FinGaz
Freedom of
expression under siege
Rasweat
Mukundu
5/1/03 9:47:07 AM (GMT
+2)
AS Zimbabwe joins the rest of the
world on May 3 to commemorate World
Press Freedom Day, it is noted with
sadness that this day comes at a time
when the country is probably facing its
worst assault on the fundamental
right of freedom of
expression.
Zimbabwe's chosen theme for
World Press Freedom Day, "The media we
have is not the media we need", sums
up the predicament the media and
freedom of expression as a right find itself
in this country.
The siege, intimidatory and
chaotic environment deliberately created
by the Department of Information and
Publicity as far as information is
transmitted in Zimbabwe has gone beyond
rationality. The arrests of
journalists under the new laws passed since the
year 2000 surpass any other
record in Zimbabwe and probably in the
region.
Zimbabwe now competes very well with
such anti media freedom sharks
like Eritrea, China, Iran, Liberia and
Pakistan.
Although the year 2000 is largely
seen as the turning point or
watershed in the post independence history of
Zimbabwe, 2002 and 2003
provided a new set of challenges that have literally
torn Zimbabwe apart.
Not only is the country faced with seemingly
insurmountable economic and
political problems, specific to issues of media
freedoms the environment has
deteriorated even
further.
So far MISA-Zimbabwe has recorded 63
arrests of journalists and other
media workers since March
2002.
This number does not include vendors and
readers who have been beaten
up and arrested for selling and reading certain
newspapers.
The year 2002 saw the enactment of
the Access to Information and
Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), an
all-inclusive media and freedom of
expression law that however does not carry
the fundamental ingredients of an
Access to Information law. Many laws that
deal with issues of broadcasting
and public order were enacted, some in 2001,
but the effects of such became
more apparent and operational in
2002.
These include the Broadcasting Services
Act, Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation Commer-cialisation Act and the Public
Order and Security Act
(POSA).
Media
workers including journalists, photographers, vendors,
camerapersons and
drivers have been beaten, arrested and intimidated on many
occasions in the
course of duty.
The political polarisation
prevailing has manifested itself in the
treatment that the media gets from
various sectors of the Zimbabwean
society. Newspapers have been labelled and
are treated differently by
politicians from opposing parties. The worst
developments however are the
attempts to legalise repression of the media
through the enactment of
blatantly unconstitutional
laws.
Although state media journalists have
not been spared the harassment
and beatings, almost all arrests that have
been carried out by the police in
2002 and 2003 are on private media
journalists. The impression created has
therefore been that the new laws are
for the private media and others who
are seen as belonging to the
"opposition" and not for the rest of the media
or society at
large.
Whereas the government has extended its
stranglehold of the private
media through the enactment of such laws as AIPPA
and POSA, the state-owned
media has equally remained under the grip of the
Department of Information
and Publicity in the President's Office. It is not
known in the public
sphere how the public media is being run but it is public
knowledge as to
who is running it and the reporting says it
all.
One drawback to all the media and
quasi-media laws is their total lack
of the inclusion of developmental
aspects and needs of the people of
Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe like many third world
countries is still media thin and
apart from the drought of rain in 2002,
there is an ever-present drought
of
information.
The laws enacted are
politically correct to their originators but
visibly lack a vision on the
direction Zimbabwe's media is taking in terms
of economic empowerment, new
information and communication technologies and
the general use of the media
for developmental purposes. This is amply
demonstrated in the
telecommunications sector where an aspiring fixed
telephone operator was only
licensed in December after protracted
uncertainty and indeed the delays in
the licensing of private broadcasters
has no explanation apart from political
considerations.
Zimbabwe is thus lagging
behind the region and indeed the rest of the
world as far as the promulgation
of development oriented communication
legislation and the development of ICTs
that can be used in, for example,
educational programmes. What is clear in
all this is the interface between
the political situation in Zimbabwe with
the enacted laws and indeed the
undemocratic processes that are being used to
enact these laws.
Parliamentary bodies
constituted of Members of Parliament from the
ruling party and the
opposition, as well as the Portfolio Committee on
Transport and
Communications passed an adverse report on AIPPA, but nothing
of this report
was heard of in the debate around this law. Despite being
similar in form and
content to the disgraced Law and Order Maintenance Act,
POSA was still pushed
through parliament and made into law.
An array
of these laws that include AIPPA, POSA, BSA the ZBC
Commercialisation Act,
all infringe on the operations of media houses and
freedom of expression and
that of association.
These laws come at a time
when Zimbabwe already has a load of other
laws inherited from the colonial
era and that infringe on media freedoms.
Some of these colonial laws were
resuscitated in 2002 and used to arrests
journalists. These include the
Protected Areas Act and the Censorship Act.
It
must be noted that an Access to Information law cannot exist side
by side
with other laws that have conflicting prescriptions on accessing
information
either by the media or members of the public. This means that
AIPPA must
automatically have seen the repealing of such laws as the
Official Secrets
Act and some of the laws mentioned above.
An
Access to Information law in a democratic country is usually a law
of appeal
because governments and the corporate world must, as matters of
necessity,
transparency and accountability have mechanisms that allow access
to
information without any reference to any law. Indeed the experience in
many
countries with democracy deficiencies is that such a law is killed at
birth.
This is the current position with AIPPA in Zimbabwe which in fact
closes out
those in need of information rather than opening
up.
The laws compound an already unstable
political environment. There are
still some areas, which remain "no go" areas
for journalists. It remains
next to impossible for the private media for
example to operate freely in
Zimbabwe's rural
areas.
The fact that privately owned
newspapers no longer reach rural areas
means that all the information that is
received by nearly 70 percent of the
people of Zimbabwe comes from the
government media. This is compounded by
the fact that there are no private
broadcasters yet.
The government, through the
Department of Information, has argued that
the media must be directed to
report on the developmental needs of the
country and criticism must be
"progressive". This has meant that the
reportage of the public media supports
the ongoing land reform process and
the ruling party as the implementers of
that programme.
Although no public or official
statements have been made on how the
public media especially Zimpapers is
being run, it also public knowledge
that the Department of Information in the
presidents Office is directing
affairs. The result of this is that national
assets are being used
partisanly and have ceased to be representative of
everyone in society.
People, political
parties, business leaders, civic society
organizations who hold different
views to the government on national issues
are never given a voice by the
public media but demonised day in and day
out. The argument again from those
in control of the public media is that
Zimbabwe is at "war" with its
detractors and it is the duty of everyone in
Zimbabwe to support the
government not only in its quest to economically
emancipate the majority
black people but also do away with all vestiges of
colonialism and neo
colonialism once and for all. In this "war" one of the
victims has been
ethical and balanced reporting. Inflammatory and hate
language dominates much
of the reporting of the public media Words such as
terrorist, enemies of the
state, stooges, oppositional are familiar in the
state media. The state
media, which is supported by the taxpayer, has
totally failed to live to
expectations.
Calls for reforms to be made
in the operations of the public media
have not been headed so far. Criticism
of the public media have come not
only from those who are seen as the
"opposition" but in 2002 the Chairperson
of the Electoral Supervisory
Commission, Gula Ndebele commented after the
March Presidential elections
that the ZBC had been reporting unethically and
partisanly. The Commonwealth
and the SADC parliamentary Forum Election
Observer Missions also noted in
their reports on the March Presidential
elections that the public media was
biased.
There is however no hope that the
current management of the public
media will change any time soon. In the view
of MISA-Zimbabwe it would take
something more than just recognition of the
need for balanced reporting to
change the situation but a complete policy
turnaround, which cannot be
achieved without the requisite political
will.
-Rasweat Mukundu is a research and
information officer with MISA-
ZIMBABWE
FinGaz
Let Zimbabwe start
to have a life again
Tafirenyika
Wekwa Makunike
5/1/03 10:00:49 AM (GMT
+2)
THOSE of us who have followed the high
rope political antics of
President, Robert Mugabe in the last 30 years agree
that his recent
indication in a ZBC interview that he is prepared to retire
and publicly
open up the succession debate within his own party is one of the
most
patriotic acts he has done in recent
times.
For someone who has never
released the word sorry in his political
career or acknowledged that someone
somewhere may have a better idea on
running our beloved nation, that must
have taken quite some guts.
There is need,
both within ZANU PF and the Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC), to
reciprocate this act of magnanimity with cool calculated
positions that will
extricate Zimbabwe from the current economic abyss
instead of the now too
familiar political posturing.
If allowing the
President to gracefully vacate the highest office in
the land will allow us
to have our dreams back I think this is a small price
to pay for a country's
future and all obstacles should immediately be
removed from his departure
path.
I recall a heated discussion I had with
a militant friend of mine from
Bulawayo way back in early 1988 just after the
1987 so-called Unity Accord
between ZANU and ZAPU. His argument was that
Joshua Nkomo had sold out the
aspirations of the people of his region by
joining forces with ZANU but to
me he had demonstrated the highest form of
leadership for he had put other
people first before
himself.
He had forgiven those who had run him
out of the country in the most
humiliating way with the then Sunday Mail
cartoonist showing him in an
undignified sprint to Botswana dressed as a
woman.
Having been the founder of African
nationalism he agreed to
subordinate himself and his party to ZANU PF.
Although that act was to later
kill any semblance of democracy in Zimbabwe
for years to come, it stopped
the killings in
Matabeleland.
In my book anybody who was
prepared to let go of his own aspirations
to stop the killing of innocent
people and attempt to get them to partake in
the national cake was a hero
several fold.
Incessant political posturing
leads to hardening of attitudes and when
this happens - evidence abounds
elsewhere in Africa - this can lead to
unnecessary bloodshed with the most
poignant cases being the Rwanda
genocide, Angola, Sierra Leone, Liberia and
the Somali debacle.
Nations were reduced to
heaps of ruins because of some men with bigger
egos than the well being of
the rest of the people. If only some people had
given in perhaps the
animalistic devastation could have been
averted.
In all these scenarios I do not care
who was right because as a
Christian there is nothing divine in letting
innocent folk lose their lives
just to prove a
point.
To the MDC, I say the most patriotic
endeavour you can pursue is to
allow the President to peacefully vacate the
country's highest office and
thereafter anything can be fair game. I think
there is consensus that
economic revival cannot begin with him occupying that
seat.
If allowing Morgan Tsvangirai to meet
the President will buy back our
future and that of our children then I think
MDC should pursue it as a
matter of priority. I know there is a school of
thought within its ranks
pushing for militant confrontation but at what
cost?
Once the culture of violence grips the
national physique can we
guarantee that it would be purged after that? I
think every peaceful
opportunity for regime change must be tested for
authenticity and radical
means must always be a last
resort.
While we are arranging His
Excellency's exit we could concurrently
call upon Lovemore Madhuku and his
National Constitutional Assembly
counterparts to speed up the process of
coming up with a proper inclusive
bill of rights for this nation and tear
down Eddison Zvobgo's
"people-under-a-tree" constitutional make
believe.
This should be accompanied with
depoliticising the police force, army
and CIO and restore them as national
institutions and not instruments of
political
patronage.
That way we can ensure that for the
rest of the nation's life it will
never be enslaved to the whims of one
man.
For the ZANU PF hawks you have been given
the opportunity to openly
debate the leadership
succession.
I hope for once you will allow
genuine democracy to prevail in the
ranks of your party without allowing the
Chinotimba-inspired political
hysteria we have witnessed hitherto. I hope
there will be non-tribal
canvassing and a transparent voting
process.
For many people in Zimbabwe it has
been easy to simply blame Robert
Mugabe, the man at the helm of the mess
while excluding the coterie of
geriatrics, Politburo and central committee
members who periodically stream
in and out of the Zanu PF headquarters
clutching files. If they are to
convince us that they are not the problem
they have been given their chance
to come up with their own
solutions.
Of course the departure of
President Mugabe will have its own
casualties but that is a small price to
pay for the restoration of the
country's
dreams.
Early victims could be un-elected MPs
such as Jonathan Moyo, Joseph
Made, Amos Midzi and Patrick Chinamasa who owe
their entire current
political credentials to the whims of one
person.
This would cleanse the national
airwaves and give a future leader a
clean start. In future I think there
should be a clause in our political act
that anyone aspiring for ministerial
appointment should be an elected
official.
We have witnessed first hand the carnage un-elected officials can
cause to
the political landscape. Others who have perpetrated violence in
the name of
ZANU PF will try to keep the President as a prisoner in his
position for fear
of facing the wrath of the law. These groups, together
with the chiefs, have
been at the forefront of trying to convince the
President to rule until he
drops dead.
I urge the President to ignore
this clique and follow his conscience.
-Tafirenyika Wekwa Makunike is a man in the street currently based out
of
Johannesburg and can be contacted on lmakunike@hotmail.com
FinGaz
Further mass action
likely to rock ZSE
McDonald
Dzirutwe
5/1/03 9:43:06 AM (GMT
+2)
THE Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE), hit
by last week's three-day
stayaway, could be rattled by further mass action
threatened by the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), according
to analysts, who
this week said the damage to the local share bourse could be
massive if the
mass action turned
violent.
Last week's stayaway - called by
the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU) to protest a huge fuel price
increase - closed down most financial
institutions two days after the end of
the Easter/Independence holiday,
which shut down the financial markets on
Friday April 18 and last Monday.
Most fund
managers heeded the stayaway, which brought most of business
to a halt from
Wednesday to Friday last week, slowing down activity on
the
ZSE.
Stock market watchers this week
predicted that the share bourse was
likely to be hard hit if mass action
proposed by the MDC went ahead this
month. The opposition party has yet to
give a date for the mass action,
which will be used to press the government
to resolve Zimbabwe's economic
and political
crisis.
"Most fund managers were not at work
(last week) because of the
stayaway and I think the market will struggle to
recover from that," an
analyst with Sagit Stockbrokers told the Financial
Gazette
"But we see the stock market taking a
heavy knock if this (MDC) mass
action is to go ahead, especially coming on
the back of the disruptions
caused by the stayaway," the analyst
said.
Market watchers said they feared that
the mass action could turn
violent, which could be bad news for a stock
market that in the past two
years has offered a safe haven for investors
eager to escape the effect of
rampant
inflation.
They pointed out that a two-day
stayaway called by the MDC in March
had sparked incidents of
violence.
"What we all fear is the prospect of
a violent mass action, which
would have consequential effects," an analyst
with Fidelity Securities said.
Although the
ZSE was subdued last week, Old Mutual gained 30.5 percent
to $1 305 as the
South African rand strengthened against the United States
dollar. The share
however lost some of its momentum this Monday, closing the
day at $1
200.
The rand has gone from strength to
strength against the American
greenback in the last few weeks, firming to
R7.13:US$1 on Monday from R7.27,
with South African exporters complaining
that the appreciation of the
currency was threatening their
competitiveness.
In contrast, the Zimbabwe
dollar has been pegged at $824 against the
greenback, with very little
foreign currency trickling into the country.
Meanwhile, most counters on the ZSE opened this week weaker or
unchanged as
the market struggled to regain its footing after the
stayaway.
Trading was thin and volumes were
low, with market watchers saying
investors were now awaiting the release of
results by companies with March
reporting
periods.
Some listed firms have already issued
profit warnings to shareholders,
informing them that they are expecting
earnings above initial forecasts.
The key
industrial index retreated to 181 483.85 points on Monday from
182 505.04
points last Friday.
On the money market,
dealers said inter-bank rates fell to 65 percent
on Monday from a high of 70
percent last Friday.
The dealers attributed
this to the payment of civil servants salaries
by the government, which
improved liquidity on the money market.
"We
had a sudden fall in inter-bank overnight rates from 70 to 65
percent and
this was as a result of the civil servants salaries, which added
liquidity,"
said a dealer with a local commercial bank.
The dealers said the government had brought two 720-day tenders to the
market
on Thursday and Friday last week, and allotted a combined $9 billion
at a
discount rate of 31.6 and 31.8 percent for the two
tenders.
The discount rates carry an effective
yield of 86.95 percent down from
around 92 percent the previous
week.
The dealers said taxpayers would pay a
principal amount of $25 billion
at the maturity of the two Treasury bills
(TBs) and interest of $9 billion.
As a result
of the increased liquidity, the market was $6.8 billion up
at the start of
this week and was forecast to remain firm the whole
week.
Call rates dipped to 50 percent on
Monday from around 60 percent last
week, while seven and 14-day rates also
eased to 57 percent from the 60
percent range last
week.
The 30, 60 and 90-day TBs were however
quoted firmer at 60, 62 and 63
percent respectively from an average 52
percent last week.
Dealers on the foreign
currency market said shortages remained
critical in the absence of meaningful
inflows and partly as a result of the
ZCTU stayaway, which affected industry
and commerce.
FinGaz
Time to take stock:
where is the economy heading?
5/1/03 10:32:45 AM (GMT +2)
WE tend to
smile when we "travel" the growth path. In Zimbabwe, we
last enjoyed
relatively better economic conditions in
1996.
The economy was at its peak. Since
1997, there has not been much to
smile about in Zimbabwe. The economic
situation has deteriorated to an
extent that it will require some bold
measures to turn it around.
Inflation soared
to 228 percent in March 2003 from 198.9 percent in
December 2002. The
International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its latest World
Economic Outlook, has
revised Zimbabwe's 2003 year-end inflation to 450
percent from 522 percent
(IMF, March 2003).
The foreign currency and
fuel situations have remained critical. The
Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority has started load shedding. Valuable
production time is lost;
industry is operating with excess capacity because
of shortages of essential
inputs. Productivity is declining, while the costs
of running operations
continue to skyrocket.
Domestic debt continues
to threaten to shoot through the roof.
Available domestic debt statistics
from the Reserve Bank Zimbabwe (RBZ) show
that domestic debt has been on the
rise since 1991. However, 2000 marked the
beginning of an unsustainable debt
situation.
Debt rose from $73.9 billion in
1999 to $162.8 billion in 2000.
Presently debt is sitting at more than $330
billion. About 85 percent to 90
percent of domestic debt is sitting in 91-day
and two-year Treasury
bills/notes.
Thus,
rising short-term interest rates will inevitably affect the
level of domestic
debt.
Revisions to monetary policy on November
19 2002 saw the introduction
of the repurchase rate (repo rate) as a
substitute to the bank rate. The
repo rate refers to the rate at which banks
regularly tender for central
bank funds through repurchase transactions i.e.
by temporarily selling
securities to the RBZ. The repo rate was at 56.15
percent as of April 25
2003. The rate gained 14.27 percentage points on the
end of February 2003
rate of 41.88 percent.
Effectively, the cost of secured borrowings from the RBZ has risen
from 61.88
percent to 76.15 percent while that for unsecured deals (in
principle), has
risen from 81.88 percent to 96.15 percet.
The
primary market rates have continued to firm, with yields on 91-day
Treasury
bills firming from 25.95 percent in December 2002 to 54.77 percent
in April
2003.
A similar upward trend has been seen in
the two-year Treasury notes
area, with rates firming by more than 50.47
percentage points between
December 2002 and April 2003. Commercial banks
raised the minimum lending
rates in a bid to maintain their margins and
remain afloat.
In February, the authorities
devalued the local unit by 93.3 percent
in a bid to kick-start activities in
the exporting sector. However, this is
not likely to have any significant
impact on activities, given the skewed
macroeconomic
fundamentals.
Pricing is one of the variables
in the profit equation. There is need
to restore macroeconomic stability i.e.
arrest inflation, improve the level
of capacity utilisation, raise
productivity etc in order to contain costs.
Latest reports from the Famine Early Warning System Network reveal
that the
food situation may be improving. The preliminary report shows that
the
current season's crop grew by 160 percent over the 2001/02
season's
harvest.
However, this may not be
enough to meet Zimbabwe's basic
food
requirements.
A fundamental question
that analysts and commentators would want
addressed is "what are the
implications of these developments for
the
economy?"
A number of commentators are
cautious about putting their heads on the
block when it comes to
macroeconomic analysis. Forward-looking indicators
remain
weak.
The current developments have
implications for the future of the
economy: The deteriorating foreign
currency and fuel situation despite
massive price adjustments tells us
something about distortions in the
market.
One would have expected a significant supply response following the
93.3
percent and 300 percent exchange rate and fuel price adjustments. In
an
economy free from distortions, such significant price jumps could
have
resulted in significant inflows of the commodities in question.
However,
this remains a dream in Zimbabwe.
The dual exchange rate system, where a rate of $55:1USD will be used
for the
importation of essential inputs and $824 for exporters, may have a
bearing on
the problems we are currently facing.
Surely,
creditors are aware of the existence of the so-called
exporters' rate of $824
to the greenback. It will take an irrational
economic agent to continue
trading at $55 while others are getting at
least
$824.
Thus, the price adjustment will
not act in any way to stimulate
activities in the real sector. To this end,
we expect devaluation and fuel
price adjustments to be felt in the consumer
price index. The cost of living
is becoming
unbearable.
The minimum wages to be gazetted
by the authorities fall far below the
true cost of living. New minimum wages
have been set at $23 070, $42 168 and
$47 696 per month for workers in
agriculture, agro-industry and horticulture
as well as industry and commerce
and mining respectively. Crime, illegal
activities and poverty levels are
likely to worsen.
On the back of deteriorating
fundamentals, rising cost of loanable
funds, declining productive activities
etc, authorities are reported to be
contemplating subsidising fuel
prices.
I shudder to think about the
implications of the policy reversals. Why
adjust the price first and then
come up with a subsidy?
Empirical studies on
subsidies have shown that subsidy policies are
fraught with a number of
problems. In most cases, subsidies are difficult to
administer and also tend
to be mis-targeted.
The budgetary implications
may also be huge. The authorities have a
mammoth task to balance their books
since the assumptions, we believe, of
the 2003 national budget were
superficial. We doubt whether the authorities
had dreamt of a 93.3 percent
devaluation, a jump in the yield on two-year
Treasury notes from 36.85
percent in December 2002 to 90 percent in April
2003 or inflation threatening
to hit more than 300 percent.
It's also not
likely that they envisaged fuel prices rising six-fold
or the cost of living
threatening the social fabric of our economy. The list
is
endless.
High geared corporations, individuals
etc are threatened with demise
following the rise in the cost of borrowed
money and other essential inputs
such as
labour.
Unemployment, estimated at more than
70 percent, will hit at least 80
percent by year-end. The financial
institutions, credit stores etc are
likely to see a spate of defaults. There
is going to be "gnashing of teeth"
in various sectors of the
economy.
Good risk managers will be identified
in these challenging times. We
would urge the central bank to speed up the
implementation of the Deposit
Insurance
Scheme.
While 2003 may prove to be worse than
2002, there are positives that
we need to highlight. The food situation is
reported to have improved.
However, we need to be cautious about the early
reports. But it is something
that we are going to be taking a keen interest
in to establish the true
situation.
The IMF
in the World Economic Outlook of March 2003 is projecting 5.1
percent real
economic growth for Zimbabwe in 2004. We hope they did not make
an error or
omit a negative. All fundamentals are expected to improve
in
2004.
Inflation will remain high but
decline (300 percent), the current
account balance as a percentage of GDP is
expected to improve marginally
from negative 13.9 percent in 2003 to negative
9.5 percent in 2004.
Concerted effort is
needed in order to address the current economic
challenges. The demand
management proposals made in the 2003 national
budget, monetary policy and
the National Economic Recovery Programme, we
hope, should see us escaping the
current economic malaise.
..
Lovemore Kadenge is president of the Zimbabwe Economics
Society.
FinGaz
Zimbos a happy lot :
view from State House
Sydney
Masamvu
5/1/03 10:05:57 AM (GMT
+2)
I ALWAYS argue with those ZANU PF
zealots who say that President
Robert Mugabe is a visionary
leader.
After the interview broadcast
on state television last week, I have no
choice but to put the argument to
rest because what I have been saying all
along is now clearly documented for
all to see.
In a profound statement that
showed how detached he is from the
electorate and the Zimbabwean populace at
large, a beaming Mugabe boldly
declared that "Zimbabweans are a happy
lot".
Really, Mr
President!
Given the suffering that
Zimbabweans are experiencing right now, it is
naïve for any person, let alone
a politician living in Zimbabwe, to suggest
that there is any happiness in
this country, except for the very few who are
still sitting
pretty.
To say Zimbabweans are angry is even
an understatement judging by the
very tense mood on the
ground.
Zimbabweans have suppressed emotions
that if they were allowed to
express would leave Mugabe in no doubt about
what's really going on in this
country.
Mr
President, don't mistake people's quietness for
happiness.
Mugabe seems to believe that
wherever they are - be it in a 10-hour
fuel queue in Msasa or Chitungwiza,
Zimbabweans remain part of a large
happy
family.
Whether they are in that
bread queue at Machipisa, in the transport
queue in Kuwadzana or even as they
comb Mbare's black market for a plate of
mealie-meal, Zimbabweans have
nothing to worry about, the
President
believes.
Even those Zimbabweans
who have sold their personal properties to
become economic refugees eking out
a living in neighbouring countries and in
Europe are a happy
lot.
When people are literally battling to
make ends meet on a daily basis
and some are scavenging for food, Mugabe has
the guts to say we are a happy
lot.
It
shows how ill informed he is by the people who surround him in the
comfort of
State House.
It is difficult for him to
understand the reality on the ground when
he is surrounded by well-fed,
filthy-rich sycophants and bootlicking cronies
who have enriched themselves
through the system while the majority of
Zimbabweans are
suffering.
Mugabe's cronies, who are enriching
themselves under the status quo,
are the ones who fall all over each other to
tell him that Zimbabweans are a
happy lot because they want him to rule until
Amen.
Unfortunately, Mugabe sees these people
as fine examples of the
success story of independent
Zimbabwe.
Most of the politicians and
businesspeople who form Mugabe's circle
have used the distortions now
prevailing in the economy to enrich themselves
and cannot operate in any
normal environment or under an alternative regime
where the rule of law is
observed.
It is time Mugabe gets real and
appreciates the gravity of the
situation in
Zimbabwe.
It is high time he went on a 'meet
the people' tour in Mbare,
Highfield, Mutoko and Magwegwe so that he gains
some insight and first hand
experience of how people are living in
Zimbabwe.
It is time he came to terms with the
mess he has plunged us into.
It is also high
time ruling party politicians stopped hallucinating
about the well being of
Zimbabweans and really see how they have wrecked the
lives of the people of
this country.
Zimbabweans are not a happy lot,
Mr President. Zimbabweans are angry.
The facts on the ground speak for
themselves.
Zim Dollar Plunges By 93.5 % Against Major
Currencies
Financial Gazette (Harare)
May 1,
2003
Posted to the web May 1, 2003
Staff Reporter
Harare
THE
Zimbabwe dollar depreciated by up to 93.5 percent against the world's
major
currencies in March, according to Zimbabwe Financial Holdings
(FINHOLD),
which forecast that the local currency would in the short-term
remain stable
at $824 against the American greenback.
In its monthly economic report,
FINHOLD also noted that despite the
devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar from
$55:US$1 to $824 in February,
foreign currency inflows into Zimbabwe had
remained low in March.
"In spite of the realignment of the exchange
rate from US$1:Z$55 to
US$1:Z$824 in February 2003, demand for foreign
currency continued to
outstrip supply in March 2003," the bank
said.
"The Zimbabwe dollar also depreciated by 93.5 percent, 93.3
percent, 93.2
percent and 45.2 percent against the Euro, the South African
rand, the
Japanese yen and the British pound sterling, respectively," FINHOLD
said in
its report.
However, on the parallel market for hard cash, the
result of the country's
severe forex shortages, the Zimbabwe dollar was
quoted within the range of
$1 500 against the US dollar and $2 000 against
the British pound in March.
FINHOLD forecast that in the short to
medium-term, the Zimbabwe dollar would
remain stable at $824 against the
American greenback, even though foreign
currency inflows were expected to
remain below demand.
Pressure is expected to mount against foreign
currency supplies as the
government attempts to import fuel, electricity and
food to feed close to
eight million Zimbabweans in need of emergency food aid
because of drought
and a controversial land reform programme.
Hard
cash supplies are however not expected to improve in the next few
months,
even though the tobacco selling season, during which hard cash
inflows
normally pick up in Zimbabwe, kicked off last week.
Tobacco is the
country's single largest foreign currency earner but farmers
are expected to
bring a significantly reduced crop to the auction floors
this
year.
Meanwhile, exports of other products are also on the decline
and
international multi-lateral agencies and foreign investors are
withholding
their money because of policies that have eroded the rule of law
and
property rights.
Best Doroh, a senior economist with FINHOLD, also
told the Financial Gazette
that the gap between Zimbabwe's rate of inflation
and those of its major
trading partners was widening, which under normal
circumstances would result
in further depreciation of the local
currency.
Zimbabwe's year-on-year rate of inflation rose 228 percent in
March and is
expected to end the year at more than 500 percent, while its
major trading
partners have single digit inflation.
"As long as demand
continues to outstrip supply and inflation is not curbed,
in the short to
medium-term, the Zimbabwe dollar is expected to remain weak
and further
depreciate," Doroh said.
FinGaz
Deputy mayor yet to
accept appointment
Staff
Reporter
5/1/03 10:24:01 AM (GMT
+2)
HARARE deputy mayor Sekesai
Makwavarara has not accepted her
appointment as acting mayor by Local
Government Minister Ignatius Chombo,
pending a full council meeting this
weekend to discuss the suspension of
Harare mayor Elias
Mudzuri.
Mudzuri was suspended without pay
on Tuesday, pending an inquiry into
charges of
mismanagement.
Makwavarara told the Financial
Gazette that a full council meeting
would be held over the weekend to make a
decision on how to respond to
Chombo's suspension of Mudzuri and her
appointment as acting mayor.
"I am still
deputy mayor, not the acting mayor. The council will meet
on Saturday to
decide on the way forward," she said.
However
sources said Makwavarara and several Harare councillors
attended a meeting at
the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
headquarters yesterday,
where it was agreed to resist Chombo's interference
and his appointment of
Makwavarara.
Mudzuri was elected Harare mayor
in 2002 on an MDC ticket and has
clashed with Chombo several times, with the
mayor accusing the Local
Government Minister of attempting to frustrate him
out of office.
Makwavarara, who is also an MDC
member, confirmed that she had
attended a party meeting to discuss Mudzuri's
suspension, but insisted that
a final position on the matter would only be
taken at this weekend's
meeting, "after tempers have cooled
down".
Charges also levelled against the
Harare mayor by Chombo include
inefficiency, arrogance, corruption and
victimisation of senior council
staff.
Mudzuri, who has dismissed the allegations as "rubbish", yesterday
said he
was still consulting over the matter and could not make
further
comments.
But the Combined Harare
Residents' Association (CHRA) said there was
no basis for Chombo to suspend
Mudzuri as the problems facing the city were
a legacy of mismanagement by a
ZANU PF council and a government- appointed
commission that ran the city
years before Mudzuri was elected.
"We totally
condemn the continued interference by the minister in the
affairs of the
city," said CHRA chairman Mike Davies.
"The
minister should put his house in order first before he accuses
the mayor of
failing to run the city properly. He is part of the regime that
has ruined
this country and it is hypocrisy of the highest order for him to
say the
mayor has failed to do his job," he added.
He
said the CHRA viewed Mudzuri's suspension as a political act aimed
at giving
the ruling ZANU PF control over the opposition-dominated
capital
city.
He said his organisation was
considering legal options available to
challenge Mudzuri's
suspension.
Mudzuri's suspension has coincided
with a visit by a delegation of
officials from Munich, Harare's Germany
twin-city, who are in the capital
city to see for themselves the problems
bedevilling their Zimbabwean
counterparts.
In a statement issued yesterday evening, Munich mayor Hep
Monatzeder
described Mudzuri's suspension as
"astonishing".
"From our own experience, we
know Mayor Mudzuri as a highly qualified,
responsible and engaged partner who
is working hard to turn around the
situation in Harare, which has
deteriorated during years of previous
mismanagement," the statement
said.
"The decision to suspend the mayor of
Harare on the grounds of general
and unproved allegations is contrary to our
understanding of basic
democratic principles. For the sake of democracy in
Zimbabwe and in the best
interest of the citizens of Harare, we believe that
this suspension should
be reversed immediately," the Munich delegation
said.
The statement said only a democratically
legitimate local authority in
Harare could be a partner of the city of
Munich.
Meanwhile, the National Constitutional
Assembly (NCA) said the
suspension of a democratically elected mayor by
Chombo was "a stab in the
back of the little that remains of Zimbabwe's
ailing democracy".
"It is NCA's view that
Mudzuri is a victim of a well-orchestrated plan
to paralyse opposition
politics in Zimbabwe," the organisation said in
a
statement.
It added: "Our observation is
that Mudzuri has been, under the most
difficult of conditions, doing his best
to discharge the duties for which he
was resoundingly elected by the
residents of Harare."
IOL
Tsvangirai challenges Mbeki's
credibility
May 01 2003 at
10:50AM
Zimbabwe's main opposition leader fired a broadside against
President Thabo
Mbeki saying he had to "renew his credibility" ahead of his
arrival in
Harare on Monday to try to help resolve the rapidly deteriorating
crisis
there.
Confirming the visit on Wednesday, presidential
spokesperson Bheki Khumalo
said Mbeki would be joined by Nigerian leader
Olusegun Obasanjo and Malawi's
President Bakili Muluzi.
Khumalo,
however, denied press reports that the three leaders are visiting
Zimbabwe to
discuss a possible regime change by facilitating a deal to
secure President
Robert Mugabe's retirement.
Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change
leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, warned
that Mbeki's mission would be futile unless
he and Obasanjo decided to be
honest brokers in the crisis.
"They have
demonstrated in the past their total support for the illegitimate
Mugabe
regime," he said.
Tsvangirai said his party was willing to give Mbeki and
Obasanjo a second
chance but emphasised that the two leaders had to
re-establish their
credibility to regain his party's
confidence.
"Their impartiality must be beyond question and there must be
a practical
and tangible demonstration of their even-handedness in their
dealings with
the parties to the Zimbabwe crisis," he said. - Foreign
Service
FinGaz
Workers need $132
000 a month to survive
5/1/03
10:28:21 AM (GMT +2)
ZIMBABWEAN workers
today mark Workers' Day amid unprecedented
suffering caused by macroeconomic
instability and aggravated by drought and
the HIV/AIDS
pandemic.
A fuel price increase of up to
309 percent announced by the government
two weeks ago is expected to worsen
the plight of workers, who last week
undertook a successful three-day work
stayaway called by the Zimbabwe
Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to press for
a reversal of the hike.
Because of the
unilaterally declared fuel price increase, the ZCTU has
withdrawn from the
government-business-labour Tripartite Negotiating Forum
(TNF) that is
supposed to be examining ways of resolving Zimbabwe's economic
crisis and is
planning further mass action.
Financial
Gazette Senior Reporter Farai Mutsaka this week spoke to
ZCTU
secretary-general Wellington Chibhebhe about the plight of workers,
his
organisation's deteriorating relationship with the government and plans
for
further mass action, among other
issues. Excerpts:
Question: As you mark
Workers' Day, how would you describe the
situation of the average Zimbabwean
worker, 23 years after independence?
Answer:
The average worker has been reduced to a pauper, to a beggar.
The situation
is very gloomy given the fact that the economy is on the
spin.
You can't even make comparisons with the
80s because the situation now
is terrible. As we speak today, most workers
can't even afford one meal a
day for themselves or to feed their
families.
The majority are forced to walk long
distances to work. Today, being
employed doesn't seem to be a source of pride
or livelihood anymore, and
that is of great concern to
us.
Q: What then are the major issues that the
ZCTU will tackle this year,
given the gloomy picture you have just
painted?
A: You should realise that the
situation has been worsening for a very
long time, especially in the late 80s
and the 90s. The issues of concern are
unemployment, which is now standing at
more than 75 percent and poverty that
is at 80 percent. Over and above these
issues is the problem of
underemployment.
It's very difficult for us to say how we will tackle unemployment
and
underemployment because these are complex problems that are not of
our
making and that we cannot do much
about.
Another issue we hope to tackle is
HIV/AIDS. As workers, we are the
ones that have been contributing towards the
AIDS levy but unfortunately,
workers have not benefited from the fund, which
we believe has been abused.
We are now taking
the government to task to account for that money. We
want to ensure that
workers get priority when it comes to disbursing the
money. We have asked for
an audit of the funds because workers have
been
shortchanged.
Apart from that, we have
been running programmes on the shop floor in
factories regarding this
issue.
There is also the issue of the lack of
democratic space. If workers or
the generality of Zimbabweans want to express
their views, they are
subjected to torture and harassment and this is
unacceptable.
For us to survive as trade
unions, there has to be good governance so
we will try by any means to
influence the government to be democratic by
actions that are appropriate at
any particular time.
The actions we will take
to force government to be democratic will be
influenced by the
circumstances.
Q: How do you hope to tackle
these issues since dialogue seems to have
broken down between ZCTU and the
government? And how are relations between
labour and
business?
A: I think it is a question of
facing the government head-on because
we cannot continue to allow, for
example, the government to use the
uniformed forces for the benefit of one
particular constituency.
We want the police
and the army to be professional because they are
supposed to serve Zimbabwe
and not function as a party organ. It is not as
if we are saying there are no
professional policemen or soldiers in this
country. There are lots of them
but once they start being professional, then
they are
victimised.
We also want the government to be
people-oriented and not to work
against the same people it is supposed to
serve.
Relations with business have been
cordial as evidenced by the fact
that we have been negotiating together and
in good faith at the TNF before
our
pull-out.
We are still trying as partners to
reach an amicable agreement on
salaries. Industry knows that the minimum
wages announced by the government
are not enough to cushion workers and they
understand the suffering of their
workers.
So we will be using the works councils at companies to push for a
minimum
wage that is more realistic than that announced by the government.
We are
sure this will be effective.
Q: The ZCTU has
dismissed the minimum wages announced by the
government last week. What does
labour think should be the minimum wage?
Several of your member unions have
actually welcomed the minimum wages. How
do you reconcile these
differences?
A: We don't blame those members
supporting the minimum wages because
if it was you being uplifted from $19
000 to $47 000, that's a great
movement at face
value.
But our position is that those figures,
which were equated to February
poverty datum levels and should have been
effected before this fuel price
increase, are
nothing.
We are not saying people should not
take the minimum wages. We are
saying those are not the correct levels if the
government wants to keep the
new fuel prices because the money would be
eroded by transport costs alone.
We at the
ZCTU had agreed to minimum wages that were equitable to the
poverty datum
line, which was last calculated at $53 029 as at the end of
March. But if you
look at the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe breadbasket for
April, you will find
that a family of six now requires $132 000 for basic
necessities
alone.
Now that the government, in a state of
panic, has already announced
unrealistic minimum wages, we have to go through
the collective bargaining
channels to push for realistic salaries. We will
now resort to using the
works councils to achieve
this.
Q: What influence does the ZCTU still
have considering that your
membership has been eroded by retrenchments and
company closures?
A: We may not be as strong
in membership as before but by the same
token, we are not only representing
those who are gainfully employed.
Whatever we do will have an effect on the
generality of Zimbabweans so in
essence, we are representing the interests of
all Zimbabweans.
Over and above the paid
membership, we are representing the
disadvantaged people in society. So our
strength can be judged from that.
Also judging
by the respect the ZCTU has been getting in social
circles and from the civic
movement, we have the support of
most
Zimbabweans.
It should also be noted
that our actual membership has not really gone
down dramatically. We have
been on a vigorous recruitment exercise and our
numbers have been boosted of
late. Since the advent of ESAP, our membership
has been fluctuating but we
have managed to keep a steady figure, which I
would put at over 300
000.
Q: Despite the stayaway last week, the
government has not acceded to
your demands to reverse the fuel price
increase. What then would you say the
stayaway
achieved?
A: Yes, you may want to say there
was no achievement, but if you check
the desperation with which the
government came up with a concoction of what
they termed solutions to
alleviate the people's suffering, it shows that it
was panic stations for
them.
We are more than sure that our action
was successful and effective.
But like in any other struggle, people should
take the struggle as a
process.
In this
case, what we want to assure you is that this struggle to
emancipate workers
and free people from the burden of economic hardships
will take a long time
and we are prepared to travel the distance.
Q:
The ZCTU has threatened further action if the government does not
reverse the
fuel price increase. What form is this action likely to take and
when will it
be launched?
A: Well, I think it's not
practical politics, given the situation we
are operating under, to announce
your intentions and give further details.
It will sell out the
strategy.
Let's wait until the time
comes.
And as I said, the struggle will take
longer than people expect so
they should not be frustrated that stayaways are
not bringing the needed
results. Let's travel the journey and victory will be
ours.
Q: Besides mass action, what other means
are open to you to put
pressure on the government to address the plight of
workers?
A: As I said, it's not practical in
our environment to sell out the
details of the battles before you engage in
the actual fighting.
Q: Since labour has
pulled out from the TNF, what are the chances of a
negotiated solution to the
country's problems?
A: You will find that as
was stated even in 1999, that although
government might want to give an
impression that it is committed to
resolving issues at the TNF level, this is
a farce.
When it comes to the finer details
and solutions, the government is
afraid that if it comes up with solutions
with the help of organisations
such as the ZCTU, it would have given credence
to the ZCTU. Therefore, it
always wants to pull the rug from under our
feet.
Yes, it is being forced to engage the
ZCTU out of desperation but in
reality, it views us as enemies and this puts
the future of the TNF in the
balance.
Unless and until the government comes clean and states that it wants
to
effectively engage other social partners on an equal basis, then there is
no
dialogue to talk about.
Q: The ZCTU leadership
has been accused of conniving with the
opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) in a broader political
agenda to undermine the government and
eventually effect a regime change
through mass action. How would you respond
to that?
A: The guilty are afraid. We warned
the government at TNF that
whatever we do at TNF, if there was ever any
side-stepping by government, it
would get the response it deserves from the
ZCTU.
The message was very clear and I think
people from the President's
Office who attend these meetings have the
records. So if (Energy Minister
Amos) Midzi had not announced this major
hike, we would not have had this
three-day
stayaway.
So all this is of the government's
own creation.
Q: How independent are you from
the MDC since several high-ranking MDC
officials are also office-bearers of
the ZCTU?
A: We are very independent. Our
Zimbabwean constitution is very clear
on the freedom of association and the
International Labour Organisation
Convention 87 is very clear on that as
well. So who are we to tell people
not to be with
us?
We also have high-ranking ZANU PF people
within ZCTU, so people should
not be hoodwinked into thinking that the ZCTU
is harbouring MDC people. ZANU
PF should come out in the open and actually
mention its own people within
the ZCTU.
Q:
Since both the MDC and ZCTU have intentions of undertaking further
mass
action, how would you handle a situation where the two
actions
coincided?
A: It would be
coincidental and the situation would have to handle
itself, but there would
be no collusion at all. It would be instigated by
the situation on the ground
because hunger knows no date and time.
The
more you postpone, the more the guns will be turned against you as
a leader.
We were being accused of being docile all along. Now that we have
put our
action into gear, it is being said we are craving
power.
We believe we are fighting a just war
for the worker and we don't
really look at who joins us in this
war.
Q: Lastly, what would be your message to
the worker?
A: We have come this far, despite
the hardships. If we remain focused
and united and refuse to be diverted by
people peddling their own personal
interests, we will get
there.
FinGaz
NOCZIM needs $150bln
to import fuel
Staff
Reporter
5/1/03 9:47:55 AM (GMT
+2)
THE financially troubled National Oil
Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM)
needs to raise between $120 billion and $150
billion to import fuel this
year, but analysts say the market's negative
perception of the
state-controlled firm will hamper efforts to raise the
required funds.
NOCZIM's financial
advisor, Syfrets Corporate and Merchant Bank
(Sybank), this week said the oil
procurer initially wanted to raise $60
billion for fuel imports, but
officials at the financial institution told
the Financial Gazette that the
parastatal ultimately needed up to
$150
billion.
The officials would not
indicate the size of the tranches in which the
money would be raised, but
said medium and long-term bonds would be floated
on behalf of
NOCZIM.
"NOCZIM would want ultimately to raise
$150 billion to pay for fuel
imports and we believe they will be able to
repay the money," an official at
Syfrets said on condition he was not
named.
"We want to negotiate and mobilise the
required finance locally and
offshore," the official
added.
NOCZIM, which almost collapsed three
years ago under a crushing cash
flow and debt crisis, is also expected to
spend more than $38 billion on a
five-year fuel bond floated in
2000.
The $38 billion is about 10 times more
than the amount borrowed.
According to a
document submitted by Zimbabwe's bankers to the
government-business-labour
Tripartite Negotiating Forum committee on fuel,
the bond was very expensive
compared to other instruments available on the
market in
2000.
The $4.1 billion bond attracted interest
of 50 percent a year compared
to about 30 percent charged on other money
market instruments at that time.
But some
analysts said without a government guarantee, it would be
difficult for
NOCZIM to raise the large amount of money needed to import
fuel and to
service its 2000 debt.
The analysts said
investors were sceptical about the parastatal's
operational capabilities and
its ability to repay any money borrowed.
They
said with interest rates hovering at above 60 percent, the yield
on the bond
floated on behalf of the state oil firm would have to be very
high to
convince wary investors to subscribe to it.
"I
think they will be able to raise part of the money but not all of
it because
of the image that the market has about NOCZIM," said an analyst
with
Intermarket Discount House.
The analyst added:
"Unless we see the government chipping in to
guarantee the petrofin bonds,
this (raising the money) could be impossible.
We also have to consider the
issue of the coupon on the bonds.
"Right now
it is quite expensive to raise money on the market, unless
of course you
attract high interest rates."
Economist
Witness Chinyama added: "Investors will look at the yield of
these bonds to
be able to subscribe fully."
Zimbabwe consumes
67 million litres of fuel a month, which it has to
import at a cost of about
US$40 million.
Severe foreign currency
shortages have hampered efforts to import
enough fuel to meet domestic
demand, adversely affecting motorists and the
viability of local
industry.
Shortages of fuel, whose price rose
by more than 200 percent last
month, are also blamed on years of
mismanagement at NOCZIM, whose financial
problems have been exacerbated by
the withdrawal of foreign lines of credit
by fuel suppliers over erratic
payments
FinGaz
Zim on knife
edge
5/1/03 10:32:03 AM (GMT
+2)
UNPRECEDENTED chaos is engulfing
Zimbabwe as the government, the
opposition and the labour movement play a
high stakes game in which the
national good could be swept aside, with
disastrous consequences for the
very people the three parties say they are so
eager to protect.
On the one hand, the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has
rightly refused to be hoodwinked
by a regime that is ready to clutch at any
straw to prolong its life amid
escalating public discontent.
The populist
measures announced by the government last week, in
response to the ZCTU's
successful three-day stayaway, are short-term
solutions at best that will
only temporarily ease the plight of
long-suffering
workers.
The increase in minimum wages that is
supposed to cushion workers from
the steep fuel price increase that the ZCTU
is protesting can only push up
inflation, which will without doubt reduce the
new wages to a mere pittance.
Inflation,
already at 228 percent and expected to reach 500 percent
before year-end,
will most certainly render the commuter fares announced by
the government
last week uneconomic, forcing transport operators to increase
their tariffs,
bringing workers full circle again in only a few
short
months.
Eager to pull off the best
deal for its members, the ZCTU has dug in
its heels and threatened further
mass action if the government does not
withdraw its fuel price
increase.
The opposition Movement for
Democratic Change also continues to talk
tough, also threatening further mass
action as it presses the government to
make the political and economic
changes that could halt Zimbabwe's descent
into
chaos.
Meanwhile the government will not
budge. Neither on the fuel price nor
on the ruinous policies that have
reduced Zimbabwe to a beggar nation.
But as
each group seeks to have the higher moral ground in a tense
standoff, the
sobering reality is that the threats and counter-threats of
tough action from
each side are only worsening the plight of Zimbabweans and
the country's
battered economy.
The nation's financial
markets are nervous as they ponder the impact
of potentially violent mass
action in the next few months, scaring away
foreign investors who have
already deserted the country in droves.
Industry and commerce will increasingly find it difficult to
pay
inflation-linked wage adjustments if further output is lost because
of
future work stayaways and because the government is unwilling to take
the
tough steps that will put the economy on the road to
recovery.
There is little discernible action
on Zimbabwe's worsening fuel crisis
nor on electricity shortages that are
threatening the viability of local
industry and thousands of
jobs.
Meanwhile, what is likely to be a
disappointing tobacco season will
worsen foreign currency shortages, while
food insecurity for millions of
people will increase in the next few
months.
As stakeholders draw their battle
lines and square off "in the people'
s interests" it is imperative that the
national good is not sidelined in the
pursuit of
victory.
Clearly, a head-on confrontation is
not in the best interests of the
nation, even though it is increasingly
looking like the only solution to the
stalemate that has brought Zimbabwe to
a virtual standstill.
Dialogue entered into
honestly by all stakeholders remains the most
desirable means of achieving a
solution to the crises bedevilling
the
country.
It is important that all
stakeholders soberly examine the consequences
of the course of action they
seem determined to carry through to the bitter
end, before they commit
themselves irrevocably.
Once the nation is set
on this destructive path, there is no going
back and the consequences will
take many painful years to reverse..
Robert Mugabe Softens His Line
Mail &
Guardian (Johannesburg)
April 28, 2003
Posted to the web May 1,
2003
David Masunda
Harare
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is
finally cracking under relentless
pressure by African leaders to meet
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and
solve the economic and political
crisis in the Southern African country, say
experts.
Mugabe, who has
ridiculed and belittled Tsvangirai as a Western stooge in
the past, stunned
Zimbabweans this week by saying he was ready to meet the
Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) leader for unprecedented face-to-face
talks to stop
Zimbabwe's further decline into ruin.
Zanu-PF and MDC sources
confirmed this week that South African President
Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria's
President Olusegun Obasanjo were behind the latest
initiative to get the two
bitter foes at the same table and find ways to
rescue the Zimbabwean
economy.
Speaking on national television on Monday, Mugabe, however, once
again put a
damper on the proposed talks by saying Tsvangirai had to first
acknowledge
that he was the duly elected president of the country and,
therefore, stop
court action challenging his rule.
Mugabe walked out
of South African-brokered talks with Tsvangirai last year
after insisting
that the opposition leader drop a court case challenging the
Zanu-PF 's
controversial re-election in the hotly contested 2002 poll.
Tsvangirai
this week said he had no intention of dropping the court case,
which is is
expected to be heard in the Harare high court within two months.
"We have
not changed our position. We remain committed to pressing our legal
challenge
which is our legal right," Tsvangirai, who is on trial for
allegedly plotting
to assassinate Mugabe, told journalists in Harare this
week in response to
the Zimbabwean president's statement.
Mugabe also hinted that he may soon
be ready to retire and for the first
time admitted he was keen to meet his
old enemy, British Prime Minister Tony
Blair, to regain acceptance by the
West.
The 79-year-old Mugabe, who insists he is "as fit as a fiddle",
said he may
soon leave office as his land redistribution programme was almost
complete.
"We are getting to a stage where we shall say 'ah fine, we have
settled this
matter and people can retire,'" he said.
Mugabe, however,
ruled out the possibility of a transitional government as
demanded by Western
powers such as the United States and Britain, saying he
was the
democratically elected Zimbabwean president and the US could
"go
hang".
Mugabe, who was surprisingly very candid in this rare
appearance, also
announced that he was not against the succession issue being
debated openly
within his ruling party.
He has in the past castigated
any talk of his departure from office and has
ruthlessly suppressed young
Turks in Zanu-PF who were considered ambitious
enough to openly discuss their
intention to succeed him.
"But when one looks ahead and starts
clandestinely to organise in groups or
in tribal lines or in personal lines
that bring conflict in the party
system, then the idea [of succession] loses
its sound basis. We encourage
open debate rather than meetings endowed in
secrecy," he said, in reference
to reports that some factions were already
building up within Zanu-PF.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe was this week paralysed
by a national three-day stayaway
that started on Wednesday and was organised
by the country's largest trade
union, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU), to protest against the
recent fuel price increase.
Public
transport ground to a standstill and banks and shops remained shut
throughout
the country as workers and employers heeded the ZCTU call to stay
at home
until the state revised the 300% fuel price increase.
The Zimbabwean
government last week hiked the price of petrol and diesel
citing rising
procurement costs encountered by the state-owned National Oil
Procurement
Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) and the need to ensure that newly
licensed black
fuel importers become viable.
Oil experts, however, say that while the
price increase was inevitable,
rampant corruption at Noczim had also worsened
the situation and that the
price could stabilise if the government abandoned
the parastatal and allowed
for the free importation of the
commodity.
The fuel price hike has incensed Zimbabweans, who are reeling
from the
effects of runaway inflation - the March figures were recorded at
228% -
unemployment, a crumbling social service and mounting
poverty.
The ZCTU warned the government that it was considering
indefinite nationwide
mass action unless the state revised the fuel price by
April 25.
FinGaz
Letters
Subsidise food
5/1/03 9:42:30 AM
(GMT +2)
EDITOR - The fuel subsidy being
considered does not make any sense as
the government itself is failing to
subsidise food or the milling companies
which need to maintain the prices as
low as possible.
The government once
removed subsidies, saying it was a prerequisite
needed by the International
Monetary Fund if the government were to receive
any funding. The move was
also said to be part of the opening up of the
economy, as the country was
becoming liberalised as required by the World
Trade
Organisation.
The government was trying to
convince and justify why it was removing
the subsidies that were in place
under the Ian Smith regime. The ZANU PF
government could not simply come out
in the open and tell the people that it
did not have the means or the money
to maintain the subsidies, for in the
government's eyes it was paying money
to white companies.
Only a few days after
hiking fuel prices, the government now wants to
be seen as if it is doing
something to alleviate the suffering of the people
by talking about
subsidies.
Food subsidies are what the people
want. Why is it the government is
not doing anything in this sector now that
the productive farms are in its
hands?
Zimbabweans need to understand that ZANU PF is out to line its own
pockets at
the expense of the public. Winning votes is the party's main
interest and
that is to be done at all costs, even if the taxes are to be
increased to
fund those subsidies.
Someone is taking
Zimbabweans for a ride and it's high time the
politicians know that people
are not fools.
Let the oil companies supply
their own service stations since the
economy is a liberalised
one.
Why is it certain sectors are opened up
to competition and others are
not? Wake up and smell the
coffee.
N
Kainga,
USA.
Ananova
Ancram: England
cricketers should not play Zimbabwe
Shadow foreign secretary
Michael Ancram has said he believes England's
cricketers should not be
playing against Zimbabwe.
The team arrived for a tour in the country on
Thursday. They are set to take
on England in two Test matches and a
triangular one-day tournament.
Mr Ancram said the tour would effectively
give a platform for Zimbabwe's
president Robert Mugabe, who he accuses of
human rights abuses.
But the England and Wales Cricket Board have made
clear they will not call
off the tour.
Cancellation would cost the ECB
millions of pounds, but chief executive Tim
Lamb today insisted that the
sport's governing body is not motivated by
financial
considerations.
He told BBC Radio Five Live: "It upsets me when people
say we are putting
money before morality. I think there are double standards
here. It is unfair
for cricket to have to make political
decisions.
"We don't think the Zimbabwe cricketers are any more the
henchmen of Robert
Mugabe than the England players are the foot soldiers of
Tony Blair. They
are representing their country at cricket."
But Mr
Ancram told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "I would much
rather that
they hadn't come and that these games were not taking place.
"The very
existence of this team in the form it is in at the moment does
bring politics
into sport. Its patron is Mugabe, who describes himself on
their writing
paper as 'President Comrade Mugabe'.
Mr Ancram was critical of the
Government, which has not introduced any form
of sporting boycott of
Zimbabwe. He said: "I wanted to see the Government
taking a much firmer stand
in this, as I wanted them to take a much firmer
stand on the World
Cup.
Story filed: 14:48 Thursday 1st May
2003
The Economist
Zimbabwean rumours
Reading tea
leaves by candlelight
May 1st 2003 | HARARE
From The Economist print
edition
Is Robert Mugabe really
planning to retire?
|
|
 |
|
Old regime, new money, no
fuel |
WORKERS arrived at a factory in Harare at 7am, donned
their protective goggles and overalls, and started the production line humming.
Three hours later, without warning, the electricity was cut off, and every cog
and motor clunked to a halt. The power stayed off for four hours. By the
standards of say, Nigeria, a four-hour blackout is no big deal. But Zimbabweans
are used to uninterrupted electricity, so they find such things disconcerting.
Also, unlike Nigerian industrialists, they rarely have back-up generators.
It is as good a symbol as any of Zimbabwe's decline.
In the past five years, as President Robert Mugabe has pursued ever-more radical
economic policies, such as seizing private property, printing stacks of money
and seeking to dictate prices, Zimbabwe has steadily de-industrialised.
Shortages are common, of everything from bread to car parts, so it was only a
matter of time before electricity joined the list. The state power company,
ZESA, has not paid for the power it imports, so suppliers in neighbouring
countries are finally cutting off the juice.
The more optimistic Zimbabweans are wondering,
however, if the increasingly frequent blackouts might have a silver lining.
Zimbabwe imports 35% of its power from Mozambique, Congo and South Africa. The
first two countries are much too poor to subsidise Mr Mugabe, and have responded
to Zimbabwe's non-payment of its bills by reducing the amount they supply. South
Africa, however, is richer, and has a president, Thabo Mbeki, who is anxious to
not to precipitate chaos in Zimbabwe. So the South African state electricity
firm, which supplies 15% of Zimbabwe's requirements, has so far kept on
supplying, despite an unpaid bill of $115m. But what if South Africa were to use
electricity as a tool to persuade Mr Mugabe to give up the other sort of power?
Mr Mbeki could probably topple Mr Mugabe with the
flick of a switch, but he prefers diplomacy. Next week, with the presidents of
Nigeria and Malawi, he is to pay Mr Mugabe a visit, in the hope of “encouraging
dialogue” between Zimbabwe's ruling party, ZANU-PF, and the main opposition
party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The MDC hopes that the visiting
heads of state will discuss Mr Mugabe's retirement, and the holding of a fresh,
internationally-supervised election to supersede last year's rigged one.
Mr Mbeki's spokesman denied it, telling Reuters, a
news agency, that “It is not for the president of South Africa to go to another
sovereign country and tell the leader to step down.” But many Zimbabweans think
that something is afoot. Mr Mugabe encouraged such speculation this week with a
cryptic remark on state television. He seemed to say that now that he had
redistributed white-owned farm land to blacks, his work was done. His exact
words were: “It was mainly the land issue actually that needed to be addressed
before getting to a stage where we say fine, we have settled this matter and
people can retire.” His information minister insisted, however, that Mr Mugabe
had every intention of staying in office until his term expires in
2008.
The MDC says it is ready for talks with the
government, although it is wary of being co-opted, as the last serious
opposition movement was. Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, said he was willing
to give the visiting presidents a chance to mediate, so long as they remain
impartial. In the past, they have tended to side with the regime and scorn the
MDC, so neither Mr Tsvangirai nor his supporters trust them.
In recent weeks, Mr Mugabe has faced increased
pressure at home. A three-day strike last week brought cities to a halt. A
two-day strike last month was equally avidly observed. The MDC's latest campaign
of newspaper advertisements shows photographs of torture victims' gruesome
injuries and the slogan “Change demands action”, which is also scrawled on
township walls. But there have been no large demonstrations, because potential
demonstrators fear ending up with their picture in the
papers.
Reuters
Zimbabwe union threatens more protests over
fuel
By Stella Mapenzauswa
HARARE, May 1 - Zimbabwe's
main labour union on Thursday threatened more
mass protests if the
governmment did not reverse recent steep fuel price
hikes and urged President
Robert Mugabe to leave office.
The
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) led a three-day strike
in late April
against the fuel price hikes of up to 300 percent, paralysing
industry and
commerce in the country's main urban centres and turning up
pressure on
Mugabe's government.
ZCTU
Secretary-General Wellington Chibebe told a May Day rally Mugabe
''should go
now with honour and dignity, so that when we meet in the streets
tomorrow we
can still be civil to one another.''
Mugabe accuses domestic and Western opponents of sabotaging the
economy to
punish his campaign to seize white-owned farms for redistribution
to landless
blacks.
Main opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai, whose party put its weight
behind the ZCTU protest, said
Zimbabweans had a right to stage peaceful
protests ''and we shall continue to
exercise this option at anytime of our
own
choosing.''
Tsvangirai's Movement for
Democratic Change itself led one of the
biggest protests against Mugabe's
23-year rule in March.
Zimbabwe's
problems have spiralled since Mugabe defeated Tsvangirai
in 2002 presidential
polls which some Western governments condemned as
fraudulent. Many blame
Mugabe for high unemployment and shortages of fuel,
food and foreign
exchange.
''The only safe exit for
Mugabe and his cronies is through a
restoration of the rights of the people,
the restoration of the legitimacy
of government,'' Tsvangirai said. He said
this week the MDC was ready to
meet Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party on the
crisis after reports that the
leaders of South Africa, Nigeria and Malawi
would travel to Harare next week
to urge dialogue between the two
parties.
The MDC has said its demands in
any talks would include the
restoration of law and order, the repeal of harsh
security and media laws,
an end to political violence, and a review of
electoral laws to guarantee
free and fair elections.
Where Hardship is a Way of Life
Cape Argus (Cape
Town)
May 1, 2003
Posted to the web May 1, 2003
Brian
Latham
Mass strikes are no extra hardship for Zimbabweans who are
enduring a life
of endless food shortages and queues, spiralling inflation,
unemployment and
poverty - but the government refuses to
budge.
Strikes and mass action do not add any hardship to their lives,
say ordinary
Zimbabweans. Runaway inflation, crippling shortages and
transport woes are
bad enough.
A threefold petrol price hike
earlier this month has forced hundreds of
thousands of commuters to fork out
between half and their entire salaries
just to get to work each
day.
Battling with an official 228% inflation, Zimbabwe's ever-rising
Poverty
Datum Line now seems an unreachable luxury for the overwhelming
majority of
the population.
With over 70% of the adult population out
of work in the organised sectors,
traditional extended families have been
stretched beyond breaking point.
John Mupawira, a messenger in central
Harare, says a fraction under half his
Z$25 000 (R139) monthly salary is
spent just getting to work each day.
"It costs me Z$12 000 (R67) a month
to come from Mabvuku and to get home
again every day. When I started work in
1986, I was spending Z$4 a day on
transport," Mupawira said.
The
Zimbabwe dollar, which has plummeted on Zimbabwe's foreign currency
black
market, is a fraction of its value before the crisis began in 2000.
It
can take a staggering Z$180 to buy just R1 in Harare's streets, the
only
guaranteed source of foreign exchange in the country.
That means
Mupawira's salary works out to about R140 a month in what some
economists
have said is now Africa's most expensive city.
"In 1986 I was a domestic
worker on Z$400 a month and I was much better off.
I had money, but now a
loaf of bread on the black market costs between Z$300
(R1.70) and Z$400
(R2.20) so I am broke," he said.
Bread - in desperately short supply
because of food shortages sparked by the
seizure of white-owned farms by
President Robert Mugabe's supporters - can
sometimes be found in supermarkets
and bakeries, but only by joining lengthy
queues.
Many people forced
to queue for transport and other basic food find little
time to join yet more
queues on the city's dusty, litter-strewn pavements.
"In 1986 I used to
finish the month and still have money. My pay would last
me the whole month,
now it lasts just days," Mupawira said.
"I don't have money left for
food. Each month I spend Z$12 000 (R67) on
transport, my rent is Z$7 500
(R42) a month, water and electricity costs me
Z$5 000 (R28) a month and I
spend Z$1 400 (R8) a month on school fees for my
two children. That comes to
more than I earn. There is nothing left for food
or even clothes," he
complained.
But Mupawira's woes go beyond balancing an unattainable
budget. Transport,
apart from its sky-rocketing cost, is hard to
find.
"To get to work by eight in the morning, I must leave home by five
just to
look for a commuter taxi. There are long queues for the few taxis
that have
fuel," he explained.
In a country where there is little
state-owned public transport, taxis have
ignored new fares imposed by the
government following the massive price hike
of fuel.
Despite trebling
the cost of petrol, the government said taxi and bus
drivers should use
increases in the region of 20%.
The state-imposed fares came in the
middle of last week's three-day strike
to protest fuel hikes in what many saw
as a capitulation.
But Zimbabwe's beleaguered energy minister has said
Zimbabweans "must be
dreaming" if they think the cost of fuel can be
lowered.
The country's fuel crisis has been caused by massive debts owed
by the
monopolistic and corruption-plagued National Oil Company of
Zimbabwe
(Noczim) to foreign suppliers.
For months Zimbabwe's Zanu-PF
cabinet insisted fuel prices must remain
static, despite the fact that Noczim
was buying fuel with foreign currency
sourced on the black market, a move
that led to fuel being sold, in real
terms, at less than five US cents a
litre.
As a result, Zimbabwe has been crippled by continuing fuel
shortages for
over two years, forcing motorists to buy petrol and diesel at
inflated
prices from secretive vendors who use their pavement cut-flower
businesses
as cover for fuel sales.
And while petrol and diesel work
out relatively cheap at black market
exchange rates, Zimbabwean salaries have
lagged behind the region.
Most Zimbabweans are worse off than they were
before independence in 1980,
sparking anger that real-term incomes were
higher under Ian Smith's regime.
"It is very harsh," said Mupawira. "I
leave home before it is light and if I
finish work again at 5pm, I get home
only after 8pm. It takes three hours
just to travel a few
kilometres."
Mabvuku, an old and impoverished township on Harare's
eastern city limits,
is about 20km from Harare's Central Business
District.
But lengthy queues and a chronic shortage of fuel adds six
hours to
Mupa-wira's grinding eight-hour working day. And, he adds, that is
before
time spent queuing for mealie meal, sugar and cooking oil is taken
into
account.
This is London
Zimbabwe cricketers
greeted by protesters
By Patrick Sawer, Evening Standard
1 May
2003
The victims of Robert Mugabe's torture gangs
today appealed to the British
public to join their protests against the
Zimbabwean cricket tour.
As the team landed at Heathrow, men and women
who have suffered at the
Zimbabwean president's hands appealed: "Please don't
let Mugabe off the
hook. The message must go back to our country that his
team is not welcome
in England."
Many of the thousands of exiles who
have fled their homes to seek refuge in
Britain are furious that the English
Cricket Board has welcomed the
Zimbabwean team, despite Mugabe's reign of
terror.
Stop the Tour 2003 is planning peaceful protests outside every
ground the
team plays, starting with its game at Edgbaston, Birmingham,
against the
combined British Universities team on
Saturday.
Focus On New Thinking On Land Reform
UN
Integrated Regional Information Networks
May 1, 2003
Posted to the web
May 1, 2003
This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the
United Nations
An informal group of land experts met in South Africa
recently at the
invitation of the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO)
to analyse
contraints to sustainable land reform in Southern
Africa.
Several countries in the region face chronic land problems
which have roots
in the dispossession of Africans under colonialism and
apartheid, or an
"unbalanced" approach to land allocation in
post-independence policies. "In
all cases, there is a general failure by
governments to integrate land
policy into either a rural development strategy
or a wider social and
economic development vision," said a report on the
'think-tank' meeting.
"Governments have also failed to allocate the
financial and human resources
needed to address land problems. At the same
time, donors have found it
increasingly difficult to justify the allocation
of aid resources to land
reform in the region. This reluctance is due to the
lack of viable policies
and programmes and is also a response to policy
trends - in practice if not
in rhetorical terms - away from the pro-poor
agenda that donors feel should
be the focus of land reform policies," the
14-member think-tank noted.
WILLING-BUYER, WILLING-SELLER
"We are
concerned over the lack of real progress with redistributive land
reform in
South Africa and Namibia, and faltering or uneven processes in
other
countries," the experts said.
Part of the reason has been the principle
of "willing-buyer, willing-seller"
which was insisted upon by the British
during Zimbabwe's independence
negotiations. The willing-seller side of the
equation is an obstacle to "any
form of systematic designation of land for
redistribution", the think-tank
observed. This condition was not imposed by
donors funding South Africa's
land reform process during 1994 to
1999.
"There are unreconstructed power relationships in South Africa, in
Zimbabwe
until recently, and Namibia. These formal and informal power
structures [the
banks, for example] are rigged against emergent black
farmers. When you are
supposed to have willing-buyer, willing-seller what you
often get is an
unequal relationship," Oxfam land police adviser, Robin
Palmer, told IRIN.
As a result of economic disempowerment under
structural adjustment
programmes, land reform has become all the more
important. "Land is often
all that people have as a bottom line for
livelihood security," Palmer said.
South African land expert Scott Drimie
explained that, for Southern Africa,
there is also a context of restitution.
"The primary reason is about
history. There are vast inequalities that have
to be addressed for
historical and economic reasons ... A comprehensive rural
development
strategy will help those marginalised on the
periphery."
However, the think-tank cautioned: "The misfit between land
policy and rural
development is most evident where land reform is being
pursued by a
government primarily as a 'quasi-constitutional right' or a
means of
redressing past injustices, rather than as a basis for sustainable
rural
livelihoods ... Redressing gross racial imbalances in land ownership
and
access is one thing; recreating sustainable livelihoods on the land
is
infinitely more difficult."
"All the southern African countries
face a huge crisis in land access and
use as a result of the HIV/AIDS
pandemic. Their agricultural sectors are in
a moribund state due to
unfavourable international terms of trade and the
structural constraints
facing especially small-scale farmers in the wider
context of the global
economy."
SMALL-SCALE VERSUS LARGE-SCALE
However, there are
ideological differences at the heart of the issue of land
reform. "Debates
about land reform everywhere have seen a confrontation
between those who
believe that land reform must be centred on the
redistribution of ownership
(or land rights over) productive agricultural
land in favour of the rural
poor, and those opposed to extensive
redistribution who wish the reform to
focus on measures to raise
agricultural productivity and/or create a new
class of (black) African
commercial farmers," the two-day meeting
noted.
But Drimie believes that the small-scale versus large-scale debate
"may in
many ways be a false dichotomy in terms of policy choices". Rather
than a
blanket model, a more nuanced blend based on location (climate,
land
suitability) and resources within a context of rural development
would
better achieve poverty alleviation.
The meeting, organised by
FAO-Zimbabwe and the Southern African Regional
Poverty Network, was also
critical of donor responses to land reform.
"Donors in Southern Africa
increasingly see assistance to land reform as
politically sensitive and
complex, likely to result in negative
consequences, whatever the moral
foundation, and therefore best avoided. In
addition, recipient governments
have become suspicious that donors, by
insisting on a range of conditions - a
'pro-poor' focus, the willing-buyer,
willing-seller principle, maintaining
economic stability - are using support
to land reform as a neo-colonialist
'Trojan Horse', which in some cases is
also perpetuating racial imbalances in
land ownership."
The report commented: "What is clear is that donors
should not walk away
when things turn sour, but rather tread carefully and
maintain a base flow
of support. Nor should they give up on promoting a
redistribution agenda,
notwithstanding the disaster unfolding in Zimbabwe,
which seems to have
become the reference point in spite of it really being
the 'very worst case
scenario'."
HUMANITY AT A CROSSROADS
by Alan Hale
(This essay was originally written in March 2001,
and published in the Alamogordo (New Mexico) Daily
News)
For almost as long as I can remember I have been
fascinated by the universe that surrounds us, and I have been driven to learn as
much as I can about it. Much of my fascination derives from the fact that, the
more we look out into space, the more we are confronted with the reality that
our Earth is a very tiny grain of cosmic dust compared to the universe as a
whole. We see this in the Hubble Space Telescope photographs that show a
universe teeming with galaxies to as far as we can see. We see it in the images
of Earth taken from the Apollo missions which show our planet as a tiny
little jewel floating in the vastness of space. Upon this utterly insignificant,
and yet almost indescribably beautiful, planet there has arisen a race of beings
that occasionally takes the time to look out into the universe and wonder about
where it all fits together.
Although it almost seems trite to point this out,
these images of Earth verify that the political boundaries with which we always
seem so obsessed are nothing but artificial and arbitrary constructs. If we
think seriously about this we should realize that the human race that populates
this planet is all one species, one people. We might also realize that nature is
not going to respect our artificial political boundaries; if, for example, we
disturb the atmosphere in one location, the entire planet ends up being
affected.
Another item we might realize is that our planet’s
lack of importance in the universe tells us in no uncertain terms that there is
no one segment of humanity that is divinely ordained as being the "privileged"
group. There is no one segment of humanity that is "better" than any other
segment. There is no one segment of humanity that has somehow been awarded
access to "the Truth" to the exclusion of other segments of humanity. No, we are
all one people, and we are all on this ride together. Once we realize this, we
can understand that the trials and challenges we face, and the solutions we must
develop to overcome these, are the collective responsibility of all of
us.
When I examine our history, along with much of our
present-day world, I must confess that I sometimes find it difficult to be
optimistic. I think of all the wars we have had, and are having, and of all of
our resources that are being devoted to developing new and exotic ways of
blowing each other up. I think of the millions of people throughout history, and
today, who have been and are being hated, tortured, and killed because they have
the "wrong" skin color, or speak the "wrong" language, or subscribe to the
"wrong" religion, or have the "wrong" sexual orientation, or embody any one of a
number of other "wrong" characteristics. I think of all the many people living
in poverty and squalor here in America and elsewhere throughout the world. I
think of how many children will die of starvation by the time the day is over. I
think of those who live in war-torn areas around the planet who wonder whether
or not they will make it through the night without being killed.
Those of us who are fortunate enough not to have
to deal with these situations can find it all too easy to pretend that they
don’t exist. Is the size of a tax cut so much more important than the fact that
millions of children in the world will go to bed hungry tonight, and that some
of them may starve to death before sunrise? Are we really acting responsibly
when we indiscriminately pump more and more pollutants into the atmosphere,
condemning the less fortunate members of the human race — not to mention our own
posterity — to dealing with its calamitous effects, just so our richest
corporations can add a few more million dollars to their portfolios? How many
times do we need to be reminded that our Earth does not know about, or respect,
our arbitrary boundaries?
Despite all this, however, there are many times
when I do feel optimistic about humanity. I feel this way when I witness the
almost innumerable occasions when neighbors, and sometimes even strangers, will
stop to lend a helping hand when someone experiences a difficulty. I feel it
when I see communities pulling together after a disaster to help those who were
affected. I feel it when I see people making a concerted effort to understand,
and meet with, their counterparts from elsewhere on planet Earth, and who
actively seek ways to bring about peace, health, and preservation of a clean
environment.
Sometimes, I am almost astounded by some of the
progress we have made. Of course, there are those events which showcase humanity
at its best, for example, Neil Armstrong’s "one small step" upon the Sea of
Tranquility. There are those technological developments such as the Internet
that have given us the capability of communicating almost instantaneously with
people all over the world, making our planet smaller than it has ever been
before. But I am perhaps even more encouraged by the ways we have found to
eliminate old hatreds. One of my favorite photographs was taken on the
40th anniversary of the battle of Iwo Jima, and shows former Japanese
and American soldiers who had faced each other as enemies in that hideous
conflict, returning to the island as friends. More recently, after this past
January’s earthquake that devastated parts of India one of the primary relief
efforts arrived from, of all places, their ostensible mortal enemy Pakistan.
I’ve been fortunate enough to witness this type of phenomenon for myself, when
during my recent visits to Iran I was overwhelmed by the displays of friendship
from the people I once considered my enemies. I cannot possibly forget the
gentleman named Hossein who, on a moment’s notice, dropped what he was doing so
he could chauffeur another American scientist and me around the city of Esfahan,
or the young man who stopped me in a restaurant to tell me "After twenty years
it’s great to have Americans back in Iran again!"
It’s a cliché expression, perhaps, but I believe
the human race is really at a crossroads. Of course, the space enthusiast within
me likes to visualize a wise and mature human civilization expanding into the
solar system and outwards. I also like to visualize other scientific and
technological advancements, such as eradication of diseases and further
improvements in transportation and communications. But along with all this I
like to visualize a human race where our old hatreds have been left behind on
the rubbish pile of history where they belong, and where every person is treated
with dignity and respect, regardless of skin color, religious belief, sexual
orientation, and so on. I visualize that this future, with its many wonders, is
open to everyone, not just to the handful of those who are fortunate enough to
live in the "right" parts of the world. But while such a future is within our
grasp, at the same time we have the power to destroy ourselves with our weapons
and our hatreds, and to ravage our planet’s fragile environment with our
devil-may-care recklessness.
The choice is up to us. If we are to pursue the
higher road, and avoid the pits into which we can so easily fall, then we must
make the conscious choice to do so, and have the courage, and perseverance, to
overcome the obstacles we face. Are we up to it? I believe we can be. But are we
worthy? When I see pictures of the dead bodies of innocent people lying around
after yet another street battle somewhere, or observe our ostensible political
leaders refusing to see how their self-interested decisions are harming the rest
of the planet, the temptation is strong to say "no." But then I see my sons
playing together and I think of their hopes and dreams for their future, or I
remember the outpouring of friendship I received from the people of Iran, or I
think again of that Iwo Jima photograph, and I want to utter a most emphatic
"yes!"
Which shall it
be?