Sunday Times (SA)
Libya cuts off
Zimbabwe's fuel
Dingilizwe Ntuli
Zimbabwe's fuel
crisis intensified this week amid reports that Libya had
turned off its
supply following non-payment.
Zimbabwe has experienced recurrent fuel
shortages since 2000 and Libya has
supplied 70% of Harare's fuel needs since
August last year.
President Robert Mugabe recently visited Tripoli to
hammer out a new deal
with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Although Mugabe
tried to renew the
$360-million (about R3.6-billion) deal with Gaddafi, the
Libyan oil company
TamOil, in which the Libyan government is a major
shareholder, called in its
$63-million debt.
TamOil is believed to
have told Mugabe that fuel deliveries would resume
only upon
payment.
The fuel crisis is set to worsen as financing agreements
signed with other
suppliers expire in a fortnight - and the chances of their
renewal are
minimal because of Zimbabwe's foreign exchange
shortage.
The shortage is so severe that the government failed to pay
for 100 million
litres of various fuels from Kuwait's Independent Petroleum
Group's stocks
in the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe's storage tanks in
Harare.
But despite the overwhelming evidence of mounting fuel
shortages, Mugabe's
government insists fuel supplies are adequate and claims
the "artificial
shortages" are due to hoarding by traditional
distributors.
Deputy Energy Minister Reuben Marumahoko said the
government was surprised
by the shortages because "enough fuel for daily
consumption was being pumped
out of Noczim's main depot in
Harare".
"There is no need to panic because the country has enough
fuel.
"Right now, we have called in all the distributors to find out
where the
fuel is going and we are still investigating," Marumahoko told
Parliament.
He said the country's daily consumption of 1.9 million
litres of diesel and
1.2 million litres of petrol was being released from the
depot and there was
no need to panic.
However, his utterances
contrasted with long queues at the few garages that
still had
supplies.
Most garages in the capital, Harare, and the second largest
city, Bulawayo,
had dried up, crippling the country's already fragile public
transport
system and leaving commuters stranded.
Most fleets have
already been grounded by shortages of spare parts and the
fuel crisis is set
to compound the problem.
Commuters have resorted to walking the long
distances to their places of
employment as it is taking them an average of
two hours to catch public
transport in the wake of the
crisis.
El Pais (Spain)
Hitler, the
Arab Playboy and the Son of God
By John Carlin
In order
to transport half a million dollars in unlaundered
cash safely from one
country to another there are two basic
requirements. First, you must
possess a business class ticket,
because the weight of half a million
dollars exceeds the the
hand luggage limit on Economy. Second, you must
disembark at
an airport where customs officials may be relied upon not
to
ask questions.
Harare International Airport has provided
precisely such
facilities in recent years; foreign associates of
the
Zimbabwean government have provided the business class
tickets
and the millions in cash. Once inside Zimbabwe, the money
has
been employed, among other things, to pay off
senior
government officials and others close to President
Robert
Mugabe; to engage in currency exchange rackets; and,
abetted
by the military and other elements in the Zimbabwean
state
apparatus, to purchase "blood diamonds" in the war zones
of
the Congo.
In tracking the trail of the cash, el Pais has
obtained dozens
of documents, including three signed affidavits, and
spoken to
the investigation has centred chiefly on the testimony of
two
individuals who worked closely for more than two years within
an elite
clique of Zimbabweans and foreign business people who
have been making big
money out of the mayhem of war. The two
individuals' story reveals the
corrupt schemings of Robert
Mugabe's inner circle and reinforces the
perception -- held by
the European Union and the United States, among
others - that
Mugabe is the leader not so much of a national government
as
of a small gang that has spent the last four years getting
rich
thanks to a war that has cost more than two million lives
in the Congo;
that deems its own survival to be of more
pressing urgency than the
impending death by famine, as the
United Nations has warned, of six
million Zimbabweans.
In conversations el País held in Washington that
ranged from
Congress to the State Department to the Pentagon and in
London
with officials of the government and members of the House
of
Lords, the words that kept on recurring to describe
Zimbabwe's
ruling elite were "mafia", "pillage" and "criminal".
The
consensus, summed up by one congressional staffer
in
Washington, was that the Zimbabwean government was "a
criminal
organisation run for the benefit of Mugabe and his
cronies".
"Mugabe always was power-hungry, but not - I thought
-
corrupt. I never imagined he would end up presiding over
the
most corrupt regime in Africa," said Robin Renwick, one of
the
chief architects of the Lancaster House agreement which
gave
independence to Zimbabwe and, as it turned out,
uninterrupted
power to Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party for the last 22
years.
Lord Renwick, later British ambassador in South Africa
and
Washington, has been one of the more vocal proponents of an
EU
visa ban and assets freeze imposed this year on Mugabe and
71
of his associates.
Russ Feingold, the Democrat who chairs
the US Senate's
Sub-Committee on Africa, has pushed for similar sanctions
in
Washington. Senator Feingold, who has met with members
of
Mugabe's inner circle, said that Zimbabwe's "elites"
had
"strong incentives to retain power regardless of the cost to
the
country as a whole"; that it was dificult to avoid the
conclusion "that
public office is being used almost solely for
private gain". Or, as
Renwick more bluntly put it, "the
Zimbawean army has been rented out in
the Congo for the
benefit of Mugabe and the mafia around
him".
Ed Royce, the Republican who heads the House
of
Representatives' Africa sub-committee, is outraged by what
he
calls Mugabe's use of "food as a weapon",
deliberately
"starving people" his political opponents. The judiciary
is
neutered, the press is gagged (North Korea-style, no
foreign
press are allowed in Zimbabwe today) and meanwhile,
Royce
said, "Mugabe's cronies live high by pillaging the
Democratic
Republic of Congo".
Walter Kansteiner, the US assistant
secretary of state for
Africa, spoke of the man-made "tragedy" of
Zimbabwe when he
spoke to el País. Traditionally an exporter of food, a
country
with a solid infrastructure and one of the highest
educational
standards in Africa, Zimbabwe had been a beacon of light in
a
dark continent. It had emerged, in Kansteiner's word, "from
a
harsh colonial past into a country that clearly
valued
democratic tradition". Not any more, said Kansteiner, who
-
choosing his words diplomatically - described the
business
deals the Mugabe regime now engaged in as a "a little
bit
murky".
The revelations of the two individuals from inside
the
Zimbabwean "mafia" who spoke to el Pais, in conversations
held
in London and Marbella, help reveal the depths of
the
Zimbabean tragedy and shed new light on the murk; on
a
state-sanctioned criminal network whose accomplices
and
interests extend from Africa to Europe and the Middle
East.
The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they said
they
feared that if their names were published they, or their
wives
and children, might be killed. Because of their very
real
concerns, the two sources shall be known in this article as
-
choosing two names entirely at random - Ali and Moses.
The
story they tell has two protagonists, Emmerson Mnangagwa
and Thamer
Said Ahmed Al Shanfari, both of whom have been in
the spotlight of a
long-standing United Nations investigation
into the looting of the
Congo's mineral wealth. Mnangagwa is
Mugabe's crony in chief: his
closest confidant, the key man in
Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence
Organisation - the secret
police -- ever since independence, and the
man with whose
blessing almost any crime may be committed in Zimbabwe
with
impunity. Al Shanfari, Mnangagawa's crony, is an
Omani
entrepreneur described in a secret South African
intelligence
document obtained by el País as "the Zimbabweans'
most
important foreign business partner". Mnangagwa, known
in
Zimbabwe as "the Son of God" because of the
general
supposition that he is Mugabe's anointed successor, is the
man
illegal cash and diamonds through Harare Airport. Shanfari,
the
playboy son of a former Omani oil minister, is the man who
starts the
ball rolling by buying the business class tickets
and arranging the
transfer of the large sums of cash from
Europe on which the commercial
transactions in the Congo
depend. Shanfari is the president and chief
executive officer
of a company called Oryx Natural Resources that owns
a diamond
concession in Mbuji-Mayi, in the Congo, jointly with
the
governments of Zimbabwe and the Congo.
Ali, more hands-on in his
dealings with Mnangagwa and Shanfari
than Moses, recalls how three
different individuals paid by
Shanfari would take it in turns to pick
up sums ranging from
500,000 to 750,000 US dollars in cash from a bank
account in
London and a bank account in Brussels, both in the
Oryx
company name. The money itself did not belong to Oryx
(a
company whose auditors are the same as Enron's, Arthur
Andersen)
but to at least three Arab business associates of
Shanfari's. One of
them was a Lebanese diamond dealer; one an
Iraqi arms dealer; one a Sudanese
businessman who had been
involved in the bankruptcy scandal of the Abu
Dhabi-based Bank
of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in
1992. Ali and
Moses said they knew personally, from first-hand
evidence, of
ten such trips, involving a total of around five
million
dollars. "But we know there were many more of these
missions,
even though we were not directly involved," they
said.
Shanfari's couriers, ex-soldiers who could be relied upon
to
obey and follow orders, would catch a plane at Gatwick
Airport
("there was no problem with the x-ray machine: money
just
shows up as ordinary paper"), take their business class
seats
and fly south to Harare, where - thanks to Mnangagwa and
the
complicity of the Zimbabwean military -- they would
breeze
through customs. "The money would then be distributed
in
various ways," said Ali, who says he saw much of what
happened
with his own eyes. "Part of it would go to the PLO Embassy
in
Harare. The ambassador was a very nice man. As well as being
the
longest-serving diplomat in Harare - his car's number
plate was CD1 - he was
a foreign exchange dealer. He gave us
Zimbabwean dollars in return for the
US, lots of them, in big
cardboard boxes." Large chunks of this money would
then go to
Emmerson Mnangagwa. "Emmerson would get a cut after
every
trip. What would happen would be that Emmerson would
come
round to Thamer's house for a barbecue or a dinner - he has
a
huge ranch house outside Harare -- and while they were eating
one
of Thamer's trusted people would put two or three of these
cardboard
boxes stuffed with money into the boot of Emmerson's
car."
Another of the
beneficiaries of Shanfari's largesse was
Mugabe's young wife, Grace, a woman
who has acquired a
reputation as something of an African Imelda Marcos
on account
of her profligate spending down the years in the shops
of
London, New York, Madrid and other western capitals which
she
has visited in recent years - usually flying Air Zimbabwe,
a
state airline which the Mugabes have a habit of comandeering
for
their own private use. Ali and Moses said they were aware
of boxes of
money having been delivered by car to the First
Lady at her home. A third
beneficiary was General Vitalis
Zvinavashe, head of the Zimbabwean
armed forces, famous for
having uttered the following memorable line last
March on the
eve of Zimbabwe's flagrantly stolen, "Any change designed
to
reverse the gains of this revolution will not be
supported."
Another individual who received cash hand-outs from
Shanfari
was Sydney Sekeramayi, Mnangagwa's most serious rival to
take
over as president eventually from Mugabe. Sekeremayi,
today
minister of mines and energy, wrote a letter to Shanfari dated
7
July 2000 when he was Minister of State Security in the
President's
Office - meaning head of intelligence -- thanking
him for monies
received. Elections had just taken place in
Zimbabwe and Sekeramayi had
retained his parliamentary seat.
The letter, a copy of which has been
obtained by el País,
carries an official Zimbabwean government letter head
and
contains Sekeremayi's signature at the bottom. It
reads:
"Dear Mr Thamer
Al-Shanfari,
I am writing this letter to
express my sincere appreciation for
the generous moral, material and
financial assistance you
rendered to boost my election campaign.
My re-election as the
Member of Parliament for Marondera East was
greatly facilitated
by your
support. Thank you very
much.
Dr S.T. Sekeremayi"
The
crucial cogs in the state apparatus having been duly oiled
(Moses
calculates that Mugabe's people took between 10 and 20
per cent of the cash
that arrived on the flights from London
Gatwick), the remaining money set off
into Kinshasa, the
capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. On
planes
provided by a company called Avient -- of which the
ZANU-PF
treasurer and close Mugabe associate J.C. Joshi is a
director
hat also had a side-line supplying Antonov aircraft
and
Ukrainian pilots to the Congo military. Mnangagwa, who
did
business deals with his Congo counterparts, saw to it
that
there would be no awkward questions asked by the customs
men
at Kinshasa airport.
"The procedure was quite
straightfoward," Moses explained.
"We'd meet with a guy called Alphonse in
Kinshasa, a Belgian
diamond dealer, and we gave him US dollars for
uncut stones
that had been extracted in the Congo's big diamond
area
Mbuji-Mayi. Then we'd go back to Harare with the diamonds
and
from there we'd take them down to South Africa to have them
cut.
That was the tricky part."
A couple of individuals who Ali and Moses know
very well and
who were employed by Shanfari transported the diamonds
to
Johannesburg in their underpants. "Enough diamonds to fill
a
tea cup," said Moses. "Easily half a million to a million
US
worth on each trip." Once the stones had made it
through
Johannesburg airport the rest was easy. "We got the
diamonds
back into Harare - never a problem because we had
the
infrastructure of the military to assist us and of
course
carte blanche in the airport itself.
From there the diamonds,
certified as if they hade been
extracted legally
from a mine owned
by Oryx, travelled on to Antwerp where they
were sold legally. The
people who put the money into the
system in the first place got the same
amount back - but now
certified by the Antwerp diamond buyer as having
clean
provenance. It was pure money-laundering. Everybody was
happy.
Thamer's Arab friends had achieved their objectives.
Thamer
took a big cut. Emmerson and the others made easy
money."
Sometimes, though, Shanfari tried to get a little too
clever,
according to Ali and Moses. "It worked beautifully, until
the
day that it didn't." This is what would happen. The US
dollars
would travel from Harare to Kinshasa but not, initially,
to
buy diamonds. To be changed, rather, into Congolese Francs.
At
the office of an associate of Shanfari's called Akram that
Ali
describes as having been "just full of foreign
currencies".
Akram was Akram Moorad, nephew of the lebanese diamond
dealer
who was among Shanfaris cash suppliers in Europe.
"Thamer
called the Congolese Francs 'chicken feed'," recalled
Ali. "There was
tons of the stuff, loaded inside big silver
containers, that we'd take back
to Harare. Later, in the dead
of night, we'd load the boxes onto a
Lybian plane - a private
plane in from Tripoli -- at Harare airport
which would take
the money to Kisangani, which was the heart of rebel
country
in the Congo war. Here they desperately needed
Congolese
Francs." Congolese Francs are the local currency but cash
has
been hard to obtain. The distance between between the
capital
Kinsahasa and Kisangani is more than 700 miles. In
war-time
getting from one place to the other has proved
almost
impossible. Getting US dollars presented less ofa
challenge,
because they could be shipped across Congo's borders with
two
countries friendly to the Kisangani rebels, Uganda and
Rwanda.
So they bought Thamer's Congolese Francs in US
dollars,"Ali
continued, "but Thamer got back double the rate he'd sold
them
at in Kinshasa. Double!"
It was a great business, (though
there are suggestions now
that some of the dollars received might have
been forged). But
it was risky. "Because if either the Zimbabweans or
the
Congolese found out the money was going to those they
were
actually at war with, there would be hell to pay for
Thamer."
As far as the Zimbabwe authorities were concerned,
Moses
explained, the Lybian plane was taking the money to
Oryx's
mine at Mbuji-Mayi, to pay for staff and equipment.
was
a cock-up, someone wasn't tipped off on time, and they
caught us -
Congolese military security --with 750,000 US
worth of Congolese Francs
on our way back to Harare." An
employee of Shanfari's was jailed, as
was Patel the Kenya
Airways man. Shanfari's employee was released after
Mnangagwa
intervened directly on his behalf with the Congolese justice
minister.
COMMERCIAL FARMERS' UNION
Farm
Invasions And Security Report
Friday 04 October 2002
This
report does not purport to cover all the incidents that are taking
place in
the commercial farming areas. Communication problems and the fear
of
reprisals prevent farmers from reporting all that happens.
Farmers
names, and in some cases farm names, are omitted to minimise the risk
of
reprisals.
REGIONAL NEWS
MANICALAND
Chipinge - 46 head of
cattle were stolen from a farm. Three skins were
found in the
possession of a meat trader.
Chimanimani - Mr R Bennett was arrested on
29.09.02 and released on
01.10.02. A number of residents and farmers
have left the area and there
are very few commercial farmers left.
Burma
Valley - There have been cases of heart water in the area.
MASHONALAND
CENTRAL
No report received.
MASHONALAND EAST
Harare South - One
farmer who was on an 'attempted murder and reckless
driving charge' had his
case thrown out of court. One farmer held a meeting
with the female
labour who were not happy with their package. The issue
was
resolved. The manager had a visit by two men escorted by the police
telling
him to vacate his home by 08.10.02. The owner of the farm said
the farm
only had a Section 5 but they stated that matter was between the
farmer and
government. In general, one beast was slaughtered and S.I.6
problems
continue.
Other areas no reports received.
MASHONALAND
WEST (NORTH)
No report received.
MASHONALAND WEST SOUTH
Chegutu -
on 27.09.02 at dusk on Mafuti Estate, the owner's wife went out to
switch on
the security lights, and taken captive by two unknown assailants.
They
demanded to know where the husband was and forced entry into the house
with
her. The owner tried to give some form of assistance to his wife.
Being
71 years old he was soon overpowered and a knife held to his throat.
Demands
were made, and they were roughly pushed about. The assailants
looted
the homestead, taking the TV, video, some cash and other valuable
items and
demanding the farm weapons. The owner stated these were in safe
keeping in
Harare at Feredays. The assailants did not believe this and the
knife was
pushed to his throat a little harder. The owner offered to give
them a letter
to Feredays for them to have the weapons released to them.
Seeing that there
was nothing more to gain they left. The couple have been
very traumatised by
this incident and have since voluntarily moved off the
farm to a rented home
in Chegutu. This farmer was one of the first to offer
his whole farming
operation to Govt., under the ZJRI Initiative back in
2000. He has had two
meetings with the land compensation committee and only
been offered 10
million the first time over 5 years and 12 million the
second time also over
5 years. This estate was valued at 36 million dollars
in 2000. On Tiverton
Estate in the absence of the owner, a "war vet" by the
name of Massa Tolini,
broke through the security fence on the evening of
28.09.02 and forced the
farm guards to break into the owners home to bring
out a sofa. This was
placed on the front porch, and the "war vet" declared
from this action that
the farmer had been evicted. On the morning of
02.10.02 he broke into the
home with assistance and physically started
removing the owner's furniture.
The first load arrived in Chegutu town by
the owner's tractor and trailer on
03.10.02 at about 2300 hrs. It is
presumed the continued removal of the
owner's furniture and belongings from
his homestead continues. Dispol Minor
was appraised of the situation and the
DA has not been contactable to discuss
this issue. The owner of Concession
Hill farm, who has an invalid Section 8
according to the operation of the
laws of Zimbabwe, arrived back from
holidaying in New Zealand to be placed
under arrest the evening of 02.10.02.
A phone call was made to the Governor
of Mashonaland West South and the
Police were told to release the owner. The
owner appeared in court and was
remanded on ZW$ 5000.00 bail to 25.10.02.
The owner has been remanded
according to the High Court rulings handed down
in Harare and is allowed to
go back to his property pending the outcome of
the case. The owner and
a driver on Umfuli Banks received threats and an
eviction order from an A2
settler. The piping has all been commandeered with
the settler declaring it
his property. Police were notified.
Kadoma - 90% of the farmers are off at
this moment. A couple farmers are
still negotiating at this stage with no
apparent success. On Milverton the
owner still has 1200 head in the
feeding pens and is trying to buy time to
finish them off. The
politicians said he can stay but on the ground the
settlers and the lands
committee seems to be winning. The power struggle
could come to a head.
The only unaffected farms to date are three dairy
farms and two horticulture,
paprika and vegetable farms are still fully
productive. Settlers from
Alabama are getting water daily for their panning
from the owner's only
borehole. This borehole will not sustain this, in
addition cattle and bulls
are being pushed into his dairy cows.
Suri Suri - There are 12 farmers left
on their farms, at varying levels of
production. Subdivisions are a
mess.
Battlefields - Two farmers are left on their farms. Combining of barley
is
about to start.
Selous - those farmers who have signed LA3 forms are
not allowed to
continue. Section 8 farmers were arrested and are off
their farms. The bail
conditions have been relieved, however there is no
production on these
farms. Three members have had all their charges dropped.
This area is losing
several key community
members.
MASVINGO
Masvingo East and Central - Nothing to
report.
Chiredzi - Burning of grass continues where cattle are put into
paddocks for
grazing. Poaching is now to the extreme as hunger takes
over.
Mwenezi - One of the country's foremost cattlemen, desperate to save
his
land, is now forced to cut the throats of quality calves dropping. The
499
quality cows and heifers are to be fattened up and will be sent to
the
abattoirs for slaughter. This is the only way out as FMD has broken out
on
the property. It has also been reported that approximately 40 000 head
of
cattle from the Beit Bridge communal lands have been unleashed onto
the
commercial farms during the last month.
In spite of the new outbreak
of Foot and Mouth Disease the owner's cattle
are being rounded up and penned,
in an effort to force them off. There have
been a number of serious
confrontations, and one elderly owner was beaten.
Another was thrown in the
back of a vehicle and driven to Beit Bridge to
have serious threats of
eviction personally given to him by the authorities
there. The political
twist being portrayed on the outbreak is that it has
started as a result of
an infection in the owner's dairy herd. In reality,
the properties have been
swamped with cattle from the Beit Bridge communal
areas. This is an area
where the disease has been smouldering for over 6
months now, despite
haphazard vaccinations. It would appear that the wife
of a local MP and
Minister is the main force behind the evictions and has
threatened to burn
and destroy the local lucrative ultra-city motel complex.
Owners and
employees have been harassed for several weeks now and the owners
have also
been accused of poisoning the one water supply. This water is
naturally
extremely unpalatable and salty. Cattle on the commercial farms
are now
stranded and cannot move because of the new FMD outbreak. The
situation is
now even more serious due to the unleashing of thousands of
communal cattle
onto the farms that will destroy the limited grazing very
quickly.
Gutu /
Chatsworth - Tagati Ranch had stockfeed stolen and the owner followed
the
thieves with his security guards into the Chaka area. He and his
security
guard managed to apprehend the culprit and radioed the Police to
inform them.
The Police had no transport and informed the owner he should
bring the
culprit into the Police Station. A crowd of village settlers then
crowded the
owner's vehicle and after much struggle and the security guard
firing two
shots into the air, was he able to escape beaten and bruised.
Save
Conservancy - Poaching and snaring continue.
MIDLANDS
A Mr. Hungwe,
reputed to be a Major General in the Army, has taken up an A2
plot in the
Shurugwi area and evicted the workers who were living on that
section of the
property.
MATABELELAND
No report received.
aisd1@cfu.co.zw
Visit the CFU Website www.mweb.co.zw/cfu
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------
DISCLAIMER:
Unless
specifically stated that this is a Commercial Farmers' Union
communique, or
that it is being issued or forwarded to you by the sender in
an official CFU
capacity, the opinions contained therein are private.
Private messages also
include those sent on behalf of any organisation not
directly affiliated to
the Union. The CFU does not accept any legal
responsibility for private
messages and opinions held by the sender and
transmitted over its local area
network to other CFU network users and/or to
external
addressees.
JAG SITREP 6th October
2002
MATABELELAND
Esigodini
On Chonalanga
farm, belonging to Mr Buchan, war veterans broke into the
fenced worker's
area on Friday, and demanded that they leave by 16h00
yesterday afternoon.
They disarmed the security guards, but the workers
reused to leave. A
truckload of youth militia arrived at midnight, and were
chased away. The
returned en masse, with three handguns, and beat two
workers into
unconsciousness. A report was made to the police by the
workers, but they
were informed that the police could do nothing.
At 16h00 on
Saturday 06/10/02, a Zanu PF truck arrived and the workers
were told
that if they did not leave they would "face the consequences". By
the end of
the day, all the workers (110 families) had been chased off the
property and
another two had to be hospitalised because of further rough
treatment. The
foreman, who had been furnished with a camera, cannot
currently be found. The
workers have reported that all their houses have
been burned out, and
documentary evidence of this is being gathered. They
are now homeless, and
many are moving either to Masvingo, or to Bulawayo,
whilst the majority are
located on the roadside outside the farm.
Workers on the
neighbouring farm, Benville farm, have also been approached
today, and
instructed to leave the premises.
Nyathi
A British national,
Rachel Ranson, was arrested and charged with
obstructing the course of
justice. She has been released after paying a
sixty dollar fine. Rachel was
taken into custody by the police after
refusing to hand over the keys to the
gate of Bill McKinney's farm, where
the family was in the process of packing
up their belongings. She was made
to sit in the back of a police vehicle for
several hours whilst the police
went around to several other farms to deliver
eviction orders before
finally being taken to Nyathi police station to be
charged.
MASHONALAND
Mtepatepa
John Browning of
Benbridge Farm in Mtepatepa was informed that he had one
and a half hours to
leave his farm at 10:30 this morning. No official
notice was delivered, but a
verbal order to vacate was given by Callistas
Dengu (ex-member of parliament)
who arrived with a number of men this
morning. Two individuals remain behind
to ensure that the property
is
vacated.
____________________________________________________
JOB
OPPORTUNITIES:
1.- Ex-pat job available in Northern Nigeria
3,500
ha cereal farming operation
Lovely homestead
CV's to be sent to Mary
Cosgrove at above contact
Interviews to be conducted in Johannesburg
Start
immediately
Ideal for hard working farmer who wants a brand new
start
2.- Job in RSA - no further details available - ph Sakki Van Der
Clos 021
9398365 or 021 9399909
3.- Junior Manager required for 94 ha
tobacco,15 ha paprika, maize, & 26 ha
coffee. Contact Willie Watson on
064 7535
4.- Instamac (Pvt) Ltd , a local construction company with a
large volume
of business, are looking to hire Construction Site Management
and
Workshop Management . Details available on
request.
________________________________________________________
OPEN
LETTER FORUM: if you have any views or opinions that you would like
to air,
please send them to justice@telco.co.zw headed JAG Open
Letter
Forum. We hope to have this facility available for anyone to voice
their
opinions.
THE JAG TEAM
Hotlines:
(091) 317 264 If you are in trouble or need
advice,
(011) 205
374 please don't hesitate to contact us
-
(011) 863
354 we're here to
help
_______________________________________________________
Justice
for Agriculture mailing list
To subscribe/unsubscribe: Please write to
jag-list-admin@mango.zw
News just in .. British national Rachel Ranson
(26) has been charge with
'Obstructing the course of justice and has been
fined Zd$ 60 and released
from custody.
News Release
(On
behalf of Justice for Agriculture - JAG)
A total of 65 farmers
from the Matabeleland region have, as of Saturday
5 October, been evicted
from their homes by members of the police force
and war veterans. More than
half of these (26 in total) were arrested
during the early August nationwide
sweep of commercial farmers,
following the expiry of Section 8 Notices. They
were however either
released on bail, or the courts had ruled in their
favour.
Matabeleland Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) Farming Associations
number
14 - Beit Bridge / Bulawayo Landowners/ Figtree/ Gwaai Valley / Gwanda
/
Insiza/Shangani / Inyathi / Marula / Matetsi / Matopos South/
Mberengwa
/ Umzingwani / Nyamandlovu / West Nicholson. There are 319 members
of
the Commercial Farmers Union on a total of 562 farms.
Estimates to
hand indicate that these latest evictions leave only 25% of
the farms with
resident owners with varying degrees of operation.
Matabeleland is an arid
region with most farming operations being
ranching, game farming and animal
husbandry (Ostriches) and some
cropping such as paprika and
maize.
This latest spate of eviction seen over 15 workers assaulted and
scores
evicted along with their owners.
In Nyamandhlovu, 4 game scouts
from Mike Wood's GlenCurragh Farm were
locked up on Thursday night, without
food or water, by war veterans.
Mr. Wood's dogs, which had not eaten since
his eviction, were finally
fed on Friday morning after one of the female
settlers pleaded with her
counterparts to allow the maid into the yard to
give them food.
On Wally Herbst's farm, war veterans demanded that the
dogs be removed,
the animals had to be driven off the property and abandoned
under
pressure. Meanwhile, two war veterans, both about 30 years old are
now
ensconced in the main house on Thursday evening.
In Umguza
district, Clive Biffen managed to remove some items off the
farm, however,
war veterans barricaded the road on Thursday. Mr. Biffen
called the police
who came out and impounded the vehicles. Police are
refusing to release
the items before they are inspected.
In Gwaai, armed police broke into
the premises of Nemba Safaris, where
there was an Australian hunting client.
A war veteran spat in the face
of the professional hunter, the client had to
be evacuated for his safety.
Three men arrived on Jonathan Taylor's farm,
at about 10am on Thursday
morning stating that they were the new owners of
the property. They were
Sipho Gama (of Bulawayo), Ben Ncube (of Lupane) and
Colin Ndebele (of
Lupane). They proceeded to help themselves to 4 lister
engines, 1 water
tank, 1 band saw and 1 disc harrow, all valued at
approximately Zd$ 5
million.
They also told the staff that the tractor
must not leave and they would
be moving in later in the day. Taylor has
had to cancel his next safari
as a result of this eviction. A report
was made to the police, who
arrived later in the afternoon and told the staff
not to remove any of
Mr Taylor's property, including firearms belonging to
the game scouts.
It is of interest to note the chain of command being
followed by the
eviction parties. The Lands representative, Melusi Sibanda
reports to
the Mrs Mafa, the regional lands officer who reports to the
Matabeleland
North Governor, Obert Mpofu. They are supervised by a member of
the
Central Intelligence Organisation, Mr Moyo and the Officer in Charge
of
Nyamandlovu, Mr R. F. Ncube with Officer Commanding Rural North
Chief
Superintendent Moyo and Assistant Commissioner Sibanda and
his
Provincial Police Chief for Matabeleland North. This exercise
falls
under the total control of Deputy Commissioner of Police - Mr
Matanga,
himself a beneficiary of a farm in Mashonaland.
In
Umzingwane, Matabeleland South, on Scott Buchan's farm, war veterans
broke
into the fenced area and tried to get the workers to leave the
farm village.
They disarmed the security guards (took their handcuffs
and torches), and 20
workers, mostly women, went to the police station
to report the matter. There
were still about 50 workers left in the
village. A Zimbabwe United Passenger
Company (ZUPCO) bus later arrived
with the notorious youths known as "green
bombers" who proceeded to
harass some of the workers.
A further
onslaught ensued when 8 war veterans arrived at midnight and
told the workers
to leave by 4 pm on 4/10/02. The workers resisted and
the war veterans
retreated only to return with reinforcements an hour
later, 20 strong and
armed with 3 pistols. Four workers were beaten
unconscious. Two
workers were able to run away and went to the police
to report the matter,
however when the Police 2nd in Command arrived, he
said his hands were tied
and there was nothing he could do and told the
workers to leave. The
four workers are in hospital.
Late update 4 pm Saturday
Yesterday,
Johan Kriedl (70) (Austrian subject)- He did not move so on
3/10/02 about 20
people arrived in 4/5 vehicles at approximately 16h20pm
- they put him in the
back of one vehicle and took some of his clothes
and put them on the front
seat and drove to the Esigodini Zanu PF
offices. This group left 4 men
at the house and they promptly looted
household good. The group took him to
the Zanu PF office in Esigodini (a
small farming town Matabeleland South). He
was assaulted and is badly
bruised and shaken as one of the invading party
shot Kriedl's pistol
into the air above Kriedl's head. Mr Wally Kriedl, upon
hearing of his
father's predicament, traveled to the farm only to himself be
"abducted"
to the Zanu PF offices. Pressure being brought to bear by the
Austrian
Embassy, resulted in the farmer and his son being transferred to
the
Police station and then subsequently released. Mr Kriedl went to see
the
Lands Committee today (4/10/02), who told him, they would extend
his
eviction period and give him another 12 hours and further
pressure
resulted in an extension to Monday.
5/10/02 - Bill McKinney's
property. Armed police and Lands committee
arrived at the gate.
The two girls went out of the fenced area to talk
to them and locked the gate
behind them. They refused to let the police
into the yard and hand over the
keys. The police threw Rachel Ranson
(26) (A British subject) to the ground
and handcuffed her and put her
into the back of the vehicle and have taken
her to the police station.
Having left the farm at 11 am the Police truck
arrived just after 3:30
at Inyathi Police Station and we await news of what
Rachel will be
charged with.
Ends
Saturday, 5 October 02
NB:
PHOTOGRAPHS OF RUTH CHATHAM, THE ELDERLY COUPLE FROM GWAAI WHO
WERE
MANHANDLED BY POLICE, ARE AVAILABLE ON REQUEST.
For more info,
please contact Jenni Williams
Mobile (+263) 91 300456 or 11213 885 or on
email jennipr@mweb.co.zw
Or Fax (+2639)
63978 or (+2634) 703829 Office email: prnews@mweb.co.zw
A member of the
International Association of Business Communicators. Visit
the IABC website
www.iabc.com
IOL
Zimbabwe's fuel pumps run
dry again
October 06 2002 at
05:01PM
By Angus Shaw
Harare, Zimbabwe - Zimbabwe's
government blamed severe gasoline shortages on
hoarding of fuel on Sunday,
and industry executives reported a slowing of
imports from Libya.
Long
lines of cars waiting for gasoline returned to fuel stations in Harare
in the
past week, after more than two years of frequent shortages.
A report on
new fuel shortages by a team of government investigators is
scheduled for
release Monday, the state-owned Sunday Mail
newspaper
reported.
Officials suspect
private distributors are hoarding fuel
It quoted the energy ministry saying
the main Harare depot of the state
National Oil Company had sufficient
reserves to meet the capital's fuel
needs.
Government officials
suspected private distributors were hoarding fuel and
that had lead to panic
buying, causing gas stations to run dry, the
newspaper said.
Private
oil industry executives, who did not want to be named, said panic
buying may
have been triggered by rumors that a new oil deal with Libya had
run into
trouble.
The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, the fuel procurement
monopoly, said
last month it was trying to raise US$9-million to pay
outstanding freight
and pumping charges for a consignment of Libyan gas
berthed at the
Mozambique port of Beira, causing delays in
delivery.
Its silence on whether delivery of regular supplies could be
paid for by the
economically devastated southern African country has fanned
rumors of
worsening shortages.
Zimbabwe's worst economic crisis since independence
Zimbabwe signed a new oil
deal with Libya on September 11 to supply
US$30-million worth of gas a month
for the next year.
Part of the cost would be met by Zimbabwean beef,
tobacco and fruit exports
to Libya. The north Africa country would also
receive investments in
Zimbabwean mining, tourism and agriculture, but a hard
currency component
for operational costs of delivery and some of the oil was
included.
With agricultural production disrupted by drought and the
seizure of
white-owned farms, all food export quotas to Libya have not been
met. Libyan
investments in the country were seen as yielding only long term
returns.
Zimbabwe's previous yearlong fuel contract with Libya expired
August 31,
with arrears on that deal still outstanding, according to
industry
executives.
Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis
since independence from Britain
in 1980 and has been wracked by political
turmoil since 2000.
Production of tobacco, the biggest hard currency
earner, is expected to be
more than halved next season due to disruptions in
the agriculture-based
economy.
Tourism has collapsed, with hard
currency receipts down by an estimated 80
percent.
More than half
Zimbabwe's 12,5 million people face severe food shortages.
The Sunday
Mail, meanwhile, reported the two deaths in a food stampede as
shortages of
the corn meal staple worsen.
Two infants died as youths forced their way
into a food line outside a
Harare milling company earlier this week, causing
panic, it said. - Sapa-AP
MSNBC
Twenty-two injured as
Zimbabwe train hits elephant
HARARE, Oct. 6 - A
passenger train derailed, injuring at least 22 people on
board, when it hit
an elephant while on its way to Zimbabwe's prime resort
town of Victoria
Falls, state radio reported on Sunday.
The radio said the injured where ferried to nearby hospitals in the
nearby
mining town of Hwange. The area is teeming with wildlife, making it a
popular
tourist attraction.
News24
SADC stance on Zim baffles
DA
Cape Town - South Africa's Official Opposition on Sunday
described as
amazing the description by southern African leaders of
Zimbabwe's land grab
programme as rational and fair.
Democratic
Alliance foreign affairs spokesperson Colin Eglin, commenting
after a meeting
of Southern African Development Community leaders in Luanda,
Angola, last
week, said the African leaders' comments did not auger well for
the future of
Africa's recovery programme - commonly called Nepad.
"Once again the SADC
leaders focused on the issue of land in Zimbabwe while
again ignoring the
gross abuse of power and human rights, despite the fact
that all SADC leaders
- including (Zimbabwe's) President (Robert) Mugabe -
gave a commitment to
protect basic human rights and the rule of law," said
Eglin in a
statement.
"No one is arguing about the need for a land redistribution
programme in
Zimbabwe. However, the Democratic Alliance is amazed that the
leaders of the
SADC described President Robert Mugabe's land grab programme
as 'rational,
fair and equitable'.
"The fact is that the Mugabe regime
has violated that country's constitution
and ignored the courts. It also
treated legitimate white landowners in a way
that can certainly not be
described as 'rational, fair and equitable'.
"In the process tens of
thousands of farm workers have been deprived of
their livelihoods while the
country was left facing starvation."
Had Mugabe acted in a
constitutional, rational and democratic way, "he today
would have enjoyed the
support of the international community in general and
international donors in
particular," said Eglin.
"Through his irrational and undemocratic way of
operating he has deprived
the people of Zimbabwe of this
support."
Newsday
Zimbabwe's seizure of white
farmland hurts black workers, too
By Samson Mulugeta
AFRICA
CORRESPONDENT
October 6, 2002
Nyamandhlouvu, Zimbabwe - As the
sun slid beyond the horizon, the black
workers at Spring Range Farm gathered
to say goodbye to the grizzled white
farmer who had provided their sustenance
for decades. Some wiped away tears
as they shook his hand.
But others
had hard questions about their future.
"We are asking what will happen to
us," said Kiwa Khiwa, speaking for 40
others sitting in a semi-circle inside
a shed. "How much will you pay us?"
Peter Hubert, 72, swallowed hard, his
sun-parched farmer's face creasing
into a tight smile. He could hardly admit
to himself that he was losing his
15,000-acre cattle ranch, where he had
toiled for 28 years. And here were
his workers asking for their severance
pay.
Hubert, along with 2,900 other whites with large-scale commercial
farms, has
been issued his final eviction notice by the government. In the
past few
weeks, the government of President Robert Mugabe has intensified
its
land-grab policy, jailing white farmers and ordering them to stop
farming
even as aid agencies warned of massive food shortages across the
country.
The crisis over land ownership, precipitated largely by the
government as a
political tactic to prolong the 22-year reign of Zimbabwe's
only leader
since the end of white minority rule, has thrown the countryside
into
turmoil. The chaos has devastated the economy and upended the rule of
law.
At Spring Range Farm, as on similar ones around the country, the
crisis has
strained the ties binding the white farmer, his black workers and
the 159
new squatters and their family members trying to edge Hubert off his
farm.
The scene here last week is being repeated in some form across
Zimbabwe. It
is the last chapter of a century-old struggle that began when
Cecil John
Rhodes led a vanguard of British and other white settlers in
engineering a
massive dispossession of local blacks off the best land in the
area that
later became known as Rhodesia.
The lingering effect of that
colonial past meant that, until two years ago,
4,900 large-scale white
farmers owned a third of the country's land,
including 70 percent of the most
productive farms.
At independence in 1980, Britain, the former colonial
power, agreed in
principle to finance land redistribution in a system known
as "willing
seller, willing buyer." But progress has been slow and
contentious, and for
nearly 20 years land reform was not a pressing priority
for the Mugabe
government.
Politics, however, made it one.
When
in 2000 a coalition of blacks and whites defeated a constitutional
amendment
designed to give Mugabe more powers, the former guerrilla leader
began
wielding the issue of land ownership as a political sledgehammer.
The
country's dwindling white population, down to about 50,000 today from
around
140,000 in 1980, quickly became the scapegoat.
Mugabe unleashed
"war veterans" - the ranks of mostly jobless former
guerrillas who fought
alongside him in the war of liberation - to invade
white-owned farms. To
stifle resistance, he rammed through parliamentary
laws restricting civil
liberties and press freedoms, drawing almost
universal international
condemnation.
The land policy has scared off foreign investment and sent
the economy into
a free fall; it shrank by more than 8 percent last year, the
worst
performance in Africa. Inflation hovers above 100 percent.
The
crisis also has exacerbated food shortages caused by a drought that
has
struck southern Africa. Without immediate food aid, about half of
Zimbabwe's
12.5 million people face starvation, according to the United
Nation's World
Food Program.
The threat of famine has so far failed to
deter the government.
For the past two years, Hubert had resisted
repeated demands to vacate his
ranch, even as squatters slowly encroached and
his operations suffered. But
when police arrested neighboring farmers last
month, he felt obliged to turn
himself in at the local police station, was
detained for a few hours, and
ordered to clear out his farmhouse.
He
complied, vowing to continue his court fight while living in a rented
cottage
in nearby Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city. Hubert's
daughter, who
lives in England, had rushed to his side with her 2-year-old
son. Hubert's
two sons, who live in the United States and in Australia, were
not able to
come.
The small garden in front of Hubert's abandoned house is now choked
with
weeds, and the high-ceilinged rooms inside the farmhouse are
virtually
empty. He recognizes that the battle may already be lost, and now
he is
meeting with his farmhands to work out the terms of
surrender.
Hubert told them that the total cost of the severance would be
$180,000,
which he could not afford. While the farm is worth hundreds of
thousands of
dollars, much of it is tied up in equipment and in the ranch
infrastructure,
as well as his 500 head of cattle. Perhaps, he offered, he
could give each
worker two head of cattle.
The workers reflected on
the offer for a moment. Then Makrae Siabanda, 72, a
retired tractor driver,
spoke. "Could we have this in writing?"
Thus approached the end for
Spring Range Farm, a vast stretch of pasture
land in Matabeleland in southern
Zimbabwe that has been in the family of
Hubert's wife, Barbara, since its
1904 purchase from the Rhodes family.
Barbara Hubert died of cancer last year
and was buried on the farm. Hubert
hopes to join her at the family plot when
his time comes, though of course
nothing is certain. For now he intends to
fight to retain at least part of
the farm, so he can pass it to his son,
Jeremy, a 37-year-old veterinarian
now teaching at Louisiana State
University.
"I've reached my 'sell-by' date," said Hubert, a slim man of
military
bearing with a smoker's raspy baritone. "But I'd be damned if I am
going to
be driven off my bloody land without putting up a fight.
"A
fight in the courts, of course," he quickly added.
The son of a British
military officer, Hubert was born and educated in
England, where he met his
future wife. Barbara Rushmore came from a long
line of Rhodesian cattle
ranchers. They married and in 1969 moved to
Rhodesia so Hubert could work on
his wife's family farm.
For nearly three decades, the farm prospered.
Then, two years ago Hubert's
property was listed as a target of acquisition.
Soon, 100 war veterans were
at the farm gate.
"I challenged them to
attack an old man," he said. "I would pick one among
them and say, 'How old
are you? Forty? I could be your father.' I know that
the Ndebele respect the
old." The Ndebeles are the predominant ethnic group
in the area.
"I
don't want to be a martyr," Hubert said. "I just want to retire
with
something to show for my life's work."
For Hubert's workers, the
future is at least just as uncertain. Soon, they
will join the ranks of the
250,000 black farmworkers who have been left
jobless following the
government's "fast track" program of land
acquisitions. In an unintended
consequence of the chaos, hundreds of schools
on commercial farms have
closed, disrupting the education of tens of
thousands of farmworkers'
children.
Most of the farmhands live in small clusters of adobe huts,
excepting
experienced cattle herders such as Ephion Ncube, 40, who lives in
a
five-room concrete house with his wife and three children. Hubert
referred
to Ncube as the best cattleman on the farm, but "a bit of a
troublemaker."
The life of a farmhand here was a poor but stable one.
Ncube, a 6-footer
with a penetrating gaze, said he earned $90 a month. "It is
hard to get by
with this salary," he said last week in his spartan but neatly
kept living
room. Pictures of tigers and elephants ripped out from magazines
decorated
the walls. A framed certificate of appreciation for 34 years of
service at
the farm hangs on one wall. Hubert had given it to Ncube's father,
Thomas,
in 1987.
Life on the farm was not one he wished for his
children, said Ncube, who was
born at Spring Range Farm. But Hubert helped
pay for his children's
schooling, he said. With his employer gone, Ncube said
he was unsure whether
he could keep his house and the small compound where he
raises some
chickens. "The war veterans have called a meeting to discuss the
future,"
Ncube said. "I have no idea what's in store."
Here on the
farms dotting the Matabeleland scrubland, uncertainty is the
chief effect of
the onslaught on white farmers by the Mugabe government. At
an informal
gathering of neighboring farmers last week, the mood was of
frustration and
anger. Frequently, the word "thieves" was mentioned in the
same breath as
"government officials."
One of the neighbors is Harry Greaves, a
powerfully built man of 37 with
reddish brown hair and beard. Greaves owns a
multimillion-dollar business on
a 47,000 acres that includes poultry, corn
and vegetable farming, cattle
ranching and big game hunting.
A fourth
generation Zimbabwean, Greaves' Polish Jewish forebears were among
the
original settlers who headed north after the 1894 Johannesburg gold
rush
cooled down. He was recently forced to flee his home, built by
his
grandparents in 1930.
As he drove around his property last week,
his two-way radio crackled. He
grabbed the mike to give orders to his staff
in Ndebele. "It was practically
my first language," he said. "Most of the
people around me for the first
five years of my life were
black."
Still, he feels the gulf between the races. "When you grow up
around here,
there's a definite 'us versus them' feeling," said Greaves as he
drove his
Toyota truck into the deserted compound of his family's safari
lodge, one of
his biggest investments, now a picture of desolation. A pile of
leaves
filled the empty swimming pool. The reception area has been stripped
of
furniture. The only soul around was caretaker Skokie Ndhlovu.
In
halting English, Ndhlovu, 39, said he feared for his future. "My life
is
going down, yes please," said Ndhlovu, a father of seven. "We now have
no
animals and no tourists, yes please."
As he gave a tour of his
holdings, Greaves passed the mud huts and small
plots occupied by newly
resettled black families - 900 in all. "Welcome to
the agrarian revolution,"
he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
With so much uncertain, Greaves
has cut back his farming. He has cut chicken
production this year to 17,000 -
half of last year's total - and planted
corn on 35 of 321 acres, enough to
feed the poultry and the farm's staff.
Greaves said he didn't want to plant
corn and then be forced to give it to
the hungry settlers on his land without
compensation.
"You're confronted with all sorts of moral problems," he
said. "I feel sorry
that they are hungry, but these are people who have
destroyed 15 years of my
life's work."
Greaves is preparing for the
end, he said. He is considering investing in a
local gold mine.
The
same tension exists a few miles down the road at Hubert's ranch. Kiwa
Khiwa,
the farmworker who raised the delicate matter of a severance pay, was
born
and raised at Spring Range Farm, where his grandparents are buried and
where
his mother, Rhoda Sibindi, still lives and works as a domestic servant
for
the now empty Hubert household.
With his secondary education and good
command of English, Khiwa is often
designated as an unofficial leader of the
farmworkers. With prominence has
come trouble from government
supporters.
"They say I am with MDC [the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change],
that I am a sellout," said Khiwa, a tall, athletically
built 43-year-old who
lives at the farm with his two wives and seven
children.
Khiwa gets along well with Hubert, but is confused by the
torrent of
anti-white propaganda from state-owned media. "I don't know who is
right and
who is wrong," he said, toying with the crucifix hanging from his
neck. "I
am thinking about my future because I don't know where to go. My
grandfather
died here, my mother is here now."
A recent fixture on the
farm was Marvin Tshabalala, the immaculately groomed
"base commander" for the
local war veterans and so an influential player in
the fortunes of the Hubert
farm. Hubert had befriended Tshabalala from the
outset, and he often showed
up at Hubert's farm to discuss common problems.
Still, both men were
aware that Tshabalala and 158 other former guerrillas
and their families had
set up their homesteads on Hubert's property. Each
war veteran had built a
homestead on 40 acres of land where he farmed small
plots and kept
animals.
In the last days of Spring Range Farm, Tshabalala has chosen to
take on the
unlikely role of peacemaker.
"We don't say all white
people are bad," Tshabalala tells the farmworkers.
"People are starving; they
are eating roots in the rural areas. I am a war
veteran myself and I have no
problem saying that we are in a big mess."
As last week's meeting between
Hubert and his employees broke up, Tshabalala
hitched a ride in Hubert's
pickup truck, and soon they were at Hubert's
abandoned farmhouse. They sat on
the veranda, sipping tea in the gathering
dusk.
As both men readily
acknowledged, this was a strange tableau. During the
civil war, Tshabalala
was a Soviet-trained captain in the guerrilla army. In
the 1970s, Hubert was
a police reservist who helped hunt down those he
called "terrorists," people
like Tshabalala.
"It's strange sitting here like this," Hubert said. "We
would have shot each
other if we'd met in the war."
An hour later,
Hubert drove along a dirt road to drop off Tshabalala at his
home in a
section of Hubert's farm now under occupation by Tshabalala and
his
comrades.
Tshabalala jumped off Hubert's truck, and shook his head in the
darkness.
"I feel pity for the old man," he said. "I wish I could see a
way out of
this mess."
From The Sunday Times (UK), 6
October
Electric torture in a Mugabe
cell
Tom Walker, Diplomatic
Correspondent
It was a nondescript sort of room,
about 12ft by 9ft, and the windows at the top of one wall looked out onto
flowerbeds, but the police paraphernalia lying around left Tom Spicer in no
doubt as to why he had been brought there. Scattered about the floor and tables
were pieces of leather, handcuffs and blindfolds. As he had been led down to the
basement of Harare central police station he had already seen a battery in one
room with wires leading from it. "They told me I was going to be tortured, I
just didn’t know how they were going to do it," said Spicer, 18, a college
student and the sole white youth activist for Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for
Democratic Change. The electric shocks were the worst of the four-hour ordeal.
Blindfolded, Spicer felt a wire inserted into his ear, and he began experiencing
the sort of pain meted out on a regular basis by President Robert Mugabe’s
increasingly lawless police. Diplomats have begun comparing the brutality with
the darkest days of Idi Amin’s rule in Uganda, a quarter of a century ago. "It’s
fairly indescribable," said Spicer, a fifth-generation Zimbabwean whose parents
once supported Mugabe and everything he stood for. More than a week after his
torture he still cannot eat, his arms are sore and some of his muscles numb
after straining against the handcuffs that bound him. He is at least able to
walk again, after being beaten - again blindfolded - on the soles of his feet
while a policeman sat on his knees. "They told me they were going to kill me,"
he said. But Spicer insists nothing he has been through has deterred him from
supporting and working for the MDC. The opposition party’s swelling popularity
has so irked Mugabe he has given his security forces virtual carte blanche to
collude in the thuggery that besets a nation which was once - at his
inauguration as president 22 years ago - a beacon of hope. "It’s definitely not
put me off. I’m a Zimbabwean, and I’ve got the right to campaign for the party
of my choice," said Spicer. "All my friends are supporting me."
Among them are Cosmos and Barabas
Ndira, Reuben Tichareva and Tendai Maluzi, the four young blacks arrested with
Spicer by the police in Mabvuku, a poor township area on the eastern outskirts
of Harare a week last Thursday. The group were interrogated about a recent
murder that had taken place while Spicer had been away on holiday with his
parents, and were also quizzed about a series of alleged arson attacks. The
blacks were asked why they liked a "white boy", and told they should be killing
whites, not befriending them. The group were beaten and forced to chant slogans
in support of Mugabe’s party, Zanu-PF, which Spicer refused to do. He was then
separated from his friends and his torture session began. During the four days
of their detention the teenagers were allowed no access to lawyers and Spicer’s
mother, Edwina, 54, a documentary film-maker, had only managed once to get a
doctor anywhere near her badly injured son. Eventually on Monday the group was
released, on bail of 10,000 Zimbabwean dollars each, about £115.
The irony for the Spicers is that
they are a liberal family who left the then Rhodesia during the Ian Smith era in
the 1970s and returned in the belief that Mugabe was setting up a genuinely
pluralistic, multiracial and tolerant society. Tom’s father Newton is a former
civil servant who works with the communal and small-scale farmers that Mugabe
has championed in his land seizures. "Tom’s predicament catches headlines
because he is white but this is nothing to do with race," said Edwina Spicer.
"The British press has laboured on about the farmers but the point is the lack
of any rule of law. Tom’s case highlights what is happening to every other young
activist in the country. This is just my child’s story: there are thousands
more." "We’re bringing a court action," said Tom Spicer. " I honestly do hold
out hope." Hundreds of MDC supporters have been killed and injured since
Mugabe’s clampdown began two years ago, and last week Roy Bennett, the party’s
only white farmer MP, was badly beaten by police. Along with Stewart Girvin, a
waiter from London born in Zimbabwe, he was charged with illegally filming food
distribution at a polling station. During his detention the police allegedly
threatened to brand Girvin with a soldering iron. Tom Spicer is returning to his
studies at Harare’s Speciss College, where he will take A-levels in geography
and history in two weeks. "I’m not planning much further ahead than that," he
said. And what would he say to Mugabe if he met him? "If I told you I think I’d
probably be arrested again."