Zim Online
Sat 20 May 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe High Court Judge
Ben Hlatswayo on Friday ordered
immigration authorities to allow into the
country all foreign delegates
coming for the ongoing Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade Unions (ZCTU) conference
except South African labour leader,
Zwelinzima Vavi.
Hlatswayo made the ruling following an urgent
application by ZCTU
lawyers seeking the court to bar immigration authorities
from deporting
foreign trade union officials invited as guests to the labour
body's
congress.
The Judge also ruled that all foreign union
officials deported from
Zimbabwe over the last three days were free to
return to the southern
African nation labour congress that is among other
things expected to vote
for mass protests against President Robert Mugabe's
government which it
accuses of ruining the once vibrant
economy.
ZCTU lawyer Alec Muchadehama told ZimOnline last night
that he would
file another court application for a variation of Hlatswayo's
order so Vavi
can be allowed into Zimbabwe.
Vavi, who is Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) secretary
general, is an outspoken critic of Mugabe's controversial rule and has often
publicly criticised President Thabo Mbeki for refusing to take tougher
action against the Zimbabwean leader.
The South African trade
unionist was earlier on Friday barred by
immigration officials from entering
Zimbabwe and ordered back onto a South
African Airways plane that had
brought him to Harare International airport.
Zimbabwean authorities
on Wednesday also deported two Norwegian trade
union officials, Nina Mjoberg
and Alice Siame, while a COSATU official, Jani
Mhlangu, was barred from
entering Zimbabwe.
The government appeared to have changed its mind
on the ZCTU's
international guests and on Thursday allowed about 10 foreign
unionists into
the country only to change and bar Vavi from
Zimbabwe.
The Harare authorities have in the past denied entry to
foreign trade
unionists whom they accuse of working hand in hand with the
ZCTU to
undermine the government's authority.
The government
accuses the ZCTU, a strong ally of the main opposition
Movement for
Democratic Change party, of pushing a political agenda to oust
Mugabe from
power.
Two separate delegations from the Congress of South African
Trade
Unions have also been kicked out of Zimbabwe over the past two
years.
Meanwhile, Bulawayo High Court Judge Nicholas Ndou on Friday
granted
an order sought by churches in the city to hold public prayers and
marches
in the city to commemorate last year's home demolition exercise by
the
government.
Police had banned the planned prayers and
meetings for fear they could
end turning into mass anti-government
protests.
A spokesman of the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance that is
organising the
prayers and marches said: "The Judge has granted the order
and the marches
will go ahead as planned." - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Sat
20 May 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe opposition faction leader Arthur
Mutambara was on
Friday afternoon released from police custody after being
charged with
contravening the tough Public Order and Security Act
(POSA).
Mutambara was arrested earlier in the day together with
about 40 other
officials of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party
faction while
campaigning for Gabriel Chaibva, his party's candidate in
today's
by-election in Budiriro constituency in Harare.
The
by-election is being held to fill a parliamentary seat left vacant
following
the death of MDC legislator Gabrial Shoko last February.
The two
factions of the MDC are both fielding candidates in the
election with the
Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC fielding Emmanuel Chisvuure
while Jeremiah
Bvirindi is representing the ruling ZANU PF party.
A senior
official of Mutambara's faction who had also been arrested,
Priscilla
Misihairabwi-Mushonga, yesterday told ZimOnline that Mutambara
together with
the party members had been charged under three separate
categories.
"Mutambara and other senior officials like myself
and Chaibva were
charged under POSA, drivers were charged under the Road
Traffic Act, while
supporters were charged under the Miscellaneous Offences
Act.
"They (police) wanted us to pay a fine for those charged under
the
Road Traffic Act but we refused. So they have told us to go come back to
the
police on Monday with our lawyers to finalise the charges and court
processes," said Misihairabwi.
Under POSA, it is an offence
punishable by a two-year jail term for
Zimbabweans to gather in groups of
more than three to discuss politics. The
MDC has often accused President
Robert Mugabe of using the tough security
law to harass the
opposition.
Meanwhile, a lawyer representing about 103 National
Constitutional
Assembly (NCA) activists who were arrested on Thursday for
commemorating
last year's controversial clean-up exercise yesterday said he
will now
approach the High Court seeking the release of the
demonstrators.
The NCA activists were arrested last Thursday for
marching to the
Parliament buildings in Harare in defiance of a police ban
against such
activities which they feared could spill into anti-Mugabe
protests.
"The police have not yet charged my clients. I will file
an urgent
High Court order tomorrow (Saturday) seeking my clients' release
because
people cannot be imprisoned for days and days without a charge as if
we are
in a military junta," said Kwaramba.
Police spokesman
Wayne Bvudzijena refused to comment on the matter
last night. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Sat 20 May
2006
VICTORIA FALLS - A Zimbabwe government minister said yesterday
proposals by President Robert Mugabe's government to take control of
foreign-owned mines would take longer as negotiations were still ongoing
with the industry.
"Amendment to the Mines and Minerals Act is
a process, indeed a long
process, that comes with attitudes, panic and
self-destructive
socio-political perceptions along the way, which require
our vigilance and
determination to ensure we sail and dock together in this
process," Tinos
Rusere, Deputy Mines Minister told an annual general meeting
of the Chamber
of Mines.
"Despite our differences here and
there, as we sail through the
process, dialogue and consultation will bring
us to the common thinking,"
added Rusere.
Rusere's speech was
in sharp contrast to his boss Mugabe who had told
a rally in Budiriro the
day before that the government would go ahead and
seize 51 percent stake in
mining companies, including 25 percent which it
would not pay
for.
The Chamber of Mines has presented a less radical proposal to
the
government on empowerment but is yet to make it public.
Mining is now Zimbabwe's largest single foreign currency earner with
Rusere
saying it now accounts for about 4 percent of Gross Domestic Product
and
contributes more than 40 percent of all foreign exchange earnings in the
country.
Foreign investors have been rattled by the government
plans forcing
most to withhold various projects to expand
output.
"The mining industry is ready to grow, it is like a rocket
on a
launch-pad. The missing ingredient is confidence," the Chamber's
president
Jack Murehwa told delegates.
"There are many projects
in the wings, there are many investors in the
wings who are out there ready
to come and grow with us," Murehwa added.
Zimbabwe is on the brink
of economic collapse as it battles a steep
recession blamed on mismanagement
by Mugabe's government.
Rusere sought to calm the industry by
saying the government was still
negotiating with miners over the
issue.
"We can not make quick decisions and come up with the wrong
things..be
assured that we want to come up with the best laws," he said. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Sat 20 May 2006
HARARE - Self-exiled Zimbabwean
businessman Mutumwa Mawere saw it
coming before his businesses were
impounded by the government and was in the
process of moving key senior
managers to South Africa when the authorities
pounced on his empire in 2004,
ZimOnline learnt this week.
According to sources within his SMM
Holdings business empire, the
Johannesburg-based businessman - who has taken
South African citizenship -
warned his senior managers in January 2004 to
prepare for a backlash
following his refusal to be co-opted into the ZANU PF
leadership in the
southern Masvingo province.
The sources said,
through former SMM board chairman William Mudekunye,
Mawere told the
managers at a strategic planning meeting held in Harare in
January 2004 to
prepare for the worst.
"He must have seen it coming because Dr
Mudekunye encouraged
executives of key subsidiaries such as Turnall
Holdings, AA Mines, CFI and
Steelnet to consider a restructure of their
operations that would see them
moving their head offices to South Africa,"
said a senior SMM executive who
spoke on condition of
anonymity.
Mudekunye was chairman of SMM and chief executive of
African Resources
Limited (ARL). ARL was the vehicle through which Mawere
used to purchase
Shabani Mashava Mines (SMM), the country's largest asbestos
mine from former
owners, Turner and Newall.
Mawere was chairman
of ARL.
The sources said the plan was to form a new holding
company, SMM (Pty)
Limited, domiciled in South Africa. The new holding
company would be a
replica of the Zimbabwe-based SMM.
The move
would have moved control of the empire away from Zimbabwe to
South
Africa.
"That would effectively have minimised the losses from the
anticipated
backlash," explained the source.
This week Mawere
accused some senior ZANU PF officials of
masterminding the seizure of his
business interests in Zimbabwe.
He blamed his fallout with the
Zimbabwean authorities on his decision
to block a loan sought by a company
linked to former Speaker of Parliament
Emmerson Mnangagwa from First Bank
Corporation (FBC).
Through his Ukubambana Kubatana Investments, a
subsidiary of ARL,
Mawere had a large stake in FBC.
The
Zimbabwean authorities have accused him of contravening the
country's
Exchange Control regulations by externalising large sums of
foreign
currency. He has been threatened with arrest if he sets foot in the
country.
But Mawere, whom ZimOnline was unable to reach for comment on
Friday, denies
contravening Zimbabwe's exchange law. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Fri 19 May 2006
HARARE - The leader of one of the
factions of Zimbabwe's splintered
opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) party, Arthur Mutambara, was
on Friday morning arrested by the police
while campaigning for his faction's
candidate in a parliamentary by-election
tomorrow.
Mutambara, who is being held at Glen View police station,
was arrested
together with about 40 other officials and supporters of his
party, who
included the party's candidate in the poll, Gabriel
Chaibva.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was unable to
speak on the
opposition leader's arrest because he had not yet been briefed
on the
matter.
But an MDC official, Maxwell Zimuto, who is
among the people detained
with Mutambara, said the police had not charged
them yet.
Zimuto said: "The police have not read
out any charges against us . .
. more than 50 people who include youths and
party officials are in
detention and we are waiting for the police to lay
out the charges before
our lawyers can deal with the issue."
The by-election is being held to fill a House of Assembly seat left
vacant
after the death last February of MDC legislator, Gabriel Shoko.
Budiriro
constituency which straddles over parts of Glen View suburb is a
stronghold
of the MDC.
But President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU PF party is
hoping to
benefit from a split in the opposition party's vote whose two
factions are
each fielding a candidate.
The larger faction of
the MDC led by founding leader Morgan Tsvangirai
is fielding Emanuel
Chisvuure in the poll while ZANU PF is being represented
by Jeremiah
Bvirindi.
The arrest of the MDC team brings to over a hundred the
number of
people arrested by police this week in a fresh crackdown against
dissension.
Among those arrested are several civic society
activists arrested for
trying to organise public prayers and marches to
commemorate last year's
controversial demolition of shantytowns and city
backyard cottages by the
government.
Police have banned the
planned marches and prayers fearing they could
easily turn into mass
protests against the government, blamed by many
Zimbabweans for the bitter
economic crisis the country is facing. -
ZimOnline
Zim Online
Sat 20
May 2006
HARARE - Zimbabwe immigration authorities on Friday barred
top South
African labour leader Zwelinzima Vavi from entering the country,
immediately
putting him back on a South African Airways plane that had
brought him to
Harare International Airport.
Vavi, who is
secretary general of the powerful Congress of South
African Trade Unions
(COSATU), is an outspoken critic of President Robert
Mugabe's controversial
rule and has often publicly criticised President
Thabo Mbeki for refusing to
take tougher action against the Zimbabwean
leader.
He was
visiting Zimbabwe to attend a conference of the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade
Unions (ZCTU) underway in Harare.
ZCTU spokesman Mlamuleli Sibanda
said the labour body's lawyers were
considering seeking an urgent court
order setting aside the ban on Vavi who
he said was the only one stopped
from entering the country out of several of
the union's guests who arrived
today.
Sibanda said: "The immigration officials have put him back
on a South
African Airways which touched down at 12:30. Our lawyers are now
handling
the issue with a view of seeking an urgent application with the
High Court
to try and set aside Vavi's ban."
Zimbabwean
authorities on Wednesday deported two Norwegian trade union
officials Nina
Mjoberg and Alice Siame, while a Congress of South African
Trade Unions
(COSATU) official, Jani Mhlangu, was barred from entering
Zimbabwe.
The government appeared to have changed its mind on
the ZCTU's
international guests and on Thursday and allowed about 10 foreign
unionists
into the country.
The Harare authorities have in the
past denied entry to foreign trade
unionists whom they accuse of working
hand in hand with the ZCTU to
undermine the government's
authority.
The government accuses the ZCTU, a strong ally of the
main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change party, of pushing a political
agenda to oust
Mugabe from power.
Two separate delegations from
the Congress of South African Trade
Unions have also been kicked out of
Zimbabwe over the past two years. -
ZimOnline
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
19 May 2006
12:58
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has donated 100
computers to 10
schools in Harare ahead of a parliamentary by-election in a
key suburb,
reports said on Friday.
Voters in the
low-income suburb of Budiriro are due to go to the
polls on Saturday to fill
a parliamentary seat left vacant by the death of
the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) MP Gilbert Shoko.
Mugabe made the
donation after addressing crowds at a rally at a
school in Budiriro on
Thursday, when he urged voters not to vote for the MDC
which he called a
"foreign creation," according to the state-controlled
Herald
newspaper.
"Yesterday's donation meant that all secondary
schools in the
Glen View-Mufakose District -- which covers Budiriro
constituency -- have
benefited from the president's computerisation
programme," the paper said.
The 82-year-old Zimbabwean
president began handing out computers
to schools ahead of presidential
elections in 2005, when some schools in
Zimbabwe's rural areas also
benefited.
But there has been muted criticism of the
donations because not
all schools have electricity or computer teachers and
in some cases the
computers are reported to have lain idle or been
stolen.
At the rally, Mugabe also confirmed the government's
controversial plans to take a 51% share in all mines.
"You [mine owners] will get 49%, we will get 51%, that is the
policy of
government. It is there for the taking, take it or leave it, leave
it or
take it," he said.
There are three candidates competing for
the Budiriro
parliamentary seat: Jeremiah Bvirindi of the ruling Zimbabwe
African
National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party, Emmanuel Chisvuure
of the
Morgan Tsvangirai-led faction of the MDC and
Gabriel
Chaibva of the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC faction. -
Sapa-DPA
Washington Post
By Craig
Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 19, 2006; Page
A18
JOHANNESBURG, May 18 -- A white commercial farmer who had
crisscrossed
Zimbabwe in recent months attempting to convince other farmers
that the
government was ending years of land seizures is now fighting to
protect his
600-acre plot from takeover.
Trevor Gifford, vice
president of the Commercial Farmers Union, is the most
prominent public face
of a program under which, he has said, the Zimbabwean
government will soon
issue long-term leases to commercial farmers without
regard to race. At
least 200 white farmers, including Gifford, had applied
in recent months for
those leases, despite mixed signals from government
officials.
He
said uniformed men came to his door on May 5 to announce that his farm in
the eastern town of Chipinge was being seized. The new owner has since
posted four men on the farm.
Gifford said he has a court order from
2002 guaranteeing his right to farm
on the property, and he is seeking to
have that enforced. He expressed
optimism that the government still plans to
issue long-term leases to him
and other whites.
"I'm still very
positive that things are on target," he said in a telephone
interview. "I
believe that even my situation will be sorted out. I've had
very positive
discussions with the government."
Landless black peasants began invading
white-owned commercial farms in 2000
as President Robert Mugabe, in power
since the country's founding in 1980,
struggled to rebuild support in the
face of unprecedented political
opposition. At the time, about 4,500 white
families controlled most of
Zimbabwe's best agricultural land. Fewer than 10
percent of these farms now
remain under the control of the nation's tiny
minority of whites.
The economy, which had been supported largely by
commercial agriculture, has
since collapsed, and many of the seized farms
are overgrown with brown
weeds. In recent months, some government officials
have said that this
unused land would be redistributed to qualified farmers
regardless of race.
But other government officials have issued
contradictory statements, and
invasions of some of the nation's remaining
white-owned farms have
continued.
Even as Gifford and other officials
from the union attempted to convince
white farmers that new leases would
soon be issued, many remained deeply
skeptical of the government's
intentions. Some said they had lost the
capital and equipment needed to
resume farming even if the government were
to return their farms. Many
others had already left the country.
Gifford said it was possible that
his farm was targeted for takeover because
of his prominent role in the
debate. "There's people out there who would
like to see me squashed," he
said.
The Nation, Malawi
by Frank
Phiri in Tokyo , 19 May 2006 - 05:51:32
Japan-one of the richest
country in the world and a member of the
G8-says it is not pleased with
President Bingu wa Mutharika's soft treatment
of Zimbabwean leader Robert
Mugabe.
The Tokyo government has also expressed disapproval of the
political
and financial support that China and the Southern African
Development
Community (Sadc) is rendering to Mugabe's regime.
But
Minister of Information Patricia Kaliati said on Thursday
government does
not regret honouring Mugabe.
"By morally and materially supporting
Mugabe and his regime, Malawi
and anyone else, will be setting a bad
precedent. It is a tragic reflection
of governance in your country and all
those that are worshipping this
dictator," Dr Sadaharu Kataoka, advisor to
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro
Koizumi, said in Tokyo on
Wednesday.
Kataoka, who advises Koizumi on African affairs and is also
associate
professor of the School of International Liberal Studies at Waseda
University, was addressing African journalists on a tour of duty of
Japan.
He said Japan and other members of the world's eight most
industrialised nations would maintain a hard line policy against Mugabe by
sustaining travel and economic sanctions on the Harare
administration.
"Japan and other members of the G8 maintain a travel
ban policy on
Mugabe. We stopped economic ties with his government because
he and his
family are practising personalised politics.
"This has
sunk Zimbabwe, which was a big exporter hitherto, into
serious economic and
governance problems," Kataoka said.
The foreign affairs expert said
Japan and the developed world was
surprised to learn of Mutharika's
hero-worshipping of Mugabe during his
recent state visit to the
country.
But Kaliati described Kataoka as a bad advisor to Koizumi "if
his
statement were meant to discredit our government."
"We do not
regret honouring Mugabe and people from other countries
should not interfere
with issues that do not concern them. Malawi is not
going to follow whatever
they say. He (Kataoka) is not a good advisor," said
Kaliati.
Kataoka said equally disturbing is the laxity of South African
President
Thabo Mbeki to whip his northern neighbour in line with
expectations of the
donor community and the cash-strapped people of
Zimbabwe.
"If it
was Nelson Mandela, Mugabe would have started to listen. The
venerable
Mandela would have put the necessary pressure on him, but Mbeki
appears
lax," he said.
Kataoka said Japan is also protesting China's sweeping
policy and
financial aid to Mugabe and other African countries as this could
undermine
democracy on the continent and reinforce dictatorship.
He
said China was a communist dictatorship which looked bent on
pampering other
African dictators.
"China is building roads, stadiums and other
infrastructure in Africa
using its prisoners. It is also supporting a number
of African countries
militarily. This is not by the will of the people of
China but communist
dictatorship. Japan as a democracy protests such
ideologies," said Kataoka.
China has recently been pumping a lot of
money to Zimbabwe, which
sources say has helped Mugabe's administration
clear outstanding debts with
the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and top
up salaries in the civil
service to cushion a bludgeoning inflation of about
1000 percent.
The government of Hu Jintao is also making in roads in
West Africa
where it has staked more than US$100 million for rehabilitating
and building
football stadia in Ghana, which is preparing to host the
African Cup of
Nations in 2008.
This month, President Bingu wa
Mutharika went ahead to name a road in
Blantyre after Mugabe despite advice
from civil society that doing so would
set a bad precedent.
Diplomats were also reported to be angry with Mutharika's kid gloves
over
Mugabe.
Malawi's exports to Japan were pegged at K3.6 billion as of
last year
according to figures at Japan External Trade Organisation
(Jetro).
The country sells tobacco, tea, coffee, and fish to
Japan.
May 19,
2006
By ntungamili nkomo
Bulawayo (AND) Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) legislator, David
Coltart has warned that the
current split within the opposition party will
only help Zanu PF win the
2008 presidential poll without rigging a balot or
unleashing any reign of
terro on its opponents.
In view of the damaging split that has torn
the MDC into two seemingly
irreconsilable camps,. Coltart says there will be
no need for the ruling
part to rig the elections as the very nature of the
split will discourage
opposition supporters from voting, surrendering the
ballot casting to Zanu
PF supporters.
"I have is no doubt in my
mind that if the presidential election came
while the oposition is still in
its current state, Zanu PF will record a
resounding victory without rigging
or violence. They will win the election
freely and fairly," said Coltart
while adressing a public forum in
Zimbabwe`s second city,
Bulawayo.
Coltart, who has maintained a neutral stance in the wake
of the
divisions urged all opposition parties and civic groups opposed to
President
Robert Mugabe`s tyranical rule toteam up and form a "rainbow
coalition" that
will give Mugabe`s party no chance in any
election.
His sentiments of a need for a strong coalition ahead of
the 2008
ballot were seconded by Tendai Biti, another MDC lawmaker loyal to
Morgan
Tsvangirai`s faction. Biti however, disagreed with Coltart saying
Zanu PF
could never win an election without employing fraud and other
unorthodox
methods no matter how torrn aprt the opposition
maybe.
Analysts warn that Mugabe, in power since 1980 when Zimbabwe
attained
its independence from colonial Britain, is already hatching ways of
rigging
the 2008 poll in favor of his ruling party.
But it
remains to be seen if the election will really take place in
the said year
as there are reports that the octogenarian leader wants to
shift the poll to
2010.
Bulawayo Bureau
Platinum Today
Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has repeated his threat to take a
51 per
cent stake in all foreign-owned mines.
Speaking at a political
rally, Mr Mugabe was forthright in saying that his
government was now
pursuing the policy, although he gave no further details.
His speech
comes shortly after more confidence had grown among the industry
that a more
conciliatory policy could be negotiated.
"We've decided by way of policy
as government that we shall now pursue a
policy whereby the government and
people will insist on equity of 50-51 per
cent," said Mr Mugabe.
"To
those who don't want to accept this, we say goodbye and good luck. Leave
it,
take it, it's up to you."
The speech comes just a day after a report from
Platts suggested the
government may agree a less confrontational deal with
foreign miners.
Sources in the country told the agency that the regime
might take a much
smaller share than the 51 per cent first
demanded.
Zimbabwe has the second largest deposits of platinum of any
country in the
world, but these are not currently being used to their
potential due to the
economic and political uncertainty in the
country.
Business Day
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
alarm sounded by Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad on the economic
meltdown
in Zimbabwe and its effect on SA and the region is the loudest so
far from
any senior South African official on the crisis.
Depending on how they
are followed up, Pahad's remarks could sound a
decisive break with quiet
diplomacy, the Pretoria policy that has sent
Harare all the wrong
signals.
To be more effective, Pretoria will have to shift to overt
pressure to
signal its dissatisfaction at having to pay the price of gross
misgovernance
by our neighbour. Zimbabwe's seven-year economic decline is
now a real
threat to SA, with at least 2-million, and probably far more,
Zimbabweans
living illegally in this country, placing massive additional
strain on our
already stretched services. And, as Pahad acknowledged at a
briefing this
week, the threat is not only to SA and Zimbabwe, but to the
region as a
whole. Pahad said SA "remained seized" with the problem, and was
working on
a solution, amid hopes that the United Nations (UN) will also
play a role.
SA has already been exercising a form of quiet pressure by
not helping
Zimbabwe pay its debt to the International Monetary Fund. In the
end
Zimbabwe paid this debt on its own, at considerable cost to itself and
without the benefit of access to renewed credit lines. If a larger regional
crisis is to be avoided, new sources of pressure will have to be added.
These could include measures such as SA distancing itself from Zimbabwe by
openly criticising unjust policies, and imposing travel bans on the elite.
SA has little to lose and much to gain. By showing Zimbabweans that SA is no
longer onside it would give the internal opposition courage.
There
are few obvious signs of a South African role at present in brokering
a
settlement in Zimbabwe. A UN plan, which could include aid for Zimbabwe
and
agreement on immunity from prosecution for human-rights violations in
exchange for a timetable for President Robert Mugabe's departure, has been
discussed. It apparently has President Thabo Mbeki's backing, but is being
driven by the UN.
Mugabe, meanwhile, is relying increasingly on the
military to run the
country as a protection against possible urban riots,
and is putting in
place a transition strategy for when he is gone. This
"creeping coup", with
Mugabe's connivance, is designed to ensure the grip on
the country of a Zanu
(PF) coterie is maintained in the post-Mugabe era.
That will mean continued
stolen elections and economic decline.
But
events may overtake these transition plans. Hyperinflation, now at
1000%,
high unemployment and extreme food shortages mean most Zimbabweans
cannot
meet their basic needs. It also means that Mugabe's rewards for those
whom
he relies on to stay in power are being diminished rapidly. The
government
has delayed paying salaries to some in the public service, the
police and
the military. This will soon erode the pillars of support for the
Mugabe
regime, which clearly knows that economic decline is its prime
threat. Not
only does it threaten military and public-service support
structures, it
also increases the chances of urban riots.
Ultimately, the driving force
behind any future change will be Zimbabweans
themselves, but SA can play an
important role. All the signs coming out of
Zimbabwe are of a humanitarian
and human-rights crisis. These are the type
of early warning signs that
should demand that the African Union and the
Southern African Development
Community address the issue.
The potential is for another Darfur, albeit
in a different form. The South
African government seems finally to be coming
round to the view that quiet
diplomacy has failed, and a new initiative is
needed. A united effort by
government, the UN and regional bodies may yet
avert the political and
economic implosion of Zimbabwe.
By Tererai Karimakwenda
19 May 2006
The government has
continued to hound anyone suspected of organising
activities to commemorate
last year's disastrous Operation Murambatsvina.
After several arrests and
threats to civic and church leaders earlier in the
week, the latest is a
report from Chinhoyi that six students were picked up
on Friday for
allegedly attempting to stage a demonstration. Diana Tasiyana,
the Vice
President of Chinhoyi University of Technology (CUT) was among
those
arrested. She managed to contact outgoing student leader Collen
Chibango
soon after she was picked up by the police Friday morning.
Chibango
told us Tasiyana sounded fragile and said she was being
questioned about any
involvement she might have had with the unrest and
violence that took place
at Bindura University last week. Chibango said the
Chinhoyi vice president
had nothing to do with any of it and is actually
about 3 months pregnant. He
has not been able to contact her since but he
managed to alert The Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights who said they would
dispatch a lawyer to Chinhoyi
immediately. (We will update you as we get
more information about her
arrest.) A warrant of arrest has been issued for
the entire student
leadership which took over positions in ZINASU at the
congress last week.
Many who attended that event are reported to be hiding
as state agents
continue to hunt them down.
There are also reports that on Thursday
police blocked a march and
arrested about 100 members of the pressure group
National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA). The group has been demanding a new
constitution for
Zimbabwe. The Reuters news agency said the arrests included
several old
women and their correspondent witnessed police with batons force
the
marchers to sit down before they reached the city centre. They were then
loaded onto trucks. We were unable to reach NCA officials for more details
on the arrests.
The government has this week acted in a manner
that betrays a deep
seated fear of the people as the police and state agents
conducted a slew of
unwarranted arrests and intimidated anyone suspected of
being involved in
the organising of commemorations of Operation
Murambatsvina. Thursday marked
the 1st anniversary of this exercise which
displaced nearly one million
people and destroyed their livelihood. The
government is believed to be
afraid that commemorative events could turn
into widespread unrest as
inflation passed the 1000% mark this month and
prices of basic commodities
more than doubled and continue to rise almost
daily. A careful study of
those who were arrested or intimidated this week
shows that they are all
people believed by government to be influential
members of their communities
most likely to be involved in mobilising or
organising any mass action. And
nobody has been spared.
Earlier
in the week political commentator Dr John Makumbe was arrested
and
interrogated about his suspected role, and church leaders in Bulawayo
were
interrogated and ordered to cancel a peaceful procession scheduled for
Saturday. Students from Bindura University who were released this week
accused the police of forcing them to perform simulated sex acts. Some
international delegates to the ZCTU congress in Harare were deported on
Wednesday and more on Friday. Observers have criticised the actions as a
sign that authorities are panicking. They also say this shows how far the
Mugabe regime will go to deny the people their rights and to hold on to
power.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
[ This report does not necessarily
reflect the views of the United Nations]
HARARE, 19 May 2006 (IRIN) -
Zimbabwean police on Friday cracked down on
opposition by-election
campaigning in the capital, Harare, arresting the
leader of a faction of the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and 60 of
his supporters.
Arthur
Mutambara, head of the MDC's pro-Senate faction, was campaigning in
Harare's
high-density Budiriro suburb, where this weekend's by-election will
be
fought. He was detained along with the faction's deputy
secretary-general,
Pricilla Misihairambwi-Mushonga, and spokesperson Gabriel
Chaibva, the
by-election candidate.
His group had been given police clearance to
march, but this was later
cancelled to allow President Robert Mugabe to
campaign for the ruling
party's candidate.
Mutambara told IRIN they
were driving in a convoy of cars when they were
stopped by police, who
ordered them to a nearby police station. "These are
the tactics of a
government which is afraid of competition. If they are not
afraid, why deny
us an opportunity to speak to our members?"
The arrests come at the end
of a week of tension over the commemoration by
advocacy groups of the first
anniversary of the government's Operation
Murambatsvina - the demolition of
illegal homes and businesses that affected
an estimated 700,000 people
across the country.
Useni Sibanda, coordinator of the Zimbabwe Christian
Alliance, told IRIN
that police in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, had
banned them from
holding a prayer procession over the weekend for those
affected by
Murambatsvina, known colloquially as 'the tsunami'.
"The
Zimbabwe Christian Alliance is organising these prayer events, not for
political gain or mere publicity, but because it has a Biblical mandate to
stand in solidarity with the poor. Churches in Bulawayo sheltered over 2,000
families at the height of Murambatsvina and have continued to provide food
assistance as well as medical help and payment of school fees for displaced
children," Sibanda told IRIN.
Late on Friday the churches were still
battling to get a High Court order to
allow the march in Bulawayo to take
place. One of President Mugabe's
sternest critics, Archbishop Pius Ncube,
was scheduled to lead the
procession.
"All this has to do with the
Operation Murambatsvina commemorations being
organised. The authorities just
don't want the truth to be known," alleged
church member Jonah
Gokovah.
The government justified Operation Murambatsvina ('Drive Out
Filth') on the
grounds of cleaning up the cities and weeding out criminals.
But a stinging
report by UN special envoy Anna Tibaijuka in July last year
called on the
government to pay reparations to those who had lost housing
and livelihoods
and punish those who, "with indifference to human
suffering", had carried
out the evictions.
Tibaijuka, UN-HABITAT's
Executive Director, said the three-month operation
involving armed police,
who on occasion demolished legal homes, "breached
both national and
international human rights law provisions guiding
evictions, thereby
precipitating a humanitarian crisis".
The report noted that "it will take
several years before the people and
society as a whole can recover".
Thousands of people returned to their rural
homes where jobs are scarce,
some are in resettlement camps on the outskirts
of Harare, others have
rebuilt illegally in their former neighbourhoods.
[ENDS]
Financial Times
By John Lloyd
Published: May 19
2006 14:51
What do we believe when we're free, and can believe anything we
want? I don't
mean here the larger questions of life and death, but the
daily matter of
knowing what's going on in the neighbourhood, the state, the
world. How do
we know which source of information to trust, when they abound
and are so
different? More to the point, how do we care?
The
question was dramatised last week during a debate on the media at
University
College London, where Guardian assistant editor David Leigh, MP
Clare Short
and I batted around different views on the British and western
media. A
fourth speaker was Beatrice Mtetwa, a lawyer from Zimbabwe who
specialises
in defending journalists in trouble with the regime of Robert
Mugabe. I
spoke after her, and she was an impossible act to follow. Not
because she
was fluent and impassioned, though she was; but because she was
from another
world.
Her testimony on media (and other) repression in Zimbabwe, on
the corruption
of the higher reaches of the judiciary and on the fear
engendered in those
who seek to tell something of the truth, had the effect
- as Leigh said
afterwards - of making our arguments look small. Leigh and I
disagree on
much, but Mtetwa made us both realise that we were blessed to
live in a
country with a free press, and that the issues - important as they
are -
were encased in that luxury.
She works in a society that,
though not wholly unfree - the fact that she
can work is evidence of that -
is still one of those states where the
telling of the truth is a precious
act. We live in a society where the truth
is easily told - as are
half-truths, exaggerations, inaccuracies and
downright lies. There are very
good arguments to be had about all of these
deviations from the truth - the
US media is still convulsed by charges that
they did not report fully on the
flawed nature of the intelligence on Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction. But
even the harshest of its critics admit that
there were stories revealing
divisions in the intelligence communities and
commentary casting doubt; and
that since the war was won and the peace (so
far) lost, the media have been
hard on the administration and have revealed
such horrors as the torture at
Abu Ghraib. Also, the hundreds of thousands
of websites, blogs, newsletters,
magazines, newspapers of every kind,
foreign sources of reporting (including
Al-Jazeera now in English)
constitute a bank of information that can be
drawn on at any time with some
hope of gaining an adequate account of what's
going on.
But we don't - or at any rate, not like we did in the old
days. The new
professor of journalism at London's City University, Adrian
Monck, made that
point in a new way in his inaugural lecture last month, and
it was a large
and valuable one. Monck called his speech "Why the public
doesn't deserve
the news" - a provocation, of course, but one that was an
attempt to make
people face up to the problems with our concept of public
service, as it has
come to be applied to the provision of news and current
affairs.
He argued that:
- The political system provides
no incentive for an informed public.
- The whole notion of "an
informed public" is "one of contemporary politics'
cherished
myths".
- There is no evidence that broadcast news morally transforms
people.
- There is evidence of a long tradition of social criticism
that does see
information as an agent of radical change.
Monck
seems to have put his finger on something important: a conflation, in
the
news media, between the provision of information and the power of news
to
transform. News, in our societies, is only rarely transformational - that
is, only rarely does it change our perceptions and make us glimpse into the
heart of things previously unknown. Abu Ghraib was one such occasion - it
was shocking to learn that American soldiers could behave like that, and be
allowed to behave like that. But these moments are rare.
The
quotidian reality of our free media is that we mix truth - better,
accurate
facts - with guesses, ambiguities and comment, and that's just the
news
stories. We do it in part because there isn't enough of an incentive
from
the market (and media, especially newspapers, are very much creatures
of the
market) to do better. We also do it because there's an inchoate
tradition of
the kind that Monck sees; that is, that we are social critics
as well as
information providers, and that we will tell you the truth that
will set
people free - will transform them.
But when people are free, the
social critic role is itself transformed.
Sometimes it is transformed out of
existence: television is littered with
the corpses of current affairs
programmes that sought to tell the truth to
the people about power.
Sometimes it is transformed into polemic; for since
there is a decreasing
consensus on what constitutes the fair and impartial,
new stations such as
Al-Jazeera, Fox and talk-show hosts are developing
their own kind of radical
change through the revelation of the bias,
indecencies and sins of those
they wish to put in the frame. The notion of
transformation coming through
the pure truth has been transformed into a
universe in which everything is
spun, including that which claims
impartiality and fairness.
We
free people don't have to know much, because we passively believe that a
government which is itself kept up to the mark by competitive politics and
aggressive media probably won't do anything too much wrong. If it does
disturb us, we become engaged until the disturbance is removed, or we learn
to live with it. That's freedom for you.
john.lloyd@ft.com