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Archived News
15th November 2001
Wave of arrests follows killing of Mugabe activist
Altering act not constitutional
'Loyal' Zimbabwean soldiers given farms
Finance Minister acknowledges disaster: and pretends it isn't happening
Matabeleland repression widens
White farm exodus to cost £400m
Mugabe intensifies crackdown with MDC siege
4,000 Zimbabwe farmers to be evicted
Zim opposition offices raided by police
Opposition leader sees a need for restrictions, like travel bans, on leadership of Zimbabwe
Militants beat magistrate for jailing comrade
Mugabe bans charities' food aid
Plans for rigging election begin
Zim war vets besiege MDC offices in Harare
Mogae blasts Mugabe over land grabs
No monitors, no recognition
Zim to curb voting rights
Editor and executive of Zimbabwe newspaper bailed on fraud
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From The Guardian (UK), 15 November
Wave of arrests follows killing of Mugabe activist
Harare - The discovery of the body of a prominent supporter of President Robert Mugabe in the opposition stronghold Bulawayo has resulted in a wave of arrests and violence against the Movement for Democratic Change. Vice-President Joseph Msika warned the perpetrators that they would get "a taste of their own medicine". The body of Cain Nkala, chairman of the Bulawayo War Veterans' Association, was discovered in a shallow grave on Tuesday. He had been taken from his home on November 5 by five men armed with AK-47 rifles. The government has been quick to blame the MDC for his murder. "The kidnap was political and senior persons of the MDC in Bulawayo will be arrested," an assistant police commissioner, Wayne Bvudzijena, said. Mr Msika was more threatening. "If they are looking for a bloodbath, they will get it," he said.
Thirteen MDC members have been arrested in Bulawayo since Nkala's disappearance, and many of them have been illegally held for a week without appearing in court or being charged. They have not been allowed to speak to their lawyers. State television showed two young MDC supporters on Tuesday night confessing to murdering Nkala. The state-owned newspaper the Herald said yesterday that two opposition MPs would soon be arrested for the murder. Last night rampaging supporters of Mr Mugabe's party burned MDC members' houses in Bulawayo. The MDC secretary general, Welshman Ncube, said the two party members shown on television had been tortured into making false confessions. Its president, Morgan Tsvangirai, said: "It's utter rubbish to charge that our party was involved in that murder. Our conscience is clear. We know why the government is doing this. They want to beat the people into submission before the presidential election, and they want to use this as an excuse." The opposition has carefully avoided encouraging violence, and statistics from human rights monitors show that Mr Mugabe's party, Zanu PF, is responsible for more than 90% of the political violence.
There were reports from Bulawayo that Nkala was killed by government supporters. He was said to have been unhappy at being named by the police for the abduction and murder of an MDC official, Patrick Nabanyama, in June last year. Nkala intended to reveal who had murdered Nabanyama, and was killed by government agents to silence him, the reports said. Zanu PF activists in Bulawayo and Harare have beaten up opposition supporters, saying the MDC was involved in murdering Nkala. Last weekend several hundred besieged the MDC's offices in Harare city centre, assaulting members and destroying property. The police took no action. Early yesterday two MDC officials were abducted from their homes in Harare by six armed men, the party said. "We are very worried," a member in Bulawayo said. "The murder of Nkala is being used as an excuse to unleash a campaign of arrests and intimidation against us. Many people have gone into hiding. It is frightening."
From ZWNEWS: Three of those arrested in the widescale detentions of the last week were yesterday brought to the Magistrate's Court yesterday in Bulawayo. Nicholas Masera, Simon Spooner, and Army Zulu appeared after High Court orders, compelling the police to bring them to court, had been obtained. Each has been charged with two counts of murder - one a man killed in the Lupane area on 29 October, and the other Cain Nkala, whose body was found on Tuesday. As is so often the case, the state had not prepared its papers by yesterday's hearing, and all three were held over until today, when they are expected to appear again. An order for the release from custody of Masera had been obtained on the grounds of his unlawful detention for seven days, but he was not freed - the police arguing that he had been released into the custody of the court in compliance with that release order, and that his further detention was because the court hearing had been postponed until today. As far as can be established, the only evidence against these three are statements from the two men shown on ZTV as confessing to Nkala's murder. In law, no-one can be convicted solely on the basis of the evidence of co-accused.
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From Business Day (SA), 15 November
Altering act not constitutional
Harare - Zimbabwean legal experts have dismissed as unconstitutional the arbitrary amendment of the Land Acquisition Act by President Robert Mugabe, giving his government the right to acquire farms without following due legal process. Prominent lawyers said statutory instrument 338 of 2001, gazetted last Friday through the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act to allow government to allocate land without giving the owners the right to contest the seizures, violated fundamental rights in the constitution. The Bar Association of Zimbabwe's chairman, advocate Adrian de Bourbon, said the measure, enacted in terms of Mugabe's discretionary powers, was unlawful. "I believe it is subject to challenge because it certainly amounts to a breach of section 16 and section 18 of the constitution," De Bourbon said. "It can also be challenged as an abuse of the presidential powers."
Sections 16 and 18 of the constitution deal, respectively, with the rights to property and equal access to the law. The controversial revision empowers government to start resettlement immediately after issuing an acquisition order. It allows government the right to ownership of the land, surveying, demarcation and allocation immediately after serving notice to the farmers. A fine of Z$20000 or a jail term of two years or both can be imposed on those found guilty of interfering with land seizures. Once an acquisition order has been served on the farm owner, he will get a three-month notice to vacate without contest, or face eviction. The amendment was backdated to May 23 last year. Zimbabwe's government has been making backdated laws to cover illegal aspects of its land reform programme.
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From The Independent (UK), 15 November
'Loyal' Zimbabwean soldiers given farms
Harare - The Zimbabwe National Army has offered farms and land to all serving soldiers in exchange for their support and loyalty to President Robert Mugabe in next year's presidential election. Land requests by soldiers will be separated from those of civilians and will be given priority, in a policy aimed at promoting black commercial farmers. The army's internal task force, headed by Brigadier Daniel Nyikaramba, is handling applications by soldiers interested in the land offers. A budget is being drawn up to help to resettle soldiers on their repossessed land and to help them to buy the necessary inputs to start farming, The Financial Gazette reports. Soldiers will be allocated mainly plots on sub-divided farms, but some top-rank officers who do not own land have been offered bigger farms. A few months ago, the army decided to give the first preference of jobs in the military to children of soldiers and independence war veterans. And sources say the soldiers are to be given special bonuses this year ahead of civil servants. One officer, who did not wish to be named, said: "We have been told we [the soldiers] are the people who fought for the land and we should get the first preference for plots and farms ahead of everyone else. The army will also help to resettle us and I must say most of our members are extremely happy about this move and have submitted their applications."
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From ZWNEWS, 15 November
Finance Minister acknowledges disaster: and pretends it isn't happening
To many analysts, the annual budget presented this month by Zimbabwe Finance Minister Simba Makoni was notable for more than doubling expenditure while national production and state revenues plummet. It was a supreme example of political schizophrenia. "I wouldn't want to be drawn into arguing why we are where we are - the bottom line is we are where we are,'' Makoni told Parliament, studiously avoiding mention of the government-sponsored invasions of white-owned farms that have cut by one-third agricultural production, Zimbabwe's costly military adventure in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the failed exchange rate and other policies. Makoni, widely regarded as one of the more enlightened members of President Robert Mugabe's Cabinet, publicly acknowledged economic disaster, with 75 percent of the population now living in what he termed ``abject poverty,'' skilled labour fleeing the country, and desperate shortages of food and foreign exchange. And then in the second half of his speech Makoni went on to pretend this wasn't so. He cheerily reported a budget deficit for the current financial year of 12 percent instead of the 15 percent feared.
But this figure was only attainable by defaulting on US $682 arrears in international debt and forcing down internal interest rates to a fraction of the rate of inflation. Thus the local money market, particularly pension funds, subsidises state financial indiscipline. At this rate, many pensioners face being left destitute, their savings rendered worthless. Inflation, currently more than 86 percent, will stabilise at 83 percent in the coming year, Makoni predicted. In addition, his figures are predicated on Zimbabwe receiving billions in funding from donors who have already said they have no intention of giving anything until lawlessness ends and order is restored. In an attempt to woo votes ahead of next year's presidential poll when 77-year-old Mugabe plans to seek a further six-year term, Makoni announced Z$2bn in handouts to approved black businessmen to revive foundering companies, and similar largesse for invaders on 4 600 white-owned farms facing seizure.
When the ``Blue Book," the government's annual estimates of departmental expenditure which should have been published at the same time as the Nov. 1 budget, eventually appeared nearly a week later, the news was even worse. Despite the supposed ceasefire in the Congo war, there was a vast increase in the defence vote, to Z$34,4bn (from Z$13,2bn). It includes Z$449m for "war veterans' administration" -the militia of the ruling Zanu PF party who call themselves ex-guerrillas, but are mostly unemployed youths. Last weekend, they invaded the opposition MDC party offices in central Harare and attacked passing motorists while police looked on. A chilling leap in expenditure was in the vote for "special services" under the budget item for Office of President and Cabinet. This funds the feared Central Intelligence Organisation and is not subject to any kind of audit. In Parliament, members are ruled out of order if they even draw attention to it. The latest estimates put it just short of Z$bn - up 142 percent - way beyond even Zimbabwe's rate of inflation.
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From ZWNEWS, 14 November
Matabeleland repression widens
The attacks on MDC supporters in Matabeleland, which began on Wednesday last week, have continued over the last two days, with widespread arrests. A dozen or more people have been taken into police custody, with many being denied their constitutional rights to be charged or released, or to have access to a lawyer. As well as being part of the general harsh crackdown on the MDC countrywide, the arrests in Bulawayo are widely thought to have an additional link to the disappearance in June 2000 of Patrick Nabanyama - an MDC election agent - who has not been seen since.
The recent events began on 5 November with the abduction from his Bulawayo home of Cain Nkala, a senior leader of war veterans in Bulawayo. He was taken forcibly from his home at midnight by ten men armed with AK 47s - widely issued to members of the army, police, and CIO. Nkala's wife was injured in the struggle to take her husband. Two days later, the MDC provincial offices in Bulawayo were surrounded by armed policemen, and were then subjected to an eight-hour search. Documents and records from the offices were taken - illegally - and several MDC security guards and others were arrested. Those arrested were Masere Moyo, Ronnie Zulu, Thabiso Mangala, Ferdinand Dropper, Army Zulu, and Silas Sibanda.
At lunchtime on Saturday, the MDC headquarters in Harare were besieged by a mob of war veterans claiming they were looking for Cain Nkala. MDC staff and passers-by were assaulted. On Sunday and Monday, vice-president Msika was quoted in the state media as saying: "If they are looking for a blood bath they will certainly get it. We have not arrived at that juncture yet. We do not want to be controlled by anger but our reaction will come at the appropriate time." In the current tense circumstances in Zimbabwe, such a statement from so senior a figure is an open invitation for political violence to be committed with impunity. Similar statements were accorded to Obert Mpofu, the unpopular governor of Matabeleland North province, and Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, Zanu PF's national deputy political commissar. Allegations were also made that MI5 - the agency responsible for counter-intelligence within the UK - was sponsoring a "third force" intent on destabilising the Zimbabwe government.
On 12 November, police visited the MDC headquarters in Harare, but were denied entry as they did not have a warrant. In Bulawayo, Simon Spooner, campaign manager for Bulawayo MP David Coltart was arrested. The house of Fletcher Dulini, the MDC treasurer, was raided at 3:30 am by police. Dulini was not there, but the police forced their way in without a warrant, searched the house and left with documents, including personal study materials, leaving Dulini's wife terrified. Police later raided the house of a man who repairs MDC vehicles in Bulawayo. At 5.00 am the house of MDC Administrator Mr Msimanga was raided. He has been detained twice on spurious allegations in the last few months. He was not present - he is currently in a safe house suffering from post traumatic stress disorder - and the police broke down his door and conducted an illegal search, and took away some of his personal effects.
At 11:00 pm on Monday night, Noma Nabanyama, daughter of Patrick Nabanyama, was arrested by police, and was interrogated until 5:00 am on Tuesday morning. She was accused of having lied about the disappearance of her father and it was alleged that when she went to Australia recently she actually went to see her father. She was subjected to sustained verbal abuse. She was eventually released after the police confiscated her passport. A relative of the Nabanyamas - "Sigogi", a former Lt. Colonel in Zipra before independence - was also picked up on 11 November in connection with Cain Nkala's abduction, and he has not been released. It is not clear where he is being held. Others arrested very early on Tuesday were two MDC ward chairpersons, L. Munyika and Sazini Mpofu, who have not been seen since, and Gilbert Moyo, Stanley Dile, Sakhile Ncube and Sitsha Ndlovu. Thembi Nkandla, MDC provincial treasurer and a single mother with a four year-old child, was also arrested on Tuesday.
The MDC security personnel arrested on Wednesday last week have still not been brought before a magistrate, as is required by law after being held in custody for 48 hours. A court order has been sought compelling police to bring them before a court, with no known result as yet. Spooner has been denied access to a lawyer and food as of the time of writing. He was eventually tracked down to the police camp at Esigodini, some 50 kilometres south-east of Bulawayo. This camp became notorious in the early 1980's as a detainee holding area during the Matabeleland massacres.
The state media continue to associate those arrested with the disappearance and murder of Cain Nkala. ZTV last night showed particularly gruesome footage of Nkala's body being dragged feet-first from a shallow grave. However, sources within the war veterans' movement in Bulawayo say that the abduction and killing of Nkala were inside jobs. Resentment had apparently grown among Nkala and others charged with the abduction of Patrick Nabanyama, because they had not been granted a pardon in terms of the presidential amnesty announced last year for the perpetrators of politically-motivated crimes. Kidnap and murder were not included in the list of crimes covered by the amnesty. There was also resentment that the members of the CIO, to whom Nkala and others claimed they had delivered Nabanyama after his abduction, had not been charged at all. It is reported that Nkala may have approached a journalist who was then shown where Nabanyama's body was buried. Those implicated in Nabanyama's disappearance then arranged for Nkala's demise in order to cover up their own involvement. It has also now been confirmed - from two independent sources that a meeting of Matabeleland war veterans took place on 1 November, which was attended by very senior Zanu PF Matabeleland politicians. At that meeting, a general instruction was issued to eliminate as many Matabeleland MDC officials as possible. A specific order was issued against the life of David Coltart.
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From The Guardian (UK), 14 November
White farm exodus to cost £400m
Harare - White Zimbabwean farmers began dismantling irrigation systems and equipment on some of their farms yesterday after they were warned on Monday that under new laws they could be imprisoned for continuing farming. More than 4,400 white-owned farms are to be seized by President Robert Mugabe's government in the coming weeks, preventing farmers growing crops and throwing 240,000 labourers out of work. The white farmers will be confined to their houses, which they must vacate within three months, according to new measures decreed by Mr Mugabe. The government has already given preliminary notice of acquisition to 95% of the country's big farms and will proceed with delivering the final eviction notices, the agriculture minister, Joseph Made, said yesterday.
The new action to seize the farms is in preparation for the presidential election, due by the end of March. Mr Mugabe is campaigning on the land seizures to try to win another six-year term. In a further electioneering move, it was announced that only the government may carry out the vital tasks of delivering food aid and training election monitors. "With all these actions the government is trying to improve Mugabe's chances to win re-election, yet by using such heavy-handed tactics they are actually worsening his position," Masipula Sithole, political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, said.
By denying the large-scale farmers the right to till their land, the government is forcing them to abandon crops worth an estimated £410m. "It is economic suicide," John Robertson, a Harare economist, said. "Anything that has been planted will go to waste. Gross domestic product will be cut by half. Half of our people will be shoved out of the economy and into the most desperate subsistence." The first to suffer will be the black farm labourers and their families, numbering 1.2m, who will lose both work and homes. In many cases the number of people resettled on a farm is smaller than the number of labourers the farm formerly employed. Thousands of evicted farm workers are already roaming the countryside looking for food and shelter.
The latest action comes as Zimbabwe faces shortages of its staple food, maize. Last week the government asked the international community for food aid worth £225m. "The government says the food shortages were caused by floods, but we all know it is a self-inflicted shortage," an international aid expert said. "We are very sceptical of their appeal. Saying that all international food aid must be distributed by the government is tantamount to saying the food aid will be used for the presidential campaign." Mr Mugabe's efforts to paint the national crisis as simply a case of black Zimbabweans taking back land seized by white colonialists is belied by the situation in Gokwe, in rural western Zimbabwe. The area has nearly no white farmers, yet it has been gripped by political violence. Scores of teachers suspected of supporting the opposition have been beaten and tortured by Mr Mugabe's followers. In one incident a magistrate was assaulted by backers of Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF party because he jailed a party supporter for robbery. The police confirmed the incident but said no one had been arrested.
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From The Star (SA), 13 November
Mugabe intensifies crackdown with MDC siege
Harare - About a dozen police officers on Monday besieged the headquarters of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), as President Robert Mugabe's government intensified its crackdown on political opponents ahead of presidential elections in March next year. MDC spokesperson Welshman Ncube said the police tried to search the party's head office for documents relating to its funding, but were resisted by MDC officials "who asked the detectives to produce a search warrant first". The opposition party headquarters were raided on Saturday by a group of 100 "war veterans" who assaulted bystanders and deflated the wheels of a vehicle belonging to the MDC and accused the MDC of abducting their colleague, Cain Nkala, in Bulawayo last week.
The police move on Monday came barely four days after detectives stormed the MDC's offices in Bulawayo. "They did not disclose the reasons why they wanted to search our offices, but we suspect they wanted to look for information about our funding," Ncube said. "As you are aware, the government has been wrongly accusing us of receiving foreign funding in violation of the law. It is desperate to get information to prove these baseless allegations," said Ncube. Mugabe's government passed a law in March banning all political parties from receiving foreign funding. The law has since been criticised by opposition parties who accuse the ruling party itself of receiving foreign funding from its African and Asian allies, mainly Libya and China. Reports said Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi had given Mugabe $900 000 (about R8,7-million) for his re-election bid.
The government crackdown on opponents comes ahead of crunch presidential elections in March which Mugabe may lose, according to an opinion poll published last week. In the past week the government has:
Arrested editor-in-chief of Zimbabwe's Daily News, Geoff Nyarota, and a journalist of the same newspaper, Wilf Mbanga, on "fraud" charges.
Banned civic organisations from engaging in voter education programmes and approved a law banning foreign election monitors.
Approved a law that will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans living abroad, except diplomats at foreign missions.
Issued a sweeping decree to force farmers off their land and sidestep their rights to have their evictions approved by the courts. Two farms in Karoi were seized on Monday under the same regulations.
Its militant supporters have renewed violence on commercial farms, invading 20 farms in the process and attacking scores of farm workers. Ten farm workers were admitted to hospital over the weekend.
The opposition MDC also claims that most of its supporters in its urban strongholds are being refused registration by government officials, who have started a voter registration exercise in time for next year's election.
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From The Times (UK), 13 November
4,000 Zimbabwe farmers to be evicted
Harare - Zimbabwe announced new measures yesterday to enable the Government to nationalise up to 90 per cent of all white-owned land at the stroke of a pen - a move expected to wipe out next year's crops almost totally. With immediate effect, 800 farmers have been given three months-notice to get off their land. The owners will be "confined to their homes" during the three months while their properties are occupied by black settlers, Patrick Chinamasa, the Justice Minister, said. Every other white-owned farm that has been formally notified - about another 3,700 properties - that the Government intends to take will also be issued with eviction orders, he said. The first result will be that nearly all Zimbabwe's commercial farmers will cancel their cropping and livestock plans for the cropping season just started, experts said. About 22 million acres, nearly all of it intensively farmed, will fall out of production almost immediately. "It is suicide," John Robertson, an independent economist, said. "Anything that has been planted will go to waste. Gross domestic product will be cut by half. It will make us equal to the poorest countries in the world. These are the actions of madmen."
On Friday the Government passed a decree under President Mugabe's sweeping "presidential powers" that provided almost state-of-emergency authority. Any farm issued with a "notice of acquisition" becomes state property immediately. The Government can move settlers in and the owner is immediately banned from any farming. Mr Chinamasa refused to say how long it would take for the regime to sign all the orders for seizure. The Commercial Farmers' Union would not comment immediately, but one senior official said privately: "This is very, very serious." The announcement came as the United Nations prepared to respond to the Government's appeal two weeks ago for nearly US$365 million in emergency relief for serious famine that has already begun. With food stocks due to run out by the end of January, one million people are already in "dire need" of food. The decree is seen as the final act in Mr Mugabe's campaign effectively to end any significant white presence in the countryside and to avenge the confiscation of land from blacks by white settlers, who began arriving 110 years ago.
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From The Star (SA), 12 November
Zim opposition offices raided by police
Harare - Police raided the headquarters of Zimbabwe's main opposition party on Monday, two days after supporters of President Robert Mugabe had besieged its offices over the disappearance of a party loyalist. Movement for Democratic Change secretary-general Welshman Ncube said a squad from the Criminal Investigation Department tried to search the MDC administrative offices, but left after officials demanded to see a warrant. "They would not say why they wanted to search our offices, but they were probably looking for documents about how we are receiving funding," Ncube said. Earlier this year, Zimbabwe introduced a law making it a criminal offence for political parties to accept donations from foreign institutions or individuals.
Independence war veterans and other supporters of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party besieged the MDC offices on Saturday over the disappearance of a war veteran a week ago. Witnesses said about 100 blocked a busy Harare street while a few forced their way into the offices. They said the group assaulted bystanders outside the building before slashing the tyres of a vehicle belonging to a senior MDC official. The MDC said police at the scene failed to react as party members were assaulted. No serious injuries were reported. The party denied involvement in veteran Cain Nkala's disappearance, saying Zanu PF wanted to whip up political tension ahead of a presidential election due next April.
An opinion poll released on Thursday showed Mugabe trailing MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai before the elections, but Zanu PF dismissed the poll as "rubbish". The MDC won 57 of 120 contested seats in last year's parliamentary elections and has gained support countrywide, including in Zanu PF'S traditional rural power bases, mainly due to an economic crisis widely blamed on Mugabe. At least 31 people, most of them opposition supporters, were killed in political violence ahead of voting in June 2000. Mugabe accuses the MDC of being a puppet of his domestic and international opponents who want to see him toppled in retaliation for his controversial programme to redistribute white-owned farms among landless blacks. He says Zimbabwe's economy has been sabotaged by these opponents. Civil rights groups have sharply criticised the government for trying to undermine the independence of the judiciary and the media in the lead up to national polls.
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From Business Day (SA), 13 November
Opposition leader sees a need for restrictions, like travel bans, on leadership of Zimbabwe
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe's official opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), called yesterday for SA to urgently consider sanctions against the country's leaders, and rejected an SA proposal for the creation of a government of national unity. While Tsvangirai rejected the notion of comprehensive sanctions because "they would have a devastating impact on ordinary Zimbabweans", he urged travel bans, the freezing of assets, and that the leadership's children who are working or studying abroad should be sent home. He compared this to some measures the global coalition is seeking to take against Taliban rulers of Afghanistan. SA's "engagement policy" had failed, Tsvangirai said. "If they (the SA government) keep quiet, they are condoning" what is happening.
Tsvangirai's comments could put pressure on the US and the European Union (EU) to rethink their plans to impose comprehensive sanctions. In the US, a version of a sanctions bill has passed through the senate, but is still before a committee of the House of Representatives. The EU has invoked a section of its agreement with African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries and, if talks with Harare fail, this could lead to sanctions. However, Southern African Development Community countries have come out against sanctions. Tsvangirai was speaking at an SA Institute of International Affairs conference in Johannesburg. His comments came as police raided the party's headquarters in Harare. An MDC official said that they were probably looking for evidence of the party receiving foreign funds. The MDC said that, since a law was passed banning offshore funding, it had not received any.
The conference drew a high-profile range of ministers, senior diplomats, academics, and business executives. One delegate warned that Zimbabwe was "a dagger at the heart of SA". A number of delegates left saying that the government and the MDC were talking past each other and they feared for the country's future. But Simba Makoni, Zimbabwe's finance minister, rejected the bleak future painted about the country, saying it had been "convicted, condemned, executed" without a trial. The SA government is opposed to sanctions and urged the creation of a government of national unity in the country. "Zimbabwe should look at all options, including a government of national unity," said Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad.
Tsvangirai said he would speak to Mugabe's government about "creating conditions for a code of conduct for free and fair elections", but not about "power-sharing arrangements". It was already too late to speak to the government about the land issue or the economy, but he was prepared to talk about issues that could be effected. Tsvangirai said one option that might be worth considering was a delay of next year's presidential election. Under the country's constitution, the election must be held before March 17. A delay would require a two-thirds approval in parliament, and thus need MDC support. This could be an option if the delay would mean that an election code of conduct could be properly implemented, and the time was used to establish peace and stability. Makoni said, while international monitors would not be allowed into the country during the national elections, international observers, which have a more limited mandate, would be welcome.
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From The Cape Times (SA), 12 November
Militants beat magistrate for jailing comrade
Harare - Zanu PF militants assaulted a senior magistrate in Gokwe after he convicted a ruling party supporter on a robbery charge and sent him to jail for eight months. The magistrate, Douglas Chikwekwe, has since fled from his workplace and home. Police officials confirmed the incident, but said investigations were still in progress. They said they had not arrested anyone. The Zanu PF supporters were apparently unhappy with Chikwekwe's decision to convict one of their colleagues for robbery. They called the conviction and sentence a "miscarriage of justice". The militants descended on Chikwekwe's home over the weekend, breaking his windows and destroying his furniture. Chikwekwe escaped the attack with minor bruises, but fled the area. The magistrate became the latest victim of Zanu PF's terror campaign in Gokwe, one of the areas worst affected by Zimbabwe's political violence. Scores of teachers have reportedly fled the town after ruling party militants descended on schools, assaulting the teachers they accuse of working for the opposition. Pictures of badly assaulted opposition supporters recently appeared in the Daily News, Zimbabwe's only independent daily. The newspaper said the ruling party had established bases in the area where opposition-supporting villagers were being tortured at night.
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From The Times (UK), 12 November
Mugabe bans charities' food aid
Harare - President Mugabe's Government announced yesterday that it would not allow aid agencies to distribute emergency food supplies to Zimbabweans affected by a famine. The ban will wreck a relief operation that was being mobilised by the United Nations and several international charities, including Oxfam, Western diplomats said. Nearly a million people are in dire need of food, according to a survey last month by the World Food Programme. Food stocks are expected to start running out in December and even the Government says that at least four times as many people will be affected as the famine worsens.
Yet Jonathan Moyo, the Information Minister, said yesterday that charities would use food relief to campaign for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Aid agencies were "planning to smuggle election monitors into Zimbabwe using the guise of food aid to continue with their plans to decampaign (destabilise) the present Government ahead of next year's presidential elections," the state-controlled The Sunday Mail quoted him as saying. "Suggestions by these groups to distribute food through NGOs are totally unacceptable. The Government alone would distribute food. We will not allow any strangers to roam around interfering in the political affairs of our country," he said.
The biggest concern among international donors is the ruling Zanu PF party's strategy of issuing emergency relief to party supporters and cutting off areas with a record of support for opposition parties. With Mr Mugabe's popularity shrinking as the economy implodes, the party means to ensure it has food as a weapon before the elections that are due by the end of March. Diplomatic sources confirm that international donors have decided to exclude the Government from the distribution of their supplies of food. A source said: "No one must be allowed to go without food because they support this or that party."
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 11 November
Plans for rigging election begin
The recently launched mobile registration exercise taking place in resettlement areas and occupied farms is aimed at boosting Zanu PF's chances of winning the elections, its critics have said. The Standard established last week that few people in the urban areas were aware of the exercise and believe it to be part of a wider plan by the ruling party to disenfranchise millions of potential voters. The current voter registration blitz is concentrated on the resettlement areas and occupied farms - the bastions of government power. There is, however, very little of the exercise going on in urban areas where the opposition derives most of its support. The opposition also believes that a number of headmen are compiling names of opposition supporters. It is not clear what the provincial registrars intend to do with the names, but opposition supporters have complained that they are having difficulty registering as voters.
The Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust sees this move as an attempt by government to rig the election. David Chimhini, the Zimcet executive director, said government was attempting to disenfranchise those perceived to be sympathetic to the opposition. Said Chimhini: "It is public knowledge that the exercise is concentrated around the farms. What happens to those displaced from the farms by the war veterans?" He added: "All these are deliberate mechanisms to deny people their right to vote. You don't ban election monitors in a democratic society. If it is only the ruling party which decides who should be educated, then that is not democracy. They are saying civil servants will do the educating, and we know that they mean the CIO, war veterans, the police and the army - the people whose loyalty lies with the ruling party. But then you can't referee your own game. You need an outsider to do that. The system is being designed to rig elections," said Chimhini.
The registrar-general's office refuted allegations that voter registration was meant to facilitate rigging. "The allegations that our office is being used to rig next year's presidential election is news to us because our office is very impartial in all its activities. It is a public office created to serve the people irrespective of their political persuasions. If there is anybody who has been denied registration because of his political party affiliation, we would be interested to know their details. Members of parliament, in addition to the local leadership, were advised about the exercise and asked to mobilise the people to take advantage and register as voters," said the registrar general's office in response to queries from The Standard.
However, Giles Mutsekwa, MP for Mutare North, said he had received over 500 complains from supporters who had been frustrated by officials conducting the exercise. Mutsekwa, whose constituency is largely rural, said the exercise would prejudice the opposition as it was concentrated in Zanu PF strongholds. "The exercise is concentrated on the occupied farms. We will see a situation where very few people are going to vote. Zanu PF starts rigging the election from registration and this is part of that process. After covering the resettlement areas, they will fast track the exercise to deny our supporters a chance," said Mutsekwa.
MDC secretary general, Welshman Ncube, said what government was planning amounted to electoral fraud. "The fact that Zanu PF wants to avoid the scrutiny of impartial local monitors from civil society and the international community, clearly shows that they want to cheat. They know for a fact that they cannot win a free and fair election in Zimbabwe today and therefore they are doing everything to ensure that the presidential election is conducted under total cover of darkness. How can it be argued that a party that has killed over 50 opposition supporters, displaced over 200 000 farm workers, maimed thousands of people, and continues to victimise innocent Zimbabweans, can run elections without the full scrutiny of independent monitors?"
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From The Star (SA), 10 November
Zim war vets besiege MDC offices in Harare
Harare - A group of about 100 Zimbabwean war veterans raided the offices of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in central Harare on Saturday, allegedly seeking an abducted colleague. MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube said the "rowdy war veterans and Zanu PF hoodlums" assaulted party members around the offices. The violent group... closed off both entrances to the building and assaulted all who dared come out, in full view of the police who lifted no finger to protect us," Ncube said. Party members and other workers who occupy some of the offices and shops in the same building were trapped inside for more than two hours as the veterans tried to force their way into the offices. Scores of slogan-chanting war veterans kept a vigil outside. Several cars, including that of MDC legislator Learnmore Jongwe, were vandalised. The group marched away after more than two hours. "The group claimed to be looking for the abducted Cain Nkala," said Ncube. Nkala, a provincial chair of the war veterans' movement in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city in the southwest of the country, went missing on Monday night. "Attempts to blame the MDC are an electoral ploy aimed at whipping up emotions and to give the pretext for the war veterans to increase violence against the MDC," Ncube said. An MDC election agent in Bulawayo, Patrick Nabanyama, went missing during last year's parliamentary elections and has not been found since. The party, which is two years old and has posed the most credible challenge so far to Mugabe's hold on power, called for an end to lawlessness in Zimbabwe. "The MDC once again implores the Zanu PF leadership to return the country to the rule of law," said Ncube.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 11 November
Mogae blasts Mugabe over land grabs
Botswana's President Festus Mogae has launched a scathing attack on his Zimbabwean counterpart, Robert Mugabe, for his failure to deal with the land resettlement programme in his country in a peaceful way. In an interview with the Sunday Times this week, Mogae criticised Mugabe and his country's war veterans for dragging the entire Southern African economy down with their approach. Mogae said several interventions by regional leaders seeking the restoration of law and order in Zimbabwe had fallen on deaf ears. "On every visit to Zimbabwe we tried to impress upon them the seriousness of the situation - be it in multilateral or bilateral talks - and so far we do not think we are winning," he said.
Mogae said regional leaders were becoming frustrated with the situation in Zimbabwe because it was affecting their economies. "The reality is that the region cannot afford to have its second largest economy sinking because of this situation. While we support land reform in Zimbabwe completely, we feel the implementation of the strategy is incorrect." Mogae singled out war veterans and the Harare administration's failure to deal with the violent occupation of white farms as potential obstacles to peace and stability in the region. "Certainly the involvement of the so-called war veterans has added to the violent nature that this programme has assumed," he said. While equally blaming commercial farmers for refusing to relinquish land voluntarily, Mogae argued that the programme would have been successful had it followed the correct structural and legal reform frameworks, instead of turning into violence: "Land reform needed to be done in Zimbabwe. But now it is just a question of doing the right thing in a wrong way."
Mogae's harsh criticism of the Harare administration highlights the growing frustration among Southern African Development Community leaders at Mugabe's refusal to abide by agreements. Two months ago, Mugabe outsmarted a community delegation looking into land problems in his country - giving five heads of state an undertaking that he would stick to orderly land reforms, and then refusing to quash violent invasions soon afterwards. The delegation had gone to Harare to look for guarantees to cement an agreement reached in Abuja, Nigeria, a week earlier. Mogae's outburst this week comes as most regional leaders prefer to keep their frustrations quiet so as not to anger Mugabe. "Even the good things that are coming out of Zimbabwe are overshadowed by these acts of lawlessness," Mogae said. "The [Abuja] agreement provides a good framework for the restoration of law and order."
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From ZWNEWS, 9 November
No monitors, no recognition
US officials, declaring that free and fair elections cannot be held under current conditions in Zimbabwe, have warned that a refusal by President Robert Mugabe to permit independent monitoring of next year's presidential elections, "could make it difficult" for the people of Zimbabwe and the international community to view next year's presidential election as legitimate. Senior officials in the US Administration, speaking to ZWNEWS, also said they were deeply disturbed at the latest attempts by the Mugabe government to shut down The Daily News, the country's largest independent newspaper. Its editor was arrested on Thursday for the third time since May.
The US Administration called on the Zimbabwe government to drop proposed laws, announced this week, which would ban international monitors and observers from the presidential poll, scheduled for next March. An opinion poll published this week by Zimbabwe's Financial Gazette, an independent weekly, suggested Mugabe is trailing in popularity some five points behind opposition Movement for Democratic Change challenger Morgan Tsvangirai. "The political environment in Zimbabwe today is marked by a significant deterioration in respect for the rule of law and the judiciary, government-sponsored political intimidation and violence, harassment of the independent press, and clear determination to ignore the concerns of the international community," a top US official said. "Consequently, the United States is forced to conclude that the current conditions in Zimbabwe do not allow for a free and fair electoral process as outlined in the norms and standards for elections in the Southern African Development Community. Zimbabwe adopted these norms and standards on March 25, 2001.''
The comments marked the most explicit warning yet from the United States that Washington may refuse to recognise Mugabe if he announces he's won an election from which foreign monitors were banned. The proposal to ban foreign monitors, along with continuing state-sponsored political violence and intimidation, "suggests that the government of Zimbabwe lacks commitment to a free and fair electoral process," the official added. "The United States once again calls upon the government of Zimbabwe to re-establish the rule of law, ease its campaign of political violence and intimidation, and allow international election monitors immediate and unfettered access."
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From News24 (SA), 9 November
Zim to curb voting rights
Harare - Zimbabwe's justice minister plans to sharply curb the right to vote for Zimbabweans living in other countries ahead of presidential elections next year, the official Herald newspaper announced on Friday. Under the proposals, postal ballots would only be accepted from staff at diplomatic missions and from soldiers posted abroad. The new rules would also bar Zimbabweans living in other countries from returning home to cast ballots. The announcement came two days after Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa proposed barring foreign and independent local election monitors from observing the upcoming presidential polls.
Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans live in other countries, mainly in neighbouring South Africa and Britain. Many left Zimbabwe because of the four-year-old economic crisis which has seen the cost of living soar. About three-quarters of Zimbabweans now live in abject poverty. Others left because of the political instability that has seen tens of thousands of people, mainly opposition supporters, beaten or otherwise intimidated because of their political beliefs. The new measures proposed by Chinamasa would require that Zimbabweans resident overseas produce passports and other documents to prove that they have lived in their home constituencies for 12 consecutive months before the elections.
The move will notably prevent the thousands of Zimbabweans living in South Africa from crossing back over the Limpopo River for election day. "We have heard numerous cases of people who travel into our country during the election period simply to cast their votes and travel back to the countries where they are resident," Chinamasa told the paper. Chinamasa plans to propose the new measure when parliament resumes sitting on November 20. With 56 of the 120 elected seats in parliament, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) does not have enough votes to block the proposed changes. Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is fighting for his political survival against Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the two-year-old MDC. A survey published Thursday showed a majority of Zimbabweans favour Tsvangirai for president in the election due before April 2002.
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From The Independent (UK), 10 November
Editor and executive of Zimbabwe newspaper bailed on fraud
Harare - The editor of Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper and a former executive at the paper were freed on bail yesterday after being arrested on fraud charges. Geoff Nyarota, the editor of The Daily News, which is critical of the government, said the charges were a clumsy attempt to put pressure on his newspaper. He added: "Nothing whatsoever will make me change the policy of my newspaper. This was just a minor irritation." Mr Nyarota, 50, was picked up in a dawn raid on his home on Thursday. The police also arrested Wilf Mbanga, 54, who helped him launch the newspaper three years ago. They were held overnight in a small, dirty cell.
The charges against them arose from a letter their accountants wrote to the government in 1998 wrongly calling the newspaper's parent company Motley Investments instead of Motley Trading. Police claim the men also misled officials by saying they had Z$24m(£300,000) in initial capital when they only had Z$5.3m. Police also said they had launched a daily newspaper when the men had said they were starting a weekly. Their lawyer, Eric Matinenga, told Weston Nyamwanza, the magistrate: "There is simply nothing on the facts which points to them having committed any offence." Mr Nyamwanza freed the men on Z$10,000 bail while magistrates consider their plea to throw out fraud charges.
Mr Matinenga said police had failed to make even a cursory investigation into the charges and he said the arrests were "an abuse of process" meant to harass the men. Vincent Shava, for the prosecution, said there was "reasonable suspicion" that the journalists had committed fraud, since they never tried to correct the error over their company name. Earlier, the government demanded The Daily News be closed down because of alleged irregularities with Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, which is owned by Motley Trading. Mr Nyarota said the newspaper would continue to be published. The government has long been critical of the newspaper, which President Robert Mugabe says is a front for efforts by Britain to sabotage his land reform programme.
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