IOL
May 30 2007
at 03:14PM
By Nelson Banya
Harare - Zimbabwean civic
groups on Wednesday demanded they be
included in political negotiations with
President Robert Mugabe's government
and called for an end to a crackdown on
opposition activists.
South African President Thabo Mbeki is
mediating talks between
Mugabe's government and the main opposition Movement
for Democratic Change
(MDC) to try to solve a deep political crisis as the
country teeters toward
economic collapse.
The Save Zimbabwe
Campaign - a coalition of 31 civic and opposition
groups, including the two
MDC factions - has said the process needed to be
broadened and should not
start until the government stops its crackdown on
opponents.
Save Zimbabwe Campaign spokesperson
Lovemore Madhuku told journalists
on Wednesday the talks should be extended
beyond political parties to ensure
broad agreement on the
outcome.
"We insist that the dialogue process must be broad-based
and not
limited to political parties but must be inclusive of civic society
and the
churches," Madhuku said. "We will be making this position known to
everybody, President Mbeki included."
"Our position is that the
process must be opened up and transparent
and government should cease its
terror campaign ... you cannot negotiate
when people are being arrested and
abducted, meetings are banned and the
opposition has no access to the public
media," Madhuku added.
South Africa's foreign ministry, meanwhile,
said in a document
released in parliament it was concerned that a rift in
Mugabe's ruling
Zanu-PF over his plans to stand for another presidential
term in 2008 could
complicate Mbeki's mediation on behalf of the Southern
African Development
Community (SADC).
"The ongoing infighting
within Zanu-PF, if not contained, would pose
challenges for SADC's mediation
efforts, as energy within the party would be
consumed in efforts to come out
on top in the succession battle," read part
of the document handed out
during a briefing session to parliament's
Portfolio Committee on Foreign
Affairs.
"In the absence of party unity it might be hard for the
mediator to
extract firm commitments from the party, during the dialogue
process," the
document said.
Zimbabwe's latest political
crackdown comes as the country's economy
labours under the highest inflation
in the world at more than 3 700 percent
along with crippling shortages of
fuel, food and foreign exchange.
Mugabe, 83, blames the crisis on
foreign economic sabotage following
his policy of seizing white-owned farms
to give to landless blacks and has
called the MDC stooges of his critics in
London and Washington.
Mugabe's government launched a crackdown on
the MDC in March after
accusing the opposition party of seeking to overthrow
it through street
protests.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and
dozens of his colleagues were
arrested and badly beaten in police custody
after trying to defy a ban on
political rallies and protests.
Last weekend police stormed the opposition's head office in Harare and
arrested about 200 activists who were subsequently released without
charge.
additional reporting by Wendell Roelf in Cape Town
New Zimbabwe
By Lebo Nkatazo and Lindie Whiz
Last updated: 05/31/2007
05:00:12
A ZIMBABWEAN judge lavished rare praise on a leading opposition
official
accused of recruiting and training insurgents, before admitting him
on
Zim$150 million bail.
High Court judge, Justice Tedious Karwi
released Ian Makone, the Movement
for Democratic Change's (MDC) director of
elections and advisor to the
opposition party's leader Morgan
Tsvangirai.
The judge said: "He has no previous convictions. It is common
cause that the
applicant has a long history of being socially and
economically responsible.
"He is well educated as he holds two university
degrees and was the first
black general manager of the GMB (Grain Marketing
Board). He has over the
years held both managerial and directorship
positions in many blue chip
companies in the country.
"In considering
this application I have taken into account the personal
circumstances of the
applicant. In particular, that he is aged 57 years old,
that he is a married
man with fixed aboard, that he is a man of substance
and that he has
invested very heavily in this country. He appears to have
his roots in this
country. He is a well educated man."
The judge said Makone had left the
court with the impression that although
he was opposed to the government and
wanted to see a change of government,
he was opposed to the use of violent
means.
He added that Makone estimates his personal fortune to be valued
at over $22
billion.
The judge added: "In this respect I must point
out that I do not agree with
the approach taken by the respondent, in
particular by Assistant
Commissioner Mabunda that the applicant should be
kept in custody at all
costs because he is the most dangerous man in the
country.
"This attitude would seem to suggest that the applicant is a
convicted
terrorist which obviously is not the case. Our law presumes people
to be
innocent until proven guilty."
Zimbabwe's Home Affairs Minister
Kembo Mohadi made frantic efforts to have
Makone indefinitely locked up
until his trial date.
Mohadi's interference, which resulted in him
issuing a Ministerial
Certificate to the court ordering the continued
incarceration of the Makone
and at least 31 other MDC activists facing
charges of setting off petrol
bombs at several police stations and trying to
blow up two passenger trains,
could not be sustained after Justice Karwi
gave him bail.
Also arrested with Makone in March this year were Glen
View MP Paul Madzore
and prominent journalist Luke Tamborinyoka, who worked
for the banned
privately-owned Daily News newspaper. He had joined the MDC
as a media
consultant.
Justice Karwi ruled that Mohadi's Ministerial
Certificate was not a good
reason to deny Makone bail and that he was a
suitable candidate to be
released on bail.
He added that tight
conditions should be imposed on Makone to ensure he
stands trial.
In
his ruling, Justice Karwi noted that the State failed to substantiate its
claims that Makone would interfere with investigations, abscond trial and
influence the State witnesses.
As part of the stringent conditions,
Makone was ordered to surrender his
travel documents to the police and to
report daily at CID law and order
section in Harare.
He was asked to
surrender title deeds to his three residential stands in
Bluffhill and Glen
Lorne as surety.
SABC
May 30, 2007,
06:15
Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, has flatly rejected
opposition
demands for a new constitution ahead of next year's presidential
and
parliamentary polls. In direct response to the calls, Mugabe says the
opposition parties have no mandate to call for a new constitution especially
after voting against a new one in 2000.
Mugabe's rejection of a new
constitution has come out of an exclusive
interview he gave to a
London-based magazine. He is quoted as saying, "There
is no way a fresh
constitution can be written between now and March. The
opposition must have
a mandate from the people for that to happen. They are
a minority party and
they cannot call the tune," he said.
Divided MDC speaks in one voice
A
split opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has been speaking
with
one voice on the need to reform the constitution before any election is
held. This was Morgan Tsvangirai, an MDC leader, speaking at a memorial
service of one murdered activist.
"No one is going to go into an
election without a constitution. We cannot
make a fundamental error of going
into an election which is predetermined,"
Tsvangirai said.
However,
some believe the issue need not be a stumbling block in President
Thabo
Mbeki's mediation efforts. Jonathan Moyo, an independent analyst, is
not
ruling out a compromise.
In the year 2000, the MDC campaigned and won and
no vote to a new
constitution that would have among other things, limited
Mugabe's term to
2002. It is a chance they may well regret.
The Zimbabwean
(30-05-07)
The
Zimbabwe Liberators Platform (ZLP), a non-partisan,
non-governmental
organization founded by genuine war veterans, joins other
progressive
organizations and individuals in applauding Zimbabwe's
Catholic bishops
for issuing the recent pastoral letter.
The bishops'
analysis of the crisis bedeviling Zimbabwe could not have
been more accurate
and candid. Their observations coincide with the
concerns
ZLP has
espoused in previous statements and other publications.
The crisis facing the
country is basically due to:
- Bad governance practices;
-
Abuse/violation of human rights;
-Infringement of freedom of expression,
media, assembly and
association;
-Uneven/hostile political
landscape;
-Subordination of national interests to those of a few
selfish
individuals;
-Political intolerance; and
-Rampant
corruption.
Manifestations of these practices were amply documented in
the pastoral
letter. Suffice to add that the recent crackdown on the
opposition and
unlawful bashing of lawyers who only wanted to present a
petition to
the minister of justice, further demonstrate the extent of
government's
intolerance to dissent.
ZLP seeks to advocate for good
governance practices and respect for
fundamental human rights by promoting
the original objectives and
values that underpinned the liberation struggle.
To this end, ZLP finds some
of the laws enacted by Parliament and
government's practices enumerated
above,
to be inconsistent with the
objectives of the struggle. It is totally
inconceivable that a government,
born out of a bitter armed liberation
war, could enact such repressive pieces
of legislation as Public Order and
Security Act (POSA) and the Access to
Information and Protection of
Privacy Act (AIPPA). A few years ago, we
engaged reputable human rights
lawyers
to conduct an audit of Rhodesia's
Law and Order Maintenance Act (LOMA) and
POSA. Their conclusion was that POSA
was even more repressive than
LOMA. Therefore enactment of such laws surely
negates the ideals of the
armed
struggle.
As war veterans, we
believe that we have the legitimate right to
challenge the perception held by
some elements in government that they
cannot be
criticized for their
policies, practices and laws because the ZANU PF
government is a product of
the liberation struggle. Leaders should be
held accountable for their actions
and practices. What ZLP found most
disheartening was the leadership's
reaction to the pastoral letter.
Instead of candidly embracing the
recommendations made therein, they accused
the bishops of pursuing a
political agenda (the usual "regime change"
agenda) and making all sorts of
threats.
We do not find anything offensive in the pastoral letter. On
the
contrary, the letter exposes the truth. Even those who believe in their
own
lies/propaganda cannot dispute the naked truth that the people
are
indeed suffering. The bishops were merely telling government the same
truth
they told the Smith regime when it violated human rights. The current
ZANU
PF leadership supported the bishops' stance then. What double
standards!
We remind government that the truth is not situational, it is
immortal.
Injustice remains injustice, whether perpetrated by a white person
on a
black person or by a black person on a fellow black person.
Of
concern to us were the remarks made local government minister
Ignatius Chombo
who sought to divide the bishops by alleging that some of
them
had
dissociated themselves from the letter. Chombo should be reminded that
during
the liberation war, some of the bishops and members of the
Catholic
Commission for Justice and Peace, were persecuted, deported or even
killed by
the Smith regime for supporting the people's cause.
The truth is that Chombo
is one of the beneficiaries of ZANU PF's
patronage and will therefore defend
the system at all costs.
We urge the bishops to dismiss his remarks as
the usual ZANU PF's
divisive tactics and remain united and focused in their
noble mission to
expose
injustice, inequality and corruption, that
pervade Zimbabwean society.
ZLP supports the bishops'
initiatives.
Issued by National Council
29 May 2007
Zim Online
Wednesday 30 May 2007
By
Nqobizitha Khumalo
BULAWAYO - Police last weekend forcibly moved into
staff quarters at Portwe
Farm in Matabeleland North province in clear
defiance of a High Court order
issued last week to move out of the farm they
occupied two months ago.
The police, who were led by a superintendent
Desmond Dube, broke locks and
forcibly occupied the staff houses at the
property owned by white farmer
Dave Joubert.
The occupation of the
staff houses is in open disregard of a High Court
order granted by Justice
Francis Bere last Wednesday ordering the police to
vacate the
property.
Bere also ordered the police not to interfere with operations
at the
property and to return guns and keys they confiscated from the
Joubert
family.
"The police have now taken over the servants'
quarters. They have now
squeezed out all workers from the houses they were
staying in and the police
are now occupying the houses," said Jourbert's
wife, Margaret.
Contacted for comment, Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi
said he was not
aware of the matter.
"I know nothing about the issue,
the police should have applied for the farm
through the Ministry of Lands .
. . I have not been appraised about this
farm in Matabeleland North. Maybe
Bvudzijena (Wayne, the police
spokesperson) would shed more light on this
matter," Mohadi said.
Bvudzijena refused to comment on the matter
referring questions to Lands
Minister Didymus Mutasa, who could not be
reached for comment.
The police invaded Portwe Farm last March and
declared that the farm now
belonged to the law enforcement agency. They
chased away foreign tourists
who were at the safari lodge on the farm and
seized keys to all buildings at
the farm.
President Robert Mugabe's
government has over the past seven years chased
away about 90 percent of the
country's 4 500 white farmers plunging the
southern African country into
acute food shortages. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
Wednesday 30 May 2007
By Regerai Marwezu
MASVINGO
- School heads in Zimbabwe have ordered students in boarding
schools and
colleges to bring their own food saying the institutions can no
longer
afford to provide meals to students because of high costs.
In a letter to
the Ministry of Education dated 24 May 2007, the Association
of School Heads
said the situation in boarding schools was now unbearable as
the schools
were no longer able to provide meals to students.
The school heads say
students must bring their own sugar, cooking oil and
maize-meal, all in
short supply in Zimbabwe. Those who fail to bring the
food items would be
chucked out from boarding facilities.
"We write this letter to inform you
that boarding schools in the country are
now ordering students to bring
their own mealie-meal, cooking oil and sugar
with immediate effect," read
part of the letter written to Education
Minister Aeneas
Chigwedere.
"Since we cannot increase fees without your approval, we have
decided to put
the burden on the parents who have to make sure that their
children have
enough food to eat. Most boarding schools are no longer able
to provide food
to students because of the high costs involved," added the
letter.
Students at Silveira Mission in Masvingo province confirmed the
new
requirement saying they had since been told to bring their own food to
school.
"We were served with letters to pass on to our guardians and
parents over
the latest requirement last week," said one of the students,
who refused to
be named.
Masvingo regional director for education,
Obert Mujuru, said although he was
aware of the latest move, schools must
first get permission from Chigwedere
before they can implement the new
requirement.
"It is true that some boarding schools including those run
by churches now
want students to bring their own food. The move is illegal
since the
minister has to approve the whole thing before it is implemented,"
said
Mujuru.
A fired-up Chigwedere said school heads who implement
the move risk being
dismissed from their jobs.
"We will never allow
them to order students to bring their own food," said
Chigwedere.
"I
received the letter from the Association of Schools Heads on Monday on
that
issue but to me they are just joking. Anyone who implements this will
be
fired."
Zimbabwe's education system, once revered as one of the best in
Africa, is
in shambles in tandem with a deep political and economic crisis
that is
blamed on President Robert Mugabe's policies.
Lack of state
funding has seen most government schools operating on
shoe-string budgets,
compromising the quality of education while thousands
of teachers who are
among the lowest paid civil servants, have fled the
country to seek better
paying jobs elsewhere. - ZimOnline
zimbabwejournalists.com
30th May 2007 09:27 GMT
By a Correspondent
THE National
University of Science and Technology (NUST) Student
Representative Council
(SRC) president, Clever Bere and his deputy Mehluli
Dube, were arrested and
detained yesterday in a university control room for
hours by the
police.
Zinasu reports that all hell broke lose around 0900 hours
yesterday when
Bere and Dube were going about their normal business on
campus.
"They were and were captured by the Chief Security Officer,
Banda. The two
student leaders were detained in the university control room.
They were
denied access to both fellow students and their lawyers," said a
Zinasu
statement.
The student leaders were later transferred from the
NUST security office
around lunch time and were kept in detention at
Bulawayo Central police
station.
"The two student leaders had
retreated into hiding following a police hunt
in Bulawayo following the 10th
of May 2007 peaceful demonstration by
students at the NUST in Bulawayo where
53 students were arrested including
the student chorister , Themba
Maphendeka," the student representative body
said.
During the
demonstration, police used "war methods" to handle students with
pens and
papers. Tear gas was fired towards them resulting in five students
collapsing.
Meanwhile, the security situation at NUST remains
volatile, says Zinasu. Its
president, Promise Mkwananzi, commenting on the
clampdown on student
activities by the establishment, said: "The students of
Zimbabwe will not
intimidated by the mighty show of force by the Zimbabwean
police. Students
are right, and right is mighty."
By Lance Guma
29 May
2007
A day after two student leaders were abducted in Bulawayo another
one
Tellington Kwashira, was abducted by suspected ruling party thugs in the
Goromonzi farming area on Wednedsay. Kwashira is the ZINASU Education and
Research secretary and was serving his industrial attachment with the
General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) in
the area. A ZINASU statement said he was on an official farm workers
assessment visit before being taken to a ZANU PF office near Ruwa along the
Harare to Mutare highway. It's there that he was allegedly detained and
assaulted.
The mob accused Kwashira of working with the British
government to reverse
the land reform programme in Zimbabwe. ZINASU said
lawyers from the Zimbabwe
Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) were making
frantic efforts to secure his
release. The University of Zimbabwe has
meanwhile suspended Maureen
Kademaunga, the out-going SRC Secretary General.
Authorities accused her of
inciting students to demonstrate over the
continued strike by lecturers,
high fees and the general decline in the
living standards of students at the
college.
Meanwhile the two
student leaders abducted from NUST, Mehluli Dube and
Clever Bere were
released Tuesday evening. ZINASU say the two were assaulted
and sustained
minor injuries. SRC President Bere and his deputy Dube were
picked up by
university security guards on Tuesday and detained for several
hours in the
security control room. It's thought they were then transferred
from this
location into the hands of state security officers.
In another sad
reflection of how difficult it is for students to learn
properly its
reported children in boarding schools will now be required to
bring their
own food during term time. Schools are struggling to cope with
the
hyper-inflationary environment and see this as a way of coping. Already
most
schools have introduced top up fees mid term to make up for the
shortfalls
created by skyrocketing prices.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe
news
African Path
Trust Matsilele
May 30, 2007 11:33
AM
Harare: The cash strapped Zimbabwean government is alleged to
have
paid over $US 1.6 million dollars to The New African magazine as the
government fights to clear bad publicity that emanated from the 11 March
atrocities which left top MDC leadership with life threatening injuries
while claiming Gift Tandare's life.
The New African is
a leading pan African magazine which has in the
past defended African
governments from being demonised by the western media
viewed by many African
leaders as imperialistic and racial in nature with
the view of recolonising
Africa.
Sources close to the New African magazine established
this development
and were alarmed that Mugabe could spend such a figure when
the country was
experiencing economic woes.
The New
African magazine carried over seventy seven sponsored pages of
propaganda
which Harare has suffered. Soon after the March 11 incidents
Zimbabwe's
ruling party got more sanctions from western governments. Mugabe
has also
received attacks from fellow African leaders such as the Zambian
president
Levy Mwanawasa and Ghana's John Agyekum Kufuor.
The issue
featured an exclusive interview between Mugabe and Bafour
Ankomah (Editor of
the magazine). On the interview Mugabe boasted of police
violence and made
renewed threats to his opponents.
Some of the pages carried
pictures of the alleged petrol bombed police
officers. Media reports have
however denied such reports after
investigations established that the two
female officers got burnt when their
paraffin stove burst. Zimbabweans have
been reduced to using paraffin stoves
and firewood due the electricity
blackouts.
Political have since questioned the democracy
Zimbabwean government
claims to be existing in the country when they saw
pictures of burnt police
officers on the magazine when the former ZBC
cameraman was abducted and
murdered by alleged state agents for selling
pictures of brutalised
Tsvangirai to the western media.
The Zimbabwean Republic Police used to be part of the country's middle
class
during the Ian Smith regime and just after independence and have now
been
reduced to Stone Age scavengers. Police use firewood and paraffin
stoves as
the country can only afford to buy electricity that light only
four hours of
the day.
Zimbabwean government is known for manipulating
state media for
channeling ZANU PF party propaganda and this has extended
recently following
the establishment of the Short Wave radio station meant
for overseas market
and the recent big purchase on New African.
iafrica.com
Wed, 30 May
2007
A tussle for power in Zimbabwe's ruling party could undermine attempts
to
broker a truce between the government and opposition in Harare, a South
African foreign ministry document said on Wednesday.
"The ongoing
infighting (succession issue) within Zanu-PF, if not contained,
would pose
challenges for ... mediation efforts," reads the document
distributed among
MPs at a parliamentary foreign affairs committee meeting.
"Energy within
the party would be consumed in efforts to come out on top in
the succession
battle," it states.
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, widely blamed for
the country's
political and economic meltdown, was chosen in March as
Zanu-PF's candidate
for presidential elections next year despite growing
domestic opposition.
Although no one has publicly challenged his
leadership, analysts have said
that opposition to Mugabe within Zanu-PF is
on the upswing with party
members failing to give him backing for plans to
delay elections until 2010.
"In the absence of party unity it might be
hard for the mediator to extract
firm commitments from the party during the
dialogue process," said the
foreign affairs document.
President Thabo
Mbeki, who has long refused to publicly criticise Mugabe,
has been mandated
by regional heads of state to broker talks between
Harare's government and
opposition.
The briefing document said Mugabe appeared to remain firmly
in control, as
was apparent from his presidential nomination "despite
earlier indications
that some factions within the party would block any
attempt by (him) to
stand again for leadership of the party and the
country".
It stressed the need for constitutional reforms ahead of next
year's polls,
and cited as a challenge "recent state interventions to
contain the
expression of discontent by political and civil society
oppositional
forces".
Deputy foreign affairs director general Jessie
Duarte told the committee
that attempts to broker negotiations were on
track.
Sapa
The Zimbabwean
(30-05-07)
BULAWAYO:
CHAOS in the fractious Zanu-PF Bulawayo province took
a new turn
yesterday
following the suspension of close to 50 party members
who belong to the
Jabulani Sibanda faction ahead of provincial electins, it
has been
learnt.
The 50 members aligned to the Sibanda faction were
for indiscipline and
absconding from meetings addressed by the Secretary for
the
Commisariat, Elliot Manyika. The suspension letters were written by the
provincial
chairman of the disciplinary committee, Silas Dlomo.
In
his letter Dlomo said the members failed to attend a meetings called
by
Manyika on 12 and 13 May under instruction of the party Chairman John
Nkomo.
The meetings were also supposed to focus on the auditing of party
structures
and registration of new members.
The latest developments come against the
posponment of elections to
chose an provincial executive following violent
clashes between rival
factions
over
the selection of grassroots
structures that will act as an electoral
college.
The ruling party was
on 21 April forced to suspend elections for a
district
coordinating
committee that covers high density suburbs such as
Magwgwe, Pumula, Luveve
and Gwabalanda after rival factions clashed over
election
procedures.
Police were called in to quell the fighting, which pitted
factions
aligned to disposed war veterans leader, Jabulani Sibanda and
another one
which
supports politburo members from the region. However,
no one was
arrested during the skirmishes.
The interim executive is
said to be hugely unpopular in the province as
it was handpicked by ruling
party heavy weights following the expulsion of a
Themba Ncube led executive
in 2005.
Ncube was expelled along with five provincial chairpersons who
took
part in what is now known as the Tsholotsho Declaration , which sought
to
scuttle
Zim Online
Wednesday 30 May 2007
By
Patricia Mpofu
HARARE - Zimbabwean journalists on Tuesday postponed
indefinitely launching
a self-regulatory council for the media, amid
startling revelations
President Robert Mugabe's office was pressuring the
Zimbabwe Union of
Journalists (ZUJ) not to back the council.
ZUJ is
the largest representative body for journalists in the country.
However, the
union is not well placed to resist or confront the government
because the
majority of its members and some of its top leaders work for
state-owned
newspapers, radio or television.
The government has in the past used
threats of dismissal from work to force
individual ZUJ members or leaders to
conform.
The proposed voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe to regulate and
monitor
standards and ethics in the profession is a project of the Media
Alliance of
Zimbabwe (MAZ) -- a partnership of ZUJ, the Zimbabwe chapter of
the Media
Institute of Southern Africa and the Media Monitoring Project of
Zimbabwe.
MAZ had already postponed the launch of the council on several
occasions
before Tuesday.
ZUJ vice-president Jacob Phiri said the
union still supported both MAZ and
the setting up of a voluntary media
council but had requested postponement
of the lunching of the council
because "we thought launching the council on
May 29, 2007 did not give us
ample time to consult our members."
Phiri -- who himself works for the
state's Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings --
did not explain what exactly ZUJ
wanted to consult journalists about. He
however insisted that it was not
true that the union had developed cold feet
on the council after Mugabe's
press secretary and spokesman, George
Charamba, threatened some of its
members.
Charamba has opposed creation of a voluntary council fearing it
could pull
the carpet from under the feet of the government's Media and
Information
Council that has tightly controlled journalists and banned
critical
newspapers.
Sources privy to MAZ told ZimOnline that ZUJ had
baulked at the last minute,
fearing some of its key members working for
state newspapers, radio and
television could face reprisals or even
dismissal from their jobs by
Charamba, who is also permanent secretary in
the Ministry of Information and
exercises tight control of the government's
vast media empire.
"The union fears the government which has launched a
crackdown on democratic
forces and others it perceives as enemies. Media
workers employed by the
government fear losing their jobs if the are seen
embracing MAZ," said a
journalist with the government's Herald newspaper. He
did not want to be
named for fear of possible victimisation.
Charamba
was not immediately available for comment on the matter but he has
had
running battles with ZUJ accusing it of working with MISA-Zimbabwe under
the
guise of MAZ to tarnish the image of the government as part of a
Western-backed plot to oust Mugabe. The union denies the charge.
For
example, the government's Zimbabwe Newspapers company, which runs the
country's biggest papers and employs the most journalists, two weeks ago
stopped membership subscriptions by its employees to ZUJ, reportedly on the
orders of Charamba.
Sources said stoppage of subscriptions -- which
ZUJ is contesting in court -
was meant to cripple both the union and the
voluntary media council before
it was even launched.
Mugabe's
government is widely regarded as among the worst oppressors of the
media in
the world.
The Harare administration has passed laws requiring
journalists to obtain
licences in order to practise in Zimbabwe. The
government can withdraw
licences from journalists who refuse to conform,
while those caught
practising without a licence are liable to a two-year
jail term.
Besides journalists being required to obtain licences,
newspaper companies
are also required to register with the state media
commission with those
failing to do so facing closure and seizure of their
equipment by the
police. - ZimOnline
zimbabwejournalists.com
30th May 2007 09:36 GMT
By Lance Guma
IT HAS been over 62 days
since 32 MDC officials were arrested and locked up
in Harare's remand prison
without trial. Among them is one of Zimbabwe's
finest journalists, Luke
Tamborinyoka.
Now working for the opposition MDC as an Information
Officer, Tamborinyoka
was arrested with MDC activists under what the
opposition says are flimsy
reasons of allegedly petrol bombing police
stations in the country and other
installations.
Those visiting them
say the group remains resolute in fighting for
democratic change and have
expressed hope the wheels of justice will slowly
move to set them
free.
On Monday the 4th June the High Court will decide on an urgent bail
application put in by defence lawyers. Crisis in Zimbabwe programmes manager
Pedzisai Ruhanya has been visiting several of the detainees and says most
still have visible head scars from beatings administered by security
forces.
He told Newsreel that physical signs of abuse and torture were
clearly
visible but that the prisoners have put on a brave face each time
they
receive visitors.
Ruhanya who worked with Tamborinyoka at the
banned Daily News newspaper,
said his colleague showed signs of trauma from
the whole ordeal.
He argued that the reason the activists were being kept
in custody for such
a long time was because the state knew the charges would
not stick in a
court of law and as such they were being made to serve an
unlawful sentence
via the prolonged detention.
Ruhanya said the
detainees were also confident they would be acquitted if
they ever got their
day in court. He slammed the judiciary for accommodating
deliberate delays
by the state who argued the police need more time to
investigate despite
arresting their 'suspects' first.
In March police crushed a prayer rally
organized by the Save Zimbabwe
Campaign in Highfield. Over 600 MDC activists
have been arrested tortured
and hospitalized in a government crackdown that
followed soon after.
Several senior officials, including Glen View Member
of Parliament Paul
Madzore, Ian Makone, and Information Officer Luke
Tamborinyoka have been
locked up for over two months now without trial.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Getting out of Zimbabwe is now a prized activity, so it comes at a
high
price.
By Tecla Dehwa in Harare (AR No. 114,
30-May-07)
Anyone visiting the passport office in the capital Harare will
have
encountered the hordes of people trying to get documents so that they
can
leave a country where the economy is in freefall and the political
impasse
makes the prospects of recovery remote.
They are also likely
to be familiar with the corruption engendered by a
shortage of passports,
the low pay of public servants and the sheer
desperation of their
customers.
I learned this the hard way, when I was invited to attend a
week-long
seminar in South Africa at the beginning of May.
My
passport expired in 2005, and although I submitted an application for a
new
one in early 2006, I am still waiting.
The registration authorities
resumed issuing passports only recently after
getting an injection of
funding from Zimbabwe's central bank. The
registrar-general, Tobaiwa Mudede,
said recently that his office had a
backlog of 300,000
applications.
The passport office at Makombe Complex is packed with
Zimbabweans all trying
to get the documents they need to leave the country.
Professionals are
abandoning ship, heading for Britain, Canada, Australia
and the United
States, while poorer people visit neighbouring states to
trade.
With no passport in sight, I joined the many people applying for
an
Emergency Travel Document or ETD - a temporary permit valid for six
months.
I assumed the procedure would be simple enough, as I had a formal
letter of
invitation.
I soon realised my mistake.
ETDs are
intended for emergencies only, but the Makombe Complex office
issues at
least 100 a day, often to people planning to cross into
Mozambique, Zambia,
Botswana and South Africa to buy cheap goods for sale
back home. Friends
abroad help by supplying fake letters of invitation and
false
addresses.
The booming demand generated by the cross-border trade -
itself a product of
Zimbabwe's dire economic circumstances - has opened up a
lucrative seam for
corrupt passport officials.
At the core of the
business is a syndicate of men and women who appear to
control the number of
applications issued per day. By doing so, they create
an artificial
shortage, making applicants willing to pay a premium to get
the right
document.
The speed at which you get your ETD then depends on your
willingness to pay
an extra "fee", or on having the right
connections.
The application form is of course free of charge, but even
that is hard to
come by. When I got to Makombe Complex, the forms had run
out.
At this point, I was approached by a young man who told me his name
was Adam
and said he could help me get an ETD for 300,000 Zimbabwe dollars,
ZWD. It
is hard to translate this sum - at the official rate it would work
out as
1,200 US dollars while at the parallel market rate it is just about
eight
dollars - but bear in mind that it represents a month's wages in
Zimbabwe.
Adam told me to go to a particular office and see a woman
called Maggie.
"You can get your ETD in three hours," he promised, as we
exchanged details.
When I got to the right office, I asked for Maggie.
Somebody pointed her out
to me among a bevy of ladies chatting idly behind
their desks. When I
mentioned Adam's name, she handed over a photocopy of
the form with a
nonchalance that belied her knowledge of what was going on.
"Fill in the
form and take it to Window 7," she said coldly.
At
Window 7, located outside the complex, people shove their way forward to
submit completed application forms or to collect their ETDs.
After 40
minutes of pushing, I submitted my form, two passport-size photos
and the
letter of invitation explaining the urgency of the application. The
form was
stamped, and I was packed off to yet another office, where I paid
the
official fee of 5,000 ZWD. Then I had to go back to Window 7, where I
was
told to return the following day to collect the ETD.
My mobile phone rang
three hours later. It was Adam. He gave me the name of
a building in town,
an office number and the name of a woman to whom I was
to give the 300,000
ZWD as payment for the express service.
I queried this, since I had not
actually received the ETD. "You got the
form," came the answer. "You would
never have got it otherwise. We want to
process your ETD."
I did not
go and pay. After two hours, Adam phoned again to find out whether
I had
settled the bill. I said I was not going to pay 300,000 ZWD for an
application form. He said he was prepared to send someone over to collect
the money if I wanted. "It's up to you," he said and hung up.
The
following day, I was at the ETD collection window early in the morning,
along with the usual crowds. The collection times are indicated as 9 am, 11
am and 2pm. I waited for my name to be called out but nothing happened all
day.
"Check tomorrow," said Maggie casually, when I enquired at her
office. It
was the same story every day for a week.
Meanwhile, I was
pestered about the outstanding payment every two or three
hours.
I
saw many other people collecting their ETDs although they had submitted
their applications after I did. From the conversations taking place, I could
tell money was changing hands somewhere.
I was running out of time,
as I would still need to get a South African visa
processed afterwards. It
was becoming evident that it was up to me to
achieve progress.
On the
Tuesday of the second week, I telephoned a senior government official
whom I
know and told him my story. "No problem," he said. "Let's meet at the
passport office tomorrow morning."
As soon as we entered the office
where Maggie worked, everybody greeted my
friend warmly, although no one
seemed to recognise me at all. He explained
that I was a colleague of his
and needed to travel abroad urgently.
Maggie asked for my application
form as if I was a complete stranger. When I
reminded her that I had
submitted an application the previous week, she
feigned surprise.
"Go
to the collection window while I check what happened," she said. She
quickly
dialled the extension, and as we got to the collection point, the
ETD was
being processed.
I took it, thanked my influential friend, and left in
disgust.
Tecla Dehwa is the pseudonym of a reporter based in Harare.
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Villagers trade their crops for scarce commodities which
black-marketeers
have bought up in the towns.
By Hativagone
Mushonga in Harare and Chitomborwizi (AR No. 114, 30-May-07)
The crowd
has been queuing outside a supermarket since five in the morning,
after
hearing there is sugar on the shelves. By ten in the morning, the day
is
growing hotter and the crowd is becoming increasingly restless.
To their
surprise, they see a uniformed policeman emerge from the back door
of the
supermarket, carrying two large boxes filled with packs of sugar. For
a few
seconds there is stunned silence, and then the crowd pounces on the
policeman. As they pull at his uniform and tear the boxes apart, he runs for
his life.
The incident, which happened on May 19in the small farming
town of
Marondera, 70 kilometres east of Harare, reflects a growing mood of
anger
not only at the basic shortage of food, but also that when it does
arrive,
it is spirited away by black marketeers - often regime insiders or
others
with good connections - and resold at many times the
price.
Many of the people queuing up in towns across Zimbabwe have come
in from
surrounding rural areas, where the local shops are bare with no
deliveries
for weeks on end.
It is unsurprising that the crowd in
Marondera erupted - they would have
been well aware that after hours of
waiting, they might still get nothing.
Meanwhile, the policeman and others
like him would have cleared out the
sugar either to sell it on the black
market at five times the price they
paid for it, or to barter it with rural
peasants for their valuable maize
crop.
People in rural areas have
traditionally been more supportive of President
Robert Mugabe than the urban
population. Incidents like the one in Marondera
may herald a growing
militancy among these people because of the widespread
perception that the
illicit trade is in the hands of wealthy regime figures,
who are getting
rich from the misery of the majority.
"What is painful is that now, like
piranhas, they are preying on the poor in
the rural areas," said a worker
with one of the relief agencies that provide
foreign food aid to Zimbabwe.
"They take the basic commodities they have
corruptly procured from
supermarkets in the urban centres to the rural
areas, and exchange these
with either maize or soya beans, which they then
sell to the Grain Marketing
Board [GMB] at a huge profit."
Although much of Zimbabwe experienced a
drought over the growing season,
some areas such as Mashonaland saw
reasonable yields of maize and soya
beans. That opened up opportunities for
speculators to move in and procure
the crop in exchange for the deficit
goods they had bought up and
stockpiled.
A visit to Chitomborwizi,
120 kilometres from Harare, revealed the extent of
the practice. Villagers
there are exchanging their hard-won maize with
whatever basic commodities
are offered, even though these come at a huge
premium.
The skewed
pricing means a bar of soap will buy 10 kilograms of shelled
maize, while a
75 centilitre bottle of cooking oil - or one of the many two
kilogram packs
of sugar the Marondera policeman was carrying -are worth
about 50 kg of
maize.
The next stage is to turn the cereals into cash by selling it to
the state
purchasing agency, the GMB, once again at a huge mark-up. The GMB
is
desperate to buy whatever grain it can in a drought year.
"It is
unfortunate that the villagers who worked so hard in a very difficult
environment in a drought year are going to be the end losers," IWPR was told
by one "barter trader" or black marketeer who had come from Harare to buy
crops in Chitomborwizi. "But what can I do if such an opportunity presents
itself to me? As we say in our language, for a beast to be fat it must eat
another beast.
"I am also trying to survive; I am also trying to feed
my kids, cloth and
educate them. So if I can make some extra dollars or even
a huge profit -
why not? My heart bleeds for the villagers, but the
situation in the country
is now like dog-eat-dog."
Edmore Matongo, a
local smallholder, said he no choice but to barter grain
for food, although
he was fortunate that he and his family had harvested
about six tonnes of
maize from their plot this season and were able to set
aside one tonne to
trade.
"We haven't had sugar in a very long time. I have kids and they
can't
remember how sugar tastes, and it is just not fair," he said.
"Remember how
a long time ago on payday or after getting a bonus, fathers
would buy
special treats for the children? This harvest is like a bonus and
I just
want to treat my kids."
The surplus also means access to basic
products like soap. "It has been a
while since we bought washing soap and I
am now afraid that we might get
sickness if we don't do anything about it.
It is important to eat and it is
also equally important for us to be able to
wash our clothes and bathe with
soap," said Matongo.
Logically,
farmers like Matongo should be able to sell their grain to the
GMB
themselves and then spend the cash on goods as they see fit, rather than
losing out in barter deals. But payment from the GMB is often late and comes
in the form of cheques, which means a further delay as farmers have to
travel to urban centres to obtain cash. Often, they simply cannot
wait.
"We need ready cash so we can buy things as they become available.
Also
children need pocket money on a daily basis as they go to school," said
Matongo.
The farmer is well aware of the risk that the villagers get
the balance
wrong and trade too much of their crop.
"My worry is that
if we are not careful, we will run out of maize before
year end and begin
begging again or waiting for food aid," said Matongo.
More than 1.7
million people are receiving food aid in Zimbabwe, and it is
estimated that
about half of the country's 13 million people will need food
assistance this
year.
The prolonged dry spells seen in most southern districts of
Zimbabwe during
the 2006-07 season have contributed to low yields, and the
final production
figure for maize, sorghum and millet is forecast to be
insignificant.
Hativagone Mushonga is the pseudonym of a journalist in
Zimbabwe.
The
Herald (Harare) Published by the government of Zimbabwe
30 May
2007
Posted to the web 30 May 2007
Harare
THE sugar industry
yesterday said it had released 23 184 tonnes of sugar
into the market since
April and blamed the current shortage on illegal
exports and
hoarding.
Zimbabwe Sugar Association head of delegation and
Starafricacorporation
chief executive officer Mr Tendai Masawi told the
Parliamentary Portfolio
Committee on Industry and International Trade that
at least 5 600 tonnes of
sugar were being supplied to the market every
week.
Of the 23 184 tonnes of sugar that had been delivered, 10 240
tonnes were
from the two refineries of Gold Star White Sugar in Harare and
Bulawayo, 4
111 tonnes from Triangle in Chiredzi while the remaining 8 833
tonnes were
of brown sugar.
Chairperson of the committee and Chipinge
South legislator Cde Enock
Porusingazi (Zanu-PF) asked the industry to
explain why there was still a
shortage on the formal market yet normal
supplies were being delivered.
"The 5 600 tonnes, which you claim you are
putting on the market every week,
are not visible. There is no change. There
is still a public outcry over the
shortage of sugar," he said. In response,
Mr Masawi blamed the current
shortage on illegal exports by unscrupulous
traders coupled with hoarding of
the commodity.
"There is a tendency
of the product finding its way illegally into the
regional markets such as
Mozambique," he said.
Mr Masawi said the industry was still waiting for
the Government's response
over the request for the review of the price of
sugar since the current
price was not viable.
Mr Steve Frampton, the
general manager of Zimbabwe Sugar Sales, who is in
charge of the export
portfolio under the ZSA, said the sugar that was meant
for the local market
was readily available in Mozambique.
He said the industry only exported
sugar to Namibia and Botswana under the
Sadc Protocol on Sugar.
"We
do not export to Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique yet you find our local
brand
of sugar in those countries," Mr Frampton said.
He said unscrupulous
Zimbabwean traders were taking advantage of the
transport logistical
problems faced by the sugar industry in Mozambique by
smuggling the sugar
and selling it in areas along the border.
Mberengwa-Zvishavane Senator
Cde Richard Hove (Zanu-PF) wanted to know what
the sugar sector in Zimbabwe
was doing to curb the hoarding and smuggling.
Mr Masawi said there was
need for the industry to work together with the
police and other
stakeholders in dealing with the illegal activities.
"I do not think we
have the capacity to check on who is doing what at the
border. We have to
work together as a team with the police, immigration and
others to curb the
smuggling of sugar," he said.
Retail outlets, Mr Masawi said, should
ration the selling of sugar and not
to sell the commodity through the back
door as a way of dealing with the
black market.
Police were urged to
closely monitor the delivery and selling of the
commodity as some retailers
and wholesalers were suspected of selling just a
few stocks before
off-loading the rest on the black market.
Some unscrupulous traders have
taken advantage of the shortage of sugar by
selling a 2kg packet for up to
$80 000 against the gazetted price of $13
500.
The Herald
(Harare) Published by the government of Zimbabwe
30 May 2007
Posted
to the web 30 May 2007
Harare
ZIMBABWE National Water Authority
yesterday announced that the northern
suburbs of Sentosa, Mt Pleasant
Heights, Bluffhill and parts of Avondale and
Avonlea that have not received
domestic water for the past two months can
now access it following the
repair of a motor at the Avondale/Lomagundi pump
station.
Residents
in the five suburbs have had to use borehole water while those
without
boreholes had to transport water from other suburbs. Some families
were
doing laundry at relatives or friends' homes that had running
taps.
They were also recycling bath and laundry water for other uses
such as in
water closets.
The Avondale/Lomagundi pump station
supplies water to the Emerald
reservoirs, which in turn feed the affected
suburbs.
Senior officials from Zinwa yesterday took a Herald news team to
the
resuscitated pump station. Zinwa installation and maintenance manager
Engineer Smart Senderayi said the affected suburbs had gone without water
supplies for almost two months after the electric motor got
burnt.
Residents from the suburbs also confirmed receipt of water but
urged the
water authority to be consistent and also equitably distribute
available
water to all residents.
Meanwhile, Zinwa reports that
Prince Edward pump station suffered power
problems for almost two hours
resulting in reduced pumping to the Letombo
reservoirs and Chitungwiza.
Pumping to the two places dropped by 14
megalitres from the usual 66
megalitres a day. Yesterday Zinwa was not
pumping to Borrowdale Brook,
Hatcliffe and Hogerty Hill but indications were
that supplies would resume
this morning.
Pretoria News
May 30,
2007 Edition 1
The annual G8 summit of wealthiest nations has become
something of a talking
shop for "what to do about Africa" as successive G8
presidencies try to come
up with fresh solutions to the continent's
problems.
After a strong focus on aid and debt relief at the 2005 summit
in
Gleneagles, this year's summit in Germany will see a return to a
recurring
theme in G8-African relations: the need to reward good governance
with
greater investment for long-term growth.
Germany is talking up
about "reform partnerships" with select countries such
as Ghana that pursue
"responsible government", including improving women's
rights and holding
free and fair elections.
But Africa already has a "reform" strategy: New
Partnership for Africa's
Development (Nepad).
When the home-grown
African development plan was unveiled at the G8 summit
in Kananaskis, Canada
five years ago, it was hailed as marking a new era of
"responsible" African
governance.
Tired of being ticked off over corruption and human-rights
abuses when they
went cap in hand for aid to Western countries, the 53
members of the African
Union (AU) agreed to secure aid and investment on the
back of improved
policies.
Spearheaded by Africa's two largest
economies, South Africa and Nigeria
along with Senegal, Egypt and Algeria,
Nepad, South African President Thabo
Mbeki told the United Nations, "would
extricate Africa out of her long night
of misery."
Five years after
the UN declared Nepad the general framework for
international co-operation
with Africa, observers are still sceptical about
its ability to improve the
plight of the continent's poorest.
"African people continue to remain the
have-nots at the bottom of the
world's pyramid, even if their leaders - in
cases like the Angolan oil
oligarchy or individual despots like Mugabe -
bathe in abundant wealth and
privileges," Dr Henning Melber, former research
director at the Nordic
Africa Institute in Uppsala, said
recently.
The disillusionment over Nepad set in as early as 2002 when G8
leaders,
despite welcoming the reform pledges, responded with an Africa plan
that
offered little in the way of new aid.
"G8 leaders want to
dictate the terms of Africa's development without a
corresponding commitment
in real terms," a South African newspaper remarked
bitterly.
Others
complained about an "elitist" project that focused too heavily on
creating
the conditions for private investment, described by a German
cabinet
briefing last year as "an important factor in Africa's economic
future."
"Nepad's economic policies need to be more nuanced,"
according to Adam
Habib, democracy and governance director at South Africa's
Human Sciences
Research Council.
"The development process rarely
takes place with just private investment."
Nepad members should look to
Europe for examples of how public money serves
as the cornerstone for
development projects, he urged.
"You had public money leading the
direction and private investment
following.
"Nepad ducks all that and
just hopes the money comes in without moulding
it."
Another key
shortcoming of Nepad is that only 26 out of 53 AU members have
signed up for
the voluntary African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), which
evaluates the
progress of members towards democratic reforms.
Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya
have been through the review and South Africa and
Algeria are currently in
the spotlight, with South Africa mounting a
spirited challenge to criticisms
of its policies on, among other things,
crime.
In Ghana the review
has been credited with prompting parliament to pass
bills protecting people
with disabilities and protecting women from domestic
violence. All three
countries reviewed also use the reports to court foreign
investment.
"The African Peer Review Mechanism is actually very good
although it doesn't
work 100%," Habib says.
"It forces governments to
take seriously things that are normally not on the
agenda."
But with
countries called on to submit themselves voluntarily for appraisal,
some of
Africa's more autocratic regimes, such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, are
unlike to
get a dressing down from Nepad any day soon.
Even if they did, there is
no guarantee a bad Nepad report would act as a
deterrent to foreign
investment.
Both countries have received significant investment from
China in recent
years as part of its no-questions-asked scramble for
Africa's mineral and
energy resources, contributing significantly to a
strong continental growth
rate of 5.5% in 2006.
Defending Nepad's
effectiveness, spokesperson Thaninga Shope-Linney said:
"Nepad will not
build streets or bridges, it's about opening up
possibilities for
sustainable development. We're not counting on short-term
success."
Cato Institute
May 30, 2007
by Brett D. Schaefer and Marian L. Tupy
Brett D. Schaefer is
Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs
in the Margaret
Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and
Shelby Cullom
Davis Institute for International Studies at the Heritage
Foundation and
Marian L. Tupy is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute's
Center for Global
Liberty and Prosperity.
Zimbabwe was recently elected to chair the
U.N. Commission on Sustainable
Development (CSD), to the dismay of
human-rights groups and nations, like
the United States, that would like the
United Nations to take its
responsibilities seriously. This election is more
than a travesty; it is a
cruel demonstration of disregard for the suffering
of the people of Zimbabwe
on the part of the U.N. and those African
countries that helped Zimbabwe to
the chairmanship.
The United
Nations defines sustainable development as "development that
meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future
generations to
meet their own needs." The CSD was established in 1992 to
promote
sustainable development, review implementation of various
environmental
agreements, and provide policy guidance to local, national,
regional, and
international levels. Explicitly noted in the documents that
the CSD is
supposed to promote is the notion that "Good governance within
each country
and at the international level is essential for sustainable
development" and
that "Peace, security, stability and respect for human
rights and
fundamental freedoms... are essential for achieving sustainable
development
and ensuring that sustainable development benefits all."
Looking the
world over, it is difficult to find many countries that fail to
abide by
these principles to a greater degree than does Zimbabwe. When
Robert Mugabe
came to power in 1980, he inherited well-developed
manufacturing and mining
sectors, a competitive agricultural sector, a
thriving tourist industry, and
sound infrastructure. The country has rich
mineral deposits of asbestos,
chromite, coal, copper, diamonds and other
gems, gold, iron ore, nickel, and
platinum. The country was rightly regarded
as one of the bright lights in
Africa.
Beginning in the late 1990s, Mugabe began facing serious
challenges to his
authority. In response to the growing opposition, he
initiated a ruthless,
seven-year campaign to maintain political power.
During that time, Mugabe
has targeted his opponents for abuse, legal
harassment, and economic
punishment, and used his authority to reward allies
and elicit support from
the police, the military, and other key groups.
Notably, Mugabe started to
expropriate large, mostly white-owned, commercial
farms. With property
rights and the rule of law severely weakened, credit
and investment dried
up, sending shockwaves through an economy that was
heavily reliant on
agricultural production.
Those policies have
resulted in a precipitous economic decline, political
repression, and a
humanitarian crisis rivaling that in Darfur. Over the last
seven years,
Professor Craig Richardson of Salem College estimates the
economy has shrunk
by 40 percent, wiping out almost 60 years of gradual
economic improvements.
The standard of living has dropped to levels last
seen in 1948. The World
Health Organization estimates that Zimbabwe has the
wor'd's lowest life
expectancy - 34 years for women and 37 years for men.
Unemployment is at
80 percent. The currency is nearly worthless and
inflation currently exceeds
3,700 percent per year. Last week, the
black-market exchange rate for one
U.S. dollar reached 40,000 Zimbabwean
dollars.
The economic meltdown
has led to environmental devastation. Zimbabwe, once
known for its
flourishing wildlife, used to have a sophisticated tourism
industry that
accounted for up to 6 percent of the country's GDP. Hunger and
lawlessness
have put an end to that.
Brian Gratwicke, an Oxford-educated
environmentalist and Zimbabwean national
who runs a U.S-based nature and
wildlife website estimates that "Eighty
percent of 250,000 head of game that
lived on privately owned commercial
farms have been poached by land invaders
- often with the encouragement of
senior ZANU-PF officials who wanted to
wrest control of the farms from their
rightful owners." To make matters
worse, Gratwicke argues, chronic
environmental problems such as
deforestation and overgrazing, water
pollution, uncontrolled fires,
human-wildlife conflict, and wildlife-borne
disease are spreading through
Zimbabwe.
On both environmental and development grounds, Zimbabwe is a
terrible
example to the rest of Africa and the world. Electing Zimbabwe to
chair the
committee charged with guiding U.N. policy in those areas is
absurd.
The election of Zimbabwe to the chairmanship of the CSD cannot be
dismissed
as an unfortunate aberration. The nomination of Zimbabwe to the
chairmanship
was widely reported and strongly criticized by the U.S. and
other countries.
Despite that criticism, the African regional group in the
U.N. refused to
back away from nominating Zimbabwe. Moreover, the African
group and the U.N.
have made a habit of such outrageous appointments. For
instance:
a.. Zimbabwe currently serves on the Executive Board of the
World Food
Program, despite the fact that Zimbabwe, considered the
breadbasket of
Africa only a decade ago, is now unable to feed itself and
regularly appeals
to international programs for food aid. The primary
reasons for the
devastation of Zimbabwe's once flourishing agricultural
sector are the
politically motivated seizure of commercial farms, most of
which were given
to Mugabe's cronies, and other anti-market economic
policies.
b.. Zimbabwe was elected to the Executive Board of
the U.N. Children's
Fund for a three-year term beginning in 2008 despite the
fact that,
according to UNICEF itself, one in four children in Zimbabwe are
orphans.
This tragic situation is in significant part due to the policies of
the
Zimbabwean government that have increased the spread of HIV/AIDS,
reduced
life expectancy, and eroded the health care system.
c.. Zimbabwe was elected to the Governing Council of the United Nations
Human Settlements Program (UN-HABITAT) for a term expiring in 2010 despite
the government's Operation Murambatsvina, which demolished informal housing
and markets and rendered 700,000 urban Zimbabweans homeless or unemployed.
It is believed that 70 percent of the urban population may have lost shelter
or employment and over 2 million (more than 15 percent of Zimbabwe's
population) are believed to have been indirectly affected by loss of
customers, employees, or markets. The government told those affected to
"return to their rural origins," even though most had no such home to which
they could return. Indeed, many had initially become homeless when the
government sanctioned the seizure of commercial farms.
The ability of
Zimbabwe to routinely be elected to such privileged positions
in the U.N. is
illustrative of just how little regard many states have for
the purposes of
the U.N. and the influence those states have over the
decisions, elections,
and activities of the organization.
This comes as little surprise to
those who have followed the United Nations
and its many failures over the
years. Nevertheless, it should embarrass
those governments in Africa that
claim to be trying to improve the lives of
their people, enhance the quality
of government across the continent, and
elevate the influence which the
region is given in international fora and
the seriousness with which it is
taken.
There is something fundamentally wrong when African countries feel
comfortable, and even are insistent, about putting a country like Zimbabwe
forward as a candidate for influential positions despite that country's
record of violations and abuses directly related to the position it would
assume. How can the rest of the world be comfortable giving Africa a
permanent seat on the Security Council, for instance, if the continent
cannot even rouse itself to put forward suitable candidates for lesser
bodies?
This article appeared in the National Review Online on May
24, 2007.
Business In Africa
Published: 30-MAY-07
Harare - Zimbabwe's biggest mining
company, Riozim said on Tuesday that it
had discovered copper in the south
of the country, but did not reveal the
size of the deposits.
Company
chairman, Eric Kahari, said Riozim had also found new gold deposits
along
the country's mining belt in central Zimbabwe.
The company currently
mines just gold and diamonds, but has announced plans
to venture into other
minerals in response to strong commodity prices on
international
markets.
Kahari said Riozim planned to undertake intensive exploration
work at the
copper deposits, while commercial mining was due to begin
anytime on the new
gold mine.
"Further exploration on these (copper
deposits) claims will be carried out
in 2007. Work on the One Step Gold
Prospect took longer than anticipated to
complete but has now progressed to
project implementation stage," he said.
Zimbabwe's only copper mine,
Mhangura, closed more than ten years ago due to
viability
problems.
It was shut down when copper prices were depressed on
international markets.
These have now risen due to record levels on the back
of huge demand from
China and India. -panapress
By Tererai Karimakwenda
May 30, 2007
Teachers had
just begun a sit in strike on Wednesday to protest against poor
salaries and
working conditions when government agreed to hike salaries for
its workers
by more than 100%. According to a circular from the Zimbabwe
Teachers
Association (ZIMTA), the lowest paid teacher will now be earning
Z$2 586 000
per month, up from only Z$456 000. And the highest paid will be
earning Z$4
267 000 per month, up from
Z$723 000. It now remains to be seen whether
government will actually pay
these salaries, after disappointing civil
servants on numerous occasions in
the last few years.
Meanwhile our
correspondent Simon Muchemwa said some Harare teachers
expressed concern
over police flyers that were circulated around the
schools, requesting
headmasters to provide personal information about the
teachers, including
names, identification numbers, residential addresses,
rural addresses,
passport numbers, date of issue, office of issue and
photographs.
Muchemwa said there was a statement on the form which
said 'the above
information will help in identifying the subject.' Many
teachers who saw the
forms said they now feared for their
lives.
Schools in Mbare, Highfields and Glen Norah have since confirmed
receipt of
the forms.
A representative of the Progressive Teachers
Union also indicated that
several teachers in the rural areas received
letters from CIOs threatening
them with unspecified action if they continued
to work with the opposition
MDC.
SW Radio Africa
Zimbabwe news
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
The
regime appears to be trying to deter lawyers from representing
opposition
activists.
By Joseph Sithole in Harare (AR No. 114,
30-May-07)
Lawyers seem to be the latest victims of the current wave of
state-sponsored
intimidation and violence, in which opposition leaders and
activists have
been arrested, beaten or tortured in police detention on
spurious charges.
The most high profile lawyer to fall victim to the
campaign was the
president of the Law Society of Zimbabwe, Beatrice Mtetwa,
on May 8.
She was amongst a group of lawyers who had gathered outside the
High Court
in the capital Harare to protest the detention by police earlier
of their
colleagues, Alec Muchadehama and Andrew Makoni, who were seeking
the release
of their clients, opposition activists.
Mtetwa and four
colleagues were bundled into a police van and later brutally
assaulted in
broad daylight.
Zimbabwe is scheduled to hold combined presidential and
parliamentary
elections in March next year. In the past, these ballots have
been marked by
unbridled violence, which, according to human rights
organisations, in 2000
claimed the lives of about 200 opposition
activists.
A Harare lawyer said the arrest of lawyers was aimed at
intimidating them
and also instilling fear in the
opposition.
"Lawyers will be afraid to represent opposition activists. If
that happens,
it would be a major victory for ZANU PF. [Also], if lawyers
can be beaten in
broad daylight, how many people can dare venture out when
they know there
would be no one to represent them?
"It is a campaign
of terror which has assumed a new dimension where even
lawyers are seen as
political activists."
An activist of the Movement for Democratic Change,
MDC, in the poor suburb
of Mabvuku suggested that the pressure being heaped
on lawyers also
discouraged people from seeking their help, "In the end,
nobody would like
to be associated with so-called regime change
agents.
"Lawyers are not a power base for any party. It is their
intermediary role
which the government is trying to destroy in its fight
with the MDC."
But he disputed the claim that lawyers were being targeted
as a group,
saying it was only the brave few taking cases involving the
opposition who
were being singled out.
The attorney general, Sobusa
Gula Ndebele, said he didn't have information
about the beating of lawyers,
and there has been no official comment
President Robert Mugabe or any other
government officials.
Mugabe's silence contrasts with his cavalier
response to the beating in
police custody of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
and his supporters following
an aborted rally on March 11.
Mugabe
afterwards told an emergency meeting of the Southern African
Development
Community in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania - which had been called to
discuss the
assaults - that his government would bash those who break the
law, a
euphemism for those who oppose him.
Most of the criticisms of the lawyers
have come from government spin-doctors
who accuse the Law Society of
Zimbabwe of representing the interests of
whites.
Chairman of the
Media and Information Commission Tafataona Mahoso and other
government
officials, particularly Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba,
writing under
pseudonyms in state newspapers, have accused the society of
fronting for
white legal firms.
Analysts say this gives the police the mistaken
impression that they are
dealing with sellouts, with officers believing that
they are working in
defence of the national interest when going after
lawyers.
The president of the Law Societies of Southern Africa, Sternford
Moyo, said
at least ten lawyers had been arrested in the latest crackdown.
He was
himself briefly detained the week before last on unclear
charges.
The attacks on lawyers have provoked worldwide condemnation,
which has gone
unheeded by government. The Pan-African parliament based in
South Africa
recently proposed sending a fact-finding mission to assess the
human rights
situation in the country. The proposal was met with anger by
the Zimbabwe
government, which said it had no mandate to do so.
This
in part explains recent efforts by Zimbabwe justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa to divert the attention of the African Commission on Human
Peoples'
Rights away from human rights violations by the government towards
a distant
colonial past.
Chinamasa was in Ghana last week for a
session of the commission discussing
human rights. He said the body should
demand that Britain honour its
obligation under the 1979 Lancaster House
constitutional agreement, which
brought about independence, to compensate
white farmers for any land
acquired by the state.
Joseph Sithole is
the pseudonym of an IWPR reporter in Zimbabwe.
Leader
Wednesday May 30, 2007
The
Guardian
After Washington, it is Africa's turn to bid farewell to
Tony Blair. His
parade started in Libya yesterday, will gather steam in
Sierra Leone and
will finish in South Africa. Libya's abandonment of its
nuclear programme
must count as a coup for British intelligence and
diplomacy, and the
military intervention in Sierra Leone in 2000 was equally
decisive. Mr Blair
can safely bask in the reflected glow of both success
stories.
But
a look at the countries that Mr Blair is not visiting on his final tour
is
instructive. Ethiopia, the country where Mr Blair launched his campaign
against poverty, is off the itinerary. The shine has worn off its prime
minister, Meles Zenawi, a member of Mr Blair's Commission for Africa, after
elections two years ago ended in mass arrests and Ethiopian tanks rumbled
into Somalia to oust the Islamic Courts, opening fire on civilians in
Mogadishu. There will be no visit to Uganda either, after its president
Yoweri Museveni, another Africa commission member, changed the constitution
to remain in power indefinitely. Both leaders found it easier to talk about
the principles of good governance for other countries than actually applying
them to their own.
By making his tour, Mr Blair is inviting the question
that all G8 leaders
gathering next week in Heiligendamm on the Baltic coast
will be challenged
with: what did the commitments made to Africa at the G8
conference in
Gleneagles actually achieve? The legacy is mixed: 18 countries
in Africa
have benefited from debt cancellation, and in Ghana and Malawi it
has made a
real difference. The money saved has respectively made education
free and
trained 4,000 extra teachers. Oxfam has no hesitation in calling
this a
significant victory. But 17 of the world's 41 poorest countries are
still
struggling to meet the G8's conditions, and other countries with
crippling
debts, such as Kenya, remain excluded. Even now the world's
poorest
countries still pay the richest $100m a day in debt
repayments.
The gap between promise and delivery remains wide in the
field of aid. Oxfam
calculated that the G8 will miss its target of
increasing annual aid levels
by $50bn by 2010, with a shortfall of $30bn.
This is not Mr Blair's fault.
Since 1997 British expenditure on aid has more
than doubled and, with 0.47%
of GDP now spent on aid, Britain is moving
credibly towards the UN-agreed
target of 0.7% by 2015. But aid from Italy
and France is falling, and aid
from Germany, the US and Japan far short of
what was promised. If G8
countries were like priests, most would have to
retake their vows.
Aid works where it is properly delivered, but giving
the cotton farmers of
Mali access to world markets would be even better. Hot
on the heels of the
G8 meeting comes a critical decision by trade ministers
- the last chance to
conclude WTO talks by the summer and to agree cuts in
agriculture subsidies
and tariffs. This round of talks risks being hijacked
by a familiar row
between Europe and the US about whose subsidies should be
cut first. On his
first visit to Brussels as French president, Nicolas
Sarkozy signalled that
he would protect the interests of French farmers and
resist attempts to cut
supports while US farmers benefited from the same
policies. Mr Sarkozy said
it was "goodbye to naivety". It could also be
goodbye to a good deal on
trade for Africa.
There are other areas of
the Gleneagles agenda where the outcome has fallen
short of expectation.
Both Darfur and Zimbabwe remain woeful, questioning
Africa's ability, either
military or diplomatic, to sort out its problems.
That should not be a
reason for the G8 to walk away from its commitments, or
to move on to other
agendas. Mr Blair, along with Gordon Brown, has put
African poverty on the
international agenda and kept it there. That does not
mean that he is
leaving with the task of solving it anything like finished.