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Archived News
17th December 2002
Zimbabwe is dropped from game park plan
Zim labour leaders jailed as strike flops
Diamonds are a tyrant's best friend
Nothing but destruction to show for land grab
Zim's traffic cops get Mercs
Zim queuing for fuel again
Last pay hike for civil servants
Violence and politicisation of food aid continue
Zimbabwe uses food as a political tool, aid groups say
And now to the Notebook . . . Hasn’t anyone cursed Bob yet?
Bodies found in Zimbabwe
Zanu PF MP denies using food to win poll
Fuel shortage worsens
Libyans in Zim on rescue mission
Lisbon summit under threat
SA should move from a strategy that has failed
Mugabe rails at foreign interference
Petrol pumps run dry
Zanu PF in campaign to export land policies
Invite to ANC conference bolsters Mugabe
Forex dealers outwit police
Zimbabwe in grip of new hunger crisis
Chinhoyi feasts as country suffers
Zim brought to a near halt
Mugabe wants to nationalise oil companies
Jongwe's SA post mortem results out
Pretoria warned over traffic in people
Mugabe may seize oil giants' assets
Market booms while Zimbabwe prepares for the bust
Health time bomb ticking on farms
Still no word on Mugabe
Middle class hunter-gatherers
Broke Zim's hopes of fuel lifeline dashed
US envoy denounces world leaders who deny people food
Top Zanu PF officials in maize scam
Mugabe's men drown cattle as thousands go hungry
Mugabe arrives at conference
I don’t understand…
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 11 December
Zimbabwe is dropped from game park plan
By Tim Butcher
Government sponsored violence in Zimbabwe has led to it being effectively kicked out of plans for one of Africa's most ambitious conservation projects. In protest at the lawlessness of President Robert Mugabe's regime, the World Bank, European Union and conservation groups have refused funding for the Zimbabwean component of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park. Without foreign currency reserves of its own, the Zimbabwean government has not been able to spend any money on new infrastructure urgently needed to allow tourists to visit the Zimbabwean sector of the park. "Zimbabwe is basically being left behind because of what is going on there at the political level," a senior conservation source said. "It is a great pity but until things change politically Zimbabwe will not be involved in the project." The park was to straddle three international borders, uniting game areas in South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe into one seamless reserve bigger than the Netherlands, through which tourists would move without passport requirements. At 13,500 square miles, the park was billed as the second biggest transfrontier park in Africa and potentially one of the continent's richest wildlife areas. But while work is proceeding apace on uniting the South African component, the Kruger Park, with the Mozambican element, an old hunting concession called Coutada 16, Zimbabwe has been left behind. "The problem is the funding, because Zimbabwe has no money of its own and the foreign funders refuse to give any backing because of what is going on there," said Prof Willem van Riet, one of the parks main backers.
Under the Mugabe regime there has been a surge in wildlife poaching and the country's Gonarezhou national park, which was to have been its contribution to the new game reserve, has been partly invaded by illegal squatters. Nevertheless, the leaders of the three countries went ahead this week with a formal ceremony to mark the creation of the park in spite of the difficulties over Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe flew in with the largest delegation to the ceremony held at the Mozambican resort of Xai-Xai, oblivious to the reality of his country being left behind on the project. Zimbabwe's de facto expulsion from the project represented an embarrassment for Thabo Mbeki, the South African president, who sought to present the park as a good example of co-operation between African nations. The road network on the South African side is very extensive in the Kruger Park but millions of pounds will be needed to create similar infrastructure in Mozambique. The German government has provided around £9 million for the project as long as it is spent in South Africa and Mozambique and not Zimbabwe. Two shipments of game animals from the Kruger Park have already been relocated to the Mozambican sector which has very few animals because of years of civil war, hunting and poaching. Ten out of 29 elephants moved to Mozambique did not like their new surroundings, however, and trekked for more than a hundred miles back to the South African sector.
* Opposition groups in Zimbabwe said they were "disappointed" at the low level of support for a one-day general strike called yesterday in protest at food and fuel shortages. Official estimates suggested only 25 per cent of the workforce obeyed the stay-at-home call from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, trade unions and civic groups. This continues a trend of poor popular support for strike action that began after last March's presidential election, when Robert Mugabe claimed to have won despite evidence of vote-rigging. Attempts by the opposition to organise mass protests then failed, largely because of public fear of the police.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 11 December
Zim labour leaders jailed as strike flops
Harare Police in Harare arrested at least 13 people including labour leaders for organising work stoppages to protest soaring food prices and economic hardship, a representative said on Tuesday. "At least 13 people have been arrested for barricading roads, stoning buses and organising the stayaway," said Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena. An official of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), the organiser of the strike, meanwhile claimed six members of his association were arrested in the southern city of Masvingo, but Bvudzijena could not confirm this. Late on Monday a labour leader and other union officials were arrested ahead of the protest which had the blessing of Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Wellington Chibebe, the secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), was still in custody late on Tuesday for allegedly organising the strike. The strike, declared illegal by police, failed to take hold. The NCA, an alliance of rights groups, unions, opposition parties and churches, had intended Tuesday's strike to also press for constitutional reform.
In Harare, businesses, including banks, supermarkets and manufacturing plants, were open for business as normal. Many people appeared ignorant of the strike, while others said they could not afford to stop working when they were hard-pressed to buy even the most basic food supplies, as the cost of living spirals upward on a daily basis. "Our assessment is that there has been about 20%-30% response in Harare, but in other towns it has been quite poor," NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku said. "We (however) are not disappointed, we are actually happy that some people took heed of our call, given the political culture of intimidation in this country," he said. Lawyers for the imprisoned union leaders were meanwhile frantically trying to seek their release "because there is no case to answer", according to ZCTU President Lovemore Matombo. The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), based in Belgium, condemned the arrests of the ZCTU leaders as "a chilling reminder of the repression and intimidation faced by all those who do not support the policies of President Robert Mugabe".
Police representative Bvudzijena claimed police had evidence the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had supported "criminal activities" during the strike. "We have indications that some people were paid by the MDC to carry out those attacks," he charged. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said he supports the work stoppage. "The call by civil society for a day of protest ... is a welcome move, which is long overdue," Tsvangirai said in a statement. "The deteriorating economic situation has reached alarming levels," he added. Zimbabwe's economy has plunged into a deepening depression in recent years. At least 80% of the population now lives in poverty. For nearly a year there have been critical shortages of basic commodities, resulting in a thriving black market where prices are anything up to 10 times the official rates. Madhuku said there were plans to call for another strike before the end of the week.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe government, facing severe food shortages, has started to seize grain from white-owned farms, a farmers' group said. Justice for Agriculture (JAG) said in a statement that government officials and soldiers had seized several tons of maize from farms in northwestern Zimbabwe. A two-week deadline for farmers to deliver grain to depots of the state-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB) expired on Tuesday. Farmers have been reluctant to hand over all their maize, partly because of controlled prices for the crop, and partly because they want reserves for their own workers and livestock. The farmers' group said 36 tons of maize had been seized from three farms in the Tengwe area of Mashonaland West province, a fertile maize and tobacco farming area. The army was not available to comment on these allegations. Around eight million of Zimbabwe's 12 million people are threatened with famine this year, due to poor rains that have affected crop production. Aid agencies also blamed diminished production on disruptions to commercial agriculture brought about by a land reform programme.
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From Business Report (SA), 8 December
Diamonds are a tyrant's best friend
Part Two
But the UN report does not just accuse Oryx of trading with the wrong kind of people, or in the wrong kind of diamonds. It also accuses its employees of smuggling both diamonds and currency. One paragraph in the report alleges that "on March 18 2000, Oryx officials in Kinshasa loaded an aircraft with eight crates of Congolese francs for shipment to Harare". Mnangagwa, known in Zimbabwe as "the son of God" because of the general supposition that he is Mugabe's anointed successor, is the man who, among other things, guarantees the safe passage of illegal cash and diamonds through Harare Airport . And the allegation made by the UN report, though fiercely denied by Oryx, is that "an Oryx employee regularly transported parcels of $500 000 at a time that were withdrawn from the Oryx account at Hambros Bank, London to Kinshasa without declaring them to the Congolese authorities".
This is interesting because other anonymous sources claim to have been involved in precisely such activities, adding the intriguing detail that to transport $500 000 in unlaundered cash safely from one country to another, you must possess a business-class airline ticket because the weight of $500 000 exceeds the hand luggage limit in economy class. These sources claim personal knowledge of 10 such trips, involving about $5 million, and allege that a large cut went to Mnangagwa after every trip, often stuffed into cardboard boxes and deposited in the boot of his car. Interviewed about these allegations last month in Zimbabwe's Daily News, Mnangagwa denied having had such boxes loaded into his car, but is reported to have added: "Could they have put money in my boot without me seeing it? Mind you, this was three years ago." Another ultimate beneficiary of this largesse is alleged to have been Mugabe's young wife, Grace, a woman who has acquired a reputation as something of an African Imelda Marcos on account of her profligate spending down the years in the shops of London, New York and Madrid. A further beneficiary was alleged to have been Sydney Sekeramayi, Mnangagwa's most serious rival to take over as president eventually from Mugabe.
Sekeramayi, who is today minister of mines and energy, wrote a letter to Shanfari dated July 7 2000 when he was minister of state security in the president's office - meaning head of intelligence - thanking him for money received. Elections had just taken place in Zimbabwe and Sekeramayi had retained his parliamentary seat. The letter carries an official Zimbabwean government letterhead and contains Sekeramayi's signature at the bottom. It reads: "Dear Mr Thamer Al-Shanfari. I am writing this letter to express my sincere appreciation for the generous moral, material and financial assistance you rendered to boost my election campaign. "My re-election as the member of parliament for Marondera East was facilitated by your support. Thank you very much, Dr. ST Sekeramayi." The cogs in the state apparatus having been duly oiled, the remaining money was allegedly taken to Kinshasa, where it was exchanged for uncut stones that were then smuggled back (allegedly concealed in the couriers' underpants) to Harare and then to Johannesburg to be cut. Mnangagwa, who did business deals with his Congo counterparts, saw to it that there would be no awkward questions asked by the customs men at Kinshasa Airport. On other occasions, according to the UN report, Congolese francs were taken into rebel territory around Kisangani and exchanged very profitably for US dollars, which could then be exchanged for Congolese francs, equally profitably, back in Harare. Oryx denies being involved in the illegal traffic or trading of currency or diamonds, or in the trading of conflict diamonds, and has denied giving money to Mnangagwa or his political party. Indeed, Oryx and its lawyers have reacted vigorously to the handful of news reports in Europe and Africa that have touched on these matters, casting doubt on the UN's sources and blaming the report on (in the words of its managing director Geoffrey White) "a continual disinformation campaign driven by commercial competitors".
Meanwhile, pressure is increasing almost by the day from every corner of the world for "regime change" in Zimbabwe, for the termination of a Mugabe autocracy perceived to be so criminal to rise up and overthrow it by force of arms. Only last month, as former president Nelson Mandela's good friend former US president Bill Clinton was speaking out in Nigeria against the election rigging and intimidation of political opponents in Zimbabwe, a senior UN human rights investigator from Malaysia, Param Cumaraswamy, denounced Mugabe's "systematic attack on the rule of law". Three days later, Australian Prime Minister John Howard announced that his government would examine imposing "targeted sanctions" against Zimbabwe, in the manner of the US, which since February has prohibited entry to top Zimbabwean officials, and the EU, which earlier this week abandoned an international summit on poverty rather than allow two Zimbabwean ministers to travel to Brussels to attend. In both the US and Europe, meanwhile, moves are afoot to shut off a possible leak in the sanctions system by extending it to include people who do business with Zimbabwe. As Renwick puts it: "In order to put more pressure on Mugabe you must obviously tie up his associates, among other things, by freezing their assets."
Oryx Natural Resources is not yet on any sanctions list, but it is listed in the UN report as a company "on which the panel recommends the placing of financial restrictions" (defined as barring selected companies and individuals from accessing banking facilities and other financial institutions and from receiving funding or establishing a partnership of other commercial relations with international financial institutions); while Shanfari is listed as an individual "for whom the panel recommends a travel ban and financial restrictions" (which could include freezing of personal assets). It is also worth remembering that the company's attempt to list itself on the London Stock Exchange in 2000 was abandoned in the face of a barrage of criticism from government officials and human rights activists. As the London Sunday Times wrote at the time: "The bid to float Oryx sits uncomfortably with a campaign by the British government to organise an international ban on sales of "blood diamonds" from conflict areas." But the current allegations against Oryx go further than this, suggesting in essence that the company made cash payments to senior members of the Zimbabwean government or individuals otherwise close to Mugabe and that its Sengamines joint venture bought "blood" or "conflict" diamonds in war zones and in some cases smuggled them abroad.
"I refute all the allegations," said Geoffrey White, who, together with a company lawyer, has responded to these allegations in a series of faxes and telephone calls since September. "This is rubbish," White said, adding that he believed that the allegations were the product of an elaborate hoax. He said that two ex-employees of Oryx - "frauds", who were "driven by revenge" against the company, which they believed owed them money - had been spreading malicious lies. In a letter that was faxed later, Oryx's London lawyer, Mischon de Reya, said the allegations against his client were "grossly defamatory". The lawyer wrote that, according to White, the two people whom he believed to be the sources for this investigation were "motivated by extreme malice towards Oryx Natural Resources" and were "trying to defraud the company's owner - Shanfari". These two individuals are not named in the letter, but according to De Reya, they have "made threats to kill both Shanfari and White. By contrast, White declared in the first of his faxed responses: "The Oryx Group prides itself on conducting itself with honesty and integrity."
There was no answer at White's Oman number when the Independent rang him for his latest comments on these matters. But Oryx has made its position on the UN report crystal clear. All the allegations are "completely baseless". Any currency taken from London to Congo was taken legitimately. If any Oryx employee smuggled diamonds, he or she did so without the company's knowledge or approval. Shanfari's donation to Sekeramayi amounted to just $500. White has also expressed bitterness that, because of the UN's legal immunity, the organisation can make such hugely damaging allegations against the company, while the company has no legal redress. "We are seeking a legal jurisdiction and process where this matter can be resolved and our name cleared." Yet while one may sympathise with White on this point, the fact remains that, as a top foreign business associate of what Mandela has called the Mugabe tyranny, his company is an accomplice of a small power clique that uses food as a weapon to starve its political opponents; that murders and tortures political rivals with impunity; that steals elections; that has profited from a savage war in Congo; that sets the perpetuation of its own power and wealth above the welfare of 6 million Zimbabweans who today are facing famine; and that has destroyed its own country and has blood all over its hands. And with friends like that, your reputation will always be in danger of getting a bit bruised.
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From Business Day (SA), 10 December
Nothing but destruction to show for land grab
Harare - "We never thought it would be as bad as it is," said former farm worker Albert Chanetsa, a veteran tractor driver. Nor did anyone else, including the foot soldiers who ran the land revolution for President Robert Mugabe. "There is no planting. There is no farming here," said Chanetsa , and a few former colleagues, now refugees, sitting on a ledge outside an old farm kitchen nodded in agreement. The air was thick with the promise of rain and frangipani blossom, but the conversation was as depressing as the deserted farm yards. "They won't let us plant," said a health worker from another former commercial farm in the area. They, are of course, some war veterans and ruling Zanu PF supporters who have taken over the farm. In the most fertile cropping province, Mashonaland West, along many kilometres of council and private roads, fields are bare and weeds the only greenery. Hundreds of hectares of young coffee is abandoned, and citrus orchards were burned in September and the blaze melted the drip irrigation pipes which watered the trees.
Footage shot from a light aircraft over the rest of the central provinces in the past three weeks is an equally bleak record of the results of nearly three years of agrarian reform. In place of mechanical maize planters which put down 20ha of seed a day, thin old women bent double are planting pip by pip, about half a hectare in the same time. Many of Mugabe's storm troopers have neither seed nor fertiliser. They are hanging about scratching at the soil here and there, and waiting. At Lions Den, about 150km north west of Harare, there is an exception to the desolation, 50ha of young maize, at present overcome with weeds, planted by higher education minister and president of the Zimbabwe Red Cross Society, Swithun Mombeshora. Mombeshora, assisted by police from the provincial capital, Chinhoyi, finally chucked the owners off last month. He had an easy start to the season, free land, free irrigation equipment, plentiful seed and fertiliser. Mombeshora said: "I don't know about planting in the rest of the province, but I am farming." Ormeston, the farm he took, has for decades reaped 750ha of maize and soyas, 80ha of tobacco, and 15ha of export flowers, and in the winter season just ended, 600ha of wheat.
Contrary to what Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge told South Africans a couple of weeks ago that land reform was complete a productive farmer is chased off his land almost every day, including some who planted summer crops. It is 33 months since Mugabe launched some veterans of the liberation war onto white-owned farms. There is nothing to show for it but destruction. The drought was, in the scheme of things, a sideshow, as Zimbabwe has weathered worse before. But what of the doughty, overcrowded communal farmers who are capable of producing 800000 tons of maize in a year? The communal farmers are weakened by inflation, which will hit 200% by year end, and by shortages of inputs. They are also hungry, and their families are diminished by HIV AIDS. They have no access to dams or irrigation, and prospects for decent rain this season, are dim.
Mugabe's new farmers in Mashonaland West are largely businessmen or politicians who bark orders down the phone to managers from their suburban homes in the city. In the Mazowe Valley last week, west of Harare, is first lady Grace Mugabe's farm, which she wrenched from a frightened old couple. She is growing a few hectares of maize, government tractors were ploughing for her last weekend at a dirt cheap price, and Mugabe's sister, Sabina, is trying her hand at seed maize on one of several farms she has taken. But none of them will in the foreseeable future produce enough food, or enough foreign currency to import what was grown before. Next year will not be better. SA maize was trading at R1840 a ton recently. In Zimbabwe, the monopoly trader, the government's Grain Marketing Board is paying the equivalent of R220 a ton to local producers who won't grow enough to feed even a quarter of the population, even in the unlikely event of normal rains.
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From News24 (SA), 11 December
Zim's traffic cops get Mercs
Johannesburg - Amid widespread famine and a fuel crisis, the Zimbabwean traffic authority has bought six luxury cars, worth at least R1.3m, for their highway-patrol service. DaimlerChrysler South Africa confirmed on Tuesday that Zimbabwe’s traffic authority had bought six Mercedes-Benz C-class cars from them. The six cars - priced at R231 000 at the lowest end of the range - are on their way to Harare. In South Africa, standard fittings for the cars include leather upholstery, electronic climate control, ABS brakes, air bags for the driver and front passenger and power steering. During the recent World Summit for Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg in September, heads of state from around the world were transported to and from their hotels and the conference centre in Standton, in Mercedes C 240 models. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe was also at the conference. DaimlerChrysler said on Tuesday it supported the European Union’s list of 79 blacklisted people with whom they refuse to trade. Mugabe ’s name is on the list. The car-maker pertinently said it would "not sell any goods to the Zimbabwean government". Earlier this year, through a go-between, Mugabe bought an armoured Mercedes S600 as his official vehicle.
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From News24 (SA), 11 December
Zim queuing for fuel again
Stella Mapenzauswa
Harare - Queues of cars and buses stretching for kilometres snaked around Zimbabwe's garages on Wednesday as a petrol shortage dogging President Robert Mugabe's government flared again. Zimbabwe is grappling with its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. It has suffered erratic fuel supplies since 1999 due to a foreign currency squeeze. With only a limited number of garages selling the scarce commodity, some motorists said they had got up as early as 03:00 on Wednesday to stake their place in queues. "It is a desperate situation. I woke up very early this morning for the third time this week and still there is no guarantee that I will get petrol here," said one motorist in Harare's Avondale suburb. Many public transport vehicles are immobilised, disrupting commuters and workplaces. As motorists whiled away the hours, other Zimbabweans queued at bakeries and supermarkets for bread. The government's price controls for basic foods have left shelves empty because producers say the official tariffs are uneconomic.
Zimbabwe's topsy-turvy exchange rates are a central part of the crisis. Officially one US dollar is worth 55 local dollars but on the black market it changes hands for 30 times that. The official Herald newspaper quoted deputy energy minister Reuben Marumahoko as attributing the current fuel shortage in part to "technical problems" at neighbouring Mozambique's port of Beira through which Zimbabwe is supplied. "We have experienced technical problems in the Beira pipeline since last Thursday. We are giving small amounts to all garages. The problem is being corrected," Marumahoko said. "The situation should improve slowly, by the end of the week," he added.The country's state oil importer Noczim (National Oil Company of Zimbabwe) has been tight-lipped over the crisis, referring media questions to the energy ministry. Last month Mugabe said foreign oil companies with retail outlets in Zimbabwe should import their own products for resale, ending Noczim's monopoly. Mugabe said his cash-strapped government was "foolishly helping" multinational oil companies in making big profits while carrying the burden and blame for any fuel problems.
The government has not commented on media reports that a $360m fuel deal with Libya renewed in September has hit trouble over Zimbabwe's failure to meet payments. Under the arrangement, Libya has been supplying 70% of Zimbabwe's fuel needs for the last two years, with the balance coming from the Independent Petroleum Group of Kuwait. Besides fuel, Zimbabwe is also struggling with critical food shortages affecting half of the population of 14 million. Donor agencies partly blame the crisis Mugabe's seizure of white-owned commercial farms, for redistribution among landless blacks. Mugabe blames the shortages solely on a drought, which hit small-scale communal farmers who traditionally produce about 70% of Zimbabwe's maize.
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From The Financial Gazette, 12 December
Last pay hike for civil servants
By Sydney Masamvu, Assistant Editor
Zimbabwean civil servants’ 80 percent salary increases in January could be their last for 18 months while their annual bonus could for the first time be replaced by a performance-related 13th cheque, if Cabinet approves a wage freeze proposed by the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. Sources in the ministry said although Cabinet had yet to approve the proposal, the government had already taken a position on the wage freeze, which would complement a blanket freeze on prices introduced last month. They said once negotiations with labour and employers were concluded, a statutory instrument would be gazetted and the salary freeze, which would also apply to the private sector, would be effective from January 2003. "After the increases in January, we are looking at a period of between 18 to 24 months of salary freeze," a government official told the Financial Gazette. "That is at least up to July 2004 to achieve the desired results of combating the inflationary high cost of living from our side."
Officials in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare said the government had invited other members of the Tripartite Negotiating Forum to a meeting next Monday to work out the implementation of the wage freeze. The forum comprises the government, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the Employers’ Confederation of Zimbabwe (EMCOZ). The secretary-general of the ZCTU, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Public Service and Social Welfare and the director of EMCOZ will meet today to work out the agenda of next week’s discussions. Labour and Social Welfare Minister July Moyo told the Financial Gazette yesterday that he could not provide details of the proposed wage freeze because key stakeholders were still being consulted. But sources said in preparation for the January 1 implementation of the freeze, the government had directed all National Employment Councils (NECs) to conclude and submit their collective bargaining results by December 31. Most NECs have already concluded their negotiations but are still awaiting Cabinet approval for the agreements reached.
The sources said the government was banking on employers supporting its proposal because they had been hard hit by escalating production costs, including inflationary increases in wages. However, ZTCU president Lovemore Matombo said his organisation would not support the salary freeze, saying it was a futile exercise that had not worked anywhere in the world. "We don’t support that move of a salary freeze, it’s nonsensical. Our mandate is not to negotiate for people’s poverty," he told the Financial Gazette. "Government should deal with stabilising the economy, the issue of good governance and implementing sound policies. Those are the problems the country is facing. It’s not about salary freezes," he added. Analysts said a freeze on wages at a time workers were battling the soaring cost of living as well as serious shortages of basic foodstuffs would trigger social unrest and further destabilise Zimbabwe’s economy. The country is facing unemployment of over 70 percent while at least eight million Zimbabweans need emergency food aid, which the analysts said were already recipes for massive social unrest.
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From IRIN (UN), 11 December
Violence and politicisation of food aid continue
Johannesburg - Human rights groups have voiced concern that political violence and the politicisation of food aid have continued in parts of Zimbabwe. In its latest report the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum alleged that violence in the Insiza constituency, where a recent by-election was held, "continued unabated in the post election period". Insiza is located near the second city of Bulawayo in south-western Zimbabwe. The report, released on Tuesday, alleged that supporters of the ruling Zanu PF and its youth militia "were harassing and forcing opposition supporters to denounce the MDC and join/rejoin the Zanu PF". There was also increasing evidence that Zanu PF was manipulating the distribution of food along political lines in an effort to garner and retain political support. "Reports recorded by the Human Rights Forum in September and October showed that food distribution had been politically manipulated to coerce votes from the electorate during the Rural District Council Elections and Insiza by-election respectively. "In the month of October, the Human Rights Forum has documented incidents that suggest that Zanu PF, with apparent government acquiescence, is controlling access to food aid, denying those perceived to be MDC supporters access. This is happening in the absence of a pending election," the Human Rights Forum alleged.
The UN World Food Programme suspended food aid distributions in Insiza in October following the seizure of food by ruling Zanu PF activists. The food agency said Zanu PF activists in Senale centre in Insiza had "intimidated" staff of the local implementing NGO, Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP), and seized 3 mt of food which they "distributed in an unauthorised manner". The Zanu PF supporters were campaigning ahead of a November by-election, which President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF won. John Prendergast, co-director of the Africa programme of the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank, told IRIN that unlike political violence - which usually "spiked around elections, manipulation of food aid continued at pace broadly ... and continued to be used as a reward for political support and to punish the opposition. "It is an instrument that leaves less of a mark than torture and putting people in prison. It's harder to prove and more general in its impact. We've seen no diminution in the use of political criteria [to determine food aid distribution], particularly of course of the commercial imports and distribution mechanisms controlled by Zimbabwe's Grain Marketing Board," Prendergast noted. Physicians for Human Rights-Denmark (PHR-DK) has, in a recent report entitled Voting Zanu PF For Food: Rural District and Insiza Elections, concluded that "the political abuse of food is the most serious and widespread human rights violation in Zimbabwe at this time".
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From The New York Times, 12 December
Zimbabwe uses food as a political tool, aid groups say
By Rachel L. Swarns
Insiza, Zimbabwe, Dec 8 - The cornfields that once flourished here are just memories now. The surging rivers have become sandy grazing grounds where goats feed on withered grass. In this village of parched earth and wilting crops, more than half of all families need emergency food aid to survive. It is here, amid the hungry and the vulnerable, that members of Zimbabwe's governing party stand accused of trying to crush their political rivals by denying them food. The militants seized sacks of cornmeal and peas from a United Nations distribution site and gave them to their supporters, turning away opposition party followers. And in the days before a local election, the governing party activists reportedly kept bags of food in polling stations, to make their message plain: vote against the party of President Robert Mugabe and you will go hungry. The United Nations suspended its operations in Insiza in October, protesting "the misuse of its resources for political ends," and the government promised it would not happen again. But the culprits, though known, have not been arrested, and, at a time when drought and land redistribution have left nearly half of Zimbabwe's population at risk of famine, scattered incidents persist. It is difficult to determine the frequency of such problems, which seem to be much more common in the government-run food program than in international operations run by the United Nations or other humanitarian groups. But the willingness of at least some officials to deny food to the opposition shows how rapidly this country has transformed itself from a promising democracy into an authoritarian state. Mr. Mugabe, 78, who once won praise for building one of Africa's most prosperous and educated nations, has after 22 years seen his popularity plummet. In a bid to hold on to power, he has condoned the killings and arrests of dozens of opposition supporters over the past three years. The government insists, however, that the withholding of food for political reasons is not widespread. A senior official recently assured Western diplomats that "lessons had been learnt from the unfortunate incidents" in Insiza. Despite such assurances, however, opposition supporters in the capital, Harare, and in other towns say officials still demand party cards at some government distribution sites to ensure that only Mr. Mugabe's supporters buy grain. Here in Insiza, some frightened people say they have already stopped supporting their party publicly, to ensure that they will get food when distribution resumes.
The country's catalog of recent changes under Mr. Mugabe includes curbs on political meetings and threats against judges and journalists who challenge the government. White farmers have been forced to give their land to blacks as part of a government effort to undo the legacy of British colonialism. But the farm seizures and rights violations have discouraged foreign investment, which has in turn worsened an inflationary economy. Yet of all Zimbabwe's problems, it is the politicization of food that has raised concerns in Western capitals recently, with strong statements of concern coming from the United Nations, Europe and the United States. Andrew Langa, the governing party candidate who won the parliamentary election here in Insiza, says he understands why political interference happens during food distributions, although he denies using food to manipulate the voters. "No one should politicize aid," Mr. Langa said. "I represent everybody, all the citizens of Insiza, and I know they all need food. But I also understand how our people feel." Speaking of the leading opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change, and its perceived colonialist ties, he asserted: "People see the M.D.C. as a British-sponsored party. They're against land reform so people regard them as an enemy. So if I have maize and you and one of my party supporters come to me, who do you think I would sell to first?" Opposition supporters, for their part, feel crippled by such attitudes. "My supporters don't come to me now, because they know I have nothing," said Mathilda Dube, a local opposition councilor. "They know we are not allowed food because we are M.D.C."
So far, there are no signs of imminent starvation. But malnutrition levels are rising, because many people subsist on one meal a day. The government imports and distributes most of the food supply, selling cheap grain to the public, The United Nations administers free donations from Europe, the United States and other countries. Western diplomats say that in the distribution of relief aid - as opposed to government-bought food - incidents of political interference have been relatively infrequent. One of the few documented cases occurred in the impoverished community of Binga, where the government refused to allow the relief agency Save the Children to distribute food for two months after an opposition candidate won a local election. A deal this month broke the deadlock, and food distribution has resumed. In another needy town, Masvingo, the United Nations reported that last month, government supporters attacked several opposition members and stole their United Nations-provided food. The government supporters were persuaded to return it, and the agency continues its work there. In Insiza, the United Nations has agreed to resume food distributions after lengthy negotiations in which officials promised that the food would no longer be withheld. "We have the assurances we need from the government," said Kevin Farrell, who runs the World Food Program office in Zimbabwe. "I don't think this was some grand scheme cooked up in the upper echelons of power in Zimbabwe." But Mr. Farrell and Western diplomats are less sanguine about the government's distribution program. In some instances, local governing party councilors determine who can buy and who cannot. During a recent food distribution near the town of Bikita, an anxious man approached an official who was wearing a United Nations T-shirt. "In my village," said the man, Elijah Chifodya, an unemployed father of five, "they're denying us food because we're opposition." "I'm not going to give it up," he said of his party affiliation. "but I'm going to pretend I'm no longer supporting them so at least I can get food."
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Comment from The Financial Gazette, 12 December
And now to the Notebook . . . Hasn’t anyone cursed Bob yet?
If Mukanya’s counting is correct, it’s nearly three weeks since the government gazetted Statutory Instrument 299 of 2002 prohibiting motorists from making offensive or insulting gestures, movements or statements within the hearing or view of President Robert Mugabe’s motorcade. Now the question is: why hasn’t anyone been arrested yet for breaching the above regulations? For the police Central Intelligence Organisation guys’ benefit, just in case they didn’t know, more than half of the people on Harare’s streets curse and swear each time the Old Man zooms past in his latest German-manufactured acquisition, and surely several hundreds of them should have been arrested by now. Mukanya must admit he doesn’t know what to make of the fact that no one has been arrested so far. Could it be that the security guys themselves might actually be in agreement with some of the nasty comments these "culprits" make about our first citizen?
Zim’s new border police
The pro-Zanu PF national youth service brigades are reportedly conducting body searches on people entering the country, especially through the Plumtree border post, and seizing whatever forex the travellers may be carrying. With this kind of treatment of returning citizens and foreign visitors, who needs the British media to tell them Zimbabwe is very close to what Cambodia was under Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge killers?
Digging up the dead
Mukanya hears the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), which has been deafeningly silent about its human losses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has begun exhuming the bodies of soldiers killed during the four-year war. Those in the know say unlike the Mozambican campaign, where ZDF casualties were minimal, several hundred soldiers were killed in the Congo, forcing the army to bury some of its fallen members there. Mukanya hopes and prays that if the army has indeed begun digging up its comrades, it will at least postpone sending the bodybags home until after the festive season. Otherwise, what a sordid Christmas or New Year’s gift that would be for parents, spouses, relatives or friends of the deceased soldiers!
Zimbabwe’s downfall in DRC
Still on the DRC, the headline "Zimbabwe delegation in DRC" greeted Herald readers early this week. We are told in the story that the delegation, which included ZDF commander Vitalis Zvinavashe and no less than three government ministers, was going to review progress made in the implementation of agreements under the DRC/Zimbabwe joint commission. Yet this is exactly the kind of approach, which according to those in the know, has been Zimbabwe’s downfall in that chaotic country as far as making money is concerned. Army insiders say apart from the rewards reaped by a few controversial Zimbabwean businessmen, some ruling Zanu PF politicians and top army generals who managed to steal a bag or two of diamonds, the most Zimbabwe can claim to have achieved in the DRC is that once again its soldiers fought hard in yet another African war. Only for South Africans to come and reap the economic windfall. "We do the donkeywork. We are like earth-moving machines clearing the way for South Africans to come and make the money," one visibly disappointed senior ZDF member told Mukanya. According to the ZDF commander, all Zimbabwe did in the Congo was to set up joint commissions and sign joint-declarations of cooperation with DRC officials but on the ground, it didn’t do anything to ensure it got a return for all it had put in. Mukanya’ s impeccable sources say the nearest the government ever got to doing something to ensure Zimbabwe benefited from the DRC was when it sent a semi-literate former ZDF officer, who could barely tell the difference between polished glass and diamond, to run one of the diamond mines Zimbabwe had been given by Kinshasa.
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From BBC News, 12 December
Bodies found in Zimbabwe
By Thabo Kunene, BBC, Bulawayo
The remains of four opposition Movement for Democratic Change members have been retrieved by local residents and police from an abandoned dip tank at a village in northern Matabeleland. They also recovered the body of a member of the Zanu PF youth militia who is believed to have been killed by his colleagues about two weeks ago following a dispute within their ranks. After the youth disappeared, villagers in Lukona in Nkayi District began looking for him and questioned other militia members. They admitted that the body was thrown into the dip tank but only after villagers forced a confession out of them by beating them up. The villagers then alerted the police who carried out an operation to search for the body. This also led to the discovery of the skeletons of the four MDC members. When interrogated by police, the youths blamed local war veterans saying they murdered the MDC members in secret camps established during the election campaign earlier this year. The MP for Nkayi, Abednico Bhebhe confirmed the arrests, and the discovery of the bodies. He said he intends to meet police detectives to discuss the case. Mr Bhebhe, a member of the MDC, was himself abducted and severely tortured by war veterans in Nkayi during the election campaign. Efforts to contact Matabeleland North police spokesman, Inspector Mthokozisi Moyo, have proved fruitless.
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From The Daily News, 13 December
Zanu PF MP denies using food to win poll
From Amanda Bango in Bulawayo
Andrew Langa, the new Zanu PF Member of Parliament for Insiza, says if he had denied any voters food during the by-election campaign in October, they would not have voted for him. In papers filed in the High Court against the challenge to his election by the defeated MDC candidate, Langa said "there is no scientific analysis in such a proposition because if you deny people food you cannot expect them to vote for you". The MDC last month filed an election petition in terms of Section 132 of the Electoral Act, seeking a nullification of the results of the by-election in which Siyabonga Malandu Ncube of the MDC garnered slightly above 5 000 votes against Langa’s more than 12 000 votes. In the 2000 general election, the MDC won the seat against Zanu PF. The fresh by-election was due to by the death of the MDC MP. In his application, Ncube said in the run-up to the by-election, Zanu PF used maize as its main electoral weapon. He said that gave Langa an unfair advantage. He noted that such practices violated the Zimbabwean Electoral Act and those drawn up by the Southern African Development Community electoral committee. In his opposing papers, Langa argued that food was distributed according to the government programme of action. He denied there was a deliberate bias against MDC supporters among the starving population. He said if the suggestion was that he had caused food to be withheld from certain people to obtain their votes, then those very people would not have voted for him. On allegations that Langa and Zanu PF had looted the World Food Programme food aid, Langa said he had heard about the alleged hijacking from the MDC but had no evidence to verify how true it was. Ncube had accused Langa of manipulating the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority rural electrification programme, launched in Insiza during the run-up to the
election, for campaign purposes. Langa denied that charge, saying he did not address the function, nor was the event a rally. "If the petitioner (Ncube) wanted to attend (the function) he would have been able to attend," he said. Langa denied shooting Darlington Kadengu, an MDC activist, inside the Filabusi Police Station in the presence of the officer-in-charge. But he admitted that Kadengu was struck by a bullet which ricocheted when he (Langa) fired into the air to ward off Kadengu and his group of MDC supporters. On the allegations of bribery, Langa said the manner of the bribes was not specified and the details remained vague. Ncube’s lawyer, Mathonsi of Coghlan and Welsh, said he would proceed by filing an affidavit, replying to Langa’s, before a date for the hearing can be set.
From ZWNEWS: Andrew Langa was quoted in an article in the New York Times of 12 December as saying: "So if I have maize and you and one of my party supporters come to me, who do you think I would sell to first?"
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From The Daily News, 12 December
Fuel shortage worsens
Staff Reporters
The fuel situation worsened in most parts of the country yesterday as the long queues of vehicles which began on Monday could be seen at the few service stations that had petrol in Harare and other cities and towns. Thousands of motorists spent the greater part of yesterday in the queues, with some saying they had spent the night parked at service stations after being promised petrol by the suppliers. "I spent the whole night parked here," said Merlba Snell, of Waterfalls.She said she had gone without petrol for three full days and decided to spend the night at the service station after learning that there would be deliveries yesterday. Kudzai Chisongo, who runs a fleet of commuter omnibuses in Warren Park, said he lost a lot of business yesterday because of the fuel crisis. "We can’t go on like this. This is a crisis and our government appears to be taking it easy. Something should be done. The government is to blame," he said.
Most service stations had run out of petrol with only a few offering diesel. The pattern was the same in Bulawayo, Mutare and Masvingo. Reports from the Midlands say only one service station, Mobil Mart, had fuel in Kwekwe yesterday and hundreds of motorists queued for it the whole day. There has been no petrol in Mvuma and Gweru since Sunday and this has greatly affected business. The National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, Noczim and Amos Midzi, the Minister of Energy and Power Development have made no statements on the crisis, while motorists and commuters are worried that they might spend a dry festive season. Meanwhile, a Harare motorist yesterday survived what could have been a fuel-related death when a long distance truck rammed into the left side of his vehicle in a fuel queue along Samora Machel Avenue. Hundreds of motorists spent most of the day blocking part of Samora Machel. A woman constable, who only identified herself as Constable Jura, confirmed the accident. Joseph Kanguwo, the truck driver with Freightliner Transport of Ruwa, said the accident occurred when he tried to avoid a car in a fuel queue at the corner of Samora Machel Avenue and Julius Nyerere Way.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 13 December
Libyans in Zim on rescue mission
Dumisani Muleya
As the fuel crisis threatens to grind the economy to a halt, officials from Libya's Tamoil Trading Ltd are in Zimbabwe in a bid to rescue the rapidly deteriorating situation. The latest arrangement involves the setting up of a joint-venture company between state procurement agency Noczim and the Libyan company to be known as Tamoil-Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd. The Libyan initiative comes as Zimbabwe is running dry as a result of non-payment. Industry sources said the Independent Petroleum Group (IPG) of Kuwait was holding up supplies because of an unsettled US$65 million account. The sources said Zimbabwe also owed other suppliers US$106 million. The Libyans are said to be now demanding cash-on-delivery for fuel as well as what they are owed. Official sources yesterday said the Libyan delegation has been in the country for nine days trying to arrange a new fuel deal with government. Zimbabwe wants to import 87 000 metric tonnes of fuel a month. The procurement cost of fuel through the Beira pipeline amounts to US$360 million a year. Normally the country buys fuel through short-term credit financing, cash, or long-term credit facilities. The long-term financing has been arranged through the Libyan Arab Foreign Bank. This is a revolving facility and is drawn through stand-by letters of credit. The Bank of Negara of Malaysia is also involved in financing fuel procurement through a clearing agreement with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. Energy and Power Development minister Amos Midzi yesterday refused to explain the current shortage. "I'm not talking about anything to do with that (fuel) at the moment," he said. However, on November 27 he told parliament that Noczim had entered into a 50:50 deal with Tamoil. He said the company would be involved in wholesale procurement and distribution of fuel to retail outlets which carry the Tamoil brand. "As part of its equity Noczim will put forward some of its existing assets such as storage tanks," he said. "The new company is expected to introduce more competition in the retail sector as well as bring a new brand of fuel on the market."
Sources said the Libyans were also trying to muscle in on Petrozim - a 50:50 joint venture between Noczim and Lonrho - by acquiring the Noczim stake. The Libyans, who eventually want to take over the company, are said to have brought with them Italian engineers who have valued Petrozim at US$48 million. But the company thinks it is worth US$100 million. Petrozim owns the Feruka-Harare pipeline, which sources say currently has diesel and Jet A1 flowing through it, and the Msasa depot. The company transports and distributes fuel. The industry sources said the Libyans, who have taken up government equities in several companies, also want a stake in the government-owned Industrial Development Corporation. The sources said before the Libyans arrived, government had been contemplating dispatching teams to Libya and Kuwait in search of fuel. "They wanted to target small Kuwaiti companies because major companies are refusing to deal with them due to their poor credit rating," a source said. The source said Zimbabwe was promised fuel in Kuwait at a US 16 cents premium by Elf Aquitaine. Government wanted Nigeria to act as conduit for fuel to evade a perceived Western blockade of direct supplies. Libya - the biggest oil producer in Africa and a major player in Europe - has been Zimbabwe's major fuel supplier until the problematic US$360 million fuel deal with Tamoil collapsed recently. The Libyans are now attempting to withdraw from barter deals that centred on land. Tamoil is 55% owned by Europoil Netherlands BV, a private consortium, and 45% by National Oil Corporation, which together with 33 subsidiaries, is the biggest Libyan fuel company. Sources said the fuel situation is deteriorating because government has rejected the international oil companies' proposal to import their own commodity and sell it for $420/litre for petrol and $389/litre for diesel. To make matters worse, foreign currency supplies to Noczim have also dwindled because of the closure of bureaux de change that supplied the Jewel Bank at US$1 to between $1 000 and $1 500. The Jewel Bank is selling foreign exchange to Noczim at US$1:$1 800.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 13 December
Lisbon summit under threat
Dumisani Muleya
Tension between European and African countries over Zimbabwe is bound to rise sharply ahead of a key summit in Lisbon next year. Portugal, which is part of the European Union (EU), has indicated it may not allow Zimbabwean officials to attend the April EU/Africa summit because of travel restrictions which the 15-member bloc has imposed on Harare authorities. President Robert Mugabe and his associates were earlier this year slapped with a travel ban due to repression and human rights abuses. EU members have said they would not want Zimbabwe to attend meetings in their backyard unless he abandons electoral rigging and other facets of misrule. But he is unlikely to comply. On the other hand, most African countries have adopted a position that if Zimbabwe is excluded from such collective meetings, they won't attend. However, certain African nations like Ghana and Botswana are expressing growing impatience with Zimbabwe's continued disruption of important meetings where development aid stakes are high. Since May, Zimbabwe's, and Mugabe's presence in particular, have caused a stir at several international gatherings and diverted attention from the main issues. It has become clear Zimbabwe's emergency is driving a wedge between Europe and Africa - continents still suspicious of each other due to their colonial history. While Portuguese officials have underlined Lisbon's commitment to EU resolutions, the Portuguese government is anxious to proceed with its showcase meeting in line with Portugal's claims to have a special - and the oldest - relationship with Africa. The cleavage widened recently following a botched EU/African, Caribbean & Pacific (ACP) meeting in Belgium. ACP countries forced the cancellation of the EU/ACP Joint Parliamentary Assembly in the Belgian capital after European MPs resolved to bar Zimbabwean legislators from entering the Strasbourg parliament.
Zimbabwe hailed the failure of this important development dialogue as a major diplomatic coup. But many developing countries think it was a Pyrrhic victory. Third World governments, which are major recipients of EU aid, have much to lose if development projects fail due to a quarrel over despotism in Harare. Confrontation between the EU and Southern African Development Community (Sadc) countries last month also torpedoed a ministerial meeting between the two trading blocs. Denmark, initially expected to host the gathering, refused to waive travel restrictions against Zimbabwean officials. In reaction, Sadc countries threatened to boycott the meeting. When Copenhagen refused to budge, a compromise had to be found in the form of a neutral venue in Maputo. But the Zimbabwe conflict soured the Maputo summit and nothing useful came of it. EU countries currently seem reluctant to compromise again by moving the Lisbon summit to Africa. The EU/ACP stalemate and the rising tension around the Lisbon summit are presenting African countries with a hard choice: to close ranks with Zimbabwe and lose out on development projects or break ranks with it and get economic benefits from their partnership with the EU. So far African countries have chosen to show solidarity with Harare as a matter of principle even though they do not agree with its scorched- earth policies. But some African countries may soon decide to choose EU development aid for the sake of their economies instead of adhering to sterile solidarity politics.
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Comment from Business Day (SA), 12 December
SA should move from a strategy that has failed
Gregg Mills, Johannesburg
Support for the MDC will benefit both Zimbabwe and the southern African region
NEPAD is SA's overriding foreign policy objective. But it is more than this. It has become SA's overall policy framework, defining the allocation, critically, of presidential time and focus. Hence the recent 10-page letter from the executive defending peer review. Thus it is even more puzzling that the government doggedly remains committed to quiet diplomacy in its dealings with Harare, the more so when this strategy has, by Pretoria's own admission, failed. And, whatever its assertions to the contrary, Pretoria's Zimbabwe policy is damaging the New Partnership for Africa's Development's (Nepad's) standing both with the west and, importantly, with those Africans whose welfare it is supposed to promote. Explaining this policy stance requires both understanding of the issues shaping the ANC's outlook on Zimbabwe, and the policy options if any it can select from including quiet diplomacy. There are reasons why SA has chosen the course of least action towards Zanu (PF), in spite of the rapidly deteriorating economic and political situation to its immediate north.
First, there remain acute sensitivities about leveraging SA's regional standing and power in a manner that is nonconsensual, particularly with a state such as Zimbabwe whose leadership "enjoys" a certain following elsewhere in the continent and will seek to exploit at every opportunity perceptions of SA's continental hegemony. These sensitivities have their root in a related combination of debts of allegiance by the African National Congress (ANC) to the region for support provided during the antiapartheid struggle and the military role played by Pretoria under apartheid.
Second, the land crisis has racial resonance back in SA, not helped by both the (largely white) SA opposition picking up the cudgels over this issue and by the ANC refusing to see the real victims of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's policies not as the white farmers but as the millions of black Zimbabweans suffering food shortages and political repression. The racial dimension to the crisis should not be understated; imagine what Pretoria's response would be if the racial tables were turned in Zimbabwe, that a hypothetical white government was systematically dispossessing black farmers and committing its citizens to poverty? Fundamentally, Pretoria's failure to acknowledge, through action, human rights transgressions in Zimbabwe represents a double standard against the basis on which the antiapartheid struggle was prosecuted.
Third, the crisis has reverberations, too, in terms of the necessary transition by both the ANC and Zanu (PF) from liberation movements to political parties, and the implications of the rise of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for ANC rule. The failure of Zanu (PF) to make the conversion in terms of its strategies from political emancipation and the mythology of liberation to good governance is symbiotic with the rise of a nonracial MDC opposition focused on economic delivery and reform. Yet the options to "quiet" diplomacy have been paraded as ranging from "megaphone diplomacy" to military invasion. A few alternatives to or, perhaps better put, variants to quiet diplomacy have been tried, including working through the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to get the regional body's membership to develop a tougher line. This has achieved, at best, mixed results, ranging from the embarrassment of support for Mugabe at the 2001 Malawi SADC ministerial summit to the (more positive) apparently enforced abdication of Mugabe from the SADC deputy chairmanship at Luanda.
A tougher bilateral diplomatic line by Pretoria towards Harare has been discounted on the basis that this will achieve little and potentially reduce the (by President Thabo Mbeki's own admission) scant leverage on Mugabe, though a failure, for example, to publicly debate sanctions as even a possibility has largely negated any influence available through this means. Hence the continued preference for bilateral commissions of the sort held in Pretoria in November, though this not only has failed to deflect Harare from its current course towards economic ruin but has negatively affected perceptions of both the SA leadership and of Nepad outside of the region.
What options does Pretoria have available?
At the two opposite extremes of the scale is, at the one end, the flexing of military muscles and outright sanctions (where it has a range of choices given both Zimbabwe's landlocked status and economic plight) and, at the other, continued quiet diplomacy. Forgetting these as either unlikely or ineffective in the current circumstances, the government could consider a combination of raising its rhetorical tempo against Harare (at least calling the situation for what it is, a flagrant disregard of the rule of law and of basic liberties) and simultaneous engagement with international partners (with whom it has instead sought to place critical distance) and the Zimbabwe opposition. The latter offers perhaps the most interesting possibilities. A public meeting, for example, between Mbeki and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai would have the dual effect of undermining Harare's attempts to gag the MDC and aligning the ANC with the forces of change and democracy in Africa. Public, financial and logistical support for the MDC would have the dual effect of restoring Zimbabwe's democratic process and the SADC region's political and diplomatic credibility. Now that would be in the best interests of Nepad.
Mills is National Director of the SA Institute of International Affairs at Wits University, Johannesburg.
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From The Times (UK), 14 December
Mugabe rails at foreign interference
From Jan Raath in Harare
A defiant President Mugabe told Western governments yesterday to leave Zimbabwe alone and stepped up pressure on white farmers. At the start of the ruling Zanu PF party’s annual congress in the small northern town of Chinhoyi, the former guerrilla leader - wearing a baseball cap bearing the slogan "Chave Chimurenga" - ("It’s now war") - railed at about 2,000 loyalists for 80 minutes against whites, Britain and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). He did not mention the famine afflicting seven million Zimbabweans or the collapse of the national economy. "Leave us alone to run our lives," he said. "We don’t interfere in the affairs of Britain and no one should interfere in our own affairs." If Britain’s allies wanted to make Zimbabwe their own issue, he said, "we will recognise them as enemies like we recognise Britain, under Mr Blair, as an enemy of Zimbabwe. The more they work against us, the more they express their hostility against us, the more negative we shall become to their kith and kin here." He rejected Western calls for a government of national unity with the MDC and for new elections after his victory in March, dismissed by most of the world as fraudulent. Chinhoyi, Mr Mugabe’s home district, was once Zimbabwe’s biggest grain- producing area, but evictions of white farmers since August have left its fields almost entirely abandoned to weeds. Harare has ordered almost 3,000 of the country’s remaining 4,500 white commercial farmers to hand their farms over to landless blacks, correcting what Mr Mugabe calls the colonial injustice that left 70 per cent of the best farmland in the former Rhodesia in white hands. The World Food Programme has said that at least 6.7 million Zimbabweans, more than half the population, will need emergency food aid in the coming months to avert mass starvation. Mr Mugabe insists that the food shortages are the result of a drought earlier this year.
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From The Herald, 13 December
Petrol pumps run dry
Harare - Petrol pumps ran dry throughout the country yesterday, amid shocking revelations that the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) is contemplating terminating its secure fuel deal with Tamoil Trading, a Libyan international oil supplier. Noczim is also pressing the Government for a fuel price increase, a move which flies in the face of the price freeze announced by the Government to cushion hard pressed consumers from high prices of goods. The sole oil procurer is also being accused of hoarding fuel to cripple the economy. Impeccable sources in industry said Noczim was pushing for cash deals with other international companies so as to profit from illegal foreign currency transactions. Cash deals - apart from lining the pockets of Noczim, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and Ministry of Finance and Economic Development officials - do not guarantee secure fuel supplies for the country. In fact, the ad hoc fuel arrangements are not only chaotic but will condemn Zimbabwe to permanent fuel shortages. Noczim signed an agreement with Tamoil last year to pay for fuel supplies in local currency into a trust/collection account at the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe on behalf of the Libya Arab Foreign Bank and its syndicate of lenders. The deal was renewed this year for another year. Under the deal, Tamoil supplies 70 percent of the country's fuel supplies. It has become apparent that Noczim is now using British attempts to put pressure on Libya to dump Zimbabwe, as a cover to move away from the Tamoil deal. Industry sources said there was no justification for Noczim to undermine the Tamoil deal which had stabilised fuel supplies in Zimbabwe. Noczim purchases of fuel on a cash basis from other international firms, they said, might derail the Tamoil deal as the Libyans would also demand cash upfront for fuel supplies. "The Libyans will rightly say if you can pay cash to others, why not to us," said one of the sources.
Another industry executive said Noczim had expected the Government to announce fuel price increases during the 2003 national budget. "When that did not happen, Noczim resorted to the old trick of starving the market of a commodity to force a price increase." Fuel price increases would make nonsense of price freezes as all sectors would feel the effect and demand price adjustments. Noczim is also now causing chaos on the fuel market by creating a parallel market. The emergence of the parallel market, industry officials said, has to be nipped in the bud quickly before it is established. One litre of petrol is now selling for between $800 and $1 000 on the black market. Noczim is also resisting Government policy by continuing to supply more fuel to multinational firms and not indigenous oil companies. The Government has said that multi-national companies should procure their own fuel with Noczim supplying the bulk of fuel to indigenous companies. Most of these multinational firms are pulling out of farming areas to cripple the operations of new farmers. Industry yesterday described the fuel situation as desperate and said many businesses had been grounded owing to the fuel crisis. "We are spending most of our productive time in fuel queues," said Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries president Mr Anthony Mandiwanza. Energy and Power Development Minister, Cde Amos Midzi refused to comment yesterday, saying he was concentrating on his work.< "Just watch tomorrow (today)," said Cde Midzi. "I have decided that I would rather do my work than talk to the Press." "I have had many calls from the Press, but at the moment I am not saying anything." Noczim chief executive Engineer Webster Muriritirwa has been declining to respond to questions from the Press referring them to the Ministry of Energy and Power Development.
Long queues at service stations, which had no petrol were the order of the day yesterday throughout central Harare and outlying areas. Diesel is however, available at most service stations in the country. Motorists waited patiently at filling stations where there was no fuel in the hope that deliveries could come soon. Most of them expressed concern that the situation could spill into the Christmas holiday and spoil the festive season. "How can we plan ahead for the holidays when things are so bad," said Ms Elliah Mudzamba of Waterfalls. Mrs Cathrine Ngondo of Marimba Park said her relatives in South Africa were planning to bring their own fuel from that country. "They are concerned that if they do not do that, they may find themselves stranded in Zimbabwe and fail to return to South Africa," said Mrs Ngondo. Zimbabwe started experiencing fuel shortages at the end of 1999 because of lack of foreign currency to purchase the commodity. The fuel crisis forced the then Minister of Energy, Cde Enos Chikowore to resign in February 2000. The situation improved when the Government negotiated with Libya for the supply of fuel in 2001. The latest shortages were being blamed on Noczim, which is trying to destroy the fuel supply chain that was secured by the Government.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 13 December
Zanu PF in campaign to export land policies
Mthulisi Mathuthu
The ruling Zanu PF party is involved in an international campaign to sell its controversial land acquisition programme with a view to sparking similar seizures across the continent. This has not gone down well with the South African authorities, the Zimbabwe Independent understands. It emerged this week that President Robert Mugabe's party was working with the South African opposition party, the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Namibia's Swapo and local NGOs to mobilise like-minded movements across the region ahead of a land summit scheduled for June next year. PAC secretary-general Thami ka Plaatjie confirmed to the Independent in a telephone interview from Pretoria this week that there was an all-out effort to forge alliances with other landless people across the region to work out a "pragmatic solution" to the land problem. "From our own research there is obviously much land hunger in the region," he said. "So we are calling for a regional summit to discuss regional land problems and to review the Zimbabwe exercise and avoid the pitfalls."
Plaatjie, who has repeatedly rapped the South African government for its slow land reform programme, was in Zimbabwe a fortnight ago to consult with NGOs and chiefs on the agrarian exercise. He said they were working with NGOs in Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland whom he declined to name. But Zanu PF sources have said the Inyika Trust, Ibbo Mandaza's Sapes Trust, and the Institute for Public Policy and Research in Namibia who have called for an international conference on the land question in that country, are some of the NGOs supporting the project. Other NGOs linked to the regional land reclamation drive are Africa Strategy and Davira Mhere which recently held a conference in the United Kingdom to market Mugabe's controversial programme. Plaatjie said the agenda of the land summit will be discussed at the PAC's 8th Congress in Pretoria tomorrow which will be attended by Zanu PF and the Landless People's Movement (LPM) of South Africa. He said they were currently scouting for funding for the regional summit likely to be held in South Africa.
A Zanu PF source told the Independent that the LPM's Thato Lesupi has been in the country before while a representative of the Manenzhe Community in the Limpopo province was expected soon to meet Vice-President Joseph Msika who chairs the Land Acquisition Committee. Both the LPM and the Manenzhe Community under Chief Takalan have been calling for a land summit and have threatened land invasions Mugabe-style. Zanu PF sponsors their visits to Zimbabwe, the source said. The Independent understands that the Office of the President in Pretoria is deeply concerned by the way in which the Zimbabwe authorities are encouraging the landless lobby in South Africa to undertake an agenda that, while embarrassing President Thabo Mbeki, provides Mugabe with a regional political support network. Officers based at the Zimbabwe High Commission in Pretoria frequently undertake activities that in any other country would be seen as incompatible with their diplomatic status.
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From The Cape Times (SA), 13 December
Invite to ANC conference bolsters Mugabe
By Basildon Peta
Johannesburg - President Robert Mugabe's propaganda has been boosted by the African National Congress's decision to invite his ruling Zanu PF to attend its conference in Stellenbosch next week, analysts and the opposition said. They said Mugabe would use the invitation as an opportunity to demonstrate that Africa was behind him and further divide the international community. This would strengthen his resolve to pursue policies which are destroying Zimbabwe and have dented investor confidence in the SADC region, the analysts said. Zanu PF secretary for external affairs, Didymus Mutasa, on Thursday confirmed that his party had been invited to the ANC conference, but said a decision had not yet been made as to who would represent it. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Thursday criticised the ANC's decision. "We are surprised by people who keep on referring to South Africa's quiet diplomacy... They are not engaged in quiet diplomacy but the ANC has brazenly and openly supported Mugabe," said MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi. "Unfortunately, for every perceived victory that Mugabe thinks he has won, including his invitation to the ANC conference, it's always the ordinary Zimbabweans who suffer from his policies."
Nyathi said the MDC had not been invited. The ANC conference would have been a good opportunity for President Thabo Mbeki to invite all "progressive" ruling parties in southern Africa while at the same time snubbing Mugabe. That would have sent a strong signal that South Africa disapproved of Mugabe's policies. University of Zimbabwe law professor, Lovemore Madhuku, said the ANC's invitation to Zanu PF showed that it did not care for its reputation. "By now, many in the donor world would also have given up on Mbeki's ability and willingness to rein in Mugabe. They won't be surprised by the invitation," Madhuku said. A senior researcher at the South African Institute of International Affairs, Ross Herbert, said it was generally considered a high honour to be invited to an event like the ANC conference. The invitation would thus have propaganda value for Mugabe. A Zimbabwean business analyst, who did not want to be named, said the significance of the invitation would depend on whether or not Mugabe attended. "If Mugabe attends he will as usual use the platform to pontificate. It will then be the ANC's credibility at stake because of the media attention Mugabe will inevitably get."
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From The Daily News, 13 December
Forex dealers outwit police
From Ntungamili Nkomo in Bulawayo
The government’s crackdown on Bulawayo’s illegal foreign currency dealers has hit a snag, as the Vapostori women have abandoned the streets to operate from their houses and offices in the city centre. The women, the major players in the business, were easily identified by their long, white robes. They are no longer seen on the streets where they conducted their business before the government ordered an end to foreign currency agencies on 30 November. The women vowed then that the police would never stop their operations, and that their business would still flourish despite repeated arrests and harassment by Zanu PF youths. Sibekiwe Ndebele, one of the foreign currency dealers, said defiantly this week: "Police have long been on the warpath against us, but they must surely admit we’re cleverer than they are. The only thing they have succeeded in doing is to drive us underground. Most of us are now operating from our houses while some liaise with shop owners in town to do their business safely." She said most of the women no longer wore their usual long, white dresses. She said shop owners were paid a fee by those they offered rooms in which to do their business. Another dealer, identifying herself only as Rukweza, said business was still booming as they received more clients from South Africa and Botswana. "There is more business these days because people are coming home for Christmas, especially those working in South Africa and Botswana. Now that the police do not want to see us on the streets, we now operate safely from our houses, and our clients are fully aware of that development," she said.
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From The Observer (UK), 15 December
Zimbabwe in grip of new hunger crisis
Inflation spirals as land seizures cut food supplies
Andrew Meldrum in Harare
Zimbabwe's economy has declined precipitously in recent weeks, bringing severe shortages of food and fuel and dramatically increasing the desperation of the already beleaguered population. Kilometre-long queues of cars, buses and trucks snake through Harare, Bulawayo and other cities, often forcing traffic to a halt. Thousands queue for maize meal, the country's staple food, and other basic items such as bread, rice, cooking oil, sugar, beef, chicken and salt. The grim faces of those in the queues show people who are hungry and worried about how to feed their families. The famine affecting more than half of Zimbabwe's 13 million people has now spread to the cities. Nearly one million urban Zimbabweans are at risk of starvation, according to international aid organisations. The extreme hunger is largely a result of President Robert Mugabe's land seizures, which have dismantled the commercial agriculture sector without replacing it with equally productive farming.
The food and fuel shortages are harbingers of increased suffering and economic decline, according to a report to be released tomorrow by the authoritative Economist Intelligence Unit. 'We expect Zimbabwe's economy to continue contracting during the next two years, resulting in increased hardships for the population at large, industry and other productive sectors,' states the unit. It says that since 1999 GDP has fallen 25 per cent. Zimbabweans are already struggling with annual inflation of 144 per cent but the report forecasts inflation of 400-500 per cent is possible in 2003. Inflation rates in neighbouring African countries are about 5 per cent. The Mugabe government is taking 'a calculated gamble' that the economic decline will not provoke a violent rebellion, says the report. 'There is a possibility that an enraged population, particularly in the cities, will revolt. Worsening food and fuel shortages, triple-digit inflation and rising unemployment could all provide the spark leading to mass protests against the government in 2003.’
However, Mugabe is expected to use the army, police, war veterans and the party's vigilante youth militia to put down any uprising.' The report says the government's economic policies are 'ultimately unsustainable but they can probably be continued for several years bringing ongoing economic decline. 'In addition, it is increasingly likely that even if comprehensive economic reforms were to be introduced, the country's commercial farming, mining and manufacturing sectors have now been irreparably damaged. This will hamper future economic recovery and undermine the country's long-term economic prospects.' The pressures of this scenario can be felt throughout Harare where every shop and marketplace is clogged with people trying to find food at affordable prices. Last month, two children were crushed to death when a queue for 'mealie meal' became a stampede. 'How many households can afford the traditional chicken-and-rice Christmas luncheon when a chicken costs a quarter of the monthly salary of the majority of the workforce?' asks commentator Pius Wakatama. 'Maybe such meals will be enjoyed in the homes of the politically well-connected but definitely not in the majority of homes in the sprawling townships.'
Mugabe avoided specific reference to the country's battered economy and fuel shortage when he opened the annual congress of his ruling Zanu PF on Friday. Instead, he made scapegoats of the British Government and Zimbabwe's dwindling white minority, estimated at about 50,000. He warned of retaliation against whites if the Blair Government and the European Union continued their campaigns of sanctions against his regime. 'The more they work against us, the more they express their hostility against us, the more negative we shall become to their kith and kin.' Little heed was taken of Mugabe's speech in the food queues. 'What does Mugabe know of our daily struggle for survival?,' said a shopper who did not want to give her name for fear of retribution. 'He wants us to think our sufferings are because of the whites. But we know he and his cronies are getting rich and we are the ones suffering.'
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 15 December
Chinhoyi feasts as country suffers
By Chengetai Zvauya
Chinhoyi - The Mashonaland West capital, Chinhoyi, was an oasis of plenty amidst countrywide shortages and poverty last week, as bemused residents and visitors alike found the town awash with basic commodities, including fuel, courtesy of the Zanu PF Annual National People's Conference hosted there. Eager to distract delegates from the sad reality of the crippling shortages of the most basic of commodities, the Zanu PF machinery made certain that at least for the week of the conference, it was a rare pomp and fanfare occasion. The conference, which ended yesterday, was held in Chinhoyi from Thursday. The Standard witnessed a situation unlike today's Zimbabwe, as people did not have to scrounge around for basics such as bread, milk, sugar, mealie-meal and cooking oil. As a further convenience for delegates and residents, fuel tankers were commandeered to Chinhoyi, at the expense of the rest of the country where thousands of motorists had to endure endless hours in long winding queues waiting for petrol.
Residents who spoke to The Standard could not hide their surprise and wished the conference could be held in their town every week. Said Fungayi Kadiwa of Chikonohono township: "We were facing food shortages but the Zanu PF Conference was a blessing in disguise for us, as from last week the government ensured that we were well supplied with basics. We are happy that at least we are going to feed ourselves for a week or so into the new year." Richard Dongo, another resident of Chinhoyi, said the wise had taken advantage of the sudden supply of basics to cater for the time when things returned back to "normal". "It is a relief that food and fuel has arrived in the town after we had suffered for a long time. Throughout the year we have been facing starvation," he said. Chinhoyi mayor, Dr Peter Matarise, was equally appreciative of the turn of events. "We welcome the food which has come to the town. Our wish is for other organisation and individuals to come and assist us in the crisis which is affecting everyone in the country," he said.
However the glut of supplies did not come without a price. The prelude and duration of the conference was characterised by Zanu PF's usual reign of terror as the party's militia descended on residents. A tense atmosphere gripped the town as Zanu PF youths patrolled the town at night, forcing many of the residents to stay indoors. The militia were part of the Zanu PF 3 000-strong delegation from various provinces that was attending the party's conference. Wearing their infamous green uniforms, a symbol of great fear for many, they patrolled the town at night, dispensing 'justice' like law enforcement agents. People were asked to produce identify cards and if they were visitors, were interrogated about their presence in town. A visit to Chikonohono township, the biggest high density suburb in Chinhoyi, by The Standard on Thursday night revealed many of the residents had confined themselves to their homes for fear of falling prey to the marauding youths who had barricaded the township. Only those with accreditation cards for the conference were at liberty to move as they wished. As a result, night life was confined to Zanu PF delegates as they patronised the town's night clubs.
A Chinhoyi family which refused to be named for fear of victimisation told The Standard the violence brought by the militia was unusual of their township. "Chikonohono is very peaceful, but we are now afraid of these youths who are roaming our neighbourhood. We cannot send our children to shops in the evenings because they might be beaten by the youths who are patrolling the area." In a snap survey by The Standard, residents said apart from the food and fuel it had brought to town, the Zanu PF Conference was of no relevance to them. "It's only the delegates who are interested in this talk shop, otherwise for the rest of us life goes on. No sane person would expect anything spectacular to come out of this event, especially since it is for Zanu PF, a party that has destroyed our country," said a resident who refused to be identified. On the President Mugabe's key note address, Nicholas Kamusiwo of White City, said it was the usual drivel expected of the 79-year-old man who has ruled Zimbabwe with an iron grip since independence in 1980. "How could he waste our time talking about Britain and Australia? Is that what is going to bring food on the tables of Zimbabweans? Surely it was insulting to all Zimbabweans that their president did not even bother to mention the crippling fuel crisis at this event," Kamusiwo said.
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From News24 (SA), 14 December
Zim brought to a near halt
Cris Chinaka
Harare - Zimbabwean motorists battled for scarce petrol supplies on Saturday as a deepening fuel crisis brought the country to a near halt. Witnesses and local media reported many fuel stations had run dry and riot police had been called in to those which still had petrol to stop motorists fighting. Zimbabwe is grappling with its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. Fuel supplies have been erratic since 1999 due to a foreign currency squeeze, which has also left the country short of other basic items such as bread, cooking oil, sugar and salt. In the capital Harare, witnesses said there were few cars and buses on the roads, with thousands of motorists jamming a dozen or so petrol stations in search of supplies. "I have been here since last night, waiting for petrol and I have seen about half a dozen fist-fights and one guy threatening to shoot anyone who tries to jump the queue," one man said at a fuel station in central Harare. The country's official Herald newspaper said riot police had been summoned to those stations with fuel to control rowdy motorists fighting among themselves.
President Robert Mugabe's officials have not commented directly on the deteriorating fuel situation in the last three days. But on Friday the Herald accused the state's own oil procurement agency of engineering the shortage through corruption and sabotage. It reported petrol stations were running dry because the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) was hoarding fuel, and pushing for cash oil import deals that could give company officials a chance to benefit from illegal foreign currency deals. Quoting what it called "impeccable" government and industry sources, the newspaper also said NOCZIM was moving to scrap a deal with Libya, endangering one of the last fuel lifelines Zimbabwe has left. Senior government and NOCZIM officials have refused to comment on the report, but sources in Mugabe's government confirmed there was a probe into the shortage, which has left motorists queuing for kilometres to fill their tanks. Last month Mugabe ordered foreign oil companies with retail outlets in Zimbabwe to import their own products for resale, effectively ending NOCZIM's monopoly on the country's fuel trade. But critics say the fuel problem is likely to continue as long as Zimbabwe's economy - now in its fourth year of recession - continues to slide and while the foreign exchange policy remains unchanged. Critics say the foreign exchange policy, which has kept Zimbabwe's currency pegged at 55 local dollars to the US dollar over the last two years despite a black market exchange rate of about 1 700 to $1, is a key part of the crisis.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 15 December
Mugabe wants to nationalise oil companies
Harare - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe wound up his governing party's annual conference on Saturday threatening to nationalise oil distribution firms, many of them foreign, to end a crippling fuel shortage in the country. He said his government had been "foolish" for too long by importing fuel and giving it to the distribution firms to sell and make profits while the government gets nothing out of the exercise. "The government can acquire these (distribution) points and compensate them... and distribute the fuel," he said. "There has to be quick action to assure the holiday spirit is not spoiled," he told the closing session of the two-day annual conference of his Zanu PF. "I am going into this matter in a more serious way," Mugabe said. Zimbabwe is facing an acute fuel shortage and pumps ran dry this week amid allegations that officials at the corruption-ridden state oil-procuring firm want to cancel a fuel supply deal made two years ago between Mugabe and his Libyan allies. Mugabe also used the speech to attack the country's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). "MDC is now the chaff, they are the chaff, the chaff in our midst, look at their actions," he said. "They are on their way out, whatever (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair says about it, or does about it, it's out and out and out," Mugabe said, referring to the British government which he says bankrolls the MDC. "But don't forget that when there are dying horses like that, they may just have a fatal kick, used to killing as they are. They are planning killings and killings."
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 15 December
Jongwe's SA post mortem results out
By our own staff
The long-awaited results of an autopsy carried out on the late Learnmore Jongwe by a South African pathologist have finally been released. However, the results have merely confirmed what had already been established by government pathologists: That the young MDC MP died of excessive chloriquine poisoning. Releasing the autopsy results to The Standard yesterday, a Jongwe family spokesman said the family was demanding a full inquiry into how the excessive amounts of chloroquine got into the former MDC spokesman's body. The family hired a South African pathologist to carry out an independent autopsy into the death of Jongwe. "The Jongwe family has since received results of the autopsy conducted on the body of Learnmore Jongwe by a South African pathologist. The results are essentially similar to the findings by the government-hired pathologist in that they state Jongwe died from chloroquine poisoning. "The family and all the people of Zimbabwe want to know from this regime the circumstances that led to the introduction of excessive amounts of chloroquine into the body of Learnmore Jongwe," said the family spokesman. Jongwe mysteriously died in his prison cell in October while awaiting trial for the alleged murder of his wife, Rutendo. The young politician's death sparked an uproar as his family and MDC supporters accused government of being responsible for the death. Government however, insisted that Jongwe could have killed himself and produced footnotes to prove its case. "It is on record that Jongwe was denied bail three times on the grounds that the government wanted to ensure he was stopped from harming himself. It is also public knowledge that Jongwe was in the custody of the state, and there are clear regulations on who has access to him and how he could have access to medication. We therefore hold the government of Zimbabwe responsible for the death of Jongwe," said the spokesman.
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From The Financial Times (UK), 12 December
Pretoria warned over traffic in people
By James Lamont in Johannesburg
South Africa is struggling to control criminal gangs who specialise in spiriting people across its borders, raising fears of a large influx of illegal immigrants driven by famine in neighbouring countries and security threats. The US State Department has warned that people-trafficking is likely to worsen as syndicates serving drought-stricken refugee populations exploit South Africa's weak border controls. It has also warned that local trafficking operations could be exploited by international terror networks. Kathleen FitzGibbon, senior reporting officer in the State Department's office to monitor and combat trafficking in persons, said the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe could trigger a massive surge south in coming months. The United Nations estimates that about 7m people in Zimbabwe - half the country's population - face severe food shortages as a result of drought, failed policies and disruption to farming. When starvation forces them off the land, their most likely destination is South Africa, where about 2m of their compatriots have already found refuge.
"There will be a huge increase [in trafficking] when Zimbabwe blows. Traffickers take advantage of situations where there are large concentrations of people," she said. South Africa serves as a trafficking hub for refugees fleeing civil wars in central Africa, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. But a study by the International Migration Organisation also shows a well-established trade in people from Thailand, China, Taiwan and eastern Europe, often linked to the sex and entertainment industries. The State Department is worried that South Africa could fall prey to trafficking operations run by terror networks. It describes as "very easy" the ability to move people in and out of the country. It has concerns about lax controls in South African ports and trafficking linked to the diamond trade. "It's easy to move people through [South Africa]. It could easily be exploited by the bad guys. We wouldn't like to see a terrorist attack because someone transited South Africa," said Ms FitzGibbon.
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From The Times (UK), 16 December
Mugabe may seize oil giants' assets
From Jan Raath in Harare
President Mugabe of Zimbabwe has threatened to seize the facilities of leading oil companies operating in the country and use them to distribute fuel. At the annual congress of his ruling Zanu PF party, Mr Mugabe said that the Government could "acquire" service stations and storage facilities, compensate the companies to which they belonged and dispense the fuel. There are five multinational oil firms with a presence in Zimbabwe - BP, Shell, Mobil, Total and Caltex and their assets there are worth millions of pounds. Lawyers said that such a move would be illegal. One lawyer, who did not wish to be identified, said: "It would be patently unconstitutional. Besides, most of the International oil companies are covered by bilateral treaties from this kind of nationalisation." The President’s remarks came two weeks after the Government said that it was drafting a new policy within its so-called indigenisation programme to allocate fuel supplies to the 24 "independent" companies licensed to retail fuel, nearly all of which are owned by senior Zanu PF officials. Fuel reserves in the country have reached their lowest levels in three years, since leading oil companies cut off supplies to the state-owned National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim) when the Government failed to pay arrears for imports.
In the past week the queues of drivers have lengthened and more service stations have been putting up "no fuel" signs. Vehicles abandoned at the roadside for lack of fuel have become commonplace. In Chinhoyi, the venue of the conference, fuel was available only for party officials. A journalist was told at a Mobil service station that he could buy petrol only if he could prove that he was a delegate. Mr Mugabe said that the oil companies were making huge profits while the Government made losses from importing fuel via Noczim, which sells it on - for just 3p a litre, making Zimbabwean fuel among the world’s cheapest - to the multinationals to distribute. Economists say that total state control over fuel distribution would condemn the industry to the same failure affecting much of the country’s agriculture, transport, mining, telecommunications, railways and power industries. "Mugabe’s thinking is that taps make water," a Western diplomat said. "If he goes ahead (with the takeover of multinational service stations), the country will dry up far quicker than it is doing already."
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From The New York Times, 16 December
Market booms while Zimbabwe prepares for the bust
By Rachel L. Swarns
Harare, Dec 13 The ministers tending Zimbabwe's ailing economy have proposed a quick-fix remedy of price controls, wage freezes and the creation of collective farms, even though price controls are exacerbating food shortages, and a chaotic land redistribution program has devastated commercial agriculture. Meanwhile, hundreds of companies have gone broke, unemployment is soaring, and the country is teetering at the edge of famine. So, with the economy in shambles, why is business booming at the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange? In recent months, the market has reached record heights. This year, while the economy was contracting by about 12 percent, the stock exchange's market capitalization was doubling, surging to its highest level since it was established in 1896. What's more, sales of middle-income and luxury homes in the country's wealthy suburbs are surging. People with cash are snapping up televisions, luxury cars and stereos. The paradox stems from distortions in the controlled economy. With inflation at more than 144 percent and currency values plummeting, Zimbabweans are putting their money into assets they believe will increase in value - stocks, real estate, foreign currency, even refrigerators - rather than bank accounts. The government has kept interest rates low, so borrowing has been relatively cheap. And these days, many Zimbabweans are buying whatever they can, betting that they can sell the items later at a higher price, often on the black market. "It's unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable," said Emmanuel Munyukwi, the chief executive of the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. "People think there's no economy in Zimbabwe. It's actually embarrassing when you have to tell them that we're doing very, very well."
The contradictions abound. While supermarkets routinely run out of bread, milk and sugar, the city's most expensive restaurants are packed, offering imported seafood and wines. Mercedes-Benzes cruise on potholed roads with broken street lights. Houses on prosperous tree-lined streets are selling quickly, and real estate brokers are scrambling to keep up with the demand. "People are not necessarily buying houses to live in," said Patson Mtare, a broker whose company has sold about 200 houses this year, compared with 100 houses in a normal year. "People are buying to sell." People with access to foreign currency are buying even more. The government insists that $1 is equivalent to 57 Zimbabwe dollars, even though $1 goes for as much as 1,600 Zimbabwe dollars on the black market these days. So even some government officials ignore the official exchange rate and change money on the street to make huge profits. Callisto Jonkonya, who manufactures and exports refrigerators, has bought a new house and several apartments. Raymond Chamba, who runs an employment agency in the United States, bought one 52-inch television, three 43-inch flat-screen televisions and a DVD player all in one day. He carried his cash in a suitcase. "Serious money you don't keep in the bank in Zimbabwe," said Mr. Chamba, who has spent the last six months with family in Zimbabwe. "My televisions, they're my bank here." Most Zimbabweans, however, are too poor to hoard televisions or cars. Over the last three years, the economy has contracted by more than 20 percent. More than 500 companies have closed. Unemployment stands at 60 percent. Most struggling citizens wait for hours in long lines to buy scarce gasoline or bread.
The combination of drought and land reform has left about 6 million people - roughly half the population - in need of emergency food aid. Foreign donors have contributed food but refuse to offer financial assistance to the government, which has condoned violence and land seizures. President Robert Mugabe insists that his controlled economic policy will fix the problem. He has called on the police to crack down on hoarding and black market sales. But Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa disagreed with this strategy last month when he told Parliament that price controls were leading to "shortages of critical basic necessities on the formal market" because they failed to address the rising costs of production. Mr. Murerwa said black-market dealers were the chief beneficiaries of price controls, while the poor were suffering. The government has acknowledged that corrupt officials are hoarding and then selling price-controlled goods on the black market. There are few indications, how-ever, that Mr. Mugabe plans to change course. So Mr. Munyukwi has decided to delay the celebration for his stock exchange's success. "It's very difficult to celebrate when your country is hungry," he said. "The stock market is supposed to reflect what's happening in the economy. But we know our economy is in shambles."
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 15 December
Health time bomb ticking on farms
By Chengetai Zvauya
A health time bomb is ticking on the former commercial farms where villagers have been dumped on virgin land without adequate water and sanitation facilities, The Standard has established. The situation is reportedly so bad in remote areas that the parliamentary portfolio committee on lands and agriculture is to embark on a national tour to assess the situation. "We are concerned with the situation on the farms and hope that after touring several of them, we will have a clear picture of what exactly is happening,'' said MP Daniel Mackenzie Ncube who is the chairman of the committee. In a fast track resettlement exercise, government resettled over 300 000 families without first putting in place vital infrastructure such as hospitals, classrooms and toilets. Government was hoping to earn political mileage prior to a tough March presidential election which pitted President Robert Mugabe against opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai.
However, fears abound that some of the people who have ventured deep into the forests previously meant for wildlife habitation could succumb to diseases such as cholera, malaria and dysentery this rainy season if health personnel are not urgently deployed to these areas. In the absence of boreholes, desperate villagers are having to drink dirty water sourced from rivers and dams and find themselves at the mercy of mosquitoes and wild animals which infest their land. The nearest clinics are sometimes 40 kilometres away. Two weeks ago, a cholera outbreak at Angus Farm, Dewure Extension and Village 26 in Bikita, resulted in the death of seven people because of lack of health care facilities. The situation is worse for the former farm workers who have been forced off their properties. The departure of the white Zimbabwean farmers has also meant the end of service provision at most of the farms taken over by war veterans and militant Zanu PF supporters. The farms no longer have fresh water as most of the pipes have been vandalised, forcing the occupants to drink untreated water from dams and rivers.
The bush toilet, abandoned some years ago when donors provided assistance to rural communities to build Blair toilets, have made a strong come back. The director of the Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe, Godfrey Magaramombe, told The Standard that his organisation was concerned at the lack of sanitation on the farms. "Generally, the situation on the farms is bad. People are drinking surface water from dams and this water needs to be treated or boiled to reduce the risk of infection. Since farm occupants are failing to pay their electricity bills they are not able to get the power needed to pump their water. "The situation differs from farm to farm and is being made worse by the fact that there are no Blair toilets on the new farms,'' said Magaramombe. Farm Community Trust assists displaced farm workers. Since the start of the farm invasions in 2000, over 3 000 white Zimbabwean commercial farmers have been forced off their properties. About 900 000 farm workers and their families have been displaced over the same period. Investigations by The Standard have also revealed that generally, all the infrastructure left behind by commercial farmers was under threat as the new farmers lacked the capacity and skills to maintain it. For example, many of the schools that used to operate on the farms have now been closed due to lack of money and other resources.
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From News24 (SA), 15 December
Still no word on Mugabe
Stellenbosch - The African National Congress did not know by late on Sunday whether or not Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe would attend its 51st conference in Stellenbosch. At a news conference on the eve of the conference, ANC deputy secretary-general Thenjiwe Mtintso said Mugabe's party - the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front - had been invited, not the president as such. "We will only know at the end of the day who comes, or when they come." Asked whether any heads of state would attend, she said parties had been invited. None of them had indicated that they would send heads of state.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 15 December
Middle class hunter-gatherers
Over the top by Brian Latham
A new class of hunter-gatherers has been discovered in a troubled central African nation, eminent anthropologists have announced. The new age hunter-gatherers come mainly from the middle classes, a phenomenon not thought possible outside certain troubled Balkan and eastern European states. In the past, 21st century hunter-gatherers were thought to be limited largely to the deepest regions of various South American and Central African rainforests. Still, the new-age troubled central African country's hunter-gatherers are, almost uniquely, urban dwellers with large motor cars and dwindling bank balances. But while their rural hunting and gathering counterparts in the rain forest hunt for bush meat and gather fruit, the urban sub-species has a much wider list of necessities to gather and hunt for.
Top of the list is petrol, now a sought-after luxury prized more highly than beluga caviar or Havana cigars. Without petrol, say the troubled hunter-gatherers, no other hunting or gathering can take place. Once found, any price will be paid for the luxury commodity, thus allowing the troubled central African nation's hunter-gatherers to hunt for other desirable luxuries like maize meal, bread and milk. One of the troubled central African country's two tourists (who mysteriously became one of 20 000 in the state-controlled Horrid newspaper) said it was indeed a curious situation for milk to be considered a luxury, let alone bread and sugar. He said it had been several hundred years since these items were considered luxuries in the imperialist west, but there was no accounting for politics or taste.
Meanwhile, the most equal of all comrades said it was quite obvious that commodity shortages were the work of avaricious businessmen, dispelling colonialist-inspired rumours that the economy had somehow been mismanaged by his government. Just as it was untrue to say that the shortage of food was due to the fact that all the farmers had been chased away with extreme prejudice, it was untrue to say that the lack of bread in the shops had anything to do with forcing bakers to sell their bread at a loss. "These are rumours spread by the running dogs of imperialism and other enemies of the state," said a government spin-doctor who then asked Over The Top for a loaf of bread, saying he hadn't eaten in a week. When OTT said that he himself had no bread (or sugar, cooking oil, mealie meal, butter, beef, milk or petrol) the government spokesman looked troubled and said that he had heard such items were available to economic saboteurs and the party elite. He then added, hastily, that economic saboteurs and the party elite were two separate entities and should not be confused, which OTT said was arguably the biggest lie h |
