Home
News
Events
Donations
Membership
About Us

If you have received a copy of ZWNEWS over the last week, you will have read of the appalling events - which are still continuing as you read this - around the town of Chinhoyi in northern Zimbabwe, and now in the Penhalonga/Old Mutare area. Dozens of farms have been attacked and ransacked, forcing many times that number to be abandoned, with the result that in excess of eight thousand Zimbabweans have lost their livelihood and shelter - in the depths of winter - within a few days.

Harare - President Mugabe’s regime further undermined Zimbabwe’s fragile democracy yesterday with the arrest of the editor of the Daily News, the country’s only independent daily newspaper, and three senior members of staff. However, a high court judge ruled last night that the police had no right to hold the four men and they were released immediately."We were ready to go to the cells," Bill Saidi, 64, assistant editor of the Daily News, said. "Then our lawyer got a judge to issue an order for our release on the ground that the law they were using to detain us was unconstitutional. They (the police) failed. We are very happy."

Geoffrey Nyarota, 50, the paper's editor, was picked up at his home in Harare’s affluent Highlands suburb yesterday morning by detectives and taken to Harare central police station. Later Mr Saidi was asked to go to the station and was arrested on arrival as were the news editor, John Gambanga, and a reporter, Sam Munyavi. Lawrence Chibwe, the men’s lawyer, said that the police had prepared charges against them of "publishing a false report liable to create alarm and despondency", a section of the draconian Law and Order Maintenance Act passed by the former white minority Rhodesian government in the 1960s to suppress those fighting for black majority rule. Lawyers pointed out, however, that the law had been struck down by the Supreme Court in May last year.

Vusumuzi Mukweli, 32, an MDC activist in the Midlands province, died at Gokwe remand prison on Monday in suspicious circumstances. Frankie Meki, the spokesman for the Zimbabwe Prison Service, confirming the death, said: "It is true Mukweli died, but at the moment I have not been furnished with the details of the circumstances surrounding his death. I am waiting for a verification from our prison doctor on exactly what happened." Meki said he had received conflicting reports on Mukweli’s death, but would not elaborate. Blessing Chebundo, the MDC’s national executive member for Midlands North and the MP for Kwekwe, said Mukweli died in a prison cell. He said Mukweli was arrested last Wednesday for allegedly inciting violence as he campaigned for election as a councillor in Ward 22, Gokwe. Chebundo said: "Mukweli was very active in the run-up to last year’s parliamentary election. He was abducted by Zanu PF supporters and war veterans who beat him up severely. He sustained several injuries to the head and the body." He said Mukweli was then referred to a specialist who put him on permanent medication.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has been dealt a twin blow at a summit of Southern African leaders in Malawi. He has lost his cherished position as Chairman of the defence body of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and his peers expressed "concern at the effects of the Zimbabwean economic situation on the region". Despite intense lobbying by Zimbabwe, there was no declaration of support for Mr Mugabe in what he sees as his continuing fight against colonialism in the form of his land reform programme.

South Africa, among others, voiced concern that Mr Mugabe had abused his position in 1998 by sending troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo in the name of SADC without adequately consulting his neighbours. Of the 14 SADC members, only Angola and Namibia agreed to intervene in DR Congo, which recently joined the southern African body. In March, SADC leaders decided that Mr Mugabe would no longer be permanent head of the community's security organ and that it would now be a rotating position. Mozambique's President Joaqim Chissano has been named the new chair of the security organ, which has now been expressly forbidden from declaring war without the approval of a full summit of all member-countries' leaders. South Africa in particular has been badly hit by the overspill from Zimbabwe in terms of lower investor confidence in the region and a flood of economic refugees.

Meanwhile, Mr Mugabe told a Nigerian newspaper that he was confident that Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo could "save the situation" in Zimbabwe and defuse tensions between Harare and London over land reform and violence against white farmers, many of whom have UK origins. Mr Obasanjo was also Nigeria's leader in the 1970s, when Mr Mugabe was fighting white minority rule in the then Rhodesia and he said: "I always remind President Obasanjo that: 'You are the master. I learnt from you the act of fighting the white man'." Nigeria is due to chair Commonwealth talks on the Zimbabwe crisis in September.

Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change, has voiced fears that the violence seen in the past week around Chinhoyi will spread across the country as presidential elections set for April 2002 draw near. "I am very certain this is going to be replicated. Mugabe believes the MDC's success depends on white support, so whites are attacked ...it is an obsession," he said. "What is happening on the farms is going to engulf us all." On Tuesday, Chinhoyi farmers said that, contrary to police claims to have restored calm, they were still under attack from a gang of up to 250 self-styled "war veterans". They said that 100 farms in the area had now been trashed and pillaged. Meanwhile, Germany has joined the list of countries condemning the latest outbreak of violence in Zimbabwe. A statement from the foreign ministry said: "The government calls expressly on the government in Harare to do everything in its power to end the violence quickly". On Monday, the US expressed its concern at "the level of political violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe".

Harare - Mobs loyal to President Robert Mugabe looted 10 more properties yesterday as the onslaught against Zimbabwe's white farmers spread to a new area. The Makonde area was targeted for a looting spree that brought the number of farms ransacked to 50. More than 300 women and children have now been evacuated from about 100 properties. After a brief respite on Monday, during which pressure eased on Doma-Mhangura area, 100 miles north-west of Harare, the mobs moved south to Makonde. The latest turmoil was sparked by a clash between farmers and squatters on Alaska farm, near Chinhoyi, early last week. About 15 landowners were arrested and charged with assault. Another six were later arrested when they visited Chinhoyi police station to deliver blankets to the captives - two are in their 70s - as protection against the winter cold. The 21 are still being held. A magistrate has denied them bail. The high court has yet to hear an appeal against the ruling.

In the Commercial Farmers' Union office in Chinhoyi yesterday, reports of attacks jammed the radio. "There's been a lot of action," said David Rockingham-Gill, a CFU representative. "Looting is continuing." Women and children have fled the affected areas. Most of the men have stayed and are sleeping in "safe houses". They conduct observation patrols, cataloguing the trail of destruction. The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, lashed out at Mr Mugabe's government yesterday, accusing the mobs - controlled by the ruling Zanu PF party – of creating a "refugee crisis" by forcing farmers and their workers out of their homes. "We now have anarchy in Zimbabwe," he added. His words were echoed by Tony Leon, the opposition leader in neighbouring South Africa, who said "full-scale ethnic cleansing" was now under way in Zimbabwe.

Yesterday's edition of the Herald, Zimbabwe's official daily, said the police were curbing the looting and that 40 arrests had been made. Yet most of those picked up have been farm workers. Landowners say the real looters have been ignored and labourers scapegoated. In the Wedza area, 60 miles south-east of Harare, at least 400 workers and their families have been evicted from farms. Gangs are taking over their homes, with no police intervention. In the areas targeted by mobs, many workers have gone to extraordinary lengths to protect their employers' property. Some have hidden valuables in the bush.

One farmer said: "Some of these workers have been heroic. Most are terrified and have done their best to stop the vandalism." Scores of farm workers have been assaulted. About 28 have been murdered since Mr Mugabe's campaign of land invasions began early last year. South Africa said yesterday that it intended to outlaw land seizures in an effort to prevent Zimbabwe-style invasions. The move follows a highly politicised occupation of a dusty patch of land by thousands of squatters near Johannesburg last month.

Zimbabwe’s pride as a regional super power was badly dented yesterday when Harare was left out of a key pan-African leadership committee to drive the continent's economic rebirth. At the conclusion of the summit meeting of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Botswana's Festus Mogae and Mozambique's Joaquim Chissano were nominated to join SA's President Thabo Mbeki on the 15-nation committee of heads of state to direct the Millennium Partnership for African Recovery (Map). Map is Mbeki's brainchild to forge a partnership with the west to help shore up Africa's economic revival.

In Map, African leaders pledge to respect human rights and adhere to good political and economic governance in exchange for a call for debt relief, better market access and aid from developed nations. In a departure from previous summits, Mugabe failed to get the clear backing of SADC leaders, who yesterday instead expressed "concern (about) the effects of the Zimbabwe economic situation on the region" and signalling their readiness to "engage in dialogue" with Zimbabwean authorities and partners to resolve the situation. They also set up a task team including SA, Botswana and Mozambique to help Zimbabwe tackle the crisis.

The last summit asked Mbeki and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi now the SADC chairman to help lobby the UK government to support Zimbabwe land reform. This year's outcome contrasts sharply with last year's, which saw President Robert Mugabe winning crucial backing, including from his erstwhile ally, Nelson Mandela. Then, the SADC leadership threw its weight behind Zimbabwe, which faced the threat of economic sanctions from the US. A bill has been tabled by the new administration in the US to pressure Zimbabwe into restoring the rule of law.

As expected, Mugabe gave up the chairmanship of the SADC's Organ for Politics, Defence and Security, which he has chaired since its inception, to Chissano, making the Mozambican leader one of the region's heavy hitters. But Mugabe will stay as part of a troika of leaders, including Tanzania's Benjamin Mkapa, running the highly contested organ. In terms of new procedures, Mugabe will stay part of the triumvirate responsible for troubleshooting until August next year. He has played a significant role in the liberation of other SADC countries, including SA, as a leader of the "frontline states" the organ's predecessor.

Thanks to controversy and personality clashes, the organ, a potentially powerful instrument to deal with conflict in the region, has remained inoperative for most of its life, reducing Mugabe, as its chairman, to a figure-head. An official from Botswana, which was earlier tipped to take over from Zimbabwe, said last night that capacity constraints might have militated against this. Botswana also heads the Commonwealth ministerial action group, a key troubleshooter. Crucially, the SADC leaders noted that another great challenge was the issue of land reform and "noted the urgent need to share strategies and experiences with a view to adopting common approaches and strategies". This came amid a fresh round of invasions in Zimbabwe and recent isolated invasions in SA.

If you have read the state-owned newspapers over recent weeks, listened to ZBC, or watched ZTV, you would think that the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act (ZDERA) – recently passed by the US Senate, and currently under consideration by the House of Representatives – is concerned with imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe, like those that were imposed on the pre-1980 Rhodesian government. You would be mistaken. It suits the government to foster this false impression, to garner sympathy for itself, to present Zimbabwe as the underdog being bullied by the United States. The ZDERA, however, is short and to the point. It makes an offer to the Zimbabwe government. Whether this offer is put into operation - or not - depends on a test.

To undertake a review of the sovereign debt owed by Zimbabwe to the United States and any of its agencies with a view to restructuring, rescheduling, or eliminating that debt. To instruct the US representative at multilateral development banks and financial institutions (such as the World Bank and the IMF) to propose that they also consider restructuring, rescheduling or eliminating Zimbabwe’s foreign debt, and provide financial support for the stabilisation of the Zimbabwe dollar and the recovery of Zimbabwe’s economy. To establish a Southern Africa Finance Centre, located in Zimbabwe, to facilitate commercial projects in Zimbabwe and the region. To financially support equitable, legal, and transparent land reform in line with the 1998 International Donors’ Conference.

In order for the offer to be put into operation, the US President must justify to the US Senate and House of Representatives that :

1. The rule of law has been restored to Zimbabwe, including respect for property rights, freedom of speech and association, and an end to lawlessness, violence and intimidation sponsored by the government, the ruling party, and their supporters.

2. a. Either a presidential election has been held that is widely accepted as having been free and fair by independent international monitors, and the president-elect is free to assume his office; or,

b. If this certification is made before the presidential election takes place, that the pre-election period is consistent with international standards to allow free campaigning by the candidates for presidential office.

3. The Zimbabwe government has committed itself to an equitable, legal and transparent land reform programme consistent with the agreements reached at the International Donors’ Conference of 1998.

4. The Zimbabwe government has shown good faith in trying to implement the terms of the Lusaka Accord to end the war in the Congo.

5. The armed services and the police are responsible to, and serve, the elected civilian government.

If the US President can justify that this test has been met, then the offer will be put into operation.

It's as simple as that. What the ZDERA says to President Mugabe is this – restore the rule of law, hold a free and fair election (including a free and fair pre-election campaign period), accept that land reform has to be legal, non-violent and transparent in line with previous agreements, do as much as you can to withdraw Zimbabwean troops form the Congo, and stop misusing the police and the army for Zanu PF’s own ends, and there are benefits.

However, until the test has been met, no part of the offer will be put into effect, and the US representatives at the IMF, World Bank, etc will be instructed to oppose any of the financial benefits set out in the offer. But this is not a sanction, since the Zimbabwe government has already, by its own actions, alienated itself from these institutions. Zimbabwe is already in financial default, and IMF and World Bank funding will not resume until political and economic stability is restored - whether the ZDERA is passed or not. Humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe will not be affected, and the ZDERA also authorises the US President to support an independent free press and electronic media, and democracy and good governance programmes, in Zimbabwe.

The only sanctions in the ZDERA are specific and targeted. The final section of the legislation reads as follows:

This last section is what the ruling elite really fears. This will hurt them personally, and that is why they are threatening a state of emergency if the ZDERA is approved by the US House of Representatives and signed into law by the US President.

In a major escalation of the conflict in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe has gone head to head with white farmers in what appears to be a calculated strategy to justify a state of emergency ahead of what is expected to be an increasingly violent run-up to next year's presidential election. Following the arrest of 21 white farmers who were remanded in custody on Friday, thereby ensuring that they would spend the weekend in jail, Mugabe warned in a Heroes' Day speech on Saturday that actions aimed at organised resistance against "landless blacks" would rebound on them.

"We have seen of late some of those who have not repented who are organising themselves to attack the landless people who have been resettled on some farms. But we warn them to desist immediately continuing in these kinds of organised attacks, they will of course ricochet... acts of this nature have the ability to rebounce, and... when they bounce back and hit them they should not cry foul," he said. Mugabe also accused the west of pushing for sanctions against him in a bid to protect the interests of whites, whom he says own the bulk of Zimbabwe's prime land as a result of colonialism. "When the British brutalised and traumatised us, the so-called democratic world would not lift a finger or even raise an eyebrow for we were dubbed a race of no rights," a visibly angry Mugabe told thousands of supporters. "And now you have this talk of sanctions... just what is our crime? Our crime is that we are black and in America the blacks are a condemned race."

The United States senate last week approved and passed on to congress the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, threatening targeted sanctions unless Zimbabwe ends attacks on the opposition and protects the media and the judiciary. President Thabo Mbeki's office said sanctions against Zimbabwe had produced little or no effect and were not an option. Presidential spokesperson Bheki Khumalo said on Saturday some countries that had followed "loud diplomacy" have had to retreat from that position. "The only way to go is through continued engagement with the Zimbabwean government," he said. He was reacting to appeals that sanctions be imposed against Zimbabwe at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Malawi.

Mbeki will leave from Pretoria for the conference this morning and Mugabe is also expected to attend. But the Commonwealth initiative to hold talks hosted by Nigeria to help resolve the Zimbabwean crisis has been delayed until the first week of September, according to Nigerian state television. The station said Nigeria's and Zimbabwe's foreign ministries had apparently agreed to the two-week delay. The meeting would be the first of the group of seven that includes Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Australia, Jamaica, Britain and Zimbabwe itself. On Thursday Zimbabwe's Financial Gazette quoted government sources as saying Harare would consider declaring a state of emergency if sanctions were imposed.

The government says white farmers are responsible for the latest violence. A Zimbabwe court on Friday denied bail to the farmers, who were charged with inciting public violence after clashes with pro-Mugabe supporters occupying their properties. Farming authorities said the situation remained volatile in Chinhoyi after at least 40 white families fled their farms. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said the arrests are part of a deliberate government strategy to provoke a violent reaction from Zimbabwe's white population in order to justify a declaration of a state of emergency.

David Coltart, an MDC MP, said this week that the arrests were part of Mugabe's strategy to elicit a violent response particularly from white farmers in order to give himself the excuse to declare a state of emergency. Coltart said Mugabe's strategy was designed "to provoke a response from the white community which will gain him some sympathy from African leaders and create a smokescreen to crush the opposition". One of the "real dangers" was that the white farmers would be provoked to a point where they would "react violently" thus escalating the already high levels of violence in the country, Coltart said. His views were shared by one of the wives of a farmer, who did not want to be named, for fear of reprisals. Coltart said he knew of 11 separate and substantiated cases of physical attacks on white women in the Chinhoyi area during the past week. These arbitrary attacks on women were intended to "inflame the emotions of whites in an effort to get them to react".

One of the wives of the arrested men, who asked not to be named to protect her husband and family, described the events that precipitated the arrest on Monday afternoon. A distress call went out on radio at around 11am from Listonshields farm near Chinhoyi. A group of men, mostly but not exclusively farmers, reacted to the call. They arrived at the farm to find a group of militants and their supporters, some wielding sticks and stones, on the premises. The white men were deliberately unarmed "because they know it can be used against them", the woman said.

In an attempt to get the farmer, who was alone at the time, out of the house, two of the men were injured by the militants. After the men were able to free the farmer, the situation had already begun to be defused when a police unit arrived. The white men decided to drive to the Chinhoyi police station to make statements on the incident of their own accord. After the militants and their supporters gave their statements, they apparently left. The white men, much to their surprise, were arrested on a charge of incitement to public violence. The Magistrate denied the men bail on Friday afternoon. As this weekend is an extended public holiday in Zimbabwe, appeal against the denial of bail can only be heard by the high court on Tuesday.

"We are trying to be strong for each other," the woman said, "but we're starting to crack now. I don't think this will be resolved quickly. Some of the women are very upset, very shaky. It's just a horrible situation all around." She also believes that the ruling Zanu-PF is "hoping for as many confrontations as possible to push for a state of emergency". "About six months ago I felt the writing was on the wall for white people in Zimbabwe and that we should make contingency plans," the woman said, "but I didn't think it would get as bad as this."

The Financial Gazette newspaper reported on Thursday that Mugabe's government had told war veterans to target and harass individual commercial farmers into abandoning their land instead of waiting for the arduous legal process of land acquisition before they get settled on the properties. The war veterans and rural peasants constitute the core group of Mugabe's supporters ahead of elections next year. The newspaper quoted intelligence sources saying time was running out for the government to exhaust all relevant legal procedures required to seize the 4 700 farms listed for compulsory acquisition before the onset of the new rainy season in October. There was also the problem of capacity to make valuations for compensation on all these properties. At the same time the government wanted as many families as possible to be resettled so they could start ploughing their land before the rainy season.

"There is thus a shift in strategy. The government wants the war veterans to harass and scare farmers into abandoning their land and then they get it for ploughing before October. Issues of compensation and others become peripheral once a farmer is no longer on the land," one source told the Financial Gazette. The chair of the Commercial Farmers Union, Collin Cloete, concurred that the events in Chinhoyi exemplified a new government approach that hinged on intimidating white farmers into abandoning their land. Cloete said only about 25 farms had been legally and fully acquired by the Zimbabwean government in the past 18 months. The formal acquisition of the 4 700 listed farms would thus be a tall order.

Zimbabwe is dangerous for everyone, but particularly for anyone who dares to criticise Robert Mugabe's reign of terror. Like thousands of Zimbabweans, I know from personal experience what those dangers are. Just before the election here in June last year, I published an article which pointed out some of the horrific abuses of power committed by Mugabe's government. Within two weeks of the article being published, my polling agent Patrick Nabanyama was abducted. He has never been seen again. The men responsible are employed by Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF. Fourteen months later, they walk freely on the streets of Bulawayo. They continue to assist Mr Mugabe in his campaign of brutal violence and intimidation.

How is Mr Mugabe able to get away with it? His government survives not just because it flouts the rule of law and uses violence to intimidate or remove opposition, but also because it manages to maintain a facade of legitimacy. That facade appears to be enough to ensure that neither other African states nor the countries of the Western world are prepared to take the steps required to end Mr Mugabe's violent dictatorship. The necessary action is of course not criticism for human rights violations from the American government or European Union governments. Mr Mugabe not only cares nothing for such criticism: he actually believes it helps him. He is after the support of black Africans, not Western whites. The more he can portray his regime as the "victims" of white racism and colonialism, the more likely he believes he is to get that support.

That is why he was perfectly happy for coverage of Zimbabwe in Western newspapers to centre last week on the patently unjust detention of some 20 white farmers and the random beatings of white women in Chinhoyi. Those shocking events were deliberately designed by Mr Mugabe to capture headlines in the way that they have. It suits him to have the violence his thugs continuously commit against thousands of black Zimbabweans pass unnoticed. If all the world sees is his attacks on whites, that makes him look like a "liberator", the leader in a struggle against colonialism.

Presidential elections have to be held in just over six months and the Constitution does not permit any extension. Mr Mugabe knows that despite Zanu PF's by-election "victory" two weeks ago, he does not have sufficient support to win the Presidential election. He also knows he does not have the ability to manipulate the electoral process throughout the country in the way he can in by-elections. What Mr Mugabe needs is a pretext to impose a State of Emergency, which would enable him to crush the democratic opposition. That is why Gloria Olds, a grandmother, was gratuitously murdered earlier this year, and why her body had an entire AK47 magazine of bullets pumped into it as she lay dead. It is also why farmers have been under siege for days, have had their homes ransacked and the law applied selectively against them. That is why white women were assaulted last week. All those acts have been coldly and cynically calculated to provoke a violent white reaction.

Mr Mugabe desperately needs a few white farmers to lose their tempers and gun down several "war veterans". Miraculously, not a single "war veteran" has been intentionally killed by a white since those actions began 17 months ago. So Mr Mugabe has stepped up his campaign to provoke them. All his attempts to silence the opposition this year have failed - if anything the opposition is gathering momentum. Mr Mugabe and his cronies now recognise that without the imposition of a State of Emergency, they will not be able to stem this momentum. If whites can be provoked into fighting back and shedding blood in the process then Mr Mugabe believes he will have what he needs: the pretext to crush, not the whites, but the Movement for Democratic Change and its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.

What can outside politicians do to stop Mr Mugabe destroying his own country? Whilst the West has cut off aid to Zimbabwe, that has not hurt the super rich Zanu PF hierarchy. Mr Mugabe is quite prepared to sacrifice the Zimbabwean economy to stay in power. He takes great trouble, however, to ensure that his ruling clique does not suffer. His political allies earn rich dividends from the extortionately high-priced fuel and their access to foreign exchange. They have their hands on the Treasury, so a large portion of taxes end up in their private bank accounts. More than that, they have all been bribed with proceeds from the war in the Congo.

Without the support of the majority of his cabinet Mr Mugabe will not survive. What will make these people move against him? Not the imposition of blanket sanctions, and not the cancellation of cricket tours or sports links. The only thing which will hurt is sanctions targeted at the people who order its violence. The dictatorship will persist only so long as relative moderates - men such as Finance Minister Simba Makoni and Health Minister Timothy Stamps – believe that they can remain in a cabinet responsible for atrocities without risking any of the privileges Mr Mugabe hands them. If travel bans were imposed by Western countries on these ministers, and their children, many of whom study and work in Europe and America, then they would consider whether it is worth their while to buttress Mr Mugabe. If the foreign assets of the entire ruling corrupt elite were identified and threatened with seizure, then that would also give them some pause for thought. Finally, if Europe started investigations in terms of the International Convention against Torture against those responsible for torture, as defined in the Convention, those planning more of it might reconsider.

Politicians in the powerful countries of the world - George W Bush, Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroder, etc - do not face being beaten up or killed if they take the only action against Mr Mugabe that has a chance of dislodging him. They risk nothing by imposing sanctions specifically targeted against the cronies who are profiting from Mr Mugabe's rape of Zimbabwe. They might, however, save the country and the great mass of its people from utter destruction. I hope they can muster sufficient bravery to take the necessary steps - and before it is too late.

David Coltart is the Movement for Democratic Change's Shadow Minister of Justice.

Pretoria - Sanctions against Zimbabwe have had little or no effect and are not a viable way to effect change in that country, President Thabo Mbeki's spokesman said on Saturday. Bheki Khumalo said some countries had followed a policy of "loud diplomacy" - openly criticising the government of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe - and have had to retreat from that position. He did not name the countries. "The only way to go is through continued engagement with the Zimbabwean government," Khumalo was quoted by the South African news agency SAPA as saying. Khumalo was reacting to an appeal by Tony Leon, leader of the official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA), for strict sanctions to be imposed against Zimbabwe at the summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) which starts in Malawi on Sunday. In a statement issued Wednesday, Leon said violence in Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, had exposed the "hopeless inadequacy" of the government's "quiet diplomacy" policy towards Zimbabwe's government. "The confusion and obfuscation that still characterises President Mbeki's policy towards the Zimbabwe government is both dangerous and unacceptable," Leon said. Some 30 white farmers have fled their homes around Chinhoyi, in northern Zimbabwe, after talks with government Friday yielded no sign of an end to the wave of violence that has hit the region all week.

Shadreck Chipanga, the Zanu PF MP for Makoni East, said yesterday the government should impose a State of Emergency once the United States House of Representatives passes the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Bill. But an MDC MP from Matabeleland said the consequences of a State of Emergency would be as horrendous as they were in the 1983-87 period. Chipanga, a former Central Intelligence Organisation director-general, said a State of Emergency should be declared once the Bill passes through the US Congress and is eventually signed into law by President George W Bush.

Responding to the President’s speech at the opening of Parliament, Chipanga said: "If and when this Bill is passed into law, the government must make sure that a State of Emergency is invoked. That is the only weapon in our kit we can use to protect ourselves." The Bill, which seeks to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, was passed by the full US Senate last week. The government has blamed the MDC for assisting the US in drafting the legislation. It is aimed at punishing President Mugabe and close allies for failing to curb lawlessness related to the farm invasions.

Chipanga called on government to ensure ensure that "no by-election or no election of any sort is held in this country. "After declaring the State of Emergency, people, particularly those who are in the habit of globe-trotting, will not be allowed to leave the country and visit their "cousins". The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stan Mudenge, was the first to hint at the introduction of a State of Emergency if the Bill became law. He said last year: "The government would have to take emergency measures to survive. Doesn’t that normally lead to the suspension of certain democratic devices so that the country can survive?"

Chipanga was immediately challenged by Edward Moyo Mkhosi, the MDC MP for Bulilimamangwe South, who said a State of Emergency was not the best way to deal with such situations. He attacked the government for flouting its own laws and the Constitution, only to blame it on others when punitive action was imposed. "Since 1983 to about 1987, I’ve seen the effect of the State of Emergency, it was a horrendous period," said Mkhosi. "That is what caused all the anger in Matabeleland. Let us not introduce things that will devour us here. Nobody will ever be safe. In Matabeleland we lost 20 000 people because of the State of Emergency."