VOA
PRESS RELEASE -
Washington, D.C., October 26, 2007 – On Wednesday, October
31, the Voice of
America (VOA) will broadcast a special television program
featuring
exclusive reports from inside Zimbabwe, including footage of
protesters
being beaten and arrested by police for opposing the government
of President
Robert Mugabe.
This special 30-minute VOA TV broadcast, "Zimbabwe: A
Country In Crisis," is
an expanded edition of the weekday Perspectives
program. It provides a rare
look at Zimbabwe under President Mugabe's
rule.
Segments of the program include exclusive VOA interviews and video
coverage
detailing the collapse of Zimbabwe's economy and
society.
The broadcast will also include comments from Zimbabwe's
ambassador to the
United States, Machivenyika Mapuranga.
Perspectives
is VOA TV to Africa's daily English-language television program
for viewers
in sub-Saharan Africa. This Monday through Friday six-minute
program,
broadcast at 1800 UTC, is hosted by Ndimyake Mwakalyelye. It
presents a
unique perspective on issues affecting people on the African
continent.
For more information about this special broadcast or
Perspectives, please
visit our website at www.VOANews.com/english/Africa/Perspectives.cfm,
or
e-mail us at africatv@voanews.com.
The Voice of
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Iternational Herald Tribune
The Associated PressPublished: October 27,
2007
HARARE, Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has
criticized recent
price hikes as "daylight robbery," contradicting his
central bank chief's
call for the easing of controls.
The official
daily Herald reported Saturday that Mugabe told his party's
central
committee that his patience was being "stretched to the limit" and
said
manufacturers had a "political agenda" when they raised prices.
In a bid
to fight Zimbabwe's record inflation rate, the 83-year-old
president imposed
sweeping price slashes in June and then a six-month price
freeze that
resulted in widespread shortages of basics like bread, flour,
cooking oil,
margarine, meat and even shoes.
In the past month, some goods have crept
back onto shop shelves in small
quantities and at high
prices.
Justifying the prices, storeowners point to the sharp fall in the
Zimbabwe
dollar, which now trades at up to 1 million per
US$1.
"Perhaps on our side, the National Incomes and Pricing
Commission and
related authorities should get their act together and stop
the daylight
robbery of our people," Mugabe told a meeting of his party's
central
committee Friday.
His comments came just days after his central
bank chief Gideon Gono struck
a conciliatory note, arguing that consumers
should not expect prices to
remain fixed and that producers needed a
"modicum of price adjustments."
Prices immediately jumped, including that of
the Herald, which was more than
tripled.
Meanwhile, the head of the
National Incomes and Pricing Commission has
warned his inspectors will soon
descend on businesses flouting price
controls, the Herald said in a separate
report.
"The commission is strengthening its enforcement compliance team
and will
not hesitate to deal with errant manufacturers, wholesalers and
retailers,"
Godwills Masimirembwa said.
More than 7,000 storeowners
and manufacturers were arrested in the wake of
the June price clampdown.
This has failed to tame inflation, which is still
around 7,000 percent,
according to official figures, but as high as 25,000
according to unofficial
estimates.
Reuters
Sat 27 Oct
2007, 11:06 GMT
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
HARARE, Oct 27 (Reuters) -
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe accused the main
opposition party on
Saturday of making false allegations of government
violence to derail
reconciliation talks.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and the
ruling ZANU-PF party are in
talks mediated by South African President Thabo
Mbeki as part of regional
efforts to end Zimbabwe's deepening economic
crisis and promote political
reconciliation.
"From out of the blue,
his (Tsvangirai's) party is making unsubstantiated
reports of growing and
sustained politically motivated violence being
perpetrated against its
supporters," he told members of the ZANU-PF central
committee, according to
the official Herald newspaper.
"It is, therefore, unacceptable that in
light of the positive strides we
have made, others like Morgan Tsvangirai,
who is always the joker, find it
necessary to frustrate this fledgling
process."
The MDC, led by Tsvangirai, said last week the government was
heightening a
violent crackdown against its supporters but said it would not
walk away
from the talks.
On Wednesday, Zimbabwean Home Affairs
Minister Kembo Mohadi met MDC
officials who chronicled cases of alleged
politically motivated violence by
the police, army, intelligence services
and Mugabe's supporters.
Mohadi promised to investigate the
claims.
"Let it be known that we will not take kindly to 'cry wolf' boys,
desperately pretending to be politicians and seeking to embellish their
faltering ambitions through falsehoods," Mugabe said.
Mugabe has in
the past accused the MDC of being puppets of his critics in
Britain and the
United States. Zimbabwe is due to hold parliamentary and
presidential
elections next year.
Former colonial ruler Britain and the U.S. have led
a campaign to isolate
Mugabe over charges of human rights abuses and rigging
elections, charges
the Zimbabwe leader denies.
Mugabe, 83 and in
power since independence in 1980, says Western powers are
punishing his
government for seizing white-owned farms to resettle blacks
and that this
had sparked an economic crisis that has left Zimbabweans
grappling with the
world's highest inflation rate.
In March, police were alleged to have
beaten opposition and civic group
leaders, including Tsvangirai, in custody
after they attempted to hold a
banned prayer rally in Harare.
The
government accused the MDC of starting a terror campaign via a spate of
petrol bombings against police and ZANU-PF targets. Although dozens of MDC
members were detained for months, they were released without charge.
Zim Standard
By Kholwani
Nyathi
SHURUGWI — A land war has erupted in the Midlands where
22 newly
resettled farmers were left homeless after a long simmering land
dispute
erupted into an orgy of violence that lasted for two days, The
Standard has
learnt.
Two elderly men, who were reportedly at
the forefront of plans to
evict the new farmers ‘who had invaded their
pastures at Tokwe resettlement
area near Mvuma, are nursing severe wounds
after they were stabbed during
the skirmishes.
Sixty three
villagers appeared in court in connection with the
disturbances. They were
on Monday granted free bail when they appeared
before Gweru provincial
magistrate, Rossa Takuva facing charges of public
violence and malicious
injury to property.
The case will be heard in court on
Wednesday.
According to court records, there are 22 complaints in
the case and
the value of the property destroyed is estimated at more than
$600 million.
Villagers told The Standard, the dispute escalated
into pitched
battles on 14 October when the two men were allegedly stabbed
by a village
head in the area who accused them of mobilising people to
attack the
resettled farmers.
The villagers accuse the village
head at the resettlement area,
bordering villages under the jurisdiction of
chiefs Nhema and Chirumhanzu
respectively, of resettling people in areas
designated for pastures.
Farmers who were resettled at Rustcave
Farm in the 1980s accuse
village heads installed by Chief Nhema last year of
resettling 22 families
on land reserved for grazing.
One of the
victims, Fanani Juru, who was stabbed in the stomach, said
trouble started
on when they called a meeting to discuss ways of resolving
the
dispute.
"The village heads were allocating people land in an area
reserved for
pastures and this caused a lot of friction in the village,"
Juru said. "At
the village meeting we resolved to go and ask our headman,
Samson Madamombe,
why he was not attending our meetings."
He
met Madamombe that same night on his way from a beer drink. Juru
was accused
of mobilising villagers to attack the new settlers. He alleged
that without
warning Madamombe who was leading "a mob" attacked him with a
sharp
object.
"I bled profusely and when I was taken to Chitori Clinic
the nurses
refused to treat me without a police report," he said. "I finally
went to
Mvuma where I was briefly admitted."
That same night,
his neighbours raided the new farmers in retaliation,
leaving a trail of
destruction in their wake. Kidwell Muchemedzi, whose
three huts were razed
to the ground, said although the dispute had been
raging on for a long time,
he did not anticipate their neighbours would
resort to such a drastic
action.
"It was getting dark and I was having supper with my family
in the
open," he said. "All of a sudden we saw that Madamombe’s hut on fire
and
before long the mob had entered our yard.
"I took my family
away because I realized that they meant business.
They destroyed one of the
huts and left to attack my neighbours." The
attackers returned the following
morning and destroyed the remaining huts.
Efforts to get a comment
from Madamombe were fruitless as he was said
to be away from home when The
Standard visited the area. Chief Nhema was
also not immediately available
for comment.
Zim Standard
BY WALTER
MARWIZI
A Chinhoyi man alleges his life is now in danger after
he told
President Robert Mugabe that Security Minister Didymus Mutasa
performed
bizarre rituals in a bid to succeed the President.
Jeremiah Mambo Jenami, a farmer in Chinhoyi who worked with the
controversial spirit medium Nomatter Tagarira, told The Standard he sent a
dossier to Mugabe that contained startling details about how Mutasa
performed rituals in the Maningwa hills.
Details of Mutasa’s
alleged involvement in the rituals are said to
have angered Mugabe, who
according to press reports, is considering
replacing the Minister with
Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The spirit medium is languishing in remand
prison after she was denied
bail. The State successfully argued that she was
well connected to
politicians who could assist her to avoid trial. When she
was arrested,
police revealed that she had been holed up at a house of an
unnamed senior
government official.
Jenami said from the date
he was invited by Mugabe to explain what was
going on in the Maningwa hills
and "the subsequent follow up phone call from
Minister Mutasa complaining
about my brief to the President", he has not
known peace.
He
says he has been harassed by armed police and his family, workers
and
business associates have not been spared.
Jenami has since issued a
notice of intention to sue the Police
Commissioner on the basis that he has
been severely prejudiced by the
actions of the police.
"I am
now being persistently framed and charged for the so-called
treason," said
Jenami in the notice to sue, "on the allegation that I wanted
to kill the
President of Zimbabwe.
"Needless to say the allegations are
baseless as (they) are simply
calculated to divert attention of the
President from the core business of
oil discoveries and Minister Mutasa’s
request to be cleansed to enable him
to become the next Head of State of
Zimbabwe."
The Standard is in possession of a copy of Jenami’s
affidavit.
Mutasa yesterday told this reporter that he does not
talk to The
Standard.
"The Standard is out to make money. I
have told you before not to call
me. Do not waste my time…" Then the line
was cut.
A second call to Mutasa was answered but the line went
silent.
Jenami says, in the affidavit, he was part of the team that
allegedly
performed bizarre rituals held at Mutasa’s residence in
Rusape.
For example, he says, he was "tasked to put traditional
snuff in four
corners (thus mativi mana enyika) within his
residence."
Jenami said as he did so, other rituals were taking
place.
"Since the yard is too big, Minister Mutasa thought I would
take a
long time to return – but I was very fast. So much that upon my
return I
came across Honourable Minister Mutasa deeply engaged in rituals.
By then
his whole body was covered in a blue cloth."
Jenami
says the spirit medium also instructed that a similar blue
cloth be put on
his shoulder.
He described how "a thick male voice" allegedly told
Mutasa that his
request to be the next head of State, after President RG
Mugabe, had been
responded to.
Jenami said he was then tasked
to lead Mutasa to Garoi Mountain, said
to be sacred.
"Then
after entering the cave Minister Mutasa was to sit on the sacred
chief’s
chair and write down all his wishes and the set-up of his structures
and
then pray with those things written down, while still seated in the
cave."
After the rituals were over, Jenami said in the
affidavit, Mutasa took
them to his farm where he showered them with
presents.
He identified these as a black cow that was given to the
spirit
medium, one sheep with a black head, one ewe white in colour, a
female goat
and two 50kg of sugar beans and ground nuts. He also allegedly
gave them two
50kg of rice.
Jenami says back in Harare, they
had tea in Mutasa’s office where farm
offer letters were signed. One was for
"Zunde raMambo Dombo" and "one for
home yaChangamire Dombo".
In
court, Tagarira is being accused of unlawfully getting a farm house
and a
farm from government after making false claims of diesel flowing in
the
Maningwa Hills.
Jenami claims relations between Mutasa and the
spirit medium soon
soured prompting Mutasa to make an unceremonious
departure from the hills.
Disappointed by Mutasa’ conduct, Jenami alleged
that the spirit medium then
claimed that the Minister had failed to deliver
walking sticks and five
pieces of gold to President Mugabe, as was
required.
That same week, all the ZRP officers who were guarding
the spirit
medium and the oil hill day and night were withdrawn. The second
week,
Jenami said they were summoned to State House to give a report to
Mugabe
about what was happening at the hill.
He said in the
affidavit: "My personal briefing to the President was
based on what I went
through and saw happening in Maningwa".
The documents show that
they were lodged with the Ministry of Home
Affairs, the Attorney-General’s
Office and the Police General Headquarters
on 17 October 2007.
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
AN MDC Women’s congress is set for today in Bulawayo,
amid charges
that some of the delegates were not aware of its venue by late
yesterday.
Lucia Matibenga, whose fate is to be decided by today’s
congress,
alleged there was a conspiracy to ensure some delegates would not
make it to
the congress.
By 5PM she was still in Harare trying
to organise transport to
Bulawayo.
She said they were just told
to go to Bulawayo where they would be
informed about the venue.
"This is not confusion, it’s conspiracy," she said. "The strategy is
to
ensure that some people considered to have opposing views do not make it
in
time for the congress."
Matibenga sought the relief of the High
Court after her executive was
dissolved by the standing committee of the
party chaired by president Morgan
Tsvangirai. She was informed new elections
would be held at today’s
extra-ordinary congress.
She, however,
appealed against the decision pointing out the standing
committee had powers
to do so.
She then took the matter to the High Court which decided,
by the
consent of both parties, that the question of the validity of the
dissolution of her executive be decided by the congress.
This
means that the matter will be tabled for discussion today by the
delegates.
If they decide that the executive is dissolved there is a chance
that
elections for a new executive might go ahead.
Matibenga said she
was concerned that all the delegates, especially
those from outlying areas,
would not arrive in time for the congress.
"At this short notice,
we have been trying to inform everyone who
should attend that they have to
go to Bulawayo. Congress is not just for the
elite, it’s for everyone. That
is why we are saying that there should have
been a longer notice period so
that everyone would take part."
MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa
could not reached for comment
yesterday. The party’s organising secretary,
Elias Mudzuri, was unreachable.
Zim Standard
BY WALTER
MARWIZI
THE Zimbabwe Liberators’ Platform (ZLP) has denounced
pro-President
Robert Mugabe marches spearheaded by war veterans’ leaders
Jabulani Sibanda
and Joseph Chinotimba.
In a hard-hitting
statement, the National Council of the ZLP said the
marches were aimed at
preventing any challenge to Mugabe’s leadership at the
forthcoming
extraordinary Zanu PF congress set for 12-14 December.
"To the
delegates, the strong message is ‘confirm Mugabe or else’,"
said the
organisation led by Femias Chakabuda.
ZLP, an organisation formed
by "genuine" former freedom fighters, said
war veterans’ organisations must
be non-partisan in order to give them the
independence to view political,
economic and social issues objectively.
"Genuine war veterans
should not be afraid to criticize their
leadership for fear of losing their
statutory pensions because what is
statutory carries a legal tag which
cannot be withdrawn with the stroke of a
pen."
They said
congresses were supposed to be platforms for exercising
democracy and giving
equal opportunity to all aspiring candidates to contest
various positions
openly and fairly, without intimidation.
"However, when Jabulani
Sibanda, the self-styled leader of the
Zimbabwe National Liberation War
Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) brands as
sell-outs those who do not support
Mugabe’s candidature, he and his group
negate the principle of democracy,
which was enunciated by the original Zapu
and Zanu in their policy
statements in the 1960s."
The organisation said war veterans fought
for democracy and
Independence through liberation movements or political
parties.
"They did not make sacrifices for political parties or
individual
leaders. Their allegiance and loyalty must be to Zimbabwe and its
people
regardless of political affiliation, ethnic group, race, creed or
gender."
Sibanda has been leading marches across the country where
war veterans
have been speaking strongly against any challenge to Mugabe’s
leadership.
The war veterans say Mugabe is the sole candidate of the ruling
party in the
2008 Presidential election.
ZLP said it was also
disgusted by the selective application of the law
by police.
"War veterans, women, youths and any group of people can demonstrate
in
support of the government or Zanu PF anywhere, at any time. However, if
any
other group of people tries to demonstrate against government policies,
it
will be violently and brutally dispersed and/or arrested by the police
who
religiously apply the notorious Public Order and Security Act (POSA)."
Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE
HUBERT Nyanhongo, the Deputy Minister of Transport and
Communications,
has threatened to repossess houses at Hopley Farm from
beneficiaries
opposing his candidature in next year’s elections, infuriated
residents told
The Standard.
Hopley is home to thousands of
families uprooted by the
government-sponsored Operation Murambatsvina in May
2005. The houses were
built under Operation Garikai.
Two weeks
ago, the residents said, Nyanhongo called a meeting and
singled out former
government social welfare officer, Ezekiel Mpande as his
"enemy" and ordered
him out of Hopley in view of everybody at the meeting.
"He
(Nyanhongo) ordered Mpande and his wife to stand up for everyone
to see
before he was ordered to get his belongings and leave the sprawling
settlement," said one of the residents.
But Nyanhongo denied
ever threatening Mpande.
Mpande’s wife, Beauty, who was allocated a
house at the settlement —
was ordered publicly not to accommodate her
husband again or risk losing her
cherished home.
The deputy
minister ordered the youth militia to beat up Mpande if he
is seen at the
settlement again.
"We were told to beat up Mpande if he sets foot
here," said one of the
youths. "I don’t think he will come back because he
knows how youths here
operate."
Mpande, who has since gone into
hiding, confirmed his banishment from
Hopley.
"It was an
embarrassing and torturous moment," Mpande said. "I
actually fear for my
life."
He claims that he is being victimized for calling for
equitable
distribution of food at Hopley, where MDC supporters were being
denied
assistance.
Other MDC supporters said they now feared
for their lives as next year’s
elections draw nearer.
Nyanhongo
yesterday professed ignorance of developments at Hopley and
denied ever
threatening Mpande.
"I am in Sudan at the moment. I don’t know what
is happening in
Zimbabwe," he said.
Reminded that the incident
took place two weeks ago, Nyanhongo said:
"I don’t know anything. Talk to
the Ministry of Social Welfare. They might
know what happened."
The Minister of Public Service Labour and Social Welfare, Nicholas
Goche,
could not be reached for comment.
The victimization of opposition
political supporters in the country
goes against the spirit of South
African-mediated talks between the MDC and
the ruling Zanu PF party.
Analysts warned the persecution of MDC supporters
would jeopardize the
talks.
Last week the MDC complained to Home Affairs Minister, Kembo
Mohadi,
about increased cases of harassment and violence against its
supporters by
State security agents.
Zim Standard
BY OUR
STAFF
POLICE are continuing investigations into reports of
abuse of rural
girls taking part in the Miss Rural pageant.
Police chief superintendent Oliver Mandipaka told this paper yesterday
that
investigations were still underway.
He however denied reports that
the chief executive officer of Zimbabwe
Tourism Authority, Karikoga Kaseke,
had handed over to the police two abused
rural girls who ran away from Sipho
Ncube Mazibuko, the organiser of the
Miss Rural pageant.
"I am
not aware of what you are talking about and who told you that?"
said
Mandipaka. "No girls were bought to us. We only said the abuse of the
rural
girls should stop and that the police are investigating the case
further."
Miss Rural pageant, which attracted heavy criticised
after The
Standard exposed the abuse of the contestants at a night club in
Masvingo
three weeks ago, was scheduled to be held at Masvingo polytechnic
yesterday.
There were however doubts that it would be held amid reports that
sponsors
were pulling out of the show.
At the time of going to
press it was not clear if organisers had gone
ahead with the pageant. Susan
Jason, a businesswoman who was appointed
patron a few weeks ago, has
distanced herself from Miss Rural.
Mazibuko, who could not be
reached for comment yesterday, has been
under pressure during the past two
weeks to stop the pageant.
Zim Standard
Bertha Mpundi’s
mother died in
2004, three years after her father had died. Always in the
top three in her
class, according to her headmaster, Bertha had been unable
to pay fees since
her mother died.
In a recent publication by
the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef)
entitled Zimbabwe: A Collection
of Life Stories Bertha is quoted saying:
"With no one to pay for me the
school had no choice but to send me home. It
was an awful, awful day. School
was the one thing that kept my mind off my
parents."
For three
years Bertha stayed at home, crying herself to sleep every
night, yearning
to go back to school and wishing her parents were alive to
make her dream
come true.
Then early this year, Santa Claus knocked on Bertha’s
door a little
too soon. Bertha is now a beneficiary of the British
Department of
International Development (DFID) block grant scheme, which is
being
implemented through Unicef.
The educational scheme
provides building material (that communities
can be funded to build their
own school), textbooks and school fees.
Bertha is back in school
and continues to top her class.
Memory Gunara is also featured in
Unicef’s recent publication. Before
benefiting from DFID’s school fees
grant, she used to be afraid to go to
school because she hated the
embarrassment of being sent home for
non-payment.
"For the past
five years," she is quoted saying, "I was afraid of
coming to school during
the first week. Our names would be called out during
assembly time and we
would be told to go and get school fees. My grandmother
rarely had the money
and I would stay at home till I could pay. Now I am in!
My grandmother cried
when I told her."
Then there is Lorraine Mudarara, who is 13 years
old and in Grade VI
at Munyeri Primary school in Buhera. Lorraine’s parents
are dead. She was
left in the care of her aunt who was verbally
abusive.
For two years Lorraine missed school because her aunt said
she had no
money for her fees and told her to wait to be married since she
was a girl.
"I pleaded with her to send me to school but she
refused. I lost two
years. I would cry every time I saw other children in
their school uniform,"
recalls Lorraine.
"Sometimes my friends
would try to play with me after school but I
would just start to cry when
they talked about their day at school. I would
think about how lucky they
were. I used to imagine I would spend the rest of
my life working my aunt’s
garden."
After deciding that she could not take any more of her
aunt’s cruelty,
Lorraine ran away to her grandmother’s village and told her
she wanted to go
back to school.
Too old to offer any solution,
her grandmother simply told her that
God would provide. A few days after
this, Lorraine was back in
school, thanks to Unicef’s "Be in School"
campaign.
When she went back to school, Lorraine was given a test
to see which
grade she would fit in, having missed two years of school. She
was placed in
Grade VI.
The three girls’ stories in A
Collection of Life Stories by Unicef are
just a few of the many stories of
hardship that orphans and vulnerable
children face in this harsh economic
environment.
According to a survey conducted by Unicef and the
Ministry of Public
Service, Labour and Social Welfare 13% of the
10-14-year-old children not
attending classes had lost both parents and were
even less
likely to attend school.
About 12.3 million
children in Sub-Saharan Africa are orphans who have
lost one or both parents
to HIV and Aids and it is estimated that by 2010
more than 18 million
children in the region will have lost one or both
parents to the disease,
according to Unicef.
In Zimbabwe more than one million children are
orphans who will face
limited opportunities in life as a result of
this.
Zim Standard
By Davison
Maruziva
WASHINGTON — Zimbabwe deserves to be among the best
and fastest
growing economies in Africa, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), has
said.
Abdoulaye Bio-Tchane, the Fund’s Director of
the African Department,
made the remarks at last week’s 2007 Annual Meetings
of the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund in
Washington.
"I think, the most important comment," Bio-Tchane told
The Standard,
"is that Zimbawe deserves better than it is having
today.
"This is not the case, and that is really the most important
thing for
me, and I will continue calling for a different set of policies.
We need a
comprehensive policy package in place."
At the
beginning of October, the Governor of the Reserve Bank of
Zimbabwe, Dr
Gideon Gono, said in 2005 and under very difficult
circumstances, Zimbabwe
cleared its US$210 million arrears to the Fund
"after being assured" that
such clearance was going to lead to restoration
of the country’s voting
rights at the Fund, access to technical assistance,
and international
finance.
"The funds," Gono suggested, trying to build up his case,
"were
diverted from fertiliser needs of agriculture, the raw material needs
of
industry, fuel, maize and medical drugs needed for our hospitals, as an
act
of sacrifice and as a goodwill gesture.
"What happened
thereafter will remain a piece of historical economic
injustice . . . There
is also consensus among some IMF, World Bank, ADB
(African Development Bank)
economists in their private discussions with us
that if other developing
countries were assessed through the same criterion
and treated in the same
manner that Zimbabwe is assessed and treated today,
these multi-lateral
institutions would not be working or lending support to
half of the
countries that they are currently working in and supporting."
But
Bio-Tchane said the restoration of Zimbabwe’s voting rights at the
IMF was a
decision of the Board. "It has been recommended by staff," he
said, "and the
Board did not decide on it."
All the countries receiving financing
from the Fund were required to
meet a number of conditions. "They have met
all those conditions, and that
is why they have received that financing. So
I think that statement is
certainly an exaggeration by Governor
Gono."
Bio-Tchane said the IMF was "quite concerned" about what was
going on
in Zimbabwe. "We have discussed that several times, including in
South
Africa, including recently, when we had a meeting with the African
Caucus in
Mozambique.
"What we are already seeing is that, yes
the trade pattern is clearly
being affected by what is going on. You have
more than two million
Zimbabweans currently living in other Southern African
countries, including
South Africa."
He said what the IMF were
advising the authorities in Zimbabwe to do
was to tackle the current
problems by putting in place a comprehensive
package of policies, exchange
rate policies and obviously measures on the
structural side, including
liberalisation of the exchange rates,
liberalisation of prices, but also
addressing property rights issues.
"So I think the situation is
dramatic. It is of great concern not just
to us but to many friends of
Zimbabwe. The encouraging thing is that we know
the solution. So, when the
political situation will be sufficiently
addressed — and I hope it will
happen soon — the players will clearly be
able to address it.
"We know the problems; we also know the solutions, and therefore, I
think it
is up to the authorities to move on that."
Asked about the outcome
of the talks with both the Fund and World Bank
officials, Dr Samuel
Mumbengegwi, the Minister of Finance, who attended the
Annual Meetings, said
"they have gone well", declining to elaborate.
That perhaps was, in
fact, an indication of how well the talks did not
go. While the Bretton
Woods Institutions agreed to remove Liberia’s arrears
and debt to the two
institutions, in recognition that "this is a
post-conflict state moving
towards democracy" Zimbabwe came out of the talks
empty-handed.
Mumbengegwi would have been the first to crow about it, if there had
been
any concessions made on Zimbabwe.
Officials of the two institutions
told The Standard that Zimbabwe had
squandered an opportunity for a rescue
package. For example, the officials
said, when he met the World Bank’s
Vice-President, Obiageli Katryn
Ezekwesili, Mumbengegwi demanded support but
when asked about Zimbabwe’s
proposals the Minister was unable to offer
any.
Zimbabwe’s problems in clearing its arrears with the Fund, the
World
Bank and the African Development Bank can be found in the country’s
decision
to pay its trading partners such as China and Iran, among others,
with
tobacco and minerals.
The move meant the country would not
be able to generate foreign
currency to meet its other international
obligations. Failure to settle its
debts has locked Zimbabwe out of lines of
credit or Balance of Payment
Support.
World Bank Group
President, Robert Zoellick, announced a US$3.5
billion fund for the
International Development Association, whose mission is
to reduce poverty by
providing interest-free loans to poorest countries.
Unfortunately Zimbabwe
will not be able to benefit from this facility for
three simple reasons: its
barter trade arrangement with countries like China
and Iran; failure to
clear its arrears; and an ineptly argued case before
the IMF/World
Bank.
There appeared to be goodwill and sympathy for Zimbabwe’s
plight, but
as is all too familiar, the opportunity went begging.
Zim Standard
BY CAIPHAS
CHIMHETE
SENIOR government officials on Thursday snubbed a
function where
residents of Chegutu expressed gratitude to Britain for
funding construction
of a clinic in the town.
Health Minister,
Dr David Parirenyatwa, Dr Ignatious Chombo, the
Minister of Local
Government, Public Works and Urban Development, and
Webster Shamu, the
Minister of State Policy Implementation had been invited
to a handover
ceremony of Chinengundu Maternity Clinic to Chegutu
municipality by the
British Embassy.
But all of them gave various reasons for not
attending the function.
In diplomatic and political circles the
snub by government was
interpreted as a sign of the deepening political rift
between Harare and
London.
The latest diplomatic row emanates
from attempts by British Prime
Minister Gordon Brown to scuttle President
Robert Mugabe’s attendance at the
EU-Africa Summit set for December in
Lisbon, Portugal.
There was, however, a sigh of relief at the high
table when Senate
President, Edna Madzongwe, arrived when the function had
already started.
Madzongwe said Zimbabwe and Britain might have
political differences
but the country cherished the United Kingdom’s help to
disadvantaged
communities.
"I wish this working relationship
will continue to grow," Madzongwe
said. "MaBritish madzisahwira edu ava.
Tinomborwa asi ndizvo zvinoita
madzisahwira (The British are our friends. At
times we fight but they remain
genuine friends)."
Despite the
animosity between the two countries, Britain has continued
to assist
disadvantaged sections of the community in Zimbabwe.
Chief Shadreck
Nyaude of Chegutu, who also attended the function,
expressed gratitude,
saying expectant mothers were having a difficult time
in the town because of
shortage of health facilities.
"Vane moyo wakanaka chose nekuti
chipatara ichi chichabatsira vanhu
vazhinji vari kutambura muno. (The
British are kind-hearted because this
clinic will help a lot people here),"
he said.
The British Embassy pumped in $30 billion for the
construction of
Chinengundu Maternity Clinic, a health centre that will
provide specialist
maternity services to an estimated 20 000 mothers and
children in the town.
Construction of the clinic started a decade
ago but the municipality
ran out of funds after a donor who was financing
the project pulled out.
Two years ago, the British Embassy provided
funding for construction
materials, beds, linen, and an incubator, among
other equipment.
Dr Andrew Pocock, the British Ambassador to
Zimbabwe, said his country
will continue to assist disadvantaged members of
society.
"I think this contribution will make a difference to the
people of
Chegutu," Pocock said. "The idea is to make life easier to
expectant
mothers."
Acting District Medical Officer, Dr
Munyaradzi Mupawaenda, said the
clinic would serve about 20 000 mothers and
children and would relieve
pressure on other council health facilities in
the town.
He said complicated cases of deliveries were being
referred either to
Chinhoyi or Harare because the local health centres had
no modern
facilities.
"At the moment we have two health
facilities which provide maternity
services," he said, "and we are hopeful
that the opening of a new centre
will ease pressure on the other
centres."
The clinic is expected to be open to the public at the
end of this
year.
Mupawaenda said like most areas in the
country health centres in the
district were facing a critical shortage of
personnel, equipment and drugs.
Zimbabwe’s health delivery services
has virtually collapsed during the
past seven years as the country’s economy
has been in free-fall, which has
seen inflation reaching 8
000%.
The country’s health institutions have been left with
skeleton
personnel as doctors and nurses are leaving the country for greener
pastures
abroad, citing poor working conditions and salaries.
Zim Standard
By Nqobani
Ndlovu
BULAWAYO – The government has deployed Central
Intelligence
Organisation operatives at the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply
Authority (Zesa)
stations, The Standard has learnt.
The
deployment comes amid intensifying power outages across the
country, which
are outside the Zesa load-shedding schedule.
Recently parts of
Harare went without electricity for close to a
fortnight after the power
utility failed to repair a damaged high voltage
cable on time.
But authoritative sources told The Standard that the deployment of CIO
operatives, which has unsettled workers at the power stations, started at
the beginning of this month following concerns raised by several ministers
over the blackouts.
"The working conditions are not conducive
anymore," said an engineer
who requested anonymity, "because since the
beginning of this month we have
been having different CIO agents who do not
have clear job descriptions at
our work places.
"They must be
spying on our operations, especially at sub-stations
because they are not
even qualified to do the kind of work that we are
doing."
Earlier this year, the government deployed soldiers at the Hwange
Colliery
Company to monitor operations at the mine following accusations
that the
coal mining giant was deliberately cutting down on coal allocations
for
electricity generation.
Zesa spokesperson, Fullard Gwasira, refused
to comment.
Mozambique recently reduced its power supplies to the
country from 300
megawatts to 195 megawatts because of a US$35 million
debt.
Zimbabwe imports 40% of its power needs from the DRC,
Mozambique and
South Africa.
Zim Standard
BY WALTER
MARWIZI
BEATRICE Mtetwa, the President of the Law Society of
Zimbabwe, has
sued the police and the Ministry of Home Affairs for the
beatings she
endured in May at the hands of gun-toting and
truncheon-wielding officers.
Her lawyer, Harrison Nkomo of Mtetwa
& Nyambirai, last week lodged an
$80 billion lawsuit against
Superintendent Tendere of Harare Central Police
Station, the Commissioner of
Police and the Minister of Home Affairs.
Tendere is being sued in
his individual capacity. Court documents show
that he was in charge of
police when lawyers intended to register their
concerns over the arrest of
human rights lawyers Alec Muchadehama and Andrew
Makoni in Harare at the
High Court on 8 May.
Tendere is said to have ordered the lawyers to
disperse before
instructing police under his control to assault Mtetwa and
the other
lawyers.
Mtetwa, a human rights lawyer, was shoved
into the back of a police
truck together with three other lawyers, Chris
Mhike, Colin Kahuni and
Terence Fitzpatrick. The lawyers were dumped in a
bushy area in Eastlea
where Mtetwa and her colleagues were ordered to "lie
prone on the ground
whilst the said members of the ZRP violently assaulted
her on the back,
shoulders and buttocks.
"As a direct result of
the assault, the Plaintiff sustained serious
injuries on her shoulders, back
and buttocks in respect of which she is
claiming damages," reads the summons
sent to the defendants.
Nkomo noted that as a result of the
defendants’ unlawful action,
Mtetwa needed to be compensated:
"Eighty billion dollars being damages for unlawful arrest, pain and
suffering, contumelia and medical expenses being delictual damages suffered
by the Plaintiff after an unlawful assault perpetrated upon her human person
by uniformed members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police at Harare on the 8th
May 2007, and 2nd and 3rd defendants are vicariously liable for the delict
committed."
It was not clear if the defendants had filed
opposing papers by the
time of going to press.
Meanwhile, the
High Court on Friday overturned a ban and restrictions
imposed by police on
a birthday party for St Mary’s legislator Job Sikhala.
Sikhala was
forced to approach the High Court for relief on Thursday
after a Chief
Superintendent T A Chagwedera, the Officer Commanding
Chitungwiza, issued a
restrictive order for the celebrations to be held in
the
constituency.
In the order Chagwedera said the "celebrations should
not be converted
into a political meeting" and that they "should be held in
one day and not
two days as indicated".
Another condition was
that Sikhala should "co-operate with government
security agents, uniformed
and non-uniformed and furnish them with whatever
they may wish to know
regarding the proceedings of the celebrations".
The police chief
also notified Sikhala that he could not hold the
celebrations at Chaminuka
grounds today for the reasons that police were
committed elsewhere and
therefore could not provide officers who could
monitor it.
Sikhala’s intention was to hold a prayer meeting at Jabula church
yesterday
and then an open party today at Chaminuka grounds.
In his
application Sikhala, who was represented by Nkomo, said it was
his
"constitutional right to assemble, associate and express myself, and so
is
the right of my guests". He also said police had no authority to ban
birthday parties without any justification.
Sikhala said if the
ban was not reversed he would also suffer
financial losses. He provided the
court with receipts of a band that he had
paid $150 million to perform and
the sound system that cost $40 million. He
said he also bought food for the
guests. He said other guests were on their
way from Britain and it would not
be fair to cancel the event.
Zim Standard
BY OUR STAFF
ZIMBABWEAN writer, Shimmer Chinodya has won the Noma Award for
Publishing in
Africa in 2007 for his novel Strife.
"The brilliance of this
powerful and haunting story, in notably
innovative form, brings a new
dimension to African writing," the Noma Award
for Publishing in Africa
Jury’s citation reads. "The novelist reverses the
traditional relationship
between family and nation, concentrating on the
social energies in an
African family, rather than the individual or the
nation.
"Powerful and haunting, with memorable portraits of individuals, the
story
is driven by a deep and distinctive sense of the tragic. The novelist’s
psychological sensitivity illuminates the dominant themes of disease and
death; and the constant tension between the pull of the past and the
aspiration of modernity is expressed in a prose that makes everything
original and new, recasting old themes."
Chinodya has published
eight novels, children’s books, educational
texts, radio and film scripts,
and has contributed to numerous anthologies.
He has won many
awards, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
(Africa region). He seeks
primarily to present an African worldview, but
wants his literature to speak
to the world as a whole. He describes his
works as "experiments on the
effects of time and change on humans, and human
relationships tangled in the
eternal quest for happiness and fulfilment".
The Noma Award, under
the auspices of UNESCO, will be presented to
Chinodya at a special ceremony
details of which will be announced later.
Strife was published in
2006 by Weaver Press, Zimbabwe.
Zim Standard
By Ndamu
Sandu
TROUBLED Air Zimbabwe is courting a banished airline
among the list of
seven carriers to fill the void left by British Airways as
well as cushion
the parastatal in the event it fails an international safety
audit.
BA is pulling out of the Harare-London route this week while
Air
Zimbabwe is due to be audited by the International Air Transport
Association
(IATA) on safety.
The IATA Operational Safety Audit
(IOSA) is mandatory for airlines to
continue their membership of the
organisation.
IATA’s auditing standard focuses on key aspects of
airline and its
support operations including: corporate organisation and
management; flight
operations; operational control or flight dispatch;
ground handling;
engineering and maintenance; cabin operations; cargo
operations and
operational security.
Peter Chikumba, Air
Zimbabwe’s group CEO told a parliamentary
portfolio committee on Monday the
airline had communicated to seven
airlines, "which we feel will be
sympathetic". He said Air Zimbabwe was in
discussions with Ethiopian
Airline, Kenya Airways and TAAG Angola. A team
from the national airline
would fly to Angola next week to negotiate a lease
agreement.
The inclusion of the Angolan airline will cause consternation as the
carrier
was this year banned from flying to Europe for safety reasons. But
Luanda
shot back saying the decision was groundless and threatened to use
the
"principle of reciprocity" by banning European airlines from flying into
Angola.
This year a Boeing 737 operated by TAAG Angola crashed
in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Chitungwiza Senator Forbes
Magadu questioned the motive behind
partnering airlines with questionable
aircrafts, referring to TAAG Angola.
Chikumba said that in "terms
of their (TAAG) operations, they have
difficulties which they are trying to
correct". He said they had Boeing 777
planes which were hardly six months
old.
Chikumba, who assumed the throne at the national carrier was
confident
Air Zimbabwe, would pass the audit.
He said Air
Zimbabwe had last year received a pre-audit visit from
IATA while the actual
audit billed for last week had been deferred to
December.
What
if Air Zimbabwe fails the audit?
"If Air Zimbabwe fails the audit,
it means there will be no airlines
between Zimbabwe and UK," he said adding
that Air Zimbabwe was accelerating
negotiations with airlines "which we feel
will be sympathetic".
Chikumba told the lawmakers that Air Zimbabwe
wanted to negotiate with
Virgin Atlantic but are failing to find a
go-between to link them up with
Sir Richard Branson.
Zim Standard
By Pindai
Dube
BULAWAYO —Thomas Meikles (TM) Stores Group, which is part
of the
Meikles Africa Group of Companies, has retrenched more than 300 of
its
workers due to continuous unavailability of the goods on the market
Standardbusiness has established.
TM Stores Group runs most of
Zimbabwe’s department stores namely TM
Supermarkets, Meikles, Barbours,
Greatermans and Clicks franchise.
The controversial government
price cuts in June emptied stores of
goods, leaving most of them on the
brink of collapse because they are
failing to restock.
Most
companies were forced to downsize operations as they were not
making profits
against operational costs.
It emerged that due to the continuous
unavailability of goods on the
market, the country’s largest supermarket
chain group, TM Stores Group has
been forced to slash its workforce to avoid
continuous losses through salary
payments to staff that was not doing any
work.
TM Stores’ Group retail director, David Mills confirmed that
the
supermarket group had retrenched scores of its workers while at the same
time revoked contracts of its relief workers.
"Several workers
were retrenched although I don’t have any exact
figure at the moment," Mills
said. "There is nothing coming from our supply
side.
"Manufacturers are no longer making any goods because of the low June
prices
imposed by the government. Even several contracts workers did not
have their
contract renewed."
Mills said he hoped the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
(RBZ) would fulfill
its promise of revive the retail industry before
Christmas.
RBZ governor, Gideon Gono recently condemned the price
cuts operation
noting that it was incumbent on the authorities to understand
that
manufacturers would not be prepared to produce goods that end up being
sold
at less than the cost price.
The central bank governor
claimed that measures were being put in
place with manufacturers and
Zimbabweans could expect to see a return to
normalcy before the end of
October.
Meanwhile, in a cautionary statement released on Tuesday
Meikles
Africa Group, Kingdom Financial Holdings and Tanganda Tea Company,
who are
set to merge to form Meikles Africa Limited Group agreed some of the
exchange share ratios, moving the deal closer to finalisation.
Economic analysts said the intended merger comes in the wake of the
Zanu PF
government’s intention to legislate a compulsory 51% indigenous
shareholding
in all foreign-owned companies based in Zimbabwe through the
controversial
Indigenization Bill which passed through parliament in
September and now
awaits President Mugabe’s signature.
Zim Standard
BY OUR STAFF
MEMBERS of the Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA) might not be ready to
sign
a comprehensive trade agreement with the European Union (EU) but have
expressed willingness to assent to some aspects of the pact in line with
international standards, a trade expert said last week.
ESA is
a 16-member grouping, including Zimbabwe that is negotiating
for reciprocal
Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU.
Masiiwa Rusare,
director at the Trades and Development Studies Centre
(Trade Centre), an
independent research and training organisation, said
although there were
joint texts on development issues and market access,
there were areas that
needed to be ironed out.
"There are prospects," he said, "that by
December 2007 they (ESA and
EU) will sign on things they have
agreed."
These EPAs have to be concluded by no later than the
beginning of
2008. The agreement covers trade issues in six areas:
fisheries; services;
agriculture; market access; development; and trade
related issues.
Rusare said there was no progress on services and
trade related issues
as the ESA region argues that it is not yet ready to
open up the sectors.
The EPA is being introduced to replace
non-reciprocal preferential
trade regime.
African, Caribbean
and Pacific countries used to enjoy unilateral
trade preferences with the EU
for almost three decades under the Lomé
Conventions. The Fourth Lomé
Convention was replaced by the Cotonou
Partnership Agreement in 2000, which
extends these unilateral trade
preferences to the end of 2007.
Zim Standard
Comment
It is tempting to conclude that the Movement for
Democratic Change is
thoroughly infiltrated. The basis for this theory is
that at each crucial
moment in the history of this country, the opposition
somehow gets
distracted and misses the bigger picture.
The
latest crisis to hit the MDC is that the party hierarchy has
dissolved the
Women’s Assembly, disregarding its constitution.
These charges come
at a time when the opposition should be readying
itself for what must —
barring a miracle — be an assured victory.
The ruling party has
agreed to an election in March next year. The
question that most have asked
is why any party would agree to an election at
which defeat is
certain.
Shortages of basic commodities persist. However, where the
basics are
to be found, it is generally agreed that the majority of
Zimbabweans can not
afford them.
There is a crippling fuel
crisis such that it is difficult to predict
whether the bus fare one pays in
the morning can hold until the end of the
day. Such is the volatility of the
spiralling prices.
Effects of the unavailability of fuel have
resulted in industries
being unable to operate and function properly,
resulting in companies
drastically reducing production and laying off
workers.
The effect of the government’s June price blitz has
generally left
most businesses on the brink of collapse and unable to
restock. The
domino-effect can be seen across the economy.
Enter the power cuts, which at any given moment render 50% of the
country
without electricity and the impact is evident upon industries,
hospitals,
schools — just about everyone is affected.
The shortage of
electricity has not only negatively impacted on
companies, health facilities
and educational institutions and households, it
has had a disastrous effect
on the water supply. The results have been
scores of people becoming ill
because of lack of treated water.
The list of what’s gone wrong by
far dwarves whatever the government
thinks it has done well. And that is the
reason any rational person asks why
a party, especially one in power would
agree to an election when it has is a
record of uninterrupted failure,
particularly this year.
What is increasingly plausible is that a
ruling party that agrees to
practically sign its own death warrant can only
make such an undertaking if
it has an ace up its sleeve. In this particular
case it must be the
government’s ability to wreak havoc on the MDC, possibly
through the kind of
advice availed to the leadership in the
opposition.
But blame for the current crisis which the opposition
is facing, going
into a crucial election, can not be attributed entirely on
the State’s
machinations. The opposition is playing a contributory role in
the whole
fiasco. They are demonstrating their inability to learn from
previous
mistakes or to identify an enemy within, that is determined to
derail their
regime change project.
Campaigners for a
democratic change, who paid the supreme sacrifice,
must be turning in their
graves when they see what is happening. They laid
down their lives in
support of people they believed were whole heartedly
committed to the
struggle to bring democracy to this country. The reality is
a great
betrayal.
In 2005, just before the Senate elections, the opposition
MDC dealt
itself a serious blow when it split. Now as the country prepares
for what
must be watershed harmonised Presidential and Parliamentary
elections, the
MDC finds itself in a major crisis, one reminiscent of
October 2005. This is
more than mere coincidence. This is the work of an
enemy within and the
opposition is aiding and abetting its own
defeat.
Zim Standard
sundayopinion by Bill
Saidi
SOON citizens with prickly consciences will be peppered with
questions
about the forthcoming elections.
Should they take
part? What guarantee do you have that Zanu PF will
accept
defeat?
The conscientious citizen will weigh the options: not
taking part must
presuppose there is a Plan B; if it has no provision for
preventing the
victory of the ruling party, then it is a dud.
Taking part must entail vigorous preparations, to ensure the largest
number
of voters turn out at the polls.
Only in such a scenario can the
opposition stand a chance of beating
Zanu PF, hands down — it’s the only way
to win.
Most of the election arsenal against Zanu PF has been
provided by the
party itself: the economy is a prime example.
The splits within the party are self-inflicted. There may be attempts
to
blame this on Gordon Brown, Tony Blair or even Harold Wilson — Zanu PF’s
capacity for creating scapegoats is unparalleled.
As of now,
the party has been shorn of all its dignity. The internal
squabbling is not
unlike a beer hall brawl.
At the recent politburo meeting in Harare
last week every effort was
made to present a picture of unity. There was no
indication that President
Robert Mugabe had earned the opprobrium of his
colleagues by enlisting the
dubious talents of Jabulani Sibanda to stage
nationwide pro-Mugabe
solidarity marches.
Sibanda, a
discredited war veteran, is using the former fighters as
cannon fodder for
Mugabe’s bid for an umpteenth term as president.
To most clinical
analysts, there is something utterly undignified in
Mugabe’s use of
Sibanda.
If Mugabe is ready to chuck his dignity overboard, then we
must assume
he is at the end of his political tether.
For the
same reason, relating to dignity, all men and women of
conscience must
determine that 2008 presents them with an opportunity to
retrieve their
dignity from many years of political abuse by Zanu PF.
In Africa
and the world, they have been pilloried as thoroughly
spineless, people who
won a 15-year struggle against a small band of heavily
armed white
supremacists, but cannot now say Boo! to an 83-year-old despot
who has
brought shame upon their country.
The fight for dignity is
bolstered by the humiliation of living
without water and electricity for
days and weeks on end: all this, not
because they have refused to pay their
taxes or their electricity and water
bills, but because of the inefficiency
and corruption of a system over which
Mugabe has presided for 27
years.
Under this cronyism, most people enjoying his favours are
living,
literally, off the fat of the land: most have two or three farms,
the most
productive properties previously owned by white commercial
farmers.
They have the most sophisticated farm implements to work
with and are
provided with such inputs as fertilizer and other chemicals at
the press of
a button.
Zanu PF has a record of political
dishonesty which must persuade
mature voters in 2008 to make the courageous
decision to reject the party
once and for all.
If voters hoping
for a change of government had set great store in
Zanu PF itself rejecting
Mugabe’s attempts to prolong his torture of this
land beyond 2008, they must
now realise that the party is putty in his
hands.
Some
optimists are still hopeful that the Zanu PF congress called for
December
will unanimously reject Mugabe. If that were to happen, it could
herald a
new era for the ruling party.
It would be the first time since
Independence that his colleagues in
the leadership have said No to Mugabe on
an issue of principle.
The principle here is that, with Mugabe at
the helm, Zanu PF has no
guaranteed future as a viable political party. Its
record of success is so
patchy, it is a travesty of logic that it has won
every presidential and
parliamentary election since 1980.
It is
unreasonable to believe that most of the men and women sitting
with Mugabe
at the politburo meeting in Harare last week believe firmly that
Mugabe is
right when he blames everyone and everything else, except himself,
for the
pathetic state of the country.
The congress in December may endorse
Mugabe but only after the people
who genuinely believe he has done enough
damage to this country are seduced
in the horse-trading that must precede
his endorsement.
Assuming the congress is conducted without the
customary stage-managed
tomfoolery, a decision to start on a new slate could
be accepted by the
party.
A new candidate for president could
be named and Mugabe could be
consigned to the role of "elder statesman" of
the party.
This would be a huge gamble. The way ordinary voters
feel about Zanu
PF today, even the party supporters would not hesitate to
ditch the party
candidate.
Most permutations so far do not
feature a deal between the MDC and
Zanu PF on a more or less permanent
resolution of the political and economic
crisis.
Morgan
Tsvangirai has been robustly positive in his rejection of a
government of
national unity. But it’s early days yet: some Sadc leaders
would probably
not countenance Mugabe’s humiliation - ending up with
nothing, as Kenneth
Kaunda, Hastings Banda, Frederick Chiluba and Bakili
Muluzi
did.
There is always the excuse that Zimbabwe must not be plunged
into
turmoil after an election. There are Sadc leaders who would prefer no
change
at all in Zimnbabwe.
They seem convinced that a non-Zanu
PF government would bring the
British back into the colonial saddle: after
Zimbabwe, which of its
neighbours would be the next?
In many
respects, it is this which should motivate Zimbabweans to
regain their
dignity: to show they are not puppets of Mugabe or the British.
saidib@standard.co.zw
Zim Standard
THERE are very few
African political activists who have been publicly
consistent in their
criticism of President Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF of
Zimbabwe. I am one of
them but will also be quick to point out that those of
us who do so are not
very many.
That is not because Africans do
not care about what is happening in
Zimbabwe but because the external
dimension and internal dynamics of the
struggle have both combined to work
in Mugabe’s favour. My position is made
more difficult by the fact that I
have been Secretary-General of the Pan
African Movement (until early last
year when I took a sabbatical, and joined
the UN Millennium Campaign as
Deputy Director for Africa, which not many
seemed to have noticed!). Mugabe
is indeed one of the most respected and
admired leaders in the Pan African
Movement so how can I be criticising one
of our icons?
Readers
who routinely send me texts or email messages: "well said"
"aluta continua
comrade", "give it to them man", "Aaaaaamen brotha", etc
have been outraged
by my stand on Zimbabwe/Mugabe.
One close comrade, a well respected
academic lawyer, even wrote to me,
stating categorically that I should add a
disclaimer at the bottom of my
columns and even suggested it thus: "the
views expressed are my personal
views not necessarily the view of the Global
Pan African Movement." Both
legally and politically he is correct but I was
puzzled that he never felt
it necessary to give me this legal advice until
Mugabe became an issue, in a
column that has been running for more than a
decade!
One of my critics (a brother who is a veteran of Black
Struggles in
the Diaspora) even went as far as to suggest that my columns
are
syndicatedly written by the
MI5 and CIA! My response to
many of such lurid accusations is that if
the CIA and MI5 could recruit me
without my knowledge then we have to give
them credit for good
judgement!
But seriously I have not been surprised by the hostile
reactions.
Mugabe evokes extremes of passions with no one being neutral. He
is regarded
by many Africans and Pan Africanists as the liberator, the icon
of
anti-imperialism, the bold and courageous African leader who is able to
look
at imperialists in the face and say: "To hell with you." In a
historical
period when Western arrogance and US hegemonic unilateralism is
making many
people angry and eliciting powerlessness and hopelessness many
are willing
to embrace anyone who dares to stand up against the West,
especially the US.
It is the same sentiments that made many
admire Saddam Hussein
regardless of his atrocities against his own people
(as agent of the US for
many years) or be happy at Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of
Iran today in his
vitriolic attacks on the US or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.
These people are
seen as leaders who refuse to bend to the wishes of
Washington.
Even other leaders especially from the poorer countries
of the world
(who may not do it themselves) are silently applauding these
leaders. Many
who are not sympathetic to Socialism admire Castro/Cubans
nonetheless for
standing against the US and defying it for almost five
decades, yet less
than 100 kilometres from the coast of
Florida!
In the case of Mugabe there is also the legitimacy
deriving from a
genuine liberation struggle that many saw as being ambushed
by the Lancaster
Housecompromise. Therefore they see Mugabe as returning to
the unfinished
agenda deffered from the negotiated settlement that led to
Independence in
1980.
Many are stuck in 1980 and Chimurenga
without judging Mugabe/Zanu PF
for its almost three decades of monopoly of
power in the country.
When you point this out a lot of apologetics
come out saying the
Lancaster House agreement prevented any radical
solution. But Lancaster
House was only for 10 years why did Mugabe not
restart the Chimurenga in
1990 instead of being forced to do so in the late
1990s by war veterans? But
seeking answers to these questions is like
arguing with Jehovah’s witnesses!
What also strengthens the
pro-Mugabe lobby is the evident hypocrisy of
the West in dealing with the
country. Why is Mugabe singled out? Where were
they in the mid —1980s when
Matabeleland and the Midlands were being wasted
in Zanu PF’s drive for
one-party state? Would they be making so much noise
if Mugabe did not attack
and repossessed land from the white settlers whose
ancestors (with British
imperial force) grabbed these lands from black
people? Is Mugabe being
punished as a warning to the ANC in neighbouring
South Africa not to even
dare address the land inequality in that country?
It is the
historic wrong against blacks in Zimbabwe that makes many
Africans generally
sympathetic to Mugabe even if they will disagree with
some of his methods.
The pressures from the West who are silent about
similar or worse excesses
of human rights, government authoritarianism and
dictatorial leadership by
other African leaders but chose to make Mugabe a
scapegoat, work for Mugabe
apologists.
That is why the current debate sparked by Britain’s
Gordon Brown on
the forthcoming Africa-EU dialogue scheduled for Portugal
later this year
can only make Mugabe’s position more formidable. Britain is
the least
qualified country to grandstand anyone on Zimbabwe.
Brown cannot be threatening the rest of Europe with boycott because of
one
man and one country. If the dialogue is indeed between Africa and Europe
why
should one side be laying down the terms?
Why do European leaders
think they are the only ones with a public to
respond to? African leaders
must not accept this. If they do, they would
have proven to their people
that they are spineless poodles of whose only
question when asked to jump by
he West is not why but how high?
However rejecting European
leaders’ arrogance and hypocrisies should
not mean that we should endorse
the excesses and Mugabe’s prolonged one-man
rule. Even if one has political
and ideological suspicions of the opposition
it does not justify the attacks
on them. In any case our solidarity should
be with the people of Zimbabwe
who may be Zanu PF loyalists, MDC supporters
or even neither. As citizens
they deserve to demand that their government be
held accountable to
them.
A disproportionate focus on the West’s agenda is making us
compromise
our duty to express this solidarity much more boldly.
Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is the UN Millenium Campaign deputy director and
a
respected political commentator.
Zim Standard
sundayview by Mandla Dube
The government has recently announced
that there will be harmonised
elections in March 2008 to elect a Parliament,
Senate and president.
Parliament will increase from 150 to 210 MPs
while the Senate will
balloon to 93 from 66. This is well beyond the
capacity and requirements of
a country with an official government inflation
rate of 7 000% or an
unofficial rate of 13 000%.
Having worked
on elections in the various Southern Africa Development
Community states,
namely Mozambique, Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe, I
am sufficiently
experienced to share a few comments with regards to the
March 2008 elections
in Zimbabwe.
Sad as it is, the existing Zimbabwe government has no
capacity or
intention to conduct a credible election in March 2008.
President Robert
Mugabe is not ready to vote himself out of power or talk
himself out of
office. South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki has not been successful as
yet in his
SADC-mandated role to mediate between the ruling Zanu PF and the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
A credible and
accessible electoral roll is the cornerstone of a
democratic election but
Zimbabwe’s roll is in a shambles. Only the
Registrar-General’s office, under
the watchful eye of Tobaiwa Mudede, knows
who is still on it. Everywhere
else in the world, the roll is a public
document. Not in
Zimbabwe.
Electoral campaigns anywhere require travel, mass media
access, a
credible and independent judiciary, just laws and non-partial
public
authorities. But in Zimbabwe there is no fuel and that which is
available is
for the ruling elite.
Media access is only
guaranteed to the ruling party, which also
appoints key figures in the
judiciary, police force, army and intelligence.
All party appointees owe
their allegiance to the ruling party through
Mugabe.
Zimbabwe’s
media laws are in the league of the most repressive. The
Access to
Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Public Order
Security Act
infringe on basic human rights around movement, assembly and
association.
These laws make it virtually impossible for any other political
contestant
to meaningfully engage and access the mass media.
The
State-controlled electronic and print mass media are gagged from
giving
balanced coverage before, during and after the elections. In the last
elections they would not accept advertisements from opposition political
parties and voter education material from non-governmental
organisations.
Elections in Zimbabwe are a game in which one team
has the players,
linesmen, referee and support staff. Winning under such
terms requires a
miracle.
While opposition parties are yet to
launch their campaigns and or
publicly declare participation, Zanu PF
launched their campaign on 11 March
2007 when they brutalised such figures
as MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai, Grace
Kwinjeh, Sekai Holland and far too many
more. MDC activist Gift Tandare was
murdered. A former Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Holdings cameraman, Edward
Chikomba, believed to have sent the gruesome
footage to the world press, was
also murdered.
New
Zealanders will hear firsthand testimony of Sekai Holland’s
gruesome
experiences when she tours under the auspices of Save Zimbabwe
Campaign next
month. She is undergoing deep tissue therapy and treatment in
Sydney for
more than 80 injuries and broken bones.
Back home, repression and
violence have escalated according to
Zimbabwe’s Human Rights Forum who
document cases. These attacks have been
carried out by youth militias, war
veterans, police and the army whose
leaders have recently been rewarded with
plush four-wheel drive vehicles.
Since 1985 those charged with
electoral violence have been guaranteed
presidential amnesties and some
rewarded with overseas appointments or
ministerial posts.
Mother Nature for some reason also tends to make life easier for
Mugabe’s
party when elections come. Often there is famine and the ruling
party has
intercepted food to deliver to voters as a political tool.
The most
obvious non-violent course of action post elections is
through the courts.
As the MDC found in 2002 cases are routinely not heard,
contending parties
are not given access to key evidence and there are no
judges available and
so the cases are postponed until they become academic
exercises. In rare
glimpses of court hearings, the judiciary has no latitude
to find otherwise
than in favour of the State.
The ruling party appointed commission
to suit the interests of its
paymaster will decide constituency boundaries.
People in certain rural areas
are rewarded with a high number of
constituencies while the more critical
urban population are given smaller
numbers.
The Registrar-General’s office decides the number and
location of
polling stations. In previous elections, notably in 2002 this
tactic was
used effectively to make sure that urban registered voters could
not cast
their vote. A High court order to extend the polls was simply
ignored.
The 2005 Operation Murambatsvina is likely to
disenfranchise nearly a
million eligible urban voters who were forcibly
displaced and are unlikely
to be allowed to reregister.
What
then is different from 2008? So far nothing. With the failure of
the SADC to
mediate effective change, the election outcome may as well be
lying in
someone’s drawer ready for release in March.
How then can
progressive forces within and outside Zimbabwe make 2008
a watershed
election?
Discard the electoral roll and use the national identity
card vote for
voter identification.
One-day election. An
extended one-day only poll would maximise the
meagre resources and take away
challenges around overnight security of
ballot boxes. The obvious way to
achieve this is to increase the number of
polling stations nationwide and
use clinics, service centres, schools,
boreholes or water points, chief’s
homesteads as polling centres. Let there
be a record number of polling
stations in Zimbabwe so that no one has to
walk more than 5km to access
democracy.
Results processing should be done at each polling
station and made
public to everyone present. They can be broadcast to a
national live command
centre.
One constituency concept.
Every eligible Zimbabwean within the country
casts his/her ballot at the
nearest polling station. There they will vote
and hand over their ID for 24
hours to eliminate double or triple voting. In
2000, I like many Zimbabweans
did not know the candidates. We entrusted the
party we chose to give us
credible candidates. In a land with no resources
such as Zimbabwe, it is
easier and practical to cast a vote for the MDC,
Zanu PF or any other party
rather than for individual candidates.
Diaspora vote. Those
Zimbabweans living in neighbouring Botswana,
Mozambique, South Africa,
Malawi and Zambia could vote at border posts
unless the UN can facilitate a
better process. Voting tallies should be made
public. The Diaspora vote will
only be credible if the Zimbabwe Embassies
are not involved, thereby
preventing Zanu PF involvement in transmitting the
votes.
The
Diaspora vote is estimated to be about 4 million. Denying suffrage
to such a
huge constituency is a major travesty of justice. These are the
Zimbabweans
whose remittances have kept the nation afloat.
In the meantime,
Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have to collectively
demand their vote. We do
not owe that vote to Zanu PF or any political party
but to the nation,
Zimbabwe. Let us mobilise.
The closest to a free, fair and credible
election was in 1980 when
many Zimbabwean ID-carrying persons, 18 years and
over, cast their ballots
at the nearest possible polling station.
Twenty-eight years later, Zimbabwe
would be wise to unwind the clock and run
the election on similar terms.
• Mandla Akhe Dube is a
Zimbabwean journalist.
Media attack on Pius Ncube an affront to Christianity
THE Book of
Jeremiah tells the story of two prophets; one true one and
the other a false
one. The true one spoke what God told him while the false
one spoke what the
people wanted to hear: Jeremiah 28:1-13. Even as I write
we have many like
Hananiah the false prophet among us in the mould of Andrew
Wutaunashe, Noah
Pashapa, Nolbert Kunonga and Obadiah Musindo.
The same book also
points out "the prophets’ prophesy lies in my name.
I have not sent them. .
.. Jeremiah 14:14 and also says they strengthen the
hands of evildoers so
that no one turns from the wickedness, they are like
Sodom to me, Jeremiah
23: 14(6).
There was a time when Pius Ncube stood alone like a
voice crying in
the wilderness against the abuse of power by the government.
Like Elijah he
could claim; "I am the only one left, and now they are trying
to kill me
too." 1 Kings 19:14c.
One can still hear echoes of
the good Archbishop’s strong statements
against the excesses of the
Gukurahundi, the so called Murambatsvina and
other satanic acts of the
government. Even the prayer for Mugabe’s death was
in order as it tallies
with a biblical principle that it is better that one
man dies than that a
whole nation should perish: John 11:49-81. Think now
how many people have
died since Pius Ncube expressed this wish as a result
directly or indirectly
of Mugabe’s continued existence.
Now, the man of God has a case.
Like everyone else he has every right
to be treated as innocent until proven
guilty. The Herald however treats him
as guilty before being proven guilty.
Vengeful newspaper men singing their
master’s tune have put their souls on
the block for pieces of rusting
silver — for it is a mean thing to pour
scorn on a man of God.
Supposing it is true that indeed the man of
God stumbled, would it
negate what he said anyway? Would that exonerate the
government’s gross
violation of human rights? Would it erase the memories of
the battered face
of Morgan Tsvangirai proudly displayed on the front pages
of The Herald or
would it wipe away the memory of Mugabe’s undiplomatic and
unsavoury
boasting of his cowboy police’s Genghis Khan Methods? Certainly
not.
The church is both an organism and an organisation. As an
organism it
has a role to play which is not dictated by the government nor
even by its
own membership but by God. The organisational part is the one
that is human
and it may not be perfect. So when a man of God speaks ex
cathedra it is not
the man but his office that speaks. The medium does not
change the message
and neither does it affect the consecration. So Mugabe
and his newsroom
trumpeters cannot hide behind Ncube’s alleged
imperfections. They should
repent of their sins or face the
consequences.
Now, the catholic bishops have stood behind one of
their number. It
must be borne in mind that they are not alone for behind
them lie a vast
number of Catholics both locally and internationally. Even
the Holy Father
has not condemned him. If Mugabe is indeed a Catholic as he
claims to be
then, as a layman, he should learn to respect his Archbishop —
if not his
person then his office.
I wonder if The Herald
expects the CBCZ to echo the government and
Zanu PF’s sub-judicial
statements. This is like the tail wishing to wag the
dog.
However, I do not take this as an attack upon Pius Ncube but as
blatant
disrespect of the whole institution of Catholicism as represented by
its
hierarchy. This should come as a shock to Catholics within the
government
and its Goebellian media plus its Gestapo organisations. It is
high time
Catholics publicly expressed their displeasure at the attack upon
their
bishops.
But is this a Catholic struggle alone? No — I see it as an
attack on
and disrespect for the Church and Christianity as a whole. If the
church is
now forced or expected to forego its prophetic role then it is
banned as an
effective institution in the country. All churches should
therefore strongly
condemn this onslaught upon their members. Today, it is
Ncube and the
Catholics tomorrow it may be you and your church. What does
‘Hananiah’ and
others have to say?
Nqobizitha
Khumalo
Epworth,
Harare
--------------
Harare parents ripped-off by Ministry of
Education
I am writing first as a parent and then as a concerned
citizen of
Zimbabwe.
Sometime in July this year something very
disturbing happened in most
government schools in Harare. I could not
highlight this in the press at
that time because I wanted to have my
evidence right. Our primary school
children were ordered by the Ministry of
Education to bring $20 000 each
towards national youth games in Chinhoyi. A
rough survey I carried out
revealed that on average, each school raised 20
million dollars. Multiply
this by the number of schools in Harare and
Chitungwiza, your guess is as
good as mine.
Teaching children
the virtues of charity is not bad; the question is,
to who is one donating
and for what cause? Admittedly, $20 000 is nothing
nowadays, but
accumulatively, this is morally unacceptable. Can they not see
that people
are struggling to have just one meal on the table a day? Has the
government
sunken so low as to see nothing wrong with begging from
housemaids and
street vendors whom they also repeatedly and unashamedly
harass.
Harare parents remained mum on this but I could not,
simply because I
think this was the highest order of moral bankruptcy any
sitting government
can display. Money for youth games here vakomana! Who
needs youth games in
Harare today? To serve whose interests — the
politicians?
We paid — I paid — we had no choice. How could I
explain to my Grade
One child that it’s the State not citizens who should
foot the bill for the
youth games? I felt powerless but nauseated. I am an
SDA member with three
children at primary school and four orphaned
dependents also attending
primary school here in Mbare, Majubheki, then a
faceless someone orders me
to pay $140 000 towards meaningless games. Is
that the nation’s priority as
of now? When I try to bring two bags of maize
from the rural home to feed
these seven innocent souls, they harass and
detain me at GMB-manned
road-blocks. Chibage changu chandakarimira ivo vana
ava (My own maize which
I produced for my children)! So how am I supposed to
feed them? Shops in the
city have no maize-meal — Asi moti tisauye nechibage
(Then they say we
cannot bring the maize into the city). What kind of
reasoning is this for a
government? When I cry out like I am doing right
now, I am labelled
unpatriotic. So who is supposed to speak about my
problems if I cannot
articulate them myself?
Schools don’t have
books, teachers buy stationery for their work and
when we, as SDA, try to
raise levies, the same authorities dilly-dally in
approving the
recommendations. Now, which one is important to me as a
parent — $40 000
meant for text books, teachers’ stationery, classroom
furniture or $140 000
meant for youth games. Who will account for every cent
of this
money?
Odix
Mbare,
Harare.
----------
Mudenge utterances at UNESCO expose shocking
hypocrisy
THE Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, Dr Stan
Mudenge’s
utterances at the 34th Session of the General Conference at UNESCO
Headquarters in Paris are quite shocking and expose the worst kind of
hypocrisy that characterises our political leadership.
Why does
the Minister see the speck in other people’s eyes when he can’t
realise the
log that is in his own eye? Mudenge on several occasions has
failed to speak
on behalf of suffering students of Zimbabwe, yet he sees it
fit now to
condemn the Australian deportations and raise questions of human
rights.
Where has Mudenge been, when students have been
brutally attacked by
the overzealous police force, CIO and Green Bombers?
What of the so many
students that have been either suspended or expelled by
Vice-Chancellors and
principals around Zimbabwe, for daring to stand up for
their rights?
The Minister should be reminded of the hundreds of
students who were
forced out of school due to the ever-rising tuition fees
as well as the
accommodation crisis that has rocked tertiary institutions,
the most severe
being that at the University of Zimbabwe where students
continue to find
sanctuary in beer halls, waiting rooms at the railway
station and
inhabitable homes.
All these students had come to
colleges of their choice but the
insensitive government of the day decided
otherwise and these students have
suffered due to their fathers’ sins of
having been born to poor peasants and
civil servants.
Lovemore Chinoputsa
Students Executive Council
President
University of Zimbabwe
Harare
---------
A pity for the torturer
A MAN in
uniform who beats people who cannot defend themselves is a
torturer. Pity
the poor torturer. He may have a wife and six children at
home but do they
know he bashes and beats people at work everyday? He knows,
if they do not,
that he has sold his soul to the devil, because he would not
continue to
torture people unless he got some perverted pleasure from it.
He
gets up in the morning, just like a normal man. He kisses his wife
with the
mouth that later in the day will spew obscenities and hate at other
men’s
wives.
He holds his children with the hands that later in the day
will bruise
and cut and break the bones of other men’s
children.
And then at the end of the day he returns home to greet
his wife and
children with blood-stained hands. And tomorrow it will start
again. So pity
the poor torturer —for God knows what he does and he will be
tormented for
all eternity.
Anti-bashing
Harare
---------
Zinwa a ploy to feed government
coffers
REMEMBER a couple of years
ago the Manyame Water Authority was
trying to extort money from the public
who were fortunate enough to have
their own boreholes and the public ignored them?
That was
just another one of the machinations of this power
hungry lot who are
already struggling to keep the coffers full to pay civil
servants.
Now the Zimbabwe Water Authority is also just
another way for
the government to get their hands on money of the already
over taxed and
underpaid people in the country. It is time that they woke up
to the fact
that the public is not stupid even though they think we
are.
The writing is already on the wall for this lot and they
just
have to remove the blinkers from their eyes and read it or do they need
Daniel to rise from his grave to come and interpret.
We
blame other countries for the mess here but we should look in
our own back
yard.
Zimbabwean
Harare
Irish Independent
White farmer Wayne
Deegan and his young family fled the murderous regime of
Robert Mugabe to
find refuge in Ireland. Sinead Ryan reports on the personal
toll of an
African tragedy
By Sinead Ryan
Friday October 26
2007
For Wayne Deegan Ireland isn't really home. His wife Orla might be
from
Templeogue, but neither of them really planned to live here. Their
children
were born on the opposite side of the world and they feel
displaced, removed
from the place they call home.
But when that place
has been denounced as the most corrupt country on the
planet, a place where
the inflation rate runs at 6,000pc, interest rates at
800pc and where you
have to bring a wheelbarrow full of cash just to go
grocery shopping,
Ireland is by far the better option.
The Deegans knew they had had enough
by 2000. They now live in Rathfarnham
with their children (Zach, 14, and
Niamh, 11). Wayne knew it would be easier
to get work here.
"The
catalyst was the day my friend Martin Olds was murdered," says Wayne.
Olds,
a white farmer, was attacked by a 14-vehicle convoy of 70 insurgents
armed
with AK-47s and machetes. After defending himself for three hours, he
was
killed as he left his home on 18 April, 2000. No arrests were ever
made.
"We came here with €150, five suitcases and two children," says
Wayne.
"Everything else was left behind. I started labouring and working as
a
doorman the minute we got here." Wayne now works as a fireplace fitter.
His
children found the transition, "a little difficult, but they're very
settled
now. My wife and I both work and it's a great feeling knowing that
we're not
going to be hijacked or have to sleep with a revolver by the bed
as I did
for years".
Life under a despot is cruel, and Robert
Mugabe's Zimbabwe is crueller than
most. Zimbabwe today is on the verge of
famine. The UN has warned that half
of the 12m population is in danger of
starvation. To date, Mugabe has
refused all aid: "Why do they want to choke
us with their food? We have
enough," he has said.
His senior
minister, Didymus Mutasa, has even implied such a cull, in
opposition areas
particularly, would not be undesirable. "We would be better
off with only
six million people -- our people," he claimed. Thousands of
white business
people in Zimbabwe are on the receiving end of new
legislation which forces
them to hand over 51pc of business interests to
blacks. Paul Mangwana, the
'black empowerment', minister was reported as
justifying the action by
saying: "If a white person wants to start a
business, he should partner with
indigenous persons."
It is said that the worst thing to happen to Africa
was the arrival of the
white man. The second worst was his departure. Today,
after Mugabe's "land
redistribution" purge, Zimbabwe has the dubious
distinction of being the
world's fastest sinking economy -- the standard of
living halved since
independence in 1980.
The Aids epidemic has
wreaked havoc on the country. Life expectancy is just
33 years, down from 60
in 1980. It is estimated that 40pc of the population
have Mukondombera --
the local Shona term for HIV. For many years a taboo
subject, Minister for
Health Herbert Ushewekunze ordered that there be no
publicity of the
disease, much less advice on treatment, before ultimately
(and ironically)
succumbing to it himself. Robert Mugabe has uncommonly
lived the equivalent
of almost three lives already. At 83, he rules with an
iron fist, while
overseeing the construction of his latest palace -- the
largest private
dwelling ever in Africa: 24 bedrooms over 3 storeys on four
acres set in a
lush 50-acre garden.
Almost half of white Zimbabweans have dual
nationality but since 2002 Mugabe
has made it illegal to hold dual passports
and banned long-term residents
from voting, a decision which affected whites
in the main who were forced to
repudiate even a notional second nationality
in order to exercise their
mandate. Such is the perilous state of the
economy that prices for everyday
goods double every four months but the
Reserve Bank is unable to circulate
more banknotes as it doesn't have the
foreign currency to pay for printing
them. Author Peter Godwin left Zimbabwe
for Manhattan. His book, When a
Crocodile Eats the Sun, details the demise
of Africa's bread-basket into
Africa's basket case. For most of the 20th
century whites dominated
Zimbabwean agricultural land, despite being just
1pc of the population.
After independence, the new president Mugabe
initially encouraged white
farmers to remain -- they brought expertise and
modern farming methods,
accounting largely for the country's
success.
He even appointed a white Minister for Agriculture to begin
voluntary land
redistribution -- by 2000, 40pc of farms had been bought from
whites at
market rates and transferred into black hands. His interest, at
first, waned
but became militant when some farmers refused to sell. Godwin
calls it the
"boiled frog syndrome" -- a frog heated slowly in water doesn't
notice until
he is boiled alive.
Born during the Rhodesian war, Wayne
has known political instability all his
life. He says the latest insurgency
was different. "We were used to violence
and took whatever measures
necessary to counter it. You could be fair game
at any time."
In
Ireland, Wayne finds Irish people have been extremely accepting of him,
but
suffer misconceptions about him and the other "Zimbos" -- a community of
about 10 families living in Dublin. "We've all been displaced -- it's not
the same as emigrating by choice, but there is an assumption here that we
whites 'colonised' Zim."
He acknowledges the analogy some Irish make
with the British colonisation
here, but he is adamant that it isn't the
same. "The land wasn't being used.
The whites put it to use -- we didn't
take it from the indigenous
population."
Wayne loves our easygoing
ways and doesn't think he will return to Zimbabwe.
"I don't consider Ireland
home, because we've been displaced ... but it's
home for now."
-
Sinead Ryan