SITREP MASHONALAND EAST
A so-called national task force has been
operating in Mashonaland East
today evicting farmers and demanding compliance
within a 24 hour period.
Legal opinion, ex Ray Passaportis, with regards to
the Matabeleland High
Court ruling is that this has a blanket effect on the
whole country. As
a result this "task force" is in direct conflict with the
abovementioned
ruling, copies of which are available from JAG
offices.
The JAG teams wishes to once again remind farmers of the huge
importance
of completing the loss claim document, copies of which can be
collected
from the JAG offices in Harare at 17 Phillips Avenue, Belgravia,
Harare.
Farmers can also request copies of the document via email.
Contact:
justice@telco.co.zw or justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw.
Our
team is standing by to assist you where possible.
THE JAG
TEAM
____________________________________________________
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Agriculture mailing list
To subscribe/unsubscribe: Please write to jag-list-admin@mango.zw
Daily News
Two die of starvation
10/16/02 9:00:54 AM
(GMT +2)
From Our Correspondent in Bulawayo
AT
least two villagers in Binga are reported to have died recently
from
starvation after the government stopped food aid into the district
as
punishment for Zanu PF's defeat in last month's rural district
council
elections in the area.
Although officials at
Binga hospital refused to talk about the deaths,
sources yesterday said
Siatema Siamabuyu, a villager from Nalubuyu, died
after going for days
without food. Another villager, identified only as Mrs
Fife from Simbala
village, died after eating a poisonous plant. Hospital
sources said they were
aware of the death of Fife but could not give details
as no postmortem was
conducted.
Joel Gabbuza, the Binga MP said: "With the ban of Save
The Children
UK, we are likely to witness more deaths because people have
virtually
nothing to eat."
The government stopped Save The Children
from distributing food aid in
Binga last week.
Daily News
Thousands queue for maize-meal
10/16/02
9:25:18 AM (GMT +2)
Staff Reporter
IN WHAT was one
of the longest queues ever seen in Harare, more than 7
000 people waited
patiently on Friday at the grinding mill of a Kuwadzana 5
businessman to
purchase maize-meal, which was selling for $300 per 10kg bag.
It was
not clear where the maize was coming from.
A Daily News
crew which visited the centre was briefly detained by two
men claiming to be
war veterans and a bunch of Zanu PF youths. The Zanu PF
activists demanded
the photographer's film which carried pictures of people
in the queue and
refused to let the crew go until they took down their
national identification
numbers.
The group accused the Daily News of being "servants of the
British"
and insulted Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC president, in unprintable
language.
The owner of the grinding mill was not around and the journalists
were saved
from a beating by the arrival of the businessman's son. "We supply
the whole
of Kuwadzana, Mufakose and Dzivarasekwa," the businessman's son
said,
insisting they were only providing a community service.
Daily News
Cleric traces root of Mugabe, Blair
conflict
10/16/02 8:38:43 AM (GMT +2)
From Simba
Chabarika in Johannesburg
Colonial memories - and not the land
question - are the root cause of
the deep animosity between the British Prime
Minister Tony Blair and
President Mugabe, the general secretary of the
Lutheran World Federation, Dr
Ishmael Noko, said here on
Monday.
Noko, a Zimbabwean, said African nations and people
had been enveloped
in a vicious cycle of violence throughout much of their
history. He was
speaking at the opening of a week-long, first ever
Inter-Faith Peace Summit
being held in Benoni, near Johannesburg. He said the
brutality of slavery
and colonialism compounded the violence of the Africans'
pre-colonial past.
"The violence continues to the extent that Africa is at
best a continent of
cured, but unhealed, memories. A classic example is the
tension which
exploded between President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tony Blair
during the
recent World Summit on Sustainable Development here in
Johannesburg. "The
tension between these two leaders goes far beyond the
legitimate issue of
land redistribution, to events that occurred more than
100 years ago.
"While the Lancaster House Constitutional Agreement
of 1979 produced
what seemed to be a 'cure' for the political situation, it
has not, however,
brought about genuine healing of the memories between
Zimbabwe and the
United Kingdom," Noko said. The Geneva-based clergyman was
speaking to more
than 100 delegates from 21 African countries and observers
from Sweden,
Finland and the United States of America. Noko said he was
convinced that
unless and until those memories were genuinely healed and
reconciled, the
tension between the two countries would continue, regardless
of the current
political leaders remaining in power or the land
redistribution question
being resolved.
"I, therefore, suggest
that the religious communities of both Zimbabwe
and the United Kingdom
consult together to find a way of moving beyond the
current arguments to a
form of true reconciliation." Noko said there were
many unhealed memories in
Africa, including between many of the nations and
communities represented at
the summit. "Images of mutilated children, women
and men in some of the
recent conflicts in our region, force one to question
the moral and ethical
fibre of an Africa in which such things are allowed to
happen. The power of
modern weapons has lent a special horror to
contemporary conflicts in Africa
and elsewhere," he said.
The religious beliefs of Africans, which
had many common values,
provided a rich resource for peace and reconciliation
in the continent, Noko
said. South African Deputy President Jacob Zuma opened
the landmark summit
whose theme is Embracing the Gift of Peace. Zuma said
African leaders must
be monitored to ensure that they followed the
undertakings they made,
especially where peace agreements were concerned.
Daily News
Free trip to Zimbabwe finds few takers among New York
councillors
10/16/02 9:29:44 AM (GMT +2)
By Dave
Goldiner
A New York city councilman arrived in Zimbabwe at the
weekend for a
controversial "fact-finding" trip, but just one out of 50 other
council
members agreed to go with him.
Councilman
Charles Barron earlier predicted a dozen council members
would accept
President Mugabe's offer to pay for a free luxury week-long
trip.
But faced with an outcry over Mugabe's crackdown on the opposition
and
violent seizure of white-owned farms, only one other councilman - James
E
Davis of Brooklyn - agreed to go on the junket.
"We're not
disappointed," said Paul Washington, Barron's chief of
staff. "There were a
lot of scheduling issues." Washington said the
delegation plans to meet with
MDC leaders, The Daily News Editor-in-Chief,
Geoffrey Nyarota, and commercial
farmers as well as government supporters.
But he admitted he had made no
effort to contact anyone outside of
government officials.
"We'll
set all that up when we get there, on Sunday," he said. Barron
admits he has
already made up his mind that Mugabe is a hero for grabbing
thousands of
white-owned farms for distribution to veterans of the country's
liberation
war and leaders of his ruling Zanu PF party. But even the lone
councilman who
agreed to go with him said he was not going to Zimbabwe just
to sing Mugabe's
praises.
"If he is taking land by force or violence, I will condemn
him," Davis
aid. "I'm not on the same page as Council member Barron." The
Zimbabwe
government is paying for the nine-member delegation's round trip air
tickets
from London as well as their meals and accommodation at the
Sheraton.
Washington said he could not provide a price tag for the
trip.
The vast majority of council members want nothing to do with
Mugabe
and his propaganda charade - especially when millions are facing
starvation
in Zimbabwe.
"Between Aids, starvation and human rights
violations, the situation
in Zimbabwe is a mess," said Phil Reed of Harlem.
"There are millions of
lives at stake and we should not be doing anything to
encourage Mugabe."
Even some of the handful of council men who cheered
Mugabe when he
came to New York City Hall last month later developed cold
feet.
They backed out of the trip after they did some homework
about the
extent of opposition to his rule - especially among black
Zimbabweans. "I've
gotten quite a bit of direction about the issues," said
William Perkins, a
Harlem Democrat. "I wasn't going to go over there as a
stooge of the
government."
A leading Mugabe critic also blasted the
trip last week, calling it
"unconscionable" to splash money on visiting VIPs
when the government is
going hat in hand to the West for millions in famine
aid.
"The money would be better spent on the starving people,"
said
University of Zimbabwe professor Masipula Sithole, who is serving as
a
visiting scholar in the US. "It is disgusting to say the least, given
the
problems we are facing as a nation."
Zimbabwean president meets US delegation on land issue
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xinhuanet 2002-10-17 04:08:01 HARARE, Oct. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Zimbabwe Robert
President Mugabe said here Wednesday that the agrarian reforms which the
governmenthad embarked on were expected to turn around the economic situation in
Zimbabwe despite the efforts of the country's detractors who were doing
everything to bring the country down.
Mugabe made the remarks when he met a 10-member United States
delegation led by New York City council member Charles Barron who arrived here
on Sunday on a fact-finding mission focusing on the land reform program.
"We are not just transferring land from the whites to the peasants. We
are actually investing a lot of money into it to develop it. We are praying
that it is not another bad season. Unless God punishes us with another season
of drought, you are going to hear wonders in Zimbabwe," he told the US
delegation.
"It is not just for the farmers, be they black or white, but even
spiritual leaders. It is interesting to see them take positions, which are
diametrically opposed to each other,"
he said.
"It is also racial. Whites are condemning us for taking our land. But
we believe we are doing the right thing. Anyone who wants to do farming can now
do so," he added.
He said history had conditioned the whites to positions of superior in
the economic sectors while the blacks were expected tobe satisfied with
political power alone.
President Mugabe said the government was working hard to resuscitate
those sectors of the economy such as manufacturing, mining, tourism,
pharmaceuticals and many others which were crucial to sustain the economic
recovery.
"We have set up committees to study problems in all sectors to
establish what can be done to sustain them," he said.
Commenting on the remarks by the Commercial Farmers Union director Dave
Husluck, President Mugabe said the farmers should pressure Britain to pay them
compensation as it had promised at the Lancaster House Agreement of 1979.
Sent: Wednesday, October 16, 2002 1:22 PM
Subject: Shooting in Insiza
Many of you will know that we have a bi-election under way in the Insiza
District just north of Bulawayo. Its a rural constituency and the seat fell
vacant when the incumbent MDC Member of Parliament, George Ndlovu, died after
eating some fruit at a conference and then collapsing at the wheel of his
vehicle on the way home.
It is a solid MDC area and the bi-election is being contested by both Zanu
PF and the MDC. Last night, a team of MDC supporters in two vehicles were
returning from compaigning in the area when they were ambushed on the road,
virtually outside the local Police Station. In the subsequent mellee, one of
the team Darlington Kadengu, was shot by a Zanu PF supporter - he is in Hospital
in the area and although not critical is seriously injured. The two vehicles
were extensively damaged.
Reports from the incident claim that the shot was in fact fired by the Zanu
PF candidate (Mr Langa) who at the time was being restrained by the local Member
in Charge of the Police (Inspector Shoko). It is alleged that the MIC was
trying to stop the Zanu candidate using his weapon.
One member of the MDC team was detained by the Police in custody and his
fate is not known. Vice President Sibanda from the MDC is going to the area at
noon today to follow up the incident. he drove back to Bulawayo from Harare
where he was attending Parliament, as soon as he heard of the incident. The bi
election will be held on the 26th and 27th of October.
Eddie Cross Bulawayo, 16th October 2002.
Daily News
There must be more maize-meal in London
10/16/02 9:36:08 AM (GMT +2)
ONE of the government
newspapers had this headline over a story about
London: Is life in London
worth the effort?
It was, thankfully, a Reuters story.
Whatever their detractors say
about their alleged partisanship, the people at
this news agency have built
up a good reputation for fairness and accuracy.
This feature on the high
cost of living in the British capital didn't paint
an overly grim picture of
how expensive the city has become, or an
unnecessarily rosy picture of this
city of Jack the Ripper and Ken
Livingstone.
It even had someone saying they wouldn't live anywhere
else but in
London. Which some people have been heard to say about Zimbabwe,
not
surprisingly. It must come as a surprise to some, however, to learn
that
Ziana, the government's poodle news agency now tottering on the brink
of
collapse, had any association with Reuters. Come to think of it, can
you
believe that the ZBC had any association with the BBC?
Zanu
PF has an incredible aversion to anything that smacks of
fairness. All
journalists who ever worked for the government media in the
early years of
independence and then fell out with the control freaks in
Zanu PF, were
thrown out for one reason - they tried their damnedest to tell
the truth.
Zanu PF is scared of the truth the way the vampire is scared of
daylight.
They may not be aware of it, but they promote yellow journalism,
about which
someone once said: "The reason why such journals lie is that it
pays to lie;
or, in other words, this is the very reason for which they are
silly and
scandalous and indecent. They supply a want of a
demoralised
public."
The article in London was not written by a
party hack. They are these
pathetic young people who have given journalism a
bad name. Older scribes
now prefer to introduce themselves as chroniclers.
This can be confusing as
the simpletons might accuse you of working for The
Chronicle. You really
have to be desperate to work there.
My
suspicion on reading the headline was they were once again
lampooning London,
for the benefit of the thousands of Zimbabweans queuing
to renew their
passports for travel to this new El Dorado. As far as the
government and its
media are concerned, there can be no reason why a
red-blooded Zimbabwean
would want to leave this beautiful country with its
deranged, bloodthirsty
Green Bombers, to go to cold, damp, crowded London
with its friendly
Bobbies.
What? Even if they don't have a job, no food, no prospect
of any in
the foreseeable future as long as a certain old man believes Fate
decided he
ought to rule this country until one of them dies - the country or
himself?
What they won't explain to the satisfaction of even their
most
gullible supporters is why the red-blooded folks keep flying off to
this
cold, damp place.
Most are fleeing because they can no
longer eat their staple food in
their own country. What are their chances of
finding a lot of maize-meal in
the shops in Brixton or the other areas of
London and England where there
are now such large concentrations of
Zimbabweans (I hear there are pubs
named, nostalgically, Marengenya and
Mapitikoti - except the pronunciation
is something like MaRange and
MacPit)?
The chances of an abundance of maize-meal in the UK must
be fair.
There has to be more mugaiwa in the London shops than anywhere in
Zimbabwe,
otherwise how would these people survive? Some readers would
remember my
search for maize-meal in London many years ago. I wrote about it
somewhere.
Others wouldn't remember it. I would not blame them for that bit
of amnesia.
In Zimbabwe today, people are mostly concerned with IQ - I queue.
Sadza or
isitshwala defines what it is to be a Zimbabwean.
Would
the English be English without steak and kidney - even during
the horrors of
the mad cow disease? The Scots without haggis, the Americans
without mother's
apple pie and Coca-Cola, the Italians without pasta, the
Chinese without
rice, the Mexicans without tortillas, the Ghanaians without
fufu?
Without sadza, Zimbabweans now look distinctly bewildered, walking
around
with the permanently sloshed look of the lush.
You see it in their
eyes; they are disoriented. If you put two fingers
in front of them and ask:
How many? I bet most of them would holler: "Who
the hell cares? Where is the
sadza, man?" My search for maize-meal in
London, in 1964, was in the company
of the late George Nyandoro, who was in
Britain recovering from an operation
but was still politicking for the
nationalist movement.
He said he
had not eaten the stuff for sometime and was getting quite
desperate. I had
been in London for a week or so and had not eaten it
either. We both had
severe pangs of longing.
We searched high and low until we found
the equivalent. I can't
remember where we bought it from, but it was enough
of a substitute for us
to sit down in George's humble "digs" and pretend we
were back in Harare
township. Previously, people bound for London took with
them a bag or two of
maize-meal for relatives living there, and getting
uglier and uglier and
fatter and fatter on junk food.
Now that the
staple has become as rare in this country as a free and
fair election, they
can't even smuggle it in their hand luggage because they
have to find it
first.
Since it is now a crime to be found with maize whose origin
you cannot
explain, what is a person to do? Steal it, of course. One reason
some people
have used to rationalise their theft of maize - or sugar, cooking
and
bread - is quite breathtaking in its logicality: If the government
could
steal a whole election from them, why would they feel guilty about
stealing
something as teensy-weensy as a loaf of bread from anybody, but
particularly
the government?
So, there are a lot of people with
creeping kleptomania who believe
they could get away with the theft by
claiming they stole because the
government can still not explain why it stole
their vote last March. The
irony is that while hundreds of Zimbabweans can
hop on a plane and dash off
to London - and probably have to dash back after
being told their papers are
not in order - the President and his many
hangers-on, who are accused of
stealing the election, can forget about taking
their wives shopping at
Harrods' for a long time to come.
It's
even more ironic that it's the alleged theft of the election for
which the
old man and his friends are being denied the chance to shop for
those
expensive designer suits in Oxford Street and in fashionable Chelsea.
What
must be even more painful for the leaders is that those Zimbabweans in
the UK
do not have to queue for anything, except to get into the cinema.
Someone in
the government said they intended to hit back at the UK and the
USA with
their own sanctions.
So far, the effect has been as painful as being
attacked by a drunken
butterfly.
bsaidi@dailynews.co.zw
Christian Science Monitor
from the October 16, 2002 edition
When the rains come, I won't want an umbrella
By Kate
Chambers
I'm waiting for the rains.
I never thought I'd
say that. When I was growing up in England, rain
was a bit of a pain. It
meant waterproof jackets in decidedly unfashionable
colors and - horror of
horrors - those voluminous waterproof trousers my
mother made us wear if we
were bicycling to school.
E-mail this
story
Write a letter to the
Editor
Printer-friendly
version
Later, when I was working in Paris, the
prospect of rain meant shoving
an umbrella into an already-bulging handbag.
It meant damp commuters crammed
into a steaming rush-hour métro and wet seats
on the bus.
Now, in Zimbabwe, I've learned that rain means life.
It's as simple as
that. The rainy season should start soon, maybe this month,
most likely
next. Summer should mean showers in this part of Africa, and,
unlike in
England, no-one wants it any other way. We're all looking up to the
skies.
You see, there's been no rain here for nearly a year. The
grass
outside my round thatched cottage is bleached yellow. In the morning,
hungry
storks perch there, pecking for insects. But the ants are inside.
They've
invaded my house in their search for water. Myriads of red-clay ant
tunnels
snake up the stone walls behind the sofa.
You can't put
your feet on the floor - not for any length of time. For
now, I limit myself
to brief e-mails, ants crawling up my ankles under the
computer
desk.
I dream of the sea. No longer do I laugh at my husband and
the plastic
water bottle he takes with him everywhere he goes.
No rain means no food, or not much of it, anyway. Half of
Zimbabwe's
population faces food shortages as a direct result of the drought.
The corn
crop failed, so there's very little of the staple mealie-meal -
what
Americans call cornmeal.
People line up for hours for
bread, only to find that loaf sizes have
mysteriously shrunk. Less patient
than many, I've switched to rice,
thankfully still in good supply. But
there's no more hot, dripping toast or
mealies (corn on the cob) for lunch.
These days it's pasta al burro.
Collectively, we're a nation
obsessed. Radio news bulletins urge
farmers to get ready for the rains. The
nightly television weather forecasts
report on the cloud coverage over
Zimbabwe, even though the clouds haven't
actually got to breaking so far.
Where there's a cloud, there's hope,
apparently.
It rained
during my first year here. The heavens broke the day after
my wedding - rains
are taken as a sure sign of blessing in this culture -
and I had never seen a
storm like it.
Naively, I wondered if the thatched roof would hold.
It did, of
course: They know how to build things to withstand Africa's harsh
elements
here. But we still got wet inside. The thunder and lightning knocked
out the
electricity for days on end, leaving the clumsy old
refrigerator-freezer
we'd been given to slowly but surely defrost over the
floor.
As I write this, late one October afternoon, the skies are
darkening
and there's the rumble of thunder far away. Will it, won't it? I
wonder. I
long for the strong, sweet smell of damp earth in the morning and
the sight
of water-logged purple jacaranda blossoms carpeting the
grass.
When these rains come, I won't be wanting an umbrella.
Animals : The Silent VictimsPictures from Monday's Daily News.....a few of the 100's
of farm pets put down as a result of rabid robert's chaotic "land reform"
policy.
But at least they are having a merciful exit.....as Meryl
Harrison said, "We cannot offer them a good life, so the least we can do is
offer them a peaceful death."
Message 1:
From: A.I. and ALLY
Subject: RE: CFU
CFU
MEMBERS,PRESIDENT & ALL MEMBERS OF JAG,
So sorry to hear about the
explosive meeting held with the Matland branch
of CFU and Colin
Cloete.
Firstly I think that we should agree to disagree, we're all
entitled to
our own opinions but should try to stand united against the
current
regime, a referendum would be appropriate to map our way forward
and
find out what the majority of CFU members would prefer.
It is so
easy to talk in hindsight but lets be honest - how can we
possibly hope to
have dialogue and build bridges with a Government/
President who boasts of
having "degrees in violence" and who has
consistently harrassed, intimidated
and in some cases killed a number of
our members AND their workers. How has
dialogue assisted us over the
past two years???? Made and co have even
admitted in the media that they
don't want to talk to farmers. They must
think that we are ignorant
cowards, when they take away our only livelihood,
(after so much input
and so many years of hard work) and we just pat them on
the back and say
"Well done", now lets build some bridges together and now
you can take
the shirt off my back ...
Please don't get me wrong as I
am not against Land Reform, but I do
think that it should be done in a
transparent manner, with current
market value compensation and equal
distribution, why are none of our
farm workers benefitting from the land, as
they have the first hand
knowledge, experience and need for land.
We
all know that land for all is a farce and that the fat cats are the
only
people gaining from the current situation.
My last point is controvercial
I know, but it has to be spoken about.
In our district and in most other
districts it seems as if the wealthier
farmers are more prone to making deals
and supporting the ruling party,
they could probably afford not to farm for
the coming year or so and yet
they choose to aid and abet the current
ruthless and violent regime, as
long as their interests are protected - on
the other hand most of the
farmers with more to lose and less security feel
that we should stand up
for what is right and think long term and not just
short term for what we
can gain and reap in this time of adversity. I am not
generalizing but
those who have made deals, you should be ashamed of
yourselves as you
have contributed to the destruction of the Agricultural
industry by
normalising the abnormal.
When and not if things change, I
know that we will have no regrets and
that we stood for what was morally
right.
How can you not attempt to protect your rights when you have the
option
of litigation against those who are trying to undermine your right
to
ownership of land (considering that it was legally bought and paid for
by
yourself and offered to GOVERNMENT who in turn gave a certificate of
NO
INTEREST)?
To the JAG team and Jenni Williams I admire your
courage, perserverance
and determination in these troubled times of
adversity.
To Mac Crawford, I salute you, you are sincere, courageous and
you are
doing a brilliant job at the helm of CFU Matland.
To Ben
Freeth I say KEEP THE FAITH, it will set us free.
To all farmers wives,
be brave and keep up the moral support.
To all farmers, there is a long
term future in Zim, we just have to
perservere. Don't listen to all the
negative minded people (if they're
unhappy they should have left for NZ,U.K.
etc ages ago and tell them
that), be positive but be realistic as we still
have a way to go, the
winds of change are blowing and nothing can reverse
them - people are
tired of man made famine, torture, rape and violence as a
daily ocurrence
in our once peaceful country.
All the best, my
thoughts are with you.
Ally
Message 2:
Peter Goosen is
looking for a good second hand 50 to 60 ha centre pivot.
He is also
seeking a maize head for a John Deere 940 type combine.
Pete's email
address is pentagoosen@comone.co.zw
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