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Archived News
10th December 2002
MDC Weeky Briefing, Dec 2, 2002
Speech by Morgan Tsvangirai at Fund Raiser
Outcome of EU - ACP standoff over Zimbabwe
Tsvangirai supports call for mass action
Poor rains raise concerns over next harvest
Mayor slams food distribution
Queues remain in spite of fuel delivery assurances
The Zimbabwean model
MDC activists arrested at cricket match
Zimbabwe's missing millions
Zimbabwe in crisis as Aids kills 300 a day
Charges against Zim journos dropped
Government farm seizures continue
Forex black market continues to thrive
Mangwana threatens Tswanas
8 million Zimbabweans need food aid
Women protest against abuse in Zanu PF camps
Zimbabwe currency support drive 'fails'
Expectation low ahead of talk shop
DRC intervention costs $100b
Zanu PF card passport to maize-meal in Highfield
Zimbabweans whisper for their supper
Zim 'worst' in southern Africa
Netherlands turns anti-Mugabe
Stop beating our citizens, Mozambican mayor pleads
CIO officers livid over appointment
Mugabe land grab leader at UK university
Food centre for hungry village
Zimbabwe capital runs out of water
Clean water runs out
Fans scared off by unrest
Hearts, minds, and a dancing skeleton
War vets assault Zanu PF official
Fight for food leaves Zimbabwean lipless
Thirsty Xmas anticipated
Lock up your valuables
Santa’s fantasy economics
Muchinguri calls for banning of millers
Youth brigade confiscates forex at border post
Diamonds are a tyrant's best friend
Crisis averted, water supply to resume in Harare
Chombo lied, says mayor
Dear Sirs
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From The Daily News, 3 December
MDC activists arrested at cricket match
Staff Reporter
Eddison Mukwasi, the MDC youth chairman for Harare province, was on Saturday arrested by the police together with five other people while watching a cricket match on allegations of distributing offensive material to incite violence. Mukwasi, Fidelis Kanyemba of Warren Park D and five others, including a family that had travelled from Bindura for the fourth one day cricket international match between Zimbabwe and Pakistan, said they spent two nights at the police holding cells at the Harare Central Police Station. Mukwasi said: "The police accused us of possessing and distributing pamphlets which called for the stripping of Zimbabwe’s hosting of the Cricket World Cup next year, because of the political and economic meltdown in the country. They also queried our presence at a cricket match saying that it was suspicious for blacks to watch a "white man’s game" and accused us of being agents of neo-colonialists. Being an MDC activist, the police "advised" me to change alliance while it was still day." Some of the pamphlets reportedly read: We Are Victims Of Political Violence, Move The Cricket World Cup To South Africa and Mugabe Must Go.
Mukwasi said after they were arrested they were taken to the police station where they were tortured and interrogated. He said they were brutally assaulted by officers named only as Jena and Sergeant Chikande. "We were warned not to visit The Daily News offices or else we would be picked up again. The police alleged that we were accomplices of Tawanda Spicer who they suspected to have printed the messages on the pamphlets," Mukwasi said. "I was denied medication even though I showed them evidence that I was suffering from chest pains, instead they made me sleep in a room that was teeming with insects and lice." Kanyemba said the six had initially been brought under a charge of contravening section 15 of the repressive Public Order and Security Act. However, when they were released yesterday, the charge stated on their Admission of Guilt forms had changed to: "(committing) conduct likely to provoke breach of peace". The police refused to comment on the arrest.
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From IRIN (UN), 3 December
Poor rains raise concerns over next harvest
Johannesburg - Farmers and food security specialists in Southern Africa are increasingly concerned that the lack of rain during the current planting season could mean another bad harvest for the region next year. Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland already have more than 14 million people in need of food aid after poor harvests at the beginning of this year. Desperate farmers, many of whom will use donated seed and fertiliser, are pinning their hopes of recovery on next year's crops, but so far rainfall figures have been worryingly low. According to the latest Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) drought and flood hazards assessment, most of the region has only recorded between 1 and 10 mm of rain with "substantially inhibited" rainfall over portions of South Africa, Zimbabwe and central to southern Mozambique. This includes South Africa's maize triangle, which usually supplies surrounding countries and contributes to relief agencies' stocks. But so far there had not been enough rain to plant the important crops of maize, wheat, sunflower, sorghum and soya in South Africa.
"There has been no planting in the western Transvaal region and planting in the east was weakened by poor rains," Fanie Brink, deputy general manager of Grain SA told IRIN on Tuesday. "We are worried about the situation, although there is still time in December to plant," he said. While northern Mozambique had received rain and made preparations ahead of its flood season, rainfall in northern Sofala and southern Zambezia in central Mozambique had been low throughout November and agricultural concerns loomed, the report said. "It's not good for next year, it could be potentially very bad," said Owen Calvert, World Food Programme (WFP) vulnerability analysis and mapping consultant in Mozambique. "The areas hit are in the southern and central maize production areas. Farmers sometimes try to replant their crops if they fail, but then they have to hope that the season is long enough for the crops to reach full maturity," he said. "We've been monitoring the rains for the last two to three weeks and we're concerned that these areas are showing up on satellite images as areas which are not going to get much in the next 10 days."
In Malawi, where President Bakili Muluzi declared a disaster earlier this year, there were similar concerns, with farmers only receiving rain during the last week of November. "We still have the first half of December to plant and after that it will be too late," said WFP spokesman in Malawi, Abdelgadi Musallam. Predictions from the South African Weather Service were equally grim. "Rainfall is definitely going to be below normal so the prospects for this season are not good," Shaumani Mugeri, a meteorologist at the weather service, told IRIN. "What aggravates the matter is we do have an El Nino in the region, even though it is moderate, and it is going to have an impact on us." Mugeri said worried farmers were calling in daily hoping for better news, but predictions were that the poor conditions would last until March, right through the crucial growing period. Richard Lee, WFP regional spokesman said: "We are concerned about this rainy season and are hoping the rains will be good because we clearly need as good a harvest as possible to get Southern Africa through this crisis."
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From The Daily News, 4 December
Mayor slams food distribution
From Ntungamili Nkomo in Bulawayo
Bulawayo’s Executive Mayor, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, is headed for a showdown with the Matabeleland North Provincial Governor, Obert Mpofu, over the sidelining of the city council by the Food Task Force committee. In an interview yesterday, the mayor said the council wanted to ensure transparency in the distribution of maize which he alleged had been politicised. Mpofu leads the task force, which controls the allocation of maize at the Grain Marketing Board (GMB). Ncube said the distribution of maize at the GMB was riddled with corruption and rampant profiteering by black marketers. He said there was, thus, need for the council to intervene and halt the rot. "We, therefore, as the council have sought to be included in the Food Task Force committee to ensure that no one is denied food, but the governor’s position on our request is disappointing," said Ncube. He said his office had been inundated with reports of maize being bought from unauthorised sites such as open grounds where Zanu PF reportedly sold it only to their supporters. Ncube said last week the council met delegates from the task force and unanimously resolved that there was a food distribution crisis, and that the council should get involved. "We agreed that to ensure fair distribution, the mayor and the town clerk or council representatives should be members of the task force, and that councillors be advised or consulted on the distribution of maize in their respective areas," he said. Ncube sent a letter to the governor after the meeting, and Mpofu’s reply was evasive. In his letter, made available to The Daily News, Mpofu said his office was determined to fight corrupt forces that held the people to ransom, but did not say whether the council would be included in the task force. Ncube has written another letter to Mpofu, pointing out his request had not been answered. At the time of writing, the mayor was still waiting for a reply. Mpofu said the council was already represented in the task force through the Local Government Ministry, and he did not understand Ncube’s request. "The council is represented by the provincial administrator, Livingstone Mashengele, who leads local government in the area," said Mpofu. He said the task force was there to ensure fair maize distribution. He dismissed reports that Zanu PF was denying MDC supporters maize.
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From The Daily News, 4 December
Queues remain in spite of fuel delivery assurances
Staff Reporter
Most service stations in Harare had no fuel for most of yesterday, contrary to government claims that the situation was improving following the delivery of thousands of litres of fuel to several service stations between Friday and Sunday. Service stations visited during yesterday’s snap survey revealed that most had run out of fuel on Monday morning. Tsitsi Madari, the manager at Engen Service Station in the city, said they received 15 000 litres of petrol on Sunday and another 15 000 litres of diesel on Monday evening. But by 11 am, they had run out of diesel and were left with very little petrol. A queue was beginning to emerge. Madari said they usually witnessed long queues around 4pm when most people broke for the next day. "They usually refuel in the evening because they fear the next day would be dry," she said. The situation was more severe at Exxor Service Station where there was a long queue. There was no diesel for most part of the day. But at Country Petroleum in Msasa, there was diesel but petrol was only being delivered then. Nearby at Total, there was neither diesel nor petrol. Fuel attendants there said petrol ran out on Saturday afternoon and diesel on Monday morning. "There is nothing and we are not sure when we will get our next deliveries," one worker said. "The situation might be getting worse, we are afraid. Some private suppliers are better positioned to buy their own supplies."
It was established that most service stations that received their fuel supplies from multinationals Mobil, BP and Shell were without fuel. The government has called on them to import their own supplies. The Herald yesterday quoted Reuben Marumahoko, the Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development as saying the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, the State-run main importer, had delivered 647 000 litres of petrol on Friday, 457 000 litres on Saturday and 300 000 litres on Sunday in Harare. "The average petrol distribution for Harare is 500 000 litres a day, so we were expecting that the distribution we made over the weekend would improve things somewhat," Marumahoko said. But the situation appeared to be getting worse. Some motorists in a queue at Exor said they were travelling to Bulawayo and Beitbridge to witness today’s solar eclipse and needed to have enough fuel for the return journey. James Makani, 30, of Harare, a commuter omnibus driver, said yesterday as had been hired by people who wanted to witness the solar eclipse he wanted the fuel to make the trip. "There is no fuel around town. We have been going from one service station to another, but with no luck," Makani said.
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From The Economist (UK), 28 November
The Zimbabwean model
The pros and cons of opting out of the global economy
Orthodox economists sometimes get it wrong. For example, when a government fixes the prices of various goods below what they cost to produce, and fails to provide the necessary subsidy to fill the gap, orthodox theory predicts that there will be empty shelves in the shops. But in Zimbabwe, this is not how things have turned out. Retailers there have indeed run out of all manner of price-controlled goods. But for some reason they can still get hold of toilet paper. So, instead of empty shelves, Zimbabwean shoppers encounter aisle upon aisle of roll upon roll, where the bread, sugar and oil used to be. Ignore, for a moment, the headlines about murder, torture and election-rigging. For an interesting economic experiment is being conducted in Zimbabwe. To the foes of globalisation, President Robert Mugabe's views are unexceptional. He argues that "runaway market forces" are leading a "vicious, all-out assault on the poor". He decries the modern trend of "banishing the state from the public sphere for the benefit of big business." What sets him apart from other anti-globalisers, however, is that he has been able to put his ideas into practice. In countries where the IMF calls the shots, governments have to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor. Having told the IMF to get stuffed, Mr Mugabe is free not to do this. The official estimate is that Zimbabwe's budget deficit will be about 14% of GDP this year; the government is frantically borrowing and printing money to cover the shortfall. Inflation is now 144%, and it is predicted to top 500% next year.
Mr Mugabe argues that price rises are caused by greedy businessmen. His solution is price controls. For the past year or so, these applied only to everyday essentials, such as bread and maize meal. Shops were ordered to sell such goods at fixed, low prices. Unfortunately, Mr Mugabe was right about those greedy businessmen. Rather than lose money, they stocked their shelves with toilet paper, or tried to dodge price controls by modifying their products. For example, since bread was price-controlled, bakers added raisins to their dough and called it "raisin bread", which was not on the list. Not to be outsmarted, on November 16th the government extended price controls to practically everything, from typewriters to babies' nappies. Some things have to be imported, however, and it is hard to prevent foreigners from profiteering. Mr Mugabe is anxious that petrol, for example, should be affordable; otherwise, people will not be able to get to work. A strong currency should help, so he has frozen the exchange rate for the past two years, and denounced as a "saboteur" anybody who suggests devaluation. Since Zimbabwe's inflation is a tad higher than America's, nobody wishes to surrender hard currency at the official rate of 55 Zimbabwe dollars to one American dollar. The black market rate is several hundreds to one; the government blames speculators. To lay hands on foreign currency, Mr Mugabe has no choice but to rob exporters. Those whose products are bulky and hard to smuggle (tobacco farmers, for instance) must surrender half of their hard-currency proceeds to the government, which repays them in crisp new Zimbabwe dollars, at the official rate.
This is not nearly enough, however, to keep Zimbabwe supplied with petrol (the distribution of which is a state monopoly). So, this month, the finance minister announced a clampdown on the black market: all bureaux de change are to be shut. He also asked expatriate Zimbabweans to remit money home via the central bank, which will confiscate almost all of it. For some reason, they prefer informal channels, such as Internet-based firms that accept cash offshore and issue friends and relatives back in Zimbabwe with local currency or vouchers for supermarkets. For most problems, a coercive solution can be found. The government's debt-servicing costs are too high? Force financial institutions to buy treasury bills that yield far less than the rate of inflation. People are running out of food? Confiscate grain from those who have it ("hoarders") and distribute it at an artificially low price through a state monopoly grain distributor. Ordinarily, this would somewhat dampen commercial farmers' incentive to grow food. But since most of them have been driven off their land, what does it matter?
It would be nice to think that the rest of the world has nothing to learn from Zimbabwe. But Mr Mugabe has many admirers. His fellow Africans cheer his defiance of the old colonial powers. Namibia's government has promised a similar land-grab. South Africa, showing comparable paranoia about currency speculators, recently conducted a pointless investigation into whether banks had conspired to undervalue the rand. Globally, few policymakers favour going the full Mugabe, but many believe that a little bit of price-fixing won't hurt. Price supports for EU farmers, for example, persist because their governments are rich enough to keep subsidising them, and because the costs are spread across the entire population, who are often unaware that they are being fleeced. Influential charities argue that poor countries should also be paid a "fair" price for their products. Oxfam, for example, contends that the price of coffee is "too low" because multinationals manipulate it. The charity is campaigning for it somehow to be raised. It may seem harsh, when faced with the misery of an Ethiopian coffee farmer, to argue that it would be more efficient to let the price mechanism deliver its message ("Grow something else") unmuffled. But greater efficiency leads to greater wealth, and vice versa, as Zimbabwe so harrowingly shows. Nowhere has withdrawn so swiftly from the global economy, nor seen such a thorough reversal of neo-liberal policies. The results - an economy that has contracted by 35% in five years, and half the population in need of food aid - are hard to paper over.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 4 December
Zimbabwe's missing millions
Angus Shaw, Harare
An official population census counted 11,6-million people in Zimbabwe and estimated nearly 3-million Zimbabweans are living outside the troubled southern African nation, state radio reported on Wednesday. Announcing what it called preliminary results of the August 17-27 census, the radio said the population in the last census 10 years ago was 10,4-million people, when the population growth rate was 3,1% a year. It quoted the state Central Statistical Office saying the new figure only included people in the country during the 10-day count. "Taking into consideration the number of people living outside the country, the total population is estimated at about 14,5-million," the CSO said. Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. At least 6,7-million Zimbabweans face hunger in coming weeks because of a sharp drop in farming production blamed on a drought and the government's chaotic seizures of thousand of white-owned commercial farms for handing over to black settlers. Economic hardships, acute food and gasoline shortages and spiralling unemployment and inflation, political violence and the farm seizures have forced an exodus of Zimbabweans in the past 30 months. At least 1-million are estimated to be living in neighbouring South Africa, about 600 000 in Britain and many more are working or studying in Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States. About half the nation's 60 000 whites in 2000 are estimated to have emigrated. State radio said of the total population recorded in August, about 6-million were female. Of all eight districts, the capital of Harare had the largest population of 1,8-million. About 676 000 people live in the second city of Bulawayo.
Food and gas shortages have left long lines outside shops and gas stations. At one suburban shopping centre on Tuesday women protesters beat cooking pots with spoons and corn meal porridge stirring sticks and yelled slogans demanding the government improve food supplies for their hungry families. Last week, the World Food Program said Zimbabwe needed to sharply increase food imports and warned the country's humanitarian crisis was deteriorating at "a dangerously rapid pace." It said it failed to raise enough donor funds for food and faced a shortfall of about 200 000 tons of cereals needed between now and March. Government imports were also inadequate, it said. A shortage of hard currency has crippled the government's ability to import food and buy the fuel needed to distribute it. With inflation expected to reach 200% by the end of the year and stores depleted of corn, bread, milk and sugar, even Zimbabwean wage earners were struggling to feed their families. Wage earners do not qualify for food aid. Unemployment has reached 60%. Tens of thousands of black farm workers and their family members have lost their livelihood in farm seizures. In its latest food security bulletin, the 14 nation Southern African Development Community said Zimbabwe was among nations in the region facing shortages of seeds, fertilisers and tractors and other drought power for ploughing. It said Zimbabwe, once a regional bread basket, produced 500 000 tons of corn this year, down from 1,8-million tons that more than met average consumption in previous seasons. The government so far imported 452 000 tons of grain this year and the WFP had received about half the donor funds it appealed for. For immediate needs, "an uncovered gap of 330 000 tons of maize remains to be addressed," the bulletin said.
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From The Times (UK), 5 December
Zimbabwe in crisis as Aids kills 300 a day
From Michael Hartnack in Harare
The population of Zimbabwe has gone into sharp decline as a result of Aids-related deaths and the mass migration of people fleeing the country’s economic devastation and acute shortage of food. Preliminary returns from a census conducted in August suggest that 11.6 million people live in the country, compared with previous government estimates of 14.5 million. The findings have raised fears that an acute shortage of labour will severely constrain the country’s ability to revive the agricultural sector, which collapsed after the seizure of most white commercial farms by the Government of President Mugabe. The devastation in farming has been made worse by a severe drought. Less than half of the 20 million acres of agricultural land commandeered from whites since February 2000 is being tilled by black settlers, despite government pledges of subsidies. Dr John Makumbe, of the department of public administration at the University of Zimbabwe, said that the census returns were frightful, and added: "It essentially means the economy cannot support the 1.6 million people who are still in the country, especially after the devastation of the agricultural sector."
South Africa says that two million Zimbabweans have migrated illegally south of the Limpopo River border. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) estimates that 600,000 Zimbabweans have fled to Britain, which imposed strict visa requirements last month to check the influx of refugees. John Robertson, an economist, said that emigration and deaths from Aids-related diseases were destroying the most economically valuable section of the population. United Nations health experts said the famine that threatens 6.7 million Zimbabweans will accelerate the number of Aids-related deaths. In a speech to mark World Aids Day on Saturday, Mr Mugabe said that 2.2 million Zimbabweans were living with the disease and there were 700,000 Aids orphans. Cemeteries are running out of space to bury an estimated 300 victims each day. Mr Robertson said that the census called into question the official results of presidential elections held in March, in which Mr Mugabe claimed victory. He said that the census figures constituted "irrefutable proof of fraud". He said that to achieve a turnout of 5.2 million voters, as claimed by the ruling Zanu PF party, the country would need a population of 17 million. Postal ballots were banned and strict proof of residence was required. More than half Zimbabwe’s population is under 18, the minimum voting age. Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC’s presidential candidate, remains barred from inspecting constituency rolls.
The country experienced significant population growth, from seven million at the time of independence in 1980 to 10.4 million at the 1992 census. Had the same rate been maintained, the population would have risen above 15 million. The economy has collapsed and there is no prospect of recovery. The International Monetary Fund predicts inflation at 522 per cent next year. Surveys show that family sizes are shrinking, with greater use of contraception and resistance by women to polygamous relationships because of the Aids risk. On Tuesday, urban housewives protested outside shops to show their anger at the lack of bread, maize meal, cooking oil, salt and other staples. "They cannot feed their families," Trudy Stevenson, an MDC MP, said.
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From News24 (SA), 4 December
Charges against Zim journos dropped
Harare - A Zimbabwe magistrate's court on Wednesday dropped charges against three journalists accused of publishing falsehoods under the country's tough media law, according to their paper, The Standard. Editor Bornwell Chakaodza, reporter Farai Mutsaka and entertainment editor Fungayi Kanyuchi were arrested in May and have since been repeatedly remanded out of custody, the independent paper said in a statement. The trio had sought to have the charges dropped if the state failed to fix a trial date for them. But because the charges have been dropped on a technicality, the state can summon them back to court if the need arises, magistrate Garikayi Churu said. Chakaodza and Mutsaka were facing charges of publishing falsehoods and abusing journalistic privileges over a story alleging that President Robert Mugabe's government had bought state-of-the-art anti-riot and military gear from an Israeli arms firm, Beit Alfa Trailer. With Kanyuchi, Chakaodza faced charges of publishing revealing pictures of prostitutes to illustrate a story alleging that police officers were having sex with prostitutes instead of arresting them. "There was never any case at all. It was just sheer political harassment," Chakaodza said. Journalists found guilty under the new media law face up to two years in prison or a Z$100 000 fine. Since the law took effect on March 15, 12 journalists have been arrested - some more than once.
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From The Daily News, 4 December
Government farm seizures continue
Chris Mhike
Although the government claims it has stopped acquiring farms, the listing and gazetting of commercial farms continues, a state of affairs interpreted by critics to mean continued confusion in the farming sector. Only last week on Friday, 36 farms were listed in an Extraordinary Government Gazette under General Notices 610 A of 2002 and 610 B of 2002. Circle Cement's farm in the Mazowe area was one of the targeted 36 real estate properties. Friday's listing followed a series of two other notices released earlier in November for the acquisition of a total of 75 farms dotted around the country. 55 farms were listed on 8 November under General Notices 574 of 2002 and 575 of 2002 while another 20 farms were, under General Notice 583 A of 2002, listed on 15 November 2002. At the end of May this year, Joseph Made, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement said the government was winding up the land reform programme. He used the phrase, "polishing up the land reforms".
At that time, government officials reported they had availed 10 million hectares of land to "new farmers" under the Model A1 and Model A2 schemes. Numerous applicants, some of whose names had appeared in the State-controlled Press as successful beneficiaries, however complained that the promises made to them had not materialised. Government went on to make an undertaking that all successful applicants under the model A2 scheme would receive their letters of offer before 31 August this year. After August, the official message relayed to the world by President Mugabe and other members of his government was that the land reform programme was complete and all that was left was for the newly settled black farmers to produce bumper harvests and prove they could outclass the displaced white farmers. "The land programme was the platform we operated from towards the presidential elections, and we can never let the people down. That platform was very clear. Also clear were the food security, employment-creation and economic growth objectives," said Made on 31 May this year. The three sub-themes of the Zanu PF campaign message were presented as by-products of the highly publicised Third Chimurenga.
The completion of the farm seizures and subsequent redistribution process did not, however, end in August as claimed by the government. The government's principal economic recovery plan through the land reform programme has often been blasted by farmers, economists, politicians and land planners, for its chaotic nature. A disappointed "successful applicant" who declined to be named yesterday accused government of misleading the nation and the world that the agrarian programme was proceeding well when the exercise was in fact all about the further enrichment of senior Zanu PF officials, at the expense of the farming industry and food security for the nation. He said: "The continued listing long after the deadlines set by the government itself only goes to show that this Chimurenga series is a scam executed haphazardly. They may list farms for the next 20 years, if they are still in power then, but we all now know that the Third Chimurenga is a self-enrichment project."
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From The Financial Gazette, 5 December
Forex black market continues to thrive
From Njabulo Ncube, Bulawayo Bureau Chief
Bulawayo - Her attire might have changed but it is business as usual for Loveness Machirori, a member of the Vapostori religious sect, a major player in Bulawayo’s foreign currency black market. The 35-year-old Machirori has abandoned the all-white garb associated with her church for trendy clothes that allow her to blend in with the crowd in downtown Bulawayo. Clad in imported, tight-fitting black jeans, designer tackies, a baseball cap and clutching an expensive black leather bag, she confides that she has been forced to swap her religious clothes in an attempt to elude plainclothes policemen. The cops are on the lookout for illegal foreign currency traders who operate in Fort Street, known as Bulawayo’s World Bank because of the millions of dollars worth of hard cash transactions that take place here. "This is a survival tactic," says a jittery Machirori, referring to her new look. Keeping an eagle eye on a police vehicle cruising up the street, she told the Financial Gazette: "We need to put food on the table, hence the risks we are taking. If they (government) think this trade will end overnight with the closure of bureaux de change, they have another thing coming."
She waves down a red Madza 323 hatchback with South African registration plates, which is indicating its intention to stop in front of the Financial Gazette offices, located along Fort Street. The street is swarming with plainclothes policemen and ruling Zanu PF militia, but the South African and Botswana cars circling the area are bait enough for Machirori and her colleagues who brave the hot sun and ply their trade before the very gaze of the law. Always a risky business, the illegal trade in foreign currency has become especially dicey since Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa announced tough new measures last month to curb Zimbabwe’s forex black market. During his presentation of the 2003 national budget on November 14, Murerwa told Parliament that the country’s foreign exchange bureaux would be shut down at the end of November to stem hard cash leakages. Most bureaux de change closed their doors last Friday, while the police have kept a watchful eye on black market traders who operate from Bulawayo’s streets, many of who are said to work for the owners of foreign exchange bureaux. Several of the dealers were attacked last Saturday by youths trained under Zimbabwe’s national service programme, who allegedly seized about $1 million dollars worth of foreign currency.
Although not well-versed in economics, Bulawayo’s black market forex traders, many of who only have primary education, this week predicted that their illegal business would continue to flourish despite the government crackdown. They said individuals and companies continued to seek South African rand, Botswana pula, British pounds and United States dollars from the streets of Bulawayo to buy spare parts and for travel allowances. "This is the busiest month in the trade. Injiva are in town," said Machirori, referring to Zimbabweans working in South Africa who have returned home for the Christmas holidays. "We are still buying and selling foreign currency. We will keep it at home. We can’t trade at the official rate when there is such a high demand for foreign currency. The banks are dry so we are a reliable supplier of the scarce commodity." She says deals are still being transacted inside vehicles but with more caution to avoid the police. "It’s safer if the vehicle’s windows are tinted, making it difficult for the police," she said. "But there have been incidents of people being arrested doing business in the safety of cars."
Black market traders said despite the ban on bureaux de change, foreign currency was still being moved into Zimbabwe from overseas via Botswana and South Africa and being sold on the street. "We have accounts in Francistown for instance," Sithabile Nkomo, a black market forex dealer, told the Financial Gazette. "People in the UK (United Kingdom) use them to send the foreign currency and we drive there and bring the money back and then sell it on the streets. It’s business as usual." Chipo Chuma, another dealer operating on Fort Street who said she had links in South Africa and Botswana, added: "If it gets very hot, I will move the foreign currency that I have to Botswana. But I don’t think it’s necessary yet because there is still demand locally." Chuma admitted that most forex traders on the streets had links to Asian businessmen in the city although she declined to name them. The businessmen are alleged to have connections to ruling party politicians with access to foreign currency. She said: "Although the ban and presence of police have cleared the streets, we are still there in the background. Clients, especially business executives, phone us for business. We deliver (the forex) to their offices. So you see, the trade is still there".
Bulawayo-based analyst Eric Bloch echoed the black market traders’ sentiments, saying the government’s new measures would not encourage foreign currency inflows or stave off the collapse of the economy. He pointed out that the closure of bureaux de change would merely force the illegal trade in forex underground, making it impossible to control. Bloch said: "The closure means more activity on the black market, although the players won’t be easily visible as was the case in the past weeks. "It is clear that this latest measure to close bureaux de change is a shift from an organised black market to a disorganised one." He forecast that at least half of Zimbabwe’s companies could collapse next year if the government continued to deal with the symptoms and not the real causes of the country’s economic crisis. "There is no other way to kill an economy than the present policies being implemented by the government," Bloch said. "Those women on the streets will remain a permanent feature for sometime because the only reliable source of forex is the streets, not the banks." Analysts said another consequence of the closure of the bureaux de change was the loss of an estimated 2 500 jobs. Officials at bureaux de change in Bulawayo said they were preparing retrenchment packages for their staff. "There is nothing we can do," an official who declined to be named told the Financial Gazette. "We are preparing to go, but this ill-advised closure has deprived people of employment."
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 6 December
Mangwana threatens Tswanas
Mthulisi Mathuthu
In a move that could further strain already frayed relations between Harare and Gaborone, it has emerged that the Minister of State for State Enterprises and Parastatals in the President's office, Paul Mangwana, threatened to flush out all Tswanas from Zimbabwe during an angry exchange with Botswana MP and head Of delegation, Shirley Sekgogo, in Brussels recently. He is understood to have said this while menacingly wagging a finger at the MP ahead of last week's aborted EU/ACP joint parliamentary assembly. Mangwana, who led the Zimbabwean delegation, is said to have confronted Sekgogo during a lunch-break on Monday last week following her forthright speech in which she blamed Zimbabwe for scuttling regional investment opportunities and for lawlessness. Sekgogo, MP for Selebiphikwe which borders Zimbabwe, also blamed Mugabe's government for triggering the exodus of Zimbabweans to Botswana due to its political repression and economic mismanagement.
An irate Mangwana who together with his counterpart Chris Kuruneri and other Zimbabweans working at the Brussels embassy had earlier tried to shout Sekgogo down, is said to have taken issue with the speech and confronted Sekgogo in full view of other delegates shouting at the top of his voice. "You Batswana people are always harassing us. We will drive you all out of Zimbabwe," he is alleged to have said while scowling and wagging a finger at a stunned Sekgogo. "You have been ill-treating our people for too long and now you say all this rubbish about us." MDC foreign affairs spokesman Moses Mzila Ndlovu, who was attending the meeting, intervened to console Sekgogo. Mzila confirmed the incident in a telephone interview from Bulawayo on Wednesday. "I was right there and was just telling Mangwana to stop it but he told me off," said Mzila who is MP for Bulilimamangwe North. "All Sekgogo had said was the truth but Mangwana didn't want to hear the truth."
Mzila said Mangwana looked as if he was about to manhandle her had it not been for other Botswana male delegates who pulled Sekgogo aside and shouted at Mangwana in Setswana to leave her alone. Sekgogo's office this week would neither confirm nor deny the incident. Diplomats in Harare told the Zimbabwe Independent this week that the Botswana government will formally complain to Harare over Mangwana's remarks. Botswana's ambassador to Brussels, George Sesinyi, has already complained to the EU and the ACP, sources say.
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From AFP, 6 December
8 million Zimbabweans need food aid
Harare - Close to eight million people in Zimbabwe now need food aid, a government minister said on Thursday, quoted by the state news agency. Deputy Finance Minister Chris Kuruneri was reported by ZIANA to have told a visiting UN envoy that nearly eight million people - more than two-thirds of the population - need food aid following widespread crop failures here. The figure is up from previous estimates of 6.7 million out of the country's total population of 11.6 million. Zimbabwe is the worst-affected among six southern African countries facing famine this year, according to the United Nations.
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From The Daily News, 5 December
Women protest against abuse in Zanu PF camps
From Ntungamili Nkomo and Nomvula Matatu in Bulawayo
Hundreds of disgruntled women rights activists yesterday took to the streets of Bulawayo to protest against violations of children’s and women’s rights. Nomusa Ncube, the chairperson of a Bulawayo-based women’s umbrella organisation called the Bulawayo Women’s Groups, said the women were fed up with reports of women being raped with impunity. She said they were extremely concerned about the immoral activities in Zanu PF camps and about domestic violence. The protest, which featured about 200 placard-waving women chanting anti-women abuse slogans, started at the High Court at noon. Some of the placards read "Sex for food: We say no." The women carried pots and wore black clothes. They marched to the Mhlahlandhlela government complex, where they tried to voice their grievances to the Matabeleland North Governor, Obert Mpofu, but were denied entry by security personnel manning the gate. Asked for his comment on the demonstration, Mpofu said he was in Parliament and could not say anything. Ncube said the women were concerned with reports of rape cases which she said were rampant in the Zanu PF youth brigade camps. She said many girls recruited for the so-called national service had reported cases of rape to a number of women’s groups. "What I can safely say is that women are very angry and frustrated with what is going on. Many girls from the Zanu PF camps have come to us complaining that they were raped, but that the perpetrators got away with it," Ncube said. She urged the government to stop what she called the "madness" going on in the camps if they had any conscience at all and compassion for the nation. She cited the HIV/Aids pandemic as a serious threat to the youths exploited by the government in the name of patriotism. Ncube said her office had received reports of women being forced to have sex with men who took advantage of the shortage of basic commodities and gave their victims maize-meal as payment for sex.
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From BBC News, 6 December
Zimbabwe currency support drive 'fails'
A Zimbabwean drive to support its currency by cracking down on black market trade is failing, a report has said. The administration of President Robert Mugabe has closed down bureaux de change, and ordered exporters to exchange half of their foreign cash reserves into Zimbabwe dollars, in an effort to boost the ailing currency. But while the Zimbabwe dollar rallied last week to an informal rate of 700 to US$1, from as low as Zim$1,600 to US$1, most of the gains have since been lost, Reuters news agency said. One US dollar currently buys about Z$1,200, Reuters said. "What we saw last week was that momentary panic, but there is now another resurgence of the US dollar," a trader told the agency. Zimbabwe has for three years suffered a shortage of foreign currency, hindering efforts to import food and fuel in the face of a worsening economic crisis. According to the Financial Gazette newspaper, economic conditions have worsened such that half of Zimbabwe's industry could shut down for the first three months of next year to mull over survival strategies. The government has set an official exchange rate of Zim$55 to US$1. But with unofficial traders buying US dollars for 20 times the official rate, foreign currency has flowed onto the black market. The government's latest curbs were introduced in an effort to seize control of foreign currency trading. But economist Witness Chinyama told Reuters: "The problem is that the current government policies are not geared to improve the flow of foreign currency into the country. The parallel market will continue to thrive because that is where manufacturers are forced to source money for key imports."
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From Business Day, 6 December
Expectation low ahead of talk shop
Harare Correspondent
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party is expected to confront a pile of problems besetting the country during its annual conference in Chinhoyi next week. Zanu PF secretary for administration Emmerson Mnangagwa said the agenda of the meeting, which would be held from December 11 to 15, included the controversial land reform programme, the state of the economy, and the country's international relations. Other major issues that would be discussed were the food and fuel shortage crises, shortages of various commodities, elections, party restructuring, and the 2003 national budget. Mnangagwa, widely regarded as Mugabe's likely successor, said Agriculture Minister Joseph Made and his land reform counterpart, Flora Bhuka, would present audit reports on the land redistribution exercise detailing how much land had been acquired and the progress on farming activities by the resettled farmers. But the major debate who will succeed Mugabe has already been suppressed. Party spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira said at the weekend that the issue would not be discussed , but would be considered at Zanu PF's next congress in 2006.
This has dampened the spirit of the party's Young Turks, who were anxious to raise the matter during the Chinhoyi meeting. Party chairman John Nkomo is expected to present a report on the state of the party and its performance in the recent elections. However, Mugabe is unlikely to make major changes to party structures. The last changes in Communist-structured Zanu PF were during the 1999 congress in Harare. Those changes, which saw dissenting heavyweights like former ministers Eddison Zvobgo and Dumiso Dabengwa being flushed out, were confirmed only during the party's extraordinary congress in Victoria Falls last year. Zanu PF's annual conferences, which differ slightly from the congresses held every five years, are meant to offer party members an opportunity to discuss freely policy issues and matters affecting the party at large. This year's conference comes at a time of great economic and political instability. Zimbabwe is reeling from an economic meltdown with inflation at 144%, a chronic food shortage that will affect more than 6 million rural Zimbabweans, and shortages of other basic commodities, particularly fuel. Past conferences of Zanu (PF), which often postures as the sole embodiment and articulation of national interests and patriotism, have not been particularly decisive in resolving economic and political problems. This year Mugabe is likely to use the platform to attack his detractors at home and abroad for isolating his regime over his political repression and violent land reforms.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 6 December
DRC intervention costs $100b
Dumisani Muleya
Zimbabwe’s four-year military expedition in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) cost the country over $100 billion and at least 150 lives, it emerged yesterday. Sources said the cost of the war - which at its height sucked in nine African armies and displaced more than 3,2 million people - included expenses incurred in arms and spare parts purchases, transport, equipment, fuel, salaries, food, medication and administration. The withdrawal of the army added to the cost in a big way. Government recently gave the military $480 million for the exercise when at least $700 million was needed. Insiders said the exercise in the end cost up to $1 billion. Sources said the 150-person casualty list included those killed in combat, those who went missing in action and those who died out of action. In 1999, the Independent obtained information on 92 casualties, including names, times and places of fatalities in some cases. But the total number of casualties has never been disclosed. Although government has promised to release the information, it is yet to do so. The financial cost of the war, which drained scarce national resources, was heavy. Government sources this week put the figure at $100 billion. In 2000, former Finance minister Simba Makoni told parliament that the country had sunk $10 billion into the costly adventure, but evidence showed the figure was much higher. Official information obtained by the British government from Treasury indicated at the time Zimbabwe was spending US$3 million a month in the Congo.
After plunging into the DRC conflict in August 1998, Zimbabwe ordered two large consignments of military hardware, including bombs, guns and fighter planes from Aerotech of Switzerland for $3,7 billion and other weaponry from China for $3,2 billion. The country made several other large purchases. But sources said Zimbabwe lost a lot of equipment during pitched battles and bungled missions despite President Robert Mugabe's denials over the weekend. There were persistent reports during the war that the army had abandoned tanks, personnel carriers, recovery vehicles, anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers in the field. In 1999, a Zimbabwean Allouette 3 helicopter gunship was shot down behind rebel lines. The bodies of Colonel Alfonso Kufa and Squadron Leader Herbert Vundla and the wreckage were not recovered. Sources said the cost of the war escalated when Zimbabwe decided in late 1998 to take the war to the Rwanda and Ugandan-backed rebel groups in the eastern part of the country where it had to build costly air bridges and establish communications across thick jungle terrain. Battles such as those at Kabalo and Kamina, which Zimbabwe won, also consumed considerable resources. The army also used massive resources at the battles at Bandaka and Pweto where soldiers ended up fleeing into Zambia after being routed.
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From The Daily News, 6 December
Zanu PF card passport to maize-meal in Highfield
Staff Reporter
There was chaos at the Zanu PF district offices at Machipisa shopping centre in Highfield, Harare, yesterday as thousands of people, mostly women, battled to buy maize-meal by proving they were card-carrying Zanu PF members. A by-election for the Highfield parliamentary seat is due soon as the Speaker of Parliament, Emmerson Mnangagwa, this week declared it vacant after the expulsion from the party of the MDC MP, Munyaradzi Gwisai. Under the Constitution, an MP who resigns or is expelled from the party on whose ticket he was elected to Parliament, loses his seat. But most of those seeking the precious commodity went away empty-handed because, in the predominantly MDC constituency, few could produce the passport to maize meal - a Zanu PF membership card. This latest campaign to offer food in exchange for Zanu PF cards was staged in Highfield despite repeated government denials that it has politicised the distribution of food in the face of severe shortages. Nathan Shamuyarira, the Zanu PF secretary for information and publicity, denied any knowledge of the maize-meal sales by the party at Machipisa and elsewhere. He said: "I don’t know anything about that. That is the job of the government and the private sector. If you know who is selling the mealie-meal at the party offices, please tell me. I need it and I would like to buy some."
The 10 and 20kg bags, which were selling for $300 and $600, respectively, at the Zanu PF offices, were delivered on Wednesday. The news spread quickly in the suburb, resulting in people descending on the offices from very early yesterday morning. The police, members of the youth brigade and Zanu PF youths and officials had a hard time controlling the huge crowd. Tempers occasionally flared, graphically illustrating the seriousness of the food shortages. The youths ordered the people to queue according to their Zanu PF branches, while party officials clutching lists with the names of their members collected money to pay for the maize-meal. Those who were not on the lists ignored the orders, adding to the confusion. One said: "Do they think all the people on their lists are their members? If they want to gain support for their party in the coming by-election they should just make the maize-meal available to everyone."
Another by-election is due in Kuwadzana constituency in Harare, following the death of the MDC MP, Learnmore Jongwe, in remand prison in October. Zanu PF has reportedly sold maize-meal in that constituency as well - but only to those with Zanu PF membership cards. Paul Themba Nyathi, the MDC spokesman, said: "The MDC condemns in the strongest terms the use of food as a vote-buying weapon and invites the United Nations and humanitarian organisations to closely monitor developments in Kuwadzana and Highfield." An estimated 6,7 million people, about half the population of the country, are at risk of starvation, according to the World Food Programme, an agency of the United Nations.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 7 December
Zimbabweans whisper for their supper
Harare - 'Psst," the young man hissed, as I drank a cup of coffee on the veranda of a roadside cafe. The hisser was furtive, but it was not diamonds or cocaine that he was trying to sell me - it was food. He was offering 20lb of maize meal for Z$2,500, which is equal to anything from two to 50 pence depending on which exchange rate you use. The minimum wage for a labourer is about Z$7,000 a month, the same price as 2lb of imported margarine in the nearby supermarket. Local margarine is no longer available. We whisper arrangements. I will meet him behind the garage across the road in 45 minutes. At the appointed time, I drive along a sanitary lane at the back of the garage, and wait. These deals take time. Two youths emerge from under a tarpaulin covering the back of a derelict pick-up and hiss at me. I hiss back. They drag four 20lb sacks of maize meal into the back of my car. The packs are wrapped in loose plastic sacks to disguise the tell-tale shape of a 20lb bag. I dig into about three inches of Z$500 notes, pick out Z$10,000, and the transaction is over. The youths disappear back under the tarpaulin of the pick-up, and I have my maize, enough to feed the woman who works for me and her family when I go away for Christmas.
But more shopping has to be done. Sugar. That is usually available from youths at a shopping centre further west. As they see my old car roaring round the corner, they smile and disappear for a couple of minutes, re-emerging with a 4lb pack of sugar in a cardboard box. The price has gone up to Z$500. Next on my list is milk. Too late - it's 9.30am and all the milk in the supermarkets was sold an hour earlier. The bread queues at bakeries are too formidable to join. Many of the bakeries are next door to coffee shops, yet sipping a cappuccino while watching people queue for food is too uncomfortable. Then a blow to the solar plexus. Why the hell didn't I notice that my petrol gauge was near empty? We had a week of no fuel queues, and like summer, I thought it would go on for ever. There is not enough in the tank to get to my "stash". A stash, or a friendly garage owner, is essential for those who cannot face queuing - or rather can afford not to. A friend drives 10 miles away, fills up at my friendly garage, then drives to me, and we suck a tube and siphon enough petrol to get me to the garage to fill up. I will have to phone 10 minutes ahead before getting there - which is difficult as mobile phones hardly work. Calling ahead is necessary so that the garage owner can tell me if the coast is clear, so that he can arrange for me to jump the queue without being lynched as a "white supremacist". On the way back from my hunt for maize meal, sugar and milk, I pass children begging at traffic lights. There are six traffic lights to get through before home, and at each one I give them sugar, a teaspoonful wrapped in paper, taken from coffee shops. There is no point in giving them money, as most people cannot afford to give enough on a regular basis to buy even a banana, and sugar is a treat.
Along the roads, the four-wheel-drive vehicles speed to the suburbs, driven by rich members of the black middle class, girls with hair expensively plaited, ears fixed to cell phones. On the side of the uneven streets, the dwindling working class trudge home, unable to afford even a bus ticket. Out in the desolate townships and shanty towns it's worse. A woman bit the lip off another who jumped a queue a couple of weeks ago. On a hot afternoon recently fists flew at a bread queue on the western outskirts of town. At a township east of Harare on the same day there was a queue for cheap maize meal distributed by a local ruling party official touting for votes at an upcoming by-election. He was selling it to people with a ruling party card that pre-dated the disputed March presidential elections, which gave President Robert Mugabe another six years in power. Opposition youths, who far outnumbered the ruling party shoppers, were grinning broadly. They claimed to have "redistributed" some of the food to those who had been turned away. Last week, the World Food Programme issued a sudden warning about the deteriorating food situation in Zimbabwe. Yet for those whose pockets are stuffed with a few inches of Z$500 notes, everything can still be all right in Harare.
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From News24 (SA), 6 December
Zim 'worst' in southern Africa
Harare - Zimbabwe is worst off among the six southern African countries threatened with famine, which is a crisis rooted in the Aids epidemic and not just crop failures and hunger, a top UN official said on Thursday. Stephen Lewis, the UN's special envoy on HIV/Aids in Africa, told a press conference that southern Africa was facing "deadly human destruction" due to famine because the immune systems of many people have been run down due to HIV/Aids. Fifteen million people in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique are threatened with starvation, and five million adults are living with HIV/Aids in these six countries. "Zimbabwe in many ways is the epicentre in southern Africa - it's where everything at the moment amongst the six countries is at its worst," said Lewis. Nearly eight million people, or more than two-thirds of Zimbabwe's population of 11.6 million, are threatened with famine. And at least 2.2 million Zimbabweans are living with HIV/Aids. "There's no question that this calamity is something that neither this country, nor the continent nor any of us have ever dealt with before," Lewis noted. The special envoy, who is on a trip to four of the six affected countries, including Zimbabwe, met on Thursday with President Robert Mugabe. Asked whether he felt the Zimbabwean government was doing enough to deal with the crisis, the UN envoy said Mugabe had spoken "with concern" about the crisis. "I got the sense when he (Mugabe) was talking of someone who was certainly deeply aware of what was happening," said Lewis. He said he held a serious discussion with Mugabe about possible methods of intervention that could be used to overcome the crisis. Deputy Finance Minister Chris Kuruneri was reported by the Ziana state news agency as having told Lewis the number of Zimbabweans needing food aid had climbed to eight million people from the previous figure of 6.7 million.
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From News24 (SA), 5 December
Netherlands turns anti-Mugabe
Harare - President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe Thursday criticised the Netherlands, accusing it of getting involved in a fight between Zimbabwe and former colonial power Britain, the state news agency said. "How could the Dutch be dragged into a fight which is purely for Britain," ZIANA quoted Mugabe as saying. He was speaking as the new Dutch ambassador to Zimbabwe, Johannes Heinsbroek, presented his credentials to State House. Mugabe blames Britain for many of its current economic and political problems and accuses it of reneging on an agreement to fund a land reform programme here. Britain denies the charges and accuses Mugabe and his government of human rights violations. The European Union, of which the Netherlands is a part, echoes Britain's criticism and has imposed travel and other sanctions against Mugabe and 71 of his associates.
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From The Daily News, 6 December
Stop beating our citizens, Mozambican mayor pleads
From Brian Mangwende recently in Manica, Mozambique
The government has been urged to withdraw its soldiers from the Forbes border post in Manicaland or risk the twinning arrangement between the City of Mutare and other cities in Mozambique. The Zimbabwean soldiers have been accused of beating up Mozambican citizens at the border post. The call was made by Mougene Cadiero, the Mayor of Manica town in Mozambique, on Wednesday during the signing of a twinning arrangement between his town and Mutare. In a prayer, during which Cadiero pleaded for divine intervention, he said solemnly: "God, please help to remove the soldiers from that border. They are assaulting our people every day. It’s terrible." The soldiers are deployed in and around Mutare to intercept smugglers who sneak commodities such as cigarettes, sugar, bread, cooking oil, flour, maize-meal and alcohol into Mozambique. So far, two Mozambicans, suspected to be illegal cross-border traders, have been shot dead by the Zimbabwean soldiers. Following the fatal shootings, diplomatic relations between Zimbabwe and Mozambique became strained. Soares Nhaca, the Governor of Manica Province, condemned the Zimbabwean security forces over the killings and beatings. But Oppah Muchinguri, his counterpart in Zimbabwe’s Manicaland Province, remained adamant that relations between the countries were cordial.
"Zimbabwean soldiers are beating up our citizens either at the border or in their country," Cadiero said in a separate interview. He said the twinning agreements could be jeopardised if the soldiers continued the beatings. Hundreds of traders, mainly Mozambicans, have allegedly been assaulted by soldiers and the police manning all illegal entry points along the border. Those arrested are taken to the Grand Reef Infantry Battalion cantonment in Mutare, where they are allegedly subjected to further assaults before being ordered to pay a fine of up to $500 for their freedom. The twinning agreement between the two cities was signed by Lawrence Mudehwe, the Executive Mayor of Mutare, and Cadiero, his counterpart in Manica town. The agreement is designed to promote economic, cultural, social and employment links and boost industrial development between the two nations. Mudehwe said: "After signing this agreement, Mozambique and Zimbabwe are now one. I don’t think it will be proper to continue putting in place restrictive measures such as visas to travel to Mozambique. If I am visiting my brother or counterpart in Manica, I don’t believe I need a visa and vice-versa. We have been friends for a long time and it should stay that way. So far, we have signed a twinning agreement with Chimoio."
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From The Financial Gazette, 5 December
CIO officers livid over appointment
Staff Reporter
Senior officers of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) are seeking an audience with State Security Minister Nicholas Goche to protest the imminent appointment of a director-general from outside Zimbabwe’s top spy agency, it was learnt this week. CIO sources said the officers wanted to impress on Goche that the position of director-general had to be filled from within the agency to curb divisions caused by tribalism and factionalism. The sources said the senior officers were opposed to the imminent appointment to the powerful position of CIO director-general of Tichaona Jokonya, Zimbabwe’s former permanent representative to the United Nations. "There is already so much resistance within the organisation about the prospects of Jokonya coming to head the organisation," a senior intelligence officer told the Financial Gazette. "Some directors are actually seeking an audience with Minister Goche to express their dissatisfaction with the appointment of the organisation’s director-general," said the officer, who spoke on condition he was not named.
There was no comment from Goche, who was said to be out of the office yesterday and was not reachable on his mobile phone. However, CIO insiders said senior operatives wanted to prevent an outsider filling the top post at the spy agency as happened in 1998 when retired army brigadier general Elisha Muzonzini was recruited for the position. Muzonzini was this year removed from the CIO and posted to Kenya as Zimbabwe’s high commissioner there. Insiders say most intelligence officers prefer CIO deputy director-general Happyton Bonyongwe or the organisation’s internal director, Menard Muzariri, to take charge at the CIO. President Robert Mugabe appoints the country’s spy chief at the recommendation of Goche but powerful ruling Zanu PF party politicians always influence the process. The state security minister is said to favour Muzariri for the CIO’s top post but he must convince not only Mugabe but also Vice President Simon Muzenda, who is said to have been instrumental in the appointment of past director-generals. Sources say retired army general Solomon Mujuru, a kingmaker in the ruling party, is also another influential voice in the selection of the CIO boss.
Besides the complicated political jockeying around the CIO’s top job, the CIO directors wishing to keep the director-generalship inside the organisation could be hampered by accusations that the intelligence agency h as failed to produce incisive and useful reports on the operations of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The sources said this failure to effectively infiltrate the MDC had heightened the search for a new director-general from outside the ranks of the CIO. Insiders say Mugabe has been worried by the inconsistencies in some intelligence reports issued by the spy agency, leading to suspicion that the organisation could have been infiltrated by the opposition and foreign spy networks.
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From The Sunday Times (UK), 8 December
Mugabe land grab leader at UK university
Tom Walker, Diplomatic Correspondent
Tucking into a McDonald’s burger in south London last week, Chris Pasipamire did not look like one of the war veterans who organised the farm seizures ordered in Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe. Wearing a leather jacket and three bangles representing the Shona spirits of his homeland, Pasipamire shook his head in apparent despair at the violence that has brought Zimbabwean agriculture to a standstill. Pasipamire, 44, said he had come to Britain to study for a doctorate in land reform, preferably at Greenwich University, so that he could help achieve "peaceful coexistence with whites". A different impression of Pasipamire emerged, however, from the white commercial farmers of the Mazowe valley, northwest of Harare. Many of them are frightened even to discuss his role during the past two years of mayhem as Mugabe has gone about confiscating white-owned land by force and redistributing it among blacks. Until he came to Britain 10 days ago, Pasipamire was a leading member of the Harare land allocation committee, helping to move at least 15 farmers off their land. A spokesman for the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) described Pasipamire as "a well-known troublemaker who drives the farm occupations". White farmers still grimly hanging onto their properties in Mazowe called him a "ringleader". At one farm, he is said to have pranced in front of the dispossessed owner, smoking a cigar and drinking a gin and tonic. His conduct on an estate called Mayfield, which he has taken over himself in the carve-up, gave rise to more serious allegations. Pasipamire and 12 youths from the ruling Zanu PF party were charged with assaulting resettled farmers and farm workers. Harare magistrates dropped the charges in September after an important witness died.
Confronted with the allegations last week, Pasipamire denied farmers’ claims that he had used Zanu PF’s youth brigades to establish control over the 280-acre Mayfield property and said the charges against him had been "a set-up". He also rejected CFU claims that he had co-ordinated violence against farmers with two other war veteran leaders, Endy Mhlanga and Patrick Nyaruwata. "They were given a farm between the two of them, and are nothing to do with me," he said. "I advised them that whatever they negotiate should be proper and legal." Pasipamire said his land allocation committee worked on the same principle. "We moved as a team with the police," he said. "We would explain to the farmer concerned, ‘Your farm has been acquired,’ and we received various reactions. Some co-operated, some were very hostile. Others had friends in the system. There was no forcing - it was a matter of just informing them of the procedures. In the case of a problem we would send the police again to get the message over. Any inconveniences are regretted."
Pasipamire is an articulate man with an easy smile. He was educated at Mugabe’s old Roman Catholic school in Kutama before studying political science at the University of Rhodesia. In the mid-1970s he worked as a journalist campaigning against the regime of Ian Smith. During Zimbabwe’s war of independence, he was wounded by a bazooka in 1979 near the Mozambique border. "I think it was an accidental discharge from our side," he said. In 1981 his political career took off as he represented Zimbabwe at an international youth conference in Yugoslavia. After completing his masters degree at Birmingham, where he concentrated on local government planning, he returned home and in 1989 was elected to the ruling body of the Harare District War Veterans’ Association. He was diagnosed as disabled from shrapnel wounds. This entitled him to compensation equivalent to £21,000 at the time. CFU officials said they were horrified that Pasipamire had been able to obtain a visa from the British high commission in Harare when Mugabe and 78 other members of the Zanu PF elite are barred from the European Union. "It’s disgraceful that he is in Britain," said one. "He has been the frontrunner in the trouble in Mazowe. If there’s any blacklist he should be very high up it." But Pasipamire insists he has been wrongly labelled as a thug and has every right to be in Britain. "I’ve never been involved in farm invasions," he said. "Isolating Zimbabwe is not correct. A lot of us are being turned away. It’s getting childish, and we need a policy of more positive engagement." Positive engagement is the last description the farmer who alleges Pasipamire drank and smoked in front of him would have used. Browsing through his Greenwich prospectus, however, Pasipamire was unruffled. "I might smoke a cigar but if I drink I do so in my own house only after 7pm," he said. "And I don’t drink gin and tonic only whisky."
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From News24 (SA), 7 December
Food centre for hungry village
Bikita, Zimbabwe - The crop fields are lush green in Bikita. But 1 000 hungry people in this remote southern area of Zimbabwe queue quietly under the midday sun for food aid. They're just a fraction of the eight million starving in this southern African country. Each person standing in this feeding centre queue in Bikita, some 240km south-east of Harare, has come to collect aid for at least two other people. Most of those waiting bear no visible signs of hunger - no really emaciated bodies here, no protruding ribs. They have been subsisting on wild fruit, one of those queuing tells reporters. The feeding centre, reached down a dirt track of several kilometres, is manned by aid agency Care for the UN's World Food Programme. Villagers are called up to receive their rations - corn meal and beans - according to the villages they come from. The orderly queue is disturbed momentarily by a pair of cavorting donkeys, who send children shrieking and screaming. "Our major problems are hunger, a serious drought and no rains," said Louise Nyambirai, an elderly woman from Madzvara village, about five kilometres away. Elderly people are among those suffering most in the current crisis, a Care field officer says. Many of them cannot read or write and therefore fail to get registered for food aid. "The law of the jungle is taking its toll here," said the official, George Baloyi. He explained that the elderly illiterate have to rely on the village headman's younger scribe taking down their details. But often the scribe makes sure his own family gets priority on the list. "People with influence want to survive. They (the elderly) don't have any form of influence. They can't read, they can't write." One example is 70-year-old Seraphina Mawere. Leaning on her stick, barefoot and with a woollen cap protecting her head from the sun, she has been forced to walk from village to village begging for food. She has never been on a food list.
The Aids pandemic, rife in rural areas like Bikita, aggravates the problem. "What you've got is this poisonous, ugly concoction of Aids and famine. The immune systems are so shorn of strength because of the hunger, that people die more quickly," the UN's special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis, said on a visit to Bikita on Friday. A shortage of basic medicines to treat HIV patients meant that people in the area were "dying under the most grotesque of circumstances," he said, adding that the problem of Aids orphans had become overwhelming. "Every day the numbers of orphans go up," he said. There have been accusations that food aid is being distributed along party political lines in Zimbabwe. "We tell people that food should not be used as a weapon to square up scores with your enemies," Care official George Baloyi says. He points to the white sacks of US-provided corn and beans that are being shared among the hungry villagers. "It should be used freely, as it comes to us a free gift." However, people waiting in the queues complained that the rations - which are provided once a month - lasted the average family only eight days. The rest of the time they have to go back to their diet of wild fruit. Zimbabwe is the worst-hit of six southern African countries facing famine. And according to the UN's Lewis, only 56% of the food required by the WFP to feed hungry Zimbabweans has been met by donors. Meanwhile the numbers of hungry people continue to mount. The green fields offer no promise of a food-filled tomorrow. Already the maize which has germinated is wilting in the oppressive heat. The desperately-needed rains have not arrived yet this season."There's no hope," villager Serina Murindiwa said. The maize her village planted had already died from lack of rain, she said. Without rain the trees will soon stop bearing fruit to see them through.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 7 December
Zimbabwe capital runs out of water
Harare - Along with fuel shortages, bread shortages, shortages of milk and other basic commodities, residents of the Zimbabwe capital Harare now have water shortages to contend with, according to newspaper reports on Saturday. The state-controlled Herald newspaper reported that water taps in several suburbs of the city - both high and low-income areas - had run dry. Some residents in the poor suburbs of Epworth and Kambuzuma were fetching water from streams and shallow wells, posing a health hazard, the paper said. In Harare's upmarket suburb of Borrowdale on Friday some households were using buckets of water from wells for their needs, they said. "More suburbs will be without water in the coming days," the Herald warned. The problem is being blamed on the lack of foreign currency to purchase water purifying chemicals. Quoting the city's mayor, Elias Mudzuri, the private Daily News suggested that water rationing could be in place by the end of the month.
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From The Daily News, 5 December
Clean water runs out
By Lloyd Mudiwa, Municipal Reporter
The Greater Harare area has only about three days’ supply of purified water, posing a serious health threat to the more than four million residents of the capital. The operations of several businesses, particularly in the food industry, are the most immediately at risk as they rely heavily on purified water. The crisis follows the city council’s failure to acquire two chemicals necessary in the purification process, despite determined efforts. According to a source in the council’s department of works, the chemicals are lime and ecol 2 000, which is imported. The source said there was suspicion that the council’s efforts to obtain the chemicals were being deliberately thwarted to sabotage the MDC-dominated council’s reputation with the residents in the five urban centres of Harare, Chitungwiza, Epworth, Norton and Ruwa. The opposition party has in the past claimed there have been clear attempts by Dr Ignatius Chombo, the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, to meddle in the affairs of municipalities with MDC mayors. Harare supplies water to Chitungwiza, Epworth, Norton and Ruwa.
"We are almost in a crisis situation," said another council employee, who requested anonymity. "If urgent measures are not taken to ensure that these chemicals are available immediately, there will be no water." Cuthbert Rwazemba, the Harare City Council spokesperson, said the situation was "under control", but refused to comment specifically on the allegations. The Daily News has established that the city paid a local lime supplier US$140 000 (Z$7,7 million at the official exchange rate) in September for 1 000 tonnes of the chemical. But by yesterday the company had allegedly supplied less than half the amount paid for. The sources claimed the supply of lime had been very erratic and only a small part of the consignment had been received. "It could be maybe two or three days before the lime runs out. If this company does not supply us with it in the next two or three days, we shudder to think what will happen," they said. "We don’t know what it could mean for the city."
But the company’s managing director, MacDonald Chapfika, exonerated his firm. "They are not telling you the truth," he said. "Someone is lying so it can be said we are failing to supply the city. Come on Friday and I can show you the site for the lime. The city is receiving the lime on time every time." While he said his company provided two truckloads of lime a week, he conceded that this was not enough. But this was because the city lacked sufficient storage facilities, he said. Instead, he blamed the water supply problem on the city’s piping system. The Harare City Council, the workers said, submitted an application to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for the equivalent of $64 million in US dollars to import 160 tonnes of ecol 2 000, but nothing has materialised yet. Stocks of the chemical have run out. It could not be established yesterday when the application was made and why it had not yet been processed. Efforts to get a comment from the central bank yesterday were unsuccessful. In October, an increase in consumption, vandalism of water valves and power failure at Warren Pump Station resulted in the introduction of restrictions in a bid to save water.
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From The Sunday Times (UK), 8 December
Fans scared off by unrest
No tickets have been sold for England’s match in Harare
By David Bond
Not a single ticket has been sold to England supporters to watch Nasser Hussain’s team play in Zimbabwe in next year’s World Cup, amid fears over the country’s political and social crisis. With the International Cricket Council (ICC) considering whether to move matches scheduled to be played in Zimbabwe to neighbouring South Africa, news that no tickets have been sold to England’s travelling support could increase the pressure on World Cup organisers to act. After a three-day visit to Zimbabwe last month, an ICC security delegation is due to present a crucial report on the country to the council’s executive committee this week. Human rights campaigners are calling for the matches to be taken away from Zimbabwe as part of an international protest against the discriminatory policies of President Robert Mugabe. A decision is expected by the middle of the month. But tour operators say concerns over safety have already led to a lack of interest among English travellers who might otherwise have asked for packages which included England’s qualifying group game against Zimbabwe in Harare on February 13. Five companies appointed by the World Cup and the England and Wales Cricket Board to sell tickets and trips to English fans — Gullivers, Titan, ITC, Indigo and Sport Abroad — are sending more than 1,000 England fans to South Africa to watch the World Cup in February and March, but they have not sold a single ticket to Zimbabwe. The statistic is doubly significant because the latest travel advice from the Foreign Office states: "We advise against independent travel and strongly recommend that visitors should travel with organised tour operators." "We are not sending anyone to Zimbabwe and, more importantly, nobody has asked us if we could send them," said Paul Hopkinson, of Dorking-based firm Sport Abroad. Former England rugby union international Victor Ubogu, now a director of Indigo, added: "There’s been unrest in Zimbabwe and, of course, that has not helped attract people to travel there to watch cricket."
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 8 December
Hearts, minds, and a dancing skeleton
By Michael Hartnack
To whip up fervour for Robert Mugabe's land seizure programme, state broadcasting has for the past four months unleashed a jingle "Chave Chimurenga" (war has begun) every half hour. Recently, at 10.30 pm the presenter of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s sole classical music programme broke into Saint Saens' "Danse Macabre" - the Dance of Death - with the war mantra. The independent Daily News carried a cartoon depicting a skeleton dancing to the jingle. The oft-repeated Chave Chimurenga underlines the increasing crudeness and violence of the regime’s internal propaganda machine which, from Mugabe’s viewpoint, is having at best varied success, and almost none among the urban middle class. But on the international front, analysts say Mugabe’s Information Minister Jonathan Moyo is making headway, largely because of support from South Africa. Pretoria now claims the violent election in March, widely regarded as rigged, was "a credible expression of the will of the people" and Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma said recently that even if "mistakes were made" Mugabe deserves Western finance.
The break-up last month of a meeting in Brussels of European and African-Caribbean-Pacific parliamentarians because the EU refused to admit Zimbabwean ministers "has fallen into their laps like manna from heaven," commented Nigel Bruce, former editor of the South African Financial Mail, who was present. Andrew Moyse of the Harare-based Media Monitoring Project noted that the Zimbabwe ministers arrived in Brussels well-prepared with pamphlets. "They are sanitising Zanu PF and cleaning up their image," Moyse said in an interview. Noting that most people - except in the major cities - had no access to independent newspapers, Moyse said he believed that state broadcasting was obtaining mass acceptance of Mugabe's land policy. "That message is beginning to sink in - you don't have access to alternative sources. There is a certain degree of success among the less well informed," said Moyse. But on the wider issue of good governance, Zimbabweans were not being swayed, he said, adding, "People are not that stupid."
In a tacit admission that he is losing the battle for hearts and minds, Mugabe recently promulgated regulations barring anyone gesturing at or making offensive comments about the presidential motorcade. Under the new regulations, Mugabe’s armed escorts can impose on the spot fines or make arrests. Similarly, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change says proof of Mugabe's mounting internal unpopularity lies the unceasing reign of terror by ruling party militants and the green bombers youth militia, the blatant use of food to secure votes even in supposedly secure Zanu PF rural strongholds. The ruling party hopeful in a pending parliamentary by-election in Harare's Kuwadzana suburb offered to sell Zanu PF card holders not only maize meal and bread but green vegetables at the controlled prices. This prompted MDC gibes that he had a singularly appropriate campaign slogan: "Vote for the Cabbage." The propaganda is surely absurd, and surely pernicious. Kelvin Jakachira, a member of the national executive of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists was quoted recently in the independent Standard newspaper as saying that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was "sowing the seeds of genocide … portraying whites as evil people responsible for the shortages in the country". Jakachira deplored the Hondo ye Minda (war in the fields) mass advertising campaign and said, "We do not want what happened in Rwanda to be repeated here."
Despite the jingles and incessant radio appeals, black Zimbabweans have not taken up plots and farms either because they lack funds for inputs, or because they need to stay near towns to queue for what food is available. UN agencies say up to 7 million people - half Zimbabwe's total population - are in danger of starving before hoped-for next harvests in April. And agronomists report that more than half of the land seized from whites in the past three years is lying derelict. The propaganda aimed at denying Zimbabweans the right to see and discuss the realities of their worsening situation lies the shadow of Mugabe’s crackdown on the press through the ill-named Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, under which 13 journalists have already been arrested. The Independent Journalists’ Association has challenged the act in the Supreme Court as a violation of entrenched constitutional rights of free expression and free association. "The state should not be placed in a position where it is able to use public resources to restrict the free exercise of the right to criticise it by the public," lawyer Sternford Moyo told five appeal judges headed by Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, a former minister and strong supporter of Mugabe. It will be months before the Supreme Court rules on the challenge.
Footnote: My application, in terms of the Act, to continue writing from January 1 was lodged on October 31. My lawyer awaits a reply from the state’ s Media Commission.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 8 December
War vets assault Zanu PF official
By our own staff
Bulawayo - A senior Zanu PF official, Agrippa Mdlalo Ndlukula, was on Wednesday assaulted by war veterans inside the chambers of the Insiza Rural District Council after he insisted that landless youths rather than a government minister, should take over a rich farm in Matabeleland South. Ndlukula, who is the district treasurer for Filabusi, was beaten up at a meeting called to resolve a wrangle over a section of the prime ranch, Goddard Farm. The farm, which stretches from the Fort Rixon commercial farming area down into the Filabusi communal area, is suitable for cattle and animal ranching. That part of the ranch which is up for grabs, was surrendered to the government a few months ago by its owner identified only as Goddard. The Standard understands that this section of the farm has caused serious squabbles within the leadership circles of the Zanu PF Matabeleland branch because, on the one hand, a group of landless youths occupying the land are insisting that they are the rightful owners of the land while on the other, Sithembiso Nyoni, the minister of small and medium enterprises development has also laid claim to the farm. On Wednesday, the Insiza District Coordinating committee called a meeting at the chambers of the Insiza Rural District Council to decide on the ownership of the farm. Sources at the meeting told The Standard that tempers flared when Zanu PF district treasurer for Filabusi, Ndlukula, insisted that the farm went to its youthful occupiers. "Ndlukula was steadfast in his insistence that the farm should go to the youths of the district. But the war veterans who supported Sithembiso Nyoni, handcuffed him and beat him thoroughly using fists and booted feet. Ndlukula suffered head injuries and was treated at Filabusi district hospital," said the source. "The officer in charge is on leave and I cannot give you that information," was all that the anonymous officer could say after a long wait while he consulted with other officers in the background.
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From IOL (SA), 8 December
Fight for food leaves Zimbabwean lipless
Harare - With food shortages biting hard in drought-stricken Zimbabwe, a Harare man had his lip bitten off by a woman from whom he tried to steal a loaf of bread, the state-run Sunday Mail reported. The man, spotting the woman carrying two loaves of bread, asked if she would "lend him a loaf" and decided to try to snatch it from her when she refused, the paper said. In the ensuing tussle, the woman allegedly bit off his lower lip. Long bread queues have been a common sight outside Harare's supermarkets and bakeries for the past several months.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 8 December
Thirsty Xmas anticipated
By Kumbirai Mafunda
Zimbabweans are set to experience one of their worst ever festive seasons following revelations of a soft drinks shortage. The Standard understands that United Bottlers, the company solely responsible for the bottling of carbonated soft drinks, lacks the sugar supplies needed to manufacture large quantities of drinks required for a holiday period. Peter Karimatenga, the general manager in charge of the manufacture of soft drinks at United Bottlers, confirmed in an interview with The Standard that they had indeed been receiving insufficient deliveries of sugar and that the problem had been exacerbated by the collapse of the Zimglass furnace in Gweru, which normally supplied his company with glass containers. Said Karimatenga: "It is a combination of two factors. Firstly, we have been experiencing problems in getting sufficient sugar because the ZSR has been having difficulties getting coal for their blast furnaces in Harare. The other thing is that Zimglass has not been able to supply us with glass bottles." He said they had made proposals to the ministry of industry and international trade for the importation of sugar but no response had as yet been received from that quarter.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 9 December
Lock up your valuables
So, Chris Pasipamire, aspirant doctoral researcher and one-man crime-wave, has been granted a visa to study in Britain. The Sunday Times reported yesterday on the recent arrival of Pasipamire in the UK, and his ambition to study land reform at Greenwich University. An "articulate man with an easy smile", who says he has been wrongly labelled as a thug, Pasipamire denied involvement in farm and company invasions and serious charges of violence and assault.
The following is just a small sample of his activities over the last few years...
March 2000 Pasipamire, and John Bredenkamp, both directors of Bredenkamp’s Zimalzam group, sued Philip Chiyangwa over disputed tender procedures at NOCZIM. Zimalzam was one of three companies permitted to import fuel into Zimbabwe. Pasipamire was also a backer of Royal Oil, one of eight companies permitted to distribute fuel in Zimbabwe. The fuel importation and distribution system in Zimbabwe has been characterised by widespread corruption, and a marked failure to provide supplies.
May 2001 Following high level complaints from EU, Swedish, and Belgian envoys in Harare, home affairs minister John Nkomo initiated a crack-down on company invasions by war veterans. Companies such as the Avenues Clinic, Alcatel Italia, Dandy, NCR Zimbabwe, Speciss, Philips Electrical, and Fawcetts Security, among many others, had their premises invaded, and management and staff detained and assaulted. Zanu PF headquarters in Harare was the epicentre of the illegal blitz, where company executives were detained and assaulted in the presence of senior war veterans such as Joseph Chinotimba and Chris Pasipamire.
August 2001 Pasipamire, along with others, was sued by Zimbank for bad debts amounting to almost Z$1 billion dating back to 1996.
September 2001 - The case against Pasipamire, who was suspected of extorting Z$4 million from commuter omnibus company Leno Trading Private Limited, was dropped by the company. Leno Trading managing director Imran Chaudry, was forced to flee Zimbabwe at the height of the company invasions.
January 2002 Pasipamire and unnamed Zanu PF members beat up resettled farmers in Nyabira, after they were robbed of their poultry. Pasipamire was arrested on charges of robbery and assault.
January 2002 Pasipamire and Mike Moyo were jointly charged with attempting to extort Z$15 million or 50 percent of the profits of the Mayfield farm, from Arthur Duncan Parkes, the previous owner of the farm, which had been allocated to Pasipamire under the land redistribution program. The two are then alleged to have assaulted the farmer after he refused to pay. Mike Moyo was also charged with armed robbery and assault at a Harare service station.
June 2002 Pasipamire was implicated in the illegal seizure of Glen Forest Farm, and the closure of a boat-building business based on the farm. The boat business supported two-thirds of the employment of boat-drivers and crew on Lake Kariba.
June 2002 Pasipamire was implicated in the illegal invasion of St Marnocks farm. Pasipamire, together with Mike Moyo, Dr Marsh, Chris Pasipamire, one Sekemari, a Pastor Chisinde and George Humela arrived on the farm declaring that they were now the owners. They did not bother to obtain any legal documentation and the farm at that time was unlisted for acquisition.
July 2002 Pasipamire, vice-chairman of the Zanu PF Harare provincial executive, was implicated in a financial scandal involving Z$40 million of his own party’s funds. The money, given to the executive ahead of the March presidential election, could not be accounted for. The entire executive, led by Amos Midzi, was sacked. Other members of the executive were Mike Moyo, Omega Hungwe, Douglas Mahiya, Joseph Chinotimba, and Stalin Mau Mau. Pasipamire blamed everyone else.
Those familiar with the recent sad history of Zimbabwe will recognise the roll-call of other individuals mentioned above. For an innocent man, Pasipamire moves in some incriminating circles. One wonders what the criteria are for a UK visa? Pasipamire is let in, those seeking asylum from men like him are denied entry. All that can be hoped is that the administrators of Greenwich University have taken adequate precautions to protect their students, staff, and property. For the good citizens of Greenwich: lock up your valuables.
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Comment from The Zimbabwe Standard, 8 December
Santa’s fantasy economics
Over the top by Brian Latham
True to form, a troubled central African country’s minister for evasive answers to difficult questions about fuel supplies was proved wrong when he said fuel would be in plentiful supply last week. On a similar note, bookmakers taking bets on the issue made considerable amounts of money when the promised fuel did not materialise. Sadly they were unable to spend the money on petrol because there was none. Meanwhile the troubled central African nation’s innovative economists promised a bleak Christmas. One economist went so far as to dub the economic policies of the troubled central African country as "fantasy economics". He said this was in the spirit of the Christmas season which was largely a time of fantasy. "It’ll have to be a time of fantasy because it can’t be a time of giving," he said, adding that there would be nothing to give. Another economist said it required a leap of the imagination for residents of the troubled central African country to get through the festive season without too much depression. "We’ll be putting virtual petrol into our motor cars in order to go virtual shopping for virtual gifts," he said. He explained that this was necessary because there was no real petrol and it was unlikely that there would be any real gifts either. "Only our virtual government can really expect people to sell things for less than they cost," he pointed out.
Still, the troubled central African country’s virtual government entrenched its position on the economy. Decrees from the ministry of fantasy economics stated that from this month every item sold would be sold at a loss, thus depriving hundreds of thousands of their jobs and thousands of businessmen of their businesses. Explaining the logic, a spokesman from the ministry, speaking off the record, said this was acceptable because the job losses would occur mainly in the urban areas, and everyone knew that these areas were populated exclusively by members of the More Drink Coming (You’ll be lucky) party and other such traitors. "When all these businesses have gone broke because their white, opposition, capitalist, neo-imperialist owners have sabotaged the economy, we will take them over and hand them to qualified and incorruptible members of the Zany RF party who will restore the economy in 48 hours," said the spokesman on condition he was not quoted. Asked why the Zany party had renamed itself the Zany RF party, the spokesman said he had no idea, but it was something to do with historical similarities between itself and a previous government that also had admirable views on law and order. Still, it was noteworthy that the new Zany RF party had managed to bankrupt the country far more efficiently than its predecessor and it deserved recognition for this amazing accomplishment.
Returning to the economic climate in the troubled central African country, the spokesman said it was a lie that there were shortages, adding that just this morning his wife had made piles of toast and he fully expected to have sadza for his supper. Asked how he managed to acquire such luxuries when the rest of the country was starving, the spokesman emphasised that no patriotic citizen with a current party card (from the right party) would go hungry. It was a simple matter to get such a card and if one was youthful enough, one could also get a smart green uniform that was a passport to success and a hunger-free Christmas, he explained. "By joining Dzaku Dzaku, you are not only fulfilling your patriotic and socialist duty, you are also guaranteeing yourself and your family a happy Christmas and a particularly prosperous new year," said the spokesman.
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From The Daily News, 9 December
Muchinguri calls for banning of millers
From Brian Mangwende in Mutare
Oppah Muchinguri, the Provincial Governor for Manicaland, last week accused senior Zanu PF officials of working together with millers and Grain Marketing Board (GMB) officials to divert maize grain intended for the needy, for corrupt gains. She said the distribution of maize grain to millers should be stopped to curb the corrupt practices involving senior party officials and those from the GMB and milling companies. Millers were diverting maize allocations from the GMB depots to unknown destinations, she said, and charged that those responsible for the distribution at community levels were favouring their relatives at the expense of about 800 000 people facing starvation in Manicaland. At an emergency meeting of the food distribution committee at Queen’s Hall in Mutare, which was called to discuss anomalies in food distribution, Muchinguri stood up in anger and said: "There is a lot of corruption in this whole thing. Millers are dealing and want to make a profit at the expense of the needy."
"I have since recommended that as was the case when the government stopped the operations of all bureaux de change in the country, millers be banned. The maize grain is not reaching the intended beneficiaries. Politicians in the province are also interfering in the distribution exercise. This has to stop forthwith." She blasted millers selling grain at inflated prices, and politicians who refused to address rallies unless shipments of maize were delivered to venues for rallies they were scheduled to speak. "The other day, a truck full of maize meant for Mutare was seen off-loading in Honde Valley," she said. "What is that? President Mugabe has instructed us to supply him with the names of Zanu PF officials giving us problems in the provinces. Be you a member of the central committee or a provincial executive, I am not going to hesitate to do so."
The emergency meeting was attended by chiefs, war veterans, soldiers, GMB officials and headmen. The governor advised GMB depot managers engaging in underhand deals with politicians and individuals for personal gains to stop forthwith. The GMB regional manager for Rusape, Ronia Tanyongana, who was at the meeting, said corruption among GMB and Zanu PF officials was very high. "It is true. There is a lot of corruption in the grain distribution exercise," she said. "A lot of maize is not reaching the needy." At the same meeting, Chief Tangwena complained about the involvement of soldiers in the distribution exercise. He said: "I do not see their purpose because they are attacking us. They are beating up people, moving into villages to terrorise people under the pretext of protecting trucks distributing maize. But Muchinguri defended the soldiers’ involvement and said they were there to ensure that relief food was not stolen. "They are there to see to the smooth transportation of maize and not to distribute it." Another participant said there was confusion as to who exactly between the soldiers, war veterans, Zanu PF youths, politicians, millers and the GMB, was running the show.
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From The Daily news, 9 December
Youth brigade confiscates forex at border post
From Our Correspondent in Bulawayo
The pro-Zanu PF youth brigade is reportedly harassing travellers at the Plumtree border post, where they are allegedly conducting body searches and confiscating foreign currency on government orders. They are said to be also waylaying border-jumpers and beating them up. Their activities have raised anxiety among Zimbabweans working in Botswana and South Africa who are planning on coming home for the Christmas holiday. A Bulawayo man, Andrew Matshazi, claimed his wife, who was not readily available to narrate her ordeal to The Daily News, fell victim to the youth brigade last week and lost property worth thousands of dollars. Matshazi said: "The situation at Plumtree is very bad, and someone should do something to stop the lawlessness going on there. Some of the travellers are robbed in broad daylight at the border post where some Zanu PF militia subject them to body searches, and even confiscate foreign currency from them, claiming that they are acting on government orders." He said his wife, who had gone to Botswana last week, lost a lot of money and groceries to the youths. An official at the border post refused to comment, while the police were not immediately available to explain on whose authority the youths were acting, and why no action was being taken against them. "My friend, I'm not going to comment," the official said. Last week, 11 militia members raided illegal foreign currency dealers in Bulawayo and allegedly stole about $600 000 in cash from the dealers. The youths accused the dealers of sabotaging the economy by illegally trading in foreign currency. The police have not taken any action.
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From Business Report (SA), 8 December
Diamonds are a tyrant's best friend
Part One
As Zimbabwe vies with the Democratic Republic of Congo for the title of most wretched nation in Africa, a small clique of opportunists is making a fortune out of both countries and it is doing business with a little-known diamond mining company wrongly linked with Al-Qaeda by the BBC. It was, said the media pundits, probably the worst journalistic mistake ever. A BBC documentary broadcast in October 2001 accused a little-known Cayman Islands-registered mining company, Oryx Natural Resources, of being part-owned by a key supporter and financier of Al-Qaeda. In fact, neither Oryx nor the shareholder in question had any connection with Al-Qaeda: the BBC's allegation was a case of mistaken identity. But the effect on Oryx's reputation was catastrophic: business began to dry up overnight, claimed the company. So it sued the BBC, seeking spectacular damages to reflect its losses. Some spoke of a £15 million payout; most reports settled for the scarcely less mind-boggling £12 million. The BBC, realising that it hadn't a leg to stand on, ran a full apology three weeks after the initial libel, but Oryx insisted on compensation.
But instead of settling promptly, the BBC baffled many observers by spending nearly nine months preparing to defend the case. Only on the eve of the court case, two months ago, did it finally admit liability. A hearing to determine the size of the damages was due shortly and the media pundits were licking their lips in anticipation of what was expected to be by far the biggest libel payout in British legal history. Then last week, a small unexpected news item appeared in a few newspapers: Oryx had settled out of court for a reported £500 000. This dramatic twist in events was not, however, much remarked on: not by Oryx, not by the BBC, and certainly not by the media pundits. The good names of Oryx and its maligned shareholders had, after all, been vindicated, and the BBC had made a big mistake and paid for it.
Yet for those who have been following the case, and who have been following the fortunes of Oryx over the past few years, the news was interesting as much for what it left unsaid as for what it said. For, even without the BBC's gaffe, this has been a bruising year for Oryx's reputation - last month another slightly unnoticed news report appeared in a few British papers. The UN had published a report on the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report described, in shocking and exhaustive details, the trade in blood diamonds - diamonds whose extraction and sale finance armed conflicts - in that war-ravaged country. Perhaps mindful of the BBC's difficulties, most of the papers that ran the story discreetly omitted to mention the fact that Oryx Natural Resources featured prominently in the report. For anyone who takes an interest in African affairs, and particularly in the tragedies currently playing out not just in the Congo but in the once-prosperous land of Zimbabwe, the report makes compelling reading.
But it was particularly compelling for anyone who has attempted to investigate the elite clique of Zimbabweans and foreign business people who have been making big money out of the mayhem of war, and for anyone who has considered testimony on this subject from a host of other sources. The combined effect of this evidence and the UN report is to reinforce, in astonishing detail, the widespread perception that President Robert Mugabe is the leader, not so much of a national government but of a small gang that has spent the past four years getting rich from war that has cost more than 2 million lives in the Congo, and that deems its own survival to be of more pressing urgency than the impending death by famine, as the UN has warned, of 6 million Zimbabweans. It also does little for the reputation of Oryx Natural Resources. The story revealed by these sources (and supported by the UN report) has two chief protagonists - Emmerson Mnangagwa and Thamer Said Ahmed Al Shanfari. Mnangagwa is Mugabe's crony-in-chief: his closest confidant, the key man in Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation since independence, and the man with whose blessing almost any crime may be committed in Zimbabwe with impunity. Al Shanfari is an Omani entrepreneur and friend of Mnangagwa and is described in one secret intelligence document as "Zimbabwe's most important foreign business partner". He is also the president and chief executive of Oryx Natural Resources, which owns a diamond concession in Mbuji-Mayi, in the Congo, jointly with companies owned by the governments of Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The Oryx Group first became involved with the Mugabe regime four years ago. It began with a proposal that President Laurent Kabila of the Congo made to Mugabe in 1998. Facing heavy military pressure from rebel armies backed by Uganda and Rwanda, Kabila proposed to Mugabe that he would give him access to a diamond concession in the Congo valued at $1 billion - the concession in Mbuji-Mayi - in exchange for the loan of his army. Mugabe readily agreed to the diamonds-for-soldiers deal, but what he did not have was the technical or commercial expertise to extract the diamonds. Enter Kamal Khalfan, a weapons dealer, Oryx shareholder and old Harare resident who rejoiced in the title of honorary consul of Oman in Zimbabwe. Khalfan suggested to Mugabe that Shanfari might be just the partner he needed. Shanfari, a 34-year-old graduate of the Colorado School of Mines, and who comes from a lavishly wealthy and influential Omani family, flew to Harare and met Mugabe. According to the UN report, a company called Sengamines was created, a joint venture between Shanfari's Oryx, a company called Osleg (the business wing of the Zimbabwean armed forces) and a third co-signatory to the agreement - dated July 16 1999 - "the government of the Republic of Zimbabwe". (This last entity may be taken as syn |
