New York Times
Corruption and Despair Choke Zimbabwe
By MICHAEL
WINES
Published: October 19, 2003HARARE, Zimbabwe — The
Herald, the relentlessly sunny pro-government
newspaper in Zimbabwe's
threadbare capital, insists on its front page that
life here is on the mend.
But the classifieds suggest otherwise.
An enterprising merchant named
Zariro advertises 260-pound concrete slabs
for mourners to cover and protect
the fresh graves of departed loved ones.
"These days when you bury your
dead, you have to spend the night there,"
Preston, a 27-year-old who supports
his family through black-market currency
trading, explained on a recent day.
"If you don't look after the grave, the
next morning you'll come back and
find the body lying on the ground, and the
coffin gone."
Many here
might call that a good analogy for Zimbabwe itself.
This nation was once
one of Africa's most prosperous states. But it is
prostrate today, its vital
signs flickering, asphyxiated by ever-tighter
governmental curbs on the
economy and basic freedoms. Driven by desperation,
greed or simply a sense
that the end is nearing, its rulers and citizens are
methodically stripping
the country of its assets.
Zimbabwe has been officially off limits to
foreign journalists since
February, when President Robert G. Mugabe's
government pushed a law through
Parliament effectively banning outside
reporters as tools of European and
American critics. But a low-profile tour
of the country for 11 days this
month found no shortage of domestic critics,
both black and white, and an
outright glut of human misery.
Desperate
citizens here have become dark-of-night scavengers of coffins,
copper
electrical cable and even aluminum street signs, now in such shortage
that
finding an address is a trial.
Zimbabwe's nights are dark indeed: here in
Harare, downtown street lights
are turned off for lack of foreign currency to
pay South African and Zambian
power suppliers.
If the nights are
black, the days often exude an eerie surface calm. In
Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's
second largest city, the handful of Western-style
supermarkets remain
bustling and half full of goods, though prices rise so
fast that any three
bottles of ketchup are likely to bear three different
price stickers. Inns
reflexively hand out candles and matches to visitors to
address power
failures.
But much of the calm is government-enforced, courtesy of a
domestic
intelligence organization and a rural youth militia, the Green
Bombers,
widely feared for its brutality.
Although it went widely
unreported, hundreds of factory workers in Bulawayo
and Harare clashed
violently with the police recently after trying to
protest the cruelest of
ironies: Zimbabwe's soaring inflation has pushed
them into the 45 percent tax
bracket once reserved solely for the rich.
A better measure of life is
the fenced-off compound of the British and South
African High Commissions in
Harare's suburbs, where crowds of Zimbabweans
camp out nightly, hoping to be
first in line when visa offices open the next
morning.
At 7 a.m., a
half-block-square area outside the South African commission is
jammed with
hundreds of applicants. The crush is so great that South Africa
now requires
Zimbabweans to post a bond of about $160 American dollars for a
mere two-week
visa, a sizable sum intended to guarantee their return.
"I haven't had a
job in two years — nobody here has a job," a 27-year-old
man, a onetime
roofer who identified himself only as Moses, said as he
waited to pick up his
visa recently. "I'm going to Pretoria to try to find
something."
He is
one of the lucky ones. In a ramshackle open-air market south of
Victoria
Falls, hard against two camps of hundreds of shacks of scavenged
planks and
cardboard, Sibangisiwe Masuku, 19, buys corn kernels at the
equivalent of
$1.44 in American dollars for 2.2 pounds, grinds them into
flour and sells
them for $2.24. On a good day, she makes well under a dollar
in
profit.
Her parents are dead — of what, she would not say. She moved in
with a
sister, who died of tuberculosis last month. Now she stays with a
second
sister, living on corn porridge and tea.
BBC
Zimbabwe fuel company 'runs
dry'
|
Fuel shortages worsened after a deal with
Libya collapsed | Zimbabwe's state-controlled oil company has run out of fuel,
plunging national infrastructure and emergency services into crisis, fuel
officials have reportedly said.
The country's state-controlled newspaper, The Herald,
quotes a source at the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) as saying:
"There is not a drop of fuel here, though some is expected next week."
However, the country's Minister of Energy and Power
Development Ambassador, Amos Midzi, told the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation
there was adequate fuel in the country.
In August, fuel prices in Zimbabwe rose by up to 500%
after the government announced it had ended price controls.
The Herald reported the lack of fuel at NOCZIM had
led to ambulance fleets, army vehicles and the public transport sector becoming
"paralysed".
Health fears
Relatives of some sick Zimbabweans had been asked to
provide their own fuel for the journey to hospital, according to The Herald.
"A medical officer at the Beitbridge Rural District
Hospital confirmed having asked some relatives of sick people to refuel
ambulances for their sick to be ferried to referral centres in Gwanda or
Bulawayo," the paper said.
The country's fuel shortage has worsened since a
trade deal with its main supplier, Libya, collapsed in November 2002.
The country is also struggling with a widespread cash
shortage, inflation of almost 400% and unemployment of about 70%.
Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for
Democratic Change, blames President Robert Mugabe for the mismanagement of the
economy during his 23-year rule.
Mr Mugabe blames international opponents for
sabotaging the economy because of his controversial policy of seizing
white-owned farms. |
18 Oct 2003 09:52 GMT
Light Plane Crashes In Zimbabwe, 4 Reported
Killed Copyright © 2003, Dow Jones Newswires
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP)--Four people were killed when a light plane
crashed in
a densely populated Harare suburb at 9 a.m. local time (0700 GMT)
Saturday,
the state broadcaster reported.
The Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation said the pilot and two occupants
of the Beechcraft 55 aircraft
and a passer-by were killed when it crashed
trying to make an emergency
landing on a road in the densely populated
Kuwadzana suburb southwest of the
capital.
The report said one of the four occupants of the aircraft
was rushed
to hospital and two passers-by were seriously
injured.
The plane was reportedly flying from Harare to the resort
town of
Kariba. The names and nationalities of those killed have not been
determined
yet.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October
18, 2003 05:52 ET (09:52 GMT)
SOKWANELE
Enough is
Enough
PROMOTING NON-VIOLENT PRINCIPLES TO ACHIEVE
DEMOCRACY
We have a
fundamental right to freedom of
expression!
18 October 2003
BEITBRIDGE – ZIMBABWE
Illegal hunting
continues.
PRESS RELEASE
Once again Zimbabwean farm
owners are fighting the scourge of South African
meat hunters exploiting the
confusion over land ownership for their own gain.
Family members of the
owners of Mavimba Ranch, on the Zhovhe Dam in Beit
Bridge, report that South
African hunters Lourens van
Zyl and Johan
Roos
were discovered Thursday evening (16 October 2003) encamped on the
farm's
cottage veranda by friends who had gone to the farm for a weekend
of
fishing.
The South Africans, driving a Nissan Safari (registration number DZZ615N)
had arrived the
day before to hunt on the property under the auspices of the
"New Settlers"
but had been unable to get into the locked cottage. They had been told by
Alpheus (or Alfred) Moyo, the spokesman for the settlers on the property, that
the cottage key would be brought from the "former" owner of the farm. The farm
owner had no knowledge of their presence on his property.
Among the South
African hunters' supplies and equipment at the cottage were hunting rifles,
numerous large basins and spices for processing game meat into biltong (jerky),
and a large deep freeze that had been plugged into the owner's generator, all
indicating that they had every intention of removing the meat back to South
Africa despite the current South African moratorium on moving meat from Zimbabwe
into South Africa due to the severe Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak affecting
that country.
Unable to make use of the cottage, the friends returned to
the owner's home to report the incident and Patti and Paul Bristow immediately
went to Mavimba to confront the hunters. Van Zyl and Roos claimed that they had
been shown permits to hunt that had been approved by the local National Parks
representative in Beit Bridge, though they did not have copies.
There is
a battery of legal requirements before foreign nationals are permitted to hunt
in Zimbabwe: Land owners must apply for seasonal quotas (based on a percentage
of existing game population estimates) which must be approved and stamped by the
Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management (DNPWM); foreign hunters
must, at all times, be accompanied by a licensed, registered Zimbabwean
Professional Hunter who is responsible that the hunt is conducted legally and
ethically; DNPWM-approved pre-hunt forms must be completed by the attending
Professional Hunter stating each foreign hunter's name and address, game species
and numbers to be hunted, and daily rates charged. Hunting/safari/tour
operators hosting foreign clients must be registered with the Zimbabwe Tourism
Authority (on production of, among other things, proof of public liability
insurance), who take a 2% levy on daily rates earned from the hunt. If trophies
are to be exported, there must be proof that payment in foreign currency was
banked within two weeks of the conclusion of the hunt. It has not been
established to what extent these requirements were met by these South
Africans.
Van Zyl and Roos claimed that they had telephoned the District
Administrator, Eddison Mbezi, and the Department of National Parks and Wildlife
in Beit Bridge, who had assured them that their planned hunt on the property was
legal and above board.
They said that additional South African clients
were due to arrive on Mavimba on Friday to join them for the hunt, and
complained that they spent "a lot" of money coming to Zimbabwe.
Mrs
Bristow unsympathetically pointed out to the two hunters that her father had
been forced to sell all his stud Bonsmara cattle on the property at below market
value, that her brother-in-law and former manager of the property had been
forced off the farm with nothing but the clothes he was wearing, and that their
paltry R300 to enter Zimbabwe was nothing compared to the losses she, her family
and hundreds of other farmers in a similar
position had suffered as a result
of the illegal land acquisition process that the hunters like them were so
unashamedly exploiting. Mrs Bristow
offered them the opportunity to make a written signed statement naming
individuals responsible for "allowing" them to hunt on Mavimba in order to clear
their names, but they declined to do so.
Investigations reveal that
National Parks Officer Mr McLean Jakobi of the DNPWM in Beit Bridge had not been
contacted by the South Africans, nor did he authorise the hunt, as claimed by
van Zyl and Roos. Hunting quotas and pre-hunt forms are stamped only at the
DNPWM regional headquarters, in this case, Bulawayo.
The District
Administrator was not available for comment.
The incident comes on the
heals of a similar one in which, quite by coincidence, a Dwayne van Zyl and
others were arrested in Beit Bridge for hunting illegally on Chipizi Farm in
West Nicholson. Dwayne and his colleagues are being investigated not only for
shooting a hippo and CITES-protected crocodile during that foray,
but also for their connection to the illegal slaughter of a black rhino
and two elephants on another farm
in the area. A large quantity of raw meat
and game skins were confiscated from a biltong shop in Musina, owned by Lourens'
father, after South African Nature Conservation
authorities were alerted to
the Chipizi hunt.
Informants at Mavimba reported that Lourens van Zyl and
Johan Roos hunted on
the farm some weeks ago, killing two zebra and
wounding an eland. The Police and DNPWM officers went to the farm today,
and a number of persons were arrested , but van Zyl and Roos have absconded and
are believed to be trying to cross the Limpopo River into South Africa elsewhere
than at the border post.
Ends
From Enough is Enough
GUARDS SHOT
18/10/2003
Three MDC security guards were today shot by Ronnie Chihota, the President of
Zimbabwe Progressive Party, a local fringe Zimbabwean political party.
At 11 am today, Mr. Chihota arrived at Harvest House, the office of the
Movement for Democratic Change, on Nelson Mandela Ave in Harare.
Mr. Chihota parked his vehicle, a maroon BMW, number plate CHIHOTA GP, and
then rushed into Harvest House. He attempted to bypass the security guards at
the desk, to avoid being searched. The security guards gave pursuit, and
realized that he had a firearm.
By the time Mr. Chihota had reached the third floor, these security guards
had caught up, and a struggle over the possession of the firearm ensured. During
the struggle, one of the security guard, Wellington Kanyanga was shot in the
chest. Two other security guards, Ambitious Muzuva and Milton Mberengwa also
received firearm wounds to their legs.
During the struggle, Mr. Chihota shot himself in the hand. Finally, Mr.
Chihota was disarmed, and Wellington Kanyanga was rushed to Avenues Clinic in a
taxi.
The police then arrived, and proceeded to arrest Mr. Chihota. They did not
handcuff Mr. Chihota, but instead asked him to accompany them. They also allowed
him to check on his vehicle before leaving with them.
At the time of Mr. Chihota’s arrival, an MDC National Organizing meeting was
taking place. Upon hearing shots inside the building, there was widespread
panic, and people fled from the building leaving their belongings.
After arresting Mr. Chihota, police officers proceeded to illegally raid
Harvest House, taking with them papers and moneys belonging to the MDC and MDC
members that had fled the scene.
Mr. Chihota, as the president of the Zimbabwe Progress Party, has an office
in Harvest House. However, both Mr. Ronnie Chihota and his father, Mr. Chihota
Snr, have strong business links to Zanu-Pf.
The three security guards and Mr. Chihota were taken to Avenues clinic where
they received treatment.
Subject: Falling through the cracks
Dear Family and Friends,
Zimbabweans have become a lost tribe. There may be
eleven and a half million of us still living here but there are millions more
scattered across the African continent and in almost every country in the
world. In my letter today I would like to try and give you a little piece of
"home", a beat of our Zimbabwean heart and, if I succeed, I would like to ask
for your help. Many, many Zimbabweans are now in desperate conditions and are
falling through the cracks and you can help them.
On Thursday the 16th
of October the first rains of the season fell onto our troubled land. After a
fortnight of suffocating heat the clouds at last began to appear. It was so hot
that even the scantest of clothing was too much, shoes were unbearable, walking
was exhausting and the slightest exertion sapped any energy even at 7 in the
morning. At first the clouds were white whisps floating across the stark and
almost painfully blue sky and gradually they changed to grey and then became
great towering mountains of deep purple. Faint rumbles of thunder in the far
distance grew closer as the days passed and then came the streaks of brilliant
lightning - threatening rain, promising moisture but just teasing us, making us
more exhausted than before. Finally, on Thursday afternoon huge drops came down,
accompanied by roaring thunder and terrifying lightning. It was a short shower
lasting less than five minutes, not measurable, but enough to cool the sand
which had burned our bare feet. The rain stopped and then came those few minutes
of complete silence that always come after a storm; a silence which even the
birds observe, almost as if they too are thanking God for bringing the rain back
after half a year. The smell of the first rain in Zimbabwe is pure heaven and
there are few words to describe that clean, freshness that fills the air as six
months of dust settle.
The next day the first rain of 6 months really
came. From midday till sunset the clouds had gathered and built up, lightning
streaked down the sky every couple of minutes and the noise from the thunder was
so loud you could hardly hear yourself think. Just before dark the heavens
opened, the trees and windowsills were washed and the gutters spluttered
out their muddy, leaf filled water. The evening air was divinely cool
afterwards, filled with the calls of a thousand frogs which appeared from
nowhere and crickets and cicadas singing desperately for their
mates.
This year, for the fourth season in a row, Zimbabwe
enters its period of life and renewal surrounded by death and the most appalling
suffering.Our farms have become little more than weekend holiday retreats for
political heavyweights while the fields lie derelict and unploughed. On other
farms resettled people squabble between themselves for the last of the pickings.
These people are now destitute and cannot afford to even plough the
land that they took, let alone sustain it. There is neither seed nor fertilizer
to buy in the shops. Our schools grow emptier by the day as inflation soars and
this term, for the first time ever we have been asked to pay a massive
supplementary fee to keep the school open for the next 6 weeks. Our hospitals
are an abomination with almost no staff, grossly overcrowded wards and patients
who lie literally waiting to die. There are almost no drugs, patients have to
supply their own food and the doctors do not speak our language as they have
been imported from Cuba. Pensioners and elderly people have become prisoners in
their own homes. They cannot afford to buy food which changes in price from one
day to the next, let alone pay their utility bills. Heart breaking stories are
told of elderly people who dedicated their lives to building our country now
committing suicide because they cannot afford to stay alive. On our back streets
painfully thin dogs roam in packs looking for scraps on which to survive as
their owners can no longer afford to feed themselves let alone their dogs. In
urban shanties and rural villages grandmothers desperately try and support
enormous families of aids orphaned children. In dark and squalid rooms fourteen
year old children whose parents have died find themselves as the head of
households and they resort to begging and stealing to try and feed their
siblings.
I don't often ask for people's help anymore but now
I am. For three and a half years we have watched the politicians, listened to
the rhetoric, tolerated the abuses and witnessed the destruction of the fabric
of Zimbabwean society. So many of us have put our lives on the line, lost our
jobs and stood up for what is right. If you would like to help us survive until
we can rebuild and reunite our country please help in whatever way you can. Very
brief details are listed below, please contact them to assist:
WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise) provides food for
the urban poor, school fees for orphans, medical consumables for the sick,
support for women. Contact: wozazimbabwe@yahoo.com
ZANE (Zimbabwe A National Emergency) provides
support for the elderly and pensioners and works hand in hand with Rotary
groups. Contact: info@artlines.co.uk
ZIMBABWE APPEAL FUND assists victims of organised
violence and torture; help with legal, medical and psychological support; assist
with food, clothing and shelter; works with local human rights organisations.
Contact: r.monroe@virgin.net or r.monroe@ntlworld.com
ZAWT (Zimbabwe Agriculture Welfare Trust) supports
former farmers, farm workers and their families. Assists with re-training and
re-establishment of broken lives. Contact: jmab@zawt.org
NETGO (Nowhere Else To GO) provides support for
activists and victims of violence. Finds food and shelter for displaced people,
assists with feeding people in prison. NETGO do not want your money but your
ears and eyes! To be included on their information mailing list please contact:
songbird@mweb.co.zw
PET RESCUE PROJECT provides critical food and
veterinary supplies for the ZNSPCA. Contact: zpro@all-about.co.za
If you would like to help me personally you can do
so by buying my books, encouraging bookshops, book clubs and libraries to stock
them and telling everyone you know about what has really been going on in
Zimbabwe.
I thank you for reading this very long letter, for
your help, support and encouragement. Until next week, with love, cathy.
Copyright cathy buckle, 18th October 2003. http://africantears.netfirms.com
Inter Press Service News Agency
Zimbabwe Could Overshadow Commonwealth
Agenda
Moyiga NduruJOHANNESBURG, Oct 18 (IPS) - Don McKinnon
hopes that December's Commonwealth
summit in Abuja, Nigeria will not be
dominated by Zimbabwe, but it appears
that circumstances might override that
wish.
”The 54 countries want CHOGM to be about democracy and development
and not
to be dominated by Zimbabwe,” said the Commonwealth secretary
general, this
week.
CHOGM is the annual Commonwealth heads of
government meeting. The theme of
this year's gathering is 'development and
democracy -- partnership for peace
and prosperity'.
Two countries will
not be invited to Abuja. ”No invitation is going out to
Zimbabwe and
Pakistan,” McKinnon told a news conference in Johannesburg.
Zimbabwe was
suspended from the Commonwealth in March 2003 following
presidential
elections that critics said were rigged. Pakistan was suspended
following a
1999 military coup led by Gen Pervez Musharraf, now the
country's
president.
Unlike Pakistan, Zimbabwe still ”evokes strong reactions and
emotions”, as
McKinnon found out during his Oct. 8-15 tour of Tanzania,
Uganda, Kenya and
South Africa to discuss preparations for the Dec. 5-8
meeting.
In the four countries journalists bombarded him with questions
about
Zimbabwe. In South Africa, almost one-half of McKinnon's conversations
with
the media involved that nation.
”I haven't had any dialogue with
(Zimbabwean President Robert) Mugabe for a
couple of years. That's sad,” said
McKinnon.
Some Commonwealth leaders have urged the secretary general to
engage
Mugabe -- a tall order according to the straight-talking former New
Zealand
foreign minister. ”I can't talk to him (Mugabe) if he doesn't want to
talk
to me,” McKinnon said.
It is for the people of Zimbabwe
themselves to find solutions to their
problems and to determine their own
destiny, he added. ”It is not for those
outside its borders to lecture,
pontificate, order or direct.”
”But the international community can
certainly encourage, assist,
facilitate, and when necessary remind Zimbabwe
of the values to which it has
signed up. That is what the Commonwealth has
sought to do and continues to
attempt.”
”But this means that we cannot
remain silent when independent newspapers are
shut down, or when
demonstrating trade unionists are beaten up,” McKinnon
said, referring to the
closure of the country's only independent newspaper,
the 'Daily News', last
month..
Last year the Commonwealth formed a troika -- comprising
Australia, Nigeria
and South Africa -- to mediate with Mugabe's
government.
”Sadly, our overtures have been spurned. President Mugabe's
government has
chosen to keep us at arm's length,” McKinnon said.
But
McKinnon's remarks contrast with those of President Thabo Mbeki of
South
Africa, a troika member. Mbeki told U.S. President George W. Bush in
July
that the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF)
and the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC),
were talking.
MDC Secretary-General Welshman Ncube told
journalists in Johannesburg this
week that the talks were bogged down by
succession quarrels in the ruling
party.
Rival factions within ZANU-PF
are disputing who should succeed 79-year-old
Mugabe, ahead of the party's
conference in December.
Apparently fed up with Mugabe's foot-dragging,
President Olusegun Obasanjo
of Nigeria, another troika member, said after the
closure of the 'Daily
News' that Zimbabwe needed a ''sea of change'' before
it could be readmitted
to the Commonwealth.
This week Mugabe showed
some flexibility when he approved the easing of a
tough media law against
journalists. Critics say the move was designed to
improve Zimbabwe's image
ahead of the Commonwealth gathering.
Under the amendment, journalists
will now face criminal charges if the court
establishes that they published a
story that is perceived to be offending
''intentionally or recklessly”. The
amendment replaces a clause on
publishing ''falsehoods'', which the Supreme
Court declared
unconstitutional.
The crisis in Zimbabwe grew between
2000 and 2003 when the government seized
land from 4,500 white farmers for
distribution among landless blacks. Mugabe
said he was correcting colonial
injustices that originally allowed white
settlers to grab the best lands and
dump black people in barren, rocky
communal areas, not fit for
farming.
Unfortunately, the land reform programme has destroyed the
country's
agricultural sector.
Eight million people, more than
one-half of Zimbabwe's population, now need
food aid. The nation faces
shortages of fuel, sugar and bank notes.
Inflation, which is currently
running at around 455 percent, is expected to
hit 600 percent by the end of
the year.
McKinnon said three million Zimbabweans now live in South
Africa as
refugees, 400,000 in Mozambique and 200,000 in Botswana, from which
2,000
are deported daily.
The Commonwealth, an organisation of
independent states that were formerly
parts of the British Empire established
to encourage trade and friendly
relations among its members, is urging
Zimbabwe, as well as its less
privileged neighbours, to adopt policies that
alleviate poverty.
”Figures show one-third of the Commonwealth's 1.8
billion people live on
less than one U.S. dollar a day,” McKinnon
said.
About 75 million of the 113 million children out of school live
in
Commonwealth countries. Last year, British Finance Minister Gordon
Brown
launched a 15-million-dollar initiative to help those children go to
school.
The majority of Commonwealth countries have signed the United
Nations
Millennium Development Goals, one of which aims to send every child
to
primary school by 2015. But unless there is a dramatic change, 88
countries,
many of them in the Commonwealth, will not meet this goal, warns a
recent
World Bank report.
Another issue that will feature prominently
on the CHOGM agenda is reform of
the international trade system. ”If people
in Europe and the U.S. are
concerned about reducing the flow of economic
refugees and if they want to
see a reduction in the disparity of world
income, then they should begin by
reducing agricultural subsidies,” McKinnon
said.
”The simple truth is that the EU, the U.S. and Japan have not lived
up to
their commitments. It is high time the rhetoric about the benefits of
trade
liberalisation starts matching the reality,” he added.
The World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have estimated
that
liberalisation of trade in agricultural products would increase
developing
country exports by at least 30 billion dollars a year and possibly
by as
much as 100 billion dollars.. ”This could make a real difference to
the
people of Africa today,” McKinnon said.
”Sadly, everyone stands to
lose from the recent breakdown in trade talks at
the WTO (World Trade
Organisation) meeting in Cancun (Mexico), but
particularly the poor
countries. A deal in Cancun could have added 520
billion U.S. dollars to
global incomes by 2015, lifting 144 million people
out of poverty,” he
added.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, might
also be
waiting for a ”deal” from the Commonwealth, which would centre on
Zimbabwe's
readmission to the organisation in December. (END/2003)
JUSTICE FOR AGRICULTURE - October 17, 2003
JAG COMMUNIQUÉS
Email:
justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
HUMAN
RIGHTS COMMUNIQUÉ
On Wednesday our H/R's communiqué alluded to the
partisan attitude of
certain members of the ZR Police and how often
complainants become the
accused if they are not considered to be of the same
political persuasion
as the ruling party. Well yesterdays H/R communique
once again highlighted
this very serious issue.
Beatrice Mtetwa, well
known and greatly respected Human Rights lawyer
called for Police help in a
car jacking and instead of them helping her,
they arrested her and assaulted
her in the Police car and at the Borrowdale
Police Station. Only last week a
young lady was robbed at knifepoint in
her cottage and when reporting it
personally at Borrowdale ZRP was told,
"ah this cannot happen in this area".
The Policewoman eventually agreed to
accept a report, made a half-hearted
attempt to visit the scene and then
left without even questioning the
possible co-accused. Fingerprints were
very much in evidence and the point
of entry, yet CID has still not visited
the scene to lift prints.
For
those of you who have had the misfortune to experience this abuse of
power,
or dereliction of duty, please keep a written record of the
incident, ZRP
report numbers (RRB or CR), dates, and name/s of
investigating
officer/perpetrator, or the person to whom the report was
made. If not now,
but certainly when the rule of law is restored, these
individuals will be
held accountable for their actions. The time will
come.
Kerry Kay,
JAG TEAM.
JAG OPEN LETTER FORUM
Email: justice@telco.co.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
Internet:
www.justiceforagriculture.com
Please
send any material for publication in the Open Letter Forum to
justice@telco.co.zw with "For Open Letter
Forum" in the subject
line.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
1: Re Farmers in Touch
I can't believe my eyes! This is two years too
late for my family and
anyway JAG has been doing this very thing for more
than a year already.
Julia
Burdett
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Letter
2: Re JAG Communiqués dated 16 October 2003
Dear JAG Team,
I
receive the daily emails from you and as I am not a farmer or ex-farmer
but
was born and brought up on one and have family and friends who are
lucky
enough to be still farming in Zimbabwe (I am currently living in SA).
My
question is, are some of these reports being forwarded to the
international
press? It is hard for me to believe that what is going on in
Zimbabwe there
is not more pressure from other countries to get rid of your
(our)
President. I have read and heard numerous horrific stories and have
been
compelled to forward these to all whom are willing to read them.
My
thoughts and prayers are with you
all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
letters published on the open Letter Forum are the views and opinions
of the
submitters, and do not represent the official viewpoint of Justice
for
Agriculture.
Washington Post
Mugabe's Madness
By Richard Pretorius
Saturday,
October 18, 2003; Page A23
BEITBRIDGE, Zimbabwe -- At a steakhouse
near the South African border, Wendy
Mutingira waits tables and watches her
country implode. With inflation at
400 percent, the restaurant offers two
menus -- one featuring the selection
of steaks, burgers and salads, the other
listing the prices, which can
change daily.
"There is
no cash, no food. There are a lot of things we are out of,"
Mutingira
says.
Across the road, Abigail Maposa is among the 30 or so people
waiting to
catch a ride. She will pay 8,000 Zimbabwe dollars for a lift to
Bulawayo, as
she does not have a car, and the nearby gas stations haven't had
any fuel
for nearly three weeks. Meanwhile, Munyardadzi Mahoro worries that
his rent
soon will go up again. He shells out 17,000 dollars a month for a
dwelling
that rented for 3,500 two years ago.
The Zimbabwe dollar is
in free fall, the country in an apocalyptic economic
crisis. Solving it, as
many Zimbabweans will tell you, begins at the top. It
also begins with the
outside world turning much-needed attention to a
dictatorship whose time
should be up.
Twenty-four years into his rule in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe,
still feared by
many of his country's citizens, is facing another disaster of
his own
making. International sanctions imposed after he apparently rigged
the last
election in 2002 and had the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai
arrested
have thrown the country into chaos. People openly question how long
the
79-year-old president can hold on to power; each day seems to bring a
new
crisis or shortage of money, food or fuel.
But few here believe
that Mugabe, who has hinted he might retire, will
relinquish power so easily.
After all, he is building another lavish palace.
And, in one of the strange
paradoxes that seem to define the continent's
politics, he was recently
applauded by fellow African leaders at the start
of a development summit in
Tanzania.
Playing their version of the race card, some of those same
leaders voice
approval of the Mugabe government's policy of taking land away
from white
farmers and redistributing it mostly to Mugabe's cronies. This has
led to a
sharp decline in agricultural production, helping sow the seeds of
economic
disaster and starvation. It's one thing to try to provide
opportunities for
long-oppressed, poor blacks. It is another to destroy the
country in doing
so.
While some African leaders are rightly calling
for an end to the economic
sanctions against Zimbabwe, their cry is not
simply about helping the
country's people but also about self-preservation.
Not even neighboring
South Africa, the continent's most advanced economy, can
afford to take in
refugees from Mugabe's madness.
In recent weeks,
Mugabe's police have shut down the country's only privately
owned daily
newspaper and raided its offices, on the pretense that it had
not registered
as required under the new media laws. His move to hijack
international food
aid by putting his supporters in charge of distribution
should have been
condemned across the globe, but the response has been so
tepid that Mugabe
recently felt free to tell a South African television
station that "the
majority of our people are a happy lot."
Mahoro, who works two jobs (like
every other person I talked to here), would
beg to differ. When he asked a
visitor to "give me your address and your
phone number," Mahoro was pleading
for help in getting out of the country.
With dual South African and
Zimbabwean citizenship, Luckson Maligana is one
of the few who can cross the
border as they please. He says he first
realized life had gotten out of hand
in Zimbabwe when he needed 35 dollars
to buy a piece of gum for his
10-year-old daughter. "I give her 100 dollars
for school and it's nothing,"
he says. Yet, Maligana, who works as a
security guard in Johannesburg, does
hold out hope for Zimbabwe's future.
"The people here are learning a lot from
what is happening in South Africa,"
he says. "There needs to be an exchange
of power. It's the right time to do
so. A democracy here will be a mix of the
people."
"Mugabe has to go for that to have a chance of happening," he
added, echoing
the thoughts of many of his countrymen. But like Charles
Taylor in Liberia,
Mugabe won't go until the noose is around his neck. The
international
community has to put it there. It also must pressure African
countries to
recognize that the sooner Mugabe goes, the sooner Zimbabwe will
be able to
once again feed and employ its own people. When that finally
happens,
customers will no longer need bags of cash to pay for meals at
Wendy
Mutingira's steakhouse, and Abigail Maposa will be able to put gas in
her
own car.
The writer is a copy editor for The Post's Foreign
Desk.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
CNN
Court probes closure of newspaper critical of Mugabe
State
commission allowed it to operate months without license
Saturday, October 18,
2003 Posted: 0000 GMT ( 8:00 AM HKT)
HARARE, Zimbabwe (Reuters) -- A
court asked Friday why a state commission
allowed Zimbabwe's only private
daily newspaper to operate for eight months
without a license, until it was
shut down after a ruling that it was acting
outside the law.
Police
shut the offices of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, publisher of
the Daily
News, on September 16 after the Supreme Court ruled the paper was
illegal
because it was published without the license required by strict
media laws
introduced last year.
A government appointed media commission turned down
the paper's subsequent
application for a license in what ANZ said was an
attack on press freedom.
Michael Majuru, president of the Administrative
Court hearing ANZ's appeal
against the rejection, asked Friday why the
commission failed to take
corrective measures spelled out in the media laws
when ANZ continued
publishing without registration.
"As from the first
of January ... according to you they started operating as
an outlaw. Yet your
commission allowed this to go on for eight months and 12
days," Majuru told
media chairman Tafataona Mahoso, saying that could be
perceived as condoning
a breach of the law.
Mahoso said the commission did not act because ANZ
had filed a court
challenge on the constitutionality of the act.
The
Daily News began publishing in 1999 and has been critical of President
Robert
Mugabe's government as the country grapples with an economic and
political
crisis widely blamed on official mismanagement since independence
from
Britain in 1980.
The paper had initially refused to register for a
license as a protest
against the laws, introduced soon after Mugabe's
disputed re-election last
year. The laws were widely seen as being aimed at
silencing government
critics.
Majuru said he wanted state lawyers to
clarify whether the commission had
followed set procedures in considering the
ANZ application, saying "this is
not a case where you can come up with
reasons of your own to deny a
license."
Mahoso told the court Thursday
that the commission decided to shut the paper
because "we were dealing with
an applicant who was not only eight and a half
months late in applying but
had actually demonstrated publicly that it did
not wish to
apply."
Mahoso, who writes a regular column in the state-owned Sunday
Mail, denied
the commission was biased against Zimbabwe's private media,
saying it had
registered other private organizations also critical of the
government.
ANZ and state lawyers are expected to present closing
arguments to the
Administrative Court on Sunday.
Mugabe, 79, denies
mismanaging the country and in turn accuses local and
foreign opponents of
sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy to punish his government
for seizure of
white-owned commercial farms for landless blacks.
BBC
Zimbabweans' reluctant homecoming
|
|
Thousands of people are being deported from South
Africa |
One thousand people are riding on a train that nobody wanted to catch.
The passengers have few possessions and even less hope, as they set off on
the long journey from Johannesburg up to the Zimbabwean border.
They are just a tiny number of the millions of Zimbabweans who have poured
into South Africa in recent years.
They fled Zimbabwe, and its economic collapse, hoping to make a living in
South Africa
But caught without papers, they've ended up in detention as illegal
immigrants.
Now they're being sent back home to the very country they ran away from in
desperation.
The South African authorities, struggling to cope with this huge wave of
illegal immigration, are sending about 2,000 Zimbabweans home by train each
month.
Dramatic getaways
One man spoke to me, telling me his story but asking that I didn't reveal his
real name. so let's call him "William".
He left Zimbabwe two years ago, fleeing political violence and economic ruin.
"William" will probably try to return to South
Africa |
"I don't like returning to Zimbabwe, there are no jobs. I'm going back to
suffer, so I think I will try and come back to South Africa."
And the police know that many of these people will escape, given half a
chance; so there are officers in every carriage.
But the guards can't stop dramatic getaways, such as the men prepared to leap
from a moving train, risking their lives not to go back to Zimbabwe.
Some do get away but others are not so lucky. If they're caught, they're
forced back on board the train.
The train rumbles on through the night, many of its passengers so exhausted
that they carry on sleeping long after dawn.
Singing is one of the few ways in which they try to keep their morale up.
Most of the police officers guarding them are full of sympathy for the
Zimbabweans, including Officer Philip Makhubela.
"I treat them with honour and dignity. These are my brothers. I love them
all."
Despite a journey of more than 16 hours, there are no celebrations as the
travellers approach their home country.
They disembark at the town of Masina. It's the end of the line in more ways
than one.
William is as apprehensive as everyone else as he is ordered onto a bus for
the last few miles up to the border, and there, through customs, back to
Zimbabwe.
It's a homecoming with no ceremony, to a land of hunger and oppression.
|
