the country. Few will return.

The industrial sector has been the worst hit. Scores of enterprises have
been forced to close down and others have moved to neighboring states in a
disinvestment process that eclipses anything South Africa experienced during
the apartheid years.

One estimate is that half a billion U.S. dollars of industrial investment
has left the country annually for the past three years. Again, it will be
hard to persuade any of these enterprises to return.

The mining sector has suffered the least harm. Although mining is being
badly disrupted by power cuts at the moment as foreign electricity
suppliers, Eskom included, demand up-front payments which the crippled
Zimbabwean fiscus cannot meet, the mines have suffered no structural damage
and could quickly be brought back to full production.

And ironically, although the agricultural sector was the target of President
Mugabe's wildly disruptive "land reform program", which has been the root
cause of Zimbabwe's economic collapse, it, too, could be substantially
revived in a relatively short time.

This is because what Mugabe unleashed was not in reality a land reform
program at all but a mindless spasm of legalized theft and vandalism which
brought agricultural production, and thus the economy as a whole, to a
standstill.

But the wonderfully fertile land is still there, and given bold policies to
reverse what has been done it could be brought back to levels of production
within a few years where Zimbabwe could at least feed itself and pay its way
once again.

Some permanent damage has been inflicted in agriculture too. A quarter of
the evicted commercial farmers, including some of the most valuable
producers of specialist crops like seed maize, have emigrated to prosper in
Australia and New Zealand, and they will not return. But three-quarters of
the farmers are still in the country, having moved into the cities and towns
and clung to their title deeds in the hope that things will change.

At the same time, between 60% and 70% of the farms from which these
commercial farmers were evicted are now vacant, abandoned by the black
"settlers" who were unable to operate them because of a lack of expertise,
financial resources, labour and government back-up.

Travelling across the country, as I did recently from Harare to Bulawayo,
reveals a remarkable sight of lush grazing - the livestock population has
been decimated to a quarter of what it was only three years ago - and
unworked farmland. Large fields which used to yield crops of maize, soya
bean, sorghum and tobacco, now lie unploughed and overgrown with weeds.

A leading Zimbabwean rancher and agricultural specialist, Michael Clark,
describes what he saw during a recent trip through the once thriving
Masvingo and Chatsworth farming areas. "Although there were a few isolated
settler huts," Clark writes in an e-mailed memorandum, "there was nothing
else. No crops, no cattle, no people, no wildlife, no farmers, no
production."

Through most of the rest of the country it is the same, he says, "just an
empty void." Clark describes one farm he visited which used to run 22,000
head of export quality cattle, and which is now deserted.

What this means is that with a bold and determined reversal of policy, the
farmers who are still in the country could be returned to their unoccupied
farms. A substantial part of the agricultural economy could be revived.

This should then be followed by a legitimate and sensible land reform
program, with land properly acquired with fair compensation for occupation
by authentic black farmers, who should be provided with the financial
support to acquire the seeds, fertilizers and other equipment they need to
make productive use of it.

But speed is critical.

Zimbabwe is bankrupt and to get it up and running again it needs to have a
tobacco crop in the ground by September. Do that, says John Robertson, the
country's leading independent economist, and Zimbabwe could possibly match
its 1999 export earnings of US$600-million next year, compared with the
miserable US$150-million it earned from tobacco sales this year. This would
be a lifesaving injection of foreign exchange, the essential starting point
on the road to recovery.

But, Robertson warns, to achieve that requires getting the bulk of the
available commercial farmers back on the abandoned farms by June or July.

In other words, there is no time for further timidity and egg-dancing by
Mbeki, Obasanjo and Muluzi in their dealings with Mugabe.

More critical still, if a settlement is delayed until next year it will be
too late to plant food crops for the 2004 harvest. Starvation, already
ravaging the rural population, will then become worse with no chance of
recovery until the 2005 season.

The timeline is achievable. What is needed is a swift agreement that Mugabe
should retire immediately, with a guarantee of immunity from prosecution for
all his crimes to ease him on his way, and for a new leader with some local
and international credibility to take over the leadership of the ruling
Zanu-PF party.

The former Finance Minister, Simba Makoni, whom Mugabe fired last year for
suggesting the Zimbabwe dollar should be devalued, would clearly be the most
competent successor, but he lacks a solid support base within the party and
other old party hacks are hungry for the job. Again Mbeki and company should
use their influence to get the right man appointed, for international
credibility is vital to the recovery process.

That done, negotiations should then take place between the new Zanu-PF
leadership and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for a
joint transitional administration to take over and prepare the ground for
internationally supervised elections to take place, preferably before the
end of the year.

That would be enough to win international endorsement of the deal. The World
Bank and International Monetary Fund would then come on board, and with the
support of the police and military the reconstruction program could begin
even before the election.

But if there is any further diplomatic soft-shoe shuffling, another
agricultural season will be lost and the misery will turn into catastrophe,
for Zimbabwe and the region.
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Village Voice

Nat Hentoff
Any Anti-Mugabe Protesters Here?
Zimbabwe Cleared by United Nations
May 9th, 2003 6:00 PM

The majority of people [in Zimbabwe] are a happy lot despite the hardships
we're going through. -President Robert Mugabe, The New York Times, April 24



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----


After a two-day strike on March 18 and 19-described by The New York Times as
"the largest public protest against President Mugabe since he was re-elected
last year in a contest that was marred by widespread allegations of
fraud"-Mugabe's enforcers cracked down on his opponents. There were the
customary arrests and torturings, as reported in the same New York Times
story, in which the dictator crowed about his people's "happy lot."

But there are no protests on the streets of America.

No American newspaper, as far as I know, has detailed the torture inflicted
on members of the opposition. However, I have "A Report on Organized
Violence and Torture in Zimbabwe From 20 to 24 March 2003" from the Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition. As I noted in "Hell Is a Real Place" (October 11,
2002), the coalition is composed of trade unions, women's rights
organizations, students, and the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum.

In Appendix 2 of the report from Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, 32-year-old MK,
secretary of that city's Movement for Democratic Change, the country's
leading opposition party, declares:

"At approximately 1 a.m. on Sunday 23rd March, 2003, 20 men (16 in army
uniform and four in civilian clothing) climbed over the boundary wall
surrounding our home. When my father answered the knocking on the door, the
men burst in shouting that they wanted his wife. They called her out and
attacked her.

"She was wrapped in a cloth and they did not wait for her to dress before
they started to beat her with hose pipes and the butts of their AK-47
assault rifles. Her cloth fell off leaving her naked, and they continued to
beat her. They locked my father and the younger children in a bedroom. I
heard my mother screaming-they made her open her legs and they tried to push
the barrel of an AK into her vagina. . . . It is clear that my mother was
severely traumatized by the attack. She has said that she wants to commit
suicide."

From the coalition's medical reports: Patient Mrs. K has a large bruise of
her right eye and tender swellings on her head. She has multiple deep
bruises of her back, buttocks, and legs, and a bruise in her vagina
consistent with her story of assault with a rifle barrel in her vagina. She
is at present admitted in hospital. She shows signs of acute anxiety."

There are other case histories, and in a summary of the attacks, the
coalition reports: "The majority of the perpetrators were dressed in
Zimbabwe National Army uniform, and were conveyed in military vehicles to
the homes of the victims. Some perpetrators were in police uniforms. . . .

"Many victims reported the use of torture tactics . . . burning with
cigarettes and acid, inserting foreign objects into the women's genital
areas, urinating in the victim's mouth, and forcing the victims to drink
substances such as urine. . . . Many were threatened with further assault if
they reported their injuries.

"In several cases, victims who had received life-saving treatment at a
hospital and were discharged were assaulted again, requiring readmission for
other injuries. . . . Photographic evidence of injuries received is
available." Perhaps New York City Council member Charles Barron will send
for these photographs and display them at City Hall, where he lauded Mugabe
last September.

Zimbabwe is a member of the United Nations Human Rights Commission-whose
name has become a repellent oxymoron that Eleanor Roosevelt could not have
foreseen when she worked so hard to help create the United Nations. At this
year's session in Geneva, as an April 18 editorial in The Washington Post
noted, "The commission . . . voted against putting Zimbabwe on its list of
countries requiring special observation." (Emphasis added.)

If you were to imagine the convening of a Human Rights Commission in Hades,
it would consist of Cuba, Syria, Sudan, China, and Saudi Arabia. Libya would
be the chair. But I have actually named the real-life members of that United
Nations body-the hope of the tortured of the world. Even Mugabe's Zimbabwe
sits there!

And at the very session during which Zimbabwe was given a pass by its fellow
whited sepulchers in the commission-I was informed by the American
Anti-Slavery Group-the African bloc of nations at the UN succeeded in
upgrading the human rights status of Sudan, the notorious land of genocide.
The National Islamic Front, which rules that nation-where black women from
the South are still taken into slavery and raped-is now freed from all
previous UN economic restrictions.

Meanwhile, The Economist (April 5) reports that in a friendly lift to Robert
Mugabe, "South Africa, Zimbabwe's most influential neighbor, is actively
seeking to end [Mugabe's] isolation." And in the April 15 New York Times,
Ginger Thompson writes, "Moses Mzila Ndlovu, a high-level official in
Zimbabwe's leading opposition party, has charged that South Africa helps
prop up the Mugabe government by allowing Zimbabwe to defer payments of
millions of dollars in debt for electricity, fuel, telephone service, and
food. 'President Mugabe is taking that money and using it to build
structures of repression,' said Mr. Ndlovu."

From Catherine Buckle-a Zimbabwean who has written extensively on
conservation and wildlife education, and who sends a weekly online letter
chronicling Mugabe's repressions-there is this news: "A visiting delegation
of Southern African foreign ministers were in Zimbabwe [in March]. . . . At
the close of their nine-hour meeting in Harare, a spokesman for the South
African Foreign Ministry said: 'Our position is that the people of Zimbabwe
must be the masters of their own destiny.' " But who is going to help the
Zimbabweans get rid of the dictator who is their master now?

But it is not only South Africa and other democratic African nations that
have been very slow to react to Mugabe's terrorism of his people. The
Economist (April 5) says candidly, "The truth is that neither Britain nor
any other western power has made more than token efforts to curb Mr. Mugabe,
because he poses no threat to their vital interests.

"If the people of Zimbabwe desire a change of regime (and it is obvious that
they do), they can expect little outside help. . . . Outsiders could do more
to help . . . They could increase the pressure by . . . pursuing the ruling
party's business associates, especially those who have helped the Zimbabwean
army to loot Congo, where it was sent in 1998 to prop up another despotic
regime." Any investigative reporters working on those business associates?
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The Herald

Spirit medium to 'unlock monument's mystery'

Herald Reporter
A Masvingo spirit medium's theory that there is treasure under the Great
Zimbabwe will come to test today when he leads Government officials and
chiefs to "unlock the mystery" surrounding the historic monument.

The spirit medium Sekuru Chinhope also known as Manunure or Nunuratshe who
claimed to have lived more than 10 000 years ago, argues that what people
see at the Great Zimbabwe is less fascinating than the real monument
underground.

Although no one in this country, from archeologists to politicians and
spirit mediums have expressed knowledge of the existence of any underground
structure at Great Zimbabwe, Sekuru Chinhope says he would open up the
underground in front of the chiefs and Government officials.

"There is a head statue of the architecture of Great Zimbabwe. I will prove
that there indeed exists a much more fascinating and bigger structure just
under the monument you see today," said Sekuru Chinhope.

He added: "People did not live in the structure you see today, they lived in
caves underground especially during the rainy season."

Some mining companies and archeologists have however surveyed underneath the
monument and concluded that there was nothing underground. Masvingo
provincial Press secretary in the Department of Information and Publicity,
Mr Samson Muduma said the spirit medium has over the past three years gone
to most Government offices and even to Vice President Muzenda trying to get
permission to prove his case.

"At first, people did not take him seriously but of late, chiefs and
Government officials have decided to let him prove his story.

"If he proves it, that will open another page in history but if he fails to
prove it, it will be a sad story given how we moved from one office to
another.

"On Saturday (today) at least five chiefs and several Government officials
and security agents will go to the monument to see what he has," said Mr
Muduma.

The Great Zimbabwe is one of the country's star tourist attractions.

The ruins of Great Zimbabwe (house of stones) that gave the country its name
was shrouded in mystery for generations.

And after it revealed its physical secrets to a questing world in the 19th
century, its origins were bitterly fought over by rival antiquarians.

The myths - principally that the ruins were built by the Israelites,
Phoenicians or the Arabians, even links with the Queen of Sheba - have been
swept away.

The old time archaeologists who for 50 years favoured such theories in a
great war over the history of the buildings gave way to a new breed of
scientists who, through radio-carbon dating and other evidence, have
positively identified the architects as African.

The centre of an empire from the 13th to the 15th centuries, they were, in
fact, the work of Shona-Karanga civilisation.

Some historians say the people who developed the medieval site were the
guiding spirits behind the war of liberation that brought about Zimbabwe's
independence in 1980.
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Mail and Guardian

Harare becomes the capital of chaos

      08 May 2003 07:32

In Harare these days you never know where you are going to end up when you
take a taxi. A dozen passengers crammed into a taxi van recently complained
angrily among themselves about Zimbabwe's high inflation, critical fuel
shortages and the police who shoved them when they were stopped at
roadblocks.

When one man tried to defend the police, a woman retorted: "The police are
just Mugabe's dogs." The rest of the passengers cheered. When the taxi
stopped, the man jumped out and ran to some nearby police officers. He
identified himself as an off-duty policeman and ordered them to arrest the
passengers. They were jailed overnight and charged for insulting police, a
crime under the Public Order and Security Act.

For many months horror stories have been emerging from Zimbabwe about the
suffering inflicted by President Robert Mugabe. Newspapers have been filled
with accounts of political corruption, rapes and beatings. But behind these
stories lie the daily hardships felt by the capital's 1,7-million people.

What was once a thriving city has descended into a place of empty
supermarkets, petrol queues and blackouts.

In the past week the longstanding fuel shortages have taken a turn for the
worse. Hundreds of vehicles spend entire days and nights in fuel queues in
Harare. "We used to laugh at Zambians because of all the shortages they had.
Now they are laughing at us because it is much worse here," said a salesman.
"We never thought it would get this bad."

A few months ago Mugabe's motorcade of more than 20 vehicles, including two
trucks full of armed soldiers, passed a fuel queue on Samora Machel Avenue
in downtown Harare. The president was met by jeers and hoots of derision.
Some people threw empty cans. The soldiers later returned and beat up many
of those in the queue. A law has also been passed declaring it illegal to
make derogatory comments or gestures to the presidential motorcade.

Harare's new mayor, Elias Mudzuri, tried to improve city services; garbage
collections were organised and crews sent out to fill potholes. But Mudzuri,
elected by nearly 80% of Harare's voters, belongs to the opposition party,
the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Last week the Mugabe government
sacked him, accusing him of incompetence and corruption. Mudzuri has been
barred from his office and has gone into hiding after receiving threats.

At first glance, the supermarket in central Harare appears well-stocked and
busy. But on closer inspection, rows and rows of toilet paper are displayed.
"That is where there should be salt and that is where there should be sugar,
but those items are out of stock so they put up toilet paper," said Idah
Mandaza.

"And mealie meal [maize meal, Zimbabwe's staple food] and cooking oil and
soap, they have all been replaced with toilet paper. But we can't eat loo
paper. Either basic things are not available or I can't afford them. I never
thought it would come to this."

For Mandaza, Zimbabwe's inflation of 228% and 12% decline in GDP are not dry
economic statistics. They are the harsh facts of life that she, her family
and everyone in Zimbabwe grapple with daily.

Mandaza (53) is proud of her job as the assistant production manager in a
Harare factory. But by the time she pays for travel to and from work and her
rent for a small two-roomed house, more than half of her salary is gone.
"I'm lucky, I have two sons and they both have jobs. But I still must be
very careful when I shop. I support my mother and my sister, plus I help my
brothers in the rural areas. There is just not enough money," she said.

Zimbabwe's once thriving middle-class is struggling to get by, but the poor
are desperate. Growing numbers are begging and rummaging through rubbish
bins. The disparity in wealth has widened after two years of economic
crisis.

"In 40 years working as a doctor, I have never seen so many cases of
malnutrition, particularly among children," said a general practitioner. "It
used to be that I would only see signs of kwashiorkor [a form of
malnutrition caused by inadequate protein intake] in children from the rural
areas. Now I see it in city children."

The United Nations estimates that nearly one million urban Zimbabweans do
not have enough food. In total, more than seven million of the country's
12-million people are threatened with starvation, according to the
government. Just a few years ago Zimbabwe was extolled as the breadbasket of
Africa for all the surplus food it exported.

An unruly commotion erupts in the supermarket as people rush to the bakery
section where bread is put on the shelves. After a few minutes of shoving
and grabbing, the bread is gone. One woman was knocked down in the scuffle.

There used to be a similar rush when milk and other fresh dairy products
were delivered. But for two weeks there have not been any milk deliveries. A
dairy farm that supplied 40% of Harare's milk has been overrun by Mugabe's
supporters, according to local newspaper reports.

The supermarket no longer puts its rare deliveries of maize meal or other
scarce items on sale in the store. After some mini-riots in which shelves
were knocked down, the scarce goods are sold at the back of the store where
deliveries are made. People queue there for hours.

Zimbabwe's once respected police are now widely feared for arbitrary
arrests, beatings and torture. In the past two months 10 high-profile
Zimbabweans, including three members of parliament and one lawyer, have
accused police of torturing them with electric shocks. Medical examinations
have confirmed injuries consistent with their harrowing accounts. Most were
released without charges.

Last month more than 250 opposition supporters were forced to go into
hospital after men dressed in army uniforms raided their homes and beat
them.

But not everyone is gloomy and depressed. "The worse things get, the sooner
we will have a change," said one motorist queueing for fuel. "The more angry
people get, the sooner they will press Mugabe to go."

He pointed to the visit to Harare on Monday of South Africa's president
Thabo Mbeki and his Nigerian equivalent Olusegun Obasanjo. "Do you think
they came to congratulate Mugabe on doing such a good job? No, they came to
tell Mugabe he must go. The pressure is mounting and change is in the air. I
can feel it." - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003
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