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Archived News
19th November 2002
MDC Weekly Briefing Note
Southern Africa's need is greater, says Short
WFP plans urban food aid scheme
Libyan envoy denies collapse of fuel deal
Zimbabwe police kill American aid worker
Trial of Zimbabwe opposition party members postponed
Democracy award for Tsvangirai
Mark Chavunduka
Court orders R-G to move March ballots to Harare
Letter from Harare
SA embraces Mugabe as Zim crisis deepens
R8 million worth of abalone confiscated
U.N. panel allows sale of ivory, easing ban
Tribute paid
Government vows to arrest banned citizens if they return
UN endorses food aid policy in Zimbabwe
'Send cash' plea from Zimbabwe to expats
Jongwe family demands inquest
U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe signals concern over killing
MDC lose fight for access to Zim voters' list
Bloodshed and misery taint Congo's diamond wealth
Zimbabwe's famine worsening, only half food crop likely
An argument that keeps Africa hungry
'Zanu PF plotting to eliminate MDC MPs'
Mugabe worse than Stalin Soyinka
US fugitive hides in Zim for 10 Years
Mugabe blocks food aid while Zim starves
Zimbabwe freezes prices
A people reduced to queues
South Africa urges the West to ease censure of Zimbabwe
Zanu PF bars Mudzuri
Poached perlemoen goes by road, sea and sky
Shake-up looms in CIO
On a wing and a prayer
Fighting back with vim and vigour
US govt protests attack of officials in Zimbabwe
Zim judge remanded
State to construct seven farm prisons
No swearing at me or the Wailers, says Bob
Fantasy finance
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From The Times (UK), 13 November
Southern Africa's need is greater, says Short
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
Clare Short, the International Development Secretary, accused the United Nations yesterday of acting irresponsibly by exaggerating the threat of famine in Ethiopia while the situation in southern Africa was far more severe. The dispute over which area of Africa was more deserving of aid threatens to damage Ethiopia’s attempts to win sympathy and donations for people in drought-stricken areas. Ms Short acknowledged that the drought in Ethiopia was serious, but said that food would reach those in need. She dismissed suggestions that the country faced a famine greater than that of 1984-85, when a million people starved to death. "I think the situation in southern Africa is much more worrying. There is a danger that we will see significant loss of life," Ms Short told the BBC. Earlier Georgia Shaver, the UN World Food Programme’s representative in Addis Ababa, had said that Ethiopia had received only a trickle of the aid that it required. "In southern Africa, there are ten (million) to 14 million people needing aid across six countries. In Ethiopia, we could have the same number in just one country," she said. "We need the resources today so that we can prevent a deterioration of the situation." Ms Short hit back angrily: "I heard that woman’s very irresponsible statement," she said. "Four million people (in Ethiopia) are dependent on food aid every single year. This is a well-organised country used to handling aid. The crisis in southern Africa is the same sort of numbers, but less well-organised. People are weakened by HIV and it is dangerous that we will not be able to reach them." British aid organisations seem to agree with Ms Short’s assessment of the situation. The Disasters Emergency Committee, which co-ordinates emergency relief, has raised £15 million for southern Africa and is appealing for further donations.
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From The Daily News, 12 November
WFP plans urban food aid scheme
From Sandra Mujokoro
Plans by the World Food Programme (WFP), to feed underprivileged people in the urban areas are at an advanced stage following its request for Bulawayo City Council to identify children in need of assistance. The Daily News could not establish the exact date when the programme would start, but according to the latest council minutes, its launch is imminent. Rotary International District 9210 recently wrote to the Bulawayo City Council advising them that the WFP was ready to begin the programme and would need their assistance. "We will require the identification and registration of those needing food assistance, including those who are in institutions, old people’s homes, street kids, homes for handicapped and for Aids orphans," reads part of the letter. They also requested the council’s assistance in implementing the distribution of the food. Moffat Ndlovu, the Town Clerk, said the council was prepared and interested in participating in the programme. "It is encouraging that such a scheme will be extended to urban areas and the various council departments will be permitted to make the necessary logistical arrangements," Ndlovu said. He also called on the Bulawayo Residents’ Association to assist in identifying needy residents.
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From The Daily News, 12 November
Libyan envoy denies collapse of fuel deal
Staff Reporter
The Libyan Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Mohammad Azzabi, said yesterday despite some problems in the fuel deal with the government in Harare, his country was still committed to supporting Zimbabwe’s fuel needs. He dismissed reports that the oil deal with Libya had collapsed, saying relations between the two countries were good. "As with any commercial transaction the world over, hiccups are bound to occur here and there, but that does not constitute a collapse of our commitment to Zimbabwe. That commitment is total and above small hiccups that may occur from time to time," he said. Azzabi was responding to a story in yesterday’s issue of The Daily News, quoting a story in the Sunday Times of South Africa which said the oil deal with Libya had collapsed. The newspaper quoted Azzabi as saying the reasons for the collapse of the US$360 million (Z$19,8 billion) supply deal between Zimbabwe and Libya were commercial and not political. Yesterday, Azzabi also denied the Sunday Times story and another one in the Sunday Mirror, which said Britain had persuaded Libya to cancel supplies to Zimbabwe.
He said nothing had changed between the relations and bilateral arrangements between Zimbabwe and Libya, adding that the commercial arrangements confirmed the historical and political ties between the two countries. "When we committed ourselves to support Zimbabwe’s fuel needs, we were fully aware of the negative forces working against Zimbabwe and its present difficult economic situation, especially as it relates to foreign exchange, hence the arrangements made to reinvest proceeds of our oil supplies back to Zimbabwe," Azzabi said. Queues have resurfaced country-wide as the government grapples to find enough foreign currency to procure adequate quantities of fuel. In a rare admission of failure, President Mugabe last week said he was having "headaches and stomach-aches" to maintain constant fuel supplies into the country. In a major policy U-turn, Mugabe said oil companies should procure fuel themselves since they had the foreign currency.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 13 November
Zimbabwe police kill American aid worker
Harare - An American aid worker who was helping to feed hundreds of starving schoolchildren in Zimbabwe was shot dead by security forces at a road block. Dick Gilman, 58, a retired American software specialist from Connecticut who had been in the country for less than three weeks, was shot near the border with Mozambique on Monday. A US embassy official said two American officials had been sent to the eastern town of Mutare to investigate the shooting. Police in Harare said Mr Gilman had been "rude" and had tried to run down two policemen and was killed by a glancing shot which lodged in his shoulder. His relatives angrily disputed this account. His brother, Howard Gilman, said he was stopped at a semi-permanent road block manned by "aggressive" police and armed soldiers, and asked to produce his passport and customs papers for his car, hired in South Africa. He said his brother did not have his passport on him, and left his car papers with the security forces at the road block.
"He came back to the flat and we talked about what had happened. He had not noticed that the papers for the car he hired in Johannesburg had the wrong date stamped on them by customs - 1998 instead of 2002 - so he picked up his passport and returned to the road block. "The next thing I got a call from the police to go to the central police station, where I was abruptly told my brother had been shot and was dead. When I later saw him in the morgue, I saw two bullet wounds, and wondered if he had been left to bleed to death by the side of the road." Howard Gilman was working as a volunteer at a United Methodist Church university in Mutare. He added: "My brother came to visit me first in November 2000, and he was a backpacker type. One day, he went off and found this poor school in the hills, met the headmaster, and began to help with all sorts of things and he has provided food for 840 children until next March."
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From VOA News, 12 November
Trial of Zimbabwe opposition party members postponed
Zimbabwe's high court has postponed indefinitely a trial in which members of the opposition are accused of murdering a ruling party supporter. In a ruling Monday, Zimbabwe's high court said the government failed to produce evidence to continue with the murder trial of six members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. They were arrested a year ago and accused of abducting Cain Nkala, strangling him, and burying his body near Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo. Mr. Nkala, besides being a member of the ruling Zanu PF party, had played a part in the government sponsored invasions of white owned land that began in February 2000. He had also been implicated in the disappearance of an opposition official before the general elections in June 2000. There was intense speculation that shortly before Mr. Nkala was killed, he was going to speak out and accuse the ruling Zanu PF of murdering the opposition official.
A short while after his death, police arrested two young opposition supporters. They were shown on state controlled television saying they murdered Mr. Nkala. They also implicated several other members of the opposition who were then arrested. Six people were finally charged. Later the two young men, who have now been in detention for a year, told their lawyers they had been tortured into making confessions. Of the six opposition members on trial, Fletcher Dulini-Ncube is the most senior. He is a member of parliament and, until his arrest, was treasurer of the Movement for Democratic Change. Mr. Dulini-Ncube is a diabetic and his doctors say he has lost the sight in one eye because of inadequate medical treatment while in detention. Several months after his release on bail his eye had to be surgically removed. From the time Mr. Nkala's body was found last year, Zimbabwe authorities have given his murder a lot of attention. Government officials immediately blamed his death on the Movement for Democratic Change, saying it was part of a terrorist plot against the ruling party. The trial will only resume if the state finds sufficient evidence to continue. Lawyers say they are now hoping to get the two who were first arrested released from prison. The other have been released on bail.
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From News24 (SA), 11 November
Democracy award for Tsvangirai
Washington - The leader of Zimbabwe's embattled opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, is to be honoured this month for his pro-democracy struggle by an international group of political consultants, the organisation said on Monday. Tsvangirai, head of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change is to receive the 2002 Democracy Medal from the International Association of Political Consultants at its annual meeting on November 19 in Rio de Janeiro, the group said. He is to be honoured for "courageously fostering, promoting and sustaining the democratic process", the association said in a statement. The announcement comes amid a spate of arrests of opposition figures in Zimbabwe as authoritarian President Robert Mugabe continues a harsh crackdown on dissent. And it follows a decision last week by Zimbabwe's High Court to delay until February the trial of Tsvangirai and two other party officials on treason charges stemming from an alleged plot to assassinate Mugabe. They deny the charges, which carry the death penalty on conviction. They say they were set up by government agents bent on sidelining Tsvangirai ahead of a March presidential election, which he lost to Mugabe. That election was widely denounced by the West as fundamentally flawed.
Tsvangirai, who will not be able to accept the award in person because his passport has been confiscated pending the outcome of the trial, said in a letter to the IAPC that he would continue his fight for the "oppressed people of Zimbabwe (who) yearn for change". "State fascism and state-sponsored election violence and fraud have not abated," he said. "Instead, the Harare regime appears determined to destroy the opposition and, indeed, any other alternative voice in the country through targeted persecutions, selective application of the law and a compromised judiciary," Tsvangirai wrote. Tsvangirai was chosen from a list of nominees that included US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, former US president Ronald Reagan and outgoing Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, the IAPC said. Members of the IAPC, founded in 1968, include political campaign specialists, career politicians, political party executives, polling consultants, political academics and lobbyists. Previous winners of its Democracy Medal include former South African president Nelson Mandela, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and former US president Jimmy Carter.
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From ZWNEWS, 13 November
Mark Chavunduka
Zimbabwe editor Mark Chavunduka, who was instrumental in focusing international attention on the ruthless human rights records of Robert Mugabe’s regime, died in Harare on Tuesday. He was 37. The cause of death was not announced, but it was not believed to be connected to the torture inflicted on Chavunduka in 1999 after the newspaper he edited, The Zimbabwe Standard, published a report about unrest in the army. "As the founding editor of The Zimbabwe Standard he was a young man with a passion for journalism, a young man who will be remembered for standing up to this regime, and a young man who by being tortured brought to the attention of the world the kind of thing Robert Mugabe does to try and silence people," said Trevor Ncube, publisher of the Sunday Standard and its sister newspaper The Independent.
Chavunduka came to international attention in January 1999 when his newspaper reported widespread unrest in the Zimbabwean army over deployment of up to 14 000 troops in the civil war then raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Casualties incurred while underpinning the regimes of Joseph Kabila and his late father Laurent have still not been disclosed. Standard reporter Ray Choto was first abducted and tortured by security police, then Chavunduka himself , after he agreed to be questioned by police in return for Choto's freedom. Both men subsequently required extensive therapy in Britain and the United States. Police spurned lawyers' efforts to force prosecution of the known torturers, but in May 2000 Zimbabwe's Supreme Court, then under the widely respected Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay subsequently forced into retirement by the regime quashed Mugabe's attempt to have the two journalists arraigned for "publishing a false report liable to create alarm and despondency."
Chavunduka, and Choto, who is now in the United States, testified that torturers said they had Mugabe's "death warrant" to kill them. And Mugabe himself defended use of "extraordinary measures" against the pair, who he described as "black white men". "My family all said I should have stayed in the United States, but I am so angry about the way we were treated … and I won’t give the government the satisfaction of knowing I’ve run away," Chavunduka told Amnesty International after he returned home. Chavunduka said he could never sleep without having nightmares about the beatings and electric shocks to which he was subjected while human rights organisations and churches demanded his release, and trade unions threatened to strike.
Chavunduka, who received many international awards for courageous journalism, was a member of a distinguished Zimbabwean family. His father, Dr. Dexter Chavunduka, was the first black veterinary surgeon in former Rhodesia and a member of Parliament nominated by Mugabe for his expert knowledge of animal husbandry. His uncle, Professor Gordon Chavunduka, a veteran African nationalist politician, was Vice Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe and conferred an honorary degree on Mugabe. His aunt, Sarah Kachingwe, was once the top civil servant in Mugabe's information ministry. Chavunduka, who is survived by his wife and three children, joined the Sunday Standard from Parade Magazine. Earlier this year he returned to Thomson Publications, owners of Parade, after buying a controlling interest. Zimbabwe, said publisher Ncube, has been robbed of a young man with a huge potential contribution to make.
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From The Financial Gazette, 14 November
Court orders R-G to move March ballots to Harare
Staff Reporter
The High Court yesterday gave Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede three days within which to find a suitable place in Harare to keep all voting materials used throughout the country during the disputed March presidential election. This followed the confirmation by Justice Yunus Omerjee of an earlier provisional High Court order demanding that Mudede moves all the ballot papers used in the poll to the capital for safe-keeping. The order means that Mudede, who did not challenge the provisional order within the 10 days provided by the court, will need to inform the High Court within three days from yesterday where he will store all the election material. The order followed an urgent court application last month by Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), for an order seeking the safe keeping of the ballot papers which he could use in his election petition against President Robert Mugabe to prove allegations of massive electoral fraud.
In last month’s provisional order, Justice Lavender Makoni had ruled that Mudede and his subordinates should make arrangements to move all the ballot papers from the country’s 120 constituencies to one place but still keep them separate. In September Mudede failed to get court permission to destroy the ballot papers when he wanted to use the same boxes in the local government elections held that month. The court only allowed him to use the boxes but not to tamper with the March ballots. Fearing that the papers could be tampered with since they were no longer in sealed boxes, Tsvangirai applied to the court for an order that compels Mudede to bring the papers to one secure place in Harare. Tsvangirai is challenging Mugabe’s re-election, citing massive rigging by government and ruling Zanu PF officials and widespread violence and intimidation against MDC followers by ruling party militia and war veterans in the run-up to the poll.
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From The Times (UK), 14 November
Letter from Harare
Life grinds to a halt as Mugabe's fuel runs out
There is a joke that Zimbabweans lack so many basic commodities that they do not know which queue to join, but it no longer seems very funny. In Harare’s once comfortable suburb of Greencroft yesterday about 200 people queued outside the supermarket for bread. At the Shell service station next door about 20 lorries and buses were waiting at the diesel pump. At the Mobil station next to that the queue for petrol stretched down the road and out of sight. Bread shortages have been the norm for more than six months in Zimbabwe, but they are now being matched by fuel shortages that threaten to paralyse the country. Traffic is choked by multiple lines of vehicles jostling for position outside the decreasing number of petrol stations that still have fuel to sell. Commuting has become a nightmare. The once-orderly queues at the bus terminus outside the Harare central police station have turned into a chaotic half-mile of humanity jamming the pavement five-deep. In the town of Gwanda in southwest Zimbabwe last week 70 members of President Mugabe’s irregular youth militia forced the driver of the bus they were travelling in to go to the head of a long queue. Motorists who objected were threatened. When two policemen intervened, they were beaten up. No further action was taken against the mob. A senior oil company executive said: "The fuel queues will soon be no more because there won’t be any more fuel."
The shortage compounds the famine that now threatens half of Zimbabwe’s 13 million people. Inflation is expected to reach 200 per cent next month and the currency is collapsing. Tony Hawkins, an economist, said: "I don’t think it’s ever been as grave as this." In August last year chronic fuel shortages were relieved when Colonel Gaddafi of Libya responded to appeals from Mr Mugabe by ordering his state-owned oil company, Tamoil, to give a year’s credit of US$360 million (£227 million) for fuel to Zimbabwe. However, fuel industry sources confirm that the supply was cut off in mid- September when the state-owned National Oil Company of Zimbabwe was unable to meet payments. Two weeks ago Mr Mugabe made a rare admission of failure when he said that the fuel crisis gave him "headaches and stomachaches". He reversed his 22-year policy of allowing only the state to import fuel, a "strategic commodity", and said that multinational oil companies would have to take over. A fortnight later fuel industry sources report no progress in talks with the Government on how this is to be done. The primary obstacle is what the oil companies will charge.
Under Mr Mugabe’s orders, the price has been frozen since June last year at Zim$76 per litre. The currency has fallen to less than a tenth of its value since then. That means that the national oil company is paying about US50cents (31p) a litre, and selling it for the equivalent of US4 cents (2p) a litre. A pint of beer in Zimbabwe costs six times as much as a litre of petrol. "The Government is going to have to do something with the price," Mr Hawkins said. "But they cannot just double it without the risk of those on the streets throwing stones."
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From The Financial Gazette, 14 November
SA embraces Mugabe as Zim crisis deepens
By Abel Mutsakani News Editor
South Africa this week dropped its ambivalence on Zimbabwe by endorsing President Robert Mugabe’s controversial policies, but analysts warned that Pretoria and southern Africa could pay a heavy price if such support pushed Zimbabwe to the brink. Noting the fast deteriorating situation in the country, the analysts said the economic costs for southern Africa would be huge if Zimbabwe collapsed. Millions of refugees would stream across into neighbouring countries, particularly into South Africa itself. Foreign investors and capital would flee the region and South African President Thabo Mbeki’s New Economic Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) would be dealt a mortal blow, they said. "The economic costs, if Zimbabwe collapses, will be enormous for the region, especially for South Africa," said Brian Raftopoulos, an associate professor at the University of Zimbabwe ’s Institute of Development Studies. "There will be millions of refugees and NEPAD will increasingly lose credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of many people."
Raftopoulos spoke as a fresh fuel shortage entered its second week, with long and winding queues seen at the few garages that still had fuel across the country. Libyan leader Mummar Gaddafi has kept Zimbabwe moving with a deal to supply 70 percent of the country’s fuel needs in return for investments in the southern African nation’s mining, agricultural, financial and tourism sectors. But the oil supply deal is in limbo reportedly because Gaddafi is now demanding that Harare pays in hard cash. Zimbabwe is unable to raise foreign currency since donors, international development and trading partners fled the country two years ago when Mugabe allowed militants from his ruling Zanu PF party to seize private farms owned by whites. A violence-marred re-election victory by Mugabe earlier this year only exacerbated the flight of foreign capital from Zimbabwe, just as the European Union, the United States, Switzerland, New Zealand, Canada and Australia imposed targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his top officials over their alleged bloated human rights record. A severe food shortage threatening the lives of seven million Zimbabweans or half the country’s population is worsening across the country. Hyperinflation is pegged at an all time high of 139.9 percent and has become the dominant feature of Zimbabwe’s sinking economy.
Virtually pleading with the international community to let by-gones be by-gones with Mugabe, South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma this week urged Britain to compensate Zimbabwean white farmers for land seized by Mugabe. Mugabe says former colonial power Britain must compensate the farmers because the land was in the first place stolen from its black owners during British colonial rule. The British do not oppose this. But London has withheld funds after accusing Mugabe of running an unfair and corrupt land reform programme, a charge Mugabe has denied. Dlamini-Zuma, speaking after crucial talks in South Africa with Zimbabwean ministers, signalled a major shift from Pretoria’s much-discredited policy of quiet diplomacy on Zimbabwe. She urged the international community to ignore Mugabe’s alleged transgressions and lift sanctions against him and his government and for Britain to fund the controversial land reforms. "We think it would be nice to end this matter in a neater way, in a way that does not leave a sector of the Zimbabwean population bitter and that all those who lose land are compensated," she said, referring to Mugabe’s land seizures. "We are looking to countries like Britain to try and assist (in compensation)." She then urged the international community to aid Zimbabwe regardless of the government’s mistakes. "Even if Zimbabwe made a mistake, the point is that we need to move to the future," she said. "No one can change yesterday, no one can change today, but we can change the future."
South Africa Institute for International Affairs analyst Ross Herbert said South Africa’s new stance on Zimbabwe underlined Pretoria’s over-zealousness to have the Zimbabwe problem over and done with so the region could focus on economic development. But Herbert said the latest policy thrust by South Africa, which amounted to an endorsement of Mugabe’s position, was far removed from the political realities on the ground and would achieve little, if anything, in ending Zimbabwe’s deteriorating crisis. "Politically, it is a non-starter because the British, EU, US and in fact literally no one is going to subsidise Mugabe unless he reforms his behaviour and policies," Herbert said. He said Pretoria itself could, as it has already done by giving fuel and electricity to Zimbabwe on generous terms, subsidise its neighbour but that would not be sustainable in the long run. Raftopoulos said South Africa’s position was also inspired by a belief in Pretoria’s corridors of power that Zimbabwe’s main Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was not a viable option. "They regard Zimbabwe as a de facto situation. They see a reformed Zanu PF as the only viable option and therefore are making these attempts to market Zanu PF’s position to the world." The MDC nearly unseated Zanu PF in a parliamentary election two years ago and has emerged as the biggest challenge to Mugabe and his administration’s 22-year hold on power. Raftopoulos said: "If it was hard to sell quiet diplomacy, Pretoria will find it almost impossible to sell its new policy to the international community."
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From SABC News, 13 November
R8 million worth of abalone confiscated
Limpopo police have made a major breakthrough in the fight against abalone smuggling. Although the province is the furthest away from the Cape where the delicatessen is collected illegally, the province seem to become an important gateway to the East where it sells for up to R4 000 per kilogram. After a two day stake-out on a smallholding outside Polokwane, police swooped, confiscating boxes of abalone. One man was arrested. A short while later a delivery truck arrived from Cape Town with more boxes of abelone. Two more men were arrested. Police also discovered a cold storage facility, disguised as a shed at a workshop, inside which they found more neatly packed and frozen abalone. A total of 100 boxes of abalone, worth about R8 million, a double cab, a trailer, a delivery truck, two fire-arms and an aeroplane were confiscated. The abalone is flown to Zimbabwe where it is smuggled to its final destination easier. About a year ago, a plane that was overloaded with abalone crashed near Messina and another overloaded plane had to make an emergency landing at Hoedspruit. Police are investigating a possible link between the discoveries.
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From The Washington Post, 13 November
U.N. panel allows sale of ivory, easing ban
Santiago, Chile - A U.N. meeting on endangered species partially eased a 13-year-old ban on the ivory trade today, allowing three southern African nations to sell elephant tusks in a ruling that angered conservationists. Delegates at the U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES, voted to let South Africa, Botswana and Namibia stage one-time sales in 2004 of 33 tons of ivory from their stockpiles. Much of the ivory that would be sold came from elephants that died of natural causes. Each country would receive about $2 million to $3 million from the sales, delegates said. The U.N. meeting rejected requests from Zimbabwe and Zambia to sell ivory under similar arrangements. Delegates said they were concerned that the two countries could not properly monitor ivory sales because of corruption and political instability.
Trade in ivory was prohibited globally in 1989 after the number of African elephants plummeted to 600,000 from about 1.2 million in little more than a decade. Some populations have since recovered, but not all African states with elephants support a return to the ivory trade. Kenya said even limited, regulated sales similar to those approved today would encourage poaching. "We are going to start seeing elephants getting killed," A.O. Bashir, an official of the Kenya Wildlife Service, said in Nairobi. "We are not exaggerating; you will see it. And not only elephants, but you are going to lose lives of rangers, of poachers." The United States drew criticism from conservationists for backing a compromise that helped the three southern African countries win today's ruling. With U.S. encouragement, the southern African countries dropped a request to be allowed to hold ivory sales every year under a quota system. "Why they would offer a compromise allowing ivory trade instead of standing firm in support of America's opposition to trade in ivory is simply mystifying and unjustifiable," said Adam Roberts, of the Species Survival Network.
South Africa's environmental affairs minister, Valli Moosa, said in a statement: "This constitutes an enormous victory for South Africa's sustainable-use policies in the international arena. South Africa constantly argued that a sensible and scientific approach needed to be taken in the management of wildlife." Ivory is prized in Asia, and animal rights activists point to a recent increase in the impoundment of illegal ivory -- notably a huge, six-ton cache seized in Singapore in June -- as evidence that poachers are becoming more active. They say a similar easing of the ban in 1997 caused a surge in poaching. Today's vote may be challenged at other sessions of the 160-nation CITES body later this week, but delegates said the ruling was likely to stand.
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From ZWNEWS, 14 November
Tribute paid
The death of journalist Mark Chavunduka was "a tragedy for his family, for his profession, and for Zimbabwe," said publishing executive Clive Wilson, who was managing director of The Standard when Chavunduka edited the independent newspaper. Chavunduka and a senior reporter, Ray Choto, were arrested in 1999 and tortured by Robert Mugabe's security forces after The Standard carried a report of unrest in the Zimbabwe army. "Mark and Ray maintained the highest professional ethics of the best of journalists in Zimbabwe and indeed anywhere in the world," Wilson told ZWNEWS. "They stuck to their story of a planned coup within the Zimbabwe army, and were an example of integrity that was an inspiration to those independent journalists who have continued to expose the shortcomings of the Zanu PF government and who have also paid the price." Chavunduka, who was 37, died in Harare on Tuesday. Cause of death was not announced, but it was not believed to be linked to the torture. He received numerous awards as a courageous journalist, and was key to focusing international attention on the brutality of Mugabe's regime. "His death marks the passing of the first hero of the independent media's own chimurenga against those forces that are leading 12 million Zimbabweans into untold suffering and deprivation," added Wilson. "If Mark had not died, he would have been covering those stories with his usual zeal."
Correction: In yesterday’s obituary, we said, erroneously, that Chavunduka gave himself up to the security police in 1999 on the understanding that Choto would be released. It was Choto who gave himself up in the hope of winning Chavunduka's release. In the event, both men were held and tortured.
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From The Daily News, 14 November
Government vows to arrest banned citizens if they return
By Luke Tamborinyoka, Political Editor
The government warned yesterday that expatriate Zimbabwean citizens working for private radio stations who were last week included on a list of people banned from visiting the country, would be arrested once they set foot in Zimbabwe. In the same vein, the government said it was closely monitoring the activities of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), which it said were supporting the opposition MDC and the independent Press in trying to unseat the government. Speaking in Parliament yesterday, Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, said Zimbabweans who were included on a list would be allowed back, but they would be arrested. Asked what the government would do to banned Zimbabweans who held only Zimbabwean passports, Chinamasa said: "They are free to come back, but they will be welcome in our prisons. Those citizens with other foreign passports are not Zimbabwean citizens because we cannot have these people demonising the government every day on the radio. Every Zimbabwean has a right to be in Zimbabwe and has a right to come back to this country. It is a right guaranteed by the Constitution, but we cannot allow dual citizenship - our people travelling with British and Dutch passports but who engage in acts of broadcasting information that denigrates the country."
Chinamasa was responding to a question by Harare North MP, Trudy Stevenson, on whether it was government policy to ban Zimbabwean citizens from visiting the country. Last week, in a retaliatory move following the decision by the European Union to slap travel bans on the Zanu PF elite, and another decision by Britain to introduce visas for Zimbabweans, the government published its own list of banned visitors. The list included British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his government ministers, as well as Zimbabweans working for the independent SW Radio Africa (SWRA), which broadcasts from London, and the Voice of the People (VoP), which broadcasts from the Netherlands. The SWRA workers were named as John Matinde, Gerry Jackson, Georgina Godwin, Simon Parkinson, Mandisa Mundawarara, Violet Gonda, Tererai Karimakwenda and Graeme Counsel, while Lodewijk Bouwens was named as being employed by VoP.
In another crack-down on NGOs, July Moyo, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, told Parliament that Amani Trust was not properly registered and its leadership risked being arrested. He said the organisation had only registered its constitution with the Deeds Registry Office, but had not regularised its registration in accordance with the Private Voluntary Organisations Act. In another response to a question read on his behalf, the Minister of State Security, Nicholas Goche, said the government was monitoring the activities of NGOs. He said NGOs were used by foreign powers to unseat governments in small countries and to force a regime change. Goche said most NGOs were disguising their nefarious activities with semantics such as support for democracy and human rights. He again cited Amani Trust and the Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD) which he said was involved in supporting several projects for the opposition MDC and helping plan its election strategy. Goche said in 2000, the WFD provided the MDC with money, which he said was still flowing into the party’ s coffers. He also cited the Zimbabwe Democracy Trust and the Southern Africa Media Development Fund (SAMDEF). Goche said when The Daily News was facing financial problems, it received US$526 000 (Z$28,93 million) from SAMDEF.
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From The Washington Times, 14 November
UN endorses food aid policy in Zimbabwe
By William M. Reilly, UPI
United Nations - U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday endorsed the World Food Program's policy against the politicization of food aid in Zimbabwe, where some 7 million people are at risk of starving. In a statement issued by U.N. spokesman Hua Jiang, he also appealed to the government of Zimbabwe to fulfill its commitment to ensure that political considerations do not affect food aid efforts within the country. "The secretary-general notes the continuing reports of politicization in food distribution and humanitarian assistance in general," she said. "Those distributing aid have an obligation to ensure that it is given to beneficiaries based on their needs and not upon political affiliation. The secretary-general fully supports the zero tolerance policy on the politicization of food distribution established by the World Food Program," the statement continued. "He appeals to the government of Zimbabwe to hold to its commitment to ensure that political considerations do not affect food aid efforts within the country." "The international community must be vigilant in ensuring that relief is made available quickly to the people in Zimbabwe," said Jiang, reading from the statement. Annan issued the statement before departing for an official visit to European cities. Zimbabwe has been wracked by civil violence in recent years, spurred largely by President Robert Mugabe's program of expelling white farmers from agricultural land and giving the farms over to blacks. Many of them have little experience with or resources for large-scale, commercial cultivation. Mugabe was re-elected last March to a fifth term after a campaign marked by opposition arrests, violence and what international monitors decried as election rigging.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 15 November
'Send cash' plea from Zimbabwe to expats
Harare - Zimbabwe's finance minister, Herbert Murerwa, yesterday made a rare official admission of the dire state of the economy with an appeal to Zimbabweans working in Britain to send some of their earnings home to prop it up. In his budget speech, after more than an hour speaking on the "perilous" state of the economy and the "hardships" of the people, Mr Murerwa said he believed that God "has a plan for Zimbabwe". Many Zimbabweans have all but concluded that God has been missing for the past three years as the economy has halved and forced at least 200,000 Zimbabweans into exile, mostly in Britain. These "exiles" are believed to change at least £20 million a month via the black market to help their families at home who spend most of each week in a food queue. Mr Murerwa, a long-serving apparatchik of President Robert Mugabe, is asking Zimbabweans overseas to remit their funds to the Reserve Bank in Harare instead of changing them on the black market at more than 30 times their official value. "We will provide incentives," he said. Then he went on to close foreign currency accounts at commercial banks and said the reserve bank would administer them in future. He shut all bureaux de change, citing "rampant abuse".
Mr Murerwa said the economy had declined this year by more than 12 per cent, after last year's 14 per cent slump. He blamed the drought for much failure. He referred only fleetingly to the collapse of commercial agriculture after Mr Mugabe's seizures and occupations of 97 per cent of white-owned land, which had produced 40 per cent of foreign earnings. Inflation, expected to reach 200 per cent by the end of the year, is reflected in the misery of the working class and unemployed. For them the budget provided no relief. The price of meat doubled again this week. The staples of the poor, maize meal, sugar and bread, are no longer availableexcept on the black market. In the eastern border town of Mutare, Mr Mugabe's militia, known as the "green bombers" because of their uniforms, raided most of the bakeries on Wednesday to force the price of bread down and succeeded. They were greeted as heroes by poverty-stricken people buying bread at less than the going price. Yesterday the bakeries had nothing for sale. Mr Murerwa made no mention of fuel, which is hardly available and sells for a fraction of its real cost. John Robertson, an economist, said: "The problem with fuel is too big for them. They don't know what to do. If they had to sell it at the real price it would have to go up fivefold." Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, urged Mr Mugabe's government yesterday to keep a promise not to use food aid as a political weapon.
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From The Daily News, 14 November
Jongwe family demands inquest
By Henry Makiwa
Relatives of Learnmore Jongwe, the late MP for Kuwadzana and former MDC spokesman, yesterday demanded an inquest into the circumstances leading to his mysterious death in a remand prison in Harare. An autopsy conducted by government pathologists a fortnight ago concluded that Jongwe died of chloroquine poisoning. But the MDC blamed the government for the death of Jongwe and hired a South African pathologist who conducted a separate autopsy, whose results are yet to be released. The government post-mortem was carried out by Dr Salvation Alex Mapunda, who also carried out a post-mortem on slain Zanu PF functionary, Cain Nkala. Responding for the first time since the government’s announcement of its post-mortem results, Jongwe’s elder brother, Livingstone, 45, said an inquest hearing should be conducted to investigate the prison officials on duty on the day Jongwe died and the unidentified "aunt" who, it is alleged, brought him food on that day. Livingstone said: "Learnmore was being kept by the government and it is only natural that they should be held responsible as they know the circumstances surrounding his death more than anyone else in the world. He was in State custody."
Professor Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, blamed Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC president, for allegedly abandoning Jongwe during his incarceration. Moyo said this devastated, stressed and traumatised Jongwe. But Livingstone said: "We want the State-controlled media to identify the mysterious "aunt" who used to visit Learnmore in prison and also spoke on behalf of the family in their reports. "Our family will seek legal recourse because the three aunts Learnmore had, are now of advanced age, married and reside in Gokwe, Hurungwe and Mhondoro, respectively. None of them ever visited him while he was in prison." Gladys Mumera, one of Jongwe’s two sisters, said it was virtually impossible for anyone to smuggle anything into the cells as prison guards were always on high alert and scrupulously inspected everything that was brought to prisoners. Mumera said: "If one brings cigarettes for prisoners, the packets are opened and scrutinised to ensure nothing else is inside. Food such as sadza (maize-meal) and bread is subjected to similar inspections so that nothing illegal is smuggled through. Visitors are even made to taste the food they bring to ensure they won’t harm prisoners. It is the guards who were the link between the outside world and Learnmore and who should be the first stop of any investigation. All the hype by the government’s blabber-mouths are mere attempts to wriggle from their responsibility in my brother’s death."
She said the death of Jongwe had left her family deeply distressed. "We can’ t even go out to work as yet. We were first shocked to learn of our brother’ s death through radio news bulletins before we had been officially informed. Our mother was nearly run over by a car due to the extreme shock and anguish she experienced," Mumera said. Jongwe died in custody on 22 October while awaiting trial for the alleged murder of his wife, Rutendo, in July following a domestic dispute. Jongwe admitted killing her.
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From the New York Times, 15 November
U.S. Embassy in Zimbabwe signals concern over killing
By Rachel L. Swarns
American officials have expressed concern to the Zimbabwean government about the circumstances surrounding the death of a 58-year-old American man who was shot at a roadblock, diplomats said yesterday. The man, Richard M. Gilman, who was vacationing in Zimbabwe from Torrington, Conn., was killed on Monday in Mutare, near the border with Mozambique. The Zimbabwean authorities said Mr. Gilman was shot when he tried to race through the roadblock after refusing to answer questions about his passport and car registration. Mr. Gilman's brother, who teaches geography at a university in Mutare, has raised questions about this account, saying his brother had actually returned to the roadblock with his passport at the request of the men working there. The brother, Howard Gilman, said the last time he had seen Richard Gilman alive was at his apartment in Mutare on the day of the shooting. Richard, he said, had come back after being stopped by police officers asking to see his passport. "He wasn't angry; he was just kind of irritated because of this bureaucratic mix-up," Howard Gilman said yesterday in a telephone interview. "We had plans to go out to dinner with friends. He said, `Let me run out and get this straightened out and I'll meet you at dinner.'"
American officials and relatives are unclear about happened after Mr. Gilman went back to see the officers with his papers. The Zimbabwe police said that Mr. Gilman's rental car lacked proper paperwork and that he refused to answer questions. "During the inspection and questioning at the roadblock, he tried to drive off," said Wayne Bvudzijena, a police spokesman. Asked if the police had fired any warning shots, he said, "I cannot verify if any warnings shots were fired, but it is procedural for warning shots to be fired first." "We have already expressed our concern to the Zimbabwean government," Bruce Wharton, a spokesman for the American Embassy, said in a telephone interview from Harare, the country's capital. Howard Gilman said the embassy had arranged for an independent doctor to witness the autopsy, to be conducted today in Harare. This was Mr. Gilman's third trip to Zimbabwe, a scenic country racked by hunger and political violence. He was winding down his computer software business and enjoyed spending time with his brother. Howard Gilman, 64, said Richard had informally adopted two rural schools, supplying students with shoes, books and food. "He sent $500 that we used to buy 88 pairs of shoes for kids," he said. "Just last week, he had set up a feeding program that would feed 840 kids to the end of March. He and his wife had no children and he really fell in love with the kids at these schools."
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From IOL (SA), 14 November
MDC lose fight for access to Zim voters' list
Harare - The opposition Movement for Democratic Change lost a court appeal on Thursday demanding a computerised list of all Zimbabweans who had been registered to vote in March's disputed presidential elections. The ruling will force the MDC, which alleges fraud in the voters rolls, to manually input information of the 5,6 million registered voters into computers for analysis. The MDC had wanted copies of the election commission's compact discs so computer specialists could search for irregularities and duplications in the rolls. The Supreme Court in Harare ruled there was no legal provision for the discs to be handed over and said the opposition had asked the court to "stretch" electoral law. The ruling had been expected from a court, critics say, is packed with judges sympathetic to the ruling party. The opposition is challenging the results of presidential elections that extended President Robert Mugabe's 22-year rule by a further six years. No date has yet been set for that court case. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai officially garnered around 1,2 million votes to Mugabe's 1,6 million in a vote independent observers condemned as marred by ruling party intimidation and rigging, including the late addition of at least 400 000 names to the voter's list. The MDC said it had a right to paper copies of the voting lists - which will fill about two pickup trucks - and will now have to copy and scan them into digital format for computer analysis to look for discrepancies and duplications believed to have favoured Mugabe. Searching the paper copies would be virtually impossible, the MDC said.
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From The Washington Post, 14 November
Bloodshed and misery taint Congo's diamond wealth
By Finbarr O’Reilly
Mbuji-Mayi, Congo (Reuters) - In a drab concrete room with three chairs, a desk and a lamp, Dan the diamond dealer uses a magnifying glass to examine the tiny reasons why his shop shelters behind iron bars. "Lately, I've been sorting through about 10,000 stones and buying between $20,000 and $30,000 per day," the Belgian diamond dealer says. His is one of hundreds of single-room shops jammed shoulder to shoulder on the busy Inga street in Mbuji-Mayi, the diamond capital of the war-scarred Democratic Republic of Congo. The lure of Congo's plentiful natural resources, including gold, timber and the mineral coltan, has helped drive a ruinous four-year conflict in central Africa that has left an estimated 2 million people dead. International efforts have focused on ending the trade in so-called "blood diamonds" exploited by insurgents to fuel wars. And since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States last year, concern has risen over links between African conflict diamonds and money laundering by groups such as Al Qaeda, suspected of carrying out the plane hijackings.
But a recent U.N. report concluded that plunder continued unabated in Congo despite the withdrawal of many foreign soldiers who had been helping rebels or government forces under agreements aimed at ending the war. One of the war's fiercest battles was for Mbuji-Mayi, the treasure chest of the cash-strapped Kinshasa government, which lost huge swathes of mineral-rich eastern and northern Congo to rebels still controlling half of Africa's third-largest nation. In 1999, the advance of Rwandan-backed rebels was halted 60 miles from town by troops from Zimbabwe, which was given mining concessions by the government as payment for its help. Zimbabwean tanks still ring the muddy city, where diamonds are sold openly on the street like bags of expensive candy. Bright-painted diamond shops have names such as Big Boss, House of God, Eternal Treasure and Saddam Hussein Diamonds.
Mbuji-Mayi produces mostly low, industrial-grade stones, but gems also turn up - like the De Beers "Millennium Star," touted by the company as the most beautiful diamond ever found. Diamonds are Congo's biggest source of export earnings, officially worth $240 million in 2000 and $225 million in 2001, according to government figures. But twice that amount is smuggled out illegally through porous borders by corrupt officials, criminal networks and rebels, according to a report earlier this year by Partnership Africa Canada, an Ottawa-based group. "People are becoming poorer, while others - entrepreneurs, thieves and killers - are becoming richer," it added. Despite the immense wealth underfoot, less than half the 2 million residents of Mbuji-Mayi have access to running water or electricity. Those who do are linked to the infrastructure of the state mining company, MIBA. The human rights group Amnesty International said last month that dozens of suspected illegal miners, including children, were being shot dead every year in their attempt to find stones that could change their miserable lives. "Every day, blood is being spilled in the diamond fields of government-controlled Democratic Republic of Congo, and nobody in the international community is taking any notice," Amnesty said.
All sides in Congo's war have been accused by the United Nations of looting resources while the population suffers. After two years of talks, diamond-trading nations this month adopted the United Nations-backed Kimberley certification scheme to track gems from mines to stores and help stop the sale of blood diamonds fueling wars like the one in Congo. But while it may have an impact on rebel-held parts of the Congo if rebels are not able to pass off the gems as being mined in corrupt neighboring countries - it will not affect the trade from government-held Mbuji-Mayi.
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From SABC News, 16 November
Zimbabwe's famine worsening, only half food crop likely
Starvation is accelerating across Zimbabwe and local grain production for next year's harvest is likely to meet only half of the demand, the United Nations warned yesterday. The latest "Humanitarian Situation Report" on Zimbabwe by the world body said its field officers were reporting "a worsening food security situation in many districts". Rural hospitals "have noted a marked increase" in the number of cases of malnutrition and pellagra, a disease caused by starvation, it said. Maize, Zimbabweans' staple diet, was selling on the black market in urban areas at around four times the price fixed by the government. "In most areas, it is not even available for purchase," the UN said. Also in short supply were bread, milk and sugar. About six million people in Zimbabwe are facing famine. The World Food Programme (WFP), the UN's famine relief agency, is planning to feed three million people this month, while the number is expected to reach 5,9 million by January. Despite the famine's widening toll, the government was still prohibiting private companies from importing grain, according to the UN report. Private food imports would "produce a positive impact on commercial food supplies", it said.
Three months ago James Morris, a WFP director, said during a visit to the Southern African nation that after a meeting with Mugabe he had been assured that private procurement of grain would be permitted. The report said that there was enough seed available to grow between 600 000 tons and 800 000 tons of maize in the cropping season just started. "However, that is far below the national requirement of about 1,8 million tons," said the UN. The report said that the government had bought 15 000 tons of seed for distribution from private seed companies, while another 15 600 ton had been sold directly to farmers. But government had blocked the sale of more seed to farmers. In another promise to Morris in August, Mugabe said he would lift a ban on genetically modified maize. Nearly four months later, grain traders say the promise has yet to be fulfilled. The ban on GM grain was placing greater pressure on aid donors, the UN said. Meanwhile, those farmers who were not affected by the land seizures said to number about 600 were also "uncertain" whether they would grow grain because of the belief that they could still be driven off their farms, the UN said.
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Comment from The Financial Times (UK), 13 November
An argument that keeps Africa hungry
By Tony Hall
Africa is on the verge of a catastrophe. Famine is coming and, although the US is doing everything in its power to help, I am not sure it can be stopped. The causes are many but the most pressing are the HIV/Aids epidemic and drought. Six million Ethiopians are in need of food. In southern Africa, meanwhile, US and international experts agree that the worsening food crisis places as many as 14.5m people at risk. These people do not have food today. Zimbabwe is heading for disaster. Zambia may be even worse.
Late last year, the US famine early warning system identified the onset of drought and food shortages. By February this year, the US was moving emergency relief into the region with the World Food Programme. In southern Africa, more than 350,000 metric tonnes of food have been delivered or are on the way. Another 150,000 metric tonnes are being procured. This still represents only half the food the region will need. But some governments are blocking the delivery of emergency food relief needed to head off starvation. Their excuse stems from the ongoing debate over biotechnology, spurred in part by the bias against biotechnology of certain European lobby and pressure groups. As a result, food that should have been in Zimbabwe and Zambia weeks ago is still outside these countries. Meanwhile, the debate rages inside those countries over the human health and environmental risks posed by the corn that millions of Americans eat daily. Food that the US moved to Zambia months ago to deal with the crisis remains in warehouses pending the outcome of this debate.
It does not take a lot to calculate the impact of these arguments by well fed experts. As the region heads for famine, vulnerable people will perish. While the US respects the rights of countries to make their own decisions about biotechnology, other donors have simply not stepped up to fill the gap if US food aid is turned away. The US provides about two-thirds of the food aid needed to meet emergencies around the world. All this food comes from our own stocks and markets. It is the same food we eat. All of it has passed our food safety and environmental impact testing -- the most rigorous in the world. For this reason, US biotech and non-biotech foods are mixed together. We do not, and see no need to, separate them.
At the request of Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organisation and the Food and Agriculture Organisation have issued a joint policy on biotechnology stating that marketed genetically modified/biotech foods present no known risk to human health. The European Commission has also issued a public statement agreeing that there is no evidence that genetically modified maize varieties are harmful. Even strong biotech opponents such as Greenpeace belatedly recommend that African countries accept GM corn if the alternative is starvation. But years of anti-biotechnology lobbying, demands for a "precautionary principle" that no amount of science can satisfy and a mistrustful climate, fostered in part by a handful of pressure groups, provide a ready excuse. When I was in Zimbabwe and Malawi recently, nobody asked me about the safety of biotech food. Starving people simply want to be fed. Leaders in affected countries are, of course, free to choose whether or not to accept the help that we have offered. But they must consider the severe, immediate consequences of rejecting food aid that is made available for the millions of people in need. Time is running out.
(The writer is U.S. ambassador to the United Nations' food agencies in Rome.)
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 15 November
'Zanu PF plotting to eliminate MDC MPs'
Loughty Dube
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it has received evidence that the ruling Zanu PF is plotting to eliminate its MPs in rural Matabeleland and other constituencies across the country. The allegations by opposition party come after the deaths of two of its MPs, George Ndlovu (Insiza) and Learnmore Jongwe (Kuwadzana) under unclear circumstances. MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi told the Zimbabwe Independent this week the party had received intelligence showing opposition MPs were on a Zanu PF hit list. "We have received credible evidence indicating that our rural members of parliament are under threat from Zanu PF and we are going to take all precautions to protect them from this violent creature," Nyathi said. Two MDC MPs in Matabeleland North, Jacob Thabane (Bubi-Umguza) and Mtoliki Sibanda (Tsholotsho), have alleged that they are on a Zanu PF hit list.
"It was revealed to me that a plot to eliminate me was discussed at a Zanu PF rally in Nyamandlovu last weekend by a select group of individuals," said Thabane. "At the meeting it was discussed and agreed that the 2005 parliamentary elections were too far to wait for and they have decided that a by-election is imminent in the constituency." Sibanda has gone into hiding in Bulawayo after hitmen allegedly dispatched to assassinate him fired at the wrong car last weekend. Sibanda said sympathetic war veterans advised him not to visit the constituency again because he was still on the death list. The Tsholotsho MP has accused Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo of trying to create a constituency for himself in Tsholotsho by fomenting violence in the area.
Nyathi said this was the second attempt on Sibanda's life after war veterans forced him to flee the constituency two months ago. "The thinking among Zanu PF strategists is that it is easy to concentrate violence and terror in a constituency and together with the use of voter manipulation through food, they feel they can make in-roads in Matabeleland," Nyathi said. "Zanu PF thinks by engineering the death of MDC MPs they will regain the seats they lost in legitimate parliamentary elections and that is unfortunate." Nyathi said the MDC would hold the government responsible for any suspicious death of any opposition MP. "All our MPs are at risk and in a country with no rule of law like Zimbabwe, these are serious threats against legislators," Nyathi said.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 15 November
Mugabe worse than Stalin Soyinka
Vincent Kahiya
Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka has launched a scathing attack on President Mugabe's land reform programme saying it was worse than Russian dictator Joseph Stalin's collectivisation in which millions died. In an online discussion forum hosted by The Black World Today, a United States-based African American website which has in the past expressed strong sympathy for Mugabe, Soyinka berated the African Union questioning whether it would respond to Mugabe's "state thuggery" and "cynical crudeness". He questioned why Mugabe had failed to respond to the land problem in the past 22 years. "Even Stalin in his mad race to collectivise land and eliminate all those conveniently-designated kulaks did not send veterans of the Russian Revolution to take over the land," said the Nigerian-born writer. "Not that his results were much better, but he appeared at least to have given thought to structural transfers, which is something totally absent from Mugabe's methodology," he said.
The Nobel laureate said that the ageing leader was stung and humiliated by the elections two years ago and had resorted to intimidation to rule the country. To achieve his mission Mugabe has resorted to dastardly means like the dismissal of judges and the attempted muzzling of the press, he said. Soyinka said Mugabe had embarked on a vicious campaign to stay in power. "The ageing lion has resorted to the most blatant time-dishonoured methods of African dictators who fail to understand that people must be led in dignity, not dragged on their knees along the pathway to social transformation," he said. He said Mugabe had joined the rollcall of African dictators who had conducted an "undefined war of attrition against his own people". "And we only need to transport ourselves to other nations like Zimbabwe to eavesdrop on the prayers of millions who wish that shortcut to national redemption might be found if only a certain power-obsessed near-octogenarian and once revered revolutionary leader would be called - to use a favourite expression in my country - to higher glory," he said.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 15 November
US fugitive hides in Zim for 10 Years
Mthulisi Mathuthu
American fugitive James Kilgore who was arrested in South Arica last week for terrorist crimes allegedly committed in the US in the 1970s, lived a normal life in Zimbabwe for 10 years without anyone suspecting he was on the run. Those who knew him said he was "quiet", "thoughtful" and always willing to help but hardly talked about himself. The FBI had been looking for him for 26 years before police arrested him in Cape Town last Friday. A friend said he first met Kilgore, who was now known as James Pape, at Ranche House College in 1982 where he was taking Shona lessons together with other expatriates who had moved to Zimbabwe at Independence. According to the friend Kilgore was a mathematics wiz who also taught at the Harare Polytechnic's department of developmental studies. "He was a quiet person and was very helpful," said the friend. "He was super-bright and was willing to help. I remember that he mastered Shona within a short space of time."
Kilgore moved to Zimbabwe in 1980 and lived in Eastlea along Mutare Road with his American girlfriend Terri Barnes whom he later married when they moved to South Africa in 1991. Barnes lectured in the History department at UZ. Both Kilgore and his partner wrote articles and contributed to books in Zimbabwe, including school textbooks. They later continued with their academic life in South Africa where Kilgore was a researcher at the University of the Western Cape. They lived in Claremont where they were picked up on Friday. It is thought the FBI tipped off the South African police. According to his friends Kilgore never abandoned his leftist worldview but nor did he advocate terrorism during his stay here. "In fact he was always careful to stay out of trouble," said a friend. He has been wanted in the US for armed robbery, bombings and possession of dangerous weapons since 1975 when he was a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), a leftist revolutionary group which rose to fame when it held newspaper heiress Patty Hearst hostage. She later joined her captors.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 16 November
Mugabe blocks food aid while Zim starves
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government appeared to have been caught out on Friday over a five-week blockade imposed by ruling party militias on food aid from a British charity for a famine-stricken district, hours after United Nations (UN) Secretary General Kofi Annan warned the regime of "the politicisation of food distribution". The latest "humanitarian situation report" issued by the UN Relief and Recovery Unit said that the Zimbabwean government had announced during discussions with local UN officials that it had agreed to allow the British charity, Save the Children Fund (SCF), to resume food deliveries to about 10 000 starving people in the remote northern district of Binga. The charity's Zimbabwe director Christopher McIvor denied the report. A draft agreement between the two sides over the handling of food aid had been drawn up after "lots of discussions" but it had not yet been signed, he said. "While all the indications are we will hopefully be able to resume our programme sooner rather than later, until we sign the document we cannot say that food supplies are resuming," he said.
In early October, members of Mugabe's militia, made up of guerrilla war veterans, ordered the SCF to stop food distribution in Binga and accused it of favouring members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) when it handed out food aid. The charity imported about 300 tons of food from South Africa for the first part of the its programme to feed 45 000 people in Binga in October, which has been locked inside the charity's warehouse in the administrative centre of the district. With famine biting deeper into the severely impoverished area, the SCF was planning to step up its operation and feed 100 000 people this month, but that too has been blocked. In a statement in New York on Thursday, Annan referred to "the continuing reports of politicisation of food distribution and humanitarian assistance in general" in Zimbabwe. He said Mugabe's regime had "an obligation to ensure that it (famine relief) is given to beneficiaries based on their needs and not upon political affiliation". He warned that members of the UN supported "the zero tolerance policy on the politicisation of food distribution" maintained by the World Food Programme, the UN's emergency food relief arm.
Earlier this year, Binga was the first area in the country to report famine-related deaths when 27 people died in the district hospital. The closure of the SCF operation is the second time this year that ruling party militias have blocked food aid in the district, after its people voted overwhelmingly in favour of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. In May, war veterans for two months closed down a child supplementary feeding programme run by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, over allegations that it was "favouring MDC supporters". Church officials who asked not to be named said that the local Catholic Church, which ran the programme, and SCF agreed to suspend food deliveries in the run-up to local government elections in the district in September, to avoid being accused again by the ruling party of supporting the MDC. The local leadership of Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party was informed of the suspension, the church officials said. However, soon after the elections, in which the MDC won 15 out of 21 wards, ruling party officials accused both organisations of withdrawing food aid "to put the government in a bad light so that people would vote for the MDC," the church officials said. The church was later allowed to resume supplies but SCF remains closed in the district.
This week, Bishop Pius Ncube, the outspoken head of the Catholic church in the famine-stricken western provinces of Matabeleland, said 160 people had starved to death in the area because Mugabe's administration was deliberately withholding food from people suspected of supporting the MDC. "Mugabe is using the food crisis in Zimbabwe to force people to vote for his party," he said while on a visit to South Africa this week. Last month, the World Food Programme (WFP) suspended famine relief operations in the south-western district of Insiza when ruling party militias stole three tons of WFP maize and handed it out to Mugabe supporters immediately before a by-election there. Analysts say deprivation of food aid and other state support has been a weapon used repeatedly by Mugabe against his opponents since soon after independence in 1980. Areas dominated by opposition groups have complained of being ignored while the regime pours money, food and infrastructure into traditional Zanu PF regions.
The "Humanitarian Situation Report" reports that rural hospitals "have noted a marked increase" in the number of cases of malnutrition and pellagra, a disease caused by starvation, it said. Maize, Zimbabweans' staple diet, was selling on the black market in urban areas at around four times the price fixed by the government. "In most areas, it is not even available for purchase," the UN said. Also in short supply were bread, milk and sugar. About six million people in Zimbabwe are facing famine. The World Food Programme is planning to feed three million people this month, while the number is expected to reach 5,9 million by January. Three months ago WFP director James Morris said during a visit to the southern African nation that after a meeting with Mugabe he had been assured that private procurement of grain would be permitted. The report said that there was enough seed available to grow between 600 000 tons and 800 000 tons of maize in the cropping season just started. "However, that is far below the national requirement of about 1,8 million tons," said the UN. The report said that the government had bought 15 000 tons of seed for distribution from private seed companies, while another 15 600 tons had been sold directly to farmers.
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From BBC News, 16 November
Zimbabwe freezes prices
The Zimbabwean Government has announced sweeping price freezes on a wide range of goods in a move to tackle the country's deepening economic crisis. The freeze applies to products such as food, fuel, medicines, electrical appliances, agricultural machinery, fertilisers and school textbooks, according to the state-owned Herald newspaper. Inflation in Zimbabwe is running at a record level of 135% and nearly half the country's 12 million inhabitants are facing starvation. In his budget speech on Thursday, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa said price controls imposed earlier on some staple goods were not working. Business leaders say the measures have led to increased shortages and more black market trading. According to The Herald, the latest price freeze has been imposed to stop manufacturers evading price controls "by re-branding and reducing the size of some products to those not controlled". It is not clear how the controls will be enforced. Price controls on staple food products were introduced in October last year, but Zimbabwe still faces critical shortages of cornmeal, sugar, milk and cooking oil, among other goods. Earlier this week, the government announced plans to close every bureau de change in the country and introduce tighter currency controls in an effort to curtail the black-market currency business. The announcement formed part of this year's budget statement, during which the finance minister admitted that the country's economy would contract by 11.9% this year, after shrinking by 7.3% in 2001. Many economists blame corruption, mismanagement and the near-complete disruption of commercial farming by government-approved seizures of land - as well as the drought - for Zimbabwe's economic crisis.
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Comment from The Sunday Times (SA), 17 November
A people reduced to queues
Dingilizwe Ntuli
Johannesburg When a friend's brother working in the UK bought him a car four months ago, he rejoiced; his transport woes were over. My friend used to spend an average of four hours a day queuing for transport to and from work and his brother's gesture had seemingly cushioned his afflictions. But little did he know that owning a car would turn into a nightmare. He now spends even more time in queues: to purchase rationed fuel. When his turn finally arrives after queuing for five to seven hours, he gets 15 litres, which is just enough to keep him on the road for four days if he drives strictly between home and work. How times have changed in Zimbabwe. The economy is in recession and the fuel supply has deteriorated due to the collapse of a deal with Libya's Tamoil to supply 70% of the country's fuel. Zimbabwe has failed to keep up with payments for the petrol, and Tamoil and other suppliers now require cash up-front before shipping any fuel to Harare. The government requires about 600-million (about R6-billion) a year for fuel imports, but its foreign exchange coffers are empty because of the halting of donor aid, ballooning inflation and a fixed exchange rate. Motorists like my friend are now bearing the brunt of years of economic mismanagement. If the crisis continues, he will soon be forced to park his car and either rejoin transport queues or walk to work like so many others. Fuel queues are not my friend's only headache: he also has to stand in line to buy basic foods, like bread, milk, maizemeal, sugar and salt, which we take for granted in South Africa. My friend's life mirrors that of other people in this country that once offered a promising glimpse of Africa's future but now balances precariously on the edge of a cliff.
Life in Zimbabwe has become brutish as President Robert Mugabe's economic policies begin to affect ordinary citizens. The transport system is crumbling as a result of the fuel shortages and a steady stream of people can be seen walking and cycling by the roadside during rush hour. They have either become fed up with waiting for hours or simply can't afford the exorbitant fares. Food shortages are worsening, pushing thousands of people to the brink of mass starvation. Most families have to make do with a single meal a day in the unfolding misery. Government-imposed price caps on foodstuffs have exacerbated the crisis, because most producers who were operating at a loss have now been forced out of business. The country's land dispute has also drastically reduced grain production. Corn, once a major export, is in short supply and construction projects, abandoned by foreign investors, stand frozen in place. Even people with money are threatened with starvation because there is precious little to buy. They rely on purchasing groceries in neighbouring countries to escape the hunger stalking the land.
Once flourishing cities, the capital, Harare, and second city, Bulawayo, echo with emptiness. Most supermarket shelves are bare, but massive queues still form at dawn. The people disperse only when the shops close for the day. If they were to quit queuing any earlier, a consignment might arrive and they would have missed the opportunity. And because every basic commodity is rationed, whole families are found in one queue trying to maximise on available supplies. Restaurants stand deserted and the once-proud hotels valiantly cater to handfuls of people, despite the reduced rates. Only bars and bottle stores are doing a roaring business, as people throng existing outlets in a vain attempt to drown their sorrows. Beer is in abundance and remains one of the few commodities that can be bought without having to queue. Young people fill the streets aimlessly. Unemployment has long been institutionalised and their talk centres on leaving the country. To them, the grass is greener anywhere other than in Zimbabwe. Some of their friends and relatives have earned money outside the country, then returned within a short period of time to buy properties. The levels of desperation have created catchment areas for increased hooliganism, intolerance, violence and crime. More and more people between 16 and 18 are turning to drugs and are being arrested for crimes ranging from house break-ins to robbery.
Inflation, which is around 140%, is devastating the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans - it has eroded their incomes by three-quarters. The scarcity of foreign exchange has imploded the value of the Zimbabwe dollar and the black market has spiralled out of control. The US dollar trades at Z$1 800, the British pound fetches Z$2 600, the rand sells at Z$250 and the Botswanan pula gets Z$280. The official exchange rates for the US dollar, pound, rand and pula are Z$55, Z$75, Z$6 and Z$9 respectively. Government parastatals are flooding the parallel market to raise money to service their debts, forcing private companies into panic buying and creating a serious demand. As a result, banks are running out of local currency as black marketeers withdraw massive amounts to buy foreign exchange. This money changes hands on the black market, leaving banks in a crisis. The central bank has subsequently placed daily withdrawal restrictions of Z$500 000 (officially R83 000) to keep the situation in check. But in essence, Z$500 000 is worth a mere R2 000, a far cry for serious business transactions. It's time Zimbabwean politicians put the country on a path of economic recovery instead of enacting laws to entrench themselves in power.
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From The New York Times, 17 November
South Africa urges the West to ease censure of Zimbabwe
By Rachel L. Swarns
Cameras flashed and reporters scribbled as the foreign ministers of South Africa and Zimbabwe met this week with hearty handshakes. Then South Africa announced that it was time for the world to ease the pressure on its troubled neighbor. The South African foreign minister, Dr. Nkosazana Zuma, said it was time for Western nations to consider ending penalties they imposed on Zimbabwe for intimidating opposition party supporters, judges, journalists and white farmers, and manipulating the presidential election. She also called on Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler, to compensate white farmers who have been forced to give up their farms without compensation. Zimbabwe, which has ordered nearly 3,000 white farmers to give their properties to blacks, says its contentious land reform process is now complete. Referring to the penalties, Dr. Zuma, speaking as she stood next to Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge of Zimbabwe during the news conference in Pretoria, said, "We don't think that's a situation which should continue for a long time."
Dr. Zuma's remarks were greeted with outrage from supporters of Zimbabwe's opposition party and many political analysts in South Africa. Over the past two and a half years, the government of President Robert Mugabe has condoned the killings of scores of black opposition party supporters. The intimidation of black government critics and white farmers continues. [Zimbabwe's economy is also in tatters, and on Saturday the government reimposed sweeping price controls, Reuters reported.] Zimbabwe's opposition party and civic groups have accused the government of denying emergency food to people who refuse to support the governing party. Last month, the United Nations suspended food distribution in the community of Insiza when government-backed militants seized three tons of food for their supporters before a local election. Asked whether South Africa was condoning lawlessness, Dr. Zuma said it was important to look ahead. "Even if Zimbabwe made a mistake, the point is that we need to move to the future," she said. Western nations, notably the United States and Britain, have urged South Africa to take a harder line, recognizing that President Thabo Mbeki often describes himself as a champion of African democracy. He has rallied support for a development plan that would steer Western aid and investment to those African nations that respect human rights. His country is often hailed as one of the most democratic nations on the continent. Mr. Mbeki has occasionally offered criticism of Zimbabwe, but he and his officials have expressed a clear preference for what they call "quiet diplomacy," which means criticism in private and cordial cooperation in public. South Africa hailed Zimbabwe's presidential election in March as legitimate, even though officials eliminated polling stations in opposition strongholds, and the police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of people who were waiting to vote.
Earlier this month, foreign ministers in the region rejected efforts by the European Union to condemn Zimbabwe, although they did agree to a statement that calls for food to be distributed fairly in the country. There is no doubt that South Africa has quietly prodded Mr. Mugabe, who is widely viewed as a proud and mercurial leader who responds poorly to public criticism. Zimbabwe is South Africa's largest regional trading partner. Mr. Mugabe was a staunch supporter of the anti-apartheid struggle. Many African officials respect him for supporting the region's fight against white rule and for his efforts to redistribute land stolen by British settlers. That issue resonates in South Africa and Namibia, where whites control most of the land. Many African officials are also suspicious of all the Western talk about human rights in Zimbabwe when there is little talk about human rights in other African countries. "In other African countries where human rights are ignored, it's business as usual," said Claude Kabema, the acting director of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa. "That's why many people have failed to embrace the Western position. They see it as hypocrisy." Yet others here and abroad say it is hypocritical for South Africa, which fought so hard for its democracy, not to loudly condemn rights abuses on its doorstep. "South Africa is not supportive," complained Peter Moyo, a spokesman for a group of black Zimbabweans living in South Africa. "Children are going to bed hungry and nobody seems to care," he said. "We need to hear from South Africa."
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 17 November
Zanu PF bars Mudzuri
By Chengetai Zvauya
Harare executive mayor, Elias Mudzuri, was yesterday denied entry into the Hatfield Municipal Hall where about 500 Zanu PF supporters were distributing maize meal on a partisan basis, sourced from the Murehwa Milling Company. The Zanu PF supporters, led by the unsuccessful councillor for the ward, Tendai Gurira, were selling bags of maize on council premises and without prior permission from the city fathers. The maize bags were piled high on the stage of the hall and two long queues of people could be seen extending away from the stage. After having their Zanu PF cards checked in the one queue, the card holders would proceed to the second queue to receive their allocation of maize. When The Standard arrived at the hall, they could hear Zanu PF supporters shouting derogatory slogans at the mayor. The supporters had already hounded out of the premises, the MDC councillor for the area, Benjamin Maimba. "Pasi naMudzuri neMDC yake, hatidi kumuona pano," the supporters chanted, forcing the mayor to also leave the premises hurriedly for fear of his security. Said Mudzuri: "Zanu PF have turned the council's social centres into commercial halls without our permission and I don't understand why they have done so. We issued a directive that no council halls were to be used without the approval of the council and when I received the report of what was happening here, I had to come and see it for myself but they denied me entry into the premises," he added. The Standard understands that the Hatfield Police Station refused to provide Mudzuri with an escort to help him stop the trading. "Police have refused to escort me to the hall. When I asked the member in charge of this station for help, he declined so it can be concluded that they were also involved in this illegal activity," said Mudzuri.
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From the Sunday Independent (SA), 17 November
Poached perlemoen goes by road, sea and sky
By Jean Le May
Perlemoen poachers are wiping out South Africa's marine resources, but sometimes the pirated shellfish hit back. A Gauteng pilot, Tony Robinson, died in bizarre circumstances some time ago when the light aircraft he was flying crashed near Musina, in Limpopo province. Investigators found the aircraft was overloaded with 800kg of frozen perlemoen and that as it went down the load shifted forward, crushing him to death. Police superintendent Ronel Otto said it appeared Robinson had been hired to fly "frozen fish" from Swaziland to Harare. The crash provided police with the first hard evidence that, to avoid customs inspections at ports and major airports, smugglers are transporting illegal Cape perlemoen by road to Swaziland. They then hire light aircraft to fly it to Harare, where it is put on flights to Hong Kong. With the festive season approaching, perlemoen sells for up to R1 000/kg in the East and illegal exports are apparently being stepped up.
But they don't all get through. In the past month, there have been two more incidents involving smuggling by light aircraft. The most recent was at Polokwane, formerly Pietersburg, in Limpopo, last weekend. Police, acting on a tip-off, staked out a small-holding near the town, said Otto. They watched a man, said to be the owner of a nearby game farm, transfer 18 boxes of frozen perlemoen from a walk-in freezer into a truck. Police followed him to Polokwane airport, where he loaded the boxes into a four-seater Beechcraft Baron. They arrested him and seized the aircraft, the truck and the perlemoen. They took him back to the smallholding, where they found another 32 boxes of frozen perlemoen. While they were there, said Otto, a delivery truck arrived from Cape Town with another 20 boxes of perlemoen. Two Cape Town men were arrested. One of them, from Bothasig, had recently appeared in Vryburg on a similar charge and been released on 15 000 bail.
All three men appeared in court in Polokwane this Thursday and were refused bail, she said. Last month a rented Swazi military cargo plane made a forced landing at the South African Air Force base at Hoedspruit, Mpumalanga. Otto said the pilot, who has not been identified, reported engine trouble and asked for permission to land at Phalaborwa but was redirected to nearby Hoedspruit. The aircraft was searched in accordance with air force procedure, said Otto. Freight documents indicated that it was carrying "frozen fish", but on one of the documents the word "abalone" was added in brackets. Police confiscated 90 boxes containing 890kg of frozen perlemoen, she said. The aircraft had been rented to fly the "fish" from Manzini to Harare. Documents indicated that the "fish" had arrived by road from Mozambique, she said, but police suspected it came from the Cape. Police are investigating the possibility that since August last year there have been "fairly regular flights" by light aircraft carrying perlemoen to Harare for transfer to flights to Hong Kong.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 15 November
Shake-up looms in CIO
Dumisani Muleya
A major shake-up is looming in the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) amid reports President Robert Mugabe is anxious to modernise and sharpen his run-down security agency. Intelligence sources said the reorganisation will commence when Zimbabwe's permanent representative to the United Nations, Tichaona Jokonya, takes over as CIO director-general soon. Jokonya is tipped to replace retired Brigadier Elisha Muzonzini, recently appointed Zimbabwe's High Commissioner to Kenya. The Zimbabwe Independent reported in February last year that Muzonzini, who is still at the CIO, would be replaced by Jokonya. Efforts to remove Muzonzini, a former BHP Platinum Mine security officer, in March last year were reportedly blocked by General Solomon Mujuru. The two come from Chikomba district in Mashonaland East where Jokonya hails from. "Jokonya is the best candidate for the job because he is very professional and fearless," a source said. "He should be coming soon." However, other sources said if Jokonya took over, the CIO modernisation would fail due to his "affinity for conspiracy theories". Insiders said CIO deputy director-general, retired Brigadier Happyton Bonyongwe, touted in some circles as Muzonzini's successor, could go as well. Bonyongwe, who comes from Nyanga in Manicaland, is said to be unpopular because of his perceived regionalistic tendencies. CIO officers were said to have been unhappy with Muzonzini and Bonyongwe, who replaced former CIO bosses Shadreck Chipanga and Lovemore Mukandi in 1998, for different reasons.
Muzonzini and Bonyongwe were also said to have drained the CIO through spending on the March presidential election and other expenditures seen as wasteful by insiders. If Bonyongwe goes he is expected to be succeeded by Internal Branch director Menard Muzariri, seen as State Security minister Nicholas Goche's blue-eyed boy. Muzariri, currently the most senior of all the six CIO directors, would in turn be replaced by his deputy, Elias Kanengoni, who was involved in the 1990 shooting and wounding of Zimbabwe Unity Movement national organising secretary, Patrick Kombayi. But sources said the Kombayi incident could disqualify Kanengoni. If that happens, the deputy director for planning, Godfrey Madzorera, would replace Muzariri. Sources said the restructuring could also affect other CIO directors and departments including Mugabe's Close Security Unit (CSU) and his counter-intelligence division. It is understood External Branch director John Andrew Maringa, administration head Thomas John Meke, Economics director Justin Mupamhanga, head of the director-general's pool Tobias Chaunoita, and CSU chief Simbi Tonde could also be reshuffled.
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From News24 (SA), 17 November
On a wing and a prayer
Erika Gibson
Johannesburg - The aviation authority in Zimbabwe says it is concerned about the safety of Air Zimbabwe as no maintenance has been done on the airline's planes since September. The airline plans to outsource the maintenance and servicing of its planes to South African Airways (SAA) in an attempt to meet the requirements of aviation authorities. The Independent in Zimbabwe reported that the airline's ground personnel have been on strike since September, demanding better salaries. The airline dismissed all the striking workers. Since then, any technicians they could find have been working on the planes. This is illegal under international aviation regulations, because the work was not supervised. These regulations stipulate that it is standard practice to supervise repair and maintenance work to guarantee the quality of the work and safety of passengers. When these regulations are not met, passengers may not be transported on the planes. Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, also uses the airline company for his official travel. A letter sent by the Zimbabwean civil aviation authority to Air Zimbabwe, apparently indicated that there were concerns about a number of incidents. A plane was refuelled without members of the fire brigade in attendance and while there were passengers on board. Temporary ground personnel, appointed in the place of the striking staffers, were apparently given temporary qualifications although they are not skilled to do the work. The aviation authority was "disturbed" by the airline's "total disregard for safety measures and the danger this posed for its passengers". A spokesperson for Air Zimbabwe was "too busy" to comment.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 17 November
Fighting back with vim and vigour
Over The Top by Brian Latham
The government of a troubled central African country has declared sanctions on several western imperialists in a move that will undermine the effectiveness of the European parliament, it announced this week. The list, published in the state-controlled press, was hailed as a triumph of strategic thinking in the war against western domination. State-sponsored analysts working at the department of misinformation, declared that sanctions against the running dogs of imperialism were sure to deal a massive blow to Europe's efforts to destabilise the central African country. They said the introduction of smart sanctions would be particularly damaging to the economy and government of a small patch of mud situated off the coast of France. Ironically, the small patch of mud is an increasingly popular destination for citizens fleeing the sunshine and freedom of the troubled central African nation. Still, members of the European Parliament said the sanctions were unlikely to have any effect at all, mainly because MEPs were themselves totally ineffective. "Most of us get elected because the food in Brussels is considerably better than it is in Little Boddington on the Sewer. Also, booze and fags are cheaper here," said one. More pragmatically, the men and women banned from visiting the troubled central African country said their banning was delightful news and unlikely to affect their holiday plans. "None of us were planning to visit your troubled central African country in the foreseeable future anyway," one of them told Over The Top. Meanwhile, a spin-doctor at the department of misinformation said it was all very well for the banned Euros to act smug, but they'd be laughing on the other side of their faces when the serious fraud squad seized all their assets in the troubled central African country.
Responding to the issue of assets, a spokesperson for the European Parliament said, "It is believed that only one of us is affected by the assets issue. While we cannot provide names, one banned individual has come forward to say he visited your country briefly in 1964 at which time a commercial sex worker managed to pilfer four pounds, six shillings and four pence from his hotel room. He has no idea how the dreadful woman managed to sneak into his room, but assures us that, should she still be living, she can keep his assets. To the best of our knowledge, these are the only assets any of us can lay claim to in the troubled central African nation." Another MEP, the wife of a muddled Welshman and former leader of the Labour Party said that she had no intention of visiting the troubled central African country even when it ceased to be troubled. "Last time my husband set foot in that place he was arrested by a corporal and treated rather badly - so, if you think I'm going to subject myself to that sort of harassment, you can jolly well think again," she said. Meanwhile, analysts who do not work for the department of misinformation questioned the effectiveness of sanctions against Europeans. It seemed unlikely that sanctions would work because, in case no one had noticed, all aeroplanes arriving in the country were empty, while all aeroplanes leaving were full. "This seems to indicate that no one is queuing up to come here," said one analyst, who also pointed out that most foreigners had long since disposed of any assets they held in the troubled central African country on the grounds that they were no longer assets but liabilities.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 19 November
US govt protests attack of officials in Zimbabwe
Harare - The US government officially protested on Monday after one of its employees on an aid mission was beaten and robbed of official and personal items by ruling party militants, the US embassy said, calling it further proof of lawlessness in the southern African country. The employee, a Zimbabwean citizen, and another Zimbabwean travelling with him, were beaten and suffered serious injuries, the embassy said in a statement. The two had been travelling with another US embassy employee who is an American citizen, and a UN officer from Britain. The group of four were held and subjected to what the US embassy called a "hostile interrogation" in the Melfort district, 40 kilometres east of Harare on Friday by a group of ruling party militants and then the two Zimbabweans were beaten. "The injuries were serious but not life threatening," the embassy statement said. The four had been conducting a survey near the village of Melfort to assess needs for humanitarian food assistance for workers who had worked on white-owned commercial farms before they were seized by the government recently as part of controversial land reform program. "The assault took place at a site where former commercial farm workers are subsisting on a diet of berries and termites," the embassy said. "The US government is deeply concerned by this incident. It is symptomatic of the lawlessness that has affected Zimbabwe for the last two-and-a-half years. It is the same sort of intimidation and violence suffered by thousands of Zimbabweans since the rule of law was effectively suspended," the statement said. The US government protested the incident and called for swift action to identify and arrest the perpetrators. "We call once again on the government of Zimbabwe to restore the rule of law and respect for human rights," the statement said. No comment was immediately available from Zimbabwe police.
Last week, the US embassy also protested "unclear" circumstances in the shooting to death of a US citizen at a police roadblock in eastern Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe police and the state media said Richard Gilman (58) a computer consultant and former Torrington, Connecticut teacher became uncooperative and drove off at high speed to flee the roadblock when he was shot. His family has questioned that account, saying Gilman had returned to his brother's home in the eastern city of Mutare to collect his passport and drove back to the roadblock to show it to police after they complained the papers of his rental car contained errors. Gilman, a regular visitor to Zimbabwe, was funding a feeding program for 840 needy children in the impoverished mountain district near the border with neighboring Mozambique. Zimbabwe has been wracked by violence and economic turmoil for the last two-and-a-half years. About 200 people have died in political violence, mostly blamed on ruling party militants. At least half the country's 12,5-million people face hunger in coming months because of a sharp drop in agricultural production blamed on a drought and the seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms. Hundreds of the farms were violently seized by ruling party militants and despite government promises to redistribute the properties to landless blacks, many prime farms have gone to President Robert Mugabe's confidantes.
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From News24 (SA), 18 November
Zim judge remanded
Harare - A retired white Zimbabwe judge arrested two months ago for allegedly mishandling a criminal case, was on Monday remanded to January 30 by a magistrate's court. The magistrate also ordered that former Justice Fergus Blackie, who is out of custody, be given back his passport, and cancelled part of his bail conditions that required Blackie to report to a police station once a week. Blackie has been charged with obstructing the course of justice and breaching the Prevention of Corruption Act over a case he handled shortly before his retirement in July. He is alleged to have overturned a theft conviction in an appeal case he heard without consulting a fellow judge who also heard the case. Shortly before he retired, Blackie drew fierce criticism from the government when he sentenced Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa to three months in jail for criticising the high court. The sentence was overturned, and the government threatened to investigate Blackie for "gross abuse of judicial office". On Monday the magistrate reprimanded the state for not producing a report on complaints that Blackie was denied access to his lawyers, the use of a telephone as well as medication for high blood pressure following his arrest. Concerns have been voiced abroad and at home over a perceived erosion of the rule of law in Zimbabwe and reports that the southern African country's judges are being intimidated.
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From The Herald, 18 November
State to construct seven farm prisons
Government will construct seven farm prisons to ease congestion at the country's 40 prisons, a cabinet minister said on Friday. The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, said Government was in the process of acquiring the farms. He said the 40 prisons had a capacity of 16 000 prisoners but were holding more than 25 000 convicts. Speaking in an interview at Ntabazinduna prison complex where he was attending the graduation of more than 700 prison officers, Cde Chinamasa said Government had already acquired a farm in Karoi and was in the process of identifying the remaining farms. He said that once Government completed the exercise of acquiring farms, the construction of the prisons would start. "Our prisons are overcrowded making it difficult to maintain acceptable health standards. There is, therefore, a need to increase the number of prisons, as it is the only way we can ease congestion," he said.
Government was also encouraging courts to sentence people convicted of minor offences to do community service as opposed to serving a prison term as part of measures to ease congestion in prisons. Cde Chinamasa said courts were also urged to grant bail to persons facing charges of committing petty crimes to reduce the number of inmates remanded in custody awaiting trial. The Zimbabwe Prisons Service, Cde Chinamasa said, had started training officers who were going to man the new prisons. At least 2 000 prison officers would be trained each year. "We want to start preparing for the new prisons so that as soon as their construction is over, everything would be ready," he said. Meanwhile, the Speaker of Parliament, Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa said the welfare and health of prison officers and their dependants was being accorded top priority within the ZPS and in this regard staff hospitals were under construction in the different regions. Speaking during the 136th pass-out parade of recruit prison officers where 785 officers graduated, Cde Mnangagwa said work was at an advanced stage in the construction of a staff hospital at Khami Prison complex. He said this would be the second prison hospital after the one at Chikurubi in Harare. "The ZPS is also experiencing housing problems for its officers. To alleviate this problem, I am informed that single officers' barracks are nearing completion at Wha-Wha prison near Gweru and Chikurubi," he said.
Cde Mnangagwa said the ZPS had also gone a step further by moulding its own bricks to cut down on costs of constructing staff houses. "To speed up the construction of houses, I am informed that ZPS has a construction unit whose staff complement has recently been increased," he said. The Speaker said conditions of service in the organisation continue to improve as the health personnel in the ZPS were now entitled to on-call, call-out night duty and standby allowances just like all other health practitioners in Government hospitals. In another effort to improve the condition of service, ZPS has established a fund known as the ZPS fund to assist officers with loans for acquiring homes in towns or build better homes in rural areas, he said. The fund could be used as capital to start business or for purchasing farming implements and inputs. Since its establishment last year, the fund has disbursed $35 million.
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From IOL (SA), 18 November
No swearing at me or the Wailers, says Bob
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government has published new laws that make it a crime to gesture rudely or swear at his high-speed, heavily-armed motorcade. The road traffic regulation issued on Monday state that when the presidential motorcade usually comprising about 24 vehicles - passes, anyone nearby "shall not make any gesture or statement within the view or hearing of the state motorcade with the intention of insulting any person travelling with an escort or any member of the escort". Mugabe's motorcade - colloquially known as "Bob and the Wailers" because of the sirens of the accompanying motorcycle escorts - includes 4X4 vehicles carrying heavily-armed soldiers, sedans with plainclothes secret police and an ambulance, at the back. At the centre is Mugabe's bullet-proof stretch Mercedes Benz with darkly-tinted windows.
No reason was given for the new regulations, but it was suggested that passersby had often made offensive signs or shouted at the passing vehicles. David Coltart, legal director for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said his party's supporters had been arrested for chanting the party slogan, "chinja" (change) and waving the MDC's open-hand salute when Mugabe passed. "If anything is an admission that your subjects dislike you, it's these regulations," he said. When the convoy sweeps down the road, all other vehicles are forced to pull to the side of the road and stop. The regulations stated that "the driver of every vehicle on the road on which a state motorcade is travelling... shall halt his vehicle".
The regulations add to the armoury of laws meant to uphold "the dignity" of the 78-year-old Mugabe. Under the Public Order and Security Act passed at the beginning of 2002, anyone who "makes an abusive, indecent, obscene or false statement" about the president can go to jail for up to a year. Last week a Harare magistrate acquitted MDC activist Kevin Gota on charges of "denigrating the president". Police arrested him in March 2002 for shouting, "down with Mugabe, he is an old man". The magistrate said the words were "not abusive of the state president in any way". The week before, police arrested a 40-year-old for holding up a placard in a busy Harare township shopping centre that read: "God shall confront Mugabe over evils done to people. The |
