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Archived News
10th September 2002
Radio Station Bombed
Charity director, farm workers charged
Rural households stretched to the limit
Fleet of famine relief trucks ready to begin journey
Zimbabwe faces 'disaster'
World Summit views not to be taken personally
Mugabe is lying, say Zimbabwe farmers
Annan discusses Zimbabwe and Iraq
Zanu PF courts MDC on next president
Mugabe tells whites to leave or risk jail over land
High Court nullifies more eviction orders
Powell not surprised at being booed at World Summit
MDC won’t seek permit for seized maize
Lavatory paper pads empty supermarket food shelves
MDC case remanded
Mugabe lobbyist quits
Zimbabwe drops objections to GM crops: WFP
Starvation takes toll
Shiri claims right to grab farm
New farmers ignore govt ultimatum
The brave turn to mining to survive
Zim police order white farmers off their land
Displaced fleeing to towns to escape violence
Zanu PF supporters detain MP
UN special envoy says food situation in Zimbabwe is urgent
Bakeries scale down operations
Zim denies journo work permit
Resettled farmers duped
Mugabe, ministers visit ally Libya - state radio
Zimbabwe heading for the big switch-off?
Zimbabwe farmers told to quit today
After all has been said and done…
'Our main concern is our next meal'
Hunger takes its toll
Hungry Bindura residents take on Manyika
Zimbabwe farmers brace for new deadline’s end
MDC barred
Menashe dumps Zanu PF
Nkala’s widow still gagged
Depoliticise food aid, Catholic bishops say
Violence shifts focus
Mozambicans report abuse by Zimbabwe
White farmers return home
Zimbabwe's Robin Hood policy problems
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From ZWNEWS, 4 September
Charity director, farm workers charged
The 17 farmworkers detained last week in the Mazowe area have appeared before a magistrate and have been charged under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) with "undergoing military training, banditry and sabotage". They have been remanded in custody until 17 September. The workers had been engaged in constructing a new camp for a larger group of displaced farmworkers and their families in the area when they were arrested. Yesterday, Bigson Gombers, the deputy director of the Farm Communities Development Trust (FCDT), was also arrested at his home and has been charged under POSA with "recruiting militia". The FCDT is a Zimbabwean charity which assists internal refugees and farmworkers made destitute in recent months. The FCDT and Amani trust had been providing material help, including food supplies and the payment of school fees for workers’ children, to the group in a previous camp. The farmworkers and their families were evicted from their homes at gunpoint in March this year.
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From IRIN (UN), 3 September
Rural households stretched to the limit
Johannesburg
Ground down by the daily struggle to find enough food for their families, rural Zimbabweans have reached the limit of their coping skills, deepening their vulnerability to the current humanitarian crisis, aid workers told IRIN on Tuesday. "Many people have already exhausted their coping mechanisms. If food aid is not delivered in sufficient quantities, the possibility of them falling into starvation is very real," Chris McIvor of Save the Children Fund (SCF) warned. SCF vulnerability and nutrition assessments in the drought-prone northern Zambezi valley have indicated that levels of malnutrition are "relatively benign". But, McIvor noted, once people have sold all their assets, "the collapse can be very fast". Christian Aid reaches 120,000 school children with a meal-a-day in four provinces. It also runs a therapeutic feeding scheme for children under five in Manicaland. According to Christian Aid programme officer, Ed Watkiss, "the children's weights are plateauing. You won't see kwashiorkor ... but basically they are not getting enough food". "People in the rural areas say they are hungry and have no more mealie [maize] meal. When you look into their storage bins there is nothing, there are also longer queues at the GMB [Grain Marketing Board the state run distribution outlets] depots. The need is big and is getting bigger," Watkiss said. A UN crop assessment earlier this year said maize output had fallen by 67 percent compared with 2001. Drought, which wiped out crops in most parts of the country, and the government's land-reform programme, both affected production. As a result, six million Zimbabweans will need 705,000 mt of food aid until the next harvest in March/April 2003.
As the crisis persists, families have been forced to slash household budgets. This has typically involved cutting back on healthcare, pulling children out of school, and turning to "bush foods" rather than expensive and scarce commercial items. At the same time, livestock are being sold at progressively lower prices, due in part to a glut caused by the auction of cattle owned by commercial farmers who have been forced off the land, Watkiss said. Some households in border districts have been able to illegally sell their livestock for better prices in Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique. But most rural families have faced a general impoverishment. That has been reinforced by black market prices for food running at between two and three times the official rate, and casual labour opportunities disappearing with the departing commercial farmers. The deeper the decline, the harder it will be for communities to rebound next year. "There is no money to purchase seeds, even if the rains come. [SCF] will have to distribute seeds," McIvor said. Even the rains could be in doubt if a potential El Nino, a weather pattern causing climatic disruptions, develops as feared. "The big worry is that an El Nino could be building and lead to another unreliable rainy season. If that happens, next year will be a nightmare. In the past a proportion of Zimbabwe's agriculture was under irrigation by the commercial farmers. Next year it will be all rain fed," Watkiss said.
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From SABC News, 4 September
Fleet of famine relief trucks ready to begin journey
Business and government are aiding a Norwegian fleet of some 218 trucks, destined to distribute food to starving people in southern Africa. The trucks are to be used by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. Andries van Schalkwyk, the logistics chief executive, says given the urgency of the situation and the desperate plight of those in need of assistance, they met with Spoornet management to devise a logistical plan. The plan is to transport the vehicles to Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Lesotho. The vehicles, valued at more than R70 million, were donated by the Norwegian government.
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From BBC News, 3 September
Zimbabwe faces 'disaster'
Zimbabwe is facing a potential humanitarian disaster at the hands of a "corrupt and ruinous regime", Prime Minister Tony Blair has warned. He fiercely rebuked Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's criticism of Britain's colonial past, claiming it was "nonsense", stressing that most African leaders would disassociate themselves from the comments. Mr Blair insisted that Mr Mugabe had refused to take up cash available for land reform through a UN programme. He said the situation was "a terrible, terrible tragedy". The prime minister was speaking at a presidential style press conference in his Sedgefield constituency just hours after returning from the world summit at Johannesburg, where Mr Mugabe had launched his attack on Britain. Mr Blair told reporters on Tuesday: "It is a shame that people think that Mugabe speaks for Africa - he doesn't. The vast majority of African leaders would totally disassociate themselves from what he said yesterday - this rubbish about neo-colonialism. That is merely a cloak, a cover for what is a corrupt, ruinous regime that is damaging, most of all, poor black people in Zimbabwe." Mr Blair said the international community should be considering what it could do about the crisis in Zimbabwe. But he said: "The trouble is the number of levers we have in our hands are limited. There is a potential humanitarian disaster there."
Mr Blair told how he had watched grain being off-loaded from a ship in Mozambique that was destined for Zimbabwe. "Zimbabwe is potentially one of the richest grain nations in the world but because of the way he (Mugabe) has ruined the country it is having to import grain for its people," the prime minister said. It was "nonsense" to say that the UK had "held up" land reform. "The money is there for land reform. He could get that money and use it for land reform - because land reform is necessary - at any point in time he wanted," said Mr Blair. "The only demand that has been made is that it is done through the UN programme in order to make sure that the money goes to the poor people that actually need it and not into the pockets of him and his henchmen and the other people running the show." During his speech at the summit, Mr Mugabe defended his controversial land reform policies and warned Mr Blair: "Keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe."
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From SABC News, 3 September
World Summit views not to be taken personally
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Foreign Affairs Minister, says she hopes none of the views expressed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development will be taken personally. She was commenting on statements made regarding Zimbabwe. Yesterday, in his address to the plenary, Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean President, ridiculed Tony Blair, his British counter-part, for interfering in his country's internal affairs. "Blair, keep your England and let me keep my Zimbabwe," he said. Sam Nujoma, the Namibian President, also attacked Blair and the former colonial powers. "Here in Southern Africa we have one problem. Blair is here, the man who went out to campaign for sanctions against Zimbabwe while the British owned 80% of Zimbabwe's land." Dlamini-Zuma today, said she was busy with negotiations at the time and had only heard second-hand snippets from the speeches. "I wouldn't like to comment, suffice to say, this is a conference where everybody is expressing their views, and I hope no views should be seen as going personally to anyone, but as views going to the subjects we are talking about."
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From The Daily News (SA), 3 September
Mugabe is lying, say Zimbabwe farmers
By Basildon Peta
Harare - Zimbabwe's white farmers disputed claims by President Robert Mugabe on Monday that he was not seizing land from single farm owners for his controversial land resettlement policies. Mugabe told the World Summit that no white farmer would be left landless under the land reform exercise. "We have said even as we acquire land we shall not deprive the white farmers of rights completely," Mugabe said. "Every one of them is entitled to at least one farm. But they would want to continue to have more than one farm. More than one farm indeed. Fifteen, 20, 35 farms for one person; these are not figures I am just getting out of my mind. They are real figures." But representatives of white farmers disputed Mugabe's claims, saying at least 1 000 farmers of the 2 900 ordered to surrender their properties were single farm owners. "There is always a great chasm between the words of Mugabe and what is happening on the ground," said Jenni Williams, of Justice in Agriculture, a new lobby group. Commercial Farmers Union director David Hasluck said the farmers would be grateful to Mugabe if upon his arrival back in Harare he could order the de-listing of properties belonging to single farm owners in line with his speech.
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From SABC News, 3 September
Annan discusses Zimbabwe and Iraq
Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, has discussed Zimbabwe's controversial land reform programme with President Robert Mugabe and the looming war between Iraq and the US, with Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, in Sandton. Mugabe yesterday justified his land reforms and said commercial farmers would be allowed to keep one farm. Annan says during the discussions with Mugabe he reiterated that the land reform in Zimbabwe was necessary but it had to be done on legal basis and attention should be paid on the three groups, which are affected by the issue most. The groups are the poor farmers, immigrant labourers and the commercial farmers. Annan says the issue of genetically modified food also cropped up in the meeting. He says: "Of course there was a question of genetically modified food. And whether it is acceptable or not and what risks are there." Annan has assured Mugabe that the UN is doing everything it can to assist the countries faced with famine in the region, as a result of drought.
On the his meeting with the deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, Annan says they discussed the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq and possible American military action against that country. He says: "The meeting is part of a series of meetings that I have been having with Iraqi authorities in trying to encourage them to honour UN resolutions and comply with those resolutions. I did raise with the deputy foreign minister the return of UN inspectors, which most members of the (UN Security) Council would want to see them return. And the countries sympathetic to Iraq's position also would like to see them comply with the UN inspections." Annan says in response, Aziz expressed his country's willingness to co-operate with the UN to find a solution to the country's crisis with the US. Annan says Aziz indicated that they have all the concerns and all the aspects of the UN resolutions and they believe the issue should be tackled comprehensively. "He also wanted some assurances that their decisions would not backfire on them," says Annan. Annan has expressed a wish to pursue the issue further.
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From The Financial Gazette, 5 September
Zanu PF courts MDC on next president
By Sydney Masamvu Political Editor
A clique within the ruling Zanu PF is involved in behind-the-scenes manoeuvres to woo support from opposition MDC parliamentarians to push for constitutional changes that will allow an acting president to be in charge of the country for more than the constitutionally allowed 90 days. As part of the move to sweeten the deal, the Zanu PF clique is proposing the creation of an independent electoral commission and the trimming back of the term of office of a president so that it runs concurrently with that of parliament. Zanu PF officials involved in the plan said this week the strategy, being secretly sold within the party leadership but not yet made official, is part of moves to prepare for President Robert Mugabe’s eventual exit and elevation of his successor. "There are various ways which are being considered to work out a smooth succession plan both in the party and in the government," one Zanu PF Politburo member told the Financial Gazette. "From the party side, things are taking shape but some constitutional changes have to be made to make the plan operational and effective in government."
Under the current constitution, an election has to be called to name a president within 90 days were Mugabe to leave office either by death, resignation or removal. A vice president, who would have acted last as the president, would act as head of state during that period. Zanu PF’s legal affairs secretary Patrick Chinamasa, who is also the Minister of Justice, could not be reached for comment yesterday. He was reported to be in South Africa. The sources said Zanu PF’s plan to push for the extension of the time an acting president would be in power would ensure that there would be no immediate election were Mugabe to step down before the end of his six-year term, as is expected. The sources said his successor, who would be in acting capacity, would have time to consolidate his support base before an election is called. Under the plan, Presidential Special Affairs Minister John Nkomo and Parliamentary Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa are expected to be elevated to the posts of vice presidents in the party before assuming the same posts in the government. Under Zanu PF’s constitution, vice presidents in the party are named to the same posts within the government. Ailing Vice President Simon Muzenda has already expressed his wish to retire from active politics.
The sources said overtures had been made to targeted MDC legislators to back the extension period of an acting president but that no concrete results had been reported. In the current parliament, Zanu PF is short of seven votes to push for any major constitutional amendment. A two-thirds majority in parliament is needed to make such amendments. The sources said the current government crackdown on the MDC was part of political pressure being brought by Zanu PF on its rival to win the game of numbers in parliament to get approval for the constitutional amendment plan.
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From Reuters, 4 September
Mugabe tells whites to leave or risk jail over land
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe Wednesday warned white opponents of his controversial land reforms to cooperate, leave the country or face jail. "Those do not deserve to be in Zimbabwe and we shall take steps to ensure that they are not entitled to our land," Mugabe told supporters who turned out to welcome him home from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg. He said some Zimbabwean whites were urging former colonial power Britain to tighten sanctions or send troops to topple him. He cited in particular two white opposition leaders, Roy Bennett and David Coltart, who are frequent targets of his anti-white rhetoric. "The Bennetts and the Coltarts are not part of our society. They belong to Britain and let them go there. If they want to stay here, we will say ‘Stay here, but your place is in jail’." He said whites should obey orders to surrender their farms if they wanted to stay in the country. Political observers said Mugabe had often named Bennett, a legislator for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Coltart, the party's legal affairs secretary, in attacks on white critics. "I don't think this necessarily means he is planning specific action against them. He could be naming them as representatives of all his critics," one observer said.
Mugabe lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair in an address to delegates and heads of state at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) Monday. Though Blair and some other delegates were harshly critical of Mugabe and his seizure of white-owned farms for blacks, the 78-year-old president and his wife, Grace, were cheered and applauded at all their public appearances. Mugabe said his land reforms had received wide international support at the summit, except from Europe and the United States. Several Western countries have branded Mugabe's victory in March presidential elections illegitimate and have imposed sanctions on him and his close associates, including his wife. Police have charged more than 300 white farmers for defying an August 8 government deadline for 2,900 of the remaining 4,500 white commercial farmers to quit their land without compensation. Mugabe, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980, says his land drive is aimed at correcting colonial injustice, which left 70 percent of the country's best land in the hands of white farmers. Zimbabwe has been in crisis since pro-government militants led by veterans of the 1970s liberation war began invading white-owned farms in early 2000. Aid agencies say nearly half the country's 13 million people need food aid this year, part of a wider food crisis in six drought-stricken southern African countries.
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From The Financial Gazette, 5 September
High Court nullifies more eviction orders
Staff Reporter
The High Court in Harare yesterday nullified six more Section 8 eviction orders issued by the government to commercial farmers, with the state accepting that the orders were not properly served and therefore invalid. Justice Anele Matika issued six consent orders declaring the eviction orders to be invalid and of no force. The state, which has already admitted that proper procedures were not followed in some of its eviction notices, did not oppose the applications by the farmers to have the orders set aside. The High Court last week nullified similar orders issued by the government to more than 50 commercial farmers mainly because the state did not serve the same orders on other parties that have interests on those farms. About 2 900 commercial farmers were served with eviction notices in May which required them to vacate their land by August 10, but hundreds of them are defying the orders which have resulted in more than 300 of them being arrested.
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From SABC News, 5 September
Powell not surprised at being booed at World Summit
Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, says he was not surprised or shocked that hecklers booed and jeered him when he addressed the final plenary session of the World Summit in Sandton yesterday. His reference to Zimbabwe drew hostile responses from large sections of the audience. Powell says for him not to have spoken about Zimbabwe would have been a "cop out". He says he was not surprised that hecklers had been planted in the audience to try to embarrass him. Michael Brune, the protester who captured internati onal media attention when he was ejected from the World Summit during Powell's speech, says he was protesting against his government's attitude towards the World Summit. Brune works for the environmental NGO Rain forest Action Network. Speaking to SABC Radio, he says he and other international activists are protesting at the US government's lack of leadership and responsibility to lead the world to a better future. The US State Department is meanwhile, hosting a conference later today on why there is so much anti-American sentiment in the world. Twenty leading academics from the US and around the world will address members of the government. It is part of a sustained campaign by the US government to improve its image around the world. As the remaining delegates leave the World Summit, many are wondering if they have just experienced the last-ever global mega-conference. Politicians from many of the nearly 200 countries met to discuss sustainable development. They say the summit falls far short of its aim of setting out a blueprint for reducing poverty and cleaning up the environment. Non-governmental organisations have also slammed the plan, which they say repeats many pledges already made by countries on issues like aid, trade and preserving natural resources.
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From The Financial Gazette, 5 September
MDC won’t seek permit for seized maize
Staff Reporter
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which has raised more than $50 million to buy maize to alleviate food shortages in Zimbabwe, vowed this week not to apply for a permit to secure the release of 30 tonnes of grain held by the Department of Customs in Beitbridge. MDC shadow minister for agriculture Renson Gasela said the grain detained at the weekend and further consignments expected from this week were part of food aid donations, not commercial goods, and therefore did not require an import licence. Since the start of Zimbabwe’s food crisis last year, the government-controlled Grain Marketing Board (GMB) has been declared the sole trader in grain and the only agency that can freely import maize and wheat. This has hampered efforts by non-governmental agencies to alleviate food shortages.
Gasela told the Financial Gazette: "They (customs) detained the maize on the grounds that we have to apply for a permit. We are arguing that this is a donation to help the starving masses of Zimbabwe. We are not buying this maize to sell, it’s a donation. We are not interfering with or challenging the GMB’s monopoly because we are not going to sell it. For that reason, we are not going to apply for a permit. We are saying the government must allow the maize in. If they don’t want it, they must send it back." He said the MDC was expecting another 30 tonnes of maize from South Africa this week and further consignments that would arrive in batches of 30 tonnes in the coming weeks, which it would stockpile at the border post between Zimbabwe and South Africa. The MDC, the chief foe of the ruling Zanu PF, is storing the grain detained at the weekend in a bonded warehouse to protect it from rampaging baboons that have also been hard hit by the drought affecting southern Africa.
Gasela said he was not expecting the government to seize and distribute the grain because it had no legal basis for doing so. He said the MDC, which last week registered the Feed Zimbabwe Trust to procure grain, had already raised over $50 million in local donations while foreign donors were pledging cash or donating food. The donated grain will be distributed through churches to areas most affected by shortages, the result of drought and the government’s often violent and chaotic land reforms which have cut food production by more than 60 percent. According to United Nations agencies, at least six million Zimbabweans, about half the population, need emergency food aid. More than half of those affected are women and children, with 600 000 children already said to be in need of supplementary feeding because of malnutrition. "We are going to continue receiving maize and hope that they (government) see reason," Gasela said.
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From The Times (UK), 5 September
Lavatory paper pads empty supermarket food shelves
by Jan Raath
My local supermarket looks like a prison. TM is a drab, undistinguished single-storey building with roll-down steel doors out of keeping with the wealthy, upmarket neighbourhood it serves. Inside, the walls and the shelving are painted an aged, institutional yellow. The clientele are an eclectic mix of races, nationalities and languages. The contents of the shelves are not nearly so varied: they graphically illustrate Zimbabwe’s precipitate decline. In keeping with the neighbourhood, there is little the store does not stock for President Mugabe’s ruling elite and the diplomats who live near by: Scotch, olive oil, macadamia nuts, asparagus. But do not go looking for staples. There is no maizemeal, which is to Zimbabwe what rice is to Asia, no sugar, cooking oil, salt or matches. Bread, milk and margarine make increasingly rare appearances at such stores.
The management has learnt how to deal with the problem of depressingly empty shelves: they create an illusion of abundance by filling the gaps with lavatory rolls. A rare delivery of basic foods is signalled by a round-the-block queue of thin, downtrodden black people. Inside the supermarket, the same people finger packets of cling-wrapped meat at the butchery counter, turning them over and over before reluctantly putting them back. Most of them can barely afford to take lumps of fat and bone to the checkout. White pensioners look to be on the brink of tears as they squint at the price stickers. Before the Mugabe horror show started 2½ years ago, under Zimbabwe’s price control system 500 grams of Zimbabwean fillet steak would cost Z$80 (£1.40); now it is Z$1,200 (£20.70). A beer was Z$15; now it is Z$120. Uncontrolled prices have fared little better: a 250g packet of good local Caerphilly cheese was Z$35; now it is Z$450. A 1kg packet of kitty biscuits used to cost Z$350; now I pull off the Z$4,500 price sticker in shame before packing it away with my other purchases.
Coins have become a nuisance. The only useful unit of currency is the Z$500 note, which is called the Ferrari because it is red and goes fast. The central bank says that we will have a Z$1,000 note before the year is out. The only reason that people queue at the supermarkets is to buy their basics at state- controlled prices. In the townships, maizemeal and other staples are stacked in grimy stalls outside beerhalls and at bus stops, but they come at about ten times the legal price and no one outside the elite can afford the black market. Ask after the health of any Zimbabwean below the rank of company executive and invariably the reply will be: "Hungry." Stanley, my security guard, works four nights a week. He spends his three off-days taking a bus to Hurungwe 100 miles north of the capital, where relatively cheap maize is available, and buys a few bags. He loads it on to the bus back to Harare, where he catches another bus for Zaka, 100 miles further south. If a police roadblock on "anti-hoarding duty" does not take his maize, his parents there will have food for a week. Stanley gets back just in time for the 6pm Friday shift. "We must all leave this country," he says. "We can leave Mugabe to rule the trees."
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From SABC News, 4 September
MDC case remanded
About 80 activists from Zimbabwe's main opposition party who were arrested in June for planning a demonstration again had their case remanded today a legal adviser said. The case was remanded until October 22, pending a ruling from the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of the stringent security law under which the activists were charged, Alfred Nyahunzwi, a legal consultant said. The activists from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had gathered in June to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the killing of young blacks in the Johannesburg township of Soweto by police from neighbouring South Africa's apartheid regime. Zimbabwean police arrested them and charged them with unlawful assembly under the tough Public Order and Security Act, enacted ahead of the March presidential elections. The law bans any gathering of more than two people without police permission. Advocates for the activists have complained that the activists were denied medical care when they spent two nights in police custody after their demonstration was violently broken up. The MDC yesterday accused police of intensifying harassment of the party's supporters by wrongfully arresting and torturing MDC members ahead of rural elections in late September.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 6 September
Mugabe lobbyist quits
By David Rennie in Washington
One of Robert Mugabe's most vocal overseas mouthpieces has abruptly severed his connections with the government of Zimbabwe. Ari Ben-Menashe refused to say why he had stopped representing the regime. The former Israeli secret agent from the Canadian lobbyists Dickens and Madson is a key government witness in a treason case against Morgan Tsvangirai, the Zimbabwean opposition leader. Mr Tsvangirai is accused of plotting to murder Mr Mugabe. The Zimbabwe government says that a video, secretly shot by Mr Ben-Menashe, shows Mr Tsvangirai agreeing with Mr Ben-Menashe's suggestions that Mr Mugabe be killed. Mr Ben-Menashe said he stood by his accusations against Mr Tsvangirai, saying: "The tape speaks for itself."
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From SABC News, 5 September
Zimbabwe drops objections to GM crops: WFP
Zimbabwe has dropped its objections to genetically modified (GM) crops in a step which should encourage other countries in the region to accept badly needed food aid, the World Food Programme (WFP) said today. "We made great progress today on the GMO issue," said James Morris, the WFP Executive Director, after a meeting with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. "What he (Mugabe) did today will be a very important signal in the region. The fact that they have now concluded that they are comfortable in accepting GMO crops or commodities will be an important signal to other countries in the region." "It will enable us to do our job," he said. Morris is also Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general's, special envoy for the humanitarian crisis in Southern Africa, where aid workers say up to 13 million people face famine. Like several other countries in the region, Zimbabwe has expressed opposition to feeding its people with maize from the United States, which cannot certify its food donations as GM-free. Until now, the government has only said it may allow aid workers to distribute ground maize, which allays fears that GM grain may be planted locally. However, Zimbabwe government officials were not immediately available for comment.
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From The Daily News, 5 September
Starvation takes toll
From Energy Bara in Masvingo
An outbreak of cholera and dysentery has hit the Bikita and Zaka districts of Masvingo province, where 10 people have died amid fears that the diseases might spread to other parts of the province because of huge gatherings prompted by mass starvation. As hunger tightens its grip in Masvingo province, hundreds of people are now spending weeks queueing for scarce maize supplies at townships and service centres with inadequate water and toilet facilities for such numbers, creating the ideal environment for the spread of the water-borne diseases. The diseases have claimed six lives in Zaka’s Chiredzana area while four have died in Bikita. In Bikita district alone, four people have died from the diseases in the Fuve and Odzi areas, while nine are reported to be battling for their lives at Mashoko Mission and Fuve hospitals. In Zaka, three people were by yesterday still detained at St Anthony’s Mission Hospital. Health officials said they were battling to contain the diseases.
Confirming the deaths yesterday, Tapuwa Magure, the Masvingo provincial medical director, said camps had been set up in the affected areas to keep track of the outbreak. He expressed strong fears that the diseases might spread to other parts of the province because of poor water and sanitary facilities. Magure said: "We are worried with the development and monitoring camps have been set up in the affected areas. We have not established whether the cases in Bikita and Zaka are linked." Sources in the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare said health personnel deployed in the affected areas could not cope with the outbreak. The situation, according to sources, has been aggravated by the current drought which has forced people to swarm to rural service centres in the hope of getting food as their reserves have completely run out, straining the existing water and sanitary facilities. One source said: "There are several gatherings in some of the affected areas, as people converge in search of food. This has affected all measures which have been put in place to contain the diseases."
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From The Daily News, 5 September
Shiri claims right to grab farm
Staff Reporter
Air Marshal Perence Shiri, the Commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe, insisted yesterday he had every right to own land in Zimbabwe after he took possession of the keys to all the buildings, including the farmhouse, at Eirene Farm in Marondera, owned by Hamish Charters. Shiri, accompanied by five unidentified people, drove to the farm on Tuesday to make his claim and get the keys. He drove in his metallic grey Mercedes Benz, while his travelling companions drove in another car. In an interview yesterday, Shiri said Zimbabweans should reconcile the events of the 1970s, when the late Chief Rekayi Tangwena fought running battles with whites over land in the Gairezi area, with the current situation in the country. "Owning land is my right," Shiri said. "I am not ashamed to be associated with the soil of Zimbabwe. I have every right to own land in Zimbabwe. I have my farm at Mutepatepa in Bindura where I process food. But the farm has now been taken over by the people and I now have one farm - Eirene Farm."
Charters, accompanied by Derek Josphat, his foreman, held a two-hour meeting with Shiri on the farm. Charters said on Monday a messenger sent by Captain Daniel Matenga, resettled at nearby Igava Farm, came to tell him that Shiri wanted an urgent meeting with him on the farm at 11am. Shiri, 47, visited the farm on 30 July for the first time to express his intention to take it over. Charters said Shiri told him he had been allocated land on Eirene Farm. "Shiri said he wanted me to hand over the keys and the farm in as amicable a manner as possible. I told him I had left all my tobacco on the farm and he offered to buy it if the price was reasonable." Shiri offered to employ all of his labour force, according to Charters. But the workers spurned Shiri's offer and opted for their severance packages. Gibson Nelson, 27, who worked on Eirene Farm for seven years said Shiri's people had evicted them from their compound. "Zanu PF youths and war veterans severely assaulted most of the workers in the farm compound," Nelson said. Nelson said some of the workers were now living in Marondera but cattle herders had remained until the cattle are moved from the farm.
Norman Kamuriwo, 35, said for the past three weeks they had lived in fear of being attacked by men allegedly brought to the farm by Shiri. He said life had become difficult and he had left. He was on the farm on Monday to collect his belongings. Shiri yesterday confirmed by telephone he had met Charters: "You do not need to imagine things. Do you remember our history from the 1890s when the whites took land from the blacks? You need to understand such evil pieces of legislation as the Land Apportionment Act and the Land Husbandry Act." Charters said he paid $7 million to his 120 employees, who have 720 dependents, raised after he sold some of his irrigation equipment. He said only 67 workers were still to receive their packages. But he regretted that the packages would only sustain the workers for about four months, after which they would be destitute. Charters said at the end of the meeting, Shiri asked him to prepare an inventory of all the farm equipment that remained on the 1 300-hectare farm. "I had not prepared the inventory and Shiri said he would buy everything if the price was affordable to him. We will meet again at the farm within a week to finalise everything," said Charters who now rents a house in Harare after his eviction from the farm.
Charters was issued with a Section 8 eviction order on 28 March but is contesting the compulsory acquisition in the High Court. He has abandoned irrigation and tobacco equipment worth about $35 million. Of the 1 300 hectares on the farm, 120 hectares were under barley, 50 hectares maize, 90 hectares tobacco, 15 hectares paprika and the rest accommodated 600 head of cattle including 250 cows. Shiri was a key member of the Zanu PF military high command during the liberation struggle and led the infamous North Korean-trained 5 Brigade in the early 80s, when it terrorised Matabeleland and the Midlands while flushing out so-called dissidents. More than 20 000 people were killed in the purge.
From ZWNEWS: Air Marshall Shiri was quoted in the Zimbabwe Standard of 25 August 2002 as denying he had ever visited Eirene Farm. "I have a very good farm, Matepatepa in Mashonaland Central, and there is no need for me to grab a farm," he said. We have available a list of over 1100 named "VIP" beneficiaries of land allocations, including those who were given land before February 2000. If you would like a copy of this list, please let us know. It will be sent as an Excel attachment to an email message - total size 330 Kb, or about 6 time the size of the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 6 September
New farmers ignore govt ultimatum
Blessing Zulu
Despite claims by government that the controversial land-grab exercise has been a resounding success, the Ministry of Lands might be forced to re-allocate land as new settlers under the AI and A2 models have not heeded calls to take up their pieces of land ahead of the deadline last week. The government set August 31 as the deadline for all farmers to move onto the land they were allocated. Threats that they would lose their pieces of land by the expiry of the deadline have largely been ignored. An official from the Ministry of Agriculture said the process was set to start again. "The government has to start the process again because most of those allocated land have not moved onto their plots," the official said, adding they were being overwhelmed by the task of sorting out the papers. "There is too much centralisation and this is bogging us down. We are yet to send letters to some beneficiaries and some of them might be dead by now and we might be forced to undertake the exercise again. This must have been done at district level," said the official.
Minister of Local Government and the chairman of the inter-ministerial task force on land, Ignatius Chombo, admitted that Agriculture minister Joseph Made was being overwhelmed. "Every offer of the A2 farm is signed by Made and Made alone," said Chombo. "There is a huge volume of work. Though we are a bit behind we are confident that we will be through in a few weeks time. A1 started well before A2 and this explains why we are meeting the target there." Chombo also said those who have been allocated land and had not taken it up risked losing the farms. "There are many people on the waiting list and those who do not take up their pieces of land will lose it to those who are desperate for it," he said. War veterans association secretary-general and national land taskforce committee member Endy Mhlanga said those responsible for the bureaucracy should move out. "We are aware that some ministers may be delaying the process and we urge war veterans to alert us on such people," said Mhlanga.
He took a swipe at those ministers who were spending time doing paper work and not hastening the process. "We want fewer people in the offices and more people on the farms so that we can maximise production on the land. We are telling our members that those farmers who are not serious must pave way for others," he said. MDC agriculture spokesman Renson Gasela described the process as chaotic. "Genuine farmers have moved onto the pieces of land that they have been allocated," Gasela said. "Those who have not moved are afraid of the responsibilities of feeding the nation. The majority of them thought it was an easy job and others were merely coveting houses on the farms."
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From IRIN (UN), 5 September
The brave turn to mining to survive
Johannesburg - Men, women and even children in Zimbabwe are turning to small-scale gold mining, some of it illegal, as a last resort in the face of parched and empty maize fields. In spite of the dangers, illustrated by two serious mine collapses this year, people have continued to arrive at riverbeds and disused mines hoping to extract enough of the precious metal to cover their basic food needs. With no training or sophisticated equipment, miners pan or dig for long hours, for small returns. A recent report by the feature service AfricaNews, said that up to 30 percent of the new miners were women, who saw their labour as a form of financial empowerment. They used the money for fertiliser, seeds, school uniforms or travel expenses. Worryingly, many of the miners were children. The current rise in the number of small-scale miners reflects a similar trend seen during the severe drought of 1992. Up to half of Zimbabwe's 12 million people face food shortages in the coming months. This time the reasons go beyond drought, and include economic and political upheaval. Zimbabwe's controversial land-reform programme has also left hundreds of thousands of farmworkers and their families with an insecure future, and few alternative job opportunities. "There has been an increase in small-scale miners, although government is trying to clamp down due to accidents and environmental degradation," said Tinago Ruzive, president of the Associated Mineworkers Union of Zimbabwe. The new miners come primarily from rural areas and tend to work either for licenced small mines, or move illegally through disused mines in search of traces of gold previous miners missed.
A study by the International Labour Organisation found that miners were paid poorly and lived in bad conditions. Some were paid on a "gwaza" basis, where they were remunerated according to how much rock they brought to the surface. The study, by mining consultant John Hollaway, said small scale-mining had a "well established reputation for a disproportionately high number of fatalities". "This has arisen principally from the deaths caused by such miners re-entering closed mines illegally to win gold from the pillars, and from alluvial miners burrowing into uncompacted river banks," he said. In August, it was reported that between 20 and 30 people died when a mine shaft caved in in Mhondoro, southwest of the capital, Harare. "We have seen a lot of small-scale panning primarily due to the serious collapse of the economy," Munyaradzi Bidi, director of the human rights group ZimRights, told IRIN. "Rural households are finding it difficult to cope, and the unemployment rate is very high. School leavers can't find jobs, so illegal gold panning is seen as a way of finding a quick buck," he said. "They hope to sell the gold they find for basic commodities like oil and grain. They sell to buyers from as far afield as Botswana and South Africa, and to the elite in Zimbabwe." Bidi said the panners formed camps, and moved to new sites when they stopped finding gold, as they had no machinery to dig or blast.
However, ZimRights was concerned about the number of children panning. "They have to fend for themselves and to subsidise the family budget for food and rations," Bidi said. "We want them to go to school." He said that during the current food crisis, people were looking for any way to survive, and this included commercial sex work by some women at the camps. He urged the government to formalise small-scale mining, and to introduce a welfare grant to help needy people. Ruzive said the government was currently instituting training programmes for small-scale miners. A spokesman for the Ministry of Mines was not immediately available for comment.
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From The Star (SA), 6 September
Zim police order white farmers off their land
Harare - Police in Zimbabwe's grain belt are delivering orders to white farmers to get off their land by Sunday, in a move that may finally remove nearly all of them from the area, farm union officials said on Friday. Since late on Thursday, teams of police have been travelling around the commercial farming areas in Mashonaland West and ordering farmers already issued with eviction orders to leave with all their possessions by 2pm on Sunday. A total of 25 farmers out of about 150 in the area had been visited by midday on Friday, said David Rockingham-Gill, local administrator for the Commercial Farmers' Union. "They are still driving around so there are still more to go," he said. "They (police) said, 'the workers have got to stop work and anything you leave on the farm is ours'." Police were targeting farmers with who had already received "section 8" eviction orders under President Robert Mugabe's land-seizure legislation, which gives landowners 90 days in which to wind up their affairs and abandon their property.
The Mashonaland West area, stretching from just outside Harare to 200km north of the capital, is the richest grain producing area in the country. Maize, wheat and barley, as well as other crops, are grown intensively under irrigation. The police were making their rounds as the country's bakers warned of worsening bread shortages in urban areas and Mugabe made a policy U-turn and agreed to imports of genetically modified maize as emergency food aid to try to avert the worst famine in the country's history. "It's very serious," Rockingham-Gill said. "I don't know where we go from here. There are all sorts of confusing messages coming from all the different police vehicles." Farmers visited included many with eviction orders that had been annulled by court orders, others whose orders had not yet fallen due and some who had not been issued with any eviction orders. At least five of those ordered to leave owned only one farm. Mugabe told the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, this week that only farmers with more than one farm would be targeted. "People are 'phoning their lawyers," Rockingham-Gill said. Only one farmer had begun to pack, he said.
Douglas Taylor-Freeme, vice-president of the CFU, was among the farmers visited by police. He said he showed them he had been issued with an eviction order that gave him until the end of November to leave. "I told them I have 400ha of wheat in the ground which will be ready for reaping in October, ...tobacco which I should be planting and 500 head of cattle to look after. "They said they don't care, you have got to be off," he said. "Then they went to the workers and said they had to stop work, and told them to claim retrenchment packages. I will have to see if I can keep going and get some sense out of this," he said. Mugabe told a group of visiting journalists on Thursday: "We have sworn that no one will go without land, but they (white farmers) are greedy, greedy colonialists." The official in charge of land seizures in Mashonaland West is provincial governor Peter Chanetsa, also the top local ruling Zanu PF party official. He is reported to have seized five white-owned farms for himself.
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From IRIN (UN), 6 September
Displaced fleeing to towns to escape violence
Political violence and intimidation in Zimbabwe's rural areas is forcing victims to flee to major towns and cities, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) warned in its latest report. Many of the displaced, who reportedly have escaped with little but the clothes on their backs, have become stranded in urban areas without food, shelter or medical care. ZimRights said supporters of both the ruling party Zanu PF, and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), have been victims and perpetrators of the political violence. However, "the majority of victims were assaulted, arrested, detained and chased from their homes by the police and Zanu PF supporters," the organisation noted. ZimRights had received "a plethora of political violence cases from Buhera North, Chipinge and Chimanimani [in the eastern Manicaland Province] during the months of July and August 2002".
Apart from the destruction of homes and property, "relatives and children of supporters of the MDC were tortured, assaulted and subjected to various forms of inhumane and degrading treatment". "Interviews with the victims who thronged ZimRights head offices in [the capital] Harare reveal that the problem has reached unprecedented levels," ZimRights said. In August alone, ZimRights helped 152 "cases" at its head office. The group called for urgent humanitarian aid to displaced persons in Harare, and other cities. It also warned that the level of violence was increasing as the country braced for local council elections to be held later this month. "Buhera North has been specifically targeted because it is the home area of the president of the MDC [Morgan Tsvangirai]. Police details operating in the area have been assaulting, arresting and detaining people for no just cause," ZimRights alleged. The police had also teamed up with Zanu PF youth militias and the perpetrators of violence were not being arrested, the rights group said. However, police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena denied that the police were acting in "cahoots with Zanu PF". "It's a false allegation. We go in to arrest people when they commit an offence, irrespective of their political allegiance. We don't need support from any groups of people," he told IRIN.
Spokesman Bvudzijena has been allocated Mabubu farm in Mashonaland Central, and has expressed an interest in Koodoo Hill (Mashonaland Central) and Templeton Ranch in Mashonaland West
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From The Daily News, 6 September
Zanu PF supporters detain MP
By Pedzisai Ruhanya Chief Reporter
About 200 Zanu PF supporters yesterday besieged the Chegutu rural district council offices, assaulted an MDC official and detained Hilda Mafudze, the MP for Mhondoro. The offices were the venue for the nomination court for the rural district council elections later this month. Speaking on her mobile phone from the council yard yesterday afternoon, Mafudze said the Zanu PF youths chased away eight of their 11 candidates and it was not certain they would be courageous enough to return and register. But the police in Chegutu yesterday refused to comment on the incident. A policeman at Chegutu Police Station said: "I cannot assist you at the moment, as the officer-in-charge is away." Philip Chiyangwa, the Zanu PF chairman for Mashonaland West province and Nathan Shamuyarira, the party’s spokesman, yesterday said they were attending meetings and could not comment on the allegations of violence by their party supporters.
But Mafudze said: "I had come here to make sure that all our candidates are registered but when I arrived, the Zanu PF youths started to assault our members. Right now I cannot drive out of the yard. I have locked myself in the car. These incidents are happening in the presence of the police. Edmore Gorerino, our candidate for ward 27, was attacked while trying to register. The situation is very tense here." Mafudze said the Zanu PF youths assaulted Stephen Nyikadzino, the party’s secretary for Chitungwiza who had gone there to assist their candidates to register for the nationwide polls scheduled for 28 and 29 September. Nyikadzino said: "When I arrived from Harare, some Zanu PF supporters spotted me and started to beat me. They took away the nomination papers I had. Eight of our members have run away and they cannot register."
Meanwhile, in a rare interview with foreign journalists on Thursday, President Robert Mugabe said his government's seizure of white-owned farms had not contributed to the country's food shortages. "If anything, it's the only way you can empower people to produce, not just for subsistence, but to enable them to enjoy life and to enable the country to continue to export maize," the Associated Press quoted him as saying. The World Food Programme estimates that about six million Zimbabweans are threatened with hunger over the next six months. The food crisis has been blamed on a severe drought during the growing season, and Mugabe's land redistribution programme. Last month, 2,900 white commercial farmers were ordered to leave their land. Many disobeyed the order, and about 300 were arrested, most of whom have since been released on bail.
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From Associated Press, 6 September
UN special envoy says food situation in Zimbabwe is urgent
Harare - A top UN official appealed Friday for donor nations to increase their contributions to the massive food crisis unfolding in Zimbabwe. An estimated 6 million Zimbabweans are at risk of starvation after harvests in the country were badly damaged by drought and the government's land seizure program, a policy that has crippled the commercial farming industry. Nearly 7 million people in five other southern African countries were also at risk of starvation. "It's incredibly important that the world knows the severity of the issue," said James Morris, head of the World Food Program and the United Nations' special envoy to the southern Africa food crisis. "We'll be able to avert a terrible crisis if we have the resources to move forward." The United Nations has appealed for $507 million in food aid for the region. So far donors have committed to giving about one third of that and the WFP is negotiating for another third in donations, Morris said.
According to UNICEF, a May survey showed an increase in malnutrition and stunting among young children. "It's absolutely unacceptable under anyone's standards for children to suffer," said Morris, who was visiting Zimbabwe as part of an assessment mission around the affected region. The United Nations also needs money for medicine and seeds and fertilizer for the upcoming growing season to prevent a possible second year of hunger, he said. Morris also welcomed Zimbabwe's agreement to accept genetically modified corn under a complex deal that would allow the grain to be milled so it would not be planted. Zambia has refused to accept the grain, calling it a health risk. President Robert Mugabe on Thursday said he would prefer to accept food that was not been modified and Morris agreed to try to find those donations. However, donations from the United States, by far the largest donor to the crisis, contain genetically modified food. Mugabe also denied accusations his government was keeping food aid away from opposition supporters.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said Friday he had received numerous reports of discrimination in distribution of food sold by the state. At one depot, ruling party militants took over selling corn meal and in many areas ruling party officials were appointed to take charge of food distribution, he said. "Zimbabwe is spiralling out of control with the people being forced to suffer incredible hardships at the hands of a regime indifferent to their plight," he said. "It is a tragedy food should be used as a political tool. People are starving and everyone should put their heads together on this." Tsvangirai also criticized the government's decision to impound 30 tons of corn imported by the opposition on Sunday because it had no permits. Political and economic chaos over the last two years in Zimbabwe has been blamed mainly on the ruling party. Critics say Mugabe's land reform program which has targeted 95 percent of properties owned by 4,000 white farmers for confiscation, is part of the increasingly authoritarian government's efforts to maintain power. But the government says the land seizures are a final effort to correct colonial era imbalances in land ownership by taking white-owned farms and giving them to blacks. Many of the larger farms, however, have been given to confidantes of Mugabe.
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From the Zimbabwe Independent, 6 September
Bakeries scale down operations
Stanley James
Zimbabwe’s bakeries are operating at 50% of capacity because of rationed flour supplies from major milling firms as the country's wheat reserves dwindle. The situation has culminated in the black market trade of bread at $100 a loaf instead of the gazetted $54,95. Bakers Association of Zimbabwe (BAZ) chairman Armitage Chikwavira confirmed the scaling down of operations, attributing the problem to the decimated supplies of flour from millers. "The persistent bread shortage has been due to severe difficulties in getting normal supplies of flour from the millers," said Chikwavira. "At the moment millers are rationing wheat to the extent that we are operating at 50% of our normal capacity." "The situation is expected to persist in the next three weeks before a consignment of 22 000 tonnes of imported wheat which was procured by government arrives in the country," he said. Millers are currently rationing flour to bakeries from the normal 639 tonnes a week to 336 tonnes a week adding to the financial woes of bakers.
"We are at the moment securing about 40% to 50% of flour supplies and bakeries have resorted to reducing working hours and sending some workers on leave to minimise costs," he said. "Government has been frantically working towards restoring normal supplies of bread. However, we fear that in the event that the deplorable situation is not addressed, we will experience a continuous shortage of the commodity that will negatively impact on the sector." Consumers are concerned with the deteriorating quality of bread on the market amid allegations that bakers were mixing flour with maize meal in the production process. Major bakers have also stopped slicing bread in a bid to reduce production costs. Bakers are also concerned with the government's controversial price control system for bread which they said adversely affected viability. Chikwavira said that as the winter wheat harvest was about to start there was a possibility that flour shortages might be solved on a short-term basis. However, analysts forecast a significant drop in wheat output because of government's land redistribution programme which has left many of the commercial wheat farmers landless.
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From News24 (SA), 6 September
Zim denies journo work permit
Harare - Zimbabwe's information ministry has refused to renew the work permit for a US journalist working for Agence France Presse (AFP), who must leave the country by September 14, according to a letter received on Friday by AFP's bureau in Harare. Griffin Shea (27), joined the Harare bureau in August 2000, when he received a work permit for slightly more than two years, which expires September 14. In the letter, the ministry said: "We regret to have to inform you that the Department (of Information) is unable to give support to the application" for a renewal of the work permit, required by the immigration authorities. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo earlier had indicated to AFP that under the new press law, only Zimbabwean journalists would be allowed to work in the country. AFP's regional bureau in Harare has a French bureau chief whose work permit was extended by six months in June and expires at the end of November. The bureau covers five countries in southern Africa: Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe. On March 15, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe enacted a law that imposed stringent limits on press freedoms for independent and foreign journalists working in the country. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act allows only permanent residents or Zimbabwean nationals to continue working in the country. Foreign journalists may only work for a "limited period" of unspecified time. The Supreme Court is due to make a ruling on the constitutionality of the law, following a lawsuit filed by Zimbabwean journalists. No date has been set for that ruling.
From ZWNEWS: Minister Moyo has been allocated Little Connemara farm in Manicaland.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 6 September
Resettled farmers duped
Blessing Zulu
The chaotic land reform exercise has taken yet another twist with the revelation this week that new farmers under the model A2 scheme must refund government's outlay. This is so it can compensate displaced white farmers, the Zimbabwe Independent has established. The Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing and chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Committee on Land, Ignatius Chombo, confirmed that the land allocated to farmers under the A2 model was not free. "The government will pay the money for immovable property to the commercial farmer who will be leaving and the new settler will be compelled to refund government the amount paid as compensation," said Chombo. Chombo's disclosure this week adds to the growing list of policy aberrations in the resettlement exercise as new farmers were not informed about the compensation requirement when they applied for land. The government's policy document on agrarian reform does not refer to a cost recovery plan involving resettled farmers. Over and above the purchase of immovable property new farmers under the A2 scheme have to pay for the land through leases and land taxes.
Observers said this attempt to recover costs was a clear demonstration that the government required international support to implement a proper land reform exercise. Chombo said farmers served with Section 8 notices were allowed to move out with their movable assets. "The new settlers can negotiate with the commercial farmers to purchase the movable assets but where there is disagreement, the farmer is free to auction his equipment to the highest bidder," said Chombo. The commercial farmers and the new settlers are supposed to carry out an audit of immovable assets before the former leave. The government also assists in this process. "An inventory will be taken after every immovable asset has been evaluated and this includes boreholes, sheds, the homestead and even the electricity transformers," Chombo said. He said the government was funding settlers under the model A1 programme and the infrastructure on these farms would be used communally.
Chombo echoed Vice-President Joseph Msika's words at the Commercial Farmers Union AGM last month that new owners would only obtain title deeds for their newly-acquired properties if they were paid-up farmers. About 54 000 of the 160 000 people who applied for land under the A2 model are set to be affected by the development as the compensation will run into billions of dollars. The structural problems are being caused by the government's insistence on going ahead with land reform without the support of the international community. The government, which is demanding that the A2 model be a full cost-recovery programme, is also frantically trying to raise $160 billion to fund the same farmers. Speaking at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan reiterated the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) position that the land reform programme should be legal and properly organised to avoid adverse effects on production. Justice for Agriculture spokesperson Jenni Williams said the issue of compensation was fraught with problems, as movable assets have been looted preventing farmers from securing recompense in this regard. "Hopes for further compensation have almost entirely been abandoned, especially now that the Zimbabwean government is bankrupt and inflation is running at 123,5%," said Williams. "Economists estimate over $20 billion worth of moveable assets have been illegally impounded or looted since February 2000," said Williams.
From ZWNEWS: Minister Chombo has expressed an interest in two properties - Allan Grange and Oldham farms - in Mashonaland West. Vice President Msika has expressed an interest in part of Umguza Block in Matabeleland.
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From CNN, 7 September
Mugabe, ministers visit ally Libya - state radio
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and senior government ministers left on Saturday for Libya, which has provided most of Zimbabwe's fuel for the past three years, state radio reported. The radio said Mugabe's delegation included Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa, Energy Minister Amos Midzi and Gideon Gono, chief executive of the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe which has brokered previous oil deals. Last year, Mugabe renegotiated with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi a $360 million fuel import deal for the supply of 100,000 tonnes of oil products per month. Since foreign currency shortages triggered supply disruptions in Zimbabwe three years ago, the north African country is Zimbabwe's single largest supplier of petroleum-based fuels. Gaddafi is a key ally of Mugabe, who has faced criticism on the international scene over his controversial drive to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks and his disputed re-election in March. Zimbabwe is currently suffering an economic crisis widely blamed on Mugabe's mismanagement since assuming power at independence from Britain in 1980.
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From The Financial Gazette, 6 September
Zimbabwe heading for the big switch-off?
The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), which owes more than US$24 million (Z$1.32 billion) to the Southern Africa Power Pool (SAPP) for imports, is demanding payment for electricity bills in foreign currency amid fears that major regional power companies could cut Harare off unless outstanding electricity accounts are settled. The SAPP is a grouping of regional electricity firms that share power according to the needs of the various members. ZESA imports up to 35% of Zimbabwe’s power requirements from Hydro de Cahora Bassa (HCB) of Mozambique, South Africa’s ESKOM, Societe Nationale d’Electricite (SNEL) of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Zambian Electricity Supply Commission (ZESCO). The total monthly foreign currency requirement for Zimbabwe’s electricity imports is US$5.5 million, but the cash-strapped ZESA needs more than US$17.4 million monthly to sustain its entire operations, including debt servicing and procurement of spare parts.
But according to documents with this newspaper, ZESA has since the beginning of the year defaulted on its obligations to its external suppliers, prompting some of them to threaten to switch Zimbabwe off. The largest arrears of US$12 million were owed to HCB as of June 28 2002, followed by US$5 million for ESKOM and US$1 million each for SNEL and ZESCO. Another US$5 million is owed to a Mozambican firm called EDM which provides power transportation services to ZESA. The documents show that ZESA failed to pay US$1.5 million a week to HCB for the first six months of the year and that the Mozambican power utility has threatened to reduce supplies by 50 megawatts progressively for each week the Zimbabweans fail to honour their payment obligations. "The arrangements which have been put in place to facilitate payments to SNEL and ZESCO in Zimbabwe dollars are no longer sustainable due to the managed exchange rate and lack of substantial exports to SNEL and ZESCO," says part of a circular written by ZESA chairman Sidney Gata to Zimbabwean firms that consume a lot of electricity. "Furthermore, SNEL is also desperate for foreign currency to procure spare parts for their system in order to sustain exports to ZESA," he says.
It is understood that because of ZESA’s problems, the DRC firm is now giving first priority to ESKOM and has demanded that Zimbabwe pays for its electricity imports in US dollars. "However, as the US dollars are not available we cannot expect firm supplies from SNEL," Gata said. It is now feared that due to acute shortages of hard cash in Zimbabwe, the country could soon be plunged into darkness unless measures are taken to ensure adequate foreign currency is available to ZESA. ZESA and the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe get preferential treatment in terms of allocations of foreign currency from the central Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ). Qt least 40% of all export receipts are channelled to the two parastatals for power and energy imports but ZESA says the supply of hard cash from the RBZ has dwindled since the end of 2001. "In view of our current financial problem and, in particular, our inability to raise foreign currency to pay for our power imports, there is a serious danger that power imports will be curtailed and eventually terminated," Gata said. "This will have very adverse effects on business operations and indeed the economy at large," he said.
A power blackout could condemn local industry to further hardships at a time Zimbabwe is battling to generate foreign currency to sustain operations and pay for external commitments. ZESA is now proposing that Zimbabwean firms pay their electricity accounts in hard currency or risk having their operations grind to a halt. "Our solution as a way forward is to ask you, our valued customers, to settle your electricity account in foreign currency with effect from the July billing," Gata’s circular said. "This will be done by dividing your total electricity bill in Zimbabwe dollars by the official exchange rate ruling on the billing date," it said. It is however illegal for ZESA to charge for electricity in foreign currency because it has not been sanctioned by the RBZ. Sources in the banking industry said the central bank had already written to ZESA instructing it to withdraw the circular because it was a violation of exchange control regulations.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 8 September
Zimbabwe farmers told to quit today
By Brian Latham in Harare and Philip Sherwell
Hundreds of white Zimbabwean farmers have been ordered to abandon their homes by this afternoon in the latest land-grab ultimatum by the regime of President Robert Mugabe. There were chaotic scenes yesterday around farming centres such as Karoi and Raffingora as panicked families packed possessions, removed equipment and loaded tobacco and chickens into trucks after government officials told them that anything left on their land after 2pm today would be seized. The latest blow to the embattled agricultural sector illustrates Mugabe's contempt for international opinion as it coincides with a visit by James Morris, the executive director of the World Food Programme, to investigate reports that opposition supporters have been denied food aid.
"We're currently trying to move 5,000 chickens and our tobacco, not to mention our own belongings. We're leaving a crop of wheat in the land and still they're hassling us," a farmer's wife from Karoi told The Telegraph. "They gave us 48 hours to get out, but the war veterans are already on the land. They're demanding that we pay off our workers and telling me that I can't take out the kitchen cabinets I paid for and fitted because they're fixtures and fittings. This feels like the final straw." The ultimatum comes almost a month after one under which the government ordered 2,900 farmers to leave their land by August 8 under the controversial land reform programme. About 60 per cent of farmers affected by last month's deadline refused to leave their farms and more than 300 of them were arrested. Last week, 54 farmers had their eviction orders nullified by a high court after they were found to have been served incorrectly. The latest order, however, affects even farmers who have not previously been targeted or who had their eviction notices overturned.
The crisis is deepened by demands issued by teams from Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF Party that ousted farmers must pay their workers hefty severance packages. "It's a nightmare," said Jean Simon, who farms in Raffingora, about 80 miles north of the capital. "My workers demanded a huge severance package. I'll pay and then see if the wave passes over me because I'm not moving anything from my home and if they trash it on Sunday, then they trash it." She is determined to stay put and won a court order issued in Harare that is supposed to prevent ministers and government officials from harassing her on her land and another order against the seizure of her farm. Justice for Agriculture (Jag), a new farmers' group, said farmers should not give in to the threats. "These aren't official eviction notices," Jenni Williams, a spokesman told The Sunday Telegraph. "The farmers shouldn't be leaving. It's just a scare tactic and Jag's advice is to stand firm. We have the moral, constitutional and human high ground in this case and farmers have a right to resist these evictions."
The trouble is worst north of Harare in Zimbabwe's once prosperous grain belt, previously the source of much of the country's food. The threats coincided with the arrival of Mr Morris as special envoy to Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, to investigate political interference in food distribution. About six million Zimbabweans, almost half the population, face starvation in the wake of Mugabe's state-sponsored farm invasions over the past 29 months. Mr Morris described the situation as "the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today". Ms Williams said: "Really, it's just another sign of the depths land sickness has fallen to. It shows the lack of judgment, that government has completely lost the plot and forgotten that people have to eat."
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Comment from The Financial Gazette, 6 September
After all has been said and done…
I was scouting around for what to write on this week when Albert said: "Prof, you have not said a thing on the Johannesburg big summit. Why?" he asked, obviously convinced I should say something on the two-week United Nations’ World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa. "I don’t want to spoil the party," I answered with deference. "Maybe you should," Albert suggested. "Spoil the party?" I asked, half-jokingly. "No, I mean you should say something," he said, rather seriously. As we all know, the 10-day gathering or summit is a party the United Nations throws for its heads of state once every 10 years, symbolically in a Third World country. Ten years ago, this party or summit was in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is not hard to predict the continental venue for the next party or summit. Somewhere in Asia, of course! Although it is mainly meant for the 185 odd heads of member states of the United Nations, several thousands come to the party either as invited guests or as "gatecrashers" in the literal sense, as in the case of anti-summit demonstrators who crash the gates in a bid to enter the conference room to make their point of view known. Although the 185 heads of state meet under the veneer of "sovereign" equality, only the dull or those who have an exaggerated sense of self-importance (and there are many!) miss the point that George Orwell made in Animal Farm that all heads of state are equal but some are more equal than others. The party or summit is literally a platform of letting out hot air and anger that accumulate over 10 years. And a lot of such hot air and anger was let out at this summit as in Rio, only more angrily and more dramatically this time round, as the "more equal than others" measure the pulse. This is as it should be because the condition of the world, particularly that of the poor in it, is a lot worse than it was 10 years ago. It is my feeling that 10 years is too far in between for the world leaders to be reminded of these deteriorating conditions and their responsibility for them. I would suggest an interval of five years, for a forgetful world.
Who was the star of the party or summit? Not US State Secretary Colin Powell, but our own President Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the leader experienced in guerrilla warfare with its elements of surprise: "Ambush the enemy when he is sitting down restfully, and attack when he expects you to retreat." British Premier Tony Blair was caught unawares, akarivara in an unfamiliar southern African terrain and ambushed. The President nearly got a standing ovation for a brave speech, telling Blair in his face when he (Tony) least expected it: "Have your Britain and let me have my Zimbabwe!" (As if countries were individual possessions.) I told you before that like wine, the President seems to be getting "better" with age in his angry speeches. What I doubted was his sense of proportion, direction and judgment. Maybe I am wrong and he is getting better in everything. But explaining the thunderous applause, an observer said: "It was like cheering a brave man on the edge of a cliff to jump." The only genuine cheer, in my view, was Namibian President Sam Nujoma’s: it was easy to see his gestures, pointing a finger at the "British imperialist". Had the summit been in Windhoek, I have no doubt Nujoma would have moved towards the tiny Blair and slapped him nembama! As for the many others, they were busy making deals for debt forgiveness with Blair and others while cheering us on at the same time.
Now that the party is over, the hangover shall take two or three days to clear from the system. Then we will begin to see things clearly. We are back where we where before the summit: isolated; without bread; without sugar; without mafuta; without impupu; without mukaka (at times) all things we used to have in abundance before hondo ye minda three years ago. Were we convincing in our powerful and candid "tell it like it is" speech? Does the thunderous applause at the world summit mean the end of international isolation? Are the lean years over? Have we, after the world summit, begun the years of sustainable plenty to boast about 10 years from now at another summit in Asia? Or, will there be another more powerful speech on behalf of the Wretched of the Earth 10 years from now? My honest assessment is that: after all has been said and done, there will be more said than done, unless we start thinking and acting differently. Combative and militant talk, exciting as this might be, will not get us anywhere. If anywhere, it will get us into trouble, if we are not in trouble already.
Professor Masipula Sithole is a lecturer of political science at the University of Zimbabwe and director of the Harare-based Mass Public Opinion Institute.
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Comment from The Zimbabwe Independent, 7 September
'Our main concern is our next meal'
By Mercedes Sayagues
Robert Mugabe and Jonathan Moyo, respectively president and propaganda minister of Zimbabwe, are very good at distorting facts. Witness Mugabe's speech on Monday at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg. "Our land reform is about sustainable development," he trumpeted. Well, not for one million farm workers and their families displaced by the said land reform. It is the first land reform in the world that displaces more people than it resettles while bringing famine to a nation. Only China's Mao Zedong and Cambodia's Pol Pot achieved similar feats. Admittedly, Mugabe had some good lines. "Let (Tony) Blair keep his Britain, we will keep our Zimbabwe," he declared. I was watching his speech broadcast on a giant screen at the Ubunthu Village, the fun fair of the Earth Summit at the Wanderers stadium. Most people - black and white, Indian and coloured, local and foreign - openly laughed. A handful of rasta-dreadlocked young blacks and one flabby white man dressed in ethnic shirt and sandals clapped. Next to me was a big black South African mama, a cook at a food stall, wiping her hands on her apron. "He is talking rubbish, that Mugabe," she scorned. "And those men who clap are stupid. I know the truth in Zimbabwe. I talk to the ladies who come to sell the doilies. They are starving there, they have no land and no food, they have no rights and no freedom, and it is Mugabe's fault." One wishes such clarity upon the South African press and leaders.
Zimbabwe's problem is not about whites, about wealth concentration, land reform or equality. It is about a dictatorial regime oppressing its people and ruining the economy. Nay, ruining a country while the world watches. "Our main concern is our next meal," says a friend in Harare. Unlike 70% of Zimbabweans who live in poverty with less than one US dollar a day, he has money to buy food but the supermarket shelves are empty of mealie-meal, cooking oil, salt and sugar. Partly, the food shortages explain why the opposition is so quiet. Its hungry grassroots militants are (literally) queuing at the shops. More ominously, they are quiet because all the avenues of protest are being closed. You can't march on the streets, you can't hold a rally, you can't go to the courts, or strike, you don't have access to the media. An independent radio station was firebombed a week ago. If you are MDC, you risk having your house, your shop, your car, your hut, your granary burnt down, your family beaten up, gang raped or tortured. You can't go to the police to report it, and on top of that you are hungry. Is it any wonder people are demoralised and the opposition appears rudderless?
Not surprisingly, anybody with a skill, from dentists to accountants to mechanics, plumbers and bakers, are leaving the country. This suits Mugabe nicely. He can now achieve his vision of a polarised society, where a tiny elite owes its wealth to his political patronage and is thus subservient to him. On the other side a mass of poor, hungry, ignorant people are cowed into submission. No room here for an urban middle class, educated and critical, who might vote against Mugabe. This is the real tragedy of Zimbabwe: that its black citizens are oppressed and denied basic freedoms, intimidated, while democratic institutions are dismantled and the economy collapses. And yet the South African media and politicians keep focusing on land and the eviction of white farmers. Last week Bantu Holomisa said the problem was between Zimbabwe and Britain and Mugabe should sit with Blair to resolve it. No, the problem is that Zanu PF is waging war against citizens who dared prefer another party, another leader.
The Zimbabwe crisis is not about land redistribution. It is about keeping power in the hands of Zanu PF at the cost of destroying a country. It's about a regime that creates and unleashes an armed militia of thugs to terrorise the countryside and cities to deliver the vote, to punish opponents, and to maintain its grip on the country. Were it not for the armed militia, for its organised, widespread torture and gang rape accomplished with police complicity, Mugabe would be out, and he knows it. Does this remind you of Angola or Congo? It should, for this is where Zimbabwe is heading. In 1998, when the DRC was invited to join SADC, together with Zimbabwean colleagues I warned prophetically: SADC invites the DRC to join hoping it will become more like SADC, but SADC will end up looking more like the DRC. Sadly, Zimbabwe is proving us right. On this sunny afternoon, as I listened to Mugabe's speech at the summit, I remembered he famously said in 1980: "Don't listen to what I say, watch what I do." We are watching, and it is so sad to see him destroy a beautiful country that could have been Africa's success story instead of its emblematic failure.
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From News24 (SA), 8 September
Hunger takes its toll
Nhwali - The girls giggle nervously as they talk about their hunger. Their grades have plummeted. They fall asleep in class from exhaustion. Often, when they have nothing at all to eat, they don't even bother coming to school. "Sometimes it's better to stay home than to come and collapse here," said Litsoanelo Moyo, a 19-year-old student at Nhwali secondary school. Zimbabwe's worst food crisis in a decade has begun to take its toll on the village of Nhwali, 700km southwest of Harare.Many now eat only one small meal a day. The poorest are forced to beg for a handful of mieliemeal from their neighbours. Child malnutrition has more than doubled to 8 percent. And teachers and students at the local schools worry about the damage this is doing to the education system. At the beginning of the year, the school enrolled 450 students. More than 50 have dropped out because their families have stolen across the border to South Africa, they were forced to help scavenge for food or their parents no longer could afford the 1 280 Zimbabwean dollars (about $2) in school fees, said Soneni Dube, the deputy headmaster. Of the remaining students, about 50 are absent on any given day, up from one or two in normal times. Those that come are often too hungry to study. One girl fainted in the middle of a class. Teachers gave her some food, but she dropped out a few days later. The schoolgirls talk of their dreams - of being nurses, a journalist, a stewardess. But they are more fixated on their hunger. "I used to be fat," laughs Itumeleng Mdlongwa, a petite 17-year-old girl.
It is noon on a weekend day and they have walked between two and 10km to school to hold a study group on the history of Europe's colonisation of Africa. Not one of them has anything more in her stomach than black tea. The girls used to eat two hearty meals a day of meat, mielie mash and vegetables and a small lunch. Now, when they are lucky, they get two small meals of corn mash and the rabe or spinach they grow in small gardens in their yards. When the government trucks selling mielies don't come for a while and they haven't been to Nhwali for months - they get only one meal, sometimes just vegetables. Nontokoza Moyo (16) passed six subjects last term. Now she is only passing three. "When I'm reading, I sleep," she said. "We don't normally concentrate much these days." Dube is worried that his teachers are at risk of falling through the cracks in the shaky food delivery system. They are too wealthy to get food aid and are not official residents of any of the cluster of nearby villages, so never make it onto the lists to buy scarce government grain. "Even if we have the money, we don't have the grain to buy," he said.
An estimated 6 million of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people are threatened by a hunger crisis caused by a terrible drought and the government's chaotic land reform program, which has badly wounded its agriculture-based economy, according to the World Food Programme. The WFP, which is currently delivering 11 000 tons a month to Zimbabweans, hopes to increase that to 60 000 tons. They predict the situation will get much worse in the coming months. Meanwhile, human rights groups accuse the government - which sells corn at the fixed price of Z$ 555 Zimbabwean for 50kg of refusing to sell grain to opposition supporters and making only sporadic deliveries to opposition strongholds. When WFP head James Morris arrived in Nhwali to inspect the distribution of mielies, an unprecedented seven government trucks filled with bags of mielies for sale rolled up, the first time since July that even one truck has arrived to feed the 9 000 people in the area, deep in opposition territory. Janet Siziba, a 73-year-old widow, waits in line with money she has borrowed from a kind neighbour to buy mielies to feed herself, her grandson, his wife and their two children. She and her grandson used to feed the family off the harvest from their tiny field and the earnings they made by making bricks for neighbours. But their field produced nothing this year, and no-one has money to pay them for piecework. So she begs door to door for small handfuls of grain and watches fearfully as her 1- and 4-year-old great grandchildren grow weaker. Siziba says she has not even bothered to plough her tiny field for the upcoming planting season, which frightens aid workers who hope the crisis will end with the next harvest. "Where will I get the money to get the seed," she said.
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From The Daily News, 9 September
Hungry Bindura residents take on Manyika
Staff Reporter
Elloit Manyika, the acting governor for Mashonaland Central, was last Friday embarrassed by Bindura residents at Tendayi Community Hall in the presence of James Morris, the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for humanitarian needs in southern Africa who toured the province. The residents demanded that Manyika explain to them why they were being forced to buy maize-meal under the food for work programme. Enerita Kawiya, 31, from Chiwaridzo township in Bindura claimed officials responsible for the programme were ill-treating them and giving the outside world a false impression of their work. She said, amid applause from the crowd: "We will not be cowed here. These people force us to buy the maize-meal with the $500 paid out after five days’ work. "The $500 is too little and an insult to some of us with big families. I cannot even buy soap. They are forcing us to buy two-10kg packets of maize meal for $250 each. We are simply being exploited. We are not getting food for free and people should know that."
The message was conveyed to Morris by some of the UN officials who witnessed the incident. "Minister, you cannot go without attending to our problems here," said Joel Marira, 38, also at Tendayi Community Hall. "The leaders here told us that you would address us. There is a lot of politics in this exercise and you should talk to the people before you leave," Marira said. Manyika had unsuccessfully tried to leave before the UN team could witness the confusion. Manyika, the Minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation, was forced to address the restless residents. He tried to silence Kawiya and others, but was booed instead. He said: "Can you wait? I will come and talk to you just now. Just give me time. You need to understand that this is a drought year and other people have no food at all." A World Food Programme official who refused to be named said: "There is confusion here. We do not see ourselves getting the truth about what is happening under this programme. It is getting late before we make any progress."
Most reporters from the world Press were misled and lost track of the delegation. Morris was in the province as part of his humanitarian mission in the region to make recommendations on how to improve the effectiveness of response efforts and raise awareness among the international community to mobilise resources and support. Confusion reigned when Manyika and July Moyo, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare led the UN team to different venues at the same time. Some of the UN officials went to Chiwaridzo Poly Clinic where they were supposed to familiarise themselves with the state of Zimbabwe’s health delivery system and others went to Tendayi Community Hall. But a message came from an unidentified government official that they were lost and should drive to Tendayi Community Hall in Bindura town where food was being distributed to residents under the food for work programme. The UN delegation was told that they had come to the wrong point. They were directed to visit a public works programme at Chireka village in Musana communal lands, about 50 km from Bindura. The delegation was at the hall for less than five minutes.
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From The Scotsman (UK), 9 September
Zimbabwe farmers brace for new deadline’s end
Jane Fields in Harare
At least two Zimbabwe farmers were barricaded inside their homes yesterday and dozens of panicked families packed up their possessions and left their properties, fearing arrest as a new government deadline for giving up their land expired. The latest twist in Zimbabwe’s bitter battle over land redistribution came after government officials and police last week went round three provinces telling farmers to get off their land with their belongings by midday yesterday. The ultimatum - which was made known by the farming crisis group Justice for Agriculture (JAG) but not confirmed officially - came exactly a month after a deadline for some 2,900 white farmers to leave their farms, which most ignored. Their defiance sparked a police clampdown, with more than 300 farmers arrested. Fears of a fresh wave of arrests were running high again yesterday, although none were reported. Most of the farmers ordered to leave have had their eviction notices ruled invalid by the courts, the JAG said.
"The farming community has been very tense because of this threat," John Worswick, the group’s vice-chairman told The Scotsman. "A lot of farmers have made themselves scarce. I think we’ll see a return back to the farms tomorrow." JAG had urged farmers to stay put. In one incident, a farmer in the fertile Doma area of central Zimbabwe was barricaded into his house on Saturday night after being "visited" by an army major who said it was his farm. The farm shop was looted yesterday and a tractor taken. Alan McCormick, a farmer from Guruve in northern Zimbabwe, said he had spent the day trying to remove his belongings. "They’ve said anything left on after today is no longer our property," he told The Scotsman, by phone, adding that he had listened to the local farmers’ radio network and heard a war veteran telling farmers they had to leave. "I think the majority of farmers have decided to move out," Mr McCormick said. "We thought things were just progressing quietly, but now it seems there’s a major drive on." He suggested that the latest deadline was part of a government strategy to break farmers down so that land could be taken without compensation. "Some farmers are pretty close to breaking point ," he said.
Mr Worswick said the deadline was "absolutely" part of a government strategy of intimidation. While the threat "had actually turned out to be a damp squib" - given the lack of incidents - he insisted farmers would be "still vigilant". Zimbabwe’s white farmers are increasingly weary after two and a half years of farm invasions and a dozen fatal attacks. Under President Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme, all new black farmers were supposed to have moved on to their land by last weekend. Farmers report that many of their "replacements" appear to be cronies of Mr Mugabe far from the landless peasants initially touted as the beneficiaries of land reform.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 8 September
MDC barred
By our own Staff
Zanu PF officials and hooligans, including a politburo member and former cabinet minister, Didymus Mutasa, on Thursday barred several MDC candidates from registering with the nomination court for the forthcoming local government elections. The opposition, which had intended to contest most of the vacant posts in the local government elections, ended up failing to field candidates in some of the posts due to the heavy intimidation of prospective candidates. While in other areas candidates were forced to withdraw their candidature before the nomination day, others were forced to flee for their lives after heavy intimidation at the nomination court. The government has set aside 30 September as election day in all vacant rural district council and urban council areas. In Manicaland, the MDC failed to field candidates in its strongholds of Mutasa and Mutare North. A number of candidates who were meant to have stood for the party in the Chipinge and Makoni areas were also forced to stand down after receiving threats.
Even Zanu PF candidates who had failed to win party approval and opted to stand as independents were strongly warned from doing so by Mutasa, who has emerged as a warlord in Rusape and surrounding districts. MDC Manicaland provincial spokesman, Pishai Muchauraya, said Mutasa had intimidated 12 candidates of Makoni East, North and West and they had subsequently stepped down. Muchauraya said Mutasa was moving around with a pistol telling prospective candidates that they would be chased out if they dared register for the election. Said Muchauraya: "Because of this hostile situation, we ended up fielding 78 candidates out of a possible 132 in the province. The tactics used to scare the candidates away varied from area to area. While in Chipinge, Mutasa and other areas candidates were mostly threatened on nomination eve, in Makoni, candidates were forced to flee from the nomination court. This shows a lack of democracy in this country. Zanu PF is trying to force us out of the rural areas because they know the impact there will be if we were to win this election."
MDC secretary-general, Welshman Ncube, confirmed that a huge number of his party’s candidates were barred from registering for the elections. The situation, he said, was most prevalent in Manicaland, Matabeleland, Midlands, and Mashonaland Central. Ncube said Matabeleland North governor, Obert Mpofu, had led a group of Zanu PF thugs into disrupting the nomination court, adding that there was a near riot when he ordered the court to close before the end of business. In Tsholotsho, Ncube said, some of the MDC candidates were abducted and could not register. The MDC secretary-general said the party also experienced problems in Bubi-Umguza, Matopo and in Lupane where Zanu PF supporters intercepted prospective candidates on their way to the nomination court and destroyed their papers. "In Midlands people were literally told that they would be dead if they were seen anywhere near the nomination court and these are rural people who are vulnerable and exposed so they withdrew their candidature. We can go on giving examples but the net result is that this is Zanu PF’s way of winning the election. They will be bragging that they won the election without any votes cast but this is because they have prevented people from exercising their right to vote. In the meantime, we have instructed our lawyers to look at all the cases and then we will seek legal recourse," said Ncube. Although the ruling part won most of the rural constituencies during the 2000 parliamentary election and the presidential poll of March this year, the current mass starvation being experienced by most rural families could tilt the tide in favour of the opposition.
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From The Daily News, 9 September
Menashe dumps Zanu PF
By Pedzisai Ruhanya Chief Reporter
Ari Ben-Menashe, the man who implicated Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC president, and two other party officials in a plot to assassinate President Mugabe has reportedly cut connections with the government. According to a British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, Ben-Menashe last week refused to say why he had stopped representing the regime. Ben-Menashe, who did political consultancy work for the government, has admitted being a long-time admirer of Mugabe well before the alleged plot by the opposition leaders last November. But Nathan Shamuyarira, the Zanu PF secretary for information and publicity, said yesterday he was not aware that Ben-Menashe has stopped working for the government. He said: "Ben-Menashe has never worked for Zanu PF, but for the government. I am not aware of his latest position. I have not read that paper." The former Israeli secret agent from the Canadian lobbyists Dickens and Madson is a key government witness in treason charges against Tsvangirai, Professor Welshman Ncube, the MDC secretary-general, and Renson Gasela, the party’s shadow minister for agriculture. The government alleges that a video shot secretly by Ben-Menashe showed Tsvangirai agreeing with Ben-Menashe that Mugabe be killed before the March presidential election. Ben-Menashe said he stood by his accusations against Tsvangirai, saying: "The tape speaks for itself." The treason trial, which should have commenced last month, was postponed to November under unclear circumstances, but with widespread speculation that Ben-Menashe was no longer interested in testifying.
Bharat Patel, the Deputy Attorney General (AG), yesterday said he was not aware that Ben-Menashe has severed ties with the government and would not be available for the trial. Patel said: "I do not know anything about it. I will have to check with the office." Legal experts have said that Ben-Menashe was unlikely to testify because he feared his reputation could be damaged under cross-examination by the defence. Tsvangirai is the second opposition leader to be tried for attempting to kill Mugabe. Ndabaningi Sithole, the president of Zanu Ndonga, died two years ago with a treason charge still pending in the Supreme Court. He was charged with trying to assassinate Mugabe by bombing his motorcade. Innocent Chagonda, the MDC lawyer, said yesterday he was not surprised at Ben-Menashe’s new position because so far the State had not said how it would proceed. Chagonda said: "We have written several letters to the AG’s Office and made two visits requesting a list of the State’s witnesses and their statements. They promised to give us those things in April, but they have done absolutely nothing." He said with only two months to go before the start of trial on 11 November the State had not given them its outline. Chagonda said his team sent some blank audio and video tapes to the AG’s Office to obtain a record of what Tsvangirai is alleged to have said, but they had not received a response. He said the State unilaterally set the trial date without consulting him. "I had asked the AG to either have the trial before 11 November or preferably on 20 November, but they refused. I said so because our defence team will be committed on that day," Chagonda said.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 8 September
Nkala’s widow still gagged
By Cynthia Mahwite
Bulawayo Over 10 months after the brutal murder of war veteran leader, Cain Nkala, his widow, Sikhumbuzo, is still under strict instructions not to talk to the press about events leading to the death of her husband. Journalists from The Standard who arrived at the Nkala family home last week, were informed by some people claiming to be war veterans that they would not be allowed to speak to Sikhumbuzo. Late last year, Nkala was abducted from his Magwegwe home and his body subsequently found buried in a shallow grave, in an incident highly publicised by the ZBC. The government quickly blamed the brutal murder on the opposition MDC, although some reports suggested that Nkala could have fallen victim of the internal power struggles which rock the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association. The Nkala family had since been under the tight security of both the police and war veterans.
However, investigations by The Standard have revealed that the police have abandoned their sentry at the Nkala home and that the war veterans are now in sole charge of the family’s security. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a close family relative told The Standard that Sikhumbuzo had been kept away from discussing issues relating to her husband’s death and had also been under the tight surveillance of both the war veterans and intelligence security agents. "Despite claims that Nkala’s home is no longer guarded, the wife is still under party instructions not to associate with members of the public or to speak to the press on anything concerning her husband," said the family member. Nkala’s widow, who received substantial financial support from government, is also reported to be refusing emotional and social support of any kind from close relatives. Six MDC members, including Lobengula-Magwegwe MP Fletcher Dulini-Ncube, have already been indicted for Nkala’s murder.
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From The Daily News, 9 September
Depoliticise food aid, Catholic bishops say
By Pedzisai Ruhanya Chief Reporter
The Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference has urged the government to depoliticise the procurement of food and called upon all institutions in the food distribution chain to be honest and transparent. In their August pastoral letter released last week, the bishops, among them Patrick Chakaipa of Harare, Pius Ncube of Bulawayo and retired auxiliary bishop of Mutare Patrick Mutume appealed to their sister churches in the world to donate food. "For the sake of the nation and its survival, we urge the government to quickly depoliticise the procurement and distribution of food and put in place controls to minimise acquisition of food by threats or any other means, corruption and exploitation." The United Nations has said about six million people need emergency food aid. The bishops’ appeal comes after allegations that Zanu PF officials were denying suspected MDC supporters access to donated maize, an allegation the government has denied. Last week, the government impounded 28 tonnes of maize imported by the MDC from South Africa, saying there was no import licence for it.
The bishops’ pastoral letter said donors and their sister organisations should be assured that, as much as possible, assistance received will be distributed in a transparent manner and given to the neediest. The letter said: "As there is not enough food in Zimbabwe, we especially extend our appeal to our sister churches in the world, donors and all people of goodwill to urgently come to the assistance of Zimbabwe. We therefore appeal to whoever is involved in the distribution of food to uphold the principles of honesty and transparency in the sharing of food. In the past droughts, we have always distributed food successfully and we should use the experience acquired to distribute food now." The bishops said that corruption levels in the country had filtered to the grassroots and made it difficult for the ordinary poor citizens to make ends meet and exploitation of man by man has risen to unprecedented levels.
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From ZWNEWS, 10 September
Violence shifts focus
Reports of politically-related violence declined in August compared with July, but the focus has shifted ahead of local elections to be held at the end of September. In its latest monthly report, the Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum says that the greatest incidence of violence was in Manicaland, which was largely lead by uniformed officials. The Forum specifically highlighted conditions in Chimanimani, "where CIO agents, police officers and soldiers have been meting out a reign of terror. In Manicaland, and other provinces, farmers and farmworkers have also been singled out for attack. The report documents one murder that of Ali Khan Manjengwa, a senior Zanu PF official who was shot in Mbare. Two suspects in the shooting, Chikowero and Mushonga were allegedly brutally tortured by suspected CIO operatives and so |
