By Peta Thornycroft
(Filed: 26/09/2005)
"We live like pigs. No, pigs live better than us. We eat berries from the bush, which is food for baboons. That is our life since the tsunami," said Roderick Tchakayika, a father of five, outside the remains of his neighbours' house, which was knocked down on June 19.
Mr Tchakayika, 48, was talking about what Zimbabweans call their own "tsunami" - a man-made event almost as extreme as the Asian disaster.
|
|
It is three months since President Robert Mugabe sent in bulldozers that within hours flattened 4,000 homes in Hatcliffe Extension, about 20 miles north of Harare. Life was hard before; it has since become unbearable.
Most people of this suburb, who all owned "stands" - small patches of land - on which they had built small homes, are living in pitiful circumstances.
Most also lost their incomes as they were largely informal traders, also targets of Mr Mugabe's ''Operation Clean out the Filth'', whom police have been ordered to prevent trading again.
Donors are helping. Unesco put up tanks for drinking water and the Roman Catholic Church is erecting up to 300 plastic shelters ahead of the summer rains due in four weeks.
Since Mr Mugabe began his campaign against the urban poor, and after condemnation from the United Nations that up to 2.4 million people had been affected, the government is building some houses. In Hatcliffe Extension there are about 50, not yet complete, and no one there knows who will get them.
"It will be the army or police, not us as they say we voted for the MDC [the opposition Movement for Democratic Change]," Mr Tchakayika said.
Miriam Sithole, 46, came from the rugged mountains of eastern Zimbabwe 15 years ago. Her husband has an occasional job as a carpenter in Harare.
"I couldn't go because I must protect my stand,'' she said. ''The house is gone. The kids are not going to school because our money is short for fees as we have to pay relatives to look after them."
This is not Liberia or Somalia, this is bountiful Zimbabwe, with its temperate climate and vast resources, Africa's second most industrialised country until Mr Mugabe began to dismantle it.
Even in the worst of times, during the civil war of the 1970s and international sanctions against the minority white Rhodesian regime, there was enough food and foreign currency for essential imports.
Zimbabwe is running on empty. There is no fuel except for the tiny minority with access to foreign currency, the inflation rate is the highest in the world at about 300 per cent, most mines and the few surviving industries are on short shifts, and there is only one working fire engine in Harare.
Most people in the poor, western suburbs of the second city Bulawayo are without water not because dams are empty but because pumps need foreign currency to repair them.
At Epworth, an informal settlement south of the city, piles of bricks remain where they fell on June 19. A 57-year-old car mechanic whose small garage was demolished said: "We used to complain before the tsunami. We were wrong. Life was OK then, we just didn't know it."
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has called for vigilance by the
country's armed forces against what he terms a "vicious imperialist onslaught"
by Britain and the United States, the state-run Herald newspaper reported on
Monday
"Faced with this vicious imperialist onslaught, it is most
important that our forces maintain a high level of vigilance in jealously
guarding our sovereignty and birthright," it quoted him as saying on Sunday as
he presented awards at a shooting competition in the capital.
"Our
detractors should know and see that Zimbabwe shall never be a colony again,"
said the president, whose country has seen a sharp slip in relations with former
colonial power Britain since the introduction of a controversial land reform
policy in 2000.
Mugabe has often accused Britain of sponsoring the main
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which he said London was using
as a puppet to recolonise the southern African country.
'Zimbabwe shall never be a colony again' |
By Peta Thornycroft
Platinum giant Zimplats is the goose that lays the
biggest and shiniest eggs in an otherwise bleak Zimbabwe, but President Robert
Mugabe's desperate tax collectors nearly killed the goose last week.
Hours before the giant corporation prepared to shut off the giant
furnace which spews out Zimbabwe's most reliable source of foreign currency,
Deputy President Joseph Msika had to step in to stop an extraordinary and
unprecedented calamity.
So desperate is the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority
(Zimra), for income, it hounded Zimplats for about R100-million, most of it in
"penalties" for taxes on imported capital goods from which it is supposed to be
exempt, and also a new tax which is not yet law.
Zimplats executives in
Zimbabwe and Keith Rumble, CEO of its South African holding company, Implats,
wrote to Msika last week - after a letter previously delivered to the Ministry
of Mines was ignored - to warn that unless Zimra dropped its demands, the
furnace would be turned off.
Rumble sent an urgent letter hand-delivered
to Msika's office to say: "This action runs contrary to the signed agreement and
to all the
assurances given by your government to date."
"Zimplats
didn't want to do this, but felt they had no option and had the courage to stand
their ground," said economist John Robertson who has monitored the development
of platinum in Zimbabwe.
Zimplats' R1.5-billion furnace at Selous, 88km
south-west of Harare, is the largest industrial plant in Zimbabwe and runs 24
hours a day, every day. If switched off it would have stalled R60-million of
scarce monthly foreign currency earnings for Zimbabwe.
It would have
taken at least four months to restart, according to Robertson. He said molten
metals would have solidified on cooling in the furnace and it would have taken
at least four months to drill out and reline before it could be used again.
Few of the 2 000 personnel employed by Zimplats knew of the close call
last Friday.
Company executives in Zimbabwe and South Africa took the
decision, according to Robertson, because they had no option as they believed
Zimplats's bank account would be emptied if it was forced to meet Zimra's
demands and there would be no funds left for production costs.
Joseph
Msika was informed that Zimra had ignored his order of a few days previously to
leave the mining giant alone and he had to intervene formally at the last
minute.
"Zimra is desperate for revenue as the economy has shrunk by 50
percent in six years, but in addition, Zimra officials are paid incentives and
have become bounty hunters at a time when the economy is moving towards
anarchy," Robertson said.
Zimplats executives were not available for
comment this week and were reportedly in South Africa.
The company's
massive expansion due to begin a year ago was stalled because of investor
uncertainties over the international agreement signed with the Zimbabwe
government 18 years ago regarding mining houses retaining foreign exchange to
finance necessary imports.
On Friday the Reserve Bank published a notice
listing about 1 000 companies it accuses of failing to surrender foreign
currency earnings to the bank within 90 days.
The notice, published in
the press, said that R1.2-billion was outstanding and half of that was owed by
"delinquent" companies now facing criminal charges. Some of the companies listed
closed down several years ago.
|
Jan Lamprecht was born and raised in Zimbabwe, then
called Rhodesia, during the "Bush War", which resulted in Robert Mugabe coming
to power. He was educated in Harare, the capital of the country, before leaving
for South Africa, where he spent some time in the Navy. He wrote a book called
"Government
by Deception" about African politics related to Zimbabwe and the effects
Mugabe's policies may have on other countries. He publishes a popular, highly "politically-incorrect" web site AfricanCrisis.org |
People's Daily
More than 200 foreigners, mostly from the Great
Lakes region, are suspected to have cross into Zimbabwe through undesignated
points en route to South Africa, Botswana and other Southern African Development
Community countries to seek refugee status since July.
A police officer at
Kanyemba was quoted on Monday by the Herald newspaper as saying that the
country's eastern and northern borders, stretching from Nyamapanda to Kanyemba,
are being used as crossing points to preferred destinations by immigrants from
the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda.
Last week, 26 illegal
immigrants from Somalia were arrested in Harare after they handed themselves
over to the police.
Kanyemba Border Post, which connects Zimbabwe, Zambia
and Mozambique at the confluence of the Zambezi and Luangwa rivers, is a popular
crossing point for illegal entrants from the DRC, with dozens sneaking into the
country every month.
"Some immigrants from the DRC and other countries in
the Great Lakes region are crossing through this point, and are following proper
immigration procedures because we conduct routine patrols around this area. We
have so far deported one Congolese immigrant for failing to produce valid
documents," the police officer said.
Nevertheless, he could not rule out the
possibility that immigrants who would have been turned away at the border would
use undesignated points to cross back into Zimbabwe.
Most immigrants cross
in hired canoes at Lake Cabora Bassa from Zumbo and Panhame in Mozambique to
avoid immigration authorities. They easily sneak into or out of Zimbabwe using
undesignated points on the country's frontier with Mozambique and Zambia.
After Kanyemba, the first police checkpoint for immigrants is at Mahuwe,
over 200 km from the border and immigrants can easily find their way to Harare.
Some people working at Kanyemba live in Luangwa on the Zambian side and they
cross the border on a daily basis without even bothering to get passes, which
are a requirement for people living in villages within 20 km of the border area.
These further assist people from outside the border area to cross into
Zambia or smuggle goods out of the country and back by night.
Source: Xinhua
September 26, 2005, 06:30
Benjamin Mkapa, the outgoing Tanzanian president, has attacked the South
African media for their reporting on Zimbabwe. Mkapa says the South African
media has crucified the government of Robert Mugabe for redressing historic
imbalances.
He was addressing students of the University of Lesotho,
where he was bestowed with an honorary law doctorate. Mkapa also called for an
African education system that is responsive to the socioeconomic challenges
facing the continent.
Lesotho's King Letsie III, who is also the
chancellor of the University of Lesotho, bestowed Mkapa with the honorary degree
for the role he has played in conflict resolution and management in
Africa.
NEW ZIMBABWE
By
Tawanda Hondora
Last updated: 09/21/2005 08:24:42
WHAT has caused
Zimbabwe’s once stable economy to so spectacularly collapse?
Many in the
world place the blame on Robert Mugabe, the country’s President
Among the
issues usually cited are Mugabe’s land policies, endemic
corruption,
Zimbabwe’s involvement in the DRC war, absence of the rule of
law, and other
ill-conceived economic policies.
It is also argued that Mugabe’s political
intolerance, electoral fraud and
gross human rights abuses have contributed
to the country’s economic
malaise.
Indeed, it is true that each one of
these often cited factors has
contributed, or provides an explanation to
Zimbabwe’s current economic
problems. However, western countries and media
almost collectively ignore
one other significant factor responsible for the
country’s economic
collapse: economic sanctions imposed by the US, the EU,
and Australia
against Zimbabwe.
Given that Mugabe’s often cited and main
transgression, which has given rise
to the country’s international
isolation, was his forcible expropriation of
farmland owned by the country’s
white farmers, and the implications of his
actions for the respect of
private property rights and investments in the
region, this collective
amnesia is hardly surprising.
It is often argued that the sanctions in place
against Zimbabwe are not
economic in nature; rather, the argument goes,
there is in existence a
regime of smart sanctions, which targets specific
ZANU PF loyalists.
This is not true.
Zimbabwe’s economic woes are the
direct result of a concerted and systematic
campaign to effect regime change
through an economic implosion.
Zimbabwe has a critical shortage of foreign
currency. However for the past
four years or so, Zimbabwe has been unable to
obtain finance or credit
facilities from international lenders to inject
into the economy. And this
is a direct consequence of a sanctions regime
imposed against the Zimbabwe
by particularly the US, and the EU.
That
Mugabe is an evil, brutal, dictator that needs to be removed from
office is
not in doubt. It is however immoral to cause the removal of Mugabe
from
office by precipitating the collapse of a developing, only recently
independent, now famine-ravished African country through an economic
sanctions regime.
The US introduced economic sanctions on Zimbabwe
through the Zimbabwe
Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, 2001. (ZIDERA)
Through this enactment
Zimbabwe’s access to finance and credit facilities
was effectively
incinerated.
ZIDERA empowers the US to use its voting
rights and influence (as the main
donor) in multilateral lending agencies,
such as the IMF, World Bank, and
the African Development Bank to veto any
applications by Zimbabwe for
finance, credit facilities, loan rescheduling,
and international debt
cancellation. The US cites Zimbabwe’s human rights
record, political
intolerance and absence of rule of law as the main reasons
for the
imposition of sanctions. The ZIDERA also suggests that if Zimbabwe
acts to
correct these ills, then the sanctions will be removed and economic
support
measures are suggested.
Simply put, owing to the size of the US
vote and influence in these
institutions, neither the IMF, World Bank nor
the African Development Bank
will lend to Zimbabwe, or offer it credit
facilities. Therefore, needless to
say, as a direct result of the US 2001
Act, Zimbabwe’s relationship with
these multilateral lending agencies was
immediately and severely affected.
In addition, Zimbabwe’s ability to
reschedule its loan payments and to apply
for debt cancellations in times of
severe financial crisis was severely
affected.
And once the IMF and World
Bank stopped doing business with Zimbabwe, this
had an immediate and adverse
impact on Zimbabwe’s credit and investment
rating. And with a drop in
investment rating went the dream of low cost
capital on the international
markets.
ZIDERA was a masterstroke. At the stroke of a pen, Zimbabwe’s access
to
international credit markets was blocked. And relying purely on barter
trade, and trade, mining, agricultural concessions, and on exports-generated
foreign currency, Zimbabwe’s economy has been slowly but surely
asphyxiated.
And the consequent foreign currency crisis has resulted in the
continued
devaluation of the domestic currency, rapid inflation, and all
else that has
manifested itself in the current Zimbabwe economic
crisis.
In addition, both the US and the EU have frozen financial and other
assets
of persons, or companies linked to ZANU PF. It is alleged that such
companies sustain the ZANU PF government. There may be a grain of truth in
that observation. However, what is often ignored in the race to rid Zimbabwe
of Mugabe is that companies operating in Zimbabwe provide a livelihood to
thousands of families, and contribute to the development of the
country.
Australia is reported to have denied Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe
officials’
business visas to travel to Australia. And the US is putting in
place a raft
of measures aimed at specified ZANU PF linked individuals,
their families,
and companies.
It is apparent therefore some of the most
powerful countries in the world
have put in place measures to bring about
the downfall of Mr. Mugabe by
orchestrating the economic collapse of
Zimbabwe. It is wrong to conflate
Zimbabwe with the personality of Mugabe.
They are two distinct entities. It
cannot be right to say that economic
support will be provided to the country
once its leader is out of power. As
Zimbabwe, all too dearly knows following
the Lancester House Agreement of
1979 on the land question, such promises
are impossible to enforce.
No
matter how evil a dictator Mugabe is, it cannot be right to force his
downfall by killing off the country’s fledgling economy, by erasing the
gains made after 1980, and worsening the AIDS, and unemployment
crisis.
Those championing the imposition of the economic sanctions often
retort that
Zimbabwe’s ability to borrow from the IMF and World Bank was
restricted in
any event because it had fallen foul of its agreements with
the IMF. This
argument is however disingenuous. It ignores the other more
vicious
consequences of ZIDERA on the Zimbabwean economy.
In addition,
the suggestion that what is in existence is a regime of
symbolic travel bans
and some asset freezes is far from the truth.
It is correct that Zimbabwe
must be made to pay its debts, including money
that it owes the IMF.
However, in the circumstances of Zimbabwe, going
through a financial crisis,
it is immoral for the IMF to insist on the
payment of over US$175 million on
pain of expulsion from the institution for
non payment.
Zimbabwe recently
managed to stave its expulsion from the IMF by reportedly
paying £150
million towards its debt obligations to the institution. It was
all too
obvious however that Zimbabwe paid the money out of desperation. The
country
cannot afford the payment it made. Zimbabwe paid the money because,
owing to
US influence among others, it was unable to formally reschedule its
IMF loan
payments. Amidst all this, it is reported that the country has
critical
foreign currency shortages, has run dry of fuel and other
essentials, has
record high unemployment levels, and now has crippling
inflation rates. In
addition, the UN suggests Zimbabwe is suffering from
famine.
The
suggestion that Zimbabwe’s economy is what it is because of
mismanagement is
partly true but misleading. What Mugabe has done is to
mismanage the endemic
crisis caused by the country’s inability to access
capital, which in turn
are the result of a raft of economic sanctions in
place against the
country.
There are no doubt other reasons why Zimbabwe’s economy is in the
doldrums;
chief of which are myopic, ill-advised ZANU PF government policies
and
corruption. But one cannot ignore the damaging effect the sanctions have
had
on the economy and how the country and its economy are being slowly
asphyxiated by the blockade on access to international capital
markets.
The question has to be asked: are the US, EU, Australia, and the
MDC, any
closer to removing Mugabe from power because of the economic
sanctions
currently in place? Is it not true that an economically
independent people
are much more likely to vote or rebel against a brutal
dictator?
Yes, Mugabe must be removed from power, as must the institutions he
has
created to bolster his political power. However, this is likely to
remain a
pipe dream for as long as the prevailing philosophy supports the
destruction
of the country’s economy.
Tawanda Hondora is a Zimbabwean
lawyer currently studying towards a PhD at
Warwick University in England. He
be contacted at hondst@yahoo.co.uk
Mail & Guardian
Robert Kirby: LOOSE
CANNON
25 September 2005 11:59
After all the flak he’s
taken, all the direct hits, all the shrapnel he’s absorbed over the years, it is
quite amazing that Robert Mugabe hasn’t stepped out of the firing line,
retreated even a little tactical distance. But he feels no pain. He doesn’t even
shudder when a bomb goes off right under his feet. He just goes on leering at
his enemies, that little quincy smile on his face, his head wobbling on gimbals
like some dysfunctional puppet. He doesn’t even drop down into his trench for a
quick bandage and some stitching. He just stands there, a great big target
against the sky, begging everyone to have a shot at him.
Robert Gabriel
Mugabe, dictator-in-residence, overall owner-manager and head bouncer of what is
now humorously known as the Zimbabwe Ruins, is a man totally unto himself. The
trouble is that all 80- something sensationally haughty years of him will go
down in African history for all the wrong reasons. He will be called a despot
and a tyrant, all the rest of the worn-out cliches used on the Idi Amins and the
Charles Taylors. No one will see him for the uncompromising titan that he
is.
Whatever you may say about Mugabe, he is not a hypocrite. When, back
in the early 1980s, Joshua Nkomo’s Matabeleland opposition got a bit whiffy,
Mugabe didn’t waste time issuing utopian statements about Godstate democracy,
collectivism and constitutional prerogatives -- as our Thabo Mbeki and Jacob
Zuma are wont to do. He didn’t set his specialist corruption police on
ring-patrol. He simply sent the Korean-trained Fifth Brigade extermination squad
into Matabele-land and wiped out several thousand of the mothers.
The
Matebeleland massacres safely under his belt, Mugabe has used exactly the same
full-frontal approach of the Fifth Brigade to destroy his country’s economy, its
democratic matrix, its hope. The Fifth Brigade operated between 1982 and 1987.
It has taken Mugabe about the same amount of time, five years, to bring Zimbabwe
to its knees. He’s not a pariah for nothing.
Mugabe’s virtues are
entirely by default. In the writhings of the interminable African political
game, he is the solitary unchanging value, the one you feel you can trust to
behave exactly as he’s always done. He has no pretensions whatsoever to
political self-improvement. He’s happy to be the monster standard.
Such
purity of intention we should all admire. Mugabe is an enduring antithesis to
the quotidian hypocrisies of politicians anywhere. Only last week he was up on
sticks at the United Nations, telling them straight to their smug faces what
appalling wankers he thinks they are. A week before that he was instructing the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) to go piss up a rope. What other latter-day
leader of a tiny nation has had the sheer spunk to say that the developing world
should be more aware of what the IMF really is: a cabal of rapacious
international pawnbrokers engorging themselves as they call in the pledges they
hold on the natural wealth of about a third of the world? There isn’t a
magnificent tree that falls to a French logging company in Equatorial Africa,
there isn’t a handful of ore that doesn’t get claimed as interest on some loan
made by the IMF or the World Bank.
I can’t help watching Mugabe,
relishing the utter contempt in which he holds the fanciful bodies, committees
and commissions so beloved of G8 meetings. Mugabe does what he wants, not what
anyone else wants. Has the Southern African Development Community ever looked
quite so ridiculous, so self-immolating and ineffectual as when Mugabe ignored
its recommendations and continued on his own sweet way? Does he really give a
blind tinker’s about such visionary substances as New Partnership for Africa’s
Development? Not for an African Union minute.
And when it comes to force-
feeding the prejudices of white people, there’s nothing quite so nourishing as
the Mugabe diet. His country may be starving, but the bigots feast on his every
action and word. Only last week he was raving on about there being quite enough
potatoes to go round if only his people would start eating them. That’s
entertainment!
Unlike many of his contemporaries, Robert Mugabe makes no
bones about his disdain for white people. He’s quite far along the way to the
establishment of his own Platonian ideal, when every last Blair-loving honky,
dispossessed of all property, is shovelled out of the country. White folk in
Zimbabwe know exactly where they stand and that’s not only in three-day petrol
queues. Non-gay Chinese are the new flavour of the week in Harare.
It’s
too easy to call Mugabe names. Whatever he’s called, he remains the sort of
power-crazed African nightmare politician all the other “reformist” African
politicians seem quite prepared to tolerate among their ranks -- in some cases
openly encourage, even talk of emulating.
What better embodiment of
Bacon’s immortal couplet: “He doth like the ape; that the higher he climbs the
more he shows his arse”? What you can’t help but wonder is how long it’s going
to take for Mugabe’s fellow leaders to stop admiring it so much.
Sent: Sunday, September 25, 2005 7:41 PM
Subject: Zimbabwe: Sokwanele
Newsletter - International Peace Day
Demonstration (Late
Posting)
Sokwanele -
Enough is Enough - Zimbabwe
PROMOTING NON-VIOLENT PRINCIPLES TO ACHIEVE
DEMOCRACY
_______________________________________________________
International
Peace Day Demonstration (Late Posting)
Sokwanele Report: 25 September
2005
We apologise for the late posting of this article, owing to
circumstances
beyond our control.
On International Peace Day,
Wednesday September 21, the feisty protest
group, Women of Zimbabwe Arise
(WOZA), staged a peaceful demonstration in
Harare, demanding "Peace not
Poverty". Until the riot police intervened
with batons it was an entirely
peaceful, orderly and good-natured protest.
About 200 women started their
march from the Market Square. It had been
intended to complete the short
protest walk at Harare's Town House, a few
blocks away, but the ZRP riot
squad was quickly deployed in response and
blocked their way when the women
were just 100 meters from Town House. As
they walked the women sang with
great gusto, and their singing attracted the
attention of motorists and
passers-by, many of whom joined in the march.
Along the way the WOZA women
distributed fliers which were quickly picked up
by the crowd - itself a sign
of the new boldness Zimbabweans are
demonstrating in embracing anything
promising change. In the past
pedestrians have been fearful of being seen
picking up opposition or protest
leaflets.
The reason the march was
intended to finish at Town House was that the women
were bearing a message to
the Town Clerk, Nomutsa Chideya. In the message,
co-signed by WOZA and the
Combined Harare Residents' Association, the
protesters drew attention to the
significance of International Peace Day,
and demanded "Peace not
Poverty".
The letter continued, "Our sister Anna Tibaijuka (The United
Nations Special
Envoy) said Zimbabweans are today deeper in poverty,
deprivation and
destitution and have been rendered more vulnerable . We,
citizens, know that
the Harare Commission were part of the architects of
Operation Murambatsvina
and should be held accountable for crimes against
humanity".
"The legitimacy of your commission is already under suspicion.
Instead of
delivering services, you are launching operations that disturb
what little
peace we have left".
The letter concluded with a demand
for the right "to elect our own civic
leaders and hold them accountable to
deliver all services like water and
refuse collection".
A short
distance from Town House the protesters were intercepted by
baton-wielding
riot police who lashed out at them without mercy. The WOZA
women have
developed to a fine art the technique of appearing, as if from
nowhere, on
the streets of Zimbabwe's cities and then disappearing just as
quickly after
making their dramatic protests. Most of them managed to escape
arrest on this
occasion, though not to avoid bruises and cuts from the
police batons. It
is believed however than three of their number were
detained by the police.
Human rights lawyers are seeking to establish the
whereabouts of the three
and the nature of any charges brought against them,
but at the time of filing
this report the lawyers had not been able to make
contact with them. The
ZRP are once again reported to be proving less than
helpful in permitting
those in their custody the legal right to see their
lawyers.
September
22,
2005
_______________________________________________________
Visit
our website at www.sokwanele.com
Visit our blog:
www.sokwanele.com/blog/blog.html
News 24
25/09/2005 22:02 - (SA)
Barnabas Thondhlana
Harare - Didymus Mutasa, Zimbabwean minister
for state security and land reform, on Sunday denied accusations by the white
commercial farming community that he had threatened them, saying they had to
report all farm attacks at their nearest police station.
White commercial
farmers in southeastern Manicaland province in Zimbabwe are apparently living in
fear after a new spate of attacks flared up.
The new wave of attacks came
after Mutasa allegedly described white farmers as "rubbish" that had to be
exterminated at a meeting two weeks ago.
Several attacks have taken place in
Chipinge and Nyazura during the past few days.
One of the worst attacks took
place on the Ashanti farm in Chipinge, jointly owned by Canadian-born David
Wilding-Davies and Graham Hill, vice-chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe.
About 15 armed soldiers attacked Wilding-Davies last Wednesday after he had
come to the aid of his manager, Allan Warner.
Warner, a South African, was
allegedly thrown to the ground, kicked and beaten. He received 12 stiches to the
head after the attack.
The soldiers were apparently led by Joseph Chiminya,
a senior official of the Central Intelligence Service.
"Chimiya had an Uzi
machine gun. He aimed it at me and fired but fortunately it didn't go off,"
Warner said.
Gideon Mostert, a coffee and dairy farmer in the area, was
attacked by the same group a few hours prior to the attack on Wilding-Davies but
managed to find shelter in a local church.
Mostert said a diplomat at the
Zimbabwean embassy in London was behind plans to forcefully confiscate his farm,
Brackenridge.
In Nyazura, also in Manicaland, the farms of Jene Herrer and
David Barnard, Tsungwezi Source and Tsellendal, were also confiscated.
Doug
Taylor Freeme, chairperson of the Agricultural Union (CFU), said the attacks in
Chipinge and Nyazura had caused fear among the farming community and would have
an influence on Zimbabwe's already flailing agricultural production.
Of the
original 4 500 farmers in Zimbabwe in 2000, only 500 remained.
Zimbabwe Standard
(Harare)
COLUMN
September 25, 2005
Posted to the web September 25,
2005
Pius Wakatama/Sunday Talk
IN these dark days one is inclined to
be overly thankful even for the smallest of mercies. Any slight measure of
reasonableness from the theatre of the absurd, which is what our Zanu PF has
become, is welcomed.
We now anxiously look for any semblance of sanity from
that maddening camp just to keep that faint glimmer of light at the end of the
tunnel flickering. What else do we have but hope and faith in the power of God
to transform our suffering country.
This is why I joined those who
applauded Dr Herbert Murerwa, Minister of Finance and Dr Gideon Gono, Governor
of the Reserve Bank, for putting up a spirited fight to keep the wolf at bay by
prevailing on the International Monetary Fund not to kick us out of that
organization. Our international creditors would have pounced upon us, broke as
we are, and like vultures torn off all the little flesh we still
have.
According to Gono our international assets including export receipts
could have been seized. Business would have ground to a halt because we would
have not been able to enter into any international transactions. The little
foreign currency that we still have trickling in would have been effectively
blocked.
Some say Gono and Murerwa stole from exporters' foreign currency
accounts the money they used to pay the IMF. Others say the money should have
been used to buy much-needed food and fuel to lessen the people's suffering. The
important thing is that we paid and avoided a much worse calamity from befalling
us.
Gono said: "What is now required is that we stay on course to ensure that
our economic objectives come to fruition. The close range of voting (by the IMF
Board) is indicative of how serious and close the country had gone towards being
expelled."
He pointed out that it was really critical for Zimbabwe to
urgently utilize the six-month grace period given by the IMF to bring the
country back into the international fold.
Speaking before the Parliamentary
Portfolio Committee on Budget and Finance, he said: "We should move away from
price controls. They do not help. It is some of these policies that are creating
additional distortions. We are in a globalized village. There is no country that
tinkers with this kind of thing."
I said, Amen, to brother Murerwa's words
because way back on 31 January 2000, I said the same thing myself. Writing in
the ill-fated Daily News, I said: "Last month President Mugabe was quoted as
saying the government intended to impose further price controls on the prices of
maize meal, bread and beef. What this move will do to our already cumbersome
relationship with the IMF does not need any serious contemplation.
"However,
it clearly proves that price controls do not control prices. They only cause all
kinds of economic dislocations. If we are following the free enterprise system,
then price controls by government or anyone else for that matter have no room.
Price controls create shortages in the short term and as a consequence higher
prices in the long-term."
Our President and his host of praise singers would
not allow him to tamper with their confused populist and socialist policies
which landed us in our unenviable situation in the first place. They desperately
want to see an economic turnaround without getting rid of their ill-conceived
ideas about the economy and governance. In other words, they want to have their
cake and eat it, too. We are being proven right.
Paying the IMF would not
have been a problem had we co-operated with our friends in South Africa and
accepted their offer of financial assistance. Gono and Murerwa would not have
stooped to robbing private citizens' foreign currency accounts, as is
alleged.
Our President and some deluded Zimbabweans seem to think that our
continued membership of the IMF is only a matter of paying our debt.
Our
problem is not the clearing of arrears. There will be no restoration of voting
rights by the IMF and no international support until we put in place real
reforms which will lead to our political recovery. Even our friend South Africa
is not willing to pour money into a State that has no chance to recover
economically to repay its debts.
In today's world, democracy and sound
economic policies spell prosperity. Empty slogans, clever propaganda and
arrogant posturing will not grow our economy. We must not be lulled into sleep
by the six-month reprieve. After that period we can still be kicked out of the
IMF.
Unfortunately our President does not seem to appreciate the precarious
position the country is in. He continues to shoot himself in the foot.
Unfortunately still, that foot happens to be in a rather fragile shoe which is
the nation of Zimbabwe. He shot himself in the foot recently when unnecessarily,
he said in Havana, Cuba: "The IMF is willed by the big powers which dictate what
it should do. We have never been friends of the IMF and in the future we will
never be friends of the IMF." What President Mugabe hoped to gain by that
undiplomatic outburst only the devil knows. After all their efforts to placate
the IMF, Gono and Murerwa must have groaned in despair.
As though this was
not enough Mugabe went ahead and signed into law the Constitutional Amendment
(no 17) Bill which changed the fundamental laws which dealt with the acquisition
of agricultural land. Just as Gono proudly announced the US $120 million payment
to the IMF and promised reforms to stabilize and grow the economy this
retrogressive legislation to nationalize all land and denying the people
recourse to the courts of law is passed. Apart from being undemocratic because
it usurps the power of the judiciary, this law will effectively stop any
investor, local or foreign from even dreaming of investing in Zimbabwe. It will
also not endear us to the IMF or to the international community without whose
assistance Zimbabwe is doomed.
Our President is now totally detached from
reality. Otherwise he would not have told the world that Zimbabweans have enough
to eat. While at the United Nations, he told Associated Press that those of us
who are hungry are hungry because we only want to eat sadza and not rice or
potatoes of which, he said, we have plenty. This reminded me of Queen Marie
Antoinette whose opposition to reforms during the French Revolution, contributed
to the overthrow of the monarchy. She said if the French people didn't have
bread they should eat cake. Soon after, the French revolution engulfed the
country.
I felt sorry for the old man. Whether this detachment is caused by
the senility of old age or cruel lack of caring for his fellow-man, I can't say.
Surely the lives of suffering Zimbabweans should be more important to him as the
father of the nation than his inflated ego.
Other level-headed ministers and
Zanu PF leaders should now also join Gono and Murerwa to see that we remain in
the IMF and are accepted back into the international community. They should now
tell the truth and shame the devil. It is now or never. They should now stop
admiring the king's new clothes when they and the whole world can see that the
king is stark naked.
Murerwa saw the damage caused by price controls and
spoke out. Gono also clearly saw the people's lack of food that at one time he
even suggested that we invite back some evicted commercial farmers to help us to
grow much needed food. Who is going to stand up next?
He who has ears to
hear, let him hear.
Washington 26 September 2005 |
Discussions within Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change to date show a leaning among supporters against taking part in elections for the senate which is being reinstituted under a constitutional amendment rammed through parliament by the ruling ZANU-PF party, MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai said Monday.
Members of the MDC’s youth wing agreed in a weekend meeting that the party should not field candidates in the senate which a senior government official has said are to be held in December, opposition youth affairs chairman Nelson Chamisa told VOA.
MDC youth and others opposed to seeking senate seats say that participation would in effect endorse the ruling ZANU-PF party’s patchwork constitutional changes. Such opposition members also argue that taking part would legitimize what they allege to have been systematic election rigging on the part of the party in government.
But MDC Secretary General Welshman Ncube told the Standard newspaper that the party should enter the ballot because its National Council made a commitment in the runup to the March 31 general election, to participate in future elections.
Mr. Ncube and others of his opinion add that boycotting the senate elections will mean surrendering the democratic space to President Robert Mugabe's ruling party.
Reporter Carole Gombakomba of VOA’s Studio 7 for Zimbabwe asked Mr. Tsvangirai about the ongoing debate inside the country’s main opposition party.
Platinum Today
26th September 2005
Read more about the platinum group metals markets in Johnson Matthey's
bi-annual reviews click here.
Impala Platinum (Implats), owner of
Zimbabwean platinum miner Zimplats, has refuted suggestions that it is preparing
to close its Zimbabwean operations.
Last week the Zimbabwe Independent
claimed that the platinum miner was so frustrated with a tax dispute between the
Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) and itself that it was preparing to pull out
of the country altogether.
However, a spokesman for the platinum giant
insisted that the company is not considering closing down its Zimbabwean
operations, and that view was reinforced by Implats executive director, Les
Paton.
Speaking to Reuters, Mr Paton stated: "We did not threaten to
close the operation."
Instead, Mr Paton revealed that Implats is looking
to resolve the issue, adding that the matter has been referred to the attorney
general.
"There has been some private correspondence between Zimplats and
Zimra and we remain in touch with the authorities," he commented.
Mr
Paton also maintained that there was no bad feeling between the company and
Zimra, pointing out that the tax body has suspended its actions until the
outcome of the attorney general's findings are known.
© Adfero Ltd
September 26, 2005
Email:jag@mango.zw; justiceforagriculture@zol.co.zw
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The
Memorial Service for the late Timothy Robert Mills, who passed away
suddenly
on Friday 23rd September 2005, will be held at St Mary's Church
[Enterprise
Road], Highlands, on Thursday 29th September.