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Archived News
12th November 2002
Clarification Letter on DUA and Save Zimbabwe Campaign to all
Jongwe autopsy does not absolve regime - MDC
No Zanu PF card, no maize-meal in Mufakose
US threatens action to end Zim food scam
Food crisis: Infants at risk
Mugabe gets pay rise
40 nations in accord on 'conflict diamonds'
US may intervene to save Zimbabweans
'Since I was born, I've never seen such hunger'
Mbeki's stand on Zim is 'hopeless'
U.S. official, others decry "politicizing" food relief in Zimbabwe
Chiwengas to stand trial for farm seizure
Ministers gather to discuss food crisis, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe 'diverts food aid'
Black Zimbabweans suffer in land reform
Mugabe imposes 'smart sanctions' on Britain
Zanu PF backers blacklisted
MDC official died of poisoning
Coffin dumped at Zanu PF HQ
UK inquiry into jet parts for Mugabe
SADC/EU meeting ends without agreement on Zimbabwe
EU rejects Zim's demand for compensation
Tsvangirai’s treason trial postponed to February
Mugabe tightens the noose
Starving citizens resort to desperate measures
Oxfam urges government to lift ban on feeding
Zimbabwe 'running out of bank notes'
Famine becomes Mugabe weapon
Africa and EU split over Zimbabwe
Libya ends oil deal with Zimbabwe over debts
Police halt anti-Mugabe protests
Hundreds protest Mugabe in London
Forced emigration fears
Grace lures voters with food
NCA changes strategy to thwart police
Remanded MDC MP seriously ill
It's raining maize!
Zim high and dry as fuel runs out again
Zim reaches out for help from South Africa
SA could extend fuel lifeline to Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's economy heads for meltdown
'Gunmen open fire' on Zanu-PF defector
Zim talks wait for court
MDC demands hearing of petitions
DR Congo officials suspended
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From The Daily News, 5 November
No Zanu PF card, no maize-meal in Mufakose
Thousands of residents yesterday thronged the Zanu PF offices at the Mufakose shopping centre in Harare to buy maize-meal. When the news spread throughout the suburb that there was maize-meal for sale at the Zanu PF offices, the residents descended on the offices in droves. But the vast majority of them returned home empty-handed and disappointed because the yellow maize-meal, selling for $500 for a 20kg bag, was not for sale to just anybody - a Zanu PF card was more valuable than money. "No Zanu PF card, no maize-meal," one party official told this reporter. Asked why they were demanding party cards from people who were clearly desperate for food, the man, who curtly refused to identify himself, said: "Who are you yourself? If you are not a member of Zanu PF, uchadya izvozvo (you will get your comeuppance)." People were ordered to line up into party districts, before being slowly admitted into the walled yard by half a dozen baton-wielding police officers guarding the gate. The police fell just short of being overwhelmed by the desperate crowd. The maize-meal was from the Murehwa Milling Company.
Some of the residents, mostly women, said their families had not had a decent meal in weeks because of the scarcity of maize-meal in the country. Most said alternatives such as rice and potatoes, let alone the equally scarce bread, were beyond their means. Jenny Chikotoko, 56, said: "There is no hope for me because I don’t belong to their party." Asked for comment, Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Zanu PF secretary for administration, said: "What? Selling maize-meal at our party offices? We don’t allow that. Go and ask them why they are doing that. They should tell you why they are doing it." Nathan Shamuyarira, the Zanu PF spokesman, could not be reached for comment. On Sunday morning, Zanu PF officials sold maize-meal at the Budiriro 1 community centre, while there have been reports of the same trade going on in Chitungwiza and Kambuzuma.
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From The Natal Mercury (SA), 6 November
US threatens action to end Zim food scam
By Brian Latham
Harare - The United States has threatened "very intrusive and interventionist measures" to ensure food aid is delivered to all Zimbabweans as the Zimbabwean government gives food only to card-carrying members of the ruling party. Residents of Harare's poverty wracked townships are being denied food unless they produce membership cards of the ruling Zanu PF. And Zanu PF officials have been selling imported maize in townships. They have also been using their control of food aid to indoctrinate Zimbabweans, including domestic workers from Harare's wealthy northern suburbs. "My worker was told to report for his food in the morning, but instead party officials made him and all the other domestics toyi-toyi for hours while they delivered political lectures," said a northern suburbs resident. The workers were then told to provide their names, addresses and the names of the people they worked for to Zanu PF, he said. These are just the latest allegations that Zanu PF is channelling the food aid provided by foreign countries to their own supporters. Fears that opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) areas will be starved into submission have forced the US government to consider "interventionist and intrusive" action to feed Zimbabwe's estimated seven million starving people. The US provides a large part of the food aid which is distributed in Zimbabwe through the United Nations World Food Programme.
"We may have to be prepared to take some very intrusive and interventionist measures to ensure aid delivery to people in Zimbabwe," US deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs Mark Bellamy said in an interview with the Washington Times. He added that "the dilemmas in the next six months may bring us face to face with Zimbabwe's sovereignty". Zimbabwe's cities, suffering increasing hunger for the first time in the country's history, are plagued by long queues for basic foodstuffs, especially maize meal. Still, it is the party's blatant selling of food from its township offices that has upset city residents. Harare, like most major towns and cities in Zimbabwe, voted overwhelmingly for the opposition MDC in both parliamentary and presidential elections. And while Zanu PF heavyweight and speaker of parliament Emmerson Mnangwagwa has denied his party is selling maize, local residents say it has happened in a number of townships around the capital. The issuing of food along party lines has also angered non-government organisations who are feeding starving villagers in worst hit areas. In October, the Zimbabwe government suspended food aid programmes run by British charities, accusing the British of supporting the MDC.
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From News24 (SA), 5 November
Food crisis: Infants at risk
Harare - Chronic food shortages in Zimbabwe were worsening and growing numbers of infants were at risk of serious malnourishment, the United Nations warned on Monday. At least 6.7 million Zimbabweans, more than half the population, face hunger in the coming months because of a sharp drop in agricultural production blamed on a drought and the government's seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms. Although the government had allocated local funds to emergency feeding programs for infants and other vulnerable groups a lack of imports meant "food is simply not available," the UN Relief and Recovery Unit said in its latest humanitarian situation report. It gave no information on deaths from starvation, but the health ministry said in September the worst effects of malnutrition were being suffered by children, the elderly and the sick, and hunger was hastening deaths of those with Aids- and immune deficiency-linked illnesses. For the first time in decades, doctors have reported cases of kwashiorkor, a chronic deficiency of calories and protein that leaves infants with swollen stomachs caused by excess body fluids.
The UN report said increased food imports were urgently needed and called on the government to abolish its monopoly on importing grain. Aside from relief agencies, only the state Grain Marketing Board is allowed to import mealies, the staple food, but it does not have enough hard currency to buy adequate food, the report said. "The private sector can and should play an important role in alleviating Zimbabwe's food shortages. Lifting the GMB's monopoly on grain imports is the quickest and surest route to increasing access to food," it said. The World Food Program and its private aid agency partners plan to distribute this month about 50 000 metric tons in emergency food aid to about 3 million people, up from the 1.9 million people it fed in October. This would be increased "provided necessary capacity and donor resources were available," the report said.
The WFP has received about half the donor funds for Zimbabwe it has requested. It indefinitely suspended hunger relief efforts in one district last month ahead of a parliament by-election after ruling party activists threatened aid workers and seized donated grain. Those deliveries have yet to resume. Aid workers have accused the government of using food as a political tool against the members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which narrowly lost parliamentary elections in 2000 and a disputed presidential poll in March. Acute hard currency shortages since 1999 have led to shortages of essential imports, medicines and gasoline and have pushed up the illegal black market exchange rate to more than 1 500 Zimbabwe dollars to one US dollar, compared to the official exchange rate of 55-1. Some gas stations again ran dry in Harare on Monday, with long lines of cars waiting for fuel. Food lines are common outside stores promising deliveries and sales of mealie meal, bread, sugar, cooking oil and milk. Food stores raised the price of beef by up to 100% on Monday, citing higher costs of production, supply and distribution.
Farm disruptions and political violence have slashed the nation's production of tobacco, the main hard currency earner, and receipts from tourism have plummeted. The UN report said milk production had declined sharply across the country, leading most stores to ration dairy products to customers. The national herd of dairy cows was estimated to have dropped to about 50 000 cattle from 70 000 last year and 96 000 in 1997. Almost all the nation's milk was produced by mostly white commercial farmers, 42% of whom have shut down operations during the government's land seizures. Imported equipment and regular cattle feed are scarce and prohibitively expensive, the report said. "Those with remaining stock are not necessarily producing milk," it said.
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From The Daily News, 5 November
Mugabe gets pay rise
By Chris Mhike Business Reporter
President Mugabe’s salary and those of his deputies, government ministers and Members of Parliament have been increased with immediate effect and will be backdated to 1 July this year. This is the second time their salaries have been raised this year, in the face of an economy described by former Finance Minister Simba Makoni as "in crisis" and last week by the International Monetary Fund as on the brink of collapse. The salaries were last increased in February. These latest increments come in the midst of numerous strikes by government and parastatal employees over pay and conditions. In all the cases of industrial disharmony, the government has argued either that it does not have enough money to meet the workers’ demands, or that the workers should wait until the announcement of the National Budget, scheduled for 14 November. The politicians’ salaries have been increased before the budget presentation, and against the advice of multilateral and bilateral creditors who have repeatedly urged government to cut down on its own expenditure.
The government announced the salary increments in two statutory instruments, SI 287 of 2002 and SI 288 of 2002, released last week. According to the Presidential Salary and Allowances (Prescription of Salary and Allowances) (Amendment) Notice, 2002 (No.1) - SI 287 of 2002, the President’s salary has been raised from $1 396 776 per annum to $1 676 131 per annum - a 20 percent increase. The increment, backdated to 1 July 2002, does not include Mugabe’s numerous allowances, or his access to public coffers for "State business". He enjoys an annual Cabinet allowance of $336 600, a general allowance of $336 000 a year and a housing allowance of $470 268 annually. He also digs from the national fiscus for his cars. Earlier this year the government bought for the President a state-of-the-art limousine, a customised armoured Mercedes Benz S600 LV AMG (Pullman size) valued at several million dollars. The two Vice-Presidents, Simon Muzenda, who celebrated his 80th birthday last week, and Joseph Msika will each receive $1 529 813 annually, up from the $1 274 844, set at the last increment in February.
The Speaker of Parliament’s salary goes up from $1 197 840 to $1 437 408 annually. The yearly salary for Cabinet ministers will now be $1 370 678, up from $1 142 232, and earnings for provincial governors and ministers of state rise from $1 121 916 to $1 346 299. Other annual salaries will be as follows: deputy speaker of Parliament - $1 170 979; deputy minister - $1 162 771; leader of the opposition - $1 162 771; chairperson of the Parliamentary Legal Committee - $1 034 755; chairperson of the Committee of Public Accounts, and the chairperson of a Portfolio Committee - $1 003 709. Members of Parliamentary Committees will also receive $1 033 709. The government chief whip will earn $1 034 756. His deputy’s salary, as well as that of an alternate deputy speaker as chairperson of the Committee of the Whole House, will be $1 003 708. Deputy chairpersons of committees will receive $1 034 756. The opposition chief whip’s salary stands at $1 003 708, and his deputy will earn $951 970 yearly. Ordinary Members of Parliament not included in the above categories will earn $911 218.
The country has been gripped by industrial unrest of late. Only last week health workers in government hospitals went on a strike that has crippled the public health sector as they claimed that the government had misled them that their salaries would be raised in October. One medical doctor last week reported that because of the absence of laboratory technicians, pharmacists and radiographers, doctors had "resorted to using ‘bush methods’ because no proper diagnosis can be carried out when most workers are on strike". The Progressive Teachers’ Union called a strike three weeks ago over pay. The government, through the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, responded by firing the striking teachers. The Air Zimbabwe engineers’ strike has entered its second month, with devastating effects at the national airline. For instance, yesterday, Flight UM9333, scheduled to leave Harare for Victoria Falls at 10:30 hours, was postponed to 12:50 hours. Well-placed sources said the delay was the result of the under-servicing of aircraft, occasioned by the engineers’ strike.
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From The New York Times, 6 November
40 nations in accord on 'conflict diamonds'
By Alan Cowell
Interlaken - Far from the battlegrounds of Angola or the war amputees of Sierra Leone, government ministers, diamond executives and advocacy groups finally endorsed new safeguards today to block the trade in illicit diamonds that fueled some of Africa's most violent conflicts. But almost four years after the clandestine links between gem smugglers, warlords and gunrunners inspired threats of a consumer boycott of diamonds, this culminating moment seemed almost an anticlimax. "It is a work in progress that will have to be improved," Pascal Couchepin, the Swiss minister of economic affairs, said of the effort. Representatives of more than 40 countries, along with mining executives, diamond dealers and campaigners from advocacy groups, ended two days in a grand hotel below the Alps by committing themselves to a United Nations-backed certification plan intended to insure that only legally mined rough diamonds, untainted by conflict, reach established markets. The new regulations are to come into force next Jan. 1 in nations including the United States that account for 90 percent of the world's legal trade in rough diamonds. The United States had put strong pressure on other countries to begin the program by that date, American officials and diamond industry executives said.
Under the program, only countries that subscribe to the new rules - known as the Kimberley Process - will be able to trade legally in rough diamonds. Countries that break the rules will be suspended, making their diamond exports illegal. Individual diamond traders who break the rules will be punishable under the laws of their own countries. The certification scheme is part of a chain of guarantees, under negotiation for two years, to squeeze illicit diamonds out of the $8 billion market in rough diamonds that creates a $60-billion-a-year retail trade. Much of the debate has focused on the impact of illicit sales on Africans caught up in wars for control of diamond fields, like the thousands of Sierra Leoneans whose limbs were amputated by rebels in the country's civil war. The United States accounts for half of the retail trade. American officials said that by embracing most of the world's legitimate diamond trade in the new rules, it will be easier to investigate the illicit trade.
But the system is flawed, said Ian Smillie, a Canadian campaigner, because it does not include an agreed-upon method of monitoring the way individual nations comply. Under the new rules, shipments of rough diamonds must be sent in tamper-proof containers accompanied by a certificate guaranteeing the origin and contents. The importing nation must acknowledge their receipt, certify that they have not been tampered with, and reject shipments that do not meet requirements. But, advocacy groups said in a statement, without "regular, independent monitoring of all national diamond control systems, the overall process remains open to abuse." At present, several African nations that do not produce diamonds export them in large numbers. With no diamond mines on its territory, the Congo Republic, for instance, exported $221 million in diamonds to Belgium last year, Mr. Smillie said. Presumably they had been smuggled from neighboring Congo or Angola, he said. A recent United Nations report, moreover, chronicled lawlessness in Congo that enables smugglers to export illicit diamonds through countries like Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, which have all sent troops to intervene in Congo's strife.
In theory, said Alex Yearsley, a British campaigner, the Kimberley Process's definition of "conflict diamonds" as "rough diamonds used by rebel movements or their allies to finance conflict aimed at undermining legitimate governments" does not apply to Congo's lawlessness. Walter H. Kansteiner, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, who headed the American delegation here, said the United States' interest was not only in "capping a resource that can fuel a bloody conflict" but also in helping "legitimate and honorable producers of diamonds to market their goods in a clean environment."
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From The Guardian (UK), 7 November
US may intervene to save Zimbabweans
Top official says administration is considering defying Mugabe and delivering food to starving opposition areas
Andrew Meldrum in Harare
The US government warned yesterday that it might take "intrusive, interventionist measures" to deliver food aid directly to millions of famine-hit Zimbabweans if President Robert Mugabe continues to starve his political opponents. Washington is considering measures that would challenge Zimbabwe's sovereignty, the Guardian was told by Mark Bellamy, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for Africa. Such drastic measures are being studied because the Mugabe regime is aggravating the effects of a region-wide famine by blocking food from areas which support the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), he added. "We may have to be prepared to take some very intrusive, interventionist measures to ensure aid delivery to Zimbabwe," Mr Bellamy said by telephone from Washington. The plan was disclosed in the Zimbabwean state-owned Herald newspaper under the headline "US plans to invade Harare". A spokesman for Mr Mugabe said other African countries should take heed of "the mad talk of intrusive and interventionist challenges to Zimbabwe's sovereignty. Today it is about Zimbabwe. Heaven knows who is next", he said.
Mr Bellamy, who develops US policy on Africa, said: "We have disturbing reports of food being used as a political weapon by the Mugabe government, of food aid being diverted and food being denied to millions of opposition supporters. For the sake of those hungry people it may be necessary for us to undertake intrusive delivery and monitoring of food. The dilemmas in the next six months may bring us face to face with Zimbabwe's sovereignty." He said Mr Mugabe was "holding his people hostage the way Saddam Hussein is holding his people hostage". Mr Mugabe and other Zimbabwean officials deny using aid as a political weapon. They maintain that food relief is distributed freely and fairly. The government has however outlawed the private importation of food, leaving the state grain marketing board with a monopoly on the importation and wholesale deliveries of the staple maize meal. Aid agencies and government critics claim that this gives the marketing board a stranglehold on food availability throughout the country.
The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development has failed to get permission to import 100 tonnes of food aid, which sits at the Beitbridge border post with South Africa. The MDC has also been refused permission to import food. The marketing board's depots refuse to sell maize meal to people identified as opposition supporters, according to accounts from across the country. In addition, police roadblocks stop the MDC and ordinary individuals from transporting all but the smallest parcels of maize meal to hungry areas, numerous witnesses claim. Mr Bellamy refused to specify what the US could do to deliver food aid to Zimbabweans against the will of the government, but said the Bush administration was "considering all approaches". Aid experts suggested the possibility of air drops, such as in Sudan and to Kurdish rebels in Iraq. "At the very least we need to see aggressive, assertive monitoring to ensure that food is being distributed fairly throughout Zimbabwe, in an even-handed, humanitarian way," Mr Bellamy said. "We may have to make hard choices. We will press for food to be distributed freely in all areas of the country. We cannot take government assurances at face value, we must monitor it and confirm it for ourselves."
Washington provides about 50% of the food aid being distributed in Zimbabwe by the UN world food programme. Zimbabwe was until recently considered the breadbasket of southern Africa, but Mr Mugabe's violent and chaotic land seizures, combined with drought, have resulted in a crippling food shortage. Zimbabwe is by far the worst affected of the six southern African countries threatened with famine. Of the 14 million people at risk of starvation throughout southern Africa, 6.7 million are Zimbabwean, nearly half the country's population. Washington's hard stance comes after other warnings from the Bush administration. The US representative to the UN food and agricultural organisation, Tony Hall, visited Zimbabwe last month and criticised the government for preventing respected international charities, such as Save the Children and Oxfam, from distributing food relief. The US does not consider Mr Mugabe to be the "democratically legitimate leader of his country", Walter Kansteiner, US assistant secretary of state for Africa, said. He cited widespread state-sponsored violence in the March presidential election, and evidence of large-scale vote-rigging.
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From The Guardian (UK), 7 November
'Since I was born, I've never seen such hunger'
Andrew Meldrum in Nkayi, south-western Zimbabwe
The old woman crawls from her hut and slowly stands up. She walks unsteadily to greet the visitors. "Pardon me," she says politely in the Ndebele language. "I am weak. We have gone two days without food. We are gathering wild berries but they are not enough. We are losing strength." The tidy homestead of five huts decorated in lively geometric designs speaks of a more prosperous past. "Since I was born in 1924, I have never seen such hunger," says Maria Nyathi (whose name has been changed to avoid retaliation). "Even in 1947 when there was terrible drought, we could easily purchase food. But now the government prevents us from buying food because they say we support the opposition." Mrs Nyathi's dreadfully thin daughter is racked by a cough. She has Aids and is declining rapidly because of malnutrition. Mrs Nyathi's granddaughter, seven, is too weak from hunger to walk to school. Nearby, the state's grain marketing board sells maize, but the Nyathi family and many others have been turned away to punish the 40,000-strong Nkayi district for voting for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). "It is criminal what this government is doing," Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube says in his Bulawayo office, 100 miles to the south. "They don't care if people die. For the sake of political power the government is willing to sacrifice the lives of thousands. The government is starving areas that voted for the opposition in recent elections. It is the work of devils." As thin, hollow-cheeked people wait for donations outside his offices, the visibly distraught archbishop says the casualties of the government's policies are mounting. "No less that 80 people have died of starvation in Matabeleland already; 600 have died from the combination of Aids and hunger," he says.
Binga, in Matabeleland North province, is the most egregious example of food being used as a political weapon. It is one of the areas hardest hit by the famine, but the government has stopped all food deliveries to the area for months. A handful of President Robert Mugabe's "war veterans" blocked deliveries of food to schools by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace and Save the Children UK. The UN world food programme cannot deliver food to Binga until the government gives its approval for a charity to distribute it. Meanwhile the people are starving. More than 30 have died from malnutrition, officials at Binga hospital say. The area voted strongly for the MDC in the March presidential election and again in the local council elections. Local officials tell Binga residents to "go to Britain for food", says the area's MP, Joel Gabbuza. His allegations are echoed by the local MP in Nkayi district, Abednico Bhebhe. "Our people are being starved because they refused to vote for Mugabe," Mr Bhebhe says. "We try to smuggle in food but it is dangerous. The war veterans have declared Nkayi a 'no-go' area for any MDC and for any whites." He was beaten and imprisoned for weeks when he visited his constituency during the presidential election in March. MDC supporters recount stories of torture and murder in the Nkayi area. "I was whipped with barbed wire. My feet were beaten so I could not walk. I was kept in a pit for several weeks and forced to drink urine," says Venny Dube, 30, showing scars to back up his account. "A friend was murdered; others are still missing months later." The people of Nkayi are afraid of further reprisals. At Mrs Nyathi's homestead, when a motor vehicle is heard passing nearby, she immediately urges the Guardian to leave. "If it is the war veterans they will hurt you and punish us. Go and tell the world what is happening here," she says.
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From The Natal Mercury (SA), 7 November
Mbeki's stand on Zim is 'hopeless'
By Patrick Leeman
The situation in Zimbabwe is "absolutely desperate" and thousands of people are likely to die of starvation in that country next year. This was the stark warning on Wednesday night from the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, who is visiting Durban for a number of public engagements. The archbishop said destitute people were constantly coming to his door in Bulawayo for food and money. He was not allowed to use diocesan funds to feed them because that would be construed by the Mugabe regime as assisting "the enemy". Ncube said he was personally "broke" as a result and was also very run down after persistent intimidation and harassment. President Mugabe's agents were watching him wherever he went to say mass. He said the Zimbabwean president had even sent a delegation to Rome to ask Pope John Paul II to relieve him of his position as archbishop. Ncube said President Thabo Mbeki's stand on Zimbabwe was "hopeless". "No level-headed person in Zimbabwe has any faith in Mbeki. It is only Mugabe's cronies who are supporting his position," he said. He said large numbers of professional people including teachers, nurses and engineers - were fleeing Zimbabwe in droves. Students who wished to go to university or take up a profession, such as nursing, were being forced to attend training camps run by Zanu PF. These were hotbeds of promiscuity and the rape of young women, he said, leading to a reluctance on the part of parents to send their sons and daughters for so-called "training". Ncube said some church leaders in Zimbabwe supported the stand taken by President Mugabe. He was adopting a policy of "divide and rule" towards the churches. Ncube will deliver the annual Archbishop Denis Hurley lecture in Durban on Thursday night. He will address the Diakonia Council of Churches at a breakfast meeting on Friday.
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From Washington File (US State Dept), 5 November
U.S. official, others decry "politicizing" food relief in Zimbabwe
By Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington - Impending famine in Zimbabwe, a result of the disastrous farm policies of President Robert Mugabe, is being compounded by his Zanu PF movement's partisan distribution of food donated by the international community, say a U.S. official and three dissident Zimbabweans visiting the United States. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Mark Bellamy said the U.S. Government was "deeply disturbed at reports that food aid was being politicized" by the Mugabe regime. Bellamy made his remarks at a November 1 presentation on "Famine and Political Violence in Matabeleland" sponsored by the Center for International and Strategic Studies (CSIS). The Matebele on the CSIS panel were: Johnson Mnkandla, a magistrate and former candidate for mayor of Bulawayo, the principal city in Matabeleland; Edward Simela, and Ernest Mtunzi, a trainer of civil servants who now lives in Britain. They said they had come to Washington to raise awareness of an impending human rights catastrophe and famine in their tribal homeland, which has never been a Zanu PF stronghold. The three charged the Mugabe government and Zanu PF with stifling the rule of law through the arrest and harassment of magistrates, using food relief as a political weapon by distributing only to Zanu PF supporters in Matabeleland and making impartial food distribution by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) almost impossible.
Bellamy said, "Tragedy is perhaps too mild a word to describe the situation" in Zimbabwe. One of the factors compounding the political and economic turmoil there, he explained, "might be called a conspiracy of silence or ignorance or just a lack of attention to the crisis that is unfolding in that country." This means, he explained, "a relative lack of attention in the international media. A relative lack of attention and action by international bodies and certainly a studied lack of attention by Zimbabwe's neighbors. So, when we are asked to help," the official said, "I think we can, at least in a modest way, play a role by getting the story out about what is happening in Zimbabwe. And this is something we in the U.S. Government are going to be paying more attention to." Addressing the overall food and political crisis in the southern African nation, Bellamy said, "Today, we can make a number of safe predictions and one of them is that the situation in Zimbabwe is going to get a lot worse. Six months from now people in Zimbabwe are going to be hungrier, sicker, poorer and the situation is going to be every bit as desperate, or more so, unless there are dramatic changes. And, I don't think there is a possibility of dramatic change in Zimbabwe," Bellamy added, "Unless there is an effort from outside Zimbabwe."
To the contrary, the official said, "There will probably be an effort by the Zimbabwe Government now to crack down on NGOs and civil societies to try to shut down links between outside bodies and indigenous Zimbabwean groups that are still struggling to maintain the rule of law, to preserve what's left of Zimbabwe's democratic institutions, to maintain whatever is left of civic decency in that country." He explained, "We can expect that the activities of those Zimbabwean groups will be criminalized. We can expect they will come under tightened surveillance and suppression. And we need to develop strategies for dealing with that." Bellamy said, "In many ways it serves Robert Mugabe's purposes to hold his people hostage in the same way Saddam Hussein has held the Iraqi people hostage." Ernest Mtunzi told the panel "Food is not getting to the ordinary people because they back the opposition [political] party. People are told: 'If you want food you must vote for Zanu.'" He noted that increasingly, "It is said [by Mugabe supporters] that Matabele people, like whites, are foreigners in Zimbabwe." According to Johnson Mnkandla, "Food.[and] Chiefs have been politicized" in Matabeleland. The former magistrate and politician noted, "The rule of law in Zimbabwe is gone." He added that a new "disturbing development" in the Government's harassment of NGO's distributing relief supplies in Matabeleland was the requirement that "they must obtain import licenses." But such licenses are only granted to groups led by ZANU party members. The grain that is allowed in from the outside must come through the Government's Grain Marketing Board, which Mnkandla said is manned by Zanu militia, war veterans and tribal chiefs amenable to the Mugabe Administration. Even when non-Zanu people in Matabeleland are able to get food, other means of harassment are employed, Mnkandla said. "Illegal roadblocks are used to stop people, confiscate their grain, which is then given to Zanu supporters." The result is that there is now "an exodus of people to South Africa" in search of food as well as employment.
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From The Daily News, 7 November
Chiwengas to stand trial for farm seizure
By Fanuel Jongwe Court Reporter
The High Court has referred for trial the dispute over assets between Jocelyn Chiwenga, and a commercial farmer, whose property, Chakoma Estates in Goromonzi, she occupied in April this year. Justice Rita Makarau made the ruling after Roger Staunton, the director of Shepherd Hall Farm (Private) Limited, applied for an order compelling Chiwenga to allow a valuator to assess the value of the assets in dispute. Jocelyn is the wife of the Zimbabwe National Army Commander, Lieutenant-General Constantine Chiwenga. Makarau yesterday referred for trial the protracted property dispute between the Chiwengas, T Mautsa and the Minister of Lands, Agricultural and Rural Resettlement, on the one hand, and Staunton, on the other. Shepherd Hall Farm operates Chakoma Estates. "The applicant asks for an order that this court appoints a valuator to place a value on the assets," the judge said. "However, there is a dispute as to the quantity of the movable assets that the respondents took over when they took occupation of the farm. The parties have produced different lists. In my view, evidence will have to be led on this dispute. Accordingly, the matter will have to be referred for trial."
In addition, Makarau ordered Mautsa, the Chiwengas and the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement to give notice that they would defend themselves within 10 days. They took over the assets after they occupied the farm in April this year. Staunton is also seeking a court order compelling the respondents to compensate him for the value of the contentious assets and allowing him to remain on Chakoma Estate. He also wants the court to restrain Mautsa, the Chiwengas and the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement from interfering with his occupation of the farm. The application was not opposed. Staunton filed an urgent chamber application, pending determination of his court application, and was granted a provisional order. The respondents were barred from selling, exporting or disposing of flowers and vegetables from the farm. The proceeds from the sale of flowers and vegetables from the farm in the control of Hortico (Private) Limited were frozen pending determination of the application.
Staunton alleged in his application that Mautsa and the Chiwengas invaded Chakoma Estate and promised to compensate him for the land and improvements on the land, for vehicles and other equipment and for crops on the land if Staunton introduced them to his overseas market. Staunton obliged. When the date for the promised compensation passed without payment, Staunton approached Mautsa and the Chiwengas. He was allegedly told that he would be paid by the government in terms of the Land Acquisition Act. Meanwhile, Mautsa and the Chiwengas continued to harvest and pocket proceeds from the export of vegetables and flowers. Mautsa and the Chiwengas denied the allegations against them. They said they were the lawful owners of the property which they said was allocated to them by the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement. They said they did not promise Staunton any compensation.
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From SABC News, 6 November
Ministers gather to discuss food crisis, Zimbabwe
European and southern African ministers have arrived in Mozambique for talks on a regional food crisis and troubled Zimbabwe, diplomats said. More than 14 million people face severe food shortages in southern Africa, according to the United Nations. The meeting starting tomorrow was switched to Mozambique from Denmark after the Danish government refused entry to Zimbabwe's delegation, saying it would have violated EU travel sanctions on key Zimbabwean leaders. Diplomats said the EU would highlight the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, a sore spot that has raised tensions between Europe and Africa in recent months. The EU slapped sanctions on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's government after a March presidential election considered illegitimate by some Western governments, and over the seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks. The United States and Australia have imposed separate sanctions, while the Commonwealth of Britain and its former colonies have suspended Zimbabwe but imposed no sanctions.
The two-day meeting in Mozambique's capital Maputo brings together representatives from the 15-nation EU and the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC). Denmark, which holds the EU presidency, is sending a delegation headed by Bertel Haarder, the European Affairs Minister. "Southern Africa plays a prominent role in the development policy of Denmark and the EU. The meeting with the SADC countries offers a good opportunity for discussing both political and economic aspects of the co-operation with Southern Africa, including the food crisis in the region," Haarder said in a statement. The United Nations says 14,4 million people face severe food shortages in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland. Analysts blame management problems in some of the countries as well as drought for the food debacle.
New York-based Human Rights Watch urged the EU-SADC meeting to pay special attention to human rights violations and humanitarian problems in southern Africa. The group said it was highlighting crises in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Angola and Swaziland. "Safe guarding rights and responding robustly to the looming humanitarian disaster in southern Africa should top the agenda at this week's high-level ministerial meeting between members of the SADC and the EU," the rights group said in a statement. Angola is battling a food deficit following a long civil war. The end of the conflict has allowed hundreds of thousands of people to return to their homes and also enabled relief workers to reach some locations for the first time. The Mozambique meeting is part of the so-called EU-SADC dialogue, initiated in Berlin in 1994. Ministerial meetings between the two groups are held every second year. SADC comprises Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, the Seychelles, Swaziland, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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From BBC News, 7 November
Zimbabwe 'diverts food aid'
The European Union has condemned the government of President Robert Mugabe for diverting food aid to its own supporters and ignoring opposition activists. A Danish minister told Reuters news agency "that is not acceptable." Last weekend, a United States official warned that the US may have to take "intrusive" measures to ensure that food aid was properly distributed. Up to six million people - half the population - are estimated to need food aid after poor rains, combined with the government seizure of almost all white-owned farms. Bertel Haarder, European Affairs Minister of Denmark, which holds the EU presidency, was speaking at a meeting of EU and Southern African officials in the Mozambique capital, Maputo. The meeting was due to be held in Denmark but was switched to Mozambique because Zimbabwe's leaders are banned from entering Europe under EU sanctions. "We would like to strongly react against the fact that the Zimbabwe government is using our aid and our food to put political and economic pressure on its own people," Mr Haarder said.
The BBC's Christian Fraser, who recently went to Zimbabwe, says that bags of maize were stacked outside polling stations during the by-election in Insiza - reportedly put there to reward people who voted for Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF party. Zanu PF won the election in what was considered an opposition stronghold. Following the US warning, Zimbabwe accused it of planning to invade the country under the pretext of guaranteeing the distribution of food aid. Mr Mugabe denies that the food crisis is a result of his land reform programme and blames it on a drought, which has affected much of the region. But white farmers who are prevented from working their land say that their dams are full of water. Just a few hundred white farmers remain on their land, out of some 4,000 two years ago. Our correspondent says that the land has gone to Zanu PF officials, who often have no farming background, instead of the landless black people who were supposed to benefit. In Maputo, Zimbabwean Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge repeated his government's argument that former colonial power Britain should compensate the white farmers who have lost their land. As a result of British colonial rule, whites owned much of Zimbabwe's best farmland. Britain has refused to pay unless there is transparency in the redistribution of land.
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From BBC News, 7 November
Black Zimbabweans suffer in land reform
By Christian Fraser, BBC correspondent recently in Zimbabwe
On the edge of a dry, dusty field, 30 miles east of Harare there is a small collection of mud huts. It is home to 200 farmworkers. Five months ago, they worked in the surrounding tobacco fields for their white employer but the farmer has been forced off his land and the crop he planted has withered in the ground. The self-styled "war veterans" who surround his empty farmhouse refuse to let these people work. They are guarding this farm for their new tenant. President Robert Mugabe claims land like this has been confiscated to assist the resettlement of landless peasants. But the selection process is controlled by committees from the ruling Zanu PF party and the main beneficiaries are party officials, "war veterans", and card-carrying members of the party, some of whom have no background in farming. The tenant of this farm has yet to make an appearance. In the faces of these former farm workers is a nation broken. Cowed into submission by their indifferent masters they sit and wait. But as they wait the stomachs of their children grow bigger, swollen by malnutrition. "We have no food, no work and no money. Who will feed my children now," says 37-year-old Grace. Her 10 children are given one meal a day. Through the hot afternoons, under a baking sun, they scavenge in the nearby woods for roots and fruit. Already two people from this village have died. One from chronic diahorrea, the other from Aids.
"Something like 4.6 million people in this country need food aid now," says the Reverend Tim Neill. "By December that figure is going to rise to 6.7 million". Reverend Neill resigned from the Anglican church last year over the controversial appointment of Nolbert Kunonga, the bishop of Harare, an open supporter of Mr Mugabe. Since then, he has been involved with the Farm Community Development Trust, a charity assisting commercial farmers and their workers affected by the land reforms. His work is getting harder as the government tries to restrict the work of the charities. "The queue forms and the first third get the food - the last two-thirds of the queue don't get any food. I suppose it is just a miracle that the first third were people supporting the Zanu-PF party," Reverend Neill observed sarcastically.
Mr Mugabe's fast track land-reform plan is now in its final stages. In 2000, there were 4,500 white-owned farms. Today only 400 farmers are still on their land. More than 300 farmers have been arrested this year for breaching the government's compulsory acquisition orders, known as a Section 8. With vast areas of farmland left untended, the government now has precious few commodities to export - the economy is in sharp decline. "I would say we are down to 10% of production," said John Worsley Worswick, from the farmers' lobby group, Justice for Agriculture. " We used to produce something like 220 million kg of tobacco. A month ago we were looking at a crop of around 40 million kg, now we are probably looking at something more like 20 million kg. Ten per cent of production. And I think that will be reflected right across the board for every crop. In fact it will probably be worse. It is not as political at the moment to produce a tobacco crop as it is to produce a food crop."
Tobacco accounts for one third of Zimbabwe's foreign currency reserves; money the country needs to buy things like fuel and other imports. The shortage of foreign currency is crippling and as the crisis continues to get worse the Zimbabwean Government has defaulted on all its foreign loans. The impact of this economic catastrophe is everywhere. In Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, we queued for an hour and a half at the only petrol station with any fuel. The biggest hospital in the capital, Harare, is running out of essential drugs. As the Zimbabwean dollar continues to plummet in value, people are desperately trying to exchange Zimbabwean currency for US dollars. The official exchange rate has been pegged at 55 Zimbabwean dollars to one US dollar. On the black market, the exchange rate two weeks ago was Z$700 - by the end of last week it was up to Z$1,500. Every day food prices change. The menus in Harare are marked up every morning and yet the wages stay fixed.
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From IOL (SA), 8 November
Mugabe imposes 'smart sanctions' on Britain
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's government announced late on Thursday night it would impose its own "smart sanctions" against Britain, as well as visa requirements for any Britons visiting Zimbabwe. A statement attributed to an unnamed government spokesperson and broadcast on state radio said 120 British political figures, led by prime minister Tony Blair, would be banned from travelling to Zimbabwe. Also on the banned list were the Westminster Foundation and the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust, British-based charities aiming at fostering democracies in Third World countries. Both organisations have been repeatedly denounced for allegedly plotting to overthrow Mugabe. The new measures would take effect immediately, the radio said. The statement followed an announcement in London earlier Thursday by British Home Secretary David Blunkett that from Saturday on, Zimbabweans visiting Britain and passing through its airports in transit would have to obtain visas before they would be allowed in. Blunkett said the move was "to deal with what is very significant abuse of our immigrations controls by Zimbabwean nationals. "Large numbers are refused entry to the UK and returned, others are granted short term entry but fail to return home. In addition, the UK has experienced increasingly large numbers of unfounded asylum claims from Zimbabwean nationals," he said. At a press conference in Harare, British high commissioner Brian Donnelly denied that the move was related to the war of words between Harare and Whitehall as Zimbabwe accuses Britain of being behind a grand Western plot to invade the small central African country and overthrow its 78-year old leader. However, within three hours, Harare had responded with its own version of the travel bans and asset seizures imposed on Mugabe and his close political circle by the United States, the European Union, Australia, Switzerland and New Zealand.
Zimbabwe has found itself increasingly isolated by the rest of the world, protesting against Mugabe's campaign of lawless seizures of white farms, the bloody repression of political opponents and the fraudulent presidential elections that returned him to power in March. No comment was immediately available from the British high commission here, but observers questioned the usefulness of sanctions against British politicians unlikely to want to visit here while Mugabe is still in power, and who have no property here. Also listed as banned was Short Wave Radio Africa, the London-based private radio station broadcasting into Zimbabwe as an independent voice, and four of its announcers. All four are Zimbabwean nationals, and lawyers questioned how they could be banned from returning from their home country. About 100 000 Zimbabweans are estimated to be living in Britain nicknamed "Harare North" - as economic collapse and political repression created a flood of emigrants looking for new lives in the former colonial power. Donnelly said there were no official records of the number of illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe. However, he said about 2 500 Zimbabweans last year were sent back home after arriving at British airports without satisfactory documentation. In the first three months of the year, 900 had been sent back already, a sharp proportional increase. Last year, 2 115 Zimbabweans applied for asylum in Britain, but only 115 were successful, he said. However, in the first six months of this year, the applications had grown to 2 800, of which 600 were granted asylum. A total of 60 000 Zimbabwean visitors entered England last year.
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From The Financial Gazette, 7 November
Zanu PF backers blacklisted
Staff Reporter
New Zealand has extended smart sanctions slapped against Zimbabwe in April to cover 142 officials of President Robert Mugabe's government and business associates of the ruling Zanu PF, it was learnt this week. Wellington imposed smart sanctions against members of Mugabe's top hierarchy after his March presidential election victory, which has been rejected by the international community and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change because of alleged electoral fraud. The sanctions initially covered Mugabe and 19 of his top officials, who had already been blacklisted by the European Union (EU) and the United States of America, which have also introduced arms embargoes against Zimbabwe. New Zealand Foreign Ministry Press secretary John Tulloch this week said the list of the affected officials had been expanded to reflect an August Cabinet reshuffle in Zimbabwe and business people who had profited from their association with Zanu PF. "We started with 20, then went to 72 and that was to take into account a Cabinet reshuffle and things like that. Names have been added from the EU list and a couple of other intelligence agencies from overseas. The majority of the names are concerned with members of Cabinet and government, but there are some business people as well."
Tulloch declined to make available New Zealand's expanded blacklist, saying intelligence sources who had contributed to its drafting had requested that names on the list remain confidential. "Some of the names on the list were taken from overseas intelligence agencies who asked us not to publicise the names," he said. However, New Zealand officials say the expanded smart sanctions list "follows closely" the list of Zimbabwean officials and business people banned by the EU, the US and Canada. The EU's blacklist, which has been expanded from 20 to 79 since sanctions were introduced in February, includes Mugabe, his wife Grace, his two vice presidents, Vice President Simon Muzenda's daughter Tsitsi as well as the entire Cabinet and Zanu PF Politburo. Business people banned by the United States include prominent bankers Enoch Kamushinda, Taka Mutunhu, Gideon Gono and David Chapfika. Also included are businessmen Philip Chiyangwa, Saviour Kasukuwere, Billy Rautenbach and John Bredenkamp.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Philip Goff said Wellington had decided to extend its blacklist of Zimbabwean officials because of the Mugabe regime's refusal to heed international protests against human rights abuses and the subversion of the rule of law. "President Robert Mugabe has continually failed to respond to the international community's profound concern about human rights abuses and subversion of the rule of law in Zimbabwe," he said. "Accordingly, New Zealand has decided to extend its travel restrictions against the Mugabe government. The ban has been placed on individuals implicated in a serious way in undermining the rule of law and promoting or allowing human rights abuses. It is now being widened to include those profiting from their commercial dealings with the Mugabe regime." He said New Zealand's travel ban underlined the country's commitment to working with the international community to apply pressure on Mugabe to restore democracy and the rule of law in Zimbabwe.
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From News24 (SA), 7 November
MDC official died of poisoning
Harare - A top opposition official who was found dead in a Zimbabwe prison last month died of chloroquine poisoning in what authorities said was probably suicide, state television said on Thursday. The announcement of the cause of death of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesperson Learnmore Jongwe had been eagerly awaited here. The opposition has said it holds the government responsible for his death. Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told state television the government pathologist indicated "that the cause of death was chloroquine poisoning, or shock". "Chloroquine use is quite prevalent in suicide cases and we would like to suspect that this could be the case." Chloroquine is used here to treat malaria. It was not immediately clear where he got the drug from. Jongwe had been held in remand prison in Harare since he allegedly murdered his wife in a domestic dispute in July. The findings of an independent pathologist's examination are still to be released but police said they are "not interested in his results", ZBC said.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 8 November
Coffin dumped at Zanu PF HQ
Blessing Zulu
There was drama at the Zanu PF headquarters yesterday morning when a coffin was dumped next to the building's perimeter wall along Rotten Row in what could signal a new form of protest against the Robert Mugabe regime. The coffin had sealed on its top a message inscribed on a card castigating Mugabe for allegedly attacking members of the opposition. "Murdered by Mugabe for supporting a party of my choice - dedicated to all revolutionaries of change," the inscription said. Zanu PF officials came to inspect the coffin as the crowd outside the building swelled. Party officials blocked a photographer who was trying to record the incident. Police came to the scene 20 minutes later at around 12pm, and were later joined by members of the Presidential Guard. The coffin was removed at around 1pm by the police as members of the public and Zanu PF officials looked on. Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed the incident. "Yes, there was a coffin which was dumped at the Zanu PF HQ this morning," said Bvudzijena yesterday. "We suspect it is a political game being played by some people. We do not have any particular suspects but we are investigating. The last time a coffin was dumped in protest over Zanu PF's policies was in Masvingo when war veterans and relatives of slain freedom fighter Amos Maseva dumped his body at Shuvai Mahofa's homestead at Mpandawana growth point. Maseva and Mahofa's daughter were embroiled in a tussle for a designated farm, leading to a lethal physical assault. In another form of protest, a 40-year-old Chitungwiza man was on Wednesday arrested under the Public Order and Security Act for allegedly denigrating the president. The man was moving around Makoni Shopping Centre in Chitungwiza holding up a placard written: "God shall confront Mugabe over evils done to people."
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From The Guardian (UK), 8 November
UK inquiry into jet parts for Mugabe
David Pallister and Tania Branigan
The British government has launched a formal investigation into allegations that a white Zimbabwean businessman - one of the richest men in Britain - has broken UK and European sanctions by supplying aircraft parts to the Zimbabwean air force. The allegations against the international financier John Bredenkamp have been made in a United Nations report into the "illegal exploitation of natural resources" in the Democratic Republic of Congo, published last month. In the past few days both the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and the defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, have confirmed in parliamentary answers that an investigation has been launched. In the first answer to the Tory MP Michael Ancram, Mr Straw said: "We are aware of allegations of past arms dealing activities by Mr John Bredenkamp." On Monday Mr Hoon told the Labour MP Paul Farrelly, who accused Mr Bredenkamp of sanctions-busting in the Commons in March: "The government certainly takes seriously all credible reports of misuse or diversion of UK-exported equipment." The UN report says that Mr Bredenkamp, founder of the Ascot-based sporting agency Masters International, "has a history of clandestine military procurement".
While Mr Bredenkamp admits he broke sanctions for the Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith, he denies any sanctions violations since then. He said in a statement to the Guardian that he took "great exception to any allegation of wrongdoing", and described the report as "hopelessly misleading and inaccurate". His £720m fortune has placed him as the 33rd richest person in Britain, according to the Sunday Times Rich List. He is registered in the UK as a director of 11 companies. The report says he is an active investor in a brokering concern called Aviation Consultancy Services, which acts as an agent in Africa for major European defence contractors, including BAE Systems. BAE Systems supplied 12 Hawk jets to Zimbabwe in the early 1980s, but an arms embargo was imposed on the country in May 2000 in protest at the violent treatment of President Robert Mugabe's opponents. The EU followed suit in February this year. The UN report says: "Mr Bredenkamp's representatives claimed that his companies observed European Union sanctions on Zimbabwe, but British Aerospace spare parts for Hawk jets were supplied early in 2002 in breach of those sanctions." The panel cites internal documents, which the Guardian has seen, from one of Mr Bredenkamp's companies, Raceview Enterprises, which supplies logistics to Zimbabwe's defence forces. A memorandum dated May 17 2001 details aircraft spares worth $3m (£1.9m).
In a lengthy explanation sent to the Guardian, Mr Bredenkamp's spokesman agreed that ACS acted as a broker for Raceview, which reached a general supply agreement with the air force in August 2001. But he said the aircraft spares were legitimately exported from European manufacturers and not from BAE Systems or the UK. The spokesman enclosed a letter from ACS to the air force in April this year saying that because of the EU embargo two suppliers (whose names have been blanked out) had decided to suspend all shipments to Zimbabwe. The country has aircraft from Italy, Spain and France. Although BAE Systems acknowledge that ACS is "one of our many advisers in Africa" it denies supplying Hawk spares in breach of sanctions. "We did not supply any spares to Zimbabwe and we do not believe any were delivered, because we believe Zimbabwean Hawks are not flying and have not been for two years," Richard Coltart, BAE's head of news, said. "We investigated these allegations and made sure we hadn't done anything wrong, even by accident." Zimbabwean newspapers have suggested that the Hawk spares were bought from Kenya. In reply to the report's allegations that Mr Bredenkamp's companies had improperly exploited Congo's natural wealth, his spokesman said the conclusions were "either false or inaccurate, and in context maliciously defamatory". "Many of the statements and allegations contained in the report are substantially at odds with the considerable information and documentation voluntarily provided," the spokesman said.
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From Agencia Informacao de Mocambique, 8 November
SADC/EU meeting ends without agreement on Zimbabwe
Maputo - A ministerial meeting between the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the European Union (EU) ended in Maputo on Friday, without any agreement on the crisis in Zimbabwe. The meeting lasted four hours longer than scheduled, and much of that time was spent in negotiations over how to refer to Zimbabwe in the final communique. Key ministers could be seen going from one group to another clutching pieces of paper. As the afternoon wore on so the diplomats became increasingly tired, increasingly frayed. In the end, all that could be said in the final statement was "On the question of Zimbabwe, SADC and EU could not reach an agreement". The meeting's co-chairman, the Danish Minister for Europe Affairs, Bertel Haarder, read out to a closing press conference the text on Zimbabwe that the EU had proposed. This expressed "concern at the plight of the people of Zimbabwe", and stressed that the issue of land reform could not be separated from the rule of law, democracy and human rights. It suggested sending a joint SADC/EU team to Zimbabwe to follow the situation and make recommendations for the way forward. Haarder said it was the Zimbabwean delegation, led by Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge, that had blocked adoption of this text.
However, his co-chair, Angolan Planning Minister Ana Dias Lourenco, denied this and said the EU text had been rejected by SADC as a whole. The EU took the precaution of circulating a brief statement of its position on Zimbabwe. This expressed deep concern at "the violations of human rights and the restrictions on the media, as well as the deteriorating economic situation, caused largely by the policies of the Zimbabwean authorities". There was no equivalent statement from SADC. Lourenco claimed the SADC position on Zimbabwe was "well known", and called for a renewed dialogue between the EU and Zimbabwe. "Our objective is to re-establish relations between Zimbabwe and the EU", she said.She claimed that the disagreement over Zimbabwe did not affect the rest of the meeting, nor did she expect it to affect the overall level of SADC/EU cooperation. During the meeting Mudenge called on other EU members to put pressure on Britain to pay compensation to the mainly white commercial farmers whose land has been expropriated during Zimbabwe's "fast track" land reform. This was regarded as an attempt to split the EU delegations, and it failed. "The 15 EU countries have been in total agreement", said Haarder. "We have stood together". He noted that when the EU held meetings in the afternoon to discuss the working of the communique, they only lasted about five minutes, such was the level of consensus.
Later Mudenge claimed he had been encouraged by the meeting and that "a lot of useful information was exchanged". But he then denounced Britain and other EU members for "destabilising" Zimbabwe. Asked repeatedly which EU members he was referring to, he would only mention Britain, Denmark and Holland by name. The "destabilisation" consisted in independent radio stations broadcasting from Britain and Holland, and foreign funding for Zimbabwean human rights organisations and political parties. At one point, he described those who received such funding as "British agents". Was Mudenge really suggesting that NGOs in the SADC region should not accept any money from foreign governments? "They should not fund political parties or groups that attack SADC governments", he replied. Mudenge denied allegations of discrimination in the distribution of food aid, and claimed that the greater part of the aid distributed this year has gone to parts of Zimbabwe that returned opposition members to parliament. Mudenge praised two former British foreign secretaries, Lords Carrington and Howe, for urging the current British government to pay compensation to the Zimbabwean white farmers, whom he described as "victims of the Lancaster House settlement" (the 1979 agreement on Zimbabwean independence). Ironically, Mudenge was siding with prominent members of the British Conservative Party (historically the party which supported white minority rule in what was then Rhodesia) against the current British government, formed by the Labour Party (which historically supported the liberation movements).
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From IOL (SA), 8 November
EU rejects Zim's demand for compensation
Maputo - The European Union has rejected Zimbabwe's demand for Europe and Britain to compensate white farmers evicted from their farms under Robert Mugabe's contentious land reform programme. "That is now unacceptable, these reforms were conducted with minimum respect for the rule of law," Danish Minister for European Affairs, Berterl Haarder, told a press conference late on Thursday. Zimbabwe is currently embroiled in a land reform programme which has seen the seizure of most of the properties belonging to the country's 4 500 white farmers. Very few have been compensated so far by the Zimbabwean government. Haarder's comments came after the first day of a two-day meeting between top EU government officials and their counterparts from the 14-member Southern Africa Development Community in the Mozambique capital. Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister, Stan Mudenge, had said that president Robert Mugabe's government wanted Britain to compensate white farmers as "we have completed the land reform programme". "We just want justice for the white farmers," Mudenge said. Haarder said the subject of the Zimbabwe situation had prompted heated debates during Thursday's session, which focused on peace and democracy. "We had serious and robust debates on Zimbabwe but with little progress," Haarder stated. He said a normalisation of relations between Zimbabwe and the EU could not be expected soon, but everything would be done to ensure the continuation of dialogue. The EU has been a staunch critic of Zimbabwean land reform, and has imposed sanctions and travel restrictions against Mugabe and 71 of his close associates for alleged human rights abuses.
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From The Daily News, 8 November
Tsvangirai’s treason trial postponed to February
Chief Reporter
Justice Charles Hungwe has ruled that the treason trial of MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and two other party officials facing allegations of plotting to assassinate President Mugabe be held in February next year. The trial was originally set for next Monday. Hungwe’s ruling followed an urgent application in the High Court by Innocent Chagonda representing Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube, the MDC secretary-general and MP for Bulawayo North-East, and Renson Gasela, the shadow minister of agriculture and MP for Gweru Rural. Chagonda said the ruling was made last week on Monday. "The matter will be heard on 3 February 2002," he said. Chagonda said they applied for the postponement because the State had failed to give the defence a copy of the audio tape in which Tsvangirai is alleged to have spoken of the plan to assassinate Mugabe. He said, in addition, the government delayed in giving the defence team the State outline in the matter. "Our advocates were also not available on the date proposed by the State," Chagonda said.
Advocates Chris Andersen and Eric Matinenga are part of the MDC leaders’ defence team. The three were implicated by former Israeli secret agent Ari Ben-Menashe, of the Canadian lobbyist firm, Dickens and Madson, last November in the run-up to the controversial March presidential election. Ben-Menashe, who did political consultancy for the government, has admitted being a long-time admirer of Mugabe well before the alleged plot by Tsvangirai and his colleagues. The government alleged that a video shot secretly by Ben-Menashe showed Tsvangirai agreeing with Ben-Menashe that Mugabe be killed before the presidential election. Tsvangirai becomes the second opposition leader after the late Zanu president, Ndabaningi Sithole, to be tried on allegations of trying to kill Mugabe. Sithole died in December 2000 with a pending case in the Supreme Court in which he was challenging a two-year prison sentence imposed by the High Court following his conviction for attempting to assassinate Mugabe.
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From BBC News, 8 November
Mugabe tightens the noose
By Mike Donkin, BBC Correspondent recently in Zimbabwe
These days there is an unwritten rule in Zimbabwe - support the government or put yourself at risk. One victim of violence I met, said he was set upon by a gang of ruling Zanu-PF party supporters. The reason? "I'm not interested in going to the meetings of Zanu PF," he tells me. Stories of violence like this are now common. So are stories of torture sessions in police stations. One official with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) describes the long, long week he spent in custody. "A group of officers took me from the cell to a torture room, and dipped my head in a bucket of water. They had to handcuff me and they had to put electrical cords on my fingers, toes and my private parts. I felt I could not stand it but there was nothing I could do." MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai says that people are being intimidated across the country, under orders from President Robert Mugabe himself. "He is using state institutions to crush the opposition by whatever means at his disposal. "Our leaders in some of the very strong provinces are being brutalised on a daily basis. The judiciary, the press, everyone is under attack." The press in Zimbabwe feels the noose on them is tightening daily. The government is clearly determined to shoot the messenger. Trevor Ncube, editor of the Independent in Harare, explains: "We are unable to report on a lot of things that are going on in this country. The story of hunger, the story of destitution, the story of the violence, the story of lawlessness - the independent media in this country, and the foreign media, is unable to get into those areas where the state and the lawless party thugs do as they please." In other nations, those who feel disenfranchised can turn to the law. Not much use here. Brian Kagoro helps run a legal aid group, Crisis in Zimbabwe. President Mugabe, he says, has made sure that the law works for him. "We've seen the tinkering with the composition of the judiciary. Clearly I think the appointments are meant to deal with specific interests - which are ruling party interests - dilute the composition of the bench to such an extent that it will not be possible to have adverse judgements."
Also under pressure are the non-governmental organisations. They are trying to help millions of Zimbabweans who face hunger because of drought. But the government accuses some NGOs of being foreign agents and thus a threat to national security. Canon Tim Neil is a Zimbabwean who runs a local NGO that's trying to feed displaced farm workers. He says it is the government which is threatening the vital work of the NGOs: "The World Food Programme has suspended food relief in one district because of the politicisation of the relief. Save the Children have been closed from distribution. An organisation that was distributing through the Catholic Church in Gwanda, they have been closed. Oxfam has been shut down in, I believe, the Binga area. And so even the implementing partners are being viewed by government as enemies and are not being able to distribute." These allegations of repression are serious ones. So we tried to call Zimbabwe's information minister to answer them. He was not available. For now, all these measures seem to have strengthened Robert Mugabe's hand. But Morgan Tsvangirai warns him people can only take so much: "There is no way you can pretend that you are in control when six to seven million people are hungry. We're near collapsing the whole economic fabric of this society. So it may be a bravado that he's displaying but he knows certainly that he's sitting on a very serious time bomb." As economic crisis grows in Zimbabwe though, its president shows no sign of relenting. Most people here feel that things will get much worse, before they get better.
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From Business Day (SA), 8 November
Starving citizens resort to desperate measures
Those living near border posts turn to importing food staples from neighbouring countries as supplies begin dry up
Harare Correspondent
Carrying heavy bags of maize-meal on their heads and clutching paper bags, a long line of people stretches across the New Limpopo Bridge from the SA border towards Zimbabwe. As they approach the customs post, about 100 men and women of all ages suddenly bolt from the main road through holes in the security fence and rush helterskelter into the bush. At Beitbridge customs, people look stunned and begin to whistle, prompting those who have gone through the fence to increase their pace. Packages are dropped; touts at the border post join the fray, rushing to grab the items left behind. As the scene gets more chaotic, the police stand by and watch the drama unfold. These events were observed last weekend, but similar scenes are playing themselves out on a daily basis here at Beitbridge border post - the busiest port of entry in sub-Saharan Africa where thousands of Zimbabweans are smuggling food into their own country to avoid starvation. Apart from maize meal, they also squeeze in with sugar, salt, beans, milk, cooking oil and even bread.
Some people crossing the bridge say shortages and hunger have forced them to visit Messina, 12km away from Beitbridge, to buy food. "There is nothing in our shops," one person says. "The reason why we go through the fence and not customs is that custom officials only allow us two bags of maize-meal when we need much more than that." Armed police at the openings through which most people evade customs say they cannot stop the human flow. "What can I do?" asks one officer. "Do you want me to arrest them so that their families can starve? There is hunger in Zimbabwe and these people are just trying to survive." While most people in Zimbabwe's big cities are getting used to having to do with substitutes, those near border posts such as Beitbridge, Victoria Falls, Chirundu, Mutare, and Plumtree resort to importing staples from neighbouring countries. Zimbabwe is gripped by an unprecedented food crisis. According to the World Food Programme, about 6-million people nearly half the country's population are facing starvation. The food crisis has been attributed to drought and the effects of Harare's land reforms on agricultural production.
The crisis is expected to sharpen in the next few months as food supplies dry up. Donor groups such as Christian Care have warned that government's policies are hindering them from bringing in and distributing food freely to the needy. British organisations such as Oxfam have been banned from distributing food aid as the Zimbabwean government charges them with trying to influence domestic politics through food distribution. For its part, government is unable to import sufficient grain due to a lack of foreign currency. Meanwhile, the private sector is not allowed to import grain. According to government regulations passed last year in the face of looming food shortages, the state marketing board is the only entity authorised to import grain. US ambassador to United Nations (UN) food agencies, Tony Hall, warned recently it could soon be too late to prevent a humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe. "Zimbabwe is headed for famine and people will die," he said. "I'm not sure we can stop it." The programme says it is battling to expand its food relief activities to prevent spreading starvation. A spokesman for the food programme, Luis Clemens, says the UN relief agency is stepping up efforts to cover those areas where the food shortages are worsening rapidly. "We are working flat out to prevent famine," he says. "By the end of the month we should have moved from 20 to 28 districts. We are trying to feed everyone who is hungry and we want to reach about 3,9-million people by March or April next year," says Clemens. Zimbabwe is just one of the countries in the region experiencing severe food shortages. The food agency says that more than 13-million people in southern Africa face starvation.
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From IRIN (UN), 7 November
Oxfam urges government to lift ban on feeding
Johannesburg - A British charity Oxfam on Thursday said it was still awaiting approval from the Zimbabwean government to go ahead with the delivery of food supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP). Jane Cocking, Oxfam's regional programme manager in Zimbabwe told IRIN: "We are still in negotiations to become a WFP implementing partner. All the paperwork has been done and there are ongoing discussions with the Ministry of Social Welfare. We are confident that the suspension will be lifted soon." Last month Oxfam and Save the Children's Fund (SCF), another British NGO were banned from distributing WFP-supplied food aid. Additionally, SCF was ordered to stop distributing its own food to people in the Binga district of western Zimbabwe. The ban on the two charities came at a critical point, with hunger deepening across Zimbabwe. WFP has estimated that close to six million are in need of emergency food aid until the next harvest in March/April 2003. In the meantime, Oxfam said that it had distributed seeds to communities in the Midlands and Masvingo provinces. Last year the government accused aid agencies of using food relief to campaign for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. More recently, the politicisation of food aid has become a controversial issue as the government faces allegations of channelling food aid away from regions where political opposition is strongest. Last month WFP suspended the distribution of relief supplies in Insiza district in Matabeleland South province due to alleged political interference by President Robert Mugabe's ruling party.
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From BBC News, 8 November
Zimbabwe 'running out of bank notes'
Zimbabwe's economic crisis has created crippling shortages, and now even bank notes are proving hard to come by. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has said it will step up monitoring of all but the smallest cash transactions, in the hope of stopping bank notes disappearing from circulation. Growing demand for large volumes of cash - used, officials say, for untraceable money-laundering operations - has reportedly left big bank notes in short supply. The Bank has set up a Financial Intelligence Unit to track suspicious cash transactions, and may push forward plans to introduce a new 1,000-Zimbabwe-dollar note, twice the size of its current biggestdenomination. The Bank's taskforce will look at all transactions in excess of 500,000 Zimbabwe dollars. At official exchange rates, that is over US$9,000 (£5,700), but on the black market, the Zimbabwe dollar is trading at around 1,800 in the US currency - and falling fast. Inflation is rampant in Zimbabwe: it hit an annual 140% at the last count, which means many Zimbabweans have to deal in ever larger quantities of cash. The weak Zimbabwe dollar has left the country short of vital imported goods, which in turn has pushed prices up still further. At the same time, the authorities also allege rampant money laundering, as rich individuals attempt to spirit their liquid assets out of the country.
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From The Observer (UK), 10 November
Famine becomes Mugabe weapon
In a shockingly sinister act of vengeance, Zimbabwe's dictator is orchestrating a slow death by starvation for millions of his opponents
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
The rains have come to the undulating pastures of northern Matabeleland. In the bread basket of Zimbabwe, the seed should be in the ground by now. But instead the rural poor are bracing themselves for a catastrophe on a scale not seen since the Matabeleland massacres a generation ago. Death is stalking the people of Matabeleland again. Only this time it is a slow death by starvation - orchestrated in large part by Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party as a weapon against his opponents in the Movement for Democratic Change. Amid warnings that more than 6.7 million Zimbabweans are facing starvation, the Matabele have found themselves attacked by Mugabe's thugs, who are refusing food to anyone suspected of supporting the MDC. They have been abandoned by donor countries in the international aid community, who have judged Zimbabwe a bad bet; and threatened by forecasts of a strong El Nino effect on the country's weather set to bring a season of heavy rains followed by drought.
The combination is bad enough for Zimbabwe's hungry rural communities - where one in three adults is infected with HIV - but there is more bad news. Thanks to drought and the Government's 'fast-track' land reform policy, cereal production is down 57 per cent from last year and maize output by 67 per cent. The international community has raised barely half the money needed to bridge that gap. With inflation rampant and foreign exchange rates in dramatic decline, shortages of bread, maize, milk and sugar are worsening. To complicate the picture further, Western officials accuse senior Zanu officials of profiteering from a black market in food that most cannot afford. 'Zimbabwe is facing an utter catastrophe,' said one British official last week involved in organising the aid effort for Zimbabwe. 'Countries that usually give in crises like this don't want to know because of Mugabe's reputation. At present funding for food aid is running at only 40 per cent of what is needed. If we can't persuade people to give more, then we are looking at a disaster. Mugabe is playing politics with aid, but the international community must not be drawn into doing the same, no matter how repellent Mugabe's behaviour. It is the people of Zimbabwe themselves that matter, and we have got to help them.'
Britain's International Development Secretary, Clare Short, has called on fellow members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Develpoment to pledge more. Despite deteriorating relations between Britain and the Mugabe regime that saw Zimbabwe last week ban scores of British and European politicians and impose visa requirements on Britons travelling to the country, Britain remains the second largest donor behind the United States - providing £36 million since September 2001. 'It is not that nothing is happening on the ground,' said one British source. 'The World Food Programme and other agencies are doing good work; it is just that no one is grasping the scale and urgency of the crisis. Unless the international community steps up a gear - and now - there is going to be a disaster.' The most recent assessments suggest that the 'coping strategies' of those most badly affected will run out early in the new year. And then people will start to die. But it is a message likely to be unpopular with governments from Scandinavia to Japan - usually big donors - which sources say have been reticent about giving aid to Mugabe's Zimbabwe. It is a position that was outlined last week by Denmark's European Affairs Minister, Bertel Haarder, speaking at a meeting of European and southern African Ministers meeting in Maputo. His comments are unlikely to encourage already cautious governments to rush to Zimbabwe's aid while Mugabe is still in power. 'We would like to strongly react against the fact that the Zimbabwe government is using our aid and our food to put political and economic pressure on its own people,' said Haarder last week. 'They use our aid as a tool in the domestic fight against the opposition to survive, and that is not acceptable.' Haarder's remarks followed comments by a senior US official earlier in the week who also accused Mugabe of politicising famine relief and said Washington was considering 'interventionist' measures that could challenge Zimbabwe's sovereignty.
The elections may be over but, according to one human rights observer returned from Zimbabwe, the use of starvation as a political weapon is continuing in some of the most hard-hit areas. The human rights worker - who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals against witnesses - described widespread use of starvation against opposition communities. 'In Nkayi in Matabeleland North, I interviewed one witness who had been planning to stand for the MDC in the district elections in September but was intimidated into pulling out,' said the worker. 'He was threatened into leaving his home. He told me that 20 families in his community had been denied the right to buy food from the government's Grain Marketing Board warehouses because of their support of the opposition. They have also been denied the right to work. So they cannot eat and they cannot earn money.' It is a story being repeated across the country. 'In one area I actually witnessed Zanu youth militia running rural food sales with the instructions to sell only to Zanu supporters. With the government having a monopoly on the warehouses, it can control completely who is fed and who is not.'
At Murambinda District Hospital, according to the World Food Programme, doctors report increasing cases of malnutrition and pellagra, associated with starvation. Informal interviews with those queuing for food aid in Mutasa district suggest many families are going for more than two days at a time without a proper meal. As always, it is the children who are suffering the worst. A Unicef survey last May showed acute malnutrition prevalence in under-fives at 6.4 per cent. But when broken down further, the data show prevalence of acute malnutrition up to 18.2 per cent in some areas and alarming levels of wasting in those aged three to five at 41.6 per cent nationally. In Silobela, in Midlands province, the local chief, Malisa, warned last month that thousands of schoolchildren in his area were on the verge of starvation. 'There is no family in the area that harvested even a bucket of grain,' he said. Clare Short told The Observer: 'This is a very serious crisis. We can't let the people of Zimbabwe be punished twice by Mugabe and then by food shortages. They mustn't be abandoned. The donor community must step up their efforts.'
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From CNN, 9 November
Africa and EU split over Zimbabwe
Maputo - A summit of European Union and Southern African Development Community leaders scheduled for 2003 is in doubt because of issues involving Zimbabwe. At the end of a ministerial meeting in Mozambique on Saturday, Denmark's European Affairs Minister Bertel Haarder, who led the EU delegation, said he had "absolutely no comment" on whether the summit, in Portugal, would go ahead in April as planned. The EU-SADC ministerial conference had been switched to Mozambique's capital Maputo from Copenhagen after Denmark said it would not allow a delegation from Zimbabwe to attend. The EU imposed a travel ban on Harare's leaders after President Robert Mugabe's re-election in a March. The move was made after EU observers called the polling fraudulent, but Mugabe said voting was free and fair and accused Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler Britain of promoting an EU vendetta against him. In a separate move, the Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe from its meetings for 12 months in March but stopped short of full suspension.
A diplomat in Maputo told Reuters: "It is unlikely the Lisbon summit will take place. SADC will refuse to attend if one of their members is banished, and the EU will not let Zimbabwean leaders in." Ana Dias Lourenco, Angola's planning minister and current head of SADC's committee of ministers, said the SADC negotiated as a bloc and not as individual countries. "We would go as SADC, all our 14 members," she said. Several SADC ministers also questioned the need for such future big meetings with the EU, arguing they achieved little. An unnamed delegate from Swaziland told Reuters that "little progress" had been made in the Maputo talks. Closed-door meetings were dominated by the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe, and how Mugabe's government is handling international food relief aid. Ministers also discussed how to combat poverty, reviewed the crippling hunger crisis faced by many African countries and talked about fighting AIDS, which is they see as the region's biggest development challenge. The SADC and the EU did agree food aid should not be used as a political weapon.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 10 November
Libya ends oil deal with Zimbabwe over debts
By Methembe Mkhize
The Libyan ambassador to Harare, Mohammad Azzabi, says the reasons for the collapsing $360-million (about R3.5-billion) fuel deal between Zimbabwe and his country are not political - but purely commercial. Azzabi said in an interview this week that the deal had always been a commercial agreement between the Zimbabwe government and Libya's oil giant, Tamoil, and not a political arrangement between old allies - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi - to shore up the Zimbabwean economy. Until the deal collapsed, Tamoil supplied 70% of Zimbabwe's oil. Azzabi said: "It's a matter of supply and demand. It's not political but maybe it appears semi-political in a way because we are not taking out the money which Zimbabwe pays since we are investing it here." Mugabe was in Libya in mid-September to try to save the faltering deal, but Tamoil insists on a cash-on-delivery arrangement. Under the deal, Zimbabwe pays Libya in local currency and the money is banked locally for investment purposes. Libyans have so far invested in various Zimbabwean economic sectors such as banking, tourism, construction, fuel, meat processing and land. Azzabi said Zimbabwe had been trying hard to service its debts. He said last week the country had coughed up $10-million (about R98-million) and "not much was outstanding". But fuel industry sources said the paid sum was a drop in the ocean considering that Zimbabwe owed Tamoil - which supplies about 100 000 tons of oil products a month - about $90-million (about R882-million).
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From Reuters, 9 November
Police halt anti-Mugabe protests
By Stella Mapenzauswa
Harare Zimbabwe police have quashed protests by civic groups but the activists vow to forge ahead with a series of planned demonstrations against President Robert Mugabe's 22-year rule. The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) said police fired teargas on Saturday to disperse about 1,000 marchers in Harare's Mabvuku suburb as part of several marches to protest against a constitution critics say Mugabe has manipulated to entrench his power. Police also dispersed protesters in neighbouring Chitungwiza where four people were arrested, NCA Chairman Lovemore Madhuku said. "We will forge ahead with demonstrations every two weeks regardless of any police ban," he told Reuters. Police were not available for a comment. Earlier this year, Mugabe's government enacted a tough new security law which outlaws the staging of demonstrations without police permission.
The NCA - a broad coalition of student and church groups, political parties and human rights groups - has spearheaded several protests in the past two years to press for a new constitution. Mugabe has amended the constitution 16 times since leading the country to independence from Britain in 1980, in what critics say were attempts to tighten his grip on power. In April police arrested more than 60 NCA activists during demonstrations against Mugabe's controversial victory in a March presidential poll condemned as fraudulent by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Western governments. Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party says the election was free and fair and has rejected MDC demands for a fresh poll.
On Saturday, police fired teargas at a crowd of MDC youths to stop them from marching around a stadium in Harare's populous township of Highfields, where the party later held a rally to commemorate its third anniversary. A Reuters correspondent saw youths throwing stones in retaliation, smashing the windows of two government vehicles as they drove past. Formed in 1999, the MDC emerged as the strongest challenge to Zanu PF when it won nearly half the contested seats at parliamentary elections held in June 2000. The opposition says it would have won had it not been for a violent campaign it blamed on ruling party supporters. The opposition says Mugabe has mismanaged the country since assuming power, leading to a political and economic crisis marked by acute food shortages affecting nearly half the population.
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From online.ie (Ireland), 9 November
Hundreds protest Mugabe in London
Hundreds of people gathered outside Zimbabwe's High Commission today to protest against the Mugabe government's prosecution of opposition leaders. Organisers said the demonstrators, who included exiles and torture victims of the Mugabe regime, numbered around 400 and had come to London from all over England. Police could not confirm that number. The group were voicing their opposition to treason charges Mugabe has laid against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and other senior members of his Movement for Democratic Change, who are due in court on Monday. The demonstration began at midday and lasted around two hours, although the weekly vigil that began a month ago was continuing late this afternoon with around 50 people remaining. Police said the protest was peaceful with no arrests or violence. The protest came a day after Zimbabwe banned Prime Minister Tony Blair and scores of his ministers from entering the country and imposed visa requirements on Britons in retaliation for European sanctions. That move in turn was made a day after the Government announced that most Zimbabweans will need a visa to enter Britain.
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From ZWNEWS, 11 November
Forced emigration fears
International humanitarian aid agencies fear that displaced farmworkers and their families are being forcibly relocated to areas close to the borders of Zimbabwe, and from there are being "encouraged" to leave the country. Internal documents from one agency, seen by ZWNEWS, detail these concerns. The documents state that the International Committee of the Red Cross is aware of this disturbing information, has itself received similar reports, and is working with Red Cross societies in the region to prepare for possible cross-border movements of people into neighbouring countries. Most at risk are those farmworkers whose origins are in these neighbouring states. The Zimbabwe government officially considers these people not to be Zimbabwean citizens, even though they and their forebears may have lived in Zimbabwe for decades, if not generations, and voted in elections since 1980. Of the total of 1.5 million ex-farmworkers and their families throughout Zimbabwe who have either already been displaced or face displacement, it is estimated that up to 60 per cent may have their origins in countries neighbouring Zimbabwe.
In particular, the documents detail one instance, involving the forced relocation of as many as 5 000 farmworkers and their families to Gaierezi in the Zambezi valley, specifically to the Chadereka and Dambakurima wards in this area. Reports from these areas were received in mid-October. On arrival, the displaced farm workers and their families were left to fend for themselves with whatever few personal possessions they were able to carry, no access to farmable land, no seeds and tools with which to begin farming, and no access to humanitarian assistance. This area was described as "inhospitable" by a source from that part of the country, who also said that there had been a substantial increase in the numbers of displaced farmworkers there. It appears that those relocated were trucked into the district. Assuming a truck capacity of 50 people, and a total of 5 000 people moved, that translates into 100 separate trips over a short period of time. This, the documents say, "signals a systematically planned event as opposed to a spontaneous action". Other unconfirmed reports, according to the documents, indicate that the trucks used were from the District Development Fund, an agency of the Zimbabwe government.
There is a possibility, say the documents, that these people may have come from Guruve, in the north-east corner of Mashonaland Central province. Reports from the area said that some 2 500 farmworkers, plus their families, had been told to "get out or die". These people have not to date been located, despite efforts to find them. The agency’s concern is that ex-farm workers with few options are being moved to places near borders that are out of sight, and therefore out of mind, of international observers. Many of these remote areas are difficult to get in to at the best of times, with few entry roads of significance. Political control of these areas by the government is currently very high. According to the documents, one international relief agency has reported suspicious signs of political control in some areas: specifically, people on the ground in the Muzarabani district were attempting to limit their access to the area.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 10 November
Grace lures voters with food
Debra Mazango
As Zanu PF steps up its campaign to win over the people of Kuwadzana before the impending by-election there, basic commodities, reported to be coming from First Lady Grace Mugabe, are being freely distributed to residents of this high density suburb who attend ruling party campaign meetings, The Standard has learnt. A group of Zanu PF female activists led by a woman who identifies herself as Comrade Mutasa, have been holding meetings every Tuesday evening in Kuwadzana and then distributing food and other goods to the people. Items distributed include mealie meal, cooking oil, cabbages and soap. Even bags of fertiliser were distributed at one time. At the meetings, Mutasa, who says she comes to Kuwadzana on behalf of the First Lady, urges people to vote for the ruling party in the by-election, whose dates are yet to be announced, saying the party is filled with people who care for the residents.
At last Tuesday's meeting, held in 227 Street in Kuwadzana 2 and attended by this reporter, Mutasa told the residents that the First Lady had set up a feeding programme in the suburb to benefit those threatened with starvation. Mutasa, who moves around in a green twin cab vehicle accompanied by youths, said: "Do you know that Amai does not sleep, thinking of the welfare of this country, but you seem not to appreciate this. Today we have come on her behalf to show that she has the welfare of the people of this constituency at heart. Everyone, whether Zanu PF or MDC, should come and get food. The First Lady does not discriminate." She added: "The MDC does not care about you because it only uses you during elections and then leaves you to suffer and starve whilst they preoccupy themselves with fighting for the interests of whites." After stressing the importance of giving support to a yet to be identified Zanu PF candidate in the by-election, Mutasa later distributed a 10kg pack of mealie meal and a cabbage to everyone at the meeting. The meetings, which started after the death of Kuwadzana MP Learnmore Jongwe, have been attended by several residents who are having a hard time coming by the elusive basic commodities
A woman present at the first meeting told The Standard that she hoped the First Lady's generosity would continue well after the election. "When we attended the first meeting we each received 10kg of mealie-meal and cooking oil. We were also promised a lot more if we campaigned for the ruling party in the coming by-election. We had never imagined that Grace Mugabe would think of our existence. We hope after the election, she will still remember our plight," she said. Attempts to obtain comment from Grace Mugabe were fruitless and her secretary referred this reporter to the women's affairs section of the department of information which she said was responsible for overseeing programmes conducted by the First Lady. However, no senior officials in that section were available for comment.
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From The Daily News, 11 November
NCA changes strategy to thwart police
By Chris Gande and Henry Makiwa
Police on Saturday came out in full force in Bulawayo city centre to frustrate a planned march by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA). Duped into believing that the march would be staged in the city centre, the police were on standby. In the meantime, the NCA marches for a new democratic constitution were taking place in Bulawayo’s high-density suburbs of Entumbane and Makokoba. When the police eventually learnt that the marches were in the high-density suburbs they sped to the townships. By then, it was too late to stop the marchers who had already had their day. The marchers dispersed on their own upon the arrival of the police. No one was arrested during the protest. The marchers held banners and placards calling for a new constitution as the solution to the country’s socio-economic and political problems. In Makokoba, Bulawayo’s oldest and most populous suburb, the marchers distributed pamphlets. The marches were part of the NCA’s nationwide "Enough is Enough" campaign to encourage people to press for a new constitution.
In the past, the NCA has held demonstrations in the city centre, resulting in clashes with the police. This time around, they were the wiser and changed tactics in a strategy which was also employed in Harare. In Harare’s Mabvuku and Tafara high-density suburbs, hundreds of people heeded the NCA’s call for a protest march and took to the streets demanding a new constitution. Dr Lovemore Madhuku, the national chairman of the NCA, said the police had arrested some members of his organisation ahead of the planned demonstrations in Gweru and Chitungwiza. The demonstrations failed to take place in Gweru following the arrests. Madhuku said: "The police arrested our Gweru chairman and four of our members in Chitungwiza. They fired tear-gas at demonstrators in Mabvuku in an apparent effort to cow the people from voicing their rightful concerns. However, today’s events show that the people are strong-willed and will not be intimidated."
The protest processions called for a new constitution that would ensure transparency in elections and the repealing of repressive laws such as the draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Public Order and Security Act. "The demonstrations in the suburbs marked the advent of our new strategy. This was the first time our protests were staged outside the city centre. They are community-based demonstrations that will involve all the masses. We are calling for an end to political violence and the government’s repressive responses to our democratic demands." Meanwhile, the NCA regional chairman, Justin Josiah Ndlovu, said the NCA was going to take the police to court for refusing them permission to hold public meetings in Bulawayo. Police in Bulawayo have barred the NCA from holding public meetings which have been allowed elsewhere in the country, including in Matabeleland North and South provinces. Ndlovu said: "We have been pushed too far. We are now left with no option but to either take legal action or to demonstrate for the right to hold the meetings."
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 10 November
Remanded MDC MP seriously ill
Chengetai Zvauya
Mbare East MP, Tichaona Munyanyi, who was arrested in September in connection with the fatal shooting of Zanu PF activist, Ali Manjengwa, came out of remand prison on Monday ailing, The Standard has learnt. Munyanyi, who is facing an attempted murder charge of Zanu PF activist, Ali Khan Manjengwa who was shot dead in Mbare, stayed at Harare remand prison for two months and was only freed after the high court granted him a $50 000 bail. He shared the prison with the late MDC MP Learnmore Jongwe who was in cell C2 while he was in C5. Munyanyi, who says he got into the remand prison fit as a fiddle, developed serious health problems while in custody and can now hardly walk. He is currently bedridden in Glen View high density suburb. A visibly ill Munyanyi told The Standard that he was not sure whether he was going to fully recover from an illness which began when he was in the remand prison. "I suffer from constant severe headaches, stomach aches, backaches and sore throat. Apart from this I experience excruciating general body pains," he said, his body shaking.
On Tuesday, Munyanyi was admitted at the Avenues clinic where he spent two days being attended to by doctors. Relating his experiences in remand prison, the MP who has lost significant weight said things were tough for him, sharing a cell with 85 other inmates. "I wonder how I managed to survive in prison. We were overcrowded and I was given cold food and porridge. After only two weeks, I was feeling unwell but I never received any medical attention despite telling prison officials about my health condition," he said. "When Jongwe died in the cell which was a few metres from mine, fear struck me. I was not sure whether I would get out prison alive. Jongwe was like a young brother to me and our stay together in the prison bonded us. Whenever we had free time, we spend it together. "I remember the night when Jongwe died, there was a heavy knock at the door of his cell. Prison guards never bothered to attend to it and the following morning I heard Jongwe had died. This shocked me since I had taken a bath with him the previous day in the afternoon while he was in good spirits." Munyanyi is going back to court on November 15.
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Comment from The Zimbabwe Standard, 10 November
It's raining maize!
Over the top by Brian Latham
There was confusion in a central African country this week when Zany party officials geared to defend themselves against an onslaught from the sky. Within months, they said, the government of the United States would invade the capital armed with food. Hysterical headlines in the state-controlled Horrid screamed of a US invasion and warned that any breach of sovereignty would be treated seriously. Still, the same day the US government denied it had plans to invade the troubled central African nation. The denial worked well, giving the troubled central African county's spin-doctors the opportunity to blame Britain. "UK behind invasion plot," screeched the following day's Horrid newspaper. It did not say how the UK government would manage an invasion without American permission. Still, analysts said the troubled central African country's reaction to the threatened invasion spoke volumes. "If intrusive and interventionist measures to provide food are a bad thing, then starving half the population must be a good thing," said one analyst who pointed out that at least half the population supported the opposition. Citizens of the troubled central African nation, most of whom are extremely hungry, have complained that food is available only to Zany party supporters. This has been denied by the Zany party which says food is freely available at $200 for five kilograms to anyone who can produce a valid party card.
Meanwhile the possibility of large American aeroplanes flying over the troubled central African country and dropping food into remote r |
