BBC
Zimbabwe co-operation
pledged
By Alastair
Leithead
BBC, Johannesburg
UK Foreign Secretary
Jack Straw has rounded up a two-day trip to South
Africa by saying that both
countries broadly agree on what the final outcome
should be in
Zimbabwe.
Mr Straw met President
Thabo Mbeki and held a series of talks with the
South African foreign
minister.
The trip was meant to strengthen
bilateral ties between Britain and
South Africa after disagreements between
the two countries over the Iraqi
war and the policy over
Zimbabwe.
But there are still clear
differences in policy between them.
South
Africa remains committed to quiet diplomacy and Britain is still
urging
international condemnation of President Mugabe over the
current
crisis.
But the two foreign
ministers issued a joint communique, saying they
agreed on what the outcome
should be - independence, freedom, peace,
democracy and prosperity for the
people of Zimbabwe.
The will to encourage
the two opposing sides in Zimbabwe to talk was
also
emphasised.
Other issues on the agenda
included the New Plan for Africa's
Development (Nepad) which will again be
championed by President Mbeki at the
G8 meeting in France next
month.
Reuters
Straw
tones down Zimbabwe rhetoric
By Manoah Esipisu
CAPE TOWN
(Reuters) - The government has toned down its rhetoric on
Zimbabwe, with
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw saying he backed South Africa's
quiet diplomacy
in tackling the country's acute economic and political
crisis.
Straw
said after meeting South African President Thabo Mbeki and Foreign
Minister
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma on Wednesday that London backed a bid by
African
leaders to kick-start talks between Zimbabwean President Robert
Mugabe and
the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
"What we now
have to do is to encourage parties in Zimbabwe to work more
effectively
together to reach a common understanding for the benefit of the
people,"
Straw told a news conference, adding Britain stood ready to play
its
part.
Straw said he did not discuss a plan to encourage Mugabe to leave
office
because it was not Britain's place to do so.
Britain has led a
campaign for Commonwealth sanctions against Mugabe because
of his
controversial redistribution of white-owned farms to landless blacks
and a
2002 re-election in polls international observers said were
gravely
flawed.
The Commonwealth, made up mostly of former British
colonies, suspended
Zimbabwe for a year in March 2002, and has extended that
ban until at least
December.
Mbeki has been criticised for what
analysts see as his soft touch on
Zimbabwe.
Mbeki, Nigerian President
Olusegun Obasanjo and Malawi President Bakili
Muluzi visited Harare last week
to spur dialogue between Mugabe and the MDC,
which accuses the 79-year-old
Zimbabwean leader of political repression.
While the visit did not
produce any immediate signs of progress, South
African political analysts
said slow moves may have started towards
unlocking a crisis which has
crippled Zimbabwe's economy and poisoned its
relations with the
West.
Dlamini-Zuma told the same news conference that there was now full
agreement
on Zimbabwe between South Africa and
Britain.
VOA
Zimbabwe:
No Shortage of Imported Goods For Those With Money
Tendai
Maphosa
Harare
14 May 2003, 13:40 UTC
Zimbabwe is experiencing
its worst economic crisis since independence 23
years ago. Basic commodities
and fuel are in short supply. But, there is no
shortage of imported goods in
the supermarkets for those with money.
Australian butter, Dutch cheese,
South African wine, milk, cooking oil,
margarine and even the staple maize
meal are just some of the many products
in abundance on supermarket shelves
in the better off areas of Harare.
While some of these products were
available when the Zimbabwean economy was
doing well, they had to compete
with products manufactured in the country.
Now they practically have the
shelves to themselves.
An economist for Zimbabwe's National Chamber of
Commerce, James Jowa, says
the shortage of foreign currency in Zimbabwe has
made it very expensive to
produce just about anything. As a result, he says,
imported products are now
often cheaper than those made in Zimbabwe. "Because
of the major increases
in the cost of producing goods and services, it's
becoming relatively
cheaper to import goods and services, particularly
consumption goods like
cooking oil, things like soap," he said.
Mr.
Jowa also says that the price controls on a number of essential
commodities
have made it uneconomical for companies to produce them.
A businessman
who spoke on condition of anonymity says business people are
either using
their own external funds or getting money on the parallel
market to import
the goods, some of which go straight to the thriving black
market where huge
profits can be made.
But few legitimate businesses are profiting in
Zimbabwe. Most manufacturers
are operating at 30 to 40 percent capacity, and
many companies are either
down-sizing or relocating to neighboring
countries.
Mr. Jowa, the Chamber of Commerce economist, says Zimbabwe,
which once had
one of the strongest economies in Africa, is actually
undergoing a process
of de-industrialization.
News24
EU to give Zim Euro
13m
14/05/2003 21:53 - (SA)
Brussels - The European Commission has agreed a
new Euro 13m aid package for
Zimbabwe to counter drought and food shortages,
it said on Wednesday.
The funds, agreed by the EU executive's
Humanitarian Aid Office, "will help
improve nutrition, food, water and
sanitation levels and combat HIV/Aids",
said a statement.
EU-Zimbabwe relations are cool, following EU
sanctions slapped on Harare
including a travel ban on President Robert Mugabe
and 71 associates for
alleged rights and democratic abuses.
The new EU funds will provide food to over 600 000
children, and help
support nearly 300 000 farms with seeds, tools and
fertilisers, and assist
over 100 000 orphans and vulnerable children, it
said.
To maximise the impact of the aid, the commission
will maintain a support
office in Harare to appraise project proposals,
co-ordinate and monitor
operations, said the
commission.
News24
Zim
seeks $75m for fuel
14/05/2003 21:58 - (SA)
Harare
- Zimbabwe's state fuel procurement firm wants to raise the
equivalent of
us$75m to import petroleum-based fuels, a state-run daily said
on
Wednesday.
The southern African country has experienced a crippling fuel
shortage since
1999, which has worsened in recent months.
The fuel
scarcity has been attributed to an acute shortage of
foreign
exchange.
The Herald reported that the National Oil Company of
Zimbabwe (Noczim) "is
on the market to raise funds through
bills."
Zimbabwe last month hiked the price of fuel by more than
200%.
The price increase resulted in a three-day national strike called
by the
labour movement.
Zimbabwe's national airline this week said it
had just two or three days'
worth of fuel supplies due to the
crunch.
While several private oil companies are importing fuel on their
own
following the opening up of the market by the government last year,
supplies
have not significantly improved.
Noczim, a parastatal was for
years, the sole importer of fuel.
The
Herald
President appoints land review
committee
Presidential Reporter
PRESIDENT Mugabe yesterday
named an eight-member Land Review Committee to
examine land reform and
resettlement in each province, district and ward.
The committee, which
consists of eminent Zimbabweans with varied
competencies in public
administration, agricultural research and development
and social issues, is
expected to start work soon and will submit its
recommendations to the
Presidency within two months.
It will be chaired by former Chief
Secretary to the President and Cabinet,
Dr Charles Utete, and comprises
National Economic Consultative Forum
co-chairman Dr Robbie Mupawose, former
Agricultural and Rural Development
Authority chief executive, Dr Liberty
Mhlanga, and former Lands, Agriculture
and Rural Resettlement secretary, Dr
Tobias Takavarasha.
Other members are Dr Boniface Ndimande, former
permanent secretary for
Agriculture, Lands and Water Development, Professor
Rudo Gaidzanwa of the
University of Zimbabwe, and Dr Mavis Chidzonga, a
former Member of
Parliament for Mhondoro.
The Chief Secretary to the
President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda is an
ex-officio member of the
committee who will provide the link with the
Government and facilitate the
immediate implementation of any corrective
measures that are deemed
necessary.
President Mugabe said the committee will assess progress
achieved so far in
the implementation of the land reform programme as a whole
and establish the
extent to which the programme's objectives and principles
have been achieved
and implemented.
It will outline remaining
challenges and constraints in the ongoing
implementation of the land reform
in order to provide a holistic approach to
the agrarian reform agenda and
recommend concrete and programme-enhancing
ways of adequately and effectively
addressing any administrative and
material shortcomings.
The committee
is expected to verify the implementation of the A1 and A2
resettlement with
the attendant concern of the provision of agricultural
inputs and support
services for the optimal use of resettled land.
It will establish the
situation regarding the existing infrastructure on the
resettled farms and
the additional support that may be required.
The committee will gauge the
productive capacity of the resettled farmers
and agree on measures necessary
to ensure targeted production for each
province.
This will include
assessing appropriate hectarages for each type of crop,
including livestock
production.
Cde Mugabe said the land review committee would also assess
the impact of
land reform on former commercial farmers and farm workers while
also
establishing the role of agribusiness, including indigenous companies,
in
agrarian reform.
It will establish the skills required to enhance
agricultural productivity
and food security and review the merits of the
demarcation undertaken on
existing agricultural concerns in terms of the
productivity and viability
considerations.
In seeking a comprehensive
way forward, the committee will also look at the
situation of farms not yet
settled or demarcated and how these could be
incorporated into future land
resettlement.
Cde Mugabe said the committee would also work with members
of the
sub-committee of the task force on land reform in order to ensure
continuity
and draw useful lessons deriving from the implementation of the
fast-track
phase of land reform and resettlement.
It will work under
and through the Minister of Special Affairs in the Office
of the President
and Cabinet, Cde John Nkomo, and the Minister of State for
Land Reform, Cde
Flora Buka.
The committee will be supported by a technical unit and an
administrative
secretariat. The technical unit will comprise resource persons
with relevant
expertise who will provide the necessary support and technical
advice while
the secretary will provide day-to-day financial, administrative
and
logistical support to the committee and its entities at provincial
and
district levels.
Eight provincial task teams with their respective
district teams, headed by
provincial co-ordinators, will assist the
committee. The provincial and
district task teams, specifically recruited for
the purpose, will consult
the different stakeholders on critical elements of
land reform and
resettlement.
Dr Utete said members of the committee
met informally on Tuesday. The
committee sees itself as part of Government
machinery to ensure that land
reform and resettlement becomes a big success
in terms of productivity.
He hoped that with the members' wealth of
experience, the committee will
complete its task within the stipulated two
months.
News24
Germany
returns Zim bird
14/05/2003 21:15 - (SA)
Harare - A
fragment of Zimbabwe's prized and mythical soapstone bird
sculpture looted
from the Great Zimbabwe ancient city a century ago was
returned to the
country on Wednesday after years in a German museum.
The unique
stone-carved Zimbabwe Bird, an emblem of the southern African
country - it
appears on the national flag, the country's bank notes and
coins, and
official documents - was handed over to President Robert Mugabe
by Germany's
envoy to Harare Peter Schmidt.
The stylised elegant bird carvings stood
on walls and monoliths of the Great
Zimbabwe ruins, a Unesco-designated World
Heritage site built between the
13th and 15th century.
In what Mugabe
described as "ruthless cultural plunder", the British
coloniser of Zimbabwe,
Cecil John Rhodes, took several birds from Great
Zimbabwe around 1906 and
took them to South Africa.
Four remained in South Africa and were later
returned to Zimbabwe after
independence in 1981.
'100 years in
exile'
However, a pedestal of one was either given or sold to German
missionary
Karl Theodore George Axenfeld, who later sold it to the
Ethnological Museum
in Berlin in 1907 for 500 Deutschmarks.
Said
Mugabe: "The fraction of the bird that we are officially welcoming back
today
has had a very eventful if not troubled existence during its almost
100 years
in exile."
During the occupation of Germany by Russian forces during
World War II, the
bird was looted from Berlin and taken to Leningrad, where
it remained until
after the Cold War, when it was returned to
Germany.
Another collection of the bird's remains is at Rhodes's former
Groote Schuur
residence in Cape Town. Mugabe has promised to talk to
President Thabo Mbeki
in a bid to recover it.
"The entire process of
colonial acquisition was a game without rules to the
extent that it was
typical to argue that the treasure was gotten by 'virtue
of conquest'," said
Mugabe.
Protest Over Journalist in Hiding As Harare Court Raps Media
Law
International Freedom of Expression Exchange Clearing House
(Toronto)
May 9, 2003
Posted to the web May 14,
2003
Toronto
The International Federation of Journalists today
condemned "outrageous
intimidation and threats" against a leading foreign
correspondent in
Zimbabwe and called on the government of Robert Mugabe to
lift its vendetta
against independent media in the country.
The IFJ
statement follows a night-time visit by a group claiming to be
immigration
officials to the home of Harare based journalist Andrew Meldrum.
His lawyers
claim that the latest action is the culmination of personal
attacks and
harassment by the Zimbabwean authorities for over a year.
Meldrum, the
correspondent of The Guardian, who has gone into hiding with
his wife, enjoys
the protection of a high court order issued last year when
he was cleared of
charges brought against him under the notorious Access to
Information and
Protection of Privacy Act. After he was cleared an attempt
was made to deport
him even though he has legal residency status in
Zimbabwe.
Meldrum's
acquittal caused official embarrassment, as he was the first
journalist to be
tried and then acquitted under the Act.
"It is shocking that a leading
journalist must go into hiding fearing for
his safety," said Aidan White,
General Secretary of the IFJ, "but as a
journalist he is well aware of the
fate of hundreds of others in Zimbabwe
who have been taken at night to be
interviewed only to suffer mistreatment
and sometimes torture in jail." The
IFJ says that the credibility of the
Mugabe regime's attack on the media has
been undermined further by the
decision of the Supreme Court, on 7 May, to
strike down Section 80(1)(b) of
the Access to Information and Protection of
Privacy Act (AIPPA) in the
constitutional case filed by Daily News staffers
(SC 280/2002).
The ruling is important for media workers as Section 80
(1) of AIPPA clearly
hindered the freedom of expression and interfered with
the right of
journalists to receive and impart information.
"The
courts now realize that vindictive punitive legislation to silence the
media
is unworkable and unacceptable in any state where the rule of law and
decency
should prevail", said the IFJ.
The IFJ has once again called on the
international community including the
United Nations and European Union to
apply pressure on the Zimbabwean
government to halt the campaign of
harassment against media. "Journalists
like Meldrum must be free to work
without undue pressure," said the IFJ.
"There can be no democratic future for
Zimbabwe until all journalists can
work in the country out of the shadow of
fear and intimidation that has been
created by the
authorities".
Daily
News
$120bn lost due to farm
disturbances
5/14/03 8:41:30 AM
(GMT +2)
By Precious Shumba Staff
Reporter
The government's chaotic land
reforms have cost the country more than
$120 billion in lost revenue this
agriculture season alone and resulted in a
rapid decline of crop yields in
what could be a virtual death of commercial
agriculture, the Commercial
Farmers' Union (CFU) said yesterday.
Neil
Wright, the CFU's chief economist, was elaborating on a CFU
report
highlighting the impact of the land reform programme, under which
most
white-owned land has been taken over by the government ostensibly for
the
resettlement of landless blacks.
The
report, based on information gathered in February, but which was
updated this
month, said Zimbabwe's commercial agriculture and related input
industries
were on the verge of collapse and that farm output would be
scaled back by
between 40 and 60 percent this year.
About
200 000 farm jobs were also lost in 2002.
Wright said the chaos on the farms had cost Zimbabwe more than $120
billion
and the situation could worsen if lawlessness persisted on
the
farms.
The CFU report says the
government's present land policies, combined
with lack of security and a
collateral base for credit, have seriously hit
production of virtually all
commodities.
"Key input industries for
agriculture are also on the verge of
collapse and others are operating at
well below capacity due to a
substantial contraction of their main markets,
foreign exchange shortages,
interruptions in the supply of raw materials and
price controls undermining
their production ability," the report
says.
The report adds that fertiliser
companies such as Sable Chemicals,
Zimphos, Zimbabwe Fertiliser Company and
Windmill are operating below
capacity due to problems in mobilising foreign
currency to import raw
materials, especially potash, and the inability of the
National Railways of
Zimbabwe to move these into the country
quickly.
This situation, the report noted,
had seriously affected stockfeeds
imports and chemical production companies
had had to drastically rationalise
their
products.
The CFU report said investment
in tractors, farm machinery and
irrigation equipment was insignificant due to
the uncertainty prevailing in
the commercial farming
sector.
The industry survives on servicing
equipment and selling spares. The
CFU said between October and December 2002,
only eight tractors were sold by
all dealers but prior to 1997, around 1 600
tractors were sold every year.
The CFU
reported that prior to the planting period for the 2002/2003
summer crop
season, farm equipment valued at $23 billion was seized, looted
or
vandalised.
About 453 commercial farmers,
out of 4 137 who worked the land before
the start of the controversial land
reforms three years ago, were still
operating their farms, but this number
was likely to fall if the government
continued with its farm seizures, it
noted.
"As of February 2003, the number of
members no longer farming when
compared with January 2000 was 2 098," the
report said.
"According to a survey
undertaken in February 2003, only 453 members
were still fully operational on
their properties, while another 666 were
partially
operational."
The organisation said maize
production had fallen from 810 000 tonnes
in 2000 to an estimated 80 000
tonnes due mostly to viability concerns,
theft and the seizure of maize kept
on farms.
It said despite the government's
claims that the land reforms were
completed in August 2002, the acquisition
procedures were still being
implemented in a lawless and disorderly manner,
with illegal occupations,
interruptions to production, theft of moveable
property and human rights
violations
continuing.
Doug Taylor-Freeme, the CFU's
vice-president, yesterday said evidence
on the ground pointed to a bleak
future for Zimbabwe's agriculture.
"Commercial agriculture production has been severely affected,"
he
said.
"Soya-bean production has gone
down from a record 162 000 tonnes to 30
000 tonnes. Most farms that produced
agriculture products are sitting idle
and more jobs will be lost. Maize seed
production has been seriously reduced
and a shortage looms in the coming
season."
The report said Zimbabwe exported
about 20 000 tonnes of soya beans in
2001 but this year the country needed to
import the crop because of the
sharp decline in
output.
The report said the production of
crops such as groundnuts and
sunflower had dropped to insignificant levels,
while wheat, sorghum, barley,
coffee, sugar cane, dairy and ostrich
production had also drastically
gone
down.
Zimbabwe's food security and
foreign currency earnings have been hit
by the decline in agricultural
output, the report said.
Close to eight
million Zimbabweans are in need of emergency food aid
because of the impact
of the land reform programme and a drought that has
hit southern
Africa.
"Commercial farming operations
have been reduced substantially since
the 1999/2000 season when fast-track
resettlement began," the report noted.
"These developments have had and will continue to have severe
repercussions
on Zimbabwe's food security and foreign exchange earning
ability in the short
to medium-term."
Daily
News
Chigwedere makes moves to replace
Zimsec
5/14/03 8:27:39 AM (GMT
+2)
Staff
Reporter
THE Ministry of Education, Sport
and Culture has drafted proposals
that could result in the embattled Zimbabwe
Schools Examination Council
(Zimsec) being replaced by a new examinations
body in 2004, according to
Education Minister Aeneas
Chigwedere.
Chigwedere said the draft
proposals had been submitted to the Minister
of State Enterprises and
Parastatals, Paul Mangwana, under whose
jurisdiction Zimsec
falls.
Mangwana, who is expected to submit
the proposals to Cabinet, could
not be reached for comment
yesterday.
If the proposals are approved,
Zimsec, which was hit by an
examinations fraud scandal earlier this year,
will merge with the Higher
Education Examination Council
(Hexco).
Zimsec administers primary and
secondary school examinations, while
Hexco runs the examinations of technical
and polytechnic colleges.
Zimsec has been
accused of compromising education standards because of
its lack of skilled
manpower and poor security measures that have led to the
falsification of
examination results, among other problems.
"Zimsec has been involved in a lot of corruption and the Ministry
of
Education has decided that there should be a new examination body
that
should make a fresh start in governing local examinations," Chigwedere
told
The Daily News.
He said he
expected Cabinet to consider his ministry's recommendations
quickly so that
they could be tabled before Parliament during the
current
session.
"It is our ambition to
push the Bill through the current parliamentary
session so that we have a new
examination body running by the beginning of
2004," the minister
said.
"It is very expensive to have the
two councils operating separately
and there is need to rationalise the
examination bodies and come up with one
body, which is cheaper," he
added.
Among the problems experienced by
Zimsec is the leaking of examination
papers by staff and the forging of
results for individuals who neither
registered nor sat for
exams.
Several of the parastatal's
officials have appeared before the Harare
Magistrates' Courts on charges of
contravening the Prevention of
Corruption
Act.
Daily
News
Cops threatened to feed us to
crocodiles: accused
5/14/03
8:28:21 AM (GMT +2)
Staff
Reporter
The police threatened to feed to
crocodiles one of the six men accused
of kidnapping and murdering Bulawayo
war veterans' leader Cain Nkala if he
did not confess to the killing, the
High Court heard yesterday.
The claim was
made during cross-examination of police constable Aimon
Ndlovu by advocate
Eric Morris during the "trial within a trial", which is
to decide the
admissibility of statements taken from four of the six
accused
persons.
The accused allege
that they were forced to confess to the abduction
and murder of Nkala in
2001.
Ndlovu denied that the police had on
November 21 2001 threatened to
throw Kethani Sibanda, an opposition Movement
for Democratic Change
activist, to the crocodiles in Ncema Dam near
Esigodini.
Nkala was kidnapped from his
Magwegwe West home in Bulawayo on 5
November 2001 and his decomposing body
was exhumed from a shallow grave at a
farm near Solusi University a week
later.
Sibanda is appearing before Justice
Sandra Mungwira with MDC treasurer
and Member of Parliament for
Lobengula-Magwegwe, Fletcher Dulini-Ncube, as
well as MDC director of
security Sonny Masera, and party activists Army
Zulu, Sazini Mpofu and
Remember Moyo.
Ndlovu said Sibanda had freely
confessed and made indications to the
police after pleading not to be
detained overnight at Esigodini.
He said
Sibanda had appeared "relaxed and comfortable" when he asked
for a chance to
confess.
Ndlovu said Sibanda had been
warned not to play games. "He denied he
was trying to play games and said he
was prepared to show us where Cain
Nkala's body was buried as he had taken
part in his kidnapping."
Morris queried
why Sibanda would look relaxed and comfortable
confessing to a "brutal,
cold-blooded, premeditated murder" that could send
him to the gallows if
convicted.
He said: "How much sense does
that make to you?"
Ndlovu said Sibanda had
told the police that Nkala was kidnapped to
enable the accused to extract
information from him on the kidnapping of
Patrick Nabanyama, an MDC election
agent in the June 2000 Parliamentary
election. The trial continues
today.
Daily
News
Auditors probe abuse of $40m
drought fund
5/14/03 8:28:59 AM
(GMT +2)
From Energy Bara in
Masvingo
AUDITORS have begun examining the
books of Masvingo rural councils,
which are suspected to have misappropriated
at least $40 million ear-marked
for the purchase of food for villagers
affected by drought, it was learnt
this
week.
The funds were disbursed under a
public works programme to villagers
affected by the drought that has hit
southern Africa.
Senior government
officials said the audit had been ordered by the
Ministry of Local
Government, Public Works and National
Housing.
They said a team of internal and
external auditors had been engaged to
probe allegations of financial
mismanagement within several rural district
councils in the
province.
The councils are suspected to
have invested part of the money
earmarked for food aid on the financial
markets before disbursing it to
intended
beneficiaries.
Masvingo provincial
administrator Alphonse Chikurira confirmed that
auditors were looking into
the councils' financial books.
"Our
auditors must have arrived last week to look into the
allegations",
said Chikurira.
He however said he would
only be able to comment extensively on the
matter once an audit report was
produced.
The government officials said
Gutu rural district council topped the
list of local authorities suspected to
have misused funds.
Two Gutu rural council
officials are already being investigated by the
police for alleged misuse of
public funds, the officials said.
Officials in the Department of Social Welfare yesterday said they
were
shocked by the allegations of financial irregularities at the
district
councils.
An official in the
department said: "We were not involved in the
direct supervision of the
funds. Our role was to make sure that people were
paid. We thought nothing
was wrong until we discovered that the councils
were first investing the
money and later helping themselves with
the
profits."
Masvingo provincial
governor Josaya Hungwe is said to have last month
told a provincial
development committee meeting that he was aware of the
activities of the
rural district councils and had ordered council officials
to cease their
activities.
The councils were ordered by
the government to disburse the money in
an attempt to ensure that the funds
were speedily given out to villagers,
who received $1 500 each after working
for two weeks.
However, commentators
questioned the ability of the councils to
administer the money since some of
them were facing financial problems.
Because of bureaucratic bungling, several villagers in Masvingo
province were
not paid on time, resulting in some abandoning projects they
had undertaken
under the programme.
Daily
News
Urgent meeting called to end
teachers' strike
5/14/03 8:30:06
AM (GMT +2)
Staff
Reporter
THE Public Service Commission
(PSC) has summoned the Zimbabwe Teachers
' Association (Zimta) executive for
an urgent meeting today to try to end a
crippling national strike by teachers
who are demanding higher pay and
improved working
conditions.
Peter Mabande, the Zimta chief
executive, yesterday confirmed that the
government had called for urgent
talks to try to find a solution to an
industrial action which has halted
lessons at most schools since they
re-opened for the second term last week.
"We are going to have an emergency
meeting with the PSC tomorrow (today)
morning," Mabande told The Daily News.
"Naturally we will be happy if our demands are met, otherwise the
impasse
will remain. But anyway we will enter into the negotiations in good
faith and
see how things shape up."
Lance Museka,
the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Labour,
Public Service and Social
Welfare which deals with labour disputes,
confirmed that discussions between
the government and Zimta were scheduled
for
today.
"We want to discuss the necessary
steps that must be taken in order to
facilitate a speedy resolution to the
industrial action by the teachers,"
he
said.
In Harare, classes have been
disrupted by teachers who ordered pupils
back home. In Mutare, teachers at
most schools have not been reporting for
work
.
The teachers want salaries and working
conditions which are comparable
to other civil servants with the same
qualifications and work experience.
The strike has now spread to small towns
such as Chegutu, Kadoma, Chinhoyi,
Glendale and Mount
Darwin.
Trainee teachers at colleges such
as Hillside in Bulawayo and Mutare
Teachers' College have been boycotting
lectures in solidarity with the
striking
teachers.
Our correspondents in Mutare
report that pupils could be seen
loitering around the townships of Sakubva
and Dangamvura yesterday.
It was the same
situation in Chinhoyi, Gweru, Masvingo and Bulawayo
where pupils were told on
Monday not to report for lessons until the pay
dispute had been
resolved.
Catherine Mugwididi, a parent in
Kadoma, phoned The Daily News
yesterday to express her exasperation over time
that was being lost by
pupils who are preparing for examinations later this
year.
"I have a daughter who is supposed
to write three Ordinary Level
subjects in June. She is going to be affected
in her preparations. Would the
government and teachers quickly resolve this
stand-off?" she pleaded.
The teachers are
demanding an entry-level salary of $268 000 a month,
up from the present $56
000.
Takavafira Zhou, president of the
Progressive Teachers' Union, said of
today's meeting between Zimta and the
PSC: "We hope both parties will enter
the meeting in good faith, but the
industrial action will go on unless
something worth talking about comes out
of the meeting."
Daily News
Leader
Page
Zanu PF, MDC must stop
posturing and start talks
5/14/03
8:38:24 AM (GMT +2)
By Kuthula
Matshazi
PARDON my optimism, but I feel
there is a great opportunity for the
major political parties, Zanu PF and the
MDC, to start talking about solving
the country's political
problems.
Information Minister Jonathan
Moyo has unequivocally pronounced it in
his interview with The Sunday Mail,
(11 May, 203). Again, pardon me for
being politically incorrect in these
times of great political divide.
What I
read from Moyo's interview are two
possibilities.
First, that the government
might still be playing political games, as
it has always done and, secondly,
that it is either genuine in its desire to
solve the situation in the country
now because of the imminent danger posed
by the suffering people. Or still
that they have suddenly started caring.
The majority of the people are now just on the brink of snapping. This
has
been said over and over again for some time, but I suppose it had to be
put
into proper perspective.
The situation was
not as bad as we could have ever imagined it finally
would be. Now it has
reached catastrophe point. People are holistically
bankrupt. They do not have
anything more to lose. They are at a stage where
they would rather do
anything to help themselves survive a dangerous
stage.
Don't fool yourselves, Zanu PF
knows it - and Moyo has confirmed it -
that the people are just not
suffering, but extremely suffering.
This
brings me to my second point - that of public relations stunts
and political
games.
Zanu PF has always used PR
strategies to govern the country. They
could test the mood of the people,
they could lie to them and promise them
heaven but instead give them hell.
Well, it worked up to a point in time.
Even PR strategies can be effective
for so much.
The only PR strategy that can
work now is for the people to see the
government constructively and
positively engage in fixing these problems and
coming out with
results.
Zanu PF cannot cheat people and
claim that they are being sabotaged at
every
turn.
Neither can they "show" them that
they care. Now people are no longer
interested in stories. They need food,
they need medicine, they need jobs,
they need housing. Yes, here and there
they could have been sabotaged, but
they must first get their act together to
gain the people's sympathy.
The government
must be a consensus builder, not a bully or a pussycat.
They must formulate
strong policies and be responsive to problems. The
government must
acknowledge and deal with problems successfully. They must
engage the
opposition political party and not intimidate
them.
For its part, the MDC should take
the perceived opportunity by the
government to dialogue with them. They must
also realise what I have alluded
to above. They must stop PR and playing
political games and be prepared to
help alleviate the suffering of the
people. They must constructively engage
the government and be a true national
opposition. They must stop calling for
sanctions, directly or indirectly,
against Zimbabwe. What they are doing in
Zimbabwe is what the United States
did in Iraq. In a bid to oust one person,
Saddam Hussein, they bombed
multitudes of people whose numbers we are still
to be told. After the massive
killings of people, the US claims that they
had only a couple of civilian
casualties.
So far the MDC PR strategy has
worked, but for how long? If the
current impasse continues, yes, the people
might not realise the PR game the
MDC might be playing, but honestly what
effect will that be having on
the
country?
Can Morgan Tsvangirai's
conscience allow him to live with the
decisions of calling for sanctions that
are causing the suffering of
Zimbabweans in the hope that this would be a
strategy to topple Mugabe?
Then, in that case, we would be dealing with two
similar devils.
People are now a potential
lethal weapon to the political process.
They have now been sensitised by this
catastrophe and will no longer sit
back and be apathetic to politics - at
least, I hope so. In a way, these
hardships have served to sensitise people
of the need not to leave their
destiny in the hands of a few bunch of
individuals.
Politics is not a crazy game
for idiots; it's about power and the
control of resources. These guys are not
idiots. They are power-hungry
schemers who are causing suffering to the
people because of their desire for
political
power.
If leaders of both parties really
care about the plight of the people,
I think they would come out of their
political positions and solve these
problems. This is not a time for PR
strategies.
As I have earlier, even PR
strategies have life spans.
It is about
the survival of the people; the people that these
politicians say they want
to serve.
Currently, both Mugabe and
Tsvangirai are spending money on PR firms.
Make no mistake about PR firms;
they are very strong communicators who
manipulate people's opinions and
situations.
Like journalists, they make or
break a person or situation and many
times they have the last word in. Their
role is not to establish or promote
the truth, but to promote their clients'
image.
Their contact with the common
people is negligible and, therefore,
their understanding of the country's
problems is questionable. However, what
they get are professional milestones
as they enjoy political scheming.
One way
or the other, these talks just have to materialise. It cannot
be wishful
thinking.
Daily
News
Letters
Mugabe, better
heed advice to go peacefully
5/14/03 8:33:58 AM (GMT +2)
This
last school holiday, we had two little relatives staying with us.
They are
both little girls, one aged six and in Grade One, and the other
aged nine and
in Grade Four. On any day, most of the time they played in the
living room
and watched TV at the same time.
What I
found most amusing was their reaction to the advertisements
that seek to
denigrate the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, as an irrational
man who dares
tell a "duly elected president" to go.
Once the rapping sound of guns that accompanies the words on the
screen was
heard, the little girls would run to the set and wait to say with
Tsvangirai:
"What I must tell Mugabe today is please go peacefully. If you
do not want to
go peacefully, we will remove you
violently!"
Of course, the little girls
are not politicians, they are merely
practising their nascent language
skills!
I think we must congratulate ZBC
for airing that message repeatedly.
Perhaps with repetition, it will
eventually dawn on the Zanu PF leaders that
it is indeed time for the entire
lot to go. There are abundant signs that
indeed it is time for them to
go.
Governments are there to craft laws
that protect the people they
serve.
Parliament is there to ratify those laws that are sound and
people-friendly
and reject those that are anti-people.
When a government begins to make laws that protect itself from
its
constituency, the nation, the people it is sworn to serve, then it is
time
for that government to go.
The
Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Public
Order and
Security Act are clear examples of such laws that serve to protect
the
government against the people. By crafting such anti-people laws,
that
government will have read that it has lost all popularity and, hence,
the
mandate to rule. Indeed, democracy is about popular rule!
Unpopular
governments are rejected
governments.
Sovereignty is about
political, social and economic independence. Each
of these elements is an
integral part of the others and they complement each
other. Political
sovereignty without economic independence is
meaningless.
For the ordinary man in the
street, independence means
self-sufficiency. The primary purpose for all
governments should be to make
the country work in security and
peace.
As citizens, we cannot go about our
daily businesses in peace and we
do not feel self-sufficient. Indeed, we
cannot in the midst of a plethora of
maladies - shortages of food, shortages
of drugs in hospitals and
pharmacies, rampant unemployment, fear of arbitrary
arrest and torture - the
list is
endless!
The economy is not working
because this government has rendered it
invalid. It is indeed time for this
government to go.
Governments must go when
they have lost all sense of shame.
What
good is this government doing the nation? Absolutely nothing, but
ruin. They
are not shamed by the long queues at all the country's filling
stations. They
are not shamed by the long queues for basic commodities. They
are not shamed
by empty shelves in the supermarkets.
They
are not shamed by dilapidated and ill-functioning hospitals. They
are not
shamed by a police that has run amok, meting out vengeance and
retribution
against the nation (Whatever for?).
They
are not shamed by the brutalised bare buttocks of a 60-plus old
woman.
Indeed, they are not shamed by presiding over the collapse of the
economy.
They are not shamed by putting the good name of Zimbabwe
into
disrepute.
The nation cannot
continue to be shamed this way and it is time to
say: "Please, go
peacefully."
It is time to go when a
government is continually visited by foreign
heads of state to advise and
chastise it on an endless catalogue
of
misdeeds.
Is this not an indication
that there is something wrong with us? How
loud does the government want our
neighbours to shout that what we are doing
is hurting them as
well?
When they stand with other leaders
in international fora, what economy
do they speak of? Indeed, what peace and
what human rights do they speak of?
The
government must go, not merely because of the MDC challenge to
its
legitimacy. It must go because it has failed to
perform.
It must go because it has made
serious mistakes that have jeopardised
the nation's livelihood. It must go
because it has failed to provide
solutions to the numerous problems that
beset us and which it inflicted on
the nation through its failure to listen
to good advice.
There are numerous other
pointers that we need a fresh start as
a
nation.
We cannot have this fresh
start with Zanu PF. We need fresh ideas and
these cannot be found in Zanu PF.
It is high time time that Zanu PF realised
that they are not the nation and
that they are not bigger than the nation.
That they fought in the liberation
war cannot be an excuse to stay put in
power even when that very stay is
hurting the nation and the economy.
We
fought for the liberation of Zimbabwe and not its
subjugation.
We cannot become the nation's
tormentors, looters and destroyers and
still claim its
hospitality.
If we have become so, as
indeed is the case, then it is time to go.
MK
Harare
Daily News
Leader
Page
For how long can State duck
issues?
5/14/03 8:37:48 AM (GMT
+2)
ZIMBABWEANS must continue to
suffer and possibly die at crumbling
State hospitals because the government
says it must first enact a Hospitals
Management Act and appoint a Health
Services Commission before it can sort
out the scandal that is the public
health sector.
Why is it taking the
government so long to enact the law and appoint
the commission, especially
given the fact that a commission of inquiry
appointed by President Robert
Mugabe himself had indeed made such a
recommendation as far back as in
1999?
Making the public health sector work
in a country where at least 2 000
people die every week because of
HIV/AIDS-related illnesses would be the
most urgent preoccupation of any
government that has a conscience.
But more
importantly, just how the proposed new law or commission will
suddenly
convert State hospitals from being places where people simply go to
die into
modern health institutions remains a
mystery.
Health and Child Welfare Minister
David Parirenyatwa tells us the
proposed new health law and the commission
will help decentralise the
management of government health institutions so
that management boards lift
efficiency of these
institutions.
Major government hospitals
such as Harare Central Hospital, if
Parirenyatwa is not aware of this, are
already being run by chief executives
with as much autonomy as any manager
would need, but nothing has changed at
these
hospitals.
As always, the government
refuses to see reality and instead it wants
to address peripheral issues
which are not the root causes of the crisis now
gripping the public health
sector.
But for how long will the
government continue to duck issues?
Certainly the reason why, for example, Vice-President Simon Muzenda
must go
to China for treatment as he has done in the past, is not because
there is no
Hospitals Management Act nor the proposed health
services
commission.
The reason, as
everyone knows, is because the chances of dying in a
malfunctioning theatre
at one of the poorly maintained government hospitals
is much higher than ever
before.
Never mind the attendant danger of
putting one's life in the hands of
doctors and nurses who are disgruntled by
the poverty wages they get from
the government and are also battling with
acute shortages of drugs, food,
equipment and even linen at State
hospitals.
All this because the government
would rather divert more resources to
its defence forces and the discredited
national youth service programme than
to the health
sector.
Added to this has been the
appointment of cronies who have absolutely
no clue how a modern health system
works to take charge of the State
health
sector.
This, unfortunately, is
the sad story of Zimbabwe, where common
thieves and other fly-by-nights have
landed themselves some of the best jobs
in government only because of who
they know in the system.
Which, of course,
also explains why not only public health
institutions are collapsing, but
also why parastatals such as Air Zimbabwe,
ZISCO and the National Oil Company
of Zimbabwe are such an expensive
embarrassment to the
nation.
Parirenyatwa and his colleagues in
the government, we would advise,
are better served re-routing resources from
the army, the Central
Intelligence Organisation, the national youth service
programme and the
government's other self-serving projects to the health
sector. Personnel in
the public health sector should be recruited only on the
basis of what they
can do and not who they
know.
We believe this - and this alone -
is the starting point if the health
sector is to be rescued from its certain
death. Any other action, including
these high-sounding but empty commissions,
will not do the trick.
Daily
News
Witness contradicts
Ben-Menashe over alleged UK, CIA
plot
5/14/03 8:32:50 AM (GMT
+2)
Staff
Reporters
A SENIOR police officer
yesterday denied knowledge of claims by the
State's principal witness in the
treason trial of opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, that the British
government and the United States Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) were
involved in the alleged plot to assassinate
President Robert
Mugabe.
Assistant Police Commissioner
Moses Magandi yesterday told the High
Court that the first time he learnt of
the purported British and CIA
involvement in the alleged assassination plot
was when he read about the
allegations in the
Press.
"I did not know about them
(allegations of British and CIA
involvement) until I read about them in
newspapers when this trial started,"
Magandi told Judge President Paddington
Garwe.
Ari Ben-Menashe, the Canadian-based
political consultant and the State
's key witness in the case, told Garwe at
the start of the trial in February
that Britain and the CIA had allegedly
helped plot Mugabe's demise and that
London had offered US$10 million (Z$8,24
billion) for the assassination.
Pressed by
defence lawyers as to why he had omitted mentioning this
vital evidence in
his statement to the police, Ben-Menashe told the court he
had verbally
informed Magandi about the involvement of the United States and
Britain in
the alleged assassination plot.
But
Magandi, who was part of the team that investigated the case and
is one of
the State's witnesses in the trial, yesterday told the court that
Ben-Menashe
never told him of the involvement of the two foreign powers in
the alleged
attempt by Tsvangirai and two other top leaders of his Movement
for
Democratic Change to kill Mugabe.
The
policeman, who is being cross-examined by the defence lawyers,
also told the
court that Ben-Menashe had not disclosed to him that he had
been paid US$615
000 by the Zimbabwean government for unspecified
consultancy services before
he secretly video-taped a meeting where
Tsvangirai allegedly requested
Dickens & Madson, Ben-Menashe's firm, to
facilitate the assassination of
Mugabe.
Responding to charges by George
Bizos, the South African advocate
leading the defence team, that Ben-Menashe
had supplied the police with an
altered version of the memorandum of
agreement between his consultancy firm
and the MDC, Magandi said the police
had accepted whatever Ben-Menashe gave
them because they thought it was the
correct version of the agreement
between the Canadian's company and the
MDC.
Pressed on why the police refused to
give a copy of the video-tape
recording to the Canadian government which
wanted it to assist them in their
own investigations into the matter, Magandi
said he could not answer for the
Zimbabwean government which made the
decision to refuse with the tape.
According to Bizos, the Canadian High Commission in Harare wrote to
the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs seeking assistance to obtain a copy of
the
contentious video-tape.
The High
Commission had indicated they wanted to pass the tape and
other relevant
material on to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for an
investigation into
the alleged assassination and coup conspiracy by the MDC
leaders. The
Zimbabwean government turned down the
request.
The trial, in which Tsvangirai
and his lieutenants could be sentenced
to death if found guilty, continues
today.
Meanwhile, nine MDC women
supporters were yesterday arrested at the
party's headquarters after they
marched through the capital in solidarity
with their leaders on
trial.
MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi
said about 200 women marched to the
High Court where the women were force to
retreat by armed riot police squads
deployed at the
court.
Nyathi said the police later picked
up nine of the women marchers from
the party's Harvest House headquarters and
took them to Harare Central
Police Station where they were still detained by
midday yesterday.
The police refused to
comment on the arrests.