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Archived News
27th August 2002
2 journos 'hostage' in Zim
Amnesty International statement on elections in Zimbabwe
MDC youth leader arrested
MDC Statement on Land Redistribution requirements
MDC Women's Assembly on Food Distribution in Zimbabwe
MDC Weekly Briefing Note
New Zealand wants more sanctions against Zimbabwe
Magistrates strike
US sends aid to Southern Africa
Transcript of a programme shown on BBC2 Newsnight
Beware the U-turn
Libyan spy spills the beans
Oust Mugabe, urges US
US wants to discuss Zimbabwe at WSSD
Zimbabwe drives rand weaker
Magistrate orders arrested farmers to remain on farms
Government admits eviction orders invalid
Mrs. Mugabe joins Zimbabwe land grab
Time to get tough on Zimbabwe, says Mbeki
Thousands of labourers face eviction
1 000 single-farm owners face arrest
Land reform a cover for Zanu war on opposition
Mugabe poisons the wells
Zimbabwe cabinet dissolved
Zim to fine-tune eviction plan
Fuel reserves perilous
Zim fails to pay Botswana fuel debt
Chinotimba evicts farmer
Food trucks arrive in Durban
Mugabe hardens up his cabinet
Sunday Mail Reporter
Straw attack on Mugabe's 'pariah' state
Mugabe men 'use rape as revenge'
'I want the world to know we are living in Hell in Zimbabwe'
Makoni kicked out
Norwegian MP refused entry to Zimbabwe
Dora, 12, gang-raped by Mugabe's men for four hours
Norwegian MPs blocked in Harare
Zimbabwe denies entry to 30 foreign visitors
Opposition offices surrounded
Zimbabwe police chief flouts EU travel ban
Shiri backs down in farm stand off
Mugabe sees new cabinet as 'war council'
Bill Saidi: All the news the government likes to read
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From The Daily News, 20 August
Magistrates strike
From Brian Mangwende in Mutare
Abandon work in protest at brutal assault of colleague by war vets
Magistrates and prosecutors in Manicaland yesterday abandoned work to protest against the brutal assault last week of their colleague in Chipinge by suspected war veterans. The courts in Mutare and Chipinge did not sit yesterday. Last Friday, Walter Chikwanha, the Chipinge magistrate, was allegedly dragged out of his courtroom by suspected war veterans and assaulted at the government complex after he dismissed an application by the State to remand in custody five MDC officials. Chikwanha’s whereabouts were still unknown by yesterday. Officials from the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs would not comment. A Chipinge court official said: "We are not open today because there is no magistrate. He was beaten up on Friday and we don’t know where he is or when he will return to work. At the moment things are at a standstill."
Prosecutors at Mutare Magistrates’ Court who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed they were not on duty. One prosecutor said: "This is unheard of. It is a total breakdown of the rule of law in the country and we cannot be seen to condone it. How on earth can people just walk into a courtroom, drag the presiding magistrate out and assault him?" Chikwanha granted $20 000 bail each to seven people, among them five MDC officials, in a case in which they are being accused of burning two government tractors in Chipinge. A few days after their release, the five were re-arrested, but Chikwanha refused to place them in custody, saying the State had no tangible evidence to warrant their detention. Edmund Maingire, the provincial police spokesman, said he was not aware that Chikwanha had been assaulted. He said: "I have not heard anything of that nature. I am hearing it from you for the first time." Sam Kudya, the chief magistrate, was not available for comment. Manicaland’s provincial magistrate, Hosiah Mujaya, said: "Get clearance from head office first. In future, do not waste your time phoning me without the necessary clearance."
Soon after attacking the magistrate, the suspected ex-fighters proceeded to the law firm of Matutu, Kwirira and Associates apparently in search of Langton Mhungu, the accused’s lawyer. Mhungu said the windscreen of his car was smashed during the attack. He has fled Chipinge and sought refuge in Masvingo. "I have evacuated my family and will only go back after the police have made an undertaking to normalise the situation in Chipinge," he said yesterday. David Mangota, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, who is on leave, has promised to investigate the matter.
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From Associated Press, 20 August
US sends aid to Southern Africa
Washington - The United States said Tuesday it has sent 190,000 tons of food to drought-stricken southern Africa, and blamed the confiscation of farms in Zimbabwe for rampant hunger in the region. The food - maize, vegetable oil, beans and corn-soy blend for severely malnourished children - was shipped earlier this month, said Andrew Natsios, director of the US Agency for International Development. It will go to feed the hungry in six countries: Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland. The region is in the grips of its worst drought in 10 years, Natsios said. USAID estimated that up to 12.8 million people will need food assistance between now and March, when farmers harvest. The situation is exacerbated by President Robert Mugabe's policy of seizing white-owned farms in Zimbabwe and redistributing them to blacks. Some of the farms that were taken have been turned over to members of Mugabe's family, Natsios said. "So they're not exactly turning these over to poor people," Natsios said. "It's a disgusting grab."
Walter Kansteiner, assistant secretary of state for Africa, said US officials are working with other countries in the region on ways to "encourage the body politique of Zimbabwe" to oust Mugabe. "The question is what are the tactics that we can use to work with those inside Zimbabwe, as well as their neighbors, to encourage a more democratic outcome," Kansteiner said. Some strategies, he said, include working with the European Union on travel restrictions for top Zimbabwean officials, and freezing financial assets. But he stopped short of advocating a trade embargo, calling it "a blunt instrument" that would hurt ordinary Zimbabweans. Before the land reform program was launched two years ago, white farmers owned about one-third of all farmland in Zimbabwe. Now, with farmers under arrest and their land confiscated, they are not able to produce the food that has gone to commercial markets, "which is the insurance policy for the people of southern Africa," Natsios said. "It is madness to arrest commercial farmers in the middle of a drought, when they could grow food to save people from starvation," Natsios said. The United States has already sent 310,000 tons of food to the region, Natsios said. That contribution, plus the one announced Tuesday, have a total value of $230 million, Natsios said.
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From BBC News, 19 August
Transcript of a programme shown on BBC2 Newsnight
Zimbabwe is now in crisis with millions starving as a result of Robert Mugabe's land grab policy. Almost two hundred white farmers have been arrested for defying Mugabe's instruction to stop farming. And where farmers have fled or been forced out war veterans and Zanu PF supporters have let fertile fields and crops rot, planting nothing and creating a wasteland. Foreign and local journalists continue to be harassed and even jailed for reporting what's going on and the BBC is banned from the country. However our reporter Sue Lloyd Roberts entered the country posing as a tourist and armed with a small video camera.
Sue Lloyd-Roberts: Zimbabwe can boast some of the most magnificent sights in Africa, but there are few tourists here today to admire them. News of machete-wielding war veterans attacking whites is having its effect, and the wildlife go about their business unnoticed. Because the BBC is banned from the country, I entered as a tourist, in itself a challenge given that the tourist is about as rare today as the white rhino. I set off to hunt for the white farmer, who was also becoming an endangered species in Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe. I started in Mashonaland near Harare, the area traditionally most loyal to the president and which has seen the biggest exodus of farmers. This after-church gathering was once attended by some 100 farming families. Today only four are left to exchange the latest tales of police harassment, like being arrested for using a video camera on his own farm.
Bill Pace: He did confiscate the tape. I was grilled for three hours with a CIO bloke breathing down my neck, who wanted to confiscate my British passport. They have told me that if there is anything untoward or if they think there is anything nasty in there, I will be arrested for sedition and conspiracy. I asked one of the farmers to show me an occupied farm.
Lloyd-Roberts: I accompanied one farmer back to her farm where she’s packing up.
Kathy Kirkman: I feel so sorry for most of the settlers here because they seem to be so conned and they have been told such a different story as to what is actually happening.
Lloyd-Roberts: Kathy took me to her farm, where the settlers - they have been told they mustn't use the word "squatter" - moved in two years ago. She says they don't stand a chance of making a going concern of it. They have cut down trees, killed the cattle, planted nothing, and as one of them approaches us with a knife in his right hand, don't make friendly neighbours.
Kirkman: We used to grow maize and wheat. Please put the camera down quickly.
Lloyd-Roberts: I hid the camera as the people who now want to take Kathy's house came up to talk to her.
Kirkman: They told me if I was still in our house by Friday, I would be made a martyr. I said what did that mean and they laughed.
Lloyd-Roberts: Kathy and her husband bought the farm they have now been told they have to vacate after independence in 1980, and only after checking with the government that it had no interest in the property.
Kirkman: All the family photos are out.
Lloyd-Roberts: Their plan had been to move the valuables out and live in town until the current troubles pass. But now that she has been physically threatened, and with the thought of the children returning to the house, she is not so sure.
Kirkman: It is difficult to see what you work for, for 10, 13 odd years just possibly disappearing in front of your eyes. It is hard to see all that going. But we still hope to be here. I still feel that we will come back and we will pick up the pieces and carry on.
Lloyd-Roberts: Is that realistic?
Kirkman: Maybe not.
Lloyd-Roberts: The white farmers of Zimbabwe may face an uncertain future but at least they have escape routes. If their situation becomes untenable many have told me they have families and friends standing by in the cities and the country who are prepared to take them in. Others don't like to admit it publicly but say they are planning to farm in neighbouring Mozambique or South Africa or maybe as far afield as New Zealand. But faced with famine and drought the majority of blacks in this country have nowhere to go. In the village of some 200 people in the Midlands, between Matabeleland and Mashonaland, they have just 20 kilos of maize, the staple diet here, left to last until the next harvest next June. This lady says her family's supply will probably last another week. She prepares the one meal of the day - cow's intestine and a tomato. The problem is, it is to feed a family of 16. Her father, Sema Deya, like thousands of black workers, was laid off from a commercial farm. Now he says the family will starve.
Sema Deya translation: I have two cows left. And then nothing. Life was good when I had the wage. It was not a good idea to invade the white farms.
Lloyd-Roberts: During the election earlier this year, the village made the mistake of supporting the opposition party, the MDC the Movement for Democratic Change. Now they are being punished. This family is fairly typical. The father has died of AIDS and the family is now living on wild nuts. Food analysts say Zimbabwe only has enough food left to feed half its 13 million people. The government is making sure that the opposition starves first. At a human rights organisation in the neighbouring town, I am shown the names of over 1,000 heads of families in one region who have been deliberately denied food. One of them explains why.
Ezra Ncube translation: When the food truck arrives in a village, everyone chants Zanu PF slogans like, "Long live Robert Mugabe", "Down with the whites", "Down with the MDC." Anyone who does not have Zanu PF membership card is accused of being in support of whites and Tony Blair and told to get their food from Number Ten Downing Street in London. Most people don't even know where London is. I tell you that people are starving and dying.
Lloyd-Roberts: The politicisation of food extends to the millions of pounds of aid now entering the country. The British are offering £30 million a year to the government to help buy food. Zimbabweans fear that that money will go straight to Robert Mugabe's supporters. Food shortages and fear are now stalking the country. I was advised to take pictures of the queues you see everywhere through tinted car windows. You can be arrested for recording reality in Zimbabwe today. In the supermarkets there are queues but no bread, in this the country that was once the bread basket of southern Africa. For the whites, the absurdity is that the land feeding the country is being handed to those who are ill equipped for the job.
Peter Rosenfels: Many of the settlers don't actually live here. They have jobs in the city and come out for weekends.
Lloyd-Roberts: Peter Rosenfels' farm is some 300 miles to the west in Matabeleland where nearly every white farm has been invaded. Hundreds of acres lie fallow as he has been prevented by the settlers from planting.
Rosenfels: Zimbabwe is the most amazing paradox at the moment. The country's government ministers are getting around the world begging for food. At the same time they have criminalised those who are growing the food. Lloyd-Roberts: His family has been here since his great great grandfather, Omagh, crossed the Limpopo in 1894.
Rosenfels: We have been declared enemies of the state. We have been told we must give up everything we have owned and leave. To where? I am a Zimbabwean and I have nowhere else to go.
Lloyd-Roberts: He has laid off 30 workers and the only thing making any profit is his small pickling business. What do the remaining workers think of the settlers?
Female worker translation: They don't help the country and they are not productive. They just sit around doing nothing.
Lloyd-Roberts: Are you saying that just because the boss is listening?
Female worker translation: I am speaking the truth.
Lloyd-Roberts: In all, some 3,000 white farmers and half a million of their black workers could be displaced, but could this have been avoided if the white farmers had done more 20 years ago at independence to bring the blacks into commercial farming?
Mac Crawford: Yes, there were injustices. Yes, there were imbalances in the past. But that should have been corrected and done properly. Asking me to stand up and defend or asking me to correct it is wrong. I have my own life and my family's and I want to live a normal life.
Lloyd Roberts: But those left in Zimbabwe are now well aware that life can never be normal again.
Rosenfels: The day to day life is very tense. Early morning and early evening there is a roll call duty around the district. Everyone calls in on radio to make sure everyone else is fine and we carry on our lives like that.
Female voice over radio: Everything is quiet this side, thanks very much.
Rosenfels: Cheers, out. It is similar to the way it was during the height of the bush war and we have gone straight back to that type of life where you are living right on the edge.
Lloyd-Roberts: For the whites it is the end of a lifestyle. Most blacks live in fear of their lives. These are the feet of a person who had burning logs held to his feet... Another human rights organisation showed me recent pictures of MDC supporters tortured and killed for the wrong political affiliation. There is no-one these people can appeal to. The police act as agents of a brutal government.
Ncube: I know I am going to die but this country should change. I know my children are suffering at the present moment. If the police arrive at my home my children run away screaming, saying "They are coming to kill my father." You can't live in a country like that. It is very difficult.
Lloyd-Roberts: Many blacks say it is a lottery as to what will finish them off first. Mugabe's henchmen, AIDS or starvation.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 21 August
Beware the U-turn
Michael Hartnack
Despite the arrests of hundreds of whites in Zimbabwe for daring to continue trying to grow crops or even occupy family homes, no one should be surprised if a sudden apparent U-turn is announced by Robert Mugabe's regime on the issue of whites and land. It would be a gross misreading to interpret this as "readiness to be conciliatory,'' or a triumph for "quiet diplomacy by African brothers,'' or surrender in the face of famine and diplomatic pressure. The fact is that though Mugabe was forced to retreat from imposing a one-party state on Zimbabwe in the 1980s, he has never given up the idea of removing everyone's autonomy by having their family's livelihood depend on the goodwill of himself and his party. There are already the first signs of a coming announcement that suitably qualified whites will be permitted leases alongside black agricultural graduates for farms that comply with maximum specified holding sizes in the various agricultural regions. Sizes range from a few hundred hectares in the better-watered Region One (near Harare) to over a thousand in the arid west that is generally thought suitable only for extensive ranching. It will be announced that, as a refutation of detractors who say he was out to ethnically cleanse whites from Zimbabwe, whites will be able to obtain leases on exactly the same terms as black citizens. What could be more reasonable?
As Mugabe put it at the annual Heroes Day ceremonies on August 12: "We shall always welcome and respect loyal citizens or residents who co-operate with government and respect our people, policies and decisions.'' "All genuine and well meaning white farmers, who wish to pursue a farming career as loyal citizens of this country, need not go without land," he added. Only those who want to "own land for Britain" who would have to pack and go. For them "the game is up.'' The key to understanding what Mugabe and his Zanu PF party are up to - for blacks as well as whites - is the word "leases.'' The ruling party moguls, security force chiefs and 54 000 others getting so-called "model 2" holdings, capable of being farmed on an individual basis, will not be granted the freehold their 5 000 white predecessors had (The first 2 900 seizure and eviction orders fell due on August 9 and scores of whites were detained over the past weekend for defying them, although their constitutional validity is heavily in doubt). At the first sign of political disloyalty the "new farmers", as Mugabe calls them, will be liable to instant eviction.
"Owning land for Britain" means supporting civil society, or talking to human rights groups critical of Zanu PF, or voting for an opposition party. Mugabe showered praise on his ruling party youth militia, now commonly known here as the "Green Bombers". Their fraudulent claims to be ex-guerrillas from the 1972-80 bush war in Rhodesia were exposed in the early days of farm invasions, after the February 2000 constitutional referendum. It was the crushing defeat of Zanu PF in that referendum that caused Mugabe to unleash country-wide violence under cover of agitation for land reform in order to ensure a semblance of victory in the June 2000 parliamentary elections and the March 2002 presidential poll. This campaign of terror Mugabe calls the "Third Chimurenga" or civil war. "The Third Chimurenga has yielded a New War Veteran: these young men and women who slugged it out on the farms in support of their elder veterans…We are not apologetic about our national youth service programme…it is mandatory, it is national, it links to the politics and defence of our country…It seeks to and will build a new national cadre who is self respecting, adequate, assertive and patriotic and thus does not apologise for being black,'' he said. Mugabe sees his enemy as "White-ism" the route ``through which the forces of imperialism and neo-colonialism enter.''
Mugabe either does not know that it is impossible to run commercially viable farms on the lord-and-vassal system he is imposing, or feels that the economic costs are more than offset by the blessings of "political stability" (i.e. he gets to stay in power until he can hand over to his children). Commercial agriculture here only prospered by being keenly responsive to world market trends. In the 20 years since the state monopoly, the Minerals Marketing Corporation, was created, millions have been lost through the tardiness of bureaucrats in responding to potential orders they are paid for loyalty, not for initiative. Doris Lessing, a founder member of Rhodesia's long defunct Communist party, concedes that her father's Kermanshah Farm at Banket (one of the 2 900 now being seized, altho ugh her family sold up 60 years ago) was hopelessly sub-economic at 400 hectares - and those were the days of ox-ploughing. To maintain competitive edge in an age of mechanisation, farmers need security of tenure, title deeds that can be lodged with financial institutions against loans. A viable farm here usually needs a proportion of irrigable land (with a sufficient catchment area and its own dam) that can be worked in conjunction with "dry land" crops and grazing.
Agronomists suspect many of the moguls getting a few hundred hectares have no intention of working them commercially. They will be "cellphone farmers" developing retirement homes and weekend retreats where they can run "bush" cattle with 1 to 2 percent annual offtake. Unlike their urban counterparts who vote for Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, many of the moguls are polygamists, and rural holdings are useful dumping grounds for superannuated wives. Without skills or capital, such women scratch a living with no hope of a profit. Mugabe's "land reform" does not just mean bringing a few remaining whites to heel economically or ideologically. It means a defeat for women's rights and children's rights, a return to witch hunts and intellectual sterility in all aspects of national life. All should think hard if they hear the news of a "breakthrough.''
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From The Financial Gazette, 21 August
Libyan spy spills the beans
By Sydney Masamvu Political Editor
Libyan spy Yousef Murgham, summarily deported from Zimbabwe last week, has revealed startling details of Libya's growing economic and military stranglehold on Zimbabwe, which is immersed in its worst crisis for survival. Murgham's details are revealed in a letter he wrote to President Robert Mugabe before his abrupt deportation to Libya last Thursday amid accusations he was engaged in activities which threatened Zimbabwe's security and interests. His letter is now part of court documents which his lawyer in Harare, Jonathan Samkange, is using to legally challenge the spy's deportation, which Murgham says was engineered by Zimbabwe's spy Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). Murgham wrote to Mugabe on April 16 this year explaining several roles which he said he had played to foster solid ties between Zimbabwe and Libya since he was posted to Harare as a diplomat in 1986. At the time of his deportation, Murgham had resigned from working as a diplomat of the Libyan Embassy in Harare, although he had forged strong ties with senior officials of Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party.
It could not be ascertained this week whether Mugabe personally read the contents of Murgham's letter but intelligence sources said the President was fully briefed about the Libyan's deportation. Murgham's letter to Mugabe was prompted by letters written by State Security Minister Nicholas Goche and CIO director-general Elisha Muzonzini to Mussa Kosa, a director of Libyan Security in Tripoli, detailing his alleged misconduct and frosty relationship with Mahmoud Youseff Azzabi, Libya's ambassador in Harare. In the letter to Mugabe, Murgham says security authorities in Harare had in actual fact made a request to have him recalled. He points out that he handled a range of assignments for Zimbabwe's government, including the first meeting involving Mugabe and Zanu PF's publicity boss Nathan Shamuyarira and Kosa in Windhoek, Namibia, on March 21 in 1990 which resulted in US$100 000 being contributed by Libya to Zanu PF's election campaign. Murgham also points out to Mugabe that he coordinated the visit of Shamuyarira to a conference in Tripoli, where Shamuyarira met Kosa and another official, resulting in Zanu PF being given another US$4 million. He states that US$1 million had been deposited into the account of Jongwe Printers, which publish Zanu PF's propaganda material, helping the party to weather a financial crisis it was facing at the time. He states that he arranged for a Zimbabwean delegation to visit oil companies and banks in Libya in 2000 to facilitate the supply of fuel to Zimbabwe and initiate discussions on the export of beef to Libya. The spy reminded Mugabe that he coordinated and accompanied Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge, Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi and army commander Constantine Chiwenga to Libya in 2000 where a deal was struck to supply Zimbabwe with two MiG-23 fighter jets and other weapons and ammunition. He said he coordinated a meeting held at Mugabe's Zimbabwe House between the President and Colonel Mustafa Habishe, a Libyan official, in the presence of Chiwenga in July 2000 which resulted in support for Zimbabwe in the following areas: agreement that the Libyan army invests in Zimbabwe; receiving a request of the Zimbabwe army to get weapons and ammunition; arranging the training of pilots and technicians on the use of MiG-23 fighters in Libya in liaison with Zimbabwe's Air Force head Perence Shiri and his deputy Henry Muchena.
Murgham says he played a crucial role in establishing a company on behalf of the Libyan army in Zimbabwe to invest the money of the Libyan army owed by Zimbabwe in the sectors of transport, real estate, farms and general trading. He says he arranged the visit of Libyan officials Rajab Sowan and Mohamed Mussa, both from the Revolutionary Guard of Libya, for talks with Mugabe in the presence of an official from the CIO, where an agreement was reached to start the building of the Revolutionary Guard in Zimbabwe and launch its investment in the country. Murgham says he helped Zanu PF with the establishment of what he calls the Gaddafi Sisters Foundation in Zimbabwe in conjuction with Zanu PF politicians Shuvai Mahofa, Nyasha Chikwinya and Jocelyn Chiwenga, the wife of the army commander, during a visit by Zanu PF's women league to Tripoli in August 2001. He says this led to the three women having a meeting with Mugabe and Gadaffi during celebrations held in Libya at the time.
He states that in the field of coordination with the CIO, he monitored activities of Lebanese, Islamic, Western, Libyan and opposition groups in Zimbabwe. He says the team involved in these activities involved CIO officers Sydney Nyanungo, Godfrey Madzorera, Mernard Muzariri and a Libyan national identified only as F Utah. Murgham left Harare in a cloud after the government accused him of working with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and British intelligence and of seeking to unwind a key deal under which Libya is supplying fuel to Zimbabwe. Unconfirmed Zimbabwe media reports also say he was being punished by Harare for turning his back on a plot to eliminate MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai ahead of the March presidential ballot, controversially won by Mugabe. The government has not commented on this charge. It was not known this week when the Libyan's challenge to his deportation would be heard in court.
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From The Times (UK), 22 August
Oust Mugabe, urges US
By Richard Beeston
Zimbabwe and America were locked in an angry dispute yesterday after Washington called for the removal of President Mugabe. Using language normally directed exclusively at its former colonial master, the beleaguered Zimbabwean Government said that America was trying to keep white domination in southern Africa. "The legitimacy of our political system or our President is not dependent on America, Britain or any other country," a foreign affairs official said. "The bullying tactics that America and Britain are using are meant to frustrate our quest for social and economic justice, to stop our programme to redistribute some of the very large tracts of land held by whites here to the indigenous black people."
His remarks came after blunt comments about Mr Mugabe by Walter Kansteiner, the US Assistant Secretary of State responsible for African affairs. "We do not see President Mugabe as the democratically legitimate leader of the country. The election was fraudulent," he said. He said that Washington wanted to encourage the opposition in Zimbabwe to hasten Mr Mugabe’s demise. "We’re working with other countries in the region as well as throughout the world, on how we can encourage the body politic of Zimbabwe to go forward and correct that situation and start providing an environment that would lead to a free and fair election," he said. "We’re continuing to work with the South Africans and the Botswanans and the Mozambicans on what are some of the strategies that we can use to isolate Mugabe in the sense that he has to realise that the political status quo is not acceptable."
America and Britain have been leaning on South Africa and Zimbabwe’s other neighbours to force Harare to halt its seizures of white-owned farms and stop violence against the opposition. However, no southern African leaders have made any serious attempt to reign in Mr Mugabe. Foreign Office sources said that the issue was likely to be raised at next week’s world environment summit in Johannesburg. A senior Zimbabwean official predicted that fellow Africans would never side with America or Britain against Zimbabwe, and said: "We pray that no self-respecting African will agree to be an Uncle Tom, a puppet for a hatchet job against fellow Africans no matter what arguments are used."
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From SABC News, 22 August
US wants to discuss Zimbabwe at WSSD
The United States says it will raise the issue of Zimbabwe at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg next week. This comes after the US said it did not consider Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to be a legitimate leader. Zimbabwe responded by accusing the United States and Britain of a "racist" campaign to isolate Mugabe. A large number of white farmers in Zimbabwe have been forced to leave their land over the past ten days. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe's opposition, has condemned the government's land reforms, accusing police of harassing farm workers and warning the scheme will worsen already severe food shortages. The MDC says commercial farm workers have in the past week been under siege from some members of the police and criminal elements. Renson Gasela, the MDC's secretary for agriculture, says none of the farmers who have been told to surrender their land have broken any law except the ruling party's amendments, which are themselves in contravention of the Zimbabwe constitution.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 22 August
Zimbabwe drives rand weaker
The rand extended its losses on Wednesday, pressured by mounting concern over Zimbabwe's eviction of white commercial farmers and general jitters after key support levels were broken the previous day. At 0640 GMT the rand was another 10 cents weaker from the previous close at 10,85 to the dollar, taking its losses over the past two days to 30 cents or nearly two percent. "Its general negative sentiment and what's happening in Zimbabwe is having a big effect," a Johannesburg trader said. "Now that we've broken the 10,80 level, stops have been triggered ... we could go to 11,00 pretty quickly." Traders said on Tuesday that the rand came under pressure from news of a higher than expected jump in inflation during July, along with an unfounded rumour that a Fitch sovereign outlook upgrade had been issued in error. "We've created a new range between 10,78 and 11,05 in the short term...but I don't think we will weaken dramatically again overnight," another trader said.
The rand's recovery in 2002 after a historic plunge late last year has been curbed by a combination of regional and global concerns, limiting its gains in 2002 to just over 12 percent. South African bond yields - which move in the opposite direction to prices - climbed in response to the weaker rand and news that the country's main measures of consumer inflation all accelerated in July. Yields on the benchmark R153 due 2010 climbed another seven basis points to 11,44%, while the most traded R150 gained eight basis points to 11,41%. Statistics South Africa said on Tuesday that the annual increase in the CPIX index targeted by the central bank for monetary policy accelerated to 9,9% in July from 9,8% in June the fastest since its January 1997 debut and above consensus forecasts of a 9,6% rise. But most economists remained convinced that the Reserve Bank would hold its fire on interest rates after raising them by three percentage points so far in 2002 to quash inflation ignited mainly by the rand's historic dive late last year.
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From The Daily News, 21 August
Magistrate orders arrested farmers to remain on farms
Energy Bara
Macgregor Kufa, a Mwenezi magistrate, has ordered four white commercial farmers arrested for refusing to vacate their designated properties to remain on their farms until the constitutionality of the evictions is determined by the Supreme Court. Samuel Viljoen, Edwards Henry, Gerald Whitehead, and Christo Schimper were not asked to plead and were remanded to 18 September on $10 000 bail each. Kufa ordered the farmers to remain on their farms pending a ruling by the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Section 8 of the Land Acquisition Act. The High Court recently issued a provisional order in which it ordered the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, and the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, and the Attorney-General to show cause why the new amendment to the Land Acquisition Act should not be declared invalid. The ruling by Kufa comes at a time when other magistrates across the country have been giving ultimatums to farmers to leave their properties pending the finalisation of their cases. The State alleges that the four commercial farmers defied Section 8 of the Land Acquisition Act which required them to vacate their properties on 8 August. In Masvingo some white commercial farmers were given only two days to remove all their personal belongings from their farmhouses. On Monday, Masvingo provincial magistrate Godwin Chizhande ordered five commercial farmers to leave their farms pending the finalisation of their cases. The farmers were given two days to vacate their properties. Chizhande granted them $500 bail each on condition they would leave their farms.
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From The Financial Gazette, 22 August
Government admits eviction orders invalid
Staff Reporter
The government, which is arresting white commercial farmers for defying its Section 8 orders to vacate their properties by August 10, has acknowledged that the orders are invalid. This emerged in the High Court yesterday where about 58 farmers sought the court's intervention to declare Section 8 orders null and void.20 It emerged that the civil division of the Attorney General's Office, which is representing the government, had written to more than 30 commercial farmers challenging the validity of the orders saying the state had no objection to the applications made by the farmers. "The respondent (the state) doesn't oppose the relief sought by the applicant (the farmer). The respondent reserves the right to argue on cost of the application," says most of the government's responses to the farmers' application challenging Section 8 orders.
Despite the government's admission that the orders were heavily flawed and not served properly, it has directed police to descend heavily on the farmers, arresting hundreds who have remained on their farms, including those not served with the eviction orders. State lawyers who have not lodged any opposition to the farmers' court applications yesterday implored High Court judge Justice Charles Hungwe to postpone the matter for two weeks, saying there were some serious security issues that needed to be addressed first. State lawyer Nicholas Mutsonziwa of the Attorney General's Office said although the state was not opposing the farmers' applications, there was need to first ensure the security of the farmers and their property before the court granted the farmers' applications.
Justice Hungwe, who was reluctant to postpone the matter, saying since most of the farmers concerned were in the Hurungwe area and therefore the state could address its security concerns within a day or two, later decided to postpone the matter for only a week. Jeremy Callow of Harare law firm Stumbles and Rowe and Lewis Uriri of Honey and Blanckenberg are representing the majority of the farmers. The court has in the past nullified dozens of Section 8 orders, but the farmers were still arrested after defying the August 10 deadline. As of yesterday afternoon, 217 commercial farmers had been arrested, with some still held at police stations while others had been released on $5 000 bail.
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From The Washington Times, 22 August
Mrs. Mugabe joins Zimbabwe land grab
By Adrian Blomfield
Harare - Grace Mugabe turned up last week at John and Eva Matthews' farm north of Harare - one of at least 190 white-owned farms that are being handed over to relatives and close associates of President Robert Mugabe. "I'm taking over this farm," declared the president's wife, surrounded by a coterie of government officials, senior army officers and young thugs from her husband's ruling party Zanu PF. "We asked her what would happen to us," said one black farm worker, whose identity cannot be revealed for safety reasons. "She replied: 'Go and live by the river over there.'" To press home the point, the police arrested 78-year-old Mr. Matthews on Saturday. "I was told I had 48 hours to get off the farm and if they found me here after that they would lock me up straight away," Mr. Matthews said as he loaded his furniture onto the back of a truck. This week at a Washington news conference, Walter Kansteiner, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, rejected Mr. Mugabe as the "legitimate" leader of Zimbabwe and called on Zimbabweans to "correct the situation." The implicit call by a high American official for yet another regime change came during a meeting on food aid to drought-stricken southern Africa.
It is not hard to see why Mrs. Mugabe had her eye on the 3,000-acre Iron Mask farm. Tucked into a valley between two dramatic hills, Iron Mask, founded by Mrs. Matthews and her first husband in 1967, is one of the most beautiful farms in the Mazowe area. The house itself has oak-paneled interiors, sloping roofs and a commanding view. Pretty cottages on the grounds and two swimming pools add to the attraction. It is understood that Mrs. Mugabe intends to settle her relatives on the farm. Mr. Mugabe's land redistribution policy was meant to deliver white-owned farms into the hands of millions of landless blacks, but many of the choice properties are going instead to his friends and relatives.
A list, by no means exhaustive, has been compiled by The Washington Times from information provided by the Commercial Farmers Union and the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture, among other sources. It shows that at least 190 senior politicians, businessmen and members of the armed forces close to Mr. Mugabe have been allocated farms. Many have been given several farms; one senior member of the Zanu PF party has been allocated seven. Among the beneficiaries are two of Mr. Mugabe's sisters, his brother-in-law and his wife's nephew. Zimbabwe's two vice presidents, Joseph Msika and Simon Muzenda, have both been rewarded, the latter with two farms. The outgoing and much feared head of the shadowy Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), Elisha Muzonzini has been given the farm of white opposition lawmaker Roy Bennet. In Washington, Andrew Natsios, director of the U.S. Agency for International Development, sharply criticized the reallocation of white-owned farms to Mugabe relatives. "So they're not exactly turning these over to poor people," Mr. Natsios told reporters yesterday. "It's a disgusting grab."
During the past few days more than 150 white farmers have been arrested and detained. They were charged with obstructing the Land Redistribution Act by ignoring an Aug. 10 deadline ordering 2,900 white farmers to leave their lands. Roadblocks have been mounted across the country to search for farmers who have slipped through the police net. Most farmers have challenged the constitutionality of the evictions in the courts, and a landmark legal judgment last week ruled that the vast majority of the evictions are illegal. Despite the rulings, police invaded Mr. Bennet's farm during the weekend and arrested and tortured 10 black security guards on his farm. They were taken for questioning at Mr. Muzonzini's CIO headquarters, according to the farm group Justice for Agriculture. At least 16 of Mr. Mugabe's ministers and members of his all-powerful politburo also have been allocated land. Others to benefit are the senior government officials in charge of distributing out the farms. Christopher Chingosho, the provincial lands chairman, has been given six.
Since February 2000, Zanu PF youths, describing themselves as veterans from the 1970s struggle against minority rule, have violently enforced Mr. Mugabe's land-reform policies, killing 12 white farmers and many more of their black farm workers. Setting fire to more than 10 million acres of crops and preventing cultivation on much of the rest of the farmland, they have precipitated a famine that threatens 6 million Zimbabweans, half the country's population, with starvation, aid workers say. Up to 300,000 black farm workers have been rendered homeless. According to pro-democracy groups, at least 30 percent of the white-owned farms were allocated to senior government officials and businessmen connected to the president. An additional 40 percent, originally given to landless blacks, have in the past few months been turned over to Mugabe cronies.
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From The Star (SA), 22 August
Time to get tough on Zimbabwe, says Mbeki
By John Battersby
President Thabo Mbeki has acknowledged the need for a "vigorous" response to the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe. His admission on Thursday came amid growing diplomatic and political pressure on South Africa to take tougher action against land seizures mounted ahead of the World Summit on Sustainable Development. "I intend discussing with the Prime Minister (of Australia, John Howard) ... the challenges facing the Commonwealth. "I agree with Mr Howard that the troika of the Commonwealth needs to address vigorously the present state of affairs in Zimbabwe," Mbeki said. The Commonwealth troika of Australia, South Africa and Nigeria agreed to suspend Zimbabwe from participation in Commonwealth affairs following its flawed election in March this year.
Mbeki's intervention comes amid fears in political and diplomatic circles that President Robert Mugabe, who is scheduled to attend the summit, would attempt to hijack the agenda by putting his government's case for illegal land seizures on the table. While Mugabe's attendance is a United Nations matter, as the summit is being held under the auspices of the UN, there are fears that his presence could divert attention from the agenda and dominate media coverage. Mbeki's remarks were backed up in a statement issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs calling for land reforms to be carried out according to the rule of law and a tough statement by Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni, who insisted that Zimbabwe-style land seizures could never happen in South Africa. "We are not Zimbabwe. We believe in property rights. We believe in the importance of the rule of law," Mboweni said. He strongly urged financial markets not to judge South Africa by the way the Zimbabwean government handled its land-reform programme. "As far as I am aware, nothing of the sort will happen here," Mboweni said.
Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon accused Mbeki of being "in dereliction of his duty" by failing to speak out against state-sponsored lawlessness in Zimbabwe. "The markets advise that our currency is being hit and attacked by mounting concern over Zimbabwe's eviction of white farmers and the absence of condemnation by South African authorities," Leon said in a statement. The department of foreign affairs earlier in the week issued a statement stressing that the SA high commission in Harare was assisting the South Africans concerned "in terms of the consular services that are provided to all South Africans arrested abroad". It said the government had also approached the Zimbabwean Foreign Ministry regarding the listing of six farms owned by South Africans that were earmarked for resettlement. The statement also reiterated that any land reforms in Zimbabwe should take place according to "the rule of law, respect for the Zimbabwean constitution and due process". It hinted at a shift closer to an international consensus on Zimbabwe but stopped short of embracing sanctions.
A senior Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity on Thursday that some countries in the EU felt that the EU should have taken a more considered view on Zimbabwe and not rushed into adopting sanctions. They could have been more flexible in their approach, the diplomat said. Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad, who a few days ago lashed out at opposition parties for exploiting the Zimbabwean dilemma rather than helping to resolve it, undertook on Thursday to follow up stalled negotiations on a bilateral agreement to protect South African investments in Zimbabwe. Earlier this week, Pahad lashed out at the DA in a parliamentary debate for failing to make "a single honest suggestion" on how Zimbabwe could resolve its political and economic crisis. "All you are doing is putting the fear of democracy into the minorities in our country, and therefore you play a very dangerous and subversive role in this sense," Pahad said.
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From IRIN (UN), 22 August
Thousands of labourers face eviction
The plight of thousands of farm workers in Zimbabwe continues to go unnoticed while the international media focuses on the eviction of white farmers, said the country's largest farm workers union on Thursday. Close to 300,000 workers and an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 casual labourers could lose their homes and jobs if a government edict ordering 2,900 white farmers to leave their land is strictly enforced. "Admittedly, the situation is bad all round, but at least the farmers have some recourse to seek legal action to prevent their farms from being taken away. Most farm workers have no education and no means of sustaining themselves in the future," Gertrude Hambira, deputy secretary-general of the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers' Union of Zimbabwe, told IRIN. Hambira said that despite government policy which called on the farm workers to remain on the farms, labourers were being forcibly evicted from the land by the new settlers. "There have been arbitrary arrests and continuous harassment from the authorities which has forced many labourers to flee to nearby towns with just the shirt on their backs. Those who remain face hunger," she said. "Our biggest concern is the dwindling food stocks. Workers are running out of options. It is a dire situation which calls for swift government assistance," Godfrey Magaramombe Executive Director of the Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe (FCTZ), an NGO working with farm labourers, told IRIN. The government and local NGOs have yet to determine how many farm workers have migrated to urban centres, but the number is expected to climb in the next couple of weeks sparking fears of an increase in the numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs). "Many workers cannot afford the rent in big cities like Harare and so what we are seeing is an explosion of squatter camps on the outskirts of the major centres. This is becoming the only alternative," Hambira said.
A government official told IRIN that extensive research into the labour aspect of the land reform programme was ongoing. Spokesman for the Ministry of Labour, Poem Mudyawadikwa said: "There are several programmes aimed at assisting farm workers, but to say that close to 300,000 workers face unemployment and food shortages is a complete exaggeration." Mudyawadikwa declined to elaborate on the details of the government programmes. To date, 16,000 farm workers have received compensation, mainly from their employers. Hambira said that labourers who were registered with the union were entitled to four months pay. "In total the lucky ones can receive up to Z$25,000. But some farmers complain that since they have not been compensated for their land, they have no obligation to pay their workers. With no option, labourers just pack up and leave," she said. However, farm workers hoping to find some relief in the country's capital, Harare, may be sorely disappointed. A recent study conducted by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) and the US-funded Famine Early Warning System (FEWS) found that food prices rose between 21 percent between January and June, leaving the urban poor unable to afford basic commodities. "Most households don't have three meals anymore. It is not a matter of asking people to find a substitute to sustain themselves. Alternatives are just not available. We have encouraged people to see how best they can use what is available," CCZ executive director, Elizabeth Nerwande told IRIN. "Those who are working should lobby for their incomes to match the costs of basic goods."
Although the official prices of vegetables, sugar, and maize have remained unchanged since October 2001, the same cannot be said for prices of milk, cooking oil, bread and beef. The study found that beef prices increased by 20 percent in June 2002 while the price of bread increased by 24 percent in May. A loaf of bread in July cost Z$238. Cooking oil had the most dramatic price change of all basic commodities. The price of a 750 ml bottle of cooking oil rose from Z$141 in May to Z$360, an almost 81 percent increase. Many goods sold at the official rate were in short supply. On the parallel market that has sprung up as a result of price controls, commodity prices were much higher. The report called for emergency food aid for the urban poor. FEWSNET estimated a total of 825,000 people in all of Zimbabwe's urban centres would need food assistance from June 2002 to March 2003.
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From The Financial Gazette, 22 August
1 000 single-farm owners face arrest
Joseph Ngwawi
More than 1 000 white Zimbabweans owning a single farm are among the 2 900 farmers ordered to quit their properties, contrary to assurances by the government that only multiple farm owners are being evicted, the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) said this week. At least 215 of the farmers had by Tuesday this week been arrested for defying an order by the government to vacate their properties by August 10 to make way for blacks, most of them supporters of President Robert Mugabe. "We have made 215 arrests as of this afternoon (Tuesday)," police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said. CFU president Colin Cloete, one of the farmers arrested this week for defying the order to vacate their farms, said more than 60 percent of those so far affected by the eviction orders are single-farm owners and that the government has reneged on its pledge to ensure no farmer is left without land or a home. "At least 1 000 single-farm owners are among those who will be arrested for defying the orders and one also wonders where the government would get the land on which they hope to resettle single-farm owners ordered to leave their properties," Cloete said.
Mugabe and his Agriculture Minister Joseph Made have on separate occasions assured groups of visiting foreign delegations that no farmer with a single property will be affected by the current land reforms. More than 2 900 of the 4 500 remaining white farmers were told to vacate their properties by August 10 to make way for landless blacks but more than two-thirds of the farmers have defied the order and are refusing to leave. The nationwide swoop on the farmers has further dented Zimbabwe's image as an investment destination and damaged the country's commercial agriculture at a time when more than 7.8 million Zimbabweans, or half the population, are staring starvation.
The crackdown on farmers intensified this week as it emerged that the newly resettled farmers, grouped under the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union (ZFU), did not yet have inputs to prepare the land ahead of the 2002/03 agricultural season, which starts in October. Agricultural experts say that at least 80 percent of those allocated plots under the agrarian reforms are still to move onto their new pieces of land. Officials at the ZFU, whose members are the main beneficiaries of the land reforms, were this week tight-lipped on whether their members allocated plots had moved onto the land and been assisted with inputs for the coming season. The government has promised to provide the inputs in a deal costing nearly $9 billion. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was this week the latest senior government official to urge the new farmers to move onto their plots. "Those who have been allocated land should move to the farms and utilise it," Chinamasa told the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
Meanwhile agricultural seed manufacturers this week said they had approached the government with a request for a price increase. "In view of increased costs of raw materials used to produce seed, negotiations are currently taking place between the government and the seed industry to review the prices of seeds," a spokesman for Seed Co, one of Zimbabwe's largest agricultural input producers, said in response to questions from the Financial Gazette. He denied that Seed Co and other agricultural input suppliers were withholding seed in an attempt to press the government for higher prices, arguing that current shortages are partly due to tests presently being carried out on seed stocks carried over from last year. The tests are done to check if the seeds can still germinate. He said Seed Co also buys seed from seed growers who traditionally deliver the commodity between August and November. "The main selling period is therefore September to about December," he said.
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Comment from Business Day (SA), 23 August
Land reform a cover for Zanu war on opposition
RW Johnson
I have spent the past two weeks in Zimbabwe, watching the surreal spectacle of white farmers being arrested, in the middle of a famine, for continuing to try to grow food on their land. When asked how did it come to this, my mind drifts back to 1999 when Morgan Tsvangirai told me that he was planning to launch a new political party to fight President Robert Mugabe. I agreed he could be sure of massive urban support, given his trade union connection, but asked how he planned to extend that into a countryside which was very much under Mugabe's thumb. The workers all go home to rural families, he said: they will spread the word. And so it transpired but of course the job was easiest among the 2-million Zimbabweans, farm workers and their dependants, who lived on white-owned farms. When, in February 2000, Mugabe was defeated by 54% to 46% in his constitutional referendum the humiliated Zanu PF government spoke angrily of how farmers had driven lorry loads of farm workers to vote, implying that the farmers had somehow influenced their workers to vote the same way they had. In fact as everyone knew when, at independence in 1980 the farmers had voted heavily against Mugabe and their workers massively for him, this had also ended all notions of farmers delivering the farm worker vote. But the real point was that the world of the white farm was that part of the countryside which was least under Mugabe's thumb. It was a milieu in which farmers' wives ran schools and charities for AIDS orphans. When famine struck the communal land areas Mugabe would ruthlessly link food handouts to the holding of Zanu PF membership cards but on white farms the farmers ensured workers and their families never starved, without enquiring about their political views. In effect, white farmers created a social umbrella protecting those beneath from the harshness of Zanu PF hegemony. It was inevitable that when an opposition mass movement was launched in the cities it would quickly connect up with the world of the white farm and, as February 2000 showed, the resulting coalition could eject Mugabe from power.
The rest of the world regards Mugabe as a madman but there was in fact a steely rationality in the way he then decided to destroy the world of the white farm. Within weeks the war vet invasions began and the frightful tale of murder, torture and intimidation unfolded. This was all done under the pretence of "land reform" but only those like President Thabo Mbeki who wanted to fool themselves ever believed that. Mugabe had, after all, not bothered much about land reform for 20 years. Vast tracts of land taken over by the state stood empty, but Mugabe made no move to redistribute this land or the land owned by Zanu PF fat cats any more than he was willing to take up white farmers' repeated offers to make more land available for redistribution. Such constructive schemes were besides the point for Mugabe's aim was deliberately destructive: the social milieu of the white farm must be destroyed so that the opposition's coalition could never win. Only this destructive logic can explain why war vets invaded game farms which could never support human settlement, why their first acts were always intimidatory and why they so often destroyed irrigation equipment: their aim was to drive white farmers off the farms, not make them viable settlements in the future. This was also why last week saw Zanu PF in schizoid mood, denouncing some farmers for staying on their farms after August 10 and others for "faking" or "stage-managing" their own evictions. Similarly, Mugabe's bitterest attacks were reserved for Britain, the biggest donor of famine relief. Yet without donor aid, the population could be cut by half. For while Zanu PF and Mbeki have maintained the pretence that the aim of this genocidal policy is to hand land over to a successor class of productive black farmers, the witching hour has struck: with no sign of that class. Without doubt the result will be to turn flourishing farms back into barren bush: already a journey through the Zimbabwean countryside reveals a picture of dilapidation and desolation. The results will be famine not just this year or next but as far ahead as one can see. The fact Mbeki has quite literally gone hand in hand with Mugabe all the way, trumpeting the pretence that this devastation is actually about land reform, sheds a garish light on our president's professed interest in "sustainable development".
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Comment from The Daily Telegraph (UK), 22 August
Mugabe poisons the wells
Washington has felt driven to deliver a judgment on President Robert Mugabe far stronger than anyone at Westminster has yet felt able to muster. "America," declares Walter Kansteiner, the US government's Africa policy chief, "does not see President Mugabe as the democratically legitimate leader of the country". It is a timely reminder. Because Zimbabwe is constantly in crisis, we tend to forget the lawless tactics which Mugabe employed in the presidential election to come out on top. But America is right. Though many in Europe and Africa prefer to look the other way, Mugabe is not the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe. The election he fought was invalid. His return as president was a swindle which his own courts are powerless to redress. His seizure of white-owned farms is condemned by America as "morally disgusting madness, set to trigger a wholly avoidable famine". It is not even if as the land held by Zimbabwe's 5,000 white farmers was going to ease Africans' land hunger. As the world can plainly see, much of it is being handed over to Mugabe's family and supporters. His wife has just chosen her own farm and told its occupants to get packing.
Talk of land reform turns out to be sheer hypocrisy. During yesterday's outburst, Mr Kansteiner was joined by Andrew Natsios, administrator of USAid, America's aid agency. Called on to deliver another dollop of relief to repair Mugabe's blunders, he too was outspoken. "It is a disgusting grab, where you're just basically stealing land from one group to another. The distinction here is, the group that's being stolen from are very good farmers, and the people they're giving the land to cannot farm anything." Aware that Mugabe is striving to restrict the distribution of food to his own supporters, so that his political opponents starve, America will deliver relief through independent agencies and charities and keep it out of the hands of the Zimbabwean government. Such food, America insists, will not be used for political or economic purposes. Mugabe's decision to use food as an instrument for starving his political opponents seems to have been a turning point for America.
This outburst of anger from Washington is hardly surprising. President Bush has an agenda for Africa which Mugabe's conduct is making ever harder to implement. The only nations that can deal effectively with someone such as Mugabe are African nations. For deep-seated reasons they are reluctant to condemn him. South Africa's government, in particular, seems unwilling to lift a finger to check Mugabe's inhuman conduct against his own people. Observing this, much of the world is running out of sympathy for the continent. That great emotional stream that poured help into Africa at the time of the Ethiopian famine in 1984-85 has dried up. Some of the charities that serve Africa are finding it hard to attract public sympathy. In short, Mugabe is poisoning the wells of goodwill. He has not only ruined his own country but is on the way to turning much of the world against Africa. America shows us she has a firmer grasp of that sad truth than we do.
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From BBC News, 23 August
Zimbabwe cabinet dissolved
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has dissolved his cabinet as his government continues to face pressure over its policy of confiscating white-owned farms. A new cabinet was expected to be sworn in on Monday, and no reason was given for the shuffle. But the government has faced accusations that the cabinet was illegal because Mr Mugabe did not reappoint his ministers after winning controversial elections in March. Zimbabwe has been gripped by a political and economic crisis since pro-government militants began invading white-owned farms in early 2000 in support of Mr Mugabe's campaign to redistribute farms to landless blacks. Hundreds of white farmers have refused to obey the government's recent orders to leave their land. Aid agencies also say Mr Mugabe's land policy is threatening to worsen an already devastating food shortage in the country. At least six million people - about half the population - are threatened by famine, according to UN figures.
Mr Mugabe reportedly met with his ministers and his two vice-presidents on Friday before Zimbabwe's information ministry announced that he had dissolved his cabinet. One source told Reuters news agency: "The stories we are hearing are that he expressed unhappiness with the way in which some of his ministers are handling the land issue." According to Zimbabwean law, Mr Mugabe should have appointed a new cabinet within 30 days of the last presidential election. The BBC's Alistair Leithead in Johannesburg says constitutional experts have argued that Mr Mugabe should have appointed new ministers - or at least reconfirmed the old cabinet - after the March vote. Because this did not happen, white farmers and the opposition have filed in court challenges that the cabinet is illegal and that orders it makes are invalid.
"I think there is a realisation on his part that legally he was on slippery ground," said Lovemore Madhuku, head of an umbrella organisation called the National Constitutional Assembly. But Mr Madhuku said he did not think the shuffle of Mr Mugabe's 20 full cabinet ministers would have much effect on the government's policy. "The bottom line is that government policy revolves around Mugabe, and whatever changes we are going to see in personnel will not mean a change in policy," he said. Also on Friday, Mr Mugabe accused Western nations of hypocrisy for criticising his land-reform plans despite their own histories of racism. Aid agencies say the government's campaign to take over white-owned farms has added to more than two years of political unrest during which about 186 mostly opposition supporters have been killed in violence.
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From News24 (SA), 23 August
Zim to fine-tune eviction plan
Harare - Zimbabwe's government said on Friday it would make changes to its programme of seizures of thousands of white-owned farms after a flurry of court appeals filed by farmers against their evictions. President Robert Mugabe, shrugging off domestic and international criticism, has ordered 2 900 of the country's remaining 4 500 white commercial farmers to quit their land without compensation. But nearly two-thirds have defied an August 8 deadline to leave their farms, and police have arrested more than 200 farmers in a crackdown launched last week. More than 2 700 farmers are challenging the evictions on the basis of a High Court ruling earlier this month which said the state could not confiscate land owned by one particular farmer because it had not told the bank, which had a mortgage on the property.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said in a report in the state-owned Herald newspaper on Friday that only about 100 of the 2 737 court challenges could be valid and the government would issue new eviction notices. Chinamasa also said he would recommend to cabinet an amendment to reduce the eviction period to five days from 90 days from the time the eviction papers are served. "Therefore no farmer should take comfort from failure or oversight by government officials to comply with all procedures," Chinamasa was quoted as saying. The disruption to agriculture in Zimbabwe, once the bread-basket of Southern Africa, comes as millions in the region face food shortages. Mugabe (78), who has been in power since the country gained independence from Britain in 1980, says his land drive is aimed at correcting a colonial injustice which left 70% of the best farmland in the hands of white farmers.
White farmers say they support land redistribution but are opposed to the government's methods. Many Western nations have condemned the eviction campaign, with the United States warning that the land drive was exacerbating the southern African country's food crisis. Aid agencies say nearly six million Zimbabweans - half the national population - need food aid this year, part of a wider food crisis threatening nearly 13 million people in six southern African countries. Washington on Thursday appeared to back away from forceful remarks by a senior US official who said on Tuesday that the United States was working with Zimbabwe's neighbours to "isolate" Mugabe's government. Faced with denials from South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique, Washington changed its line to say it was consulting governments in southern Africa on how to promote democracy in Zimbabwe. Mugabe, who was re-elected in March polls condemned by the opposition and some Western nations as fraudulent, lashed out on Thursday at the US attempts to isolate him. "We are not made as the government in Washington, let Mr Bush know that. We are made as the government by our people here, let foolish (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair also know that," he told a rally in southwestern Zimbabwe.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 23 August
Fuel reserves perilous
Vincent Kahiya/Dumisani Muleya
There are fears that Zimbabwe could soon face an acute fuel crisis as strategic reserves have dwindled to precarious levels due to lack of foreign currency. Government is unable to replenish reserves because it cannot pay suppliers on time. Zimbabwe, which imports about 70% of its fuel requirements from Libya's Tamoil, is understood to owe up to US$90 million to the North African company that has of late been turning its taps on and off. The Monaco-based Libyan firm, 55% owned by Europoil Netherlands BV, a private consortium, and 45% by Libya's state-owned National Oil Corporation, is in the process of cutting or reviewing its credit facilities to Harare. Reports say the company faces bankruptcy due to unviable arrangements like the US$360 million deal entered with Zimbabwe last year. Under the deal, Tamoil supplies Zimbabwe with 100 000 tonnes of oil products per month.
Industry sources said fuel storage tanks at Msasa, Mabvuku and Feruka in Mutare held third-party stocks owned by suppliers - Tamoil and Independent Petroleum Group (IPG) of Kuwait, and not by government. The sources said suppliers were abandoning credit arrangements and reverting to cash transactions in their dealings with the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim). "Suppliers are now asking for cash upfront before supplies are released," a source said. "The country normally consumes about four million litres of fuel per day but cessation of the credit facility has seen daily volumes of as little as 500 000 litres being released." Signs of shortages have been evident on the market. Service stations in Harare and other cities have gone for days without supplies. Over the Heroes Day holiday the resort town of Kariba had insufficient fuel supplies. Sources said there were no long-term plans in place to avert looming shortages. "The best that we can hope for is for the government to beg for extended lines of credit from the Libyans before the situation gets out of hand," the source said. "Suppliers have continued to pump fuel from Beira but the product is going into storage and is only released upon payment by Noczim." Petroleum Marketers Association of Zimbabwe spokesman, Simba Kambarami, said the looming fuel shortages were a result of logistical constraints.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 23 August
Zim fails to pay Botswana fuel debt
Mthulisi Mathuthu
A storm is brewing in the Botswana parliament over a 20-million-litre fuel credit line which Botswana extended to President Mugabe's troubled government in March 2000. The Zimbabwe Independent heard this week that the government's failure to service the debt had sowed seeds of discord amongst Botswana MPs who accuse their leader, Festus Mogae, of using public funds without consultation. According to a government official recently in Botswana, the opposition and radical MPs from the ruling party were already ganging up to rap the government ahead of the opening of parliament on November 4. So serious is the issue that it could strain relations between Gaborone and Harare. The Botswana parliamentary finance committee, led by Duke Lefokgo, is expected to present an adverse report on Mogae's government after the opening of parliament. A member of the parliamentary finance committee who spoke to the Independent from Gaborone confirmed they were preparing a report on the government's financial situation and that the Zimbabwean debt was "certainly top of the agenda". "Yes, there is something like that but I wouldn't want to say anything now," the MP said. "Just ask your government officials. I am not allowed to comment on such things because my job ends in parliament."
Other MPs said to be pushing for Zimbabwe's chastisement are Tshelamg Mafifi, Lesego Motsumi, Sapar Dada and Kenneth Goma. Botswana's Minister of Works, Transport and Communications, Pelenomi Venson, has approached the Zimbabwean government through the High Commissioner to Botswana, Zenzo Nsimbi, about the issue. The MP said "a high amount of correspondence" on the issue had yielded nothing, hence the latest developments. "Ask your high commissioner. He knows about it because they (government officials) have been saying it to him of late and I tell you it's coming in parliament," the official said. Contacted for comment this week, the Minister of Mines and Energy, Edward Chindori-Chininga, referred all questions to National Oil Company of Zimbabwe managing director, Webster Muriritirwi, who said he was "strictly forbidden" to comment. Mogae's government was obliged to extend the facility in what was largely seen as a solidarity gesture after it lost some of its fuel to Zimbabweans who were regularly sneaking into the country to buy the commodity in large quantities. Zimbabwe received 10 million litres of diesel fuel, five million litres of petrol and five million litres of aviation fuel from Botswana to address an acute three-month fuel shortage which had hindered activities across a whole swathe of the country's embattled economy.
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From The Daily News, 23 August
Chinotimba evicts farmer
By Precious Shumba and Angela Makamure
Joseph Chinotimba, a war veteran leader and the vice-president of the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions, yesterday led several youths to evict Vincent Schultz from his farm in Banket. Chinotimba works full-time for the Harare City Council. He led the violent land invasions in 2000 as a self-styled commander of the exercise. "It is no longer his farm," Chinotimba said yesterday. "The farm now belongs to the black people. Whites in this country should go back to their country. These land evictions will continue. The whites should know that by now." He said he only visited the farm to facilitate the payment of gratuities to the workers. Schultz claimed that Chinotimba was hired by Bright Matonga, the chief executive officer of the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company, who has taken over the farm. Matonga could not be reached for comment yesterday, but Schultz said he was at the farm during the disturbances. Schultz said Matonga had no claim to the farm because the Section 8 eviction notice served on him under the Land Acquisition Act was nullified by the Chinhoyi Magistrates' Court last month. But Chinotimba said he would not respect the law and insisted Schultz should leave.
Schultz said Matonga came to the farm on Tuesday accompanied by five youths and ordered him to leave the property, claiming he was the new owner. "Matonga threatened to have me assaulted by Zanu PF youths and war veterans if I remained on the farm," Schultz said. He said the youths were guarding his property. Schultz said: "Chinotimba started playing to the gallery, vilifying whites and threatening me with violence if I remained on my farm." Schultz said the police refused to protect him, asking him to leave. "It is difficult to move out of my house of 22 years and pay my 135 workers in one day," he said. Chinotimba said he was at Mupandaguta to facilitate the payment of the farm workers before Schultz left. The officer-in-charge at Banket Police Station, identified only as Inspector Bare, was said to be out of the office. But a policeman who answered his telephone confirmed the disturbances at Mupandaguta Farm. He said: "Some police officers have gone to Mupandaguta but l do not know what the situation at the farm is like." Meanwhile, Brian Sydney Hein, Leon Heathcote, Rodney Knight Tourie and Folkerstsen of Gweru, on Wednesday appeared before provincial magistrate, Ephraim Movonyane, charged with violating the government's eviction orders. Movonyane, who ordered the farmers to remain on their farms until the matter was finalised in court, remanded them on $10 000 bail each to 30 September except for Tourie who paid $2 000. Tourie said he could not afford to pay the bail of $10 000. The farmers were served with the Section 8 orders and were expected to have left on or before 10 August but the dairy farmers defied the orders. Bright Nyoka prosecuted.
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From Business Day (SA), 24 August
Food trucks arrive in Durban
The truck fleet, required to distribute $62-million in food aid to 13 million people facing starvation in Southern Africa, arrived in Durban today, said Iain Logan, disaster operations manager for the World Food Programme. "The 231 trucks, which include long-haul trucks, land cruisers, fuel tankers and mobile repair workshops, arrived on board a ship that docked in Durban," Logan said. He said the fleet had been donated by the Norwegian government and Norwegian Red Cross and would be deployed for food delivery by early September. "The initial allocation, subject to change in response to logistical needs, is Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho and Zimbabwe," Logan said He said the trucks would remain in Durban for some days to undergo clearance, registration, and radio equipment fitting.
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From BBC News, 25 August
Mugabe hardens up his cabinet
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has kept on his most loyal ministers and dropped a leading critic, according to details of his new cabinet released on Sunday. The embattled leader dissolved the government on Friday in a surprise move which officials said was linked to his programme for seizing white-owned farms. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, who leads the land seizure programme, has been kept on along with Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, Zimbabwean media said. But Mr Mugabe dropped his liberal finance minister, Simba Makoni, who has openly differed with the president on how to rescue the country's economy, and also replaced the sole white minister in the cabinet. Mr Makoni was replaced by Herbert Murerwa, the industry minister, who is seen by many as a Mugabe loyalist. The white Health Minister, Timothy Stamps, had been ill for some time, and is being replaced by his deputy, David Parirenyatwa. Mr Mugabe had faced accusations that his cabinet was illegal because he failed to reappoint his ministers after winning controversial elections in March. White farmers and the opposition subsequently went to court to argue that the cabinet was illegal and that orders it made were invalid. Britain has warned that Zimbabwe faces a mounting humanitarian crisis which it blames directly on Mr Mugabe. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw called for stopping the "madness and badness" of Mr Mugabe from impacting on ordinary people. He said the crisis affected both white farmers and their black employees who were also being thrown off their land. "What we have to do... is to support the forces of democracy in Zimbabwe meanwhile, to sustain the people against starvation and, increasingly, to isolate the Mugabe regime," the British minister said.
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From The Sunday Mail, 25 August
Sunday Mail Reporter
President Mugabe last night announced a new Cabinet which saw two full ministries being created and political heavyweight Cde Witness Mangwende bouncing back. One new face was introduced and two ministers dropped. Dropped are Dr Simba Makoni, who was the Minister of Finance and Economic Development; and Dr Timothy Stamps, who was Minister of Health and Child Welfare. Dr Stamps has been ill for some time. Cde Mangwende was appointed Minister of Transport and Communications. The new Cabinet also saw three former deputy ministers being elevated to full ministers. These are former Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Deputy Minister, Cde Kembo Mohadi, who now heads the Home Affairs Ministry, and the former Deputy Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Cde Paul Mangwana, who has been promoted to Minister of State, State Enterprises and Parastatals. The third one is the former Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare, Dr David Parirenyatwa, who takes over from Dr Stamps. The only new face is former diplomat and chief executive of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, Ambassador Amos Midzi, who becomes the Minister of Energy and Power Development.
It appears the new Cabinet puts emphasis on infrastructural, human resources, technology and economic development. This is shown by the creation of the ministries of Energy and Power Development, Small and Medium Enterprises Development and the retention of the ministries of Rural Resources and Water Development and Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation. Cde Sithembiso Nyoni heads the Ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises Development. President Mugabe also appointed three Ministers of State to reflect the Government’s new thrust of rejuvenating the economy after the land reform programme. The three are former Minister of State in Vice-President Musika’s Office, Cde Olivia Muchena, who is now Minister of State, Science and Technology Development; former Minister of State in Vice-President Muzenda’s Office, Cde Flora Bhuka, who is Minister of State for the Land Reform Programme, and Cde Mangwana, who is Minister of State for State Enterprises and Parastatals.
President Mugabe also moved four ministers from their former ministries to head new ones. The former Minister of Home Affairs and Zanu-PF chairman, Cde John Nkomo, becomes Minister for Special Affairs in the President’s Office; former Minister of Higher Education and Technology, Cde Samuel Mumbengegwi, becomes Minister of Industry and International Trade, replacing Cde Herbert Murerwa, who has bounced back to his old ministry of Finance and Economic Development. Former Minister of Transport and Communications Cde Swithun Mombeshora is now Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education. Those who have remained in their ministries are: the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, Professor Jonathan Moyo; the Minister of Defence, Cde Sydney Sekeramayi; the Minister of Education, Sport and Culture, Cde Aeneas Chi-gwedere; the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Cde Francis Nhema; the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Cde Stan Mudenge; the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Cde Patrick Chinamasa; the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, Cde Joseph Made; the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Cde Ignatius Chombo; the Minister of Mines and Mining Development (slightly changed), Cde Edward Chindori-Chininga; Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, Cde July Moyo; Minister of Rural Resources and Water Development, Cde Joyce Mujuru; Minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation, Cde Elliot Manyika and the Minister of State for National Security, Cde Nicholas Goche.
President Mugabe also appointed six new deputy ministers, while six others retained their posts, in a re-shuffle which saw the total number of deputy ministers increasing from nine to 12. The MP for Buhera North and former Manicaland Provincial Governor, Cde Kenneth Manyonda, was appointed to the new post of Deputy Minister of Industry and International Trade, while Hurungwe East MP, Cde Rueben Marumahoko becomes the Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development. Chief Fortune Charumbira replaces Cde Kembo Mohadi as the Deputy Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, while Zaka East legislator, Cde Tinos Rusere becomes the Deputy Minister of Rural Resources and Water Development. Gokwe South MP, Cde Jaison Machaya has been appointed Deputy Minister of Mines and Mining Development, while his counterpart from Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe, Cde Kenneth Mutiwekuziva, is now the Deputy Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises Development. Cde Shuvai Mahofa remains the Deputy Minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation, while Cde Chris Mushowe is still number two in the Ministry of Transport and Communications. Other deputy ministers who retained their positions are Cde Isaiah Shumba, Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture; Cde Rugare Gumbo, Ministry of Home Affairs; Cde Abdenico Ncube; Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cde Chris Kuruneri, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. The posts of Deputy Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Deputy Minister of Health and Child Welfare have been abolished.
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From The Observer (UK), 25 August
Straw attack on Mugabe's 'pariah' state
Kamal Ahmed and Mark Townsend in Johannesburg
Robert Mugabe's leadership of Zimbabwe has caused the starvation of millions of people and is based 'on a fraud', Foreign Secretary Jack Straw says today
in an unprecedented attack on the African leader. In a high-risk move that decisively ends Britain's 'softly, softly' approach to Mugabe's leadership, Straw said his regime was characterised by 'intimidation and murder'. In the strongest-ever attack on the President by a Cabinet Minister, Straw rejected Mugabe's criticism of Britain's colonial links, saying: 'It [Zimbabwe] is a self-made pariah, not a colonial victim.' Writing in The Observer, Straw says: 'The scale of the suffering inflicted on Zimbabwe's black population is especially shocking.' It is the closest Britain has come to demanding a regime change in Zimbabwe, echoing the words of senior US administration figures who last week demanded that Mugabe be deposed. Officials spoken to by the Observer made it clear that the British government considered Mugabe's tenure 'illegitimate' because it was based on a corrupt election. The Foreign Secretary went on the offensive after a week of criticism that he had remained silent about Mugabe for too long. The strength of Straw's attack, coming ahead of the Johannesburg Earth Summit this week, will cause concern among a number of African leaders who feel that behind-the-scenes approaches to Mugabe have a better chance of bringing lasting reform. Thabo Mbeki, the President of South Africa who is due to meet Tony Blair at the summit next week, believes outspoken criticism is counterproductive.
Straw said: 'Robert Mugabe is leading his country to ruin. The decline in Zimbabwe's fortunes has been swift and devastating. In the name of land reform policies he is reducing his people to starvation. A fraudulent election earlier this year was characterised by murder and intimidation. His continuing use of state-organised violence since then underlines his determination to hold on to power at all costs.' Straw, whose article was approved by Downing Street, said that Mugabe had overseen the destruction of a once proud country. 'While the plight [of the Zimbabwean people] is real, the indictment [against Mugabe] is wider: human rights abuses, violations of the rule of law and economic illiteracy have made Zimbabwe an outcast regionally and globally. The United Nations estimates that up to 6 million people in Zimbabwe will soon be unable to meet their minimum food requirements.' Straw said the Government was now considering strengthening sanctions against Mugabe and his allies, and would put in place plans to 'isolate' the country. In the one-to-one meeting with Mbeki, Blair will demand that South Africa does more to pressurise the 78-year-old Zimbabwean President. There is frustration in Government circles that the South African leader has not done enough. In the article, Straw said that he would not 'elevate Mugabe's recklessness' by allowing the issue of Zimbabwe to dominate the Earth Summit.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 25 August
Mugabe men 'use rape as revenge'
By Christina Lamb in Manicaland
Hundreds of girls as young as 12 are being raped or forcibly kept as concubines in rural Zimbabwe by President Robert Mugabe's youth militia as part of a campaign that human-rights lawyers have branded "systematic political cleansing" of the population. "They are raping on a massive scale," said Frances Lovemore, a counsellor at the Harare-based Amani Trust which monitors torture. "Girls as young as 12 or 13 are being systematically taken and used and abused because of their families' political views." The organisation is compiling video evidence that it hopes to use to help to bring Mr Mugabe to trial at the international court of human rights. An investigation by The Telegraph found that rape camps had been set up for youth militia and riot police in rural areas.
Victims living in hiding related how they had been gang-raped by police and self-styled war veterans, and had their genitals burnt with iron rods. They said that they had been abused in revenge for their parents not supporting Mr Mugabe, 78, in the presidential poll in March. Other opponents of the government were badly beaten. As a final indignity, in a land where half the population is on the verge of starvation, victims claimed that militia members often urinated on the family food. A former militia member recounted how he and others were instructed to attack wives and daughters of opposition sympathisers. Human rights activists believe that this is part of a programme to drive out, kill or terrify into submission all those who oppose the president. Didymus Mutasa, the of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF, has even spoken of halving the population to six million. Details of the violence have emerged as world attention focuses on Mr Mugabe's campaign to evict white farmers while famine threatens. Critics say the land reform programme is a cover for his war on opposition. "This isn't about race or land, it's about a political tyrant who wants to kill, break down and cripple all opposition," said Roy Bennett, a farmer who is an MP in Manicaland, eastern Zimbabwe, for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
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From The Observer (UK), 25 August
'I want the world to know we are living in Hell in Zimbabwe'
Andrew Meldrum talks to one of countless victims of police torture and beatings under Mugabe's reign of terror and state-sponsored violence
Ben Chipwanyira is frightened. He is recovering from a broken arm and vicious wounds on his back, legs and feet that he says come from repeated beatings and torture by Zimbabwe's police. He is afraid that police will arrest him again or inflict beatings on his wife and children, but is eager to tell his story. 'I want the world to know we are living in Hell in Zimbabwe. Anyone who supports the opposition has no safety or protection,' says the determined Chipwanyira. 'Maybe if people know what we are going through then the international community will put pressure on Mugabe to stop this.' His harrowing story highlights the persistence of reports of state-sponsored violence and torture in Zimbabwe.
Chipwanyira, 34, is from the Buhera district of southeastern Zimbabwe. 'I am a peasant farmer and the deputy constituency secretary for the MDC [the Movement for Democratic Change, Zimbabwe's opposition party]. 'On 14 July fo ur riot police and two members of the CIO [Central Intelligence Organisation] came to my house. They fired guns at me. I was very much afraid and I fell down. They beat me with their fists and baton sticks. My arm broke and I fainted. I only woke up at the police station. The police told me that I was selling Zimbabwe to the British and that I did not fight to liberate Zimbabwe. They told me to go to Britain. They asked me what we discussed at MDC meetings, especially when the party's president, Morgan Tsvangirai, was present. I did not want to disclose anything,' said Chipwanyira. 'For three days the police kept beating me. They held me down and beat my feet until they were swollen like big balls. They beat my back and my legs. They smashed my fingernails. This was at the police station. I know the names of some of the police constables who did this.'
Then the police told Chipwanyira that he and nine other MDC supporters would be charged with attempted murder for allegedly burning down the home of a government education officer. 'That man told police that two different people burned down his home, but they arrested more than 10 MDC supporters anyway. That shows us it was all politically motivated,' says Chipwanyira. 'The police denied medical treatment, even though my arm was broken and I was urinating blood and I had bad wounds all over my body.' In early August, the 10 men were formally charged and released on bail but barred from returning to Buhera. 'Zanu PF [Zimbabwe's ruling party] is doing this because they fear defeat in the Buhera council elections in September. They don't want any MDC officials to be able to campaign. But even though we are not in Buhera, we are not safe. We are in hiding.' Chipwanyira has been separated from his wife and four children, aged 14, nine, five and 18 months. 'I haven't seen my family for six weeks. I am so worried about them that I have trouble sleeping. Are they safe? There is no food so how can they sustain themselves? Other peoples' homes have been burned. Where is my family? This is Hell for me right now.' He is staying in a safe house with many other victims of Zimbabwe's political violence. 'People from the MDC are here and other people who were not even in politics. Look at the plight of the workers on commercial farms. Thousands are being evicted and they have no jobs, no homes, no blankets. They are now desperate because of one man,' he said. 'The government must stop this brutality on its citizens.'
Chipwanyira's story is not unique. Several others staying at the safe house crowded round to recount similarly grim experiences. Zimbabwe's police say they do not assault or torture those under arrest. 'We will investigate all reports of assaults,' said police spokesman Andrew Phiri. 'Reports of assaults should be filed at any police station; it does not have to be at the station where the assault allegedly occurred.' However, Zimbabwean human rights groups charge that there has been an alarming rise in reports of torture by police. 'We are seeing a definite increase in the number of reports of violence at the hands of police,' says Tony Reeler, director of Amani Trust. 'In addition, many people report being held much longer than the legal period of detention. It looks like a sustained campaign by police to harass MDC supporters, particularly in the Buhera area where there are upcoming local council elections. We have reports from more than 100 people arrested in Buhera and a high proportion show signs of torture at the hands of police.'
Reeler charges that many people have been badly beaten on the soles of their feet. 'This torture technique is called "falanga" and in the past two years it has spread across Zimbabwe. It is compelling evidence that torture methods are being taught across the country.' Amani Trust provides assistance to victims of political violence and is one of a coalition of groups that are documenting ongoing violence in Zimbabwe. 'The use of torture has reached epidemic proportions in Zimbabwe,' says Reeler. 'Our data suggests between 400,000 and 600,000 people have experienced some form of torture in the past two years. This is a terrible wound on the national psyche that will take years to heal. First, the torture must stop. Clearly this cannot happen without the political will of the government and the insistence on a wholly non-partisan role by the police. Then it will take a concerted effort of treatment and counseling and some national inquiry, such as a truth commission, to help Zimbabwe break out of this cycle of violence.' Reeler said Zimbabwe must see a restoration of an even-handed rule of law and an end to the situation in which government supporters and officials can inflict violence upon critics with impunity. 'As South Africa's Justice Richard Goldstone has stated, "Peace does not create justice. Justice creates peace".'
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 25 August
Makoni kicked out
By our own Staff
President Mugabe last night booted finance minister Simba Makoni from his government in a cabinet reshuffle that offered no prospects of pulling Zimbabwe out of its economic quagmire. In a long-awaited cabinet reshuffle that remained a secret to The Standard up to late last night, Mugabe off loaded Makoni from his cabinet, two months after labelling him a saboteur. Mugabe, who is pushing ahead with his controversial land grab exercise, recalled Herbert Murerwa to the finance ministry he left some years ago. Makoni, a reformist who had tried to steer the country away from Zanu PF's suicidal economic policies that have turned the country into a basket case, incurred the wrath of Mugabe when he called for the devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar a few months ago. Officially opening the fifth parliament last month, Mugabe said anyone calling for the devaluation of the worthless dollar was a saboteur and an enemy of his government.
The embattled leader who is facing increasing opposition from many countries, however, retained faith in the three musketeers: information minister Jonathan Moyo, agriculture minister Joseph Made and justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, hand-picked for his cabinet after the June 2000 parliamentary elections. The three have been staunch Zanu PF apologists. Made, blamed for the food crisis, will be aided by Flora Bhuka who has been appointed minister of state for the land reform programme, a new portfolio that places emphasis on Mugabe's agrarian reform programme. Elliot Manyika, whose youth brigades have caused mayhem across the country also retained his post as minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation and will be deputised by Shuvai Mahofa. However, against all predictions, Mugabe demoted Zanu PF national chairman and home affairs minister, John Nkomo who with Mnangagwa had been tipped as his possible successor.
Nkomo, a key figure in Mugabe's party, was relegated to junior minister in a new obscure ministry entitled Special Affairs in the president's office. He had been regarded by analysts as one of the few level-headed politicians among the praise singers and sycophants that surrounded the ageing leader. Nkomo, observers said, had become a victim of the power game within the ruling party. Seen as a reasonable successor to Mugabe, Nkomo ruffled the feathers of other presidential hopefuls including vice-president Msika and parliamentary speaker, Emmerson Mnangagwa when he successfully worked out a south-south cooperation agreement with former Zanu PF supremo Eddison Zvobgo. This alliance made it easy for him to win the support of the majority in the ruling party. Observers noted that Nkomo's growing popularity within the party had alarmed Msika and Mnangagwa who might have worked to sideline him. Nkomo's position has been taken by Kembo Mohadi, former local government deputy minister.
Muzenda, on the other hand also consolidated his power base with the inclusion of a number of his allies who include Chief Fortune Charumbira, a vocal member of the Hungwe faction who is now the deputy minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing. The ailing minister of Health and Child Welfare, Timothy Stamps has also been dropped and replaced by his former deputy, David Parirenyatwa who has been effectively running the ministry of late. Those who remain in their ministries are: Sydney Sekeremayi, Aeneas Chigwedere, Francis Nhema, Stan Mudenge, Ignatius Chombo, July Moyo, Joyce Mujuru, and Nicholas Goche. Sam Mumbengegwi is now the minister of Industry and International Trade while Edward Chindori Chininga is now the minister of Mines and Mining Development. Amos Midzi, who lost the Harare mayoral election is now the minister of Energy and Power Development.
Mugabe also appointed six new deputy ministers who include Kenneth Manyonda, the MP for Buhera North who was appointed to a new post of deputy minister of Industry and International Trade. Reuben Marumahoko, the MP for Hurungwe East was appointed deputy minister of Energy and Power Development. The MP for Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe, Kenneth Mutiwekuziva, is now the deputy minister of the superfluous ministry of Small and Medium Enterprises Development headed by Paul Mangwana. Mutiwekuziva's constituency supposedly garnered the highest votes in the presidential elections for Mugabe. The booting out of Makoni and the demotion of Nkomo, two men seen as somewhat level-headed and reformist in the old cabinet and their replacement with tired horses reinforces Mugabe's hard line stance. The long-awaited reshuffle has been described by commentators as a non-event which came as a big yawn to Zimbabweans who had hoped for a progressive and forward-looking cabinet.
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From The Norway Post, 26 August
Norwegian MP refused entry to Zimbabwe
Three Norwegian women members of parliament were on Sunday refused entry to Zimbabwe. The three MPs were threatened with jail if they did not leave the country on the first plane. The three had been invited by the Red Cross to inspect several aid projects operated in Zimbabwe by the organization, and the visit was cleared by the authorities in Zimbabwe, says Ingvild Vaggen Malvik. However, they got no further than to the passport control at the Harare Airport. "When I showed my passport, which stated that I was a member of parliament, all three were refused entry to Zimbabwe," says Vaggen Malvik to NRK on the phone from Johannesburg. She says the experience was very unpleasant for the three, who were accompanied by two representatives from the Red Cross.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 25 August
Dora, 12, gang-raped by Mugabe's men for four hours
In the rape camps of Zimbabwe, young girls are horrifically abused - often to punish Mugabe's political opponents. Foreign Correspondent of the Year Christina Lamb meets the victims and reveals their anguish
'The game we are about to play needs music," the Zimbabwean police constable said to the 12-year old girl. But as he tossed a mattress on to the ground it was clear that it was no game that he was planning. For the next four hours the girl's mother and younger sisters, aged nine and seven, were forced to chant praises to Robert Mugabe and watch Dora being gang-raped by five "war veterans" and the policeman. "Every time they stopped singing the policeman and war vets beat them with shamboks and sticks," said Dora, crying and clenching her hands repeatedly as she recalled the ordeal which took place behind her family hut in a village in the dark shadow of the Vumba mountains of Manicaland, in eastern Zimbabwe. "They kept thrusting themselves into me over and over again saying: 'This is the punishment for those of you who want to sell this country to Tony Blair and the whites'. When they had finished it hurt so much I couldn't walk."
Now in hiding, spending most of her nights in frightened wakefulness, she remembers feeling the rough breath on her face, the hands forcing apart her thighs, and "that animal thing" as she calls it slamming into her underfed body. Dora was raped because her father is a supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. He is not a candidate, not a party official, just a simple carpenter who had mistakenly believed that he lived in a country where he could vote for whom he liked. Dora's story, as she tells it, started with a Land Rover full of war veterans drawing up at the door around 10pm one evening in June, while her father was away, and ended with her left bruised and bleeding at 2.30am. "There had been a bad luck owl in the msasa tree that day," she said, recalling hearing it in between passing out. But the real beginning of the horror can be traced back to March when her village voted against Mugabe in the presidential elections. For rape has become the latest weapon in Mugabe's war on his own population. Dora's echoing screams on the African night was a warning to all the other villagers as to what might happen to those who even think of defying the president again.
Dora is one of hundreds of young girls who are being raped in the fields and mountains of rural Zimbabwe every month as part of what human rights workers are calling a "systematic political cleansing of the population". Many of the girls are taken to camps run by Mugabe's youth militia, the Green Bombers, a sinister parallel to the rape camps of Bosnian Muslim women established by Serb forces in the early 1990s. And with half the country facing starvation, more and more youths are being lured to join the militia by the prospect of food. In Zimbabwe, though, there is an extra, fatal dimension to the ordeals that the women endure: with 38 per cent of the population HIV positive, the rape is often the start of a death sentence. "We're seeing an enormous prevalence of rape and enough cases to say it's being used by the state as a political tool with women and girls being raped because they are wives, girlfriends or daughters of political activists," said Tony Reeler, the clinical director of the Amani Trust, a Harare-based organisation that monitors and treats torture victims. "There are also horrific cases of girls as young as 12 or 13 being taken off to militia camps, used and abused and kept in forced concubinage. But I suspect, as with Bosnia, the real extent of what is happening is going to take a hell of a long time to come out."
Rape goes unreported in many countries but more so in Africa, particularly in rural areas where a raped daughter is seen as bringing shame on the family and afterwards becomes hard to marry. The pressure to remain silent is even stronger in a repressive police state where the police are often the perpetrators. Dora's family did go to the police station only to be laughed at with the words: "We're not fools to arrest one of our colleagues." Nor do many rape victims receive medical treatment. In Dora's case the local clinic had no drugs and the family did not have the money to take her to hospital, so she is being treated with traditional herbs. Her own dreams of becoming a nurse are in tatters as she is terrified that she may have been infected with the Aids virus. In a month-long investigation, one of the most disturbing I have ever conducted in 15 years of foreign reporting, I and The Sunday Telegraph's photographer Justin Sutcliffe visited villages in the Zambezi valley, Matabeleland and Manicaland, interviewing rape victims and their families in secret locations. We talked to a teacher beaten so badly that she had lost her baby, and a former militia member who had participated in the raping and pillaging intended to pacify the countryside. We found a population living in terror, some towns completely "cleansed" of all opposition. We spent a night in terror ourselves when our car broke down in a village in the Zambezi valley, 40 miles from the nearest telephone, leaving us to listen to chants of "Pasi ne murungu" ("Down with the white man") and other slogans of Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party coming from a group of men around a fire.
Fear and hunger are what passes for life in much of Mugabe's Zimbabwe. In the capital Harare there is a facade of normality - workmen repaint the blue trolley shelter in the gleaming new airport terminal, the traffic lights work, and pavement cafes serve the best cappuccino in Africa. The roads are full of gleaming new BMWs, known as "Girlfriends of Ministers' cars", bought by government officials profiting from black market money speculation. The only signs of anything amiss are the long snaking queues for bread, sugar and fuel, the absence of maize (previously the country's staple food) from all shops, and the number of people simply hanging around. Unemployment has now reached 70 per cent of the working population. In the rural areas that Zimbabwe's Marxist president regards as his stronghold it is a different story. Furious that so many of "his" people voted against him in elections - which he knows very well he did not really win - and incensed by calls such as that last week from the Bush administration demanding a rerun, he has unleashed his forces to wreak revenge in the most horrible manner. At his inauguration in April, the 78-year-old who has ruled the country since independence in 1980, warned the opposition: "We'll make them run if they haven't run before." Imagining his declaration of victory would bring an end to the violence which had dogged the campaign, no one then realised the lengths to which he was prepared to go. Officials now speak of "taking the system back to zero" and of reducing the country's 12 million population in a chilling echo of what the Khmer Rouge did in Cambodia in the 1970s and seem to even be employing similar tactics of emptying cities and targeting teachers.
Last week Didymus Mutasa, the organisation secretary of Zanu PF, said: "We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle." With rural council elections due next month which the president has no intention of losing, the violence has re-started. What has changed is the focus on women and the blatant use of police along with youth militia who are supposed to be doing national service and call themselves "taliban". The situation is particularly bad in Manicaland, or Eastern Highlands as the settlers called it, apparently reminded of Scotland by its misty mountains. In the town of Buhera, anyone who is against Mugabe has been forced to flee. Many have been served with court orders not allowing them back into the area until October 2, three days after the elections. In Chiminga, the court officials have fled because they had been beaten by Zanu PF militia for granting bail to MDC members. "Mugabe has no intention of being challenged again," said Roy Bennett, the opposition MP for Chimanimani in Manicaland. "He looks at anyone who doesn't support Zanu PF as an enemy of the state who must be crushed using any means, and he has completely politicised the police."
The outside world has played into Mugabe's hands by focusing on the plight of the 4,300 white farmers and the bizarre attempts to destroy commercial agriculture at a time when half his population is threatened with starvation. Hundreds of white farmers have been arrested over the past 10 days for defying a government order to move off their land. The other evil that he is perpetrating in the countryside is not easy to investigate. Mugabe has stationed two officers from his feared Central Intelligence Organisation in every village; merely talking to a murungu, or white man, can lead to interrogation or beatings. Driving aro |
