Reuters
Mon 19 Nov 2007,
11:50 GMT
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE, Nov 19 (Reuters) -
Zimbabwe on Monday delayed the release of
inflation data and said it might
not be available "for a while", fuelling
concerns the government had failed
in its bid to hold back runaway prices.
President Robert Mugabe has made
the battle against inflation the
cornerstone of his government's effort to
reverse a deep economic slide that
many blame on mismanagement and his
controversial policies, including
seizures of white-owned farms.
But
Zimbabweans have seen the price of milk, bread and other basic items,
when
available, continue to rise this year despite the anti-inflation
campaign.
Analysts had expected annualised inflation for October to
jump to 15,000
percent, from nearly 8,000 percent in the previous
month.
Zimbabwe's Central Statistical Office (CSO) was due to issue the
figures
last week. CSO acting director Moffat Nyoni, however, told Reuters
on Monday
they were not ready because commodity shortages had affected the
collection
and calculation process.
"I am afraid the figures are not
yet ready, and they may not be available
for a while," Nyoni
said.
"We have some problems -- a computing problem -- in that we have to
find a
formula of measuring prices of goods, some of which are not available
on the
(formal) market and which are in short supply in the economy," he
said.
Nyoni declined to comment on a newspaper report last week that
suggested the
year-on year inflation rate for October had risen to a record
14,840.6
percent from 7,982.1 percent in September.
The delay
followed a government-ordered price freeze in June, which was
designed to
protect Zimbabweans from runaway inflation. It led many
businesses to stop
stocking shelves, worsening the food shortages that have
been a part of
daily life for millions for several years.
"Inflation is out of control,
and I think the authorities are again getting
uncomfortable with releasing
the official figures even when these are
already in dispute," said John
Robertson, a leading private economic
consultant in Zimbabwe.
The CSO
previously has rejected suggestions by international officials that
it is
bowing to government pressure to suppress inflation figures that would
put
the 83-year-old Mugabe's government in a poor light.
An International
Monetary Fund official accused Zimbabwe's government last
year of releasing
data that did not accurately reflect the economic
situation there,
particularly by using price controls to artificially
distort
inflation.
Zimbabwe's government has cited inflation and corruption as
the biggest
stumbling blocks to efforts to revive an economy devastated by
chronic
shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, soaring poverty and
unemployment of about 80 percent.
Mugabe, in power since independence
from Britain in 1980, blames the crisis
on sabotage by political opponents
at home and abroad, who he says want to
punish him for seizing thousands of
white farms and redistributing the land
to blacks.
Agricultural
production in the once prosperous southern African nation has
fallen sharply
since the land seizures, forcing Mugabe's government to rely
on food imports
to feed the country. (Editing by Paul Simao and Giles
Elgood)
By Lance
Guma
19 November 2007
The government on Monday published a draft bill
that will give them the
power to grab a 25 percent shareholding in mining
firms, without paying a
cent. This new bill is an addition to the general
Indigenisation and
Empowerment Bill passed in September this year, which
provided for a 51
percent stake in foreign owned firms for
locals.
Companies who will bear the brunt of the takeovers include the
world's
second biggest platinum producer, Impala Platinum (Implats). Anglo
Platinum,
the world's largest primary producer of platinum is currently
developing a
mine project near Gweru on the Great Dyke and will also be
affected, as will
diamond producer Rio Tinto. South Africa's Implats, who
are the leading
foreign owned firm, insist their structure already conforms
to the
requirements of the new bill. Their Chief Executive Officer David
Brown told
Reuter's news agency that they have not yet seen the, 'latest
documentation,'
and cannot comment until they have seen it.
Analysts
say the Mugabe regime is failing to address the real political and
economic
issues that are affecting the country and is engaging in publicity
stunts
aimed at trying to win sympathy from ordinary people in Zimbabwe and
the
third world in general. They argue the new policy will only scare away
foreign investors, the majority of whom are already reluctant to invest in
the country. Other countries with investor friendly climates are likely to
benefit at Zimbabwe's expense.
Businessman Mutumwa Mawere who lost
his Shabani Mashaba Mines (SMM) to a
government company-grab, said the new
bill was strange given that, '100
percent of all mineral exports are
controlled by the same state so why take
a shareholding when in fact you
control access to earnings of all minerals?'
Zimbabwe is reported to have 22
mining companies with 10 of them in the
hands of
foreigners.
According to the Reserve Bank, 42 percent of the country's
foreign currency
earnings come from the mining sector where diamonds,
platinum, chrome,
palladium and gold are produced. Any disruption of this
sector will have
catastrophic effects for the country, as happened with the
violent farm
invasions that disrupted and destroyed the entire agriculture
sector.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Reuters
Mon 19 Nov
2007, 14:53 GMT
By Ingrid Melander
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European
Union governments agreed on Monday to give a
"clear and tough" message to
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on human
rights at a summit of EU and
African leaders next month.
The Dec 8-9 summit in Lisbon will be the
first between the two continents in
seven years. Previous efforts to meet
have stumbled over whether Mugabe,
whom the West accuses of widespread human
rights violations, could be
invited.
EU president Portugal has
said Mugabe will be invited this time -- despite
threats of a British
boycott -- and had been working on finding a way to
alleviate the concerns
of EU states opposed to inviting him.
An EU official said Britain, Sweden
and the Netherlands had insisted on "a
real discussion on human rights and
governance in Zimbabwe"
"We will organise a debate (at the summit) so
that he can receive a clear
and tough message," the official said after
foreign ministers discussed the
summit on Monday.
A spokesman for the
Portuguese EU presidency declined to say what that
message might
be.
Britain has for years led opposition to inviting Mugabe to EU
summits, and
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said he would not attend the
Lisbon summit
if Mugabe shows up.
A British official said London has
pushed the EU to give a strong message on
human rights, but Monday's
agreement to do so would not change the plan to
boycott the summit if Mugabe
comes.
"The message from the prime minister was clear, neither he nor any
senior
official will attend if Mugabe does," the official said, adding that
raising
concerns at the summit was the least the EU could do.
African
leaders see the Zimbabwean president as an independence hero but
Western
critics accuse him of ruining the economy, rigging elections and
violently
suppressing opposition.
The Czech Republic has also said boycotting the
summit was an option, while
the EU Nordic countries renewed calls last month
for Mugabe not to come.
Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen
has said he could only attend
if human rights in Zimbabwe were
discussed.
The EU has imposed sanctions on Mugabe's government, including
a visa ban on
top officials, which can be lifted for Mugabe to attend the
meeting.
Mugabe denies he has wrecked the economy with policies such as
seizing
white-owned farms for blacks with little experience, and he blames
Western
pressure for hyperinflation and hunger.
Zimbabwe delayed on
Monday the release of inflation data and said it might
not be available "for
a while", fuelling concerns the government had failed
to hold back runaway
prices.
The 27-member EU is Africa's largest trading partner with trade
totalling
more than 200 billion euros last year.
HARARE (AFP) -
Zimbabwe said Monday it had put its military on high alert
against a
possible British invasion after the former armed forces chief of
its old
colonial master revealed London had considered such a move.
"We are aware
of plans by Britain to invade our country and assassinate our
leaders and we
are not going to lie down and take this as just threats,"
deputy information
minister Bright Matonga told AFP.
"We take these threats seriously and
our armed forces are always on high
alert. We are aware and confident of our
capability and we will deal with
them swiftly and effectively if they dare
invade our territory."
Matonga's comments come after the former head of
the British armed forces,
Lord Charles Guthrie, revealed in a newspaper
interview that the possibility
of invading Zimbabwe had been discussed
during Tony Blair's premiership.
Guthrie said that "people (in Blair's
administration) were always trying to
get me to look at" the possibility of
invading the southern African country.
"My advice was: 'Hold hard, you'll
make it worse. You won't have a single
African country on your side'," he
told the Independent on Sunday newspaper
earlier this month.
Matonga
said that Mugabe, in power since the former Rhodesia won its
independence in
1980, had been on Britain's hit-list for a long time.
"They have always
targetted African leaders opposed to their imperialist
policies and they
want to do that with President Mugabe. But we have a
robust army ready to
defend the country and its leaders."
Zimbabwe's relations with Britain
were strained after Zimbabwe launched
controversial land reforms in 2000,
seizing farms from white farmers -- the
majority of them of British descent
-- to give to black farmers.
Mugabe was one of Blair's most virulent
critics before the British premier
stood down in June, frequently accusing
him of trying to force regime change
and telling him to "keep his pink nose"
out of Zimbabwe's internal politics.
Los Angeles Times
A
rich culture of protest theater flourishes in the country, despite the
constant risk of censorship or arrest from President Mugabe's regime.
By
Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
November 19, 2007
HARARE,
ZIMBABWE -- The stage was a small room in the Harare Central Police
Station.
The audience, about 20 bored policemen and plainclothes
intelligence
officers.
The two actors were shaking, not with stage fright but the real
thing.
Anthony Tongani stammered and forgot his lines. Silvanos Mudzvova was
so
afraid that he didn't dare make a mistake.
They stumbled to
the end. Then they were ordered to start again.
And again.
They
performed their political satire, "The Final Push," 12 times in two
days at
the station, while police and officers from the feared Central
Intelligence
Organization argued over what charges to press against the
actors and fired
questions about who had funded the show.
"The first time, the officer in
charge was not there. When he came, he
demanded his own performance. Then
the superintendent came, and he demanded
his own performance," Mudzvova
said. "It got worse when the CIO came in. One
of them was actually sleeping
during the performance. Then he'd wake up and
say, 'Are you through?'
"
A rich culture of protest theater has sprung up in Zimbabwe, but
artists are
under increasing pressure from President Robert Mugabe's
security forces as
he crushes dissent. In recent years, most independent
newspapers have been
shut down, opposition parties have been infiltrated by
CIO spies, and
activists have been arrested, beaten and sometimes killed.
The 2002 Public
Order and Security Act bans political meetings of more than
two people
without police permission, outlaws statements that incite "public
disorder"
and makes it an offense to insult the president.
Mudzvova
and Tongani were arrested at the premiere of "The Final Push" in
late
September. Tongani was arrested before he could take his final bow, and
Mudzvova immediately after taking his.
The play, written by Mudzvova,
is about the chairman of a building called
Liberty House (a thinly disguised
Mugabe) and his political challenger
(presumed to be opposition leader
Morgan Tsvangirai) trapped together in an
elevator during a power failure.
At one point, the two duke it out in a
boxing match.
In Zimbabwe's
repressive climate, artists and actors find creative ways to
protest. People
crowd into clubs to drink beer and laugh at stand-up comedy
poking fun at
Zimbabwe's problems. They turn out for the opening nights of
political
plays, even though police often raid theaters and close
productions before
the first lines are spoken.
Zimbabwe's underground arts culture is
thriving, taking hard-hitting
political messages to the masses in the
crowded black townships, the engines
of their cars running in case they need
to make a quick escape from the
authorities. Filmmakers recently secretly
shot an underground movie based on
a banned political play in Harare, the
capital.
The two nights Mudzvova and Tongani spent in custody had
elements of the
kind of surreal political play in which they might perform.
Police laughed
in all the right places, especially when the chairman gets
knocked out by
his opponent. But the CIO men were outraged.
"The CIO
guys tried to convince the police that we were actually talking
about the
president being knocked down," Mudzvova recounted in an interview
the day
after his release. "But the police did not see it in that way. To
them it
was just a simple, straightforward story.
"The police did not know what
to do with us. But the CIO kept insisting that
we be charged. The question
was, with what?"
In the end, Mudzvova and Tongani were charged with
inciting the masses to
revolt, a statute that carries a 20-year penalty.
Twice, police modified the
charges, first to criminal nuisance, and then
breach of the censorship laws.
Mudzvova says that with media freedom
hobbled, it is up to artists to take a
message of protest to
Zimbabweans.
"Artists, like everybody else, fear for their lives. But the
moment you have
that fear, you won't get anywhere. People are saying, 'If
you guys have that
fear, where are we going to get the correct information
from?' "
The night after their release, the two men were back onstage in
the small
circular Theatre in the Park, modeled on an African hut, in
Harare. But they
modified the script to satisfy the CIO: The knockout in the
boxing scene was
gone. A day later, after debate with colleagues and actors,
they restored
the scene, without drawing further visits from the
police.
An unlikely career
Bulawayo-based satirist Cont
Mhlanga grew up in a village with no theatrical
tradition. His father
expected him to be a farmer. Mhlanga didn't intend to
become an actor,
because he didn't even know what it was.
Even today in Zimbabwe, the idea
of a career in the theater is unthinkable
for most people. It is seen as a
last resort for beggars and failures,
people incapable of producing
something real to eat or sell.
He was introduced to theater by accident
when a group wanted to hold a drama
workshop in the hall where Mhlanga
practiced karate. "I said, 'What is
theater?' " But he joined in, got hooked
and has been writing political
satire since Zimbabwe won independence from
Britain in 1980.
Stepping into Mhlanga's cluttered Bulawayo office is
like visiting the
inside of an inspired but chaotic mind, crammed with
yard-high stacks of
books, yellowing newspapers and scripts, drafts of his
latest protest letter
to the government, and pieces of old broken,
unidentifiable equipment, with
a sleek laptop basking happily in the middle
of it all.
Wiry, with piercing eyes, he speaks in a tumble of words. He
does not look
old but declines to give his age, shrugging scornfully at the
question.
"Everyone around here calls me Grandfather," he said
dryly.
His plays are so bluntly political that he and his actors
frequently get
into trouble.
In May, the officer-in-charge at
Bulawayo Central Police Station went
through Mhlanga's play about AIDS,
"Everyday Soldier," deleting lines with a
red pen, offended because one
character disappears as part of the plot.
"He said, 'You can't have this
because you are implying that people
disappear in Zimbabwe.' I said, 'I'm
not going to remove the lines. It will
play as it is.' He said, 'It will not
play as it is. I'll close it down.' "
He did prevent public presentation
of the play, but Mhlanga found a way
around it: "We started to run the play
for closed audiences. We just make
sure there are no police in the
audience."
Mhlanga's latest play, "The Good President," inspired by
beatings and
arrests of opposition members in March, was shut down on
opening night in
June, and riot police surrounded the theater for a week to
prevent the
actors from staging the play.
To evade arrest or
censorship, artists run underground projects. Mhlanga
invented what he calls
Invisible Theater in bars, trains and the commuter
minibuses called
taxis.
In Invisible Theater, several actors plant themselves in a group
and
improvise a conversation.
"People don't know they're actors. The
dialogue might be: 'This government
is terrible. Look at those kids in the
street. They should be in school but
they're carrying water.' Then another
actor will say, 'Don't start with
that. You'll get us all beaten. There are
CIO guys everywhere.' Then a third
actor will say, 'The way we're living in
this country is more than a
beating.'
"Then other people will join
in," he said, referring to the unsuspecting
people around them. "The actors
will keep directing the conversation, and
the moment they think they've made
a point, they will get off the taxi and
get onto another one.
"The
thing we are challenging is fear, because we know that people are
afraid of
discussing these things in public."
'Hit-and-run' shows
In
Harare, a theater organization named Savanna Trust does "hit-and-run"
street
performances in volatile areas such as Mashonaland West, where actors
risk
arrest by police or violence from ruling party thugs.
They're designed to
reach people in poor, crowded neighborhoods who
otherwise would never see
theater. The performance must be quick, sharp and
funny, and the actors
ready for a quick getaway.
"When you do hit-and-run theater, you beat
drums and the people gather. You
have a car there with the motor running,"
Mudzvova said. "Your heart is
beating very fast. You are full of fear that
you are going to be arrested at
any minute. You know the exact message that
you want to give. You make sure
the people get the message in the shortest
time. As soon as you see that
people are getting the message, you
disappear.
"Afterwards the actors go, 'Phew! That was
extreme!'
"We escaped by a whisker in Bindura," he said, referring to a
stronghold of
the ruling party. "We only escaped because the car we had was
far more
powerful than the car the police had."
Mudzvova is not the
only one producing controversial material. The
low-budget underground film
"Super Patriots and Morons," produced by
British-trained Zimbabwean actor
Daves Guzha, was filmed secretly over nine
days in Harare. It includes real
scenes of Harare street life, bread queues
and crushing
poverty.
Filming without permission is banned in Zimbabwe, and the
filmmakers,
questioned by police while they were working, were lucky to
escape arrest.
The film's portrait of an isolated, paranoid president
haunted by dreams of
a bloody hangman's rope is unlikely to hit cinema
screens in Zimbabwe. The
best its makers can hope for is mass production of
DVDs that could be
distributed free. But there is no money for that, so the
film's future is
unclear.
The director, Tawanda Gunda Mumpengo, is
critical of what he sees as
self-censorship by artists terrified of arrest
and violence.
"It's up to us as citizens of this country to demand our
freedoms if we feel
they are being curtailed and to assert ourselves," he
said, "because no one
will do it for us."
In his jumbled office,
Mhlanga gestured at the mountains of papers around
him, the fruit of 27
years of labor. "No one will shut me up," he said.
"There's only one option
to shut me up and that's to kill me. But they can't
kill what I stand
for."
robyn.dixon@latimes.com
By Henry Makiwa
19 November
2007
It has become increasingly difficult to report on the situation on
the
ground in Zimbabwe because of the deliberate mis-information that is
being
used at every level.
The reports of violence at the MDC Harvest
House headquarters on Sunday show
this clearly. It is clear that there was a
violent incident but the details
differ depending on who you speak
to.
There are allegations that at least 20 female MDC supporters were
injured as
followers of President Morgan Tsvangirai clashed with youths
loyal to Lucia
Matibenga, the former head of the party's women's wing,
ousted in a
boardroom coup. Other reports can only confirm 3
injuries.
MDC National organiser Elias Mudzuri said the party is yet to
establish
exactly who caused the violence and just who was attacked. Mudzuri
confirmed
that a reporter was assaulted outside the party headquarters, but
could not
give any details.
Mudzuri said: "We are aware that a Studio
Seven journalist was assaulted and
that there were some other assaults which
we cannot confirm until we have a
proper report to the party.
"If our
youths were responsible then we will deal with them accordingly and
if they
are just hired thugs then we cannot do much."
The reports said violent
scenes ensued outside the party's Harvest House
headquarters where
Tsvangirai was meeting provincial leaders, after a group
of about 100
Matibenga supporters converged on the offices. The women
chanted slogans and
demanded an audience with Tsvangirai whom they
challenged to explain why
Matibenga was ousted and replaced by one of his
alleged
loyalists.
Matibenga is challenging the election of Theresa Makone who
replaced her in
a poll she alleges was out of order, after many of her
supporters were
barred from participating.
Two journalists, John
Nyashanu of the South Africa Broadcasting Corporation
and freelancer Frank
Chikowore, allege that Tsvangirai's supporters harassed
them and prevented
them from interviewing Matibenga.
Chikowore said: "We were accused as the
media of fuelling infighting within
the MDC with our reports. The youths
loyal to Tsvangirai shocked us when
they charged menacingly, we only escaped
by running away."
Neither Nelson Chamisa, the MDC's spokesman, nor Matibenga
- who was said to
have flown to South Africa - could be reached for
comment.
Earlier the Standard newspaper had suggested that Tsvangirai had
mellowed
over his stance on Matibenga, and was refusing to endorse Makone as
the new
head of the party's women's wing.
SW Radio
Africa Zimbabwe news
By
Tererai Karimakwenda
19 November, 2007
On Thursday last week scores of
soldier hoping to receive their salaries and
bonuses were forced to go to
banks as early as 3am. But many left empty
handed as the cash ran
out.
The shortage of actual hard cash in Zimbabwe has reached such critical
levels that the Reserve Bank is reportedly failing to supply the banks with
enough to cover salaries.
Our Harare correspondent Simon Muchemwa has
been making the rounds in the
central business district of the capital and
reports that people are
sleeping in bank queues trying to be first to get
the scarce notes.
Unfortunately many are being turned away without any
luck.
Muchemwa said soldiers and other uniformed officials have been
taking
advantage of their status and skipping to the front of the queues.
People
who have tolerated this so far seem to have lost their patience, and
riot
police have been brought in to control some situations.
The nation's
economy is crumbling at the fastest rate in the entire world,
particularly
for a country not at war. The latest figures leaked from the
Central
Statistical Office, show that prices were up 136% in October alone.
Economic
experts put the inflation rate close to at least 15,000%.
The experts accuse
government of pursuing stop-gap measures that will have
no effect on the
economy. Along with the opposition and civil groups, they
insist the only
solution is wholesale constitutional change and a resolution
of the broad
political crisis.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Zim Online
by Regerai Marwezu Tuesday 20 November
2007
MASVINGO - Ruling ZANU PF youths have evicted
scores of opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters in
Bikita West in Masvingo
province in a fresh wave of political violence to
hit troubled Zimbabwe.
The youths, with tacit backing from ZANU PF
legislator, retired
colonel Claudius Makova allegedly chased away at least
15 MDC supporters
from their homes in the southern Bikita district last
week.
The ZANU PF youths allegedly told the MDC supporters to leave
the area
as they were supporting a “puppet party that wants to reverse the
gains of
the liberation struggle.”
The evictions come hardly a
fortnight after a delegation of the MDC
told Home Affairs Minister Kembo
Mohadi that ZANU PF had stepped up a
campaign of violence against its
supporters around the country.
The government, which is engaged in
talks with the MDC that are aimed
at finding a negotiated settlement to
Zimbabwe’s eight-year political
crisis, rejected charges that political
violence was on the rise in the
country.
Among those evicted
together with their families are Simbarashe
Sinawacho of Mamutse Village in
Bikita’s ward 12, Anna Chapu of Chunyamatura
irrigation scheme, Solomon
Marumura and Rangarirai Nesvinga.
The villagers told ZimOnline
yesterday that they also had their newly
planted crop destroyed by the
marauding ZANU PF youths.
“We were ordered to pack our belongings
within an hour by the ZANU PF
youths who said they had been sent by the
local MP (Member of Parliament
Makova).
“Makova later openly
told us that we are not wanted in the area. We
have since left our homes and
at the moment we are surviving on charity,”
said Sinawacho.
MDC
Masvingo provincial chairman Wilstaff Sitemele condemned the
evictions
adding that this was further proof of ongoing harassment of their
supporters
by ZANU PF.
“What disturbs us most is the fact that these villagers
were evicted
because of their political affiliation. They were never given a
chance and
defend themselves. This is a clear case of harassment being
perpetrated by
President Mugabe and his supporters,” said
Sitemele.
Masvingo central MDC legislator Tongai Matutu said the
party had
already filed a court application to allow those evicted to return
to their
homes as well as bar ZANU PF supporters from effecting further
evictions.
Contacted for comment, Makova refused to comment on the
evictions.
“I do not comment on issues concerning MDC supporters,”
said Makova
curtly.
The MDC and major Western governments have
in the past accused Mugabe
of using violence at election times to stay in
power. ZANU PF, in power
since the country's independence from Britain 27
years ago, denies the
charge. – ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Wayne Mafaro Tuesday 20 November
2007
HARARE - "Do you have a plastic carrier bag sir?" asked
the smiling bank
teller.
I did not expect such a question from a bank
official.
To ease my confusion, she explained: "We are giving out only
$500 and $1 000
notes, so for the amount you want to withdraw, you really
need somewhere to
put it because you will get quite a number of
'bricks'."
I was eventually handed out 20 "bricks" of $1 000 notes
amounting to $10
million, and 40 "bricks" of $500 notes totaling $10
million.
The "bricks" were just reward for more than five hours of
queuing for a
chance to withdraw money from one bank after
another.
It is 1430hrs and since eight in the morning, I had hopped from
one
financial institution to another, hoping to access my hard earned few
millions.
The queue at the first building society I visited
meandered, with some
people going as far as 20 metres outside the banking
hall. You could hardly
see where you were going.
Upon realising there
was no hope of getting anything at the building
society, I moved to another
bank, a commercial bank this time, and too bad,
I found soldiers, mostly
young, who had formed this snake-like-queue.
It was difficult to join
them as they uttered unsolicited obscenities to
bank tellers as if they were
responsible for the crisis.
There was a glimmer of hope at the financial
institution as there was a
large deposit from security guards. I expected
that my problem would be
solved there.
Unfortunately when there were
only two people ahead of me, the chief teller
came out to address us and I
knew my problems were far from over.
"I'm sorry, we have run out of
cash," she announced with a long face.
All hell broke loose. Some blamed
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor
Gideon Gono for giving all the money
to companies manufacturing cheap
quality farming implements while some said
this was a sign of a deep-rooted
crisis.
"This is a sign that we are
in deep crisis. The government wants to play it
down but we are in trouble,"
said an old woman as she walked out of the
bank.
Some business ladies
exchanged contact details as they advised each other
that there was a
supermarket, which was selling cash at 15 percent interest
rate.
They
went out together to sample the new idea.
As for me, I could hardly
afford transport for the day, let alone buy cash
at a premium.
As I
trek back home that day with my 60 bricks of bearer cheques, I could
not
stop wondering how many more able-bodied Zimbabweans were spending the
better part of their days queuing for money at banks.
Zimbabwe does
not have real currency and uses bearer cheques introduced by
the RBZ in
2003.
Bearer cheques are promissory notes that were first introduced by
the
central bank at the height of another shortage of cash four years ago.
Bearer cheques are used in the same way as money.
Because I was
carrying so much money, I had to phone the office to inform my
bosses that I
was not reporting for duty to ensure the safety of my money.
I shuddered
to think about the number of productive hours lost while queuing
for money,
and the implications of that on an already struggling economy.
Zimbabwe
is facing a serious cash shortage, resulting in long queues forming
outside
banks.
The shortages have worsened in the past week, forcing some
financial
institutions to limit the amount of cash they give to
depositors.
At one bank in the capital, Harare, corporate customers were
being allowed
to withdraw only $10 million a day - just enough to buy around
seven litres
of petrol on the black market.
The allowable withdrawal
limits are $40 million for companies and $20
million for
individuals.
At other banks, there will not be any cash and depositors
have to wait for
deposits from other people before making withdrawals. If
there are no
depositors there is no cash for withdrawals.
"We have
not received our allocation from the reserve bank and in such
situations we
wait for depositors, then we share the available cash among
the many
withdrawals," said a bank manager at one commercial bank in central
Harare.
No comment could be obtained from Gono who has twice so far
postponed the
launch of a new currency to replace the bearer
cheques.
Gono announced earlier this month that the central bank was
shelving the
introduction of a new currency initially set for this year,
arguing that the
bank first wanted to address bottlenecks in the supply of
goods and services
before the launch now set for next
year.
Economists said the only way out of the current cash crisis was for
the RBZ
to print higher denomination notes, arguing that available
denominations
could not cope with the hyperinflationary climate in the
country.
Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation estimated at more
than 14 000
percent in October.
"Because the value of the notes is
too small, the government cannot print
money fast enough to beat inflation
levels," said consultant economist John
Robertson.
The highest
denomination of $200 000 is not enough to pay for a one-way trip
on a
commuter omnibus in Harare. A trip now costs around $300 000 per
passenger.
"So there is need for more notes as prices continue on the
upward trend. The
government must introduce $1 million or even $5 million
notes to ease the
current problems but they think introducing higher
denominations will be
inflationary," said Robertson.
Former president
of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce Luxon Zembe
said the cash
shortages were a result of lack of confidence in the banking
sector by
restive Zimbabweans.
He said people were no longer banking but holding on
to cash in case they
stumbled upon scarce basic commodities available mostly
on the black market
where only cash transactions obtain.
"All the
cash is in the informal market because people are no longer
banking. The
hyperinflationary environment discourages people from keeping
money in the
bank as most of the transactions have become cash," said Zembe.
He urged
the central bank to review withdrawal limits that were making it
difficult
to use their hard earned cash.
"People are now moving around with cash
because they know that they cannot
easily access it when they want to while
prices keep going up. By the time
one accesses the money in tranches prices
of the goods they want to buy
would have gone up," he said.
Another
economist who could not be named for professional reasons said the
demand
for cash had significantly gone up while the central bank has no
capacity to
print enough notes to cover the surge in demand.
"A lot of cash is moving
from the central bank to the banks then to people
but not back into the
system," he said.
He predicted that the situation was likely to worsen in
the next few weeks
as most workers receive annual bonus payouts.
The
parallel market exchange rate has shot up to $1.2 million for every
United
States unit as the government fails to solve the seven-year crisis.
Fuel
prices have also tracked the parallel market rate, rising up to $1.2
million
a litre.
There have been unconfirmed reports that limiting cash was an
attempt to
reduce spending and eventually inflation but some say the central
bank is
likely to waylay those who hoard cash as what happened when it
introduced
new bearer cheques last year after chopping off three zeroes from
the old
bearer cheques. - ZimOnline
Zim Online
by Own Correspondent Tuesday 20 November
2007
JOHANNESBURG - The Southern African Development
Community (SADC) Tribunal
has rescheduled to December a case in which a
Zimbabwean white farmer is
appealing against seizure of his land by
President Robert Mugabe's
government.
The matter, the first to be
brought before the Tribunal since its 2000
formation, was set for today but
could not proceed apparently because Harare
had not been notified of the
matter.
The farmer, William Michael Campbell, 75, wants the Tribunal to
interdict
Mugabe from interfering with operations at his Mount Carmel Farm
pending a
full hearing on the legality of Harare's controversial programme
to seize
land from whites for redistribution to landless blacks.
"The
office of the Tribunal's Registrar, which was tasked with the
responsibility
of serving the notice, is unable to provide proof of service
(of the
notification) on the respondents," the farmer's lawyers said in a
statement.
"All attempts are being made to set the matter down for December
4," they
added.
Zimbabwe Attorney General Sobuza Gula-Ndebele was not immediately
available
for comment on the matter.
Campbell wants Harare's land
reforms declared racist and illegal under the
SADC treaty adding that
Article 6 of the SADC treaty bars member states from
discriminating against
any person on the grounds of gender, religion, race,
ethnic origin and
culture.
Zimbabwe is a signatory to the SADC treaty.
The farmer
also wants the Tribunal to rule that the government of Zimbabwe
is in breach
of its obligations as a member of SADC after it signed into law
Constitution
of Zimbabwe Amendment No.17 two years ago.
The constitutional amendment
allows the Harare government to seize farmland
without compensation and bars
courts from hearing appeals from dispossessed
white farmers.
Campbell
has already appealed against the amendment at the Supreme Court of
Zimbabwe,
but the court reserved judgment on the matter last March.
Harare's
controversial farm seizures have resulted in the majority of the
about 4 000
white farmers being forcibly ejected from their properties. Only
about 400
farmers have retained their farms since the land reforms began in
2000.
Meanwhile Campbell, who is facing charges in Zimbabwe for
refusing to vacate
his farm which the government says has been earmarked for
expropriation, was
at the weekend assaulted at his farm by suspected
poachers.
However, in a bizarre twist the police have pressed charges
against Campbell
for allegedly pointing a firearm against the suspected
poachers. - ZimOnline
Mail and Guardian
Mail & Guardian reporter
19 November 2007
11:59
The last stretch of talks mediated by President Thabo
Mbeki will
be a key test of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic
Change's
(MDC) ability to press meaningful concessions from
Zanu-PF.
Already under pressure from supporters after
agreeing to
constitutional amendments in September, the MDC now finds itself
four months
away from crucial elections without having made any real gains
in the talks.
The two sides met again recently but the talks
were informal, as
Sydney Mufamadi and Frank Chikane, Mbeki's mediators, were
in Harare to
attend the funeral of the son of Justice Minister Patrick
Chinamasa, one of
the Zanu-PF negotiators.
As bitter
divisions undermine opposition support, there are
questions as to whether
the MDC has the muscle to wrest any real concessions
from the
process.
Getting Zanu-PF to agree to broader reform would
help the
opposition to rebuild its damaged credibility. This realisation
alone puts
its negotiators under immense pressure.
Zanu-PF has benefited the most so far from the Mbeki-led
negotiation
process. The amendments agreed upon in September, while bringing
some reform
to electoral laws, essentially keep Mugabe's core powers
intact.
In fact, the amendments significantly expand the size
of
Parliament, long a desire of Mugabe's, and allow the president to appoint
supporters to the upper house. A raft of repressive pieces of legislation
remains in place to buttress Mugabe's rule.
People
involved in the talks say negotiating about legislation
has been the easy
part. The tougher battle will be discussions about how
Zimbabwe is governed,
they say.
For either side, winning that last stage of the
battle will
depend largely on how much leverage it has over the
other.
The only tool the MDC has -- and one which Tsvangirai
has
employed at several stages of the talks -- is the threat to boycott
elections. The MDC knows Zanu-PF is desperate to gain legitimacy in the
election next March and a boycott would damage the credibility of the
polls.
But threats to boycott "can only be used so much",
according to
a senior opposition official close to Tsvangirai. "The problem
is once you
make that threat two, three, four times, you risk losing both
the respect of
the mediators and confusing your own
supporters."
A key test will be the MDC's ability to resist
pressure from
impatient supporters. Tsvangirai has conceded that hostility
to the
September agreement arose from widespread "mistrust of the Zanu-PF
dictatorship and a lack of a proper and full brief of the various stages in
the negotiation process".
In fact, the secretive nature
of the talks was one of the many
issues at the heart of recent MDC
infighting. Mbeki has forced both sets of
negotiators to sign a
non-disclosure agreement, the terms of which are such
that the teams can
report only to the most senior officials in their
respective
parties.
This has not been a problem for Zanu-PF, where power
is tightly
concentrated around Mugabe. But in the MDC a crisis meeting had
to be called
last weekend after officials protested that only Tsvangirai and
his
secretary general, Tendai Biti, were privy to the details and progress
of
the talks.
Biti and Welshman Ncube form the MDC
negotiating team.
Lovemore Madhuku, head of the National
Constitutional Assembly,
a pressure group that campaigns for a new
constitution and has severed a
longstanding alliance with the MDC over the
talks, doubts the opposition has
the stamina to push Zanu-PF to the wire and
force it to yield on key issues.
"The MDC has so far not
extracted any concessions from Zanu-PF
at all. What they have simply done is
capitulation. Everything they have
agreed to so far was brought to the table
by Zanu-PF," Madhuku said.
The MDC's internal fighting, which
erupted in 2005, has gravely
diminished its threat to Zanu-PF, a fact of
which Mugabe's negotiators -
Chinamasa and Nicholas Goche - will be fully
aware when it is their turn to
give something away.
"They
[MDC] are unable to get anything out of Zanu-PF. To be
able to do so, they
needed to be in a position to put Zanu-PF under
pressure. At the moment they
are nowhere near that position," said Madhuku.
At the start
of the negotiating process in April, both factions
of the MDC created four
committees to give their team research support.
However, little has been
done, as leaders were preoccupied with the internal
strife, the crisis
meeting of Tsvangirai's faction heard last week.
Zimbabwe
Election Support Network chairperson Noel Kututwa says
the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC), which runs elections, is behind
schedule with
the delimitation process. In the past demarcation for 150
constituencies
usually took at least six months, but a ZEC crippled by low
staffing levels
is expected now to take less than three months to mark 210
constituencies.
Meanwhile, Edwell Mutemaringa, chief
accountant for the country's
registrar general, told a parliamentary
portfolio committee that his
department, which runs the voters' roll, has
received less than a tenth of
its budget requirements.
The Zimbabwean police, which in terms of the law should provide
at least
four officers per polling station, wants to double its size for the
elections. But deputy police chief Levy Sibanda has said the police force is
so broke it can no longer even supply uniforms for
recruits.
Director of the Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust
David Chimhini
feared the talks were fast running out of
time.
"We still need to get information [on the result of the
talks]
relayed to the electorate and we don't see sufficient time at the
moment to
do that," he said.
Divisions in the
MDC
On October 12 2005 a meeting of the Movement for Democratic
Change to discuss its participation in elections ended in spliting the party
into two factions. Arthur Mutambara (pictured) heads one faction, of 22 MPs,
with Gibson Sibanda as his deputy and secretary general Welshman Ncube.
Other key figures in this faction are Paul Themba Nyathi, Renson Gasela,
Fletcher Dulini Ncube and Priscilla
Misihairabwi-Mushonga.
Morgan Tsvangirai leads a faction of
21 MPs, with Thokozani
Khupe as his deputy, Tendai Biti as secretary general
and Lovemore Moyo as
chairperson.
The Tsvangirai faction
now faces a further split after
Tsvangirai sacked Lucia Matibenga, head of
the influential women's wing,
last month. Tsvangirai has the support of his
chair, Moyo, and a group of
personal, powerful advisers, key among them
businessperson Ian Makone.
Tsvangirai faces opposition from
most of his senior MPs,
including Tapiwa Mashakada, the deputy secretary
general, and Elias Mudzuri,
a popular and ambitious former Harare mayor.
Mudzuri has called Tsvangirai's
recent actions "unacceptable".
Tatenda's first walk about
with Reilly, dogs and warthog
19 November, 2007
Bless you for the
wonderful email we have had from you.
Its been beautiful receiving all this
incredible mail...there is so much
love, support,prayers and words of
massive comfort, its been an incredible
sharing of agony.We have also found
so many special friends that have come
out of the woodworks, its quite
fantastic.Zimbabwe will always remain a
community where ever we are, and
when the chips are down our friends stand
up. Thankyou for everything and
still being around, even though there are
seas between us.
The loss
of our four rhino's, the fourth rhino being, the little unborn
calf. have
woken up the rest of the world ,as to how out of kilter man has
become with
his greed.
The world are in tears, there is an out cry for justice, there is
a feeling
of extreme anger from all four corners of our planet.
Those
rhino have given so many people including us on Imire, the most
wonderful
privilege of sharing incredible moments with them.Their hugeness,
their
presence, their gentleness we all took for granted, it was a
forever...now
its gone!
I cant quite describe the feeling of loss and grief we are
in...Today a week
from when it happened is a very low day...there is a
silence that hangs over
us in a still form.
The energy of Imire has gone
for now.
We are devastated through to the very core of our hearts.Its
painful.
We will gather ourselves up again and move on, but today its not
easy,thankgoodness we still have so much here on Imire, we have the
elephant, the babes, we have the magic world of wildlife.
All these
creatures need our love and time, so we do move on, we don't sit
still, but
that space of our beautiful Amber, DJ and Sprinter will never be
filled
again.
Thankyou for sharing this moment with us, its been so
special.
Tatenda is filling up the hours in a day. We are going to move him
to our
house, as the run up to the bomas is endless.John also needs to have
me back
snuggled in his bed..The haystack,Reilly and I have been sharing
with Mishek
and the rats, has had its time.
Please keep in touch, I'm so
sorry we haven't been able to write sooner, but
together with no phones,
powercuts, and feeding Tatenda seems to keep us
away from all
comms.
Thankyou again for all your support and letters, its taken us all
through
the worst.
All our love from us on Imire
Judy and
John
PS The next day.. as I'm finishing off this letter,Reilly has just
radioed
to say he and Mishek have walked Tatenda 7 kms to our home. He is
enchanted
by everything, and thrilled with life itself....how brillant is
that? we now
have him safe in our garden together with the warthog and
dogs.He also seems
to have found the sitting room a social place to
be.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
By Tererai
Karimakwenda
19 November, 2007
The role of South Africa as the
regional appointed mediator on the Zimbabwe
crisis has been questioned from
the beginning, given President Mbeki's
refusal to even criticize the Mugabe
regime and the harsh treatment of
Zimbabwean refugees in South
Africa.
Recent comments by South Africa's Defence Minister Mosiuoa
Lekota, have
undermined the country's mediation role even further, because
they are
reminiscent of language used by Robert Mugabe himself when
defending his
failure and brutal policies.
The Cape Times (SA)
reported last Friday that Lekota said regime change was
one of the "external
threats" faced by countries in the region. Speaking at
the opening of the
ministerial session of the SA-Zimbabwe Joint Permanent
Commission on defence
and security, Lekota is quoted as saying Southern
African countries face a
"very real challenge" of regime change, encouraged
by foreign
powers.
Professor Mukonoweshuro, the Secretary for international affairs
in the
Tsvangirai MDC, described Lekota's statement as "reckless and
unfortunate."
He explained that it raises all kinds of suspicions and
renewed concerns.
He said: "We would have expected that South Africa,
playing that kind of
role, ought to try by all means to demonstrate its
even-handedness in
dealing with belligerent parties."
The Professor went
further to say that mimicking the language of paranoia
used by ZANU-PF does
not encourage or build up confidence in the process
that South Africa is
mediating.
Regarding the issue of state-sponsored violence, which has
continued while
the mediation process is in progress, the Professor said it
had reached
critical levels and the MDC should not be blamed if the violence
situation
becomes a talks breaking point.
Asked if Mbeki should be
insisting strongly that the Mugabe regime put an
end to the violence,
Mukonoweshuro said: "The irony of the whole situation
is that South Africa,
whilst it pontificates about issues of democracy,
human rights and good
governance, as long as they pertain to the South
Africa situation, when they
cross the border they are blind to glaringly
brazen issues of
violence."
He added : "They are in actual fact even ready to forget their own
history,
when the international community created a context in which
reasonable
dialogue could take place between the ANC and the Nationalist
Party."
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Nyasa Times, Malawi
Thom Chiumia on 19 November, 2007 12:53:00
A number of oil tankers
destined for Malawi are being diverted to Zimbabwe
in a top level deal
between Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika and his
Zimbabwean counterpart,
Robert Mugabe.
Drivers working for local transport companies confided to
Nyasa Times that
they have been to Zimbabwe on several occasions to deliver
fuel especially
diesel to the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe
(NOCZIM).
A top Malawi government official, on condition of anonymity,
has confirmed
the matter.
"Officially I would say that it is not true
- unofficially I can confirm,
yes this is happening," he said.
'' It
is not a deal as such but rather just a brotherly gesture between
Presidents
Mutharika and Mugabe -- as you know the two are good friends,''
said the
source.
Zimbabwe, whose tyrannical 83-year-old leader enjoys good
relations with
Mutharika, is facing increasing international isolation for
abuse of human
rights and autocratic rule.
The deal is meant to
cushion Zimbabwe's acute oil shortages, which for some
years have been
precipitated by economic turmoil and recent acute shortages
of foreign
currency.
However, Malawians have expressed fear that the development may
cause fuel
scarcity in Malawi. Indeed, press reports last week indicated
that the
southern region of Malawi was facing diesel shortages.
The
price of fuel in Malawi has recently risen by 20% with subsequent
similar
increases in minibus fares.
This is not the first time Malawi is helping
Zimbabwe in a deal that raises
suspicions. Mid this year, Malawi sent tonnes
of maize to Zimbabwe but the
payment for it has not yet been remitted to
Malawi.
However, the list of debtors to the National Food Reserves Agency
does not
show any indebtedness by Zimbabwe. The impression given by this
anomaly is
that Zimbabwe got the maize for free following a hush-hush deal
between
Mugabe and Mutharika.
The maize-to-Zimbabwe issue sparked a
lot of debate in the Malawi Parliament
where members of the opposition
accused the Mutharika administration of
bartering maize with
sugar.
Malawi Government officials were coy to comment on the matter
describing it
as "sensitive".
Foreign Affairs Minister, Joyce Banda,
declined immediate comment.
The Zimbabwe High Commissioner to Malawi,
Thandi Dumbutshena, could not
immediately comment as well on the matter but
she is on record as calling
for positive reporting about the issues
concerning Zimbabwe's current
situation.
Journal Chretien
lundi
19 novembre 2007
An American think-tank has called for a shift in United
States policy on
Zimbabwe, to focus on recovery and reconstruction support,
when the southern
African country emerges out of its current economic and
political crises,
APA has learnt here.
A report by the Council on Foreign
Relations made available Monday here said
US and overall Western policy
should now shift to creating conditions for a
smooth transition in the event
that there is a change of government after
next year's
elections.
Zimbabweans go to the polls in March to choose a president,
members of the
National Assembly and local government
councillors.
Council on Foreign Relations international affairs fellow
and author of the
report, Michelle Gavinargues, said focusing on the future
could influence
the thinking of important Zimbabwean political players and
possibly hasten
President Robert Mugabe's exit.
"Having been unable
to stop Zimbabwe's slide into crisis, the United States
has a much better
chance of being effective in helping to point to a way
forward for the
country - one that might galvanise influential Zimbabweans
into action by
making plain that there will be tangible benefits associated
with reform,"
Gavinargues said in the report.
Mugabe's critics at home and abroad say
he has suffocated the opposition in
a bid to hang onto power and plunged the
country into political and economic
turmoil through a policy of land
redistribution using intimidation and
violence.
Mugabe has accused
the US and her allies of working to effect regime change
in Zimbabwe by
replacing him with someone they can easily manipulate.
Seen by many in
Africa as a hero, the Zimbabwean leader accuses the US,
Britain and other
Western countries of trying to foment discontent in the
country by
sabotaging the once prosperous economy.
The Council on Foreign Relations
called for a multilateral approach to
rebuild confidence in the post-Mugabe
era.
"By working multilaterally to build consensus around
governance-related
conditions for re-engagement, and by marshaling
significant reconstruction
resources in an international trust fund for
Zimbabwe, the United States can
help establish clear incentives for
potential successors to Mugabe to
embrace vital reforms," the report
said.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice named Zimbabwe alongside
Cuba,
Belarus, Myanmar, Iran and North Korea as « outposts of tyranny » in
2004.
JN/nm/APA 19-11-2007
© APA News
Journal Chretien
lundi
19 novembre 2007
Zimbabwe's mineral marketing body says plans are
advanced to establish a
diamond polishing and cutting plant as the country
moves to take advantage
of recent discoveries of large deposits of the
precious mineral, APA has
learnt here.
The Minerals Marketing
Corporation of Zimbabwe (MMCZ) said the proposed
plant would play a
significant role in ensuring the country does not lose
revenue by exporting
unprocessed diamonds to other countries.
"We believe that with our own
diamond cutting and polishing plant, we will
be able to retain most of the
money being lost to non-diamond producing
countries, especially in the West,
that are reaping the benefits of the
multi billion dollar industry," MMCZ
chief executive Onesmo Moyo said here
Sunday.
So far only South
Africa and Botswana have such plants in southern Africa.
The diamond
processing plant could help Zimbabwe stem a smuggling tide and
assist the
country emerge from an eight-year economic crisis highlighted by
shortages
of foreign currency and electricity.
Zimbabwe has since last year
discovered large deposits of diamond in its
Eastern Highlands area but
mining has been haphazard, with reports that a
lot of diamonds produced from
this new field were being sold to black market
traders from as far afield as
Israel.
More than 20,000 illegal miners were arrested early this year
after they
descended on a diamond field in the Marange area of the Eastern
Highlands,
more than 300 km northeast of the capital, Harare.
The
diamond rush was also accompanied by accusations of illegal dealings in
"blood diamonds" brought into the country from the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
Both the United Nations and the World Diamond Council
suspected that DRC
warlords could have taken advantage of the confusion in
Zimbabwe's diamond
industry to smuggle their own "blood diamonds" into
Zimbabwe for export to
other countries.
JN/nm/APA 19-11-2007
THE ZIMBABWE JOURNALISTS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
19 November 2007
THE Zimbabwe
Journalists for Human Rights is shocked by the thuggish behaviour of youths
aligned to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) under Morgan Tsvangirai
after they beat up freelancer Frank Chikowore and South African Broadcasting
Corporation (SABC) reporter John Nyashanu at Harvest House while carrying out
their journalistic mandate on Sunday 18 November 2007.
The overzealous
youths accused the two journalists of negative reportage on Tsvangirai in
respect of the ongoing disputes within the Women’s Assembly.
The
journalists were among a dozen others who were at Harvest House to cover
Tsvangirai’s meeting with his provincial executives to brief them on the ongoing
talks with Zanu PF and the preparedness of the party ahead of the 2008
elections. It is ironic that during the meeting he reiterated his party’s
demands for access to the public media while demanding that the independent
media must be allowed to operate.
It is alarming that a party that
constantly denounce the ruling Zanu PF, the police, and other security apparatus
of the Robert Mugabe regime for being violent with its opponents, the MDC has
become an equal partner in attacking the freedoms of the media.
The ZJHR
holds no brief for the MDC or Zanu PF but stands for the rights of journalists
to discharge their mandate without fear or favour. An attack on any journalist
carrying out his duties is an attack on the freedom of the press. That is
unacceptable and we denounce the use of violence to settle differences in
opinion.
The MDC President and his National Executive Council must
discipline their youths and all other structures to respect the independence of
journalists to write factual and truthful news without resorting to violence to
coerce our members to write favourable articles. That is not our responsibility
to create positives out of negatives. Journalists, working for the
State-controlled or private media should denounce whoever wants to coerce them
to write favourable articles about certain issues.
As the nation
prepares for the harmonised Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Government
Elections, the safety of the media is paramount. Both Zanu PF and the MDC cannot
be entrusted to guarantee the safety of the press. The ZJHR urges journalists to
maintain their neutrality in cases of intra-party disputes as this trend creates
unnecessary divisions within the media and the party concerned.
We
therefore recommend that journalists take a principled stand against political
violence and avoid risky political situations. The ZJHR will continue to lobby
all stakeholders to seriously look into the issue of the security and safety of
journalists ahead of the harmonised elections in 2008.
Options available
for the media include;
Boycotting the MDC press briefings until
the party makes a firm commitment to the security of journalists attending their
functions.
Continue to play a watchdog role of all political
parties without being silenced by acts of thuggery and
intimidation.
Advocate and lobby Parliament for a policy framework
that guarantees the safety of journalists covering the 2008
elections.
For more information and comments please write to
thezjhr@yahoo.co.uk or call us on 0912 869 294, 0912 266 430.
Afrique en ligne
Harare,
Zimbabwe - Six people were killed and 13 others injured in a
bus crash in
northern Zimbabwe, police said on Monday.
Police spokesman
Makhosana Ncube said some of the injured were in
critical condition and the
death toll could rise.
He said the accident was caused by a tyre
burst, but survivors claimed
the driver and conductor, both of who died in
the crash, were drinking beer
on the way.
Police blame speeding
and drunk-driving for many accidents in
Zimbabwe.
Harare -
19/11/2007
The Zimbabwean
Monday, 19 November
2007 06:15
TYRANNY UNREPENDENT: PAKISTAN AND ZIMBABWE POLITICAL
DISASTER
SIMILARITIES.
By
Andrew M
Manyevere.
Politics is the mastery employment of power to
instill legitimacy,
democracy and good governance by a civilian political
party elected through
a national electorate.
I outline
similarities in the two countries, Pakistan and Zimbabwe,
despite different
location, climate, and continent and socio religious
culture.
Both are ruled by dictators, be it of civilian or military bred, does
not
matter.
Both are a brain child of the British tutelage and once
belonged to
the commonwealth family of nations, now they no longer, due to
human rights
abuse and poor governance that is managed with
impunity.
The military wields an upper hand in security matters and
work at will
to detain, brutalize and make people to loose their life
without remorse.
Despite that Zimbabwe authorities masquerades as a civilian
government, they
are substantially headed by a top high command committee
who literary have
the power and not the window dressing parliament, cabinet
or so-called
political party.
Both regimes work and pander to
international opinion with a view to
pull wool over international leaders on
who runs the country, parliament
under democracy or dictatorship. The world
has uniquely granted concessions
to these regimes and prolonged human
suffering under pretext the problem is
for the nationals to
resolve.
Both use terrorism as a tool to reduce international criticism
on why
they are so ruthless with the ordinary citizens in their countries.
It has
since shown citizens of these countries that the western nations
themselves
play safe with tyrant regimes and have no faith of political
opposition as a
successful tool for a democracy in order to uphold
parliamentary democracy.
Democracy is therefore put to mockery, in the eyes
of Africa and growing
economies. The need to eradicate violence and
terrorism is used as pretext
to 'kill' the development of genuine political
opposition that, when elected
to power, will substitute poor governance for
good efficient governance.
Instead of urging for the removal of draconian
laws that thwart achievement
of democracy the contrary is promoted at the
behest of western nations to
seek for a regime change most amenable to big
power politics.
These similarities share in the truth that tyranny
respects no culture
or opinion. Whereas, for example, the USA presidential
campaign message
addresses issues in Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq as their
corner to foreign
policy, they are silent on Sudan's Dafur suffering and
Robert Mugabe's poor
governance and cruelty to people issues.
From America one hears the call on Musharaaf having to retire from the
military, to stop ill treating opposition, remove force and violence, and
hold free and fair elections in January 2008.On another hand, there is
complete silence on Mugabe's intransigence to release many detained
opposition politicians for trumped up charges ranging from treason to simply
insulting the person of Mugabe. With elections, in Zimbabwe, to be run in
March 2008 Mugabe still kills at will and gets away with it. Despite the
SADC initiative on mediation Mugabe has not shown any good will at all but
rather animosity with a view to getting rid of opposition.
May
be unlike Ms Bhutto of Pakistan, what has lacked in Zimbabwe is a
consistent
voice to call on the Mugabe government to resign and have
supervision of
election under a world body, even if it may mean arrests,
detention and
brutalization together. The cost to resist tyranny is very
expensive and
normally run into big amounts which should not be counted but
taken head on
by leadership, in order to wake up international support and
sympathy; while
at the same time pulling local crowds solidarity. Otherwise
be it Pakistan
or Zimbabwe, tyranny never repents until dealt a blow
politically through
civilian resistance. - Andrew Manyevere is a human
right activists, a
political science analyst and an adent believer in
democracy through none
violent means.
The Telegraph
By
Sebastien Berger in Johannesburg
Last Updated: 1:40am GMT
19/11/2007
A double agent in Robert Mugabe's secret police
has told how close he
came to assassinating the Zimbabwean president - only
to change his target
to ANC leaders in apartheid South Africa.
Like a true professional, Kevin Woods was very matter of fact about
planning
Mr Mugabe's murder.
A senior officer in Zimbabwe's Central
Intelligence Organisation, who
met the president regularly, he was also a
double agent for South Africa's
secret services.
He spent 20
years in Zimbabwean prisons for murder, five of them on
death row, after
being unmasked.
It is the first time since being pardoned and
deported last year that
the 55-year-old has spoken of his
activities.
He was asked to plan the killing by Maj Gray Branfield,
a South
African military intelligence officer - killed in Iraq last year -
to
coincide with a visit by Mr Mugabe to a trade fair in
Bulawayo.
"In all reality, the assassination of President Mugabe
would have been
easy," he wrote in his autobiography. "I directed the
affairs surrounding
his personal security.
"All the while he
and his entourage would follow a pre-determined
route that I had worked out,
done a reconnaissance on beforehand, checked,
timed and
planned.
"It would have been a piece of cake to direct him past a
roadside
bomb, in a dustbin for instance.
"I would sort of drop
back a few metres, detonate the bomb at the
critical moment then rush
forward to help out and protect the president.
Because of my seniority, I
would then automatically take charge of the bomb
scene and the immediate
reaction and investigation. So it would have been
beautiful
cover.
"It wasn't a game we were playing up there - making plans
for the
assassination of a head of state was part of the job."
At the time, he refused the assignment. "I knew what an evil guy he
was - it
wasn't a major moral problem for me. I was supposed to be fighting
the ANC
and Mugabe was not a legitimate target."
In the event, an
alternative plan was drawn up, he says, but was
vetoed by PW Botha, South
Africa's then leader.
Nonetheless, while waiting to be hanged, he
reconsidered his position
several times.
"On death row, I said
take me back there and I will kill him - I would
have prevented a lot of
suffering."
Now, however, he says: "I have no feelings for him. I
don't love him,
I don't hate him. I'm free.
"Mugabe's sitting
in his own jail there, he's behind a wall of razor
wire and guns. He's not
free. I take a lot of joy from that. It's fantastic
to be
free."
New Vision, Uganda
Monday, 19th November,
2007
By Milton Olupot
THE Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon
has urged human rights
organisations to speak out against abuses, saying the
practice is
unacceptable in the Commonwealth.
"You must do so
dispassionately, independently, thoroughly, but at heart
there must be
passion in what you do, because the basic rights to a vote, to
a fair trial,
to an education are just that: they are fundamental human
rights," he
said.
McKinnon was speaking at the opening of the first meeting of the
Commonwealth Forum of National Human Rights Institutions at Hotel Protea in
Kampala.
"Let me make it clear that we could point fingers at just
every country, and
show instances of the same things happening to a greater
or lesser extent,"
he said.
Only a few weeks ago, McKinon noted,
Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Sir
Michael Somare said he was ashamed of
the high level of domestic violence in
his country. He said in Pakistan's
Provisional Constitutional order of
November 3, various fundamental rights
were suspended by President Pervez
Musharaf.
He recalled that the
Commonwealth helped to end apartheid in South Africa.
He also pointed out
that Fiji was suspended last December for the
unjustifiable overthrow of a
democratically elected government.
On Zimbabwe, McKinnon said: "It was
certainly sad and difficult for us to
see Zimbabwe go beyond suspension to
withdraw itself from the Commonwealth
in 2003."
Since then they had
encouraged people-to-people links. "I certainly want the
Commonwealth's
people-to-people links to continue. But engagement with the
government is
another matter."
He regretted that Zimbabwe did not see value in
belonging to the
Commonwealth and had not accepted their approaches in
recent years.
On the political level, McKinnon observed that the
Commonwealth members
still fell short on subscribing to the basic creeds of
human rights. He
noted that 20 members had not ratified the convention
against torture, while
nine had not yet ratified the convention on the
elimination of all forms of
racial discrimination.
Uganda Human
Rights Commission chairperson Margaret Sekaggya proposed to
have an
independent forum for Commonwealth human rights institutions.
She also
noted human rights groups were faced with new challenges of
terrorism, weak
state institutions, civil wars, humanitarian and natural
disasters.
VOA
By Jonga Kandemiiri
Washington
19
November 2007
The head of the Progressive Teachers Union
of Zimbabwe said Monday that the
organization will strike if its members are
harassed on political grounds in
the runup to national elections which the
government has slated for March
2008.
PTUZ officials said many
members of the union have been subjected to
politically motivated harassment
in the country's rural areas.The strike
warning emerged from a congress held
by the union on the weekend.
PTUZ General Secretary Raymond Majongwe told
reporter Jonga Kandemiiri of
VOA's Studio 7 for Zimbabwe that the union
planned to petition President
Robert Mugabe to inform him on the plight of
the country's teachers.
The Herald (Harare)
Published by the government of Zimbabwe
19 November 2007
Posted to the
web 19 November 2007
Harare
MOST of the cattle stolen in
Mashonaland East Province are being smuggled
through illegal crossing points
into neighbouring Mozambique, where the
beasts are sold in foreign currency,
police have said.
Acting Mashonaland East provincial police spokesman
Assistant Inspector
Godfrey Mubaiwa said there was a disturbing rise in
cattle rustling in the
country as the festive season
approaches.
"We are concerned that the incidence of rustling is
increasing as the
festive season nears, with the beasts being smuggled into
Mozambique where
they have a ready lucrative market in foreign
currency.
"Of major concern to us is the fact that once the cattle are
smuggled
outside the country, it would be very difficult to trace them as
there is a
lot of red tape concerning the issue of permission to do so,"
said Asst Insp
Mubaiwa.
He said villages along the border with
Mozambique in Mudzi, Mutoko and
Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe had been particularly
vulnerable to rustling and
encouraged them to establish common communal pens
where they would take
turns to guard their livestock overnight.