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The SA government has ordered about 15000 Zimbabweans working on farms along the SA-Zimbabwe border in Northern Province to leave SA by Monday next week. They have been accused as they are of taking over work that could be done by South Africans. Home affairs spokesman Leslie Mashokwe said yesterday that only people who had been in the country for more than five years and those with skills that could not be found in SA would be allowed a 90-day "grace" period to argue their cases. Farmers would have to motivate on an individual case-by-case basis why a specific worker should be allowed to stay. In that case they should also have to show how that foreigner would transfer his or her skills to South Africans over a period of time.

Reacting, Harare responded by saying it was concerned that people who were lawfully allowed into the country were now being hastily "flashed out". It said it would understand the deportation of illegal immigrants but not those who entered SA legally. in terms of its laws. Harare said while Pretoria reserved its right to take decisions on matters happening within its territory, it should be careful not to be seen as "harassing" people for no other reason other than that they were foreigners from Zimbabwe. Harare said it was worried about the alleged harassment of its nationals in SA farms and cities.

After meeting farmers and Northern Province government representatives yesterday, home affairs director-general Billy Masetlha said that the farmers would have to arrange for the workers to return to Zimbabwe by Monday. "Last year on October 15 we signed an agreement for a year-long programme to phase out this employment. We believe the farmers should start employing South Africans. The Northern Province has a big problem with unemployment and poverty," he said. Responding to perceptions that locals did not want to work for low wages, Mashokwe said: "We are saying farmers should give them a living wage." He said the intergovernmental task force which consists of the departments of labour, home affairs, the police and the defence force would start deporting the Zimbabweans on Monday. "We will also be targeting farmers who employ illegal immigrants. If found, they will have to pay a fine and pay for the deportation of the concerned people," said Mashokwe.

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High Court judge, Justice Charles Hungwe yesterday ordered the release of three MDC supporters in Shamva wrongly convicted and imprisoned for over three years by a Bindura Magistrate last December after the Attorney-General (AG)’s office, and the prisoners’ lawyer agreed that the ruling was a miscarriage of justice. Hungwe said he would hand down the full judgment on Friday. He said: "I intend to make an order to release the three accused but the full judgment will be ready on Friday."

Martha Muronzi, Fanuel Muronzi and Nickson Murari were convicted and sentenced to 40 months in prison with hard labour by Bindura magistrate, Simon Kachambwa. The magistrate suspended 15 months of the sentence on condition of good behaviour. They were sentenced and convicted together with five Zanu PF supporters on allegations of public violence. Their lawyer, Shepherd Mushonga, appealed against both sentence and conviction, saying his clients were the victims of the attack and were wrongfully arrested and convicted. Nickiel Mushangwe for the AG agreed with Mushonga and asked the court to quash Kachambwa’s ruling.

Mushonga said his clients had gone to attend an MDC rally authorised by the police but later cancelled after the police indicated the atmosphere was not conducive to hold a political rally. He said: "The magistrate erred and misdirected himself by passing a blanket conviction on both the victims and perpetrators of the public violence." He said Kachambwa also erred and misdirected himself in failing to identify the victims and the perpetrators in the incident. Mushonga said it was difficult to understand how Kachambwa reached his decision when all the State witnesses testified that the three were victims of a guerrilla surprise attack by Zanu PF youths.

Mushangwe said there was no evidence by the State to link the MDC supporters to the incident. "If anything, the three ought to have given evidence as State witnesses against the other five accused who were jointly charged with them," he said. He said the three submitted a simple story which was corroborated by the State witnesses. "It is submitted that the State did not establish any case against the three," he told the court. Mushangwe said: "The nature of the State evidence gives a picture of the three being the unfortunate victims of political violence perpetrated by members of Zanu PF. If this court is in agreement with the above submissions, the conviction must be quashed and the sentence set aside."

He said public violence of a political nature was on the increase in the country and said the courts must be seen to be imposing deterrent sentences because if inadequately punished it would spread throughout the country like a veld fire. "In the particular circumstances of this case, public violence which is politically motivated is on the increase in Mashonaland Central province and the courts must pass a clear warning that the perpetrators will be severely punished," Mushangwe said. He told the court that people must feel free to travel in their country without fear of being attacked. Mushangwe said: "In most cases of public violence of this nature people have been maimed and others even killed. It is surprising how the trial magistrate convicted the three appellants." During last year’s parliamentary election there was widespread violence perpetrated against MDC followers by Zanu PF supporters and war veterans. The violent campaigns in the province led to the death of Matthew Pfebve, the brother of Elliot Pfebve, the losing MDC candidate for Bindura. Elliot Pfebve is now suing President Mugabe in the United States for the death of his brother.

Harare - Several members of Zimbabwe's leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), claimed Tuesday to have been tortured by youth activists from the ruling party. They said they were beaten and burnt by Zanu PF youths campaigning for President Robert Mugabe ahead of next year's presidential election in Zimbabwe's central Midlands province. "They are preparing for the presidential campaign and they say 'We don't want to see MDC supporters in this area'," Max Mutiri, an MDC official from Midlands, told AFP. He spoke from the back of a vehicle that had carried him and two relatives to the capital city to receive treatment Tuesday. Revealing his severely swollen feet and burn marks on his body, Mutiri recounted how for two days last week he and his relatives had the soles of their feet beaten with iron bars and how he was held over a fire. "Zanu PF cannot rule my country if they are doing this," said Mutiri, who vowed to return home to campaign for Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC's presidential candidate in elections due before April next year.

Meanwhile a human rights group has petitioned the country's parliamentarians to ban the army from police work. The army is being used to enforce law and order in the country at a time of heightened political tensions, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) said in a statement released late Monday. "Some people have died and a lot of them have been assaulted," said the statement, addressed to the country's parliament which is made up of 64 ruling party and 53 opposition elected members. "We feel that government should ... come up with recommendations that would bar the use of the army in the maintenance of law and order." The statement lists dozens of assaults by the army on civilians in various parts of the country including the capital, Harare. Some analysts predict a violent run-up to the election, in which Tsvangirai is expected to present President Mugabe with his stiffest challenge yet to 21 years in office.

Gokwe - In a fresh wave of violence, six MDC supporters were admitted to Mtora Hospital in Gokwe last Thursday after they were abducted and severely beaten up by suspected Zanu PF supporters camped near Mtora Growth Point in Gokwe North. Sylvester Majekuza, the MDC’s provincial organising secretary, confirmed the incident and said the injured were only released on Friday afternoon following the intervention of the police. They were all taken to Mtora Hospital under police escort. Majekuza identified the injured as Max Mtiri, Kufa Rukara, Gokwe Mukandakanda, Murisi Mtiri, Obert Nyashanu and Kufa Mtiri.

Officials at the hospital described their condition as critical. They were later transferred to Harare for specialist treatment yesterday afternoon as Mtora Hospital did not have enough drugs. Majekuza accused the police at Choda police post of failing to arrest the perpetrators of violence in the area since last year's parliamentary election. "While we appreciate that the police eventually intervened and saved our supporters from further attack, I would like to hold them responsible for the outbreak of violence in the area because they have not arrested the perpetrators," said Majekuza. Officials at Choda police post declined to comment, referring all questions to the Police General Headquarters in Harare.

Innocent Muchahanya of Runesu village in Gumunyu was one of the latest victims of political violence. Muchahanya, who runs a retail shop at Gokwe business centre, said he was severely beaten up by Zanu PF youths on Wednesday and treated at Gumunyu clinic on Friday. "They beat me up because I am a member of the MDC," he said yesterday. Two weeks ago, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) accused the police in Gokwe South of failing to protect victims of political violence. In a report on violence in the area, Munyaradzi Bidi, the director of Zimrights, said a number of people had approached the Zimrights offices complaining about the conduct of the police in Gokwe South. In the report, Bidi said the police were arresting only members of the MDC leaving out members of the ruling party, Zanu PF.

About 500 Zanu PF supporters are alleged to have established a camp at Tenda Primary School where opposition party supporters are taken in for torture. Zanu PF’s provincial secretary for information and publicity, Francis Nhema, could not be reached for comment yesterday. Several homes of suspected MDC supporters in the Gokwe area have been burnt down in the last two weeks while others have been forced to flee to other areas. Meanwhile, the MDC chairman for Gokwe, Ernest Nkomazana, fled his businesses at Gokwe Growth Point two weeks ago after suspected Zanu PF supporters visited him at night and threatened to kill him. The latest wave of violence is in total defiance of the Abuja Agreement in which the Zimbabwean government made an undertaking to end violence and lawlessness throughout the country.

Harare - Zimbabwe on Tuesday offered muted praise for the US-led military offensive against Afghanistan but called for a "proportionate" response to the September 11 terror attacks in the United States. "The initial attacks appear to have been against legitimate targets and it also appears, from the casualty toll, that the bombing exhibited a high degree of precision," the state-run Herald newspaper said in an editorial. But it added: "The military action has to be proportionate ... Carpet bombing of Afghanistan, for example, would put the US in the same camp as those who flew the planes into the World Trade Center. Killing civilians for ignoble motives of revenge is terrorism." With President Robert Mugabe and Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge away on a 10-day southeast Asian tour, the editorial in The Herald, seen as the government mouthpiece, was Zimbabwe's first response to the US and British air strikes unleashed Sunday in Afghanistan. "It is essential that future attacks follow the same course," the paper said. "It is also essential that the US restricts its war aims." The editorial added: "The US must resist the temptation to try and impose some sort of government on Afghanistan. That must be left to the Afghan people with the advice and help of neighbouring countries. The choice is up to the US government, and it must act as correctly as it has started." Zimbabwe's relations with Washington and especially with London, the former colonial power, have been strained since early last year when Mugabe launched a controversial land reform program, seizing white-owned land without paying compensation.

Masvingo - Albert Chamwadoro, the former MP for Chivi North has fled his Allanvale Farm near Mashava after he was threatened by scores of farm invaders. Chamwadoro said: "The invaders have blocked the entrance to the farmhouse and have threatened to kill me. I have since left the farm for security reasons. All the farm employees have been chased away. I have tried my level best to have them evicted but Masvingo Provincial Governor Josaya Hungwe wants them to stay. He also wants to acquire the farm for resettlement." The farm invaders are allegedly taking instructions from Hungwe who is the chairman of the provincial land committee.

Although the government has said all black-owned farms would be spared from acquisition, Hungwe said the farm should still be acquired for resettlement. The governor’s determination to acquire the farm is being viewed as a ploy to frustrate and embarrass members of the Zanu PF faction led by Eddison Zvobgo. Chamwadoro belongs to the Zvobgo camp in the faction-torn province where Hungwe leads a group of Zanu PF supporters allegedly aligned to Vice-President Simon Muzenda. Zvobgo is a former Minister without Portfolio who fell out of favour with President Mugabe after he was dropped from the ruling party’s supreme organ, the politburo.

Chemwadoro bought the 235 hectare piece of land from the Mashaba-Shabanie Mines last year. Hungwe, however, said the certificate of no present interest had been cancelled by the provincial land committee. He said the sale transaction that took place between the former MP and the Mines had been reversed. "All those people who are on Chamwadoro’s farm should remain and if the need to put more people arises we will do so," Hungwe said.

The view from one of Zimbabwe's beleaguered commercial farmer's houses is a constant reminder of what he has lost. >From the front window he can clearly see what was once a rolling field of lush green wheat. It has been reduced to a bed of dry stalks after pro-government militants drove cattle through the field. "That crop was worth millions. But at least they did not physically harm me," the farmer said, pleading with IRIN not to publicise his case. He doesn't want to provoke more action from the militants still occupying the southern part of his mixed-production farm in Beatrice district, 60 km south of Harare.

At Manyati village not far from Beatrice, 41-year-old widow and mother-of-four Mary Makombo despairs. "The five bags of maize we harvested will take us to around March next year, after that I do not know what we shall eat," she says. Zimbabwe, in the throes of its worst economic and political crisis since independence, faces critical food shortages because of disruptions in agriculture, and a severe lack of foreign aid and hard currency. Illegal farm seizures and chaotic fast-track land reform, as well as a delay in the start of the rainy season last year, shortages of fuel, farming inputs and a mid-season dry spell, all combined to cause a drop in agricultural production, said University of Zimbabwe (UZ) crop science lecturer Pangirai Tongoona.

Agricultural analysts say the failure of the state-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB) to pay communal farmers, who normally produce 60 percent of Zimbabwe's maize, has been a major contributing factor to the looming food crisis. Observers agree that preventing starvation next year in Zimbabwe will require external help. But with an election on the horizon, the government has been reluctant to acknowledge the extent of the problem. Finance Minister Simba Makoni told parliament recently that 100,000 mts of maize and 60,000 mts of wheat would have to be imported to make up for shortfalls in domestic production. According to a United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimate in June, Zimbabwe will need to import a total of about 570,0000 mts of maize and wheat to avert starvation and replenish its reserves.

The Zimbabwe Grain Producers' Association (ZPGA), bringing together mainly white large-scale commercial grain producers, said according to its research the country last season produced 1.8 million mts against a total annual requirement of 2.6 million mts of maize. The country needed to import a minimum of 350,000 mts of maize, ZPGA said. "Without these additional imports Zimbabwe will run dry of maize from 1 April, 2002 until the new crop is harvested," ZPGA administrator Vanessa Mckay said. University of Zimbabwe (UZ) political scientist Elphious Mukonoweshuro told IRIN that the government was deliberately downplaying the food shortages for fear that Zimbabweans would hold it's fast-track land policy responsible. "For the government to accept figures scientifically produced by local and international food experts that put the food deficit much higher would be accepting a liability," Mukonoweshuro said.

Although the government continues to publicly downplay the possibility of a major food crisis, action on the ground suggests that Mugabe's administration is taking the threat seriously. Last month the government banned all exports of basic foods, including the staple maize meal. In June, in a move to increase control over maize and wheat, Mugabe made it illegal to buy or sell the two crops - except through the GMB. Last month it hiked producer prices for maize and wheat in an attempt to stimulate production next year. Meanwhile, in regions with low rainfall, like the Masvingo and Matabeleland provinces, there are already visible signs of food shortages with most families requiring food supplements because they did not harvest enough to feed themselves. But with little external aid forthcoming and dwindling amounts of foreign currency to import food, their plight seems set to worsen.

Assaults (blunt/ sharp, burns 2,928

Property offences: (destruction, theft) 1,165

Death/disappearance threats: 753

Rape 6

Rape threat 12

Assault threats 5,138

False accusations 796

Forced displacement: 20,853

Detention/kidnapping: 586

Unlawful dismissal 210

Barricading 218

No of farming/wilderness areas affected by deliberate land burning 33

POLITICAL AFFILIATION OF VICTIMS

(1 July – 30 September 2001)

Unknown 61,7 %

MDC 33,0%

Zanu PF 5,3 %

POLITICAL AFFILIATION OF PERPETRATORS

(1 July – 30 September 2001)

Zanu PF (war veterans, youths etc) 73,3 %

STATE AGENCIES

Army/air force: 4,4 %

Police 16,0 %

CIO: 0,6 %

MDC: 2,5 %

unknown: 3,2 %

Harare - President Robert Mugabe's government on Sunday rebuffed a request from the United States government for a respected private American-based group of election specialists to visit Zimbabwe ahead of presidential elections due next year. "We are not taking any examinations, we are not Talibans (students)," information minister Jonathan Moyo. "We have no test to pass because we fought for this country and the only test we had was to win the war" of independence that ended in 1979. "We will not allow people who can't run their elections to tell us how to conduct ours here," said Moyo, referring to the confusion over the final count in the narrowly contested American presidential elections last year.

He was quoted by the state-controlled Sunday Mail newspaper following a request from the United States embassy here last week to allow a delegation from the International Foundation for Election Systems to visit later this month, "to conduct an initial assessment of the government's preparations for the presidential election, in anticipation of launching its own independent election observation effort". On September 13 the government expelled two senior IFES officials after Tobaiwa Mudede, the head of the government-run elections directorate, refused to speak to them. IFES is regarded as one of the world's leading experts on the conduct of elections, and has observed polls all over the world, including Africa. The embassy request asked the government to allow the IFES team into the country and be "allowed to work unhindered". Moyo responded: "The request is not worth the paper it is written on. Just as America has become strict about who enters its country, we also have the final say about who enters our country." No comment was immediately available from the embassy. A Western diplomat said "what they really mean is that they are not going to have anyone who they think is going to 'interfere' with their running of elections. I think it's pretty clear they don't want observers here next year."

There is growing anxiety that Mugabe, 77, faced with the likelihood of losing an election for the first time in 21 years of power, will rig the polling to ensure victory. He is to face Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the popular opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which in parliamentary elections last year won 57 out of 120 elected seats. Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party was able to ensure a comfortable margin through constitutional provisions for him to appoint another 30 MPs to the 150-seat chamber. The ruling party achieved its narrow margin in the elected constituencies after a comprehensive campaign of violent intimidation, publicly backed by Mugabe, in which 37 people were murdered and thousands assaulted, tortured and driven from their homes.

The embassy statement said that "serious irregularities have marred municipal and parliamentary elections". In recent by-elections and mayoral elections around the country after last year's parliamentary elections, there were widespread reports of continuing violence against opposition supporters, manipulation of voters' rolls and bussing of large numbers of ruling party supporters into constituencies to vote for Zanu PF. The regime has dismissed outright appeals from human rights organisations and opposition parties for an independent electoral commission to run the country's elections. Moyo has also warned that he plans to ban the monitoring of elections by independent organisations, claiming they are "biased" in favour of the MDC. Until now, volunteers from local church groups and civic bodies have been permitted to monitor elections.

High Court judge, Justice George Smith has ordered Augustine Chihuri, the Police Commissioner, to investigate the commander of a war veterans’ base at Beaconhill Farm near Bindura. The commander is alleged to have directed 10 Zanu PF youths to assault nine teachers, suspected to be MDC supporters, at Uronga South Primary School last June. The teachers were beaten up in front of their pupils. The base commander had allegedly promised land to the unemployed youths, aged between 18 and 23 years.

"It seems highly probable that the accused were acting on the instructions of the base commander," Smith said. "If that was, in fact, the case, then the moral blameworthiness of the commander is far greater than that of the youths. He should not be allowed to go scot-free if he was the one who ordered the attack. The use of young men who want land as pawns in the political struggle and to make them go out and assault and intimidate innocent members of the public who are going about their own business, in order to qualify for land cannot be condoned."

The youths all pleaded guilty to public violence. Smith was reviewing the trial of the 10 youths at the Bindura Magistrates’ Courts. The magistrates’ court sentenced each of the youths to three years’ imprisonment, of which nine months were suspended for five years on condition they do not, within that period, commit an offence involving assault, arson or malicious injury to property. Smith said the sentence was appropriate. He said: "Public violence committed by the youths on the teachers, in front of their pupils, on the scale that was done in this case, merely because the teachers were suspected to belong to an opposition political party, cannot be condoned. The police are to be commended for having the accused brought before the court, but they must not stop half-way."

Hwedza - Zimbabwean farmers are being forced to slaughter prime breeding cattle after their pastures were destroyed by land invaders, agricultural organisations said yesterday. Commercial farmers have had to send about half the national breeding herd of 550,000 animals, including thousands of pregnant cows, to abattoirs because supporters of President Mugabe set thousands of acres on fire last month. Yesterday, Mike Clarke, a regional executive of the Commercial Farmers' Union, said: "The commercial breeding herd is being decimated because farmers can't find grazing. I have never seen cattle lose condition so dramatically as in the last few weeks." He said abattoirs were fully booked until late November.

A growing number of breeding cattle had been slaughtered by land invaders in recent weeks and wild animals were also being killed. At the same time the mobs were extorting enormous sums of money from white farmers. He said: "When the rains come next month, tens of thousands of cattle will be sent for slaughter because we know the squatters will extort money from us, saying our cattle have ruined their crops growing on our land." Mr Mugabe's supporters, mostly unemployed youths and a few veterans of Zimbabwe's independence war, were officially sponsored to invade nearly two thirds of white-owned farms last February after voters rejected a new constitution. The continuing breakdown and looting of the agricultural sector, which contributes at least 40 per cent of exports, has led to chaotic movements of cattle, with many crossing broken fences. An outbreak of foot and mouth disease in August led to the cancellation of valuable beef exports. New farm invasions and a sharp rise in violence followed Mr Mugabe's pledge to honour the Commonwealth's Abuja agreement last month, which should have ended chaos on the farms and returned Zimbabwe to the rule of law.

At the weekend, Mike Whitfield, 60, who served with the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards for 10 years, was barricaded in his farm in the Hwedza district, 120 miles south-east of Harare. About 350 cattle were driven into the homestead garden by supporters of Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF party too young to have seen service in the independence war. One said: "We are comrades, we are war veterans, we own this place, his cattle will spoil our crops." Police restored order 24 hours after they were called following a night of terror for Mr Whitfield, his wife and the workers. On a nearby farm in Hwedza, a 90-year-old farmer's widow was recovering from an attack in her homestead last week. She had been coshed on the head, stripped of most of her clothes and left for dead. Because of the turmoil in its agricultural sector Zimbabwe, which used to be self-sufficient in grain, needs to import at least 200,000 tons of maize by February. But grain industry sources said the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe had no foreign currency with which to buy it.

Just a very few of the Abuja violations from the last week...

On 1 October, Minister Ignatius Combo and Philip Chiyangwa MP addressed a meeting of farmers in Banket. In the course of the meeting, in front of 200 witnesses, Mr Chiyangwa said "…anyone who supports the MDC will be eliminated".

On 4 October, a farmer in Mashonaland West was told by the District Administrator that, despite his farm being unlisted, he would have to live with the squatters who would not be moving from his land.

On 6 and 7 October, drunken squatters on two farms near Lake Mazwikadei set up road blocks on access roads, preventing tourists from leaving camp sites on the farms.

On 7 October, a senior civil servant, Willard Chiwewe, admitted to the Zimbabwe Standard that he has been trying to force the takeover, for himself, of an unlisted farm in the Shamva area. Mr Chiwewe already has a lease on a farm under the "VIP resettlement scheme" detailed in the Dongo List. Recently, some observers, and the Zimbabwe government, have said that time is needed for the details of the Abuja agreement to be passed down to the people on the ground. As the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr Chiwewe has no excuse for not knowing what was agreed at Abuja. He may even have been there.

Foreign Affairs permanent secretary, Willard Chiwewe, whose ministry is supposed to lead the diplomatic offensive on the Abuja agreement, has grabbed a farm in Shamva that had been delisted from the compulsory acquisition list. According to information gathered by The Standard, Chiwewe, in collusion with Mashonaland Central governor and Zanu PF provincial chairman, Elliot Manyika, has declared his intentions to grab the farm from Peter Rorbye. It is understood Chiwewe has made his intention clear to Rorbye that he wants to swap his Chipoli Day farm for Rorbye’s farm, which is more productive.

Chiwewe confirmed his interest in the farm when contacted by The Standard on Friday. After initially refusing any knowledge about the issue Chiwewe later confirmed he wanted to grab the farm. "I don’t know what you are talking about. Go back to your sources and then come back to me. I don’t take farms from people, I don’t have that power," said Chiwewe. He however changed his stance after being pressed further: "I have been visiting the farm under different circumstances which have nothing to do with your newspaper. I am not doing it in my personal capacity. I have been asked by the provincial leadership to go and have a look at the farm and see if I am interested in it. My farm is adjacent to a communal area so the province wants to use it for resettlement purposes under the Model A1. So I will swap my farm for that one. I am examining the two farms before I take a decision. The decision I take has nothing to do with you," said Chiwewe.

Chiwewe’s actions are in direct violation of the Abuja agreement in which government agreed to halt all new farm occupations and restore the rule of law. Although Rorbye refused to talk about the issue, The Standard has it on good authority that Chiwewe frequently visits the farm to make "inspections". According to sources, Chiwewe last visited the farm a fortnight ago. So afraid of Chiwewe is the Rorbye family that it has refused to talk to this newspaper about the issue. A woman at the farm yesterday pleaded with The Standard not to publish anything regarding the issue as they feared reprisals. "This issue is very sensitive and we don’t want anything published in the press. I have a family living at the farm and I don’t want to put their lives in danger. You will jeopardise a lot of things if you publish that story. I will take issue with you if you write about our farm, I will take action," said the woman. Farming operations have been disrupted in Mashonaland Central by war veterans and Zanu PF supporters who continue to terrorise farmers and their workers. Farmers in the area say attempts for dialogue with the provincial leadership have failed.

Described as a civil servant, the list shows a Mr Willard A Chiwewe as having a five-year lease over the 714 hectare Lot 1 of Chipoli Farm in Shamva. The lease from the government commenced on 1 October 1993, and the list shows that that lease ended on September 1998. The annual rental for the land was set at $37 400. There are no details available of any renewal of that expired lease. In the same area, the 132 hectare Subdivision 1 of Caledon Farm is shown to be leased by a Martin Kwainona, a police officer. His five-year lease is due to end on 31 December 2002. The rental on his lease had not been assessed at the time the Dongo List was produced.

The British government can go ahead and freeze President Mugabe’s assets and those of his "henchmen" if they find them, Parliament heard on Wednesday. The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Patrick Chinamasa, said foreign governments should not just talk of freezing assets they allege are owned by Mugabe and senior government officials, but should act. He was responding to a question from Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga (MDC, Glen Norah) who had said the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was quoted on CNN as saying his government would soon freeze "certain assets of people that are in government". She said Blair had "harsh words" for "Mugabe and his henchmen" in a speech to the Labour Party’s annual conference in Brighton this week.

Misihairabwi-Mushonga wanted to know whether the government would renege on the Abuja agreement if the British proceeded to seize the assets. Chinamasa retorted he was not aware of the statement alleged to have been made by Blair. "He said of Misihairabwi-Mushonga: "The sort of talk from the honourable member is very reckless and careless. It assumes we have assets all over. Please let them go ahead. Why do they have to talk of intentions? We don’t have assets and they’re free to freeze them, to acquire and do what they want."

The British Broadcasting Corporation quoted Blair as having said the world as a community should focus on Africa for it "to be healed". Blair called on the international community to back a partnership for Africa, between the developed and developing world, based on the New African Initiative. "This would offer greater investment, aid and debt relief for Africa," he said. "But it’s a deal: on the African side, true democracy, no more excuses for dictatorship, abuses of human rights, no tolerance of bad governance, from the endemic corruption of some states, to the activities of Mr Mugabe’s henchmen in Zimbabwe, proper commercial, legal and financial systems."

Chinamasa angered the opposition MPs when he attacked them, especially Misihairabwi-Mushonga for "parroting what the enemy says". "It is not fair for MPs on the other side to report over and over lies about the leadership of their country to a point where these allegations achieve a life of their own. Come forward, if you have evidence that we have assets all over," he said. Misihairabwi-Mushonga shouted "I’m not a parrot!" to Chinamasa as he replied "Yes, you are!" with Paul Themba Nyathi (MDC, Gwanda North) objecting to the Speaker, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who overruled his point of order saying "to parrot is to repeat" and, thus, was not derogatory.

Zimbabwe is to pay a heavy price for loans from Libya with farms, hotels and oil installations pledged to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime as payment for his help, the Zimbabwe Independent learnt this week. The Libyans, who recently provided a US$90 million line of credit to supply fuel to Zimbabwe, have cast their eyes on stakes in two financial institutions and a major hotel group as well as oil facilities and land as payment, government sources reveal. President Mugabe was recently in Tripoli to conclude the fuel deal. Sources said the Libyans were eyeing a stake in two commercial banks in which the government has a shareholding. Although it was not immediately clear what the Libyans proposed to do with their stake, there are suggestions that the banks would form part of a broad-based Libyan investment drive in Zimbabwe which will require local capital as well as external sourcing. The Libyans also want to run safari operations in Zimbabwe, specifically designed for rich Arab tourists who want to come here to shoot game. The sources said under the deal, the Libyans would be apportioned 8 000 hectares of industrial and farming land.

The sources said Libyan entrepreneurs would produce fruit and food crops on the land, solely for the Libyan market. The North African country would also use part of the land to set up industries to produce goods for their market. The industries, the sources said, would use as much local raw materials as possible to manufacture goods. The sources said the Libyans were interested in land in Mazowe Valley and Nyanga. They had also indicated an interest in setting up a fruit canning plant or going into partnership with an established local fruit and vegetable conglomerate. "What this does is to set up a little Libya in Zimbabwe because these guys want to come in a big way," a source close to the arrangements said. "They want the land to be fenced off so that Zimbabwe will not have access to the plants and there is this unfortunate possibility that they will bring in their own workforce," the source said. "The major worry is that such a huge undertaking is being done without the full knowledge of parliament. Fuel is an important resource for use but I am not sure whether this will be for the good of the country in the long run," the source said.

The Libyans were in the country last month to inspect facilities in the fuel industry and areas of possible investment in tourism. In terms of the fuel agreement, Tamoil, a Libyan-owned company, will supply a total of US$360 million worth of fuel to the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim). Nicholas Kitikiti, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Mines and Energy, was quoted as saying that the fuel deal would meet 70% of Zimbabwe’s normal requirements. He said negotiations were also under way between Noczim and a Monaco-based Libyan company, Oil-Invest, to form a joint-venture oil company which would be involved in fuel imports and the retail trade in Zimbabwe. The Libyan Arab Foreign Bank would finance the deals with the two Libyan companies and Noczim. Zimbabwe would be paying in Zimbabwe dollars. Fuel industry sources said the Libyans’ quest for control of the Mutare to Harare oil pipeline and underground storage tanks in Mabvuku had been blocked by senior politicians who felt the facilities were too strategic to let go of. There has been a flurry of diplomatic activity between Harare and Tripoli since the visit to Zimbabwe by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in July and subsequent visit to Tripoli by Mugabe the following month.

Former High Court judge, Justice Michael Gillespie, says he resigned last month because of the breakdown of law and order, constant attacks on judges and selective application of justice spearheaded by the Executive, Zanu PF supporters and war veterans. Gillespie, now living in England, made the remarks in a criminal review case in which two former employees of a Harare company were convicted of extorting more than $15 000 from their workplace during the company invasions led by Zanu PF supporters and war veterans in May. The judge said that the 420 hours’ community service sentence imposed on Tapfuma Hombarume and Ask Ndoro by the magistrates’ court was too lenient, given the seriousness of their offence.

Gillespie attacked the manner in which the government was trampling on the rule of law and spearheading lawlessness in the country. He said: "The accused have been charged with, and convicted of, extortion. They are among those who have sought to take advantage of the increasing breakdown of the rule of law engineered by the Executive." He said the two went to the company singing Zanu PF songs, "a party believed to be controlling similar acts of violence and intimidation throughout the country". Gillespie said the behaviour of Hombarume and Ndoro "was a symptom of the breakdown to mob rule that the rule of law seeks to avoid but which is the inevitable consequence when the government of the day, by its actions, no matter what words it uses, effectively renounces its commitment to the rule of law".

He said one could not sit on the High Court Bench for the last two years and more and not have become increasingly concerned at the manner in which the Executive had attempted to compromise the independence of the Judiciary and bend the rule of law. Gillespie accused the government of defying court orders and attacking the integrity of High Court and Supreme Court judges who show some degree of judicial independence while others were attacked racially. "The judges have been threatened publicly by war veterans with attacks upon, and occupation of, their homes," he said. He said the campaign of threats reached its climax with the unlawful pressure on Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay, compelling him to resign.

Gillespie said there were reports of police inaction in the face of unlawful conduct against political opponents of the government, in stark contrast to the zealous police response to allegations of wrongful conduct by the supposed opponents of the government. "By this means the Executive has contrived to politicise the Bench, if not in fact, then at least in the perception of many ordinary people," he said. The judge said manipulation of court rolls, selective prosecution and the packing of the Bench of the superior courts were some techniques which provided a government determined to do so with the opportunity to subvert the law, at the same time appearing to respect its institutions. "A judge, finally, who finds himself in the position where he is called upon to administer the law only as against political opponents of the government and not against government supporters, faces the challenge to his conscience: that is whether he can still consider himself to sit as an independent judge in an impartial court."

In an apparent reference to Joseph Chinotimba, the municipal security guard who is in the war veterans’ and Zanu PF leadership of Harare province, Gillespie said: "I have read of a person calling himself a leader of war veterans, on remand out of custody for charges of attempted murder, whose photograph has appeared regularly in the Press in connection with acts of violence and intimidation on farms and in businesses." Gillespie said it makes a mockery of the law that such a person facing such charges could nevertheless continue to act with such freedom and not have his liberty revoked pending his trial and not arrested for the continuing acts of violence. "It leaves it impossible for me to conclude that this person and his actions do not enjoy the full backing of the Executive. It also causes me to question why such a person should not be prosecuted, whereas the accused does face the rigour of the criminal law for his act of emulating his untouchable mentor," the judge said. Chinotimba is facing trial for attempting to kill Anna Maenzanise, an MDC supporter in Glen Norah. Gillespie said because of the selective application of justice he decided to withhold his certificate. "I have, finally, also reached the conclusion that for as long as there prevails the conditions such as I have described in this judgment, I cannot sit as an effective and independent member of this Bench. I have considered it necessary to resign my office and to allow this judgment to illustrate my reasons for doing so," Gillespie said.

Leonard Tsumba, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), is in Malaysia to discuss various bilateral issues, including Zimbabwe's crippling foreign currency and fuel crises and revival of a stalled trade and payments arrangement between the two countries. RBZ spokesman Ignatius Mabasa this week confirmed Tsumba's visit to Kuala Lumpur and said the central bank chief would hold meetings with Bank of Malaysia governor, Malaysian bankers and business leaders whose companies export to Zimbabwe during a visit that ends tomorrow.

During his stay in Malaysia, Tsumba is expected to hold discussions with representatives of Malaysian oil company Petronas on ways of improving fuel supplies to Zimbabwe. "He is going to negotiate with them on other ways they can assist Zimbabwe in the procurement of fuel," Mabasa told the Financial Gazette. He could however not go into the specifics of what the discussions would centre on but sources said Tsumba might take the opportunity to negotiate a facility under which Zimbabwe would pay Petronas in local currency for fuel imports.

Zimbabwe, short of foreign currency as its exports collapse in the face of biting economic hardships at home and a boycott of the country by international lenders, has been plunged into a fuel crisis in the past two years. Mabasa said Tsumba would also discuss Zimbabwe's foreign currency crisis with his Malaysian counterpart. The fuel and foreign currency shortages are the most visible signs of Zimbabwe's three-year-old economic crisis – the worst since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980 - which many blame on 21 years of gross mismanagement by President Robert Mugabe. Economists and industry groups have warned that the fuel and hard cash crises could decimate Zimbabwe's manufacturing industry, which has so far lost more than 600 firms in less than two years.

The Zimbabwe-Malaysia Trade and Payments facility, abruptly suspended by the Zimbabweans earlier this year, is also expected to come up for discussion during Tsumba's visit. "The governors will review the performance of bilateral trade and will look for ways to revive the facility," Mabasa said. The Zimbabwe-Malaysia Trade and Payments facility, which became operational in August 2000, was officially suspended by the RBZ in July, although banking industry sources said the pact had not been in operation since early this year. Under the agreement, imports and exports were paid for in the local currencies of the countries, with imports by Zimbabwe being offset against proceeds from exports by local firms to Malaysia and vice versa. The difference would be settled in hard currency after three months. The decision to suspend the facility on the Zimbabwean side was caused by the lack of interest in the arrangement by local exporters, which resulted in a huge trade imbalance between the two countries.

Civic organisations in Zimbabwe told IRIN on Thursday that for next year's presidential poll to be free, voter education should be encouraged and a genuinely independent electoral commission established as soon as possible. Local human rights watchdog ZimRights this week announced it had produced a manual on voter education which could be used as a guide by organisations and individuals involved in preparations for next year's presidential election. "We've done lots of research and it's clear that many Zimbabweans do not vote because they are afraid of the process," David Jamali of ZimRights told IRIN.

ZimRights was trying to get to poorly-educated rural Zimbabweans who, Jamali said, had "been the victims of government misinformation". He said rural people told ZimRights that the government had informed them that by using computers they could tell who had voted for who. The decision to go ahead with the manual is seen as defying a planned move by the government to ban civic organisations from carrying out voter education ahead of the poll which pits President Robert Mugabe against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai. "We have been working on this manual for more than six months and we tried to answer most of the practical questions on voter education," Jamali told IRIN. The manual, "You And The Vote", provides information on the importance of voting and urges Zimbabweans to exercise their right to choose by participating in elections. Distribution of the manual was being held up by lack of funds, Jamali said.

Information Minister Jonathan Moyo has said the government is considering banning civic groups, churches and aid agencies from conducting voter education programmes because they have "hidden agendas". The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), a coalition of 38 civic organisations, told IRIN it was concerned by ruling party statements in parliament in August suggesting that civic organisations be barred from conducting voter education. "We will continue to maintain a dialogue with government and lobby for the constitutional right to educate our people about why voting is important," Rindai Chipfunde of ZESN told IRIN.

Mugabe's government had ruled out the establishment of an Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to conduct next year's presidential election and was instead formulating a code of conduct to clamp down on activities of Zimbabwean and foreign election observers, the 'Financial Gazette' reported on Thursday, quoting official sources. "The issue of the IEC is out," a senior cabinet minister told the newspaper. The action could set the government in direct confrontation with opposition and civic organisations demanding the formation of a genuine IEC as a minimum condition under which a free and fair ballot can be staged.

"Without an IEC the (presidential) elections will be a foregone conclusion," Lovemore Madhuku, chair of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), another influential civic coalition, told IRIN. Madhuku dismissed the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC), which has conducted elections since independence, as "an arm of the civil service totally under government control". Government wants the ESC to stage the presidential poll, which must be held by the end of March. The NCA also wants international and Zimbabwean election observers to be deployed across Zimbabwe well ahead of the ballot. But the government wants the work of election observers, both local and foreign, to be regulated because it accuses them of interfering with Zimbabwe's internal politics. "We have held parliamentary and presidential elections since independence using the system which we have in place and these have been successful. So what is new about next year's election?" a minister, preferring not to be named, told the 'Financial Gazette'. He added: "As for election observers, we do not have problems with them, but we will put in place rules to monitor their conduct so they will not interfere with the electoral process."

One international election observer body contacted condemned the possibility of government regulation of election observers, but declined to be quoted for fear of souring relations. "At the end of the day we have to be invited in by Zimbabwe's government to monitor, so a relationship has to be maintained," the source said. The US and the 15-nation European Union have demanded the deployment of poll observers to check on the validity of the presidential election. But David Pottie of the Johannesburg-based Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) told IRIN that regulation of election observers could be a positive step if it was part of an overall strategy to make the poll more transparent and better organised.

Harare - Malawi's President Bakili Muluzi, the chairman of the 14-nation Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), has once again blasted the continued violence in Zimbabwe caused by the government's controversial fast-track land reform programme. Responding to questions from the Financial Gazette, Muluzi yesterday said President Robert Mugabe had assured African leaders at meetings both in Abuja and Harare that his government was committed to the restoration of law and order. Muluzi, in the statement read to this newspaper by his aide Willie Zengeni, said in his capacity as SADC chairman he "condemned any disregard of the rule of law by any stakeholder in the land conflict in Zimbabwe". His view, he said, was that dialogue between all stakeholders should continue because that was the only way forward.

A similar statement by Muluzi at a meeting of SADC heads of state on the land crisis in Harare last month drew the wrath of Zimbabwean officials, with the government-owned Herald newspaper accusing the Malawian leader of abusing the hospitality accorded to him by his hosts. At the end of that summit, the SADC leaders who included South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki gave Mugabe up to a month to restore law and order on the farms and to hold talks with all stakeholders to resolve the land crisis. Since then, at least 30 new farms have been invaded by ruling Zanu PF party supporters and violence continues on the farms.

Analysts say the Malawian president is under tremendous pressure from his own countrymen worried about the fate of their relatives working on commercial farms in Zimbabwe, most of which have either been targeted for seizure by the government or are occupied by its supporters. Thousands of commercial farm workers have been beaten and thrown out of their properties by Zanu PF supporters and their self-styled war veterans since the politically-motivated invasions began in earnest in February last year. This week alone, hundreds of farm workers were left homeless and without food when 16 invaders, including some war veterans, torched about 70 houses at Barrymore Farm in the Virginia farming area near Macheke.

It has been estimated that about 350 000 farm workers will lose their jobs by the end of this year if the crisis on the farms is not resolved. Most of the workers at Zimbabwean commercial farms are of Malawian and Mozambican origin and some have families who have lived on the now occupied commercial farms for generations. Muluzi in August warned that the Zimbabwean land crisis was likely to have a devastating effect on the economies of its neighbours if not resolved urgently and properly. In his statement to the Financial Gazette this week, Muluzi however said "he had no reason to doubt President Mugabe's commitment" on the restoration of law and order. He said the fact that violence on the farms and rural areas continued despite the commitment made by the Zimbabwean government when it signed the Abuja agreement with Britain on the land question last month could be because "sometimes it takes time to convey messages to people involved in such acts".

The Malawian leader, who has assumed the role of regional peacemaker, said his facilitation of meetings recently between Congolese President Laurent Kabila and Rwanda's Paul Kagame was to help earlier efforts by regional leaders to find peace in the Great Lakes region. "The task of bringing peace anywhere in the world is never a one-man show," said Muluzi's statement. He said he was pleased that Kabila and Kagame had, in Blantyre for the first time, met face-to-face for five hours and even joined him for dinner in a "relaxed manner". Muluzi also held talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in Blantyre this week in his effort, he said, to complement earlier attempts to find peace by former Botswana president Ketumile Masire and Zambia's Frederick Chiluba.

Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition party expressed worry on Wednesday that newly appointed Supreme Court judges seen as government supporters would not give them a fair hearing in cases pending before the court. The Movement for Democratic Change has up to 15 appeal cases waiting to be heard by the court, most of them challenges to the results of parliamentary elections they say were tainted by violence, intimidation and electoral fraud. The opposition narrowly failed to win a majority of the 120 elected parliamentary seats in the June 2000 polls, leaving the ruling party with 62 seats. It is contesting some 27 results in voting districts across the country.

The government expanded the Supreme Court from five to eight judges in July, a move seen as a bid to pack the court in the state's favour. The appointment of new judges "doesn't augur well for us. It places the final outcome of these election petitions in jeopardy," said David Coltart, the opposition's legal affairs spokesperson. The Supreme Court, presided over by new Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, issued a snap order on Tuesday allowing the government to proceed with the seizures of white-owned farms despite a December Supreme Court order declaring the seizures illegal. Lawyers acting for farmers accused Chidyausiku, an outspoken ruling party supporter, of bias in choosing three other new judges to hear the land case along with one holdover, claiming he filled the bench with judges seen as favourable to the government.

"What is worrying is the blatant way the court was selected and the haste in which its first order was issued," Coltart said. The chief justice normally picks a bench of three to five judges to hear any one case. Violent ruling party militants have illegally occupied at least 1 700 white-owned farms since March 2000 and the government has targeted some 4 500 white-owned farms for confiscation and redistribution to landless blacks. In December, five Supreme Court judges put land seizures on hold and demanded the government restore law and order in farming districts riven by violence that left has killed at least 51 people - nine of them white farmers - and left thousands of black farm workers homeless. Former Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced to take early retirement following that ruling.

Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said on Wednesday that criticism of the new judges was coming from "people with an agenda." "They think that an independent judiciary is one that rules in their favour. We think that is very mischievous," he said at a news conference in Johannesburg. All the judges were appointed according to constitutional processes and were highly qualified and experienced, Moyo said. "There is no judge who has been picked from the sky or another planet or the bar. They have all been picked from the bench," he said. Aside from election appeals, the court is scheduled to hear an appeal by the owners of a private radio station shut down by a presidential order. Capital Radio went on air earlier this year after a previous Supreme Court ruling declaring the government's broadcasting monopoly unconstitutional. The opposition is also to challenge legislation that bans political organisations from receiving foreign funding for campaigning. Adrian de Bourbon, an attorney for the Commercial Farmers Union, representing about 4 000 white farmers, said he plans to lodge a complaint on Tuesday's "unprecedented" interim order on land to the Zimbabwe Law Society, the International Bar Association and the South African General Bar Council. "The repercussions of this go far beyond the land case," he said.

Finance Minister Simba Makoni is expected to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar by at least 50 percent in the next two weeks after finally convincing President Robert Mugabe and his Cabinet to approve the depreciation, official sources said this week. Finance Ministry sources said the exchange rate of the Zimbabwe dollar against the US currency would be depreciated from the current fixed 55 Zimbabwe dollars to one greenback to about $125 as part of efforts by Makoni to smash a thriving parallel market that has exacerbated a hard cash crisis gripping Zimbabwe. Mugabe and his Cabinet, fearing that a devaluation will trigger price increases across an economy in crisis, have staunchly resisted calls by Makoni, economists and business to devalue the local dollar in line with its purchasing parity since last year. Mugabe, who faces a tough presidential election early next year, instead allowed the exchange rate to be fixed at 55 Zimbabwe dollars to one US unit since October 16 2000. The parallel market, itself just one of the distortions arising from years of poor fiscal management by the government, is trading one American dollar at between 300 to 350 Zimbabwe dollars.

The sources said Makoni had finally convinced his Cabinet colleagues that a devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar could help partly ease the pressure on the parallel market, where rates once reached 400 local dollars against the American unit before tumbling in the past few weeks because of the weakening US dollar. "The devaluation is expected to immediately follow next week's announcement of the 2002 national budget and there is even pressure right now for the minister to take advantage of the sharp drop in parallel market rates of the past three weeks," one source said. Rates on the parallel market have crashed since the terrorist attacks in the US at the beginning of last month.

Makoni, whose previous calls for devaluation had been met by counter-claims by some of his Cabinet colleagues that the local currency was in fact under-valued, could not be reached for comment. His permanent secretary Nicholas Ncube was also not available. The sources said central Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Leonard Tsumba had also lately joined Makoni in calling for a devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar following a meeting late last month between himself and representatives of the airline industry. The airlines had petitioned the RBZ following a directive by the government to ban the use of parallel market rates in companies' pricing policies. The directive severely affected the operations of airlines and other firms whose prices are quoted in hard currency.

"The Reserve Bank had recommended a devaluation to 150 against the US dollar but the Cabinet has settled on 125 to the US unit," another source said. The devaluation will boost sentiment on Zimbabwe's financial markets, although some analysts say the move will not result in increased inflows of hard cash into the official market because of restrictions on foreign currency accounts (FCAs). Under current legislation, FCA holders are required to surrender at least 40 percent of their foreign currency to the government to be used for fuel and electricity imports.

Harare - Zimbabwe’s new Supreme Court made its first significant judgment yesterday when it backed the government’s seizures of white-owned land. Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku said that the court, which is dominated by recent appointees of President Mugabe, had overturned a ruling by the court of his predecessor, the former Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay. That court had ordered that all steps to seize land be suspended until the government had restored the rule of law on the country’s embattled farms. For the first time since the takeover of white-owned farms began in February last year, the government has secured a measure of legality for its violent campaign. Diplomats said that Mr Mugabe would present the judgment to the international community as proof of its adherence to the rule of law and to the agreement drawn up by Commonwealth foreign ministers in Abuja, Nigeria, last month to end the state-driven violence. The ruling follows Mr Chidyausiku’s appointment to replace Mr Gubbay, who reluctantly resigned in March after being threatened with violence by supporters of Mr Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. Mr Mugabe added three new judges, prompting accusations that he was "packing the court" to ensure that its decisions would be favourable to his regime.

Adrian de Bourbon, the advocate who represented the Commercial Farmers’ Union, said: "I don’t believe we have an independent judiciary any longer." The new court’s decision was announced two working days after the final papers were submitted. "It leaves one with the suspicion that the argument wasn’t considered," Mr de Bourbon said. Mr Chidyausiku dismissed an application by Mr de Bourbon yesterday for a week’s delay for him to draw up a challenge. He said that the court would rule later on a Government application for a declaration that it had established law and order on commercial farms and that its so-called fast-track land acquisition programme was legal. The court also directed the Administrative Court, which hears objections from farmers against acquisition of their farms, to start hearing cases, following a nine-month suspension ordered by Mr Gubbay’s court. David Coltart, legal director of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said: "We now have to assume this is a politically biased judiciary and we can not rely on the Constitution any more. However, the rest of the world is not going to believe that the land-reform programme is being done lawfully simply because a patently biased judiciary has ruled in favour of its master."

A war veteran was killed and more than 20 patrons injured on Sunday when a hand grenade exploded in a crowded bar in Nkayi, as relations between MDC supporters and war veterans reached boiling point. This is the second such incident to occur at the Carlton Cocktail Bar in Nkayi, about 90km north-east of Bulawayo. About two months ago a grenade hurled from a group of suspected war veterans into the bar failed to explode and was removed by the police bomb disposal unit. It is believed that the war veteran accidentally dislodged the grenade’s pin, resulting in the explosion which ripped off his arm. Other people were injured by flying shrapnel. Nkayi MP, Abednico Bhebhe, of the MDC, yesterday condemned the incident and said he believed the bomb was meant to be used to attack or kill MDC supporters. Matabeleland North police spokesman, Inspector Alfred Zvenyika, yesterday confirmed the incident and said the police were investigating the matter. He said they had deployed dozens of officers to the volatile area to monitor the situation. Hospital authorities refused to speak to The Daily News.

Brisbane - Zimbabwe's opposition urged the Commonwealth yesterday to ensure presidential elections in the strife-torn country are fair and free of violence. Two members of the Movement for Democratic Change, international affairs secretary Sekai Holland and parliamentarian Roy Bennett, were in Brisbane to lobby for support at the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, which was scheduled to start this week. Bennett said the visit to Australia had to go ahead despite last week's decision to postpone the meeting. "The crisis in Zimbabwe is too critical to wait for it to be rescheduled next year." He warned that the situation had not changed despite Mugabe agreeing at talks in Nigeria last month to end the occupation of white farms and restore the rule of law to land reform. He said it was crucial to gain Commonwealth support for a team to monitor Zimbabwe's presidential poll, due early next year.

Canberra - Although the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) was postponed at the eleventh hour, Australia has undertaken to keep pressure on Zimbabwe to ensure that it restores the rule of law. The meeting was postponed to next year due to the American disaster. But the Australians, who are now turning their attention to national elections set for November, say the Zimbabwean crisis looks likely to be high on the agenda of any future Australian government and any CHOGM meeting to be hosted by them.

Following a week-long visit to Canberra by Movement For Democratic Change (MDC) president, Morgan Tsvangirai, during which he lobbied not only ministers and parliamentarians of the ruling Liberal/National party alliance, but also of the opposition Labour party which could form the next government, Australian politicians were left with a deeper sense of the need to find a lasting solution to the Zimbabwean crisis. Tsvangirai himself believes that with these marathon meetings, he set important groundwork for the future, particularly with the Zimbabwe elections looming. He told The Standard in Australia: "These were very productive meetings and I believe there is a constant need for an update on the Zimbabwean situation. I did not come here just to emphasise CHOGM, but to stress that the Zimbabwe crisis focuses on three issues - land, violence, and the presidential elections and international observers. No significant change has taken place since Abuja and there is the temptation for them (government) to do anything they want because of the US focus. I said there should be a minimum period of observation after the Abuja accord."

Contacted for comment on the meetings with Tsvangirai, the minister for justice and customs in the Australian government, Senator Christopher Ellison, who also chairs the Zimbabwe/Australia parliamentary group comprising politicians from across the political divide, said: "We had a very useful discussion. Zimbabwe was not on the agenda of CHOGM, but there are now strong moves to put it there. I have written to the foreign minister (Alexander Downer) and suggested that election monitors be put in place not only on the day of the elections but in the period before. There are of course problems such as the land issue and the Aids issue which we discussed, but the problem is first and foremost that of good governance and then the impact of this on, for example, law and order and the economy." Elaborating further on this point, he said: "Morgan has suggested a transitional period after the presidential election with the possibility of a unity government representing all parties so that constitutional change and reform can take place. For a fair election, therefore, it is vital for observers to go early and for the government to accredit them early." The senator has every confidence that Zimbabwe can do well under the right conditions. "Zimbabwe is a fantastic country for producing food," he said. "With a well managed economy in a stable environment, it could be the leading country in Africa."

Tsvangirai addressed a second mixed grouping of politicians and the committee of foreign affairs and trade, regarded as one of the most influential and prestigious parliamentary side groupings. Said Senator Sandy MacDonald, a member of this committee: "The only way to arrest the downward spiral in what was the jewel of Africa is to bring more international pressure to bear on Mugabe’s administration. If CHOGM is to have any contemporary relevance, then Zimbabwe should be up for discussion." Senator MacDonald was part of the Commonwealth Observer mission to Zimbabwe during the June 2000 parliamentary elections. He said the election left him with serious reservations about registrar-general Tobaiwa Mudede’s ability to properly conduct the elections. "I was not convinced with Mudede’s impartiality, and I believe an independent electoral commission is absolutely essential, one run by the Commonwealth." "Zimbabwe’s trade with Australia, he said, still amounted to A$5 million a year despite other governments cutting back on aid. But he said there was a feeling that "every dollar given must be properly spent". Tsvangirai’s two-man delegation, consisting of himself and the MDC MP for Bulilimamangwe North, Mzila Ndhlovu, returned to Zimbabwe on Friday. There were no bodyguards in evidence. Said Tsvangirai: "It’s just me and my colleague. We don’t need bodyguards. It’s Mugabe who needs them, not us."

Nearly 60 000 farm workers are now destitute after losing their jobs in the wake of the violent farm invasions which began last year, according to the Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe(FCTZ), a non-governmental organisation. Godfrey Magaramombe, the FCTZ director, said most of the workers were rendered destitute after farming activities ceased at a number of occupied commercial farms. Magaramombe said most of the displaced farm workers had minimal savings which would not sustain them for a long period, creating a vicious circle of poverty and destitution among them. Magaramombe said his organisation was busy gathering information on the figures of affected workers, their location and the kind of assistance they needed. He said: "It is difficult to do anything without information. We have been collecting information on figures and locations to enable us to help the farm workers." He said since the violent farm occupations began last year, the FCTZ has lobbied the government to include farm workers in the resettlement exercise.

Top Zanu commanders from the Dare Rechimurenga and the Zanla High Command killed former Zanu chairman, Herbert Chitepo, in Zambia in 1975, a special report by a Zambian commission into the late leader’s mysterious death reveals. This is the first time that the report has been made public since the lawyer-cum-politician’s assassination 26 years ago. Chitepo died when a car bomb planted under the driver’s seat in his VW Beetle detonated as he was trying to reverse the car from the garage at his Zambian house. The Standard this week reveals for the first time the contents of the report. The report puts paid to claims from within Mr Mugabe’s party that Chitepo had been killed by agents of the Ian Smith regime. The late chairman’s widow, Victoria Chitepo, is on record as saying it was common knowledge that the leader was killed by fellow party members.

The Report of the Special International Commission on the Assassination of Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo, which was commissioned by former Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, in Lusaka, 1976, cites the late Zanla commander, Josiah Tongogara; current deputy minister of home affairs, Rugare Gumbo, who was secretary for information and publicity; Henry Hamadziripi, secretary for finance; Kumbirai Kangai, secretary for public and social welfare; and Mukudzei Mudzi, secretary for administration as the people responsible for assassinating the Dare chairman, Chitepo. The report said the late chairman was a victim of a tribal power struggle within the party. Said the report, in the possession of The Standard: "The members of Dare and the High Command decided on March 1975 to kill Chitepo for reasons already stated. On that day, Dauramanzi and Mpunzarima were sent to collect a bomb from Rex Nhongo. They returned on Monday 17 March when Chimurenga handed the bomb to Sadat Kufamazuba for safe keeping until midnight when Chimurenga, Rudo, Short and Sadat planted the bomb on the driver’s seat of Chitepo’s car. The four men were acting under the directions of Tongogara. On the same night, Tongogara sent Robson Manyika to Chitepo’s house to go and check whether Chimurenga, Rudo and Short had carried out the mission. Manyika said he did all this and reported back to Tongogara. This account is consistent with the corroborative evidence of the members of Dare and the High Command before the Commission and with their demeanour when they appeared before us."

The report continues: "The members of Dare and the High Command could all therefore be indicated as principals to the murder of Chitepo because jointly and severally they actively desired to bring this about and did in fact bring it about. Although only one individual may have completed the final act to consummate the crime and though some may not have been present as in the case of Hamadziripi and Chigowe, who claim to have been in Malawi at the material time, they could all be charged for Chitepo’s murder." The report says members of the High Command who gave evidence admitted that on hearing rumours some of them were to be arrested, scattered and ran away from Zambia instead of being eager to assist Zambian Police. "So the whole evidence both circumstantial, as well as direct with regard to the Chitepo assassination, points inevitably and clearly to his colleagues in the Dare and the High Command, especially Tongogara, Chigowe, Mudzi, Gumbo, Kangai and Hamadziripi," says the report.

The commission was chaired by Reuben Chitandika Kamanga and Mathias Mainza Chona, both Zambians, representatives of African countries from Botswana, Congo, Ivory Coast, Libya, Malagasy, Morocco, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania and Zaire. Its terms of reference was to inquire into the events and circumstances leading to death of Chitepo on 18 March 1975. It was to investigate and establish "whether any racists or imperialists agents, or any racists or counter-revolutionaries or saboteurs were directly responsible for the said death." It was to investigate and establish the identity and the motive of the person or persons responsible for the said death. The commission was tasked to: "Make recommendations with regard to the measures or any additional measures that ought to be taken for the security of persons engaged in any political activities aimed at the attainment of freedom and independence of the people of Zimbabwe and any other country in Africa still under colonial or minority rule."

Said Kaunda on Zambian national radio on 31 March 1975: "We are shocked. We are still grieved and angered. We remain bitter against the murderous act, bitter against the murderers - the enemies of Zambia and Africa. Many Zambians are, to say the least, very dismayed and justifiably irritated by statements made by some Zimbabwe nationals, some, even nationalist leaders, have shown no concern whatsoever for the assassination of Mr Chitepo. To them, Mr Chitepo has been assassinated and that must be the end. Instead of calling upon the party and government to track down the killers of this gallant fighter, they are either completely silent, while others virtually demand that we stop the investigation altogether and thereby shelter the assassins." Twenty-fours years later, Kaunda was still bitter as he told The Standard in 1999 when he came to visit the grave of the late vice president, Joshua Nkomo: "Chitepo was a committed leader. And some day we will talk about how he died. It is one blot in the history, a sad reflection of the whole liberation of this region. Some of the Zanla leadership left Zambia soon after the burial. I didn’t expect them to leave immediately...this was their death. It was our death too, and it required all of us to work together on it," said Kaunda.

At the Review Conference of September 1973, the following were elected to the Dare: Herbert Chitepo – chairman (Manyika); Mukudzei Mudzi - administrative secretary (Karanga); Noel Mukono - secretary for external affairs (Manyika); Kumbirai Kangai - secretary for labour, social services and welfare (Karanga); Rugare Gumbo - secretary for information and publicity (Karanga); John Mataure -political commissar (Manyika); Henry Hamadziripi - secretary for finance (Karanga); Josiah Tongogara - chief of defence (Karanga). Apart from being an astute politician, Chitepo made history by becoming the first black advocate in southern Africa.

EXCLUSIVE - The Standard will, from next week, serialise the Report of the Special International Commission on the Assassination of Herbert Wiltshire Chitepo which was commissioned by former Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda. The report is the most authoritative account into events surrounding the cold-blooded murder of the former nationalist leader. Standard editor, Mark Chavunduka, said yesterday that not a single sentence of the entire report will be edited out.

Bulawayo - More than 10 000 people filled a stadium in Zimbabwe's second-largest city for a jubilant rally marking the second anniversary of the young but potent Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Party leader Morgan Tsvangirai told the crowd that he would easily win the presidential elections, due before April, in which he would challenge President Robert Mugabe. "(The ruling) Zanu PF is panicking because it realises it will lose the elections," Tsvangirai said. "It has launched a concerted effort to destroy the MDC by fanning division in the opposition, but it will fail because we will remain united and focused. It is a figment of Zanu PF's imagination that the MDC will be destroyed and lose elections. It is President Mugabe who will go because he has failed to lead the country."

Denouncing the political violence of the past 20 months, Tsvangirai said: "Lawlessness should end. We cannot have a situation where one is killed, raped, tortured or one's home destroyed because one supports the MDC." Tsvangirai accused Zanu PF of causing the country's economic problems. The MDC had a clear economic policy that would create jobs and halt the rise in prices. "We are going to reopen the factories that have been closed because of economic hardships and invasions by unruly Zanu PF supporters," he said. He said 300 000 people had lost their jobs in the past two years and hundreds of thousands more had turned to informal trading.

Harare - Zimbabwe's economic collapse has caused £25 billion worth of damage to South Africa and other neighbouring countries, according to a major new study. President Robert Mugabe's self-destructive economic policies have brought an extended decline to the once prosperous country over the past four years, and the harm to neighbours is even worse, according to a report by the Economic Affairs Council, commissioned by Zimbabwe's opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). South Africa has been worst affected. The fall of 25 per cent in the value of the rand in the past year is blamed on Zimbabwe's instability. Although relatively small, Zimbabwe's economy is a linchpin for regional development. Eddie Cross, the MDC's economic affairs spokesman, said: 'When damage to other neighbouring countries is added up, it comes to £25bn. It is easy to see why South African President Thabo Mbeki is pressing Mugabe to change his policies and why South Africa Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni said "the wheels have come off in Zimbabwe".' Botswana, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia have also suffered.

The decline is painfully evident throughout Zimbabwe. Luckmore Muponda, 49, is worried about soaring food prices. With inflation at 76 per cent, prices go up every week. 'I used to be able to buy my family meat for dinner, but now we are lucky to get it once a month,' he said. 'I used to have a good job in construction, but then my company closed down. My family went hungry for two weeks. I was lucky to find a job as a security guard. I am earning, but it is still difficult to feed my family.' The big weekend meal for the Muponda family is sadza (a stiff maize porridge) with a sauce of rape leaves, onions and tomatoes. Their home, 30 kilometres from the centre of Harare, is a couple of rooms made of mud bricks. In the dusty front yard, nine-year-old Misheck has built a little dream house, moulding tiny mud bricks in a matchbox. It has three stories, an outside staircase and windows of glass. It is probably the closest Misheck will ever get to a grand home. He does not go to school. 'We have no money for school fees so he was sent home,' said his father.

Tinotenda Tembo has similar problems. 'Last week cooking oil was Z$120. This week it has gone up to Z$146! How much will it be next month?,' complained Tembo, 27, who has children, aged one and six. Her husband, an electrician, earns Z$7,000 per month (about £85). A few years ago Tembo was a lively, hopeful young woman. Today her eyes are dull and sullen and she seems worn out by the effort to make ends meet. Zimbabwe is full of stories of people who are finding it just as hard to get by. 'Everybody is having a hard time. People are blaming Mugabe,' said Tembo, who used a pseudonym to avoid retaliation. 'They say it is time to give somebody else a chance to run the country.'

Certainly Zimbabwe's economic disaster indicates that new, rational policies are desperately needed. It has the dubious honour of being called 'the world's fastest shrinking economy' for its four consecutive years of contraction. Last year the gross domestic product declined by 4.2 per cent. This year, according to the government's own calculations, GDP will be reduced by another 8 per cent. 'As the economy shrinks, more and more people are being pushed into mere subsistence,' said economist John Robertson. Unemployment is estimated at more than 60 per cent and is growing; 700 businesses have closed in the past 12 months and more are closing down each month. The ruinous expense of Zimbabwe's involvement in the Congo war and rampant corruption have taken their toll. Zimbabwe was cut off last week from getting any funds from the International Monetary Fund because it has not made payments on its debt of US$53 million. The country is also in arrears on many other foreign debts, worth more than £85m.

Zimbabwe's drastic economic decline is the root cause of the unpopularity of the Mugabe government. Mugabe determines economic policy for political reasons yet those decisions cause the economy to spiral downwards even faster. The farm invasions carried out by Mugabe's war veterans are also badly affecting the economy. The Commonwealth's Abuja accord was to find a peaceful resolution to the land crisis, but in recent weeks fresh violence and threats have forced the closure of 550 tobacco farms with a loss of production estimated at £180m. Zimbabwe can ill afford to lose such exports. Another 400 farms are unable to operate fully. Thousands of farm workers have been thrown out of work by war veterans.

Gold mines have also been targeted by Mugabe's supporters. Last week three mines near the central city of Kewkwe were invaded, with gold worth millions of dollars stolen. Zimbabwe's tourism is in tatters. From earnings of more than £170m in 1999, tourism earned less than £80m last year. The opposition MDC recently launched a comprehensive economic recovery plan in anticipation of its leader Morgan Tsvangirai winning the presidential elections due in April. But economists admit it will take years to bring Zimbabwe back to the level of prosperity ordinary citizens once enjoyed. 'We are hoping that democracy will win and there will be a peaceful change of government. Then we can start rebuilding our economy," said political analyst John Makumbe. 'There is light at the end of the tunnel. The problem is that Mugabe keeps building more tunnel.'

A group of three MDC officials, currently touring major Australian metropolitan capital cities ahead of the October 6 - 9 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Brisbane say they have been overwhelmed by the breadth of public interest in developments in Zimbabwe, half a world away. On Tuesday and Wednesday this week in Melbourne - Australia's second-largest city - the team of Nelson Chamisa, MDC secretary for youth affairs, Sekai Holland, secretary for international relations, and Roy Bennett, MDC Member of Parliament for Chimanimani, met with leaders of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, student unions, women's forums, business groups and the electronic and print media. They were also invited to a private function at the state parliament of Victoria where they were earlier officially welcomed to the Legislative Assembly by the speaker of the house on behalf of members of parliament on both sides of politics.

Bennett, a fellow parliamentarian of the assembled MPs, said he was humbled by the reception he and his MDC colleagues had received in the chamber from the Victorian MPs, and later when they met at the private function. "The State Parliament of Victoria is one of the oldest democratic institutions in the world, representing as it does the values of democracy and good governance that we Zimbabweans are striving so dearly to achieve," said Bennett. "It came as a pleasant surprise that members of both major political parties were so informed about the grave crisis in Zimbabwe. They expressed their concerns at developments and wished us well in our fight for democracy."

Earlier, the group presented an outline of the MDC's economic policy to a large group of senior business executives, many of whom with a decade or more of business dealings with Zimbabwe, across a wide range of trades and industries. "Without exception", said one council executive who requested anonymity, and is involved in the travel industry, "we have seen the value of our investments in Zimbabwe over many years dwindle to almost nothing and we fervently hope that the restoration of democracy in that country will swiftly bring about a resumption in trade and investment for the good of all concerned - not least the ordinary men and women - especially in the rural communities - where my company has been trying to maintain overseas interest in the awesome natural resources and tourism potential."

On Tuesday, MDC secretary for youth affairs Nelson Chamisa addressed an audience of more than 600 Melbourne University students on the general situation in Zimbabwe and the aims of the MDC. Chamisa said that he was overwhelmed by the sheer number and variety of questions from the undergraduates. "I was prepared for some interest in Zimbabwe but these young Australians were much more informed than I had been told to expect." Chamisa went on to add "One of the first matters I was asked to explain was the presence of whites in the party as some had believed ZANU PF’s propaganda line that whites were organising us. When they heard our side of the story that white people are such a tiny part of our population and that it is the Zimbabwe masses who are driving change, they were clear on this matter."

Sekai Holland, MDC secretary for international affairs, is well-known in Australia, where she attended university, for her work with the anti-apartheid movement in the 70s and 80s. She and Bennett took to the airwaves yesterday and Tuesday, conducting eight joint radio interviews on public and commercial radio stations with a total estimated listenership of almost 1,4 million. Holland said that the interest from the Melbourne media and radio talkback callers eager to hear about Zimbabwe's plight had been quite moving. "The Australian government and people were at the forefront of the fight to help liberate Zimbabwe in the 70s and I was very proud of my friends here that they have again expressed their solidarity with Zimbabweans in our hour of need." We have taken very strong encouragement from this, the first leg of our Australian visit, and we are looking forward to speaking to the media and ordinary Australians on our next two stops."

She continued "We were able to draw the stark similarities between the genocide of Gukurahundi in the 80s with the recent unbelievable atrocities in New York and Washington. Terror is terror, wherever, and by whomsoever it is committed " she added. Many listeners agreed with the comparison when the lines were later opened for callers. Some expressed surprise that the MDC did not agree with sanctions against Zimbabwe. As Holland explained "We are totally against sanctions as they will hurt the masses - not ZANU PF. Instead, the president himself, and his close confidants, must bear the full brunt of the devastation they are inflicting on our people." In this Holland referred to the MDC's position on the Zimbabwe Democracy Bill, which is shortly to be tabled for final conclusion by American lawmakers.

A common theme brought up most interviewers was the matter of the Abuja accord which, as has been reported in Australia and elsewhere is meant to bring farm invasions to a halt. Bennett shocked many listeners with his harrowing personal accounts of confrontations on his property in Chimanimani, and the fact that as he spoke, his carefully-nurtured coffee lands were being ploughed using DDF tractors while an army unit camped on the property looked on. "This clearly highlights the lie of the so-called Abuja accord", said Bennett. "Mugabe seeks to buy time with the accord, but no-one can now deny the evidence" he said. "I intend providing the media in Australia with irrefutable photographic evidence of the uninterrupted and ongoing invasion of commercial farms in Zimbabwe and the world will know the truth."

One talkback caller said, like Bennett, he was a fourth generation "settler' in a farming community and he felt ashamed that his (Australian) government, and the world at large had allowed Mugabe to "literally get away with murder for so long". Bennett was asked by Ross Stevenson, co-host of the "Breakfast Show" on 3AW, Melbourne's highest-rating radio station, what he would say to President Mugabe if he saw him, if indeed, Bennett might feel the desire to make a statement of a more physical nature. Bennett chuckled, but then became serious. "We're past that... if you get physical and violent you are just endorsing his sort of regime."

The MDC roadshow next travels to Sydney, Australia's largest city with six million inhabitants, where Chamisa, Bennett and Holland will also brief recently-arrived MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai, and then to Brisbane for a further round of formal and informal meetings. Even though CHOGM has been cancelled, and President Mugabe's imminent visit has evaporated, they believe they will have more than succeeded in their task of informing the Australian public about current events in Zimbabwe.

Harare - A coalition of churches, civic groups, political parties and students has launched a ''democratic'' draft constitution demanding that it be adopted before next year's presidential elections. The NCA spearheaded the successful campaign against a new constitution in February 2000, which gave President Robert Mugabe his first ever electoral defeat. "We are headed for exciting times," said Lovemore Madhuku, National Constitutional Assembly chairperson and constitutional law expert. The NCA said it will campaign against any party that rejects the draft constitution in next year's presidential elections and could even encourage mass protests. "If any person believes that this current constitution will deliver change, then that person is mad. It is not up to the government to decide but up to the people to decide," said Mr Madhuku.

The key change in the NCA constitution is to limit the president to two, five-year terms of office and reduce his powers. Under the current constitution, there is no limit to the number of terms a president can serve. Robert Mugabe, 77, has ruled the country since independence in 1980. The NCA document also proposes reverting to the system of a ceremonial president, as Zimbabwe had immediately after independence. The prime minister would have more executive powers but he would be accountable to parliament, which would be able to pass a vote of no confidence in the government. "The most serious problem in our current constitution is an all-powerful president with all sorts of powers," according to Douglas Mwonzora, NCA spokesperson.

For the next two months, the public will study and debate the proposals. Still up for discussion are the issues of abortion, dual citizenship and the funding of political parties. After the final draft has been endorsed, it will be presented to the Government of Zimbabwe with a demand that it be enacted into law. But having the dismissed the NCA as front for the opposition MDC party, the government is unlikely to accept the constitution, especially as its own draft was rejected in last February's referendum. The violent invasion of white-owned farms began just days after the referendum result was announced.

Zimbabwe has not had a popular constitution since gaining independence from Britain in 1980, following a protracted liberation struggle against the rebel Rhodesian Government of Ian Smith. The country has been operating on the cease fire document, signed at Lancaster House in Britain in 1979. Both the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition agree that the Lancaster House constitution is heavily flawed. "The draft guarantees a multi-party system based on regular, free and fair elections. To achieve this ideal, the bill of rights provides a set of political rights and the draft creates a truly independent electoral commission to manage the whole electoral process," said Mr Mwonzora.

Political analysts in Zimbabwe say a skewed electoral playing field has helped the ruling party dominate all elections held since independence in 1980. If this draft is accepted, a Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission will be put in place. Its functions would be to investigate matters relating to past human rights abuses which include:

the use of armed force internally within the country,

the exercise of the powers to prosecute persons for crime,

the use of presidential powers to pardon offenders.

The government has been accused of gross human rights abuses while some people with close links to top political leadership have been freed from jail under controversial presidential pardons. For instance, when bodyguards of Vice President Simon Muzenda shot and injured Patrick Kombayi, an opposition party candidate, the two were later released under a presidential pardon. And following the violence associated with last year's parliamentary elections, Mr Mugabe announced an amnesty for all political crimes except murder, rape and fraud.

Harare - More than 20 fresh farm invasions have taken place in Zimbabwe in the three weeks since a Nigerian-brokered agreement was supposed to have put an end to the illegal land seizures by supporters of President Robert Mugabe. Violence or threats of violence have halted farming operations on more than 900 farms, according to the Commercial Farmers' Union which represents the country's white farmers. It says that the work stoppages will exacerbate Zimbabwe's food shortages. With the collapse of talks between Mr Mugabe's government and the farmers this week, the Commonwealth agreement thrashed out in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, was "a dead letter", a political analyst, Masipula Sithole, said. "Mugabe is flouting it shamelessly and has no intention of keeping up his side of the bargain," he said. "He is challenging the Commonwealth to do something about it...to hold him to his promises to uphold good governance, the rule of law and human rights."

The Abuja agreement called for Mr Mugabe to stop his followers from illegally invading farms and spreading political violence. In return for the restoration of the rule of law, the British government said it would provide substantial funds for land redistribution. The farmers' union had welcomed the agreement but is now frustrated following the collapse on Wednesday of talks with the government about the implementation of the accord's principles, such as an end to violence and the removal of the invaders from farms not officially designated for seizure. The justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, was "intractable" on the issues and said the government had no intention of taking steps to implement the agreement, sources close to the talks said. Zimbabwe's supreme court adjourned on Wednesday after hearing government arguments that the court should overturn an earlier decision that ordered a halt to all compulsory farm seizures until a plan for orderly land redistribution was produced. A "new look" supreme court is considering the case, with a new chief justice and three new judges, all of whom are known to be ardent supporters of Mr Mugabe. Two of the judges have been named as leasing valuable state land originally acquired for the resettlement of poor black peasants.

Neither Mr Mugabe nor any other cabinet minister has publicly urged a halt to the violence or farm invasions. The government maintains that it has always followed the rule of law and does not need to change its policies to abide by the Abuja accord. The information minister, Jonathan Moyo, said on television this week that there was "no such condition in the agreement". The foreign minister, Stan Mudenge, told MPs last week that as soon as Britain provided funds for the purchase of farms, the violence would stop of its own accord. "That was not the agreement reached in Abuja," a Commonwealth diplomat who was present at those talks said. "The Mugabe government was told in no uncertain terms that things must change, and that it must stop illegal farm invasions and political violence. We do not see any movement towards that on the ground." In last weekend's Chikomba by-election, a school headmaster who had been accused of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change was beaten to death, and scores of others were beaten and tortured, according to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum.

African National Congress member of parliament Pallo Jordan, in a hard-hitting motion in parliament, chastised Zimbabwe's Information Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo for saying that his country did not agree to curb violence on farms. In a notice of motion in the national assembly on Wednesday, Jordan noted statements by Moyo on the Abuja agreement and the effect that the "extra-legal" farm invasions were having on the economies of Zimbabwe and the region. He called on the Zimbabwean government to "follow the letter and the spirit of the Abuja agreement" to restore stability in Zimbabwe and the region. Under the agreement, Zimbabwe agreed to curb violence on the farms in exchange for British financing of its land reform scheme. Moyo said: "There is no such condition in the agreement."

Three leading Zimbabwe civil rights activists on a tour to London, Brussels and Washington are urging Western countries to set a five-week deadline for President Robert Mugabe’s government to implement conditions for free and fair elections. "When a state fails to protect its citizens or protects them selectively, this is anarchy," University of Zimbabwe political scientist John Makumbe told a meeting Thursday evening at the Royal Commonwealth Society in London. "We are close to anarchy – some would say we already have it." Makumbe, along with former ZIPA guerrilla leader Wilfred Mhanda, and Tony Reeler, founder of the Amani Trust which chronicles human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, addressed the meeting – organised in association with the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust – after lobbying in Brussels and London. They represent a loose coalition known as the Civil Society. The trio, who head for Washington on Saturday, acknowledged they received no firm response in London or Brussels to their pleas. They argued to British Foreign Office and EU officials that unless there is a return to the rule of law, a drastic decrease in state-sponsored violence, equal access to the state-run media and acceptance of international monitors by the end of October, next year’s presidential elections cannot be free and fair. The elections must be held by the end of March.

Speaking from the floor, Zimbabwe’s top diplomat in Britain, High Commissioner Simbarashe S. Mumbengegwi, accused the organisers of ``trashing’’ Zimbabwe. He maintained that Mugabe’s government permitted free speech, and that the country’s problems stemmed solely from white ownership of farm land. "In the whole history of Zimbabwe the question of race has been the central question," said Mumbengegwi. "Would you all be here if the landowners in Zimbabwe had been black," he added, to interjections of "Yes" from the multiracial audience. Mumbengegwi declared that the Commonwealth agreement brokered in Abuja, Nigeria, September 6 was ``the way forward.’’ The Abuja deal called for an end to invasions of white-owned farms, a halt to political violence and restoration of the rule of law in return for funds from Britain and other Western countries to compensate white farmers and aid poor blacks settled on the former commercial farms. However, some 20 more white farms have been invaded since the September 6, and state-sponsored violence has continued unabated, or in some areas increased. Many observers see the Mugabe government’s tactic as paying lip service to the deal in order to fend off criticisms at a meeting of Commonwealth leaders in Australia next month and to distract international attention from continuing political violence and intimidation ahead of the election.

Makumbe, describing the Abuja deal as "as dead as a dodo," said the group was disappointed that the Foreign Office appeared to have no fall-back position. "I think they somehow hope the crisis will go away," he added. "They know they have offered to make money available to Mugabe on conditions Mugabe cannot implement without losing the presidential election. This is Catch-22." Some 120 people have been killed in political violence, almost all perpetrated by government supporters, including self-styled war veterans and in some cases by members of the police and the Central Intelligence Organisation, said Reeler. About 300 people who have testified in court in election abuse cases and are now in hiding in safe houses. Mhanda, a former guerrilla leader, told the audience: "We see what is happening now as a betrayal of the original aims and objectives of the liberation movement."

Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change has threatened to boycott future by-elections because of violence and intimidation. On Monday, the ruling Zanu PF party retained the rural seat of Chikomba - the fifth parliamentary by-election it has won in a row. "Given the murder of our organising secretary in Chikomba and the continued beating and harassment of our supporters, most members are of the view that we should stop taking part in these elections if there is violence and intimidation,'' said MDC spokesman, Learnmore Jongwe.

Despite losing five by-elections in rural areas, the MDC has won mayoral elections in both Masvingo and the second city of Bulawayo. Analysts say this is confirming Zimbabwe's rural-urban political split with the union-based MDC gaining most support in urban areas. The Chikomba by-election was held following the death of Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, former leader of the war veterans and the man behind the invasion of white-owned farms. Zanu PF increased its majority, gaining an extra 2,000 votes, while the MDC's tally fell by 1,500 compared to the results of the June 2000 parliamentary elections. Polling over the weekend was reported to be peaceful, but human rights groups in Zimbabwe said the run-up to the vote was marred by murder and intimidation.

Two weeks ago, in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, the Zimbabwean Government pledged to stop political violence and illegal farm invasions in return for a promise from the British authorities to help fund land reform. But there has been no end to either the violence or the occupations. Mr Jongwe said: "No decision has been made yet but a majority of our members want to look into it...The feeling is that we have been giving legitimacy to these elections which are being stolen by Zanu PF." In a report last week, a coalition of Zimbabwean human rights groups alleged that one opposition supporter, a school headmaster, was murdered and several others tortured in the run-up to the poll. They also said that the leading opposition candidate received death threats. Presidential elections are scheduled in April 2002 and are expected to pit Robert Mugabe against the MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mutare - Scores of Zanu PF youths, credited with helping spearhead the party’s by-election victory in Makoni West, have vowed to stay on campaign bases until they are paid money promised them. The youths remain camped at bases in Tsanzaguru, Tandi and Nyazura. Some of the youths, in interviews last week with The Eastern Star, said senior ruling party officials had promised to pay each of them between $2 000 and $4 000 for their effort in ensuring that Gibson Munyoro, the party’s candidate, was elected. The Zanu PF officials were now backtracking on their earlier promise, said the youths, who asked not to be identified. Munyoro romped to victory in the election, garnering 10 610 votes against the Movement for Democratic Change candidate, Remus Makuwaza, who received 5 841 votes.

The youths said they were due to receive the payments last week at Munyoro’s offices at the Self Help Development Foundation in Rusape but were told there were no funds for their assignment. Munyoro was unavailable for comment. Robert Gumbo, the Zanu PF provincial secretary for the commissariat and a war veterans’ leader, said funds for the youths were left with the party’s District Co-ordinating Committee (DCC) in Rusape, headed by businessman Nathaniel Mhiripiri. "We gave the money to the DCC chairman, Mhiripiri," Gumbo said. Contacted for comment, Mhiripiri said: "You do not ask me about important matters on the phone." He then slammed the phone. The youths, meanwhile, said Mhiripiri had told them not to expect payment because the assignment was party work on a voluntary basis". Zanu PF provincial spokesperson, Charles Pemhenayi, said he was unaware youths from his party were still camped at bases. If they were still at the bases, they were "probably still celebrating our election victory", Pemhenayi said.

The police in Bulawayo said yesterday they were not investigating a shooting incident at the MDC offices on 9 September where senior officials, including the deputy president, were alleged to be the targets. Three gunshots were fired at the officials, who included Gibson Sibanda, Morgan Tsvangirai’s deputy in the MDC. Police Superintendent Absaih Nyandoro, the acting officer commanding Bulawayo central district, said yesterday the police had "no records" of the shooting incident. "This is my first time to hear about it," said Nyandoro. The MDC secretary-general and shadow minister of home affairs, Professor Welshman Ncube, said yesterday a report had been made at the Bulawayo Central police station a few minutes after the shooting.

"It was clear to us then that the police were not eager to investigate the matter because the next morning they were reported in government newspapers to have dismissed the attack," said Ncube. Several MDC officials, among them Ncube, national treasurer Fletcher Dulini, elections director Paul Themba Nyathi and publicity and information secretary Learnmore Jongwe survived the attack which they said was an attempt on Sibanda’s life. Senior Assistant Commissioner Albert Mandizha, in charge of Bulawayo province, declined to comment on the matter yesterday, referring all questions to his subordinate, Nyandoro. A day after the attack, the police in Bulawayo said the presence of journalists from the independent Press during the shooting raised suspicion that it was "stage-managed". The attack was the second inside two months on a senior MDC official after a convoy of vehicles, including that of Tsvangirai, was attacked outside Bindura during a by-election campaign marked by violence and won by Zanu PF.

Washington - The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday cut off Zimbabwe, saying it was ineligible for loans because it fell into arrears in February and that those arrears had risen to about $53 million by the end of August. The lender said authorities in Zimbabwe had offered to make quarterly payments, but that those payments would fall short of the amount needed to stabilise the arrears. The IMF said the actions would make the African nation ineligible for lending, including under a loan intended to help the nation tackle its poverty problems. The IMF said it stands ready to help the government develop a plan for economic recovery as soon as possible and that it would review the overdue payments within three months.

"The IMF's executive board urged the Zimbabwean authorities to make full and prompt settlement of Zimbabwe's overdue financial obligations to the IMF," the lender said in a statement. "The executive board urged the Zimbabwean authorities to adopt the economic and financial policies needed to enable Zimbabwe to achieve economic recovery as soon as possible," the lender said. Earlier this month, the IMF said Zimbabwe's economy was deteriorating rapidly and its recovery depends on restoring business confidence and an orderly land reform program. The IMF warned President Robert Mugabe's embattled government against rising inflation, growing poverty and closing down a parallel foreign exchange market thriving in the face of a severe hard currency shortage.

Zimbabwe is in its third year of recession. Analysts expect food shortages later this year or early 2002, raising the spectre of civil unrest, after a sharp decline in farm output caused by disturbances on white-owned farms invaded by pro-government militants since February 2000. The economic malaise has been worsened by the suspension of aid in 1999 by Western donors, mainly over Mugabe's controversial seizure of white-owned farmland for black resettlement without compensation. In May, the IMF said cash-strapped Zimbabwe was late in its debt repayments to the fund. The following month, Finance Minister Simba Makoni appealed for IMF and World Bank help for Zimbabwe to fulfill its debt obligations, saying that it was determined to pay off $600 million worth of arrears. The IMF has previously said that only comprehensive policies would provide a lasting solution to the nation's problems.

Zimbabwe is in crisis. The country is inches away from economic collapse and a massive humanitarian disaster is about to unfold. This could cause the demise of Zimbabwe as we know it. The Zimbabwean Government have paid lip service to the requirements of the Abuja Accord (as expected) and have continued to harass farmers and displace thousands of farm workers. 25 000 have been dislodged in the last 5 weeks alone. And yet, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Since February 2000, about 500 commercial farmers have been unable, under threat of death or violence to themselves and their workers, to continue normal farming operations. It is under these circumstances that at least 350 large-scale commercial farms, representing over 15 000 farm worker families (approx. 75 000 men, women and children), have had to shut down. The self-styled war veterans have subjected farm workers to the most appalling indignities. Many have been physically assaulted or tortured and have had to watch as others are attacked in front of them as an example. A large number of the women and girls have been beaten and raped. By mid September 2001, an estimated 30 farm labourers had been killed since the onset of the farm invasions. The majority of displaced farm workers have nowhere to go. Many have been on the farms for generations. Countless thousands are now scattered widely around the farming areas, sometimes simply encamped along the roadsides with no facilities whatsoever.

The Zimbabwe Agricultural Welfare Trust is a recently established non-political, non-profit organisation designed to provide some of that much-needed charity. We fully recognise the need for fundamental land reform in Zimbabwe. However, whatever the outcome of this future land reform, these internally displaced people need support now. The obvious interim position prior to such reform is therefore to keep these workers on the farms where they have access to shelter, medical assistance and schooling for as long as possible. We would like to do as much as we possibly can to help. Could you help too?

There is much that can be done to assist. For example:

Helping struggling farmers to pay wages, thus keeping the farm workers active and in employment where possible.

Helping displaced workers to relocate back to their original homes on the farms where possible.

Providing subsistence maize meal, dried fish and vegetable seeds to tide them over.

Providing funds for the continued education of the farm children.

Providing basic medical supplies and living requirements i.e. blankets and cooking utensils.

For those who would prefer to make a one-off donation, may we suggest a donation of £52.00. That would be a donation of £1.00 a week for a whole year although any greater or lesser contribution would of course be much appreciated. If 2000 people were to donate this small amount, we would achieve a figure of £100 000 this year. There is so much we can achieve with this amount of money. Please give us a hand. If you would like to help, please forward a cheque to:

Yours sincerely,

Charles Boscawen, on behalf of the Trustees

An advance MDC delegation to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) left for Brisbane on Friday to meet Australian civic society and student movement groups ahead of the 6-9 October conference. The delegation, comprising Chimanimani MP, Roy Bennett, party secretary for international affairs, Sekai Holland, and youth chairman Nelson Chamisa, is expected to lay the ground for party president, Morgan Tsvangirai’s arrival in Brisbane. Tsvangirai and MDC shadow minister for foreign affairs, Tendai Biti, will join the group later to meet Australian government and opposition officials and those from other Commonwealth countries and the Club’s secretariat.

The party’s spokesman, Learnmore Jongwe, yesterday accused The Herald of lying in its Friday issue by claiming that the MDC was sending 240 youths to picket Mugabe in Brisbane. "Our trip has not been funded by any foreign government, let alone the so called ex-Rhodesians. It is also false that we are sending youths to Brisbane. What is happening here is that President Mugabe has, despite public confirmation, still not convinced himself that he is making the right decision by travelling to Brisbane in the light of the on-going state-sanctioned terror, his failure to breath life into the Abuja agreement and the Peter Tatchell factor. The Herald continues to deteriorate and is fast becoming a madhouse in which inmates are trying to run the asylum. No good can be expected from a madhouse where the patients are writing the prescriptions," said Jongwe.

Responding to The Herald’s assertions, Chamisa said: "That is hogwash. If we want to demonstrate against Mugabe then the State House is nearer to us than Brisbane and Mugabe is more accessible here than in Australia. If we have complaints against Mugabe we have a platform to put them across and the ballot box is one of them." Mugabe faces a hostile reception in Brisbane where several organisations have lined up demonstrations against him. Other Commonwealth heads of governments are expected to give Mugabe a roasting over his handling of the land issue which has been characterised by violence and mayhem.

AS government finalises moves to stop funding education altogether, the opposition MDC has unveiled an ambitious education policy. The blueprint, launched by MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai in Mutare a fortnight ago, seeks to restore Zimbabwe’s education sector as one of the best systems on the continent. Among the highlights of the blueprint are the merging of the two education ministries, provision of increased government funding towards education, subsidising tertiary education, the scrapping of privatisation of essential services at tertiary institutions, an improvement in the working conditions of teachers, and a special focus on pre-schools.

Zimbabwe’s education sector, once hailed as the most successful in Africa, has now crumbled due to reduced government funding. Government subsidies, which helped give hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans access to free and affordable education in the 1980s and early 1990s, have now dwindled to near zero levels. The policy of free primary education and subsidised higher and tertiary education helped Zimbabweans who otherwise would not have afforded a decent education train in various fields. The government was hailed in its attempt to empower the populace through an education system that would not discriminate against the poor.

However, the introduction of the Economic Structural Adjustment Programme in 1990, led to reduced funding of the sector. Ten years on, the sector has virtually crumbled as government funding priorities have been placed elsewhere. Analysts have blamed government for the collapse of this once very successful education system because of its failure to adequately fund it, among other reasons. Government has consistently refused to improve working conditions for teachers who have staged one job action after another to press for better conditions. The recent failure by the State to protect teachers from harassment by war veterans and Zanu PF supporters has not helped the situation either. Teachers, especially those in rural areas, are viewed as community leaders whose influence the state fears might be used on the rural electorate to support the opposition. Worse still, higher education and technology minister, Samuel Mumbengegwi, has of late been warning that government would soon stop funding education. But in a country where 70% of the population is now living under the poverty datum line, it is expected that the majority of people will fail to afford a decent education as a result.

"The MDC commits itself to providing adequate funding to schools and tertiary institutions of learning, to ensure that there is a future for every child. We will not accept a situation where a child is denied an equal opportunity to access education on the basis of their economic background," said Tsvangirai at the launch of the blueprint. "We commit ourselves to reviewing the outsourcing of catering and accommodation services in institutions of higher learning. The decision to outsource accommodation and catering services in tertiary institutions was a crazy decision," he said. "MDC will get colleges and universities to provide these services at controlled costs. Adequate loans will be made available to students to meet these costs and ancillary expenses."

Former University of Zimbabwe vice-chancellor, Professor Gordon Chavunduka, said the MDC policy would create a good foundation for education. Chavunduka said, unlike the government policy which is centred on the state abdicating its responsibility of funding education, the MDC blueprint would make education affordable to long suffering Zimbabweans. Said Chavunduka: "It is a very good policy as it stands now. It gives good recommendations in all areas, from pre-schools to tertiary education. Government is no longer playing its role of financing education." "Privatisation is done at many universities around the world, but these are rich countries. You cannot adopt the same system in Africa because we are poor. We also don’t need two ministries of education. The country’s education can be run by one ministry," said Chavunduka.

The MDC policy proposes rationalising government spending in other sectors and rechannelling the funds towards education and health. Charlton Hwende, the International Union of Students (IUS) secretary for African affairs, described the document as workable and realistic. "As the IUS, we think the policy is workable and serious. The MDC is empowering students. They are promising to fund students and constantly review the student support rate," said Hwende. "The MDC’s promise to reform the general administration and include students in the administration of institutions will help curb corruption that has become rampant. Unnecessary political meddling in the affairs of institutions of higher learning should be stopped," he said.

Dr Elizabeth Marunda, an educationist and human resources consultant, said although the policy was workable, problems would arise from obtaining sources of funding. "The idea of having one education ministry is commendable because it will mean cutting on unnecessary expenditure. The idea is to have various departments which, although working under the ministry, will operate independently," she said. "The departments should be competitive and should be run by experts. The policy looks at maximum utilisation of resources." "However I have queries on their funding policy. Free education is not a new thing. It has been tried before. I don’t know where they will get the money. One goes to ask where they will get the money to give grants, and to what extent they will give the grants?" she said.

Hwende, however, described the MDC document as realistic in that it identified areas where money to finance education would come from. The MDC has promised to disengage from the DRC war which has cost Zimbabwe billions of dollars, as well as to cut the number of ministries, as a way of reducing government expenditure. Added Hwende: "The document is realistic. Promises are not being made in a vacuum. It is identifying needs and the sources of income. The promises are being made on the background of an undertaking by the MDC to revive the economy through its economic recovery programme. The MDC has identified areas where expenditure will be reduced and the money rechannelled to social services such as health and education."

While the government has been emphasising on the need to make history, Shona and Ndebele compulsory, the MDC policy puts more emphasis on science and technical subjects. "The MDC policy emphasises the need to act swiftly in changing the curriculum in the education system. Any education system needs to be directly relevant to the needs of society. We at the MDC believe that there should be significant shift towards science and technical subjects," said Tsvangirai. Gabriel Shumba, a human rights lawyer, commended the MDC for focusing on technical and civic education. "It contrasts sharply with the Zanu PF thrust towards trying to empower people through the compulsory teaching of Shona, Tonga, Ndebele and history. The MDC policy has a strong leaning towards science and technical subjects. It would be a great miscalculation and fallacy to assume culture and pride can be a means towards economic empowerment particularly in view of global trends. The emphasis on civic, environment and Aids education should also be lauded. It reveals an undeniable touch with the realities of modern life," said Shumba.

The Zimbabwe National Union of Students (Zinasu) also applauded the MDC blueprint saying it would alleviate student suffering. "The present government has made students a poor lot. The promise by the MDC to scrap the privatisation of catering and accommodation will go a long way in alleviating students’ suffering," said Zinasu secretary for information, Phillip Pasirayi.

The terrorist bombings in the United States and the meeting of the SADC heads of state in Harare overshadowed the thumping of Zanu PF in the Bulawayo mayoral election by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and what that result might mean to the fortunes of the ruling party ahead of the presidential election. A simple statistical analysis of the election, including that of all other by-elections that took place countrywide after the June 2000 plebiscite, shows that the MDC leads Zanu PF on total support of those who voted in the five provinces where polls have taken place. As we head towards the crucial presidential election, and if one was to go by the electoral trend so far, President Robert Mugabe might actually be on his way out.

Although Zanu PF spokesperson Jonathan Moyo has strenuously tried to underplay the impact of the Bulawayo mayoral election result, insiders say panic has gripped the party hierarchy and its presidential election strategists, who include the publicly-funded Central Intelligence Organisation. When Zanu PF won the Bindura election, Moyo said that result was an indication of a pattern that would repeat itself during the presidential election. Therefore, the presidential election should now be viewed and analysed taking into consideration all the by-elections and top municipal elections that have taken place since June last year.

The Bulawayo mayoral election provided interesting moments as Zanu PF tried to avert a crushing defeat by employing all sorts of tricks. That included massive outright vote-buying of an extent that some people from Zimbabwe's second largest city joked that Moyo was behaving like a moving automated teller machine. In the run-up to the mayoral poll, the government-owned Chronicle reported that Bulawayo residents were being "mesmerised" by Moyo to an extent that some even jostled to just touch his clothes, let alone shake his hand. The paper said some residents even equated Moyo to the biblical John the Baptist, "The Saviour". But after the outcome of the Bulawayo mayoral election, Moyo will admit that the people from the City of Kings "touched" him in a big way.

The six by-elections which have taken place in the country have occurred in five different provinces out of the 10 political provinces. By-elections have occurred in Bikita West (Masvingo province), Marondera West (Mashonaland East), Bindura (Mashonaland Central), Makoni West (Manicaland) and the two mayoral elections in Masvingo and Bulawayo. The results have been as follows: Assuming that the electorate had voted in a presidential election, the MDC would have led from all the results by 30 286 votes. Another interesting observation is that Zanu PF's combined total votes of 61 898 in all the six constituencies are only 910 more than the total the opposition party garnered in the Bulawayo mayoral election alone.

Based on simple arithmetic and not engaging in guessing games such as which party had the support of the most people who did not vote, it does not need a rocket scientist to see that a trend is unfolding as we head towards the presidential election. Such is the panic within ZANU PF that insiders say the succession issue has once again resurfaced, with Mugabe trying to groom Security Minister Nicholas Goche to take over in the event that he retires or steps down before the 2002 election. Mugabe has announced that he will seek another term but insiders have cautioned that this is not a foregone conclusion because the 77-year-old leader might still surprise all and sundry and make way for a younger leader.

A liberal faction within the party still wants Finance Minister Simba Makoni but some powerful party stalwarts do not like Makoni and say his chances of taking over are very remote. According to sources, Mugabe has failed to sell his favoured successor, Parliamentary Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, within and outside established party structures. The sources said Mugabe had also come to realise that his blue-eyed boys Mnangagwa and Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi could not win a presidential election for the ruling party. Mnangagwa is credited with grooming Goche, a career diplomat and spy who joined the secret service after Mnangagwa had served for a long spell as State Security Minister. Goche, on the other hand, is also emerging as the kingmaker in Mashonaland Central province, a Zanu PF stronghold. Whether it is going to be Mugabe, Goche, Mnangagwa or Makoni, Zimbabweans appear to have made a decision to break with the past and might finally have found the courage to say enough is enough.

Harare - Zimbabwe’s new Chief Justice refused yesterday to step down from a constitutional hearing over President Mugabe’s seizures of white-owned farms. It took just 30 minutes for the court, dominated by judges recently appointed by President Mugabe, to dismiss an application by the Commercial Farmers’ Union for Judge Godfrey Chidyausiku to step down because the union believes that it will not receive a fair hearing from him. During the hearing in the Supreme Court, the Chief Justice, a close ally of Mr Mugabe, and one of the new judges repeatedly attacked an advocate, Adrian de Bourbon, as he argued that Mr Chidyausiku’s past record raised "a reasonable apprehension" that the case would not receive a fair hearing.

It is now feared that the constitutional court will bulldoze through a favourable decision on Mr Mugabe’s land seizures. The Government’s appeal for the seizures to be declared legal began yesterday. "The decision of this honourable court will reflect whether or not there is an independent judiciary here in Zimbabwe," Mr de Bourbon said as the hearing opened. David Hasluck, director of the Commercial Farmers’ Union, said that the court’s final ruling would decide whether farmers would be denied a return to the rule of law "by a decision that approves state violence".

Throughout the past 19 months Zimbabwe’s senior courts have ruled repeatedly that Mr Mugabe’s so-called "fast-track land reform programme" was illegal. The regime has ignored all the decisions. However, the newly constituted court has given Mr Mugabe his first chance to claim legal respectability for his attempt to settle his ruling party supporters on 20 million acres of land, representing 85 per cent of all white-owned land. A total of 29 farmworkers and nine farmers have been murdered, about 70,000 labourers have been driven from their homes and thousands have been assaulted since so-called guerrilla war veterans began their violent invasions of white farms in February last year.

Mr de Bourbon told the Chief Justice yesterday that the union was justified in its fears that the three new judges with him on the five-judge bench had been selected to overturn the previous decisions on land. He said it also appeared that three remaining judges from the Supreme Court of the former Chief Justice, Anthony Gubbay, who was forced to resign in March under threat of violence from Mr Mugabe’s supporters, had been sidelined from the case "to ensure a majority in the matter".

Mr de Bourbon recalled Mr Chidyausiku’s remarks to a gathering of lawyers last year, that white farmers were suing the Government as invited by Mr Gubbay and getting judgements as promised. He also referred to Mr Chidyausiku’s chairmanship in 1999 of a state commission to draft a new national Constitution, in which the judge had permitted reference to "white settlers", allowed the ruling Zanu PF party to insert its own resolutions and refused to take a vote on the final draft. On several occasions Luke Malaba, one of the new judges and a former guerrilla fighter in Zimbabwe’s war of independence, broke into Mr de Bourbon’s address and accused him of "regurgitating personal attacks" on the Chief Justice. The hearing is expected to continue until tomorrow.

Bulawayo - So-called war veterans last week threatened Mtoliki Sibanda, the MP for Tsholotsho (MDC), with death and barred him from proceeding with tours of his constituency, during which he planned to donate $20 000 in cash, sewing machines and school uniforms. The so-called war veterans chased Sibanda from Dhlamini business centre after they got wind of Sibanda’s visit. "When I arrived at Dhlamini business centre in Ward Two, I was confronted by a group of about 10 people who told me that I was not going to proceed with the donation since I was not accompanied by the provincial governor or the district administrator," said Sibanda. He said he initially ignored their threats and told them he did not need to be escorted when conducting his duties in the constituency.

The group allegedly became violent and ordered him not to proceed with the donations or risk their wrath. Sibanda said: "The people of that area willingly voted for me, so why should the governor be involved in my activities?" Tsholotsho is one of the poorest constituencies and is still recovering from the effects of last year's floods. Several people desperately need food aid in the area with more than 2 000 orphans. Several homes, bridges and crops were destroyed in the floods. Sibanda said this was not the first encounter he has had with the would-be war veterans as they have disrupted previous meetings.

The US observation mission to Zimbabwe's presidential elections was brought to an abrupt halt a few days ago. It was made clear to them by Mugabe's government that they would not be permitted to remain in the country. Now we have learnt that the EU's team of 10 people, who were due to leave for Harare on Saturday, has been told that they will also not be welcome. The seriousness of this development should not be underestimated, since it threatens to derail any chance of free and democratic presidential elections next March. The history of violence, intimidation and vote rigging in elections, such as those which took place recently in Bulawayo, are an indication of how essential it is that there should be international monitoring.

The Zimbabwean authorities have immediately begun to unpick and reinterpret the text of the recent Abuja agreement. The mistake made by the Commonwealth ministers was to allow Mugabe the opportunity to link the key issue of elections and the essential observation of those elections, with the issue of land. Whilst land rights are important, there are other equally significant political concerns, such as access to the media, a new electoral roll and firm guarantees on election observation. The next meeting of EU foreign ministers should - if necessary - implement a travel ban on entry into the EU by President Mugabe and his close associates, a freeze on all assets held in EU countries by them, and should consider the suspension of aid. The time for less carrot and more stick has arrived.

Glenys Kinnock MEP