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Archived News
29th October 2002
Press Statement By Honourable Renson Gasela
Zimbabwe MP dead in prison
MDC official dies in custody
DR Congo plunder denied
'Retired' diamond dealer Shefer denies diamond plunder
Zimbabwe's opposition claims harassment ahead of election
Charity to become a crime
EU talks moved so Zimbabwe can attend
UK to probe UN report on plunder of Congo
Teachers vow to continue strike
Harare acts against Judith Todd
Poor prospects for tobacco production
Pathologists’ reports awaited
Daily News' printing press commissioned
Zimbabwe newspaper editor charged
Zanu PF militants threaten Binga council chief with death
'Farmer's killers drank blood, alcohol mixture’
Mining firms aid Congo plunder - UN expert
Mugabe's man and Red Cross money
Police, MDC youths clash at Jongwe's home
MDC candidate for Insiza flees after shoot out
War vets threaten Catholics
Dozens pay tribute to Todd
Voting starts in Zim by-election
War of words over MP's death in Harare prison
UK sports agent accused of selling military gear to African despot
Zimbabwe accused of looting DRC
Oryx: The carat and the UN's stick
Catholic-sourced maize lies idle
Bribery, intimidation claims in key Zim poll
Minister Nyoni under fire for feeding MDC
Footsie firms caught up in Congo looting probe
Oryx 'link to Mugabe army'
Zimbabwe's agony as Mugabe avoids crunch
By-election marred by allegations of foul play
CIO monitors Insiza election
Zimbabwe's ruling party wins crucial election
Memorial service held for late MDC comrade
Police gas protesting mourners
Jongwe's mother speaks out
Zanu PF card a must for maize-meal seekers
Zimbabwe says white farmers can't take equipment
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From BBC News, 22 October
Zimbabwe MP dead in prison
The former spokesman of Zimbabwe's main opposition party has been found dead in prison. Learnmore Jongwe, 28, was arrested in July and charged with murdering his wife. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has written to the attorney general, demanding that an independent pathologist carry out a post-mortem examination. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said that Mr Jongwe had been in good spirits when seen at 2000 local time (1800GMT) on Monday evening. "He was in government custody and, without any explanation of the circumstances, they are accountable," he said. But police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told the French news agency, AFP, that Mr Jongwe had been treated for a suspected chest infection and had complained of a severe cough and diarrhoea. "He was reportedly restless during the night and cellmates observed him going to the toilet where he vomited on more than one occasion," he said. The police said a post mortem to determine the cause of death was likely to be held on Wednesday, AFP reports.
Mr Jongwe admitted stabbing his wife Rutendo during a domestic row but denied intending to kill her. He reportedly tried to commit suicide after his wife's death but was eventually persuaded to give himself up to the police. His body was reportedly found in his cell at Harare's Chikurubi prison. "The commissioner of prisons... confirmed the incident and said a full investigation was under way to establish the cause of the death," Zimbabwean state radio said. It has been reported that he suspected his wife of infidelity and during a row, stabbed her three times with a kitchen knife. Rutendo Jongwe, 23, was a final-year law student at the University of Zimbabwe. The couple have a 10-month-old child. Mr Jongwe also studied law and became the leader of the students' union, before practising law at a Harare legal firm. He was involved in several violent student confrontations with the police. He was elected to parliament in June 2000, for the Harare suburb of Kuwadzana, along with several other former student leaders who had helped form the MDC. If convicted of murder, he could have faced the death sentence.
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From IRIN (UN), 22 October
MDC official dies in custody
Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's opposition party on Tuesday called for an independent investigation into the death in custody of Learnmore Jongwe, former spokesman and MP for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Jongwe, who was arrested three months ago for allegedly murdering his wife, was found dead on Tuesday morning in the prison where he was awaiting trial, state radio reported. "We are extremely distressed by the death of Mr Jongwe. We have yet to ascertain the cause of his death. However, at this early juncture we have to bear in mind that Mr Jongwe was an opposition party MP. It is imperative that an independent investigation is carried out in the interest of transparency," MDC legal affairs secretary David Coltart told IRIN Coltart added that the MDC has written to the attorney-general demanding that an independent pathologist carry out a post-mortem examination. "If Mr Jongwe's death was due to natural causes or if he took his own life then the Mugabe [President Robert Mugabe] regime has nothing to fear from an independent investigation," Coltart said.
State radio quoted Commissioner of Prisons Paradzayi Zimonde as saying that a full investigation into Jongwe's death had already been launched. But Department of Information senior press secretary Steyn Berejena refused to comment on the investigation. He said the department had not received "any reports from the police". News of Jongwe's death came as a shock to teachers' union leader, Raymond Majongwe, who last saw the ex-MDC official on Monday afternoon. "I am completely devastated. For three days we shared the same cell. Just yesterday we ate from the same plate. He was in a jovial mood. He did not complain of any pains or any illness. It is just shocking and a tragedy," Majongwe told IRIN. On Monday a court dismissed fresh charges against Majongwe, the secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), for his role in a nationwide teachers' strike. Last Friday, the attorney-general's office declined to press new charges against Majongwe but the police changed the accusations against him and kept him in jail over the weekend.
"On Monday at around 1 pm I left the Chikurubi prison. Learnmore asked if I could bring him a packet of cigarettes and some Mazoe [concentrated orange drink]. To learn that in a matter of hours something could of happened to him is really worrying," Majongwe added. Majongwe was freed on bail 10 days ago after reportedly being tortured while in police custody. "I am a most recent victim of torture at the hands of this government. I was subjected to electric shocks in prison and the worst form of treatment. The UN should really take a look at this," Majongwe told IRIN. The police accused Majongwe and other union leaders of visiting schools and intimidating teachers into following the strike call. Earlier this month MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai called on the United Nations to investigate alleged human rights abuses in the country. "The Mugabe regime, through the police force, has continued to defy provisions of the Constitution of Zimbabwe, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and several protocols to which Zimbabwe is a signatory, which clearly prohibit torture and other degrading treatment," the MDC said in a statement. Jongwe, a lawyer, handed himself over to police on 21 August, two days after fleeing his Harare home where the body of his wife, Rutendo, was found with multiple stab wounds. He admitted stabbing his wife during a domestic row but denied intending to kill her. He was due to go on trial in the Harare High Court on 25 November.
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From BBC News, 22 October
DR Congo plunder denied
Officials from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe have denied allegations made by a United Nations report that they looted DR Congo's natural resources during the four-year war. On Monday, a UN panel called on the Security Council to impose financial sanctions against companies and individuals who had plundered DR Congo's wealth. In the report, the five-member panel provided details of how the Rwandan Government and army, the Ugandan army, and Congolese and Zimbabwean Government officials plan to continue to exploit the DR Congo's resources. The central African nation is rich in gold, diamonds, cobalt, copper and coltan, which is used in mobile phones. The scramble for those resources has helped fuel a four-year war in which two million people have died.
Zimbabwe's defence forces commander General Vitalis Zvinavashe, named by the report, told the state-owned Herald newspaper that the allegations were part of a western plot to tarnish the image of Zimbabwe. The Herald also reports that Zimbabwe's UN ambassador Tichaona Jokonya had written a letter of protest about the allegations to the UN Security Council a few days before the report was published. Another Zimbabwean accused of profiting from the war, Emmerson Mnangagwa, said he would study the report before commenting, The Herald said. Congolese Government spokesman Kikaya Bin Karubi told the BBC's Network for Africa programme that he was happy to see that the UN said that Rwanda had not withdrawn from Congolese territory, as it had claimed. But he denied the looting allegations made against several Congolese ministers. "The Congolese Government is the legitimate government of this country... whatever we do is legitimate," he said. "We had to use our resources to finance the war effort," he said.
Uganda's military intelligence chief Nobel Mayombo, named in the UN report has also denied any wrongdoing, according to the French News agency, AFP. "I don't hold any shares in any company doing business in Congo. They should tell me which cartel I belong to because I know they cannot prove their allegations. I challenge them to make public the source of their information," Mr Mayombo said. Newly appointed Rwandan army chief of staff Charles Kayonga described the report as "hopeless", according to Reuters news agency. "Our forces went into Congo for security reasons only and we did just that," he said. Most of the 29 companies named are African but the list includes four Belgian diamond firms and the Belgian Groupe George Forrest mining group, which has a joint venture with the US-based OM Group. The panel recommended 54 individuals face travel bans, a freeze on their personal assets and the same financial restrictions as the businesses. Prominent among the individuals named is the Ukranian born arms trader, Victor Bout, who was once described by UK minister Peter Hain as a "merchant of death".
The plunder continues, despite the withdrawal of foreign troops, by "elite networks" running a self-financing war economy on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the report said. While Rwanda, with the largest force, has withdrawn troops, it has left soldiers behind to operate the "Congo Desk of the Rwandan Patriotic Army," which in 1999 contributed $320m or 80% of the Rwandan military budget, the panel said. Congolese and Zimbabwean Government and military officials have transferred the ownership of at least $5bn in assets from the state mining sector to private companies "with no compensation or benefit for the state treasury", it said. Zimbabwean officials claim their contracts are legal payment for troops, which support the Kinshasa government. The panel suggested that these individuals and companies be given a four to five month "grace period" before any restrictions begin.
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From Business Day, 23 October
'Retired' diamond dealer Shefer denies diamond plunder
Zimbabwe finds itself under the spotlight as the United Nations deepens its probe into the scramble for minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo
East London - Israeli businessman Niko Shefer, whose SA Tandan Holdings diamond company was in a United Nations (UN) report which accuses criminal cartels of plundering resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo, says he has retired from business. Several Zimbabweans also in the report have denied its claims. Fifty-four individuals are mentioned in the report, which was chaired by Egypt's ambassador Mahmoud Kassem. Congo, Rwandan, and Ugandan authorities were also fingered. The report recommended the business assets of those involved be frozen, and that travel bans be imposed on them. Shefer said yesterday that he had stopped all his business activities. "I have closed down Tandan last year. I have sold my premises and I have no more staff. I am retired except for some consultancy work that I do from time to time."
Last week the Israeli businessman, who was jailed in SA in 1988 for defrauding Trust Bank of R47m, was also accused by Liberian President Charles Taylor of financially backing the shadowy Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy group as a route to lucrative diamond mines in the country. Shefer, a former commodities broker, who at one stage after his release on parole described himself as honorary consul general of Liberia, was sentenced to 14 years in jail after the then Witwatersrand attorney-general Klaus von Lieres successfully applied for his extradition from Switzerland. Shefer denied involvement with the rebels. He said he had stepped down as honorary consul general in 1996. Shefer said he had not been out of southern Africa since 2000 and had last been to west Africa in 1997. He said Tandan was not a diamond dealing company but a diamond exploration company. Asked about the panel's claim that Tandan had a 50% stake in Thorntree Industries, a joint venture diamond-trading company with the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Shefer said he never had any equity in Thorntree.
A number of high profile southern African mining companies were identified by the panel to be in violation of the UN's Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines for multinationals. The report from UN Secretary- General Kofi Annan to the president of the security council deals with the illegal exploitation of natural resources and other forms of wealth in Congo. Anglovaal and Iscor are mentioned in the UN report. Other SA companies listed are: African Trading; AH Pong & Sons; Banro Mining; Carson Products; Mercantile; 63 Orion Mining; Saracen Security company; Swanepoel Construction; Track Star Trading and Zincor Mining. Zimbabwean political and military elite implicated in the plunder also denied the accusations yesterday. Zimbabwean Defence Force commander General Vitalis Zvinavashe said that the claims were "meaningless". "No one in the world, especially the west, was happy with the assistance we rendered to the Congo government so they just want to tarnish our names," said Zvinavashe. Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa , regarded as President Robert Mugabe's heir-apparent, said he would comment on allegations against him after reading the report.
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From VOA News, 21 October
Zimbabwe's opposition claims harassment ahead of election
Opposition leaders in Zimbabwe say their supporters are being harassed by backers of the ruling party ahead of a local election in Matabeleland province in the southwestern part of the country. Opposition spokesman Paul Nyathi said 11 members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) were arrested on Sunday in the Insiza district of Matabeleland and are now in police custody. He said another 14 opposition supporters were arrested and later released on bail last week. Under the conditions of their bail, nine of them who are registered in the Insiza district are not allowed to return to vote at the weekend. Mr. Nyathi said the opposition was going to court to try and get their bail conditions changed. The opposition spokesman also said that Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, was stopped by police at roadblocks eight times in the area of Insiza on Sunday. The spokesman said Mr. Tsvangirai was there to address his supporters.
The by-election is for a seat won by the opposition in the last general election in June 2000. The MDC member of parliament subsequently died, and the ruling Zanu PF party says it is determined to win back the seat. Two cabinet ministers are leading the campaign in Insiza for the ruling party. They told people on Sunday that the opposition was sponsored by Britain and wished to control Zimbabwe's resources. Insiza is located in one of the areas that has been most affected by the shortage of food in Zimbabwe. On Friday, the United Nations closed its feeding program in this area, citing theft of food and intimidation of its staff by ruling party supporters. Now the only source of food in the Insiza district is from the State Controlled Grain Marketing Board, which opposition supporters say refuses to sell them food. Many of the 40,000 registered voters in this huge electoral district were once employed in recently closed mines and commercial farms.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 23 October
Charity to become a crime
By Michael Hartnack
In new legislation being put before Parliament, Robert Mugabe's regime plans to make it a crime, punishable by up to six months' imprisonment, for anyone to undertake any act of organised charity - even on an entirely informal basis. The hurried revision of Zimbabwe's Voluntary Organisations Act follows denunciations by Mugabe of non-governmental organisations as "hatcheries of political opposition"; the seizure of U.N. food supplies by militants of the ruling Zanu PF party; and a ban on two major international charities, Oxfam and Save the Children (UK) from distributing relief in the Binga area bordering Lake Kariba, where 29 people are already reported to have died from malnutrition- related illnesses. Earlier, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bulawayo and the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace were barred by Mugabe's self-styled "war veterans" from distributing relief, because they refused to do so under the aegis of Zanu PF party. The legislation aimed at aid agencies, NGOs and, indeed, the whole of civil society is being accompanied by the drafting of a "Code of Ethics" by the state-sponsored National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations which, according to official sources, will prevent relief organisations "interfering in our internal politics." The proposed legislation and the ethics code is so wide-ranging that a group of drinking pals at a sports club who have an occasional whip round to buy groceries for a destitute old friend, or for an AIDS orphans, will be criminals.
The United Nations' World Food Programme last week withdrew "until further notice" from distributing relief in the Insiza constituency, near Bulawayo, after staff of a voluntary organisation were intimidated into surrendering three tonnes of WFP aid to Zanu PF party officials. A parliamentary by-election is due there October 26-27. The stolen food was distributed by Zanu PF to persons "who may not be intended beneficiaries", said a WFP spokesman. In other words, the food was handed out as part of the Zanu PF campaign. Welshman Ncube, secretary general of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, gives his party slim chances of retaining the constituency, left vacant by the mysterious death of one of its members of Parliament. Every time the MDC tries to hold a rally in Insiza, officials organise either for a charity or for government agencies to start distributing relief to starving rural people nearby. Voters naturally "serve their stomachs", said Ncube, and rush off to queue, where they are vetted for party cards and required to chant slogans. Ncube said hungry and frightened voters tell the MDC a by-election loss for Mugabe will not weaken his grip on power but will simply bring more misery on Insiza. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo blamed the events in Insiza on British High Commissioner Brian Donnelly who, he claimed, had been exerting sinister influence on the WFP and charities to deny food to Zanu PF members.
The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation says, country-wide, 6.7 million people are in danger of starvation. When, as feared, food shortages become critical in December - March, "major death" must be expected, predicts Tony Hall, U.S. ambassador to the Food and Agricultural Organisation. Yet Mugabe's regime has maintained the strict state monopoly on importing or dealing in grain. Violent reprisals continue against opposition supporters involved in contesting recent local government elections, and Amani Trust, a major human rights organisation here, is now accused by the regime of "sponsoring violence" at the instigation of Britain. Some 200 suspected opponents of Mugabe have died violently in the past two years, the killers having complete immunity from prosecution.
As ever, Mugabe set the tone for the latest crackdown. Accusing NGOs of hatching political opposition, he added ominously in an address to the Zanu PF central committee on October 11, "Political opponents will be dealt with politically. Moneys continue to pour in variously: through individuals, through Trojan horses, among them NGOs, trade unions, select private media, embassies, private companies and selected banks, through trusts, through the so-called international development agencies, through foundations and even through drought relief structures - all to be used against us," said Mugabe. He added that these organisations "no longer regard themselves as our guests. Well, we will soon remind them who they are, where they belong, and what their accredited mission is." In a legal opinion for a consortium of welfare groups, Professor Brian Kagoro has denounced the proposed legislation and "Code of Ethics" as a gross infringement of constitutional rights of free association. "It is tantamount to saying that - faced with the incapacity of the state and registered private voluntary organisations to respond to the current food crisis due to its magnitude - all other bona fide efforts to assist are criminal," he said.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 24 October
EU talks moved so Zimbabwe can attend
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Brussels
European Union foreign ministers came under harsh criticism yesterday for moving a meeting 5,500 miles so that a Zimbabwe minister can take part without breaching the "smart sanctions" travel ban. Euro-MPs are outraged that the venue was changed from Denmark to Mozambique to accommodate Stanley Mudenge, the Zimbabwean foreign minister. He is not allowed to enter EU territory under the sanctions, which target leading figures in President Robert Mugabe's regime. EU foreign ministers were supposed to hold a meeting with the Southern African Development Community in Copenhagen on Nov 7 and 8. But several delegations from the 14-nation African bloc hinted that they would boycott the gathering unless the Zimbabwean government was included. Rather than cancelling the summit - or simply going ahead regardless - the European Union agreed to move the entire meeting to Mozambique's capital, Maputo, making a mockery of the travel ban. The decision to switch the location is a slap in the face of the European Parliament, which passed a unanimous resolution last month demanding that Mr Mudenge be banned from the meeting. Geoffrey Van Orden, a Tory MEP and author of the resolution, called the move "an absolute affront", saying it was yet another example of the EU's "utter hopelessness" in sticking to a clear line in foreign policy. "We've agreed to move a whole meeting to Africa to avoid an internal row within the EU over enforcement of our own sanctions policy. That's what it amounts to," he said. There have been repeated sightings of Zimbabwe ministers and officials in Europe even though they are on the visa blacklist. Last month, it emerged that the trade minister, Samuel Mumbengegwi, was allowed to stay for a week at a smart hotel in the Brussels shopping district.
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From Business Day (SA), 24 October
UK to probe UN report on plunder of Congo
State will also examine claim that London-listed Anglo and De Beers violated code of conduct for multinational companies
International Affairs Editor
The UK government is to look into the United Nations (UN) Security Council report on resource pillaging in the Democratic Republic of Congo, including the claim that London-listed mining companies Anglo American and De Beers have violated a code of conduct for multinational companies. Anglo American and De Beers, as well as Anglovaal Mining, have said that they are mystified by the claim, particularly as they do not operate in the Congo. No evidence is given in the report for listing in an appendix 85 companies considered to have violated Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines for multinational companies. The nonlegally binding OECD guidelines cover a wide range of issues in business ethics, including employment and labour relations, environment, information disclosure, competition, financing, taxation and science and technology practices.
The UK trade and industry department says a process of "Whitehall Consultation" among government departments will look into all the allegations made in the report. If it comes out that UK-registered companies did violate the OECD code, they could be named and shamed. This could result in increasing pressure from nongovernmental organisations and damage to the credibility of their commitment to sustainable development practices. There is also no evidence presented for the same claim against SA-based mining companies Banro Corporation, Orion and Zincor, traders AH Pong & Sons, Carson Products, and Mercantile CC. While the report does not give a basis for its claim of violations of the guidelines, it does give extensive evidence for the pillaging activities of military-criminal syndicates linked to the Congolese, Rwandan, Ugandan and Zimbabwean armies. Rwandan, Ugandan and Zimbabwean officials have denied the claims in the report. The SA foreign affairs department said it was studying the report, but would not respond with a course of action until after today's Security Council talks on the matter. At the panel's press conference in New York today, questions are likely to be asked about the evidence for its claiming that the 85 companies have violated the OECD guidelines. The publication of the list of companies said to have violated OECD guidelines could be an attempt by the panel to put pressure on governments to pursue their own investigations. It could also induce NGOs to conduct their own investigations.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe left Harare for Kinshasa yesterday to attend a summit to formalise the pullout of Zimbabwean troops from the Congo, state media reported. Mugabe will be joined today by presidents Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Jose Eduardo dos Santos of Angola for the summit with President Joseph Kabila of the Congo, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported. The three countries intervened militarily in 1998 to shore up the government of late president Laurent Kabila in a war against the Congo and Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebels. The UN secretary-general's special envoy to the Congo had announced that this resumption of "interCongolese dialogue", hosted and mediated by SA, would take place on Friday through to Sunday. Zimbabwe still has about 1500 troops in the Congo, and an unspecified number of Angolan soldiers remain in the country, where they deployed in 1998 to back Kinshasa against rebels supported by Rwanda and Uganda. Namibia pulled out all its soldiers from the Congo last year, in line with a peace accord for the vast central African state. The accord was initially signed by the belligerents in 1999, but has taken a long time to get off the ground.
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From News24 (SA)/IRIN, 23 October
Teachers vow to continue strike
Johannesburg - The leader of the nationwide teachers' strike in Zimbabwe has vowed to continue pressing for better pay, despite alleged government harassment. Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe told IRIN: "The government's continued harassment has only strengthened our resolve to continue with the strike. The organisation's solidarity with my fate and the conditions I am facing is unquestionable." Majongwe was released on Monday after a court dismissed fresh charges against him. He was detained after being accused of trying to force teachers at two schools in the capital, Harare, to join the dispute. Under the controversial new public order and security act it is an offence for "any person who, acting in concert with one or more other persons, forcibly invades the rights of other people". The union leader had been arrested twice last week for his role in the teachers' strike.
Majongwe confirmed reports that up to 2 000 students had taken to the streets of Harare on Monday to protest against the dismissal of their teachers. "So far, our reports tell us that a teacher, who has been accused of organising the protest in the Tafara and Mabvuku suburbs, has been arrested," he said. Last week, the government ordered the dismissal of hundreds of teachers for taking part in a wage strike. But Majongwe said most of those dismissed had not yet received official notice and had continued working. "It is not up to the education ministry to fire teachers. Teachers are hired by the public service commission. So far, the commission has not contacted any of the teachers," he said. "It is the teachers' constitutional right to engage in a peaceful strike, and the regime should be, instead, making concerted efforts to address the grievances of the teachers who are the most expensive resource in the education system," said David Coltart, legal affairs secretary of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The teachers have been on strike since October 8 and are demanding a 100% salary increase backdated to January this year and another 100% cost of living adjustment backdated to June.
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From Business Day, 22 October
Harare acts against Judith Todd
Harare - Government lawyers seeking to strip veteran human rights campaigner Judith Todd of her Zimbabwean citizenship asked the supreme court for a postponement yesterday. Todd, the daughter of former prime minister Sir Garfield Todd, filed suit after Zimbabwe's registrar-general, Tobaiwa Mudede, said she had automatically forfeited her citizenship because she did not renounce any claim to New Zealand citizenship that she may have inherited from her father. She has rebuffed moves by President Robert Mugabe to have her father, who died last week aged 94, declared a national hero and given a state funeral. Her father campaigned for black advancement in Zimbabwe when it was the British colony of Southern Rhodesia. Although the government wants to declare him a national hero, the registrar stripped him of his citizenship and right to vote before the elections in March because he was not born in Zimbabwe. Todd said on Friday that declaring her father a hero would be inappropriate and an embarrassment because he abhorred the ruling Zanu PF's "suppression of democracy, erosion of civil liberties, assassination of opposition officials and supporters, arrests and torture, and the climate of fear spread throughout the country". Hero status confers large cash benefits on heirs, including pensions and exemption from estate taxes.
Godfrey Chidyausiku, a former Mugabe minister appointed chief justice of the supreme court, had angry exchanges with Todd's lawyer, Adrian de Bourbon, in court yesterday. Chidyausiku criticised De Bourbon for not presenting the court with New Zealand statutes on citizenship. However, De Bourbon protested that it was up to the government to prove Todd held New Zealand citizenship. He said it was not up to her to renounce a theoretical right she had never attempted to exert. The court said it would rule later in the week on a government request for postponement to allow time to get copies of New Zealand statutes. The case could outline the rights and duties of up to 2-million Zimbabweans of foreign descent. Mugabe passed tough new citizenship laws last year, claiming 40 000 whites of British descent were behind opposition to his 22-year rule. However, under the law many black Zimbabweans of Zambian and Mozambican parentage now face statelessness. Todd's test case is being funded by international donors. Zimbabwe has been racked by political unrest and economic collapse since Mugabe lost a constitutional referendum in February 2000. His claims to victory in later elections have been widely challenged. The former premier is due to be buried on Sunday at his farm near Zvishavane, 500km south of Harare.
Meanwhile, a magistrate's court yesterday released the leader of a teachers' union that has called for its members to go on strike for better pay, resulting in 627 teachers losing their jobs. A magistrate said the decision to release Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe, was made "in the interests of justice". Majongwe was arrested last week. Police alleged he went around schools in Harare urging teachers to join the strike. But the attorney-general declined to prosecute Majongwe as it said no offence had been committed. Police changed their charge to one of behaviour conducive "to riot, disorder or intolerance" and Majongwe was kept in jail over the weekend. He is due to appear in court on Friday facing charges of "invading the rights of others".
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From IRIN (UN), 23 October
Poor prospects for tobacco production
Johannesburg - Prospects for the 2003 tobacco crop, an important foreign currency earner for the country, are poor, the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA) warned on Wednesday. Chief executive of the ZTA Chris Molam told IRIN that production had been negatively affected by the government's fast-track land reform programme. "The prospects aren't good for the 2003 tobacco crop ... as a huge number of farmers have been prevented from getting on with the job [of planting tobacco]," Molam said. The planting season for the 2003 crop was currently underway. "We've got a lot of new [small scale, resettled] farmers and their production is difficult to gauge, but overall we are expecting a crop of between 70 million kg to 80 million kg. But it could be as low as 60 million kg if the farmers continue to be prevented from planting and the banks continue to play hard ball," he said. Total tobacco production hit a bumper 260 million kg in 1998.
Banks were reluctant to fund farmers because there "were too many risks", which mainly affected large-scale farmers "where the quality production comes from". "We have a problem with funding, banks are nervous as there's a lack of collateral value because the land could be invaded, be listed under a Section 8 [government acquisition] notice anytime," Molam added. A poor tobacco crop would have serious ramifications for Zimbabwe's economy. "If it's 70 million kg, we feel that the auction sale value of the tobacco will be about US $105 million, down from close to US $400 million [in the previous year]. That's pretty dire, it's chopping hugely our ability to pay for imports like fuel. The total national fuel bill is about US $360 million, the value of auction tobacco was at least covering our fuel bill [previously]," Molam said.
Zimbabwe has been the world's second largest tobacco producer after Brazil with its golden-yellow "lemon leaf" variety in high demand by blenders. Tobacco accounted for an estimated 31 percent of export earnings in 2001. However, according to the ZTA, if production continues to fall, China and the United States could overtake Zimbabwe by next year. A lot of single-owner commercial farmers who had offered to subdivide their land to share with small-scale resettled farmers had their offers rejected by the government. "They [government] initially were after 5 million hectares and are now taking 11 million hectares [of commercial farm land for redistribution], they are wiping out the commercial farming sector. They are leaving us with about 350 out of 715 farmers able to operate [this season]," he added. The tobacco growers that continued to farm were doing so on reduced hectares. "The cost of production has gone up 152 percent in a year, from October to October, the [inflation measuring] consumer price index is at 139.9 percent. We are going to run short of fuel, we're short of fertiliser ... we've got quite a lot of problems," Molam noted.
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From ZWNEWS, 25 October
Pathologists’ reports awaited
The results of two postmortem examinations on the body of Learnmore Jongwe are awaited in Zimbabwe, amid deep controversy regarding the cause of the death of the opposition MP in his prison cell. Jongwe was reported to have been found dead early last Tuesday morning. He was in prison awaiting trial over the fatal stabbing of his wife, which he admitted, but which he said was committed in a fit of jealous rage. His family were granted permission to appoint an independent pathologist to attend the official postmortem scheduled for 8:00 am Thursday morning. As all available Zimbabwean pathologists also conduct government business, the family engaged the services of a South African pathologist, who was only able to travel to Zimbabwe from Durban on Thursday afternoon. The family asked for the postmortem to be delayed until his arrival, but the Zimbabwean authorities refused, and the official postmortem began as scheduled this morning. A lawyer and general practitioner appointed by the family attended.
The pathologist who conducted the official examination on Thursday morning was unable to state the cause of Jongwe’s death, and is awaiting histological reports from laboratory tests. The authorities produced in evidence two towels, carrying a white and a brown substance, and a tablet, details of which are unclear. Lawyers for the family are still waiting for details of the precise location of Jongwe’s death, and have yet to be given access to it, or to any of the prisoners who were reported to have been sharing the same prison cell with Jongwe. The family-appointed pathologist examined the body on Thursday afternoon, and tissue samples were taken.
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From The Financial Gazette, 24 October
Daily News' printing press commissioned
Staff Reporter
The privately owned Daily News this week commissioned a new printing press to replace the one bombed in January 2001. The press, imported from Sweden, prints up to 35 000 copies an hour and is capable of running 24 hours non-stop. Editor-in-Chief Geoff Nyarota said the new machine would operate for about three hours a day to print the Daily News, adding that the publishers of the newspaper, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, would welcome work from other publications. The original Daily News printing press was extensively damaged more than 20 months ago when unknown assailants bombed the factory housing the press in Harare's Southerton industrial area. No suspects have been apprehended in connection with the bombing, despite promises by the police to investigate the attack.
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From Associated Press, 24 October
Zimbabwe newspaper editor charged
Harare - Police have charged the editor of Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper with violating stringent new security laws, his newspaper reported Thursday. Daily News editor Geoff Nyarota was charged Wednesday with "undermining confidence" in the police by publishing allegations of police torture given by an opposition activist in court. The 51-year-old Nyarota was not held, and no court date has been set for the case. If convicted, he could face 10 years in prison. The charge - the latest move in a government crackdown on the media - stemmed from a Daily News story about Thomas Spicer, 18, who testified police tortured him last month with beatings and electric shocks. Police Inspector Charles Mavhangira said the story was, "either wholly or materially false." Nyarota stood by the Daily News story. "The statements published were on the basis of firsthand information and the source of information was disclosed. Publication was in the public interest," he said, according to the Daily News. Spicer's mother, filmmaker Edwina Spicer, said medical reports backed up her son's case. "Tom could hardly walk and his mouth was lacerated from electric shocks they applied on him," she said. Her son is out on bail and being treated in South Africa. Nyarota has won awards for his work from the United Nations, the World Newspaper Congress, and Human Rights Watch. In recent months, he has been repeatedly charged with violating Zimbabwe's new security and media laws.
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From The Financial Gazette, 24 October
Zanu PF militants threaten Binga council chief with death
Staff Reporter
Bulawayo - Binga rural district council chief executive officer Shadreck Mudimba yesterday said he was living in fear for his life after being threatened with death by alleged Zanu PF militants who accuse him of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Mudimba, who earlier this year was chased from his office on several occasions by suspected Zanu PF militants, told the Financial Gazette he had reported the latest threat on his life to a police inspector Fereme who is in charge at Binga police station. "I have lodged a report with the police," Mudimba said. But the spokesman for police in Matabeleland North province, Mthokozisi Manzini-Moyo, told this newspaper that no such report had been lodged with the law enforcement agency. Self-styled veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s war of liberation and pro-Zanu PF mobs have wreaked havoc in Matabeleland, forcing district administrators, teachers and other civil servants they accuse of backing the MDC out of the province. None of the pro-government mobs have been jailed for their illegal activities.
Sources in Binga said the pro-ruling party militants had warned Mudimba he would be killed if he allowed rural district councillors who are members of the MDC to use council facilities. "They want him out of Binga district. They have told him not to let the MDC councillors enter the rural district council offices," said a source, who spoke on condition he was not named. The MDC won 16 of the 20 contested wards in last month's rural district elections, a move that has not gone down well with ruling party supporters. A number of MDC winning candidates have been assaulted and forced to flee their homes by Zanu PF supporters not happy with the outcome of the rural district council elections. Zanu PF and government officials blame their loss in Binga to non-governmental organisations operating in the area, which they accuse of helping to campaign for the MDC.
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From The Financial Gazette, 24 October
'Farmer's killers drank blood, alcohol mixture’
Staff Reporter
The alleged killers of Macheke commercial farmer David Stevens, who was murdered at the height of Zimbabwe's land invasions in 2000, drank his blood mixed with alcohol after shooting him dead, an eyewitness to the murder told the High Court in Harare yesterday. The eyewitness, who cannot be named to protect him from reprisals, was testifying at the opening of the trial of five suspects, including war veterans, accused of assaulting and shooting Stevens dead in April 2000. Four of the suspects, Richard Svisviro, Muyengwa Munyuki, Charles Matanda and Douglas Daniel Chitekuteku, appeared before High Court Judge Justice Benjamin Paradza sitting with assessors Joseph Dangarembizi and John Mangwendeza and pleaded not guilty to murder. The main suspect in the case Banda Katsvamudanga did not appear in court as he could not be located after being released from remand.
Stevens is said to have clashed with war veterans occupying his Arizona farm in April 2000 before being abducted and taken to the war veterans' office in Murehwa and beaten together with three other farmers who tried to help him. The farmers were dragged to Murehwa Heroes' Acre, where Stevens was shot dead by the war veterans, who were drinking heavily. "One of them went and knelt over Stevens' body and brought a container filled with blood, which they mixed with alcohol and shared among themselves," the eyewitness said. He said about 15 people were involved in the abduction and subsequent murder of Stevens, although only five have been arrested so far. The five suspects were arrested in 2000 and were remanded for months until the courts removed them from remand because the state was taking a long time to build its case. When the state recently decided to indict the five for trial, it failed to locate Katsvamudanga, who is understood to be in the Centenary area of Mashonaland East. Katsvamudanga is accused of shooting Stevens twice with a shotgun.
According to court papers, some of the war veterans involved in the abduction will testify how their colleagues and ruling Zanu PF supporters killed Stevens and how they risked their lives to save the three other farmers. Stevens is one of the 13 white commercial farmers and more than 100 opposition party supporters who have been killed since ruling party supporters began invading white-owned farms in February 2000. The violence accompanying the land invasions has also affected thousands of farm workers, many of who have also been displaced by a government programme to seize land from white farmers and resettle landless blacks.
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From Reuters, 25 October
Mining firms aid Congo plunder - UN expert
United Nations - The chief author of a UN report on the plundering of Congo's riches said on Friday that big mining firms, despite denials, played a crucial role in the looting of the African nation's gems and minerals. "The role of these companies is really important," said Egyptian Mahmoud Kassem, chairman of a panel of UN experts whose report on the pillaging of the Democratic Republic of Congo's natural resources was issued on Monday. "Corporations have a direct and indirect role. Without them, this kind of commerce would not be possible," he told a news conference, emphasizing everything in the report had been corroborated before publication. The panel's report said the systematic pillaging continued unabated by the military in Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe, aided by Congolese government officials and criminal networks.
The panel called on the United Nations to impose financial restrictions on 29 companies and 54 individuals involved in the pillaging. It also named 85 multinational mining firms as well as banks in South Africa, Europe, Canada and the United States, accusing them of ignoring OECD guidelines on ethics and dealings with human rights abusers. Among the resources in the central African nation are gold, diamonds, medicinal barks, cobalt, copper and industrial metals niobium and cassiterite. The country also produces coltan, a mixture of columbite and tantalite, used in light bulb filaments and nuclear reactor parts. But mining giants around the world quickly rejected allegations of "mineral rape'' in the war-torn nation formerly known as Zaire, whose inhabitants are desperately poor though it is home to some of the world's richest mineral resources. Global mining giant Anglo American PLC told Reuters it had had no operations in the Congo since the 1960s. Diamond king De Beers added there was nothing in the report to substantiate the allegations, and Canadian miner First Quantum Minerals asked for a full retraction.
But non-profit groups and analysts dismissed the companies' claims, saying they were part of a long chain that contributed to the Congo's exploitation. Kassem said the expert panel, rather than punish the firms, hoped to convince them to operate in war zones like Congo in an open fashion and in compliance with the OECD guidelines. "Without the international enterprises and corporations and African corporations changing their policy, the exploitation is going to continue," he said. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he hoped there was a way of putting an embargo on the Congo's mineral exports. "I hope that we can find some way of dealing with it in the Congo, either through a direct ban or governments taking responsibility for companies that are registered in their countries to ensure that they did not behave irresponsibly," he said.
On Thursday, Congo Foreign Minister Leonard She Okitundu urged the United Nations to help end the looting and said his government in Kinshasa would investigate its own officials named by the panel as beneficiaries of the pillaging. But in a speech to the UN Security Council, he defended ally Zimbabwe, accused in the panel's report as a key player in the plunder along with Uganda and Rwanda. He said the panel was wrong to equate Zimbabwe with Uganda and Rwanda, which invaded his country. Zimbabwe's troops had "paid the price of blood in order that the Democratic Republic of the Congo shall live," he said. But Okitundu thanked the panel for "breaking through the myths" in describing how economics was fueling the fighting in Congo's four-year civil war, Africa's biggest conflict. The war erupted in 1998 when rebels backed by Uganda and Rwanda tried to topple Congo's Kinshasa government. Troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia then fought for the Kinshasa government.
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From The Copenhagen Post, 24 October
Mugabe's man and Red Cross money
The Danish Red Cross has been accused of 'extreme naivete' for transferring charity money to a sister organisation, the Zimbabwean Red Cross, which is run by one of dictator Robert Mugabe's governmental ministers. As an integral member of Robert Mugabe's inner circle, Swithun Mombeshora is allegedly part of a corrupt government that has been accused of indiscriminately murdering white farmers, inciting political violence and violating human rights throughout the country. However, alongside his job as Minister, Mombeshora also holds another influential position - President of Zimbabwe's Red Cross, a branch of an international organisation founded on impartiality and independence. The Danish Red Cross is now being criticised by opposition parties in Zimbabwe for allowing Mombeshora to administrate hundreds of thousands of kroner donated by charitable Danes.
Although Mombeshora's own constituency in Zimbabwe is a 'no-go' area because of political violence, the Red Cross's general secretary in this country, Jorgen Poulsen, said he had no reason to believe that Mombeshara didn't share Red Cross principles 100%. 'We have investigated this man on many occasions during the 17 years he has been President of the Red Cross, and on no occasion has he been found to mix politics with his work for us,' said Poulsen - a statement strongly disputed by Paul Themba Nyathi, spokesman for the opposition MDC party. 'That is naivete of the worst kind,' says Nyathi. 'How can Mombeshora be neutral when he participates in daily government meetings planning violence and repression? I have never once heard him reject the violence that plagues our country'. According to Nyathi, Mugabe's party has on many occasions forced the Red Cross to deny aid to members of the opposition. Because of Momeshora's double role, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has forbidden Red Cross to distribute Danida aid in Zimbabwe, forcing the organisation to use funds from nationwide collections.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 25 October
Police, MDC youths clash at Jongwe's home
Blessing Zulu
As a South African pathologist was conducting an autopsy on the late Kuwadzana MP Learnmore Jongwe at Harare Hospital yesterday afternoon, members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police clashed with Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) youths and mourners at the late legislator's Ridgeview home. The police reprimanded MDC legislators Paul Madzore of Glen View, Trudy Stevenson of Harare North and Fidelis Mhashu of Chitungwiza for failing to control the youths who were incensed by the conduct of the police. Jongwe's mother, Emilia, threatened to throw herself into a fire where food was being prepared when the police started harassing mourners and brandishing guns. She was only restrained by Jongwe's brother, Simon. "Why should they continue to harass me when I am grieving like this?," Emilia asked. "Surely these people are shameless. When my son died they did not even bother to inform me and they even have the temerity to come and harass friends who are mourning him," she said. The police were led by Assistant Inspector Dowa of the CID's Law and Order section. When reporters from the Zimbabwe Independent and Daily News arrived at the scene, police officers threatened to arrest and shoot them should they write anything they did not approve of. "If you write anything about what has transpired here I will not hesitate to arrest you and shoot you afterwards," said a visibly angry officer. About 30 police officers came to the house in a police Defender and two Mazda B1800 vehicles. Simon Jongwe said the police officers were not very clear about what they wanted. "Initially they said they wanted to search the house for two murder suspects from Buhera," said Simon. The police did not specify which murder case they were investigating.
The MDC hired a South African pathologist from Durban to carry out an independent autopsy owing to the mysterious circumstances in which the legislator died in a cell on Tuesday morning. He had been in prison since July on allegations of stabbing his wife, Rutendo (23). Police Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said the police had turned down suggestions by the MDC to have the autopsy done by an independent pathologist. The police initially wanted to carry out the post-mortem on Wednesday at Harare Central Hospital but postponed it to allow the family to engage an independent expert to witness the process. Bvudzijena confirmed that they had carried out the autopsy in the presence of family representatives. "The family seconded Bryant Elliot and Dr Charles Gwatidzo," said Bvudzijena. He said the government was the first to carry out the autopsy in the morning at Harare Central Hospital. "The post-mortem by government pathologist Dr Mapunda began at 8.45 am and the doctor has taken the samples for further analysis at the government laboratory," said Bvudzijena.
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From The Daily News, 25 October
MDC candidate for Insiza flees after shoot out
From Chris Gande in Bulawayo
Siyabonga Malandu Ncube, the MDC candidate for the Insiza parliamentary by-election, on Tuesday reportedly survived an attempt on his life when a convoy of cars he was in was fired at by Zanu PF militia. Ncube, who escaped unhurt, yesterday alleged that he had information that his life was in danger. He has since fled his home and is in hiding. The MDC candidate sought sanctuary at Filabusi Police Station, but the shooting allegedly continued outside the police station. The police yesterday refused to comment. Ncube said before the shooting incident, the police stopped his convoy at West Nicholson and denied him access into Insiza constituency. Last week an MDC activist, Darlington Kadengu, was shot and seriously wounded allegedly by Andrew Langa, the Zanu PF candidate. Langa has not been arrested or questioned over the incident, but his victim was arrested along with other MDC supporters. The courts barred them from going to Insiza until after the election.
"When we were eventually given written permission to go to Insiza, after about 10 kilometres we were followed by the armed militia who started shooting at us," Ncube said. Several youths were reportedly arrested and denied bail after the shooting. Yesterday the MDC cancelled a rally after they found Professor Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, and Dr Joseph Made, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, distributing maize seed at Mahole, the venue of the planned MDC rally. The rally was supposed to be addressed by Gibson Sibanda, the MDC vice-president. Zanu PF has allegedly stepped up its campaign of terror because it has realised that without such tactics the party will not win the election. The by-election for the constituency, which fell vacant following the death of George Joe Ndlovu in suspicious circumstances, is scheduled for this weekend. Hundreds of MDC supporters have reportedly fled Insiza following relentless attacks by Zanu PF supporters.
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From The Daily News, 25 October
War vets threaten Catholics
From Ntungamili Nkomo in Bulawayo
Zanu PF supporters and war-veterans in the Bulilima ward 12 constituency have allegedly threatened members of the Roman Catholic Church for supporting the MDC in the recent local government election. The election was won by the MDC's Jonathan Meja Ncube who beat Zanu PF's Ephraim Ndlovu. At a Zanu PF meeting at the Hingwe shopping centre last Friday, the Catholic Church came under heavy criticism. A number of war veterans, including Majuta Sibanda, accused the church of having helped the MDC to win by voting for it. The incumbent MDC councillor is a member of the Catholic Church, said a source close to the meeting, refusing to be named for fear of victimisation. He said members of the Seventh Day Adventist and the Zion Christian Church (ZCC) were also attacked for being MDC "apologists". "Majuta Sibanda, the war veteran leader in the area, denounced many churches among them the ZCC and the SDA for voting for the MDC." Catholics in the Binga District have been heavily criticised recently by Zanu PF for allegedly influencing the electorate to vote for the MDC in the recent elections in which Zanu PF suffered a heavy defeat. The war veterans are alleged to have made frantic efforts to oust the incumbent councillor through the courts, but failed as they were told it was not in accordance with the electoral laws. Members of the militant Zanu PF youth brigade deployed in the ward last week are reported to be camped at the Hingwe clinic. An irate villager in the area, Trust Sibanda, alleged the youth had set up a camp at the clinic, and were trying to ingratiate themselves to the local youths to win their hearts. "What they want to do is to increase their numbers and then unleash a reign of terror in the area, an MDC stronghold," Sibanda said.
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From The Daily News, 25 October
Dozens pay tribute to Todd
Staff Reporter
Friends and relatives of the late former Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia, Sir Garfield Todd, yesterday attended a requiem service at the Presbyterian Church in Harare to pay tribute and reflect on Todd’s life. About 100 people attended the service, among them the clergy, the Press and members of the diplomatic corps. Addressing the congregation, Pius Wakatama, a writer and Daily News columnist, said it was not for the ruling Zanu PF party to confer Todd with national hero status. Wakatama said: "Heroism is not declared by a mere human being upon another; rather it is earned and determined by one’s works during his lifetime. Todd left his life in New Zealand and gave his person to Zimbabwe. He was willing to place his life into God’s hands, like pliant clay and was moulded into the hero that he lived to be." Pastor David Mukonoweshuro, describing Todd as a "remarkable Zimbabwean and a legend", said: "Todd was a great man with a big heart. He lived a compassionate and pious life and advocated for democracy and equality among all Zimbabweans."
Todd was Southern Rhodesia¹s prime minister for the greater part of the Federation era, from 1953 until 1958, when he was defeated in a poll largely confined to whites, because he was seen as being too sympathetic towards blacks. He was detained and restricted by Ian Smith¹s regime intermittently between 1965 and 1972 for his stand against the Unilateral Declaration of Independence. After independence, Todd became one of the few whites who were recognised by President Mugabe¹s government as a champion of the black people¹s fight against racism during the 1960s - 1970s liberation struggle. But in the March 2001 presidential election, the government denied Todd the right to vote because "he was not Zimbabwean", a move seen as due to his fearless attack of the excesses of the Mugabe regime. Sir Garfield, who died at 94 at Mater Dei Hospital in Bulawayo on 13 October, will be buried at his beloved Dadaya Mission in Zvishavane on Sunday.
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From News24 (SA), 26 October
Voting starts in Zim by-election
Harare - Voting began Saturday in a key parliamentary by-election in rural Zimbabwe seen as a test of the popularity of President Robert Mugabe's party, state radio reported. Voters in Insiza, an impoverished area in famine-hit southern Zimbabwe, began queuing long before polling booths opened early in the morning, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) said. Insiza is situated in Matabeleland South province, traditionally an opposition stronghold. The previous parliamentarian for the constituency was a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party has vowed it will win back the seat. The weeks preceding the election have been marred by rising political tensions, with at least 16 opposition supporters arrested. Traditional chiefs for the area have urged voters to choose Mugabe's party. The radio said that voting Saturday morning had been peaceful, but an MDC spokesperson in the area, Maxwell Zimuto, complained that eight of the party's youth activists had been abducted ahead of voting. Three are still missing, he said. Contacted for comment, police spokesperson Bothwell Mugariri told AFP no report of the alleged abductions had been made to the police. There is a heavy police presence in the constituency for the two-day poll, which pits Zanu PF's Andrew Langa against the MDC's Siyabonga Ncube. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) stopped distributing aid supplies in the constituency last week, charging that the ruling party was manipulating distribution.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 27 October
War of words over MP's death in Harare prison
Dingilizwe Ntuli
Johannesburg - The Zimbabwean government has made concerted efforts to absolve itself from blame surrounding the mysterious death of former Movement for Democratic Change spokesman and MP Judah Learnmore Jongwe in remand prison. Jongwe, 28, was found dead in his cell at the maximum Chikurubi Prison on Tuesday morning in Harare, where he was being held on a charge of stabbing his wife to death. Two separate autopsies were conducted on his body, one by a government pathologist and the other by an independent pathologist flown in from South Africa by the Jongwe family on Thursday. Police, however, withheld the two postmortem results to allow for further analysis of forensic specimens and other samples collected from Jongwe's cell. They allowed the independent pathologist to conduct the second autopsy at the request of his family, after MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai said that he held the government responsible for Jongwe's death. Tsvangirai said the government had a broad strategy to reduce the MDC's parliamentary representation and force through constitutional changes. This was after police announced that they had found a small bottle with one pill next to Jongwe's body. Prison officers failed to account for it. Chief police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said Jongwe was prescribed antibiotics by prison doctors after complaining of a severe cough and diarrhoea. He said his condition deteriorated and inmates reported seeing Jongwe vomiting several times before collapsing and dying in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
The government hit back at the MDC, accusing Tsvangirai of trying to gain political mileage from a sad event. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo told state media that the MDC had ill-treated and abandoned Jongwe after his arrest. Moyo said Jongwe had complained about being abandoned by the MDC to some members of the parliamentary legal committee who visited him in prison. Bulawayo-based lawyer Daniel Molokela, a former colleague of Jongwe in the student movement, said Jongwe was in a jovial mood and looked strong and healthy when he visited him 24 hours before his death. The state-run daily Herald newspaper said police found two letters in which Jongwe expressed regret for his wife's death. It reported that he also wrote a footnote in his Bible, dedicating it to his fellow inmates on the day before he died. Jongwe, a lawyer before he became an MP, turned himself in to the police in July after his wife died of stab wounds suffered in a domestic dispute.
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From The Observer (UK), 27 October
UK sports agent accused of selling military gear to African despot
Antony Barnett and Paul Harris investigate the network of companies run by a man suspected of trading military supplies with Robert Mugabe
John Bredenkamp's mansion lies at the end of a private road on the outskirts of the Berkshire village of Sunningdale. It is a 'millionaire's row' of huge houses and winding drives. Bredenkamp's home is one of the biggest. The sprawling pile befits a man who is 33rd on Britain's rich list, higher than Sir Paul McCartney. His £700 million personal fortune stems from a business empire that includes top sports management agency Masters International. The last year has been good for him. He was the 19th-fastest riser on the rich list - just behind Richard Branson. Masters looks after some of the biggest names in sport, such as cricketer Graeme Hick and rugby internationals Ieuan Evans and Mike Catt. Past clients include golfing legends Ernie Els and Nick Price. But in the eyes of the United Nations, the millionaire mansion and high brick walls hide a dirty secret. Bredenkamp was last week named by a UN report as a key arms trader and a man who has made millions from illegally exploiting the natural resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A UN panel has now recommended imposing a travel ban on him and freezing his personal assets.
It would be a devastating blow for Bredenkamp, a white Zimbabwean who was a former star rugby captain of Rhodesia and has made his home in Britain. Bredenkamp has jealously guarded the secrets of his business empire for years, but last week a UN report described a network trading in weapons and valuable minerals across the war-torn Congo. The trade has helped fuel a conflict that has claimed up to three million lives and been called Africa's 'First World War'. Bredenkamp was shown to enjoy close business links with senior members of Zimbabwe's army and political elite. Washington has already barred him from entry to the US, along with several senior Zimbabwean officials. In May 2000 the British Government - increasingly outraged at President Robert Mugabe's human rights violations and violence against white farmers - imposed an arms embargo on Zimbabwe. Bredenkamp - who voluntarily co-operated with the UN over the report - has angrily rejected the conclusions that he has been involved in 'illegal exploitation' of Congo's natural resources. He has written to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan protesting that much of the material in the report is flawed and stating that he aims to contest vigorously his inclusion on any sanctions list. Whatever the final outcome, the weight of evidence obtained by the UN suggests Bredenkamp faces a struggle to clear his name.
Just half a mile away from his house, Bredenkamp's business headquarters sit on a corner of a busy road on Sunningdale's High Street. As with other office blocks in the commuter belt, it is a non-descript redbrick building hinting little at what goes on inside. But it is from here that Bredenkamp runs his complex web of companies that reach out from the Home Counties to Africa and beyond. Britain's imposition of an arms embargo on Zimbabwe appeared not to dampen Bredenkamp's enthusiasm to help prop up Mugabe's brutal regime. A year after the embargo was passed, Bredenkamp boosted his ever-expanding fortune by concluding a multimillion-pound contract to supply Mugabe's armed forces with military equipment. An invoice obtained by the UN and dated 6 July, 2001, reveals that one of Bredenkamp's Zimbabwean companies, Raceview Enterprises, was supplying Mugabe's air force with £2.3m of camouflage cloth, batteries, fuel, boots and army rations. Most controversially, the UN says it has other documents that prove Bredenkamp provided £2m of aircraft spares to the Zimbabwean air force. While Bredenkamp is not a British citizen - he carries a Zimbabwean and Dutch passport - the fact he uses Britain as a base for his business activities will be an embarrassment for Ministers who vigorously fought for European Union sanctions against Mugabe.
But potentially the most damaging revelations for the British Government are claims by the UN that Bredenkamp benefits from a working relationship with Britain's largest and most important defence contractor, BAE Systems (formerly British Aerospace). The report discloses that Bredenkamp is an investor in an African company called Aviation Consultancy Services. While the firm's name sounds innocuous, it is in fact one of the most important arms trading groups in Africa brokering deals between defence firms and governments. One of ACS's major clients is BAE Systems, and the UN claims Bredenkamp has used his involvement with ACS to offer to broker sales of BAE military equipment to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The report also claims that BAE breached European Union sanctions by supplying spare parts for Zimbabwean Hawk jets early in 2002. Both BAE and Bredenkamp deny they have been involved in busting sanctions, but The Observer has learnt that the House of Commons select committee on arms exports is to launch an investigation into the UN allegations. It has described the matter as 'of grave concern'. Opposition MPs have also tabled parliamentary questions to the Government to explain the exact nature of the relationship between BAE and Bredenkamp.
For Bredenkamp, the political and public spotlight on his business affairs will be very uncomfortable, although it is not the first time Bredenkamp's activities have caused outrage. He is alleged to have supplied arms to both sides in the Iraq-Iran war of 1980 to 1988, something he has always denied. Bredenkamp was born in South Africa in 1940, but moved north to Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia, as a child. He excelled at sport and captained his school's rugby team. He later became close to the white Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith as it battled black guerrilla movements. He was in charge of the financial affairs of the Rhodesian army and is alleged to have been involved in sanctions-busting for Smith in return for a valuable concession to export tobacco. Bredenkamp has also always denied these allegations. In 1993 Bredenkamp sold his tobacco trading firm, Casalee, and set up his main company, Sunningdale-based Breco. The full extent of his business empire is difficult to ascertain, with many of his companies registered in tax havens like the Isle of Man and the British Virgin Islands. However, his company's website refers to a network of trading operations in oil, property and food that criss-crosses Africa, Eastern Europe and the Far East.
But it is his involvement in the Congolese mining industry along with his arms trading - that now threatens to derail his business ambitions. The UN claims that one of his British Virgin Islands companies, Tremalt, has been illegally exploiting minerals in Congo, such as uranium, cobalt and copper. Bredenkamp denies any wrongdoing and claims all his mining interests are above board. Back in the Home Counties, a woman who answered the phone at Bredenkamp's mansion last week said he was travelling, but could not say whether he was abroad or in Britain. Should the UN Security Council accept the UN report's findings, such freedom to roam is a luxury Bredenkamp may not enjoy for long.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 27 October
Zimbabwe accused of looting DRC
Justice Malala
New York - The Congo's foreign minister has urged the United Nations to help end the looting of his country's gems and minerals after an explosive UN report this week exposed the massive plunder of its natural wealth by warring factions. But Leonard She Okitundu, in a speech to the UN Security Council this week, defended Zimbabwe, described in the panel's report as a key player in the massive plunder. The report details an orgy of theft of the DRC's mineral resources by elite networks of Zimbabwean, Rwandan and Ugandan government and army officials working with businessmen from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Israel, Belgium and Eastern Europe. Calling the theft of natural resources "one of the greatest plunderings that the African continent has ever seen", Okitundu thanked the panel for "breaking through the myths" in describing how economic incentives were fuelling ongoing warfare. But Okitundu said the panel was wrong to equate Zimbabwe, whose troops propped up the Kinshasa government, with Uganda and Rwanda, who invaded his country. Zimbabwe's soldiers, he said, have "paid the price of blood in order that the Democratic Republic of the Congo shall live".
Officials from Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe have dismissed the findings, saying they are filled with falsehoods . Most individuals mentioned in the report have also denied the charges. Zimbabwe, along with Angola and Namibia, announced that it would complete pulling out its troops by the end of next week. The UN report is most scathing when it discusses Zimbabwe's involvement in the looting. It names figures ranging from President Robert Mugabe to senior members of his Cabinet and the top ranks of the Zimbabwe Defence Force. Also working with the ZDF is a controversial businessman based in South Africa, Niko Shefer, who has arranged for Zimbabwean officers to be trained in diamond valuation in Johannesburg, the report said. In another savage indictment of exploitation in the DRC, Amnesty International said that diamond mine guards and Zimbabwean soldiers were killing illegal miners, including children, in government-held parts of the Congo. It said dozens of people were shot dead every year for mining illegally, most of them in the Mbuji-Mayi diamond fields run by the state-dominated company MIBA.
From ZWNEWS: If you would like a copy of the Amnesty International report on the killings in the diamond concessions, please let us know. It will be sent as a Word attachment to an email message - total size 300 Kb, or approximately six times the size of the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From The Observer (UK), 27 October
Oryx: The carat and the UN's stick
It's a dark tale that links arms, Africa, smuggling, gems - and billions of dollars
Jamie Doward
It reads like a bad novel. A diamond mining firm in darkest Africa is a front organisation for the Zimbabwean army. The firm, which mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country ripped apart by years of conflict and from where the Millennium Diamond came, has links with a UK-based arms dealer who supplies Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The mine's Omani owners - thwarted in their attempts to float the firm on the UK stock exchange - smuggle US dollars into Zimbabwe to grease the palms of politicians. Some of the money - drawn from City bank accounts - is used to buy diamonds which the company then claims to have extracted from its own mine. But this is not the stuff of a substandard Wilbur Smith. This is an explosive United Nations Security Council report. And for the mining firm, Oryx Natural Resources, which has plans to produce 10 per cent of the world's diamonds, it is very bad news indeed. But then Oryx is no stranger to controversy. Its short history is a study in crisis management. Oryx hit the headlines last year when the BBC claimed a lieutenant of Osama bin Laden was one of its shareholders. The BBC retracted the claims, but faces a claim for damages of up to £15 million. Certainly Oryx had links with Mugabe. When it tried to float in the UK in June 2000, Oryx's prospectus revealed a firm close to Mugabe owned a 20 per cent stake in the mining firm. A press outcry ensued and the float was pulled. Oryx claims the firm linked to Mugabe is no longer a shareholder. The UN disagrees. 'The [UN] Panel has now obtained documentary evidence that Oryx is being used as a front for the Zimbabwean Defence Force (ZDF) and its military company, OSLEG.' The report concludes that Oryx's 49 per cent stake in its Congolese mining concession is owned by OSLEG and that this arrangement is representative of an elite network linking 'Congolese and Zimbabwean political, military and commercial interests ... This network has transferred ownership of at least $5 billion of assets from the state mining sector to private companies under its control in the past three years.'
If this was not damning enough, the report links Oryx to John Bredenkamp, the Berkshire-based millionaire, named in Parliament as 'the main arms supplier to Zimbabwe'. The UN says it has a document detailing a $1.5m loan agreement signed by Bredenkamp and Oryx's chief executive, Thamer Bin Said Ahmed Al-Shanfari. In addition, the UN has evidence that a plane owned by Bredenkamp and used by Oryx was loaded with Congolese francs bound for Harare, in contravention of the DRC's exchange rate policy. There are other damning claims, notably those linking Oryx to Avient Air, a military company supplying services and equipment to the ZDF. The report states: 'Under the management of Andrew Smith, a former British army captain ... Avient was contracted to organise bombing raids into the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 1999 and 2000.' There is the letter to Al-Shanfari from Sidney Sekeramayi, Zimbabwe's Minister of Defence and a shareholder in a joint venture between the Congolese military and the ZDF. Sekeramayi writes 'to express my sincere gratitude' for a donation from Al-Shanfari. And then there is the small matter of diamond smuggling. The UN report states that in March 2001 Al-Shanfari instructed his security chief to smuggle diamonds from the DRC into South Africa.
The allegations are corrosive. Oryx emerges as an intimate financial ally of the ZDF and a company prepared to break any rule. The UN recommends financial restrictions should be placed on Oryx, something that will kill its chances of exploiting its mining concession, which has been valued at up to $2bn. Many of the claims in the UN report bare a striking similarity to a feature which appeared in the Spanish newspaper El Pais. The paper claimed Oryx smuggled money into Zimbabwe with the help of the ZDF and that some of the cash found its way to Mugabe's wife, Grace. El Pais subsequently printed a lengthy correction. The paper carried comments from Geoffrey White, Oryx's managing director. El Pais stated: 'According to him [White], two ex-employees of Oryx, whom he described as "fraudsters motivated by revenge" - and who believe Oryx owes them money - are spreading malicious stories.' This claim seems genuine. The Observer has established that Oryx's security chief - a former SAS soldier - and a colleague did threaten to expose the company if they were not paid off. Oryx is now suing the two former employees.
As for the veracity of the claims, Oryx refutes those linking it to the ZDF. It says it provided the UN with its share register which clearly shows there can be no links with the Zimbabwean army. Oryx says it co-operated with the UN, handing over corporate documents and highlighting damaging inaccuracies in an earlier draft report, but to no avail. As for the illegal foreign exchange transactions and diamond smuggling claims, Oryx offers detailed rebuttals which appear to show the UN has confused the situation. The company admits Bredenkamp guaranteed a loan on behalf of a friend working for Oryx, but denies it has a relationship with the alleged arms dealer. It admits to doing business with Avient - which it claims is the only company operating aircraft large enough to transport mining equipment in the DRC. Al-Shanfari, it says, donated only $500 to Sekeramayi. The UN, though, doesn't seem interested in Oryx's denials. Nor does it seem in a hurry to publicise any documents to back up its claims. Oryx now has four months to persuade the UN it is wrong - or its mine will close. History shows there are few successful precedents for persuading the UN to change its mind. Whatever the truth, the closure of the mine would be a tragedy. It has created 1,200 jobs, two schools and a hospital in an area where few thought it possible. 'In the villages around the mine there is money for the first time,' White said. After seeing its flotation pulled in mysterious circumstances, after being libelled by the BBC and attacked by El Pais, Oryx believes the UN report is the latest development in a smear campaign designed to force it out of business. White said: 'There's a continual disinformation campaign driven by commercial competitors.' This could be paranoia or a PR smokescreen, designed to smother the allegations. Or it might be true. Only if the UN publishes its evidence will the real Oryx be exposed.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 27 October
Catholic-sourced maize lies idle
By Euphracia Mahenga
A consignment of 1 000 metric tonnes of maize sourced by the Catholic Fund For Oversees Development (Cafod) is lying idle in South Africa as the Zanu PF regime has prohibited the organisation from bringing it into the famine ravaged country, The Standard has learnt. A church official who spoke to The Standard revealed that they had been told by government officials that they could not bring the maize until they registered as a welfare organisation. "Cafod bought 1 000 metric tonnes of maize from South Africa for the Bulawayo Diocese. However, we have failed to bring the grain because the government has insisted on an import permit in order for the grain to be brought into the country," said the official. She added: "We applied for the permit to the ministry of lands, agriculture and rural resettlement a week-and-a-half ago but we were told to register with the social welfare department first, before applying for the permit. We have not been registered yet and as it stands, we don't know when the maize will be in the country."
As paranoia spreads in the Zanu PF government, non governmental organisations and churches have been forbidden from bringing food into the country. Only two weeks ago, the World Food Programme pulled out of Insiza after seeing that the food was being distributed to people on the basis of political affiliation. Some members of the public who spoke to The Standard said the Zanu PF government was insensitive to the plight of the people. "We expect government to be human enough not to impose stringent conditions on people who want to bring in food. This is a national crisis and almost everyone who has got the potential to import maize should do so," said Munoda Tafirei of Chitungwiza. Thomas Chuma of Tafara said that the government seemed to be interested more in impounding maize than ensuring that more food is brought into the country. "There are quite a number of cases where GMB is said to have impounded maize belonging to certain individuals. Our government should be more focused on the importation of food and not be a stumbling block by imposing unreasonable importing restrictions," he said. Last month the ministry of public service, labour and social welfare instructed all NGOs not registered under the ministry to do so in terms of Section 9 of the Private Voluntary Organisation Act.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 27 October
Bribery, intimidation claims in key Zim poll
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) alleged on Sunday that voters in a key southwestern by-election have been bribed with food and intimidated into voting for the ruling party. Voters in the poor, famine-hit rural district of Insiza were told "they will be given maize only if the Zanu PF candidate wins," the MDC claimed in a statement. However, the official Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) told state radio it had received no complaints from either of the contestants or their parties of irregularities in the polls being held Saturday and Sunday. Earlier the MDC claimed that Zanu-PF supporters had threatened voters outside a polling station "instructing them to vote for Zanu PF, in full view" of the police. Police representative Bothwell Mugariri said that "no incidents of violence, or threats of violence" had been reported to police in the constituency where a parliamentary seat was made vacant by the death of the incumbent MDC legislator earlier this year. Three MDC supporters were arrested for campaigning too close to a polling station, he added. The Insiza by-election is being seen as a test of the popularity of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF in what has traditionally been an opposition stronghold. The weeks preceding the election have been marred by rising political tensions, with at least 16 opposition supporters arrested. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) stopped distributing emergency food supplies in the constituency last week, charging that the ruling party was manipulating distribution. More than half the southern African country's population of 12 million people are threatened by famine this year.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 27 October
Minister Nyoni under fire for feeding MDC
By Farai Mutsaka
Minister of state responsible for the informal sector, Sithembiso Nyoni, has come under fire from Zanu PF officials who are accusing her of aiding the MDC campaign in Insiza through her outfit, the Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress (Orap). As government went on a barrage last week accusing Orap of manipulating food aid to enhance the MDC Insiza campaign, it emerged that the organisation belonged to Nyoni, who is the founder and president of Orap. Sources told The Standard last week that Nyoni was now in trouble with party officials over allegations that Orap was providing food in MDC wards in Insiza. Zanu PF and the MDC lock horns in a by-election that ends today to fill the Insiza parliamentary seat left vacant by the death of MDC's George Ndlovu. Orap has been involved in food distribution in a number of areas in Matabeleland. Nyoni formed Orap in 1981 as a self help project and it has spread wings to Hwange, Matopo, Nkayi and Insiza.
Said a source: "She is in trouble. Zanu PF is desperate to win this seat and will not let anything stand in its way. That is why they are bitter that Nyoni's organisation has been giving food to MDC supporters. Food has been their number one weapon against the MDC and by providing MDC supporters with food, Nyoni is disturbing the scheme of things. Party officials, especially those from Matabeleland, are saying that she should have given food to Zanu PF supporters only. They are bitter that she might be derailing the Zanu PF campaign by her actions." Sources said Nyoni, facing pressure from the party, had now ordered an investigation into how Orap had handled the food distribution, as well as claims that the organisation was employing MDC supporters. Nyoni confirmed on Friday that investigations were underway, but denied that she was under fire from party officials for derailing its campaign programme. "We are trying to see what exactly happened. Tompson Dube, who was in charge of the whole thing, has gone to Filabusi with officials from the ministry of public service, labour and social welfare and everybody else to find out what is happening. That is what we are doing now but it's not true that the party is taking me to task because everything was handled at the NGO level," she told The Standard on Friday.
The allegations that Orap was feeding MDC supporters came to light when the Word Food Programme suspended all food aid to Insiza after ruling party hooligans looted three metric tonnes of maize from Orap, and distributed it to their supporters. Orap was WFP's implementing partner in Insiza and was responsible for food distribution. Sources said Zanu PF officials were stung by Orap's fairness in distributing food. As an organisation being spearheaded by Nyoni, party supporters expected Orap to distribute the food aid to ruling party supporters only and enhance its chances of winning the by-election. Zanu PF has been taking advantage of the current starvation being experienced countrywide and is using food aid for political mileage by giving assistance only to Zanu PF supporters.
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From The Independent on Sunday (UK), 27 October
Footsie firms caught up in Congo looting probe
The UN says $5bn was stolen from the Democratic Republic of Congo. But were UK firms involved?
By Jason Nisse
Barclays, Standard Chartered, BAE Systems and Anglo American are among the multinational companies that have written to the United Nations questioning the basis for a report released last week on illegal trading in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The 58-page report by a Panel of Experts appointed by the UN Security Council alleges that over $5bn (£3.2bn) of minerals, including diamonds, copper and coltan, have been looted from the war-torn African country during five years of bloody civil unrest. The Panel accuses senior officers in the armies of Rwanda, Uganda and Zimbabwe as well as politicians, business people and corporations of being complicit in the looting. The report was presented to the Security Council by the panel's chairman, Mahmoud Kassem, on Thursday and is expected to be ratified within weeks. However, it has already raised howls of protest from those whose names are in it. In the appendix, 85 businesses are listed "considered by the panel to be in violation of OECD guidelines for multinational enterprises". This includes three FTSE 100 companies, Barclays, Standard Chartered and Anglo American, as well as other well-known names such as Bayer, De Beers and Fortis. Few of the companies listed are mentioned in the body of the report, creating much confusion. Anglo said in a statement: "We note that there is no explanation as to why this panel considers that we are in breach of the OECD guidelines and we are confident this is not the case. Anglo American is confident that, at all times, our minimal involvement in the DRC has been fully compliant with international legal norms." Barclays and Standard Chartered, the two largest banking groups in sub-Saharan Africa, were similarly bemused. "We have not been given any details of why we are included and have asked the UN for an explanation," said a Barclays spokeswoman. Standard Chartered said: "We have contacted the UN for clarification. If they have any evidence that any of our staff have acted in breach of OECD guidelines we will investigate it."
The report also claimed that spares for Hawk fighters, made by BAE Systems and owned by the Zimbabwean army, were supplied to Zimbabwe in breach of international sanctions earlier this year. A BAE spokesman said that the company had not supplied any spares and that, as far as he knew, the planes were grounded. The report recommends placing a travel ban and financial restrictions on 54 people and levying fines on 29 companies. Among the individuals is John Bredenkamp, a Zimbabwean former rugby player who lives in Surrey. He is accused of arms dealing and illegal diamond trading, among other activities. The Labour MP Paul Farrelly has written to the Foreign Office asking what action might be taken against Mr Bredenkamp. Another company mentioned is Oryx Natural Resources, a diamond mining group, which had to cancel its plans to list in London because of controversy over its links to the DR Congo. The report accuses Oryx of having links with the Zimbabwean government and acting as a front for the commercial interests of the Zimbabwean military. Geoffrey White, the group's deputy managing director, travelled to the UN in New York last week to refute the allegations. He said that, were it not for the UN's legal immunity, Oryx would sue for libel.
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From The Observer (UK), 27 October
Oryx 'link to Mugabe army'
Jamie Doward
Diamond mining firm Oryx Natural Resources, which is claiming multi-million damages from the BBC for wrongly linking it to the al-Qaeda terrorist group, is now alleged to be a front for the Zimbabwe Defence Force. Unless Oryx can disprove the latest claim, its mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo faces closure within four months and its claim against the BBC - potentially the largest of its kind in UK libel history will be jeopardised. A United Nations Security Council report lists a number of damning allegations against Oryx, including a claim that it smuggled diamonds out of the Congo, and channelled money to the Zimbabwean military. It recommends sanctions against Oryx unless the firm can refute the allegations. Geoffrey White, Oryx's managing director, said: 'This is extremely serious. If you get UN sanctions against you, then you close down.' White has reacted bitterly to the UN's claims, pointing out that Oryx complied fully with its investigations and handed over numerous corporate documents in an attempt at transparency. The report had got facts wrong about Oryx in the past, and the organisation had failed to respond when the company pointed out ‘misinformation' in earlier drafts of the document. 'We invited the UN panel to repeat the allegations in a public forum outside the UN environment. The panel has told us they have no intention of repeating these allegations without UN immunity; they have no intention of having the evidence examined in any legal process,' White said. Oryx says it is considering every legal avenue, but experts say it faces a monumental challenge. The company's claim for damages against the BBC is due to be heard in court early in the new year.
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From The Times(UK), 28 October
Zimbabwe's agony as Mugabe avoids crunch
By Jan Raath
Mourners at a recent funeral at Harare’s Warren Hills cemetery were startled by the arrival of a high-speed funeral cortege of about 100 Mercedes, BMWs and 4x4 behemoths in the latest livery, many of them displaying large flower-bedecked photographs of the man they were burying. As the white rococo coffin sank into the grave, three dudes in sharp suits and wraparound shades pulled guns from their pockets and fired a salute to the 32-year-old tycoon who had died in a car accident. There were mutterings among the comrade swells about £20,000 in local and hard currency notes that had vanished from the boot of the dead man’s car about the time of the accident. The week’s other egregious exhibition of wealth among Zimbabwe’s Kompressor class (after the favoured model of Mercedes) came from Phillip Chiyangwa, tycoon MP, member of President Mugabe’s inner circle and former policeman. The lifestyle section of the state-controlled Herald reported a tour of Chiyangwa’s new mansion in Harare: 18 bedrooms, 18 lounges, two saunas, whirlpool, steam and spa baths, 15 garages and three rooftop helipads. Back in his communal village 50 miles west of Harare, Chiyangwa has built another home, the newspaper said. This one has 51 bedrooms.
Never has the country seen such affluence, nor the famine and poverty that simultaneously afflict Zimbabwe’s 13 million people who live outside this tiny ostentatious class. The combination of these contradictions is a classic consequence of an economy in collapse and hyperinflation. President Mugabe has engineered probably the fastest decline of any comparably robust, diverse economy in modern history, without war or natural calamity. In less than three years he has inflicted a spoliation that other African countries took 20 years to do after their independence. In February 2000 the loss of a referendum on constitutional change presaged defeat for his ruling Zanu (PF) party in parliamentary elections due in four months. To avert it, Mugabe went to war against the nation. He propelled the bloody and lawless campaigns of invasions of white land and the elimination of dissent. In the 32 months since then, GDP has fallen 24 per cent, official inflation has gone up to 135 per cent, the value of the currency has dropped 96 per cent, and arrears on foreign debt of US$3.4 billion (£2.2 billion) have risen from 2 per cent of GDP to 30 per cent. Agriculture, the engine of the economy, has been throttled by Mugabe’s land grab, tourism earnings have fallen 80 per cent, annual gold production has been halved to 14 tonnes and more than 300,000 of a formal workforce of 1.3 million have lost their jobs. Half the people are living in famine and 35 per cent of all adults are afflicted by Aids. The hard currency black market has become the country’s biggest growth industry. This month it has been paying Z$1,100 to $1, against the official rate, pegged in July 2001, of Z$55 to $1. Similarly, price controls on basic commodities have emptied supermarkets of all controlled goods. Bread, maizemeal (Zimbabweans’ staple), sugar and oil can be had in township lean-to stalls at triple the controlled price, or they reappear in supermarkets in slightly altered form — sesame seeds sprinkled on a loaf of bread — at prices hugely increased, but at least allowing the manufacturer a profit.
In 2001 the Government reversed its IMF-prescribed policy of positive interest rates and pegged them at 35 per cent. The excuse was that the black affirmative action Kompressor business class was being oppressed. In reality, it allowed the Government to double its borrowings and simultaneously halve its interest bill. It also introduced hyperinflation and real negative interest rates now of minus 110 per cent that have flattened the country’s savings. The policies are doubly ruinous when they work in tandem. The state-owned fuel monopoly pays for fuel imports with hard currency for just under $1 a litre. Price controls allow motorists to buy it for the equivalent of 8 US cents. Conventional business practice is turned on its head. "Rule number one is you convert all your cash into hard currency and remit it abroad on a weekly basis," the chief executive of a middle-sized trading company says. "Deal in cash and don’t keep your money in financial institutions. Borrow as much as you can locally (at 35 per cent), buy stock for cash, keep selling as hard as you can, and reprice at least weekly." For local investment, he buys air tickets in local currency from the state-owned airline for destinations abroad, and imported luxury cars — made cheap by a customs import duty rate charged against the official exchange rate. Keep out of property, he says: "I have a property portfolio and it’s a noose around my neck. There’s always the threat of confiscation." Planning has become almost impossible. "For my business, short-term means a day, a week is medium-term and a month is long-term. It is a command economy in chaos and it is full of opportunity."
As the Kompressor class has discovered, the key to the new wealth is the gulf between the official and black market exchange rates. You can’t get hard currency at the bank, unless you have a ruling party connection. It will secure you a directive from the central bank to commercial banks to issue you with forex. You buy it at Z$55 to the US dollar, and sell it at Z$1,100 to the dollar. Another source is the Zimbabwean diaspora, an estimated two million people. My neighbour runs a small hairdressing salon, but this month she put a 70-yard brick wall around her property and embarked on substantial renovations to her house. It was financed by black market deals on cash sent to her by her son and daughter in Britain. For tens of thousands, a relative working abroad is the only way to escape starvation. Support for people back home also comes by e-commerce. Via www.sadza.com, a Zimbabwean in Luton can order and pay for his relatives’ groceries in Bulawayo. Economists estimate that up to £20 million a week in hard currency goes home this way, and that it is now by far the biggest source of foreign exchange. Nearly all of it goes straight out again. Even Mugabe’s central bank gave warning this month that the bubbles created by the distortions in the economy are unsustainable. Inflation of 1,000 per cent, a halving of GDP and a Malthusian die-off of thousands of people through starvation and Aids within the next two years are probabilities. "The Government has precious few options left," Tony Hawkins, a Zimbabwean economist, says. "You get the sense that we are approaching some sort of crunch. It’s around the corner, but the corner is taking a long time to come." The "crunch" theory, that society will implode or explode and remove Mugabe, is in doubt. After three years of defiance of the laws of economics, the loathing of most Zimbabweans and the opprobrium of the rest of the world, Mugabe remains in power, stronger and apparently healthier than ever. As Chenjerai Hove, the Zimbabwean novelist, puts it: "African governments are never bankrupt until the pantry in the state house is empty."
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From IRIN (UN), 28 October
By-election marred by allegations of foul play
Johannesburg - Elections in Zimbabwe were once again marred by allegations of intimidation and misappropriation of relief food - this time in the weekend parliamentary by-election in Insiza in Matabeleland South. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) alleged that its candidate Siyabonga Ncube was stopped at a police roadblock on Sunday and barred from entering the constituency. He and Zanu PF's Andrew Langa were vying for the seat which became vacant when MDC legislator George Ndlovu died in August. The party also alleged that maize was distributed by Zanu PF officials at Sidzibe and Pentagon polling stations and that campaigning was taking place within 100 metres of the polling station, in contravention of electoral regulations. Responding to the allegations, Edward Mamutse, senior press secretary in the Department of Information said: "That's news to us. We observe the regulations and the rules of polling stations are applied rigorously by the registrar-general's office and by the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC)." He said the ESC would be the appropriate body to investigate the allegations. An ESC official based in Harare said he was unable to comment as people "on the ground" were counting the ballots and were difficult to contact.
Earlier this month the World Food Programme (WFP) suspended delivery of food aid in two wards in Insiza after Zanu PF officials allegedly intimidated its implementing partner, the Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress, and took a consignment of 3 mt and distributed it as part of its by-election campaign. WFP spokesman in Zimbabwe Luis Clemmens told IRIN on Monday that the delivery of monthly rations to over 6,000 people in the wards remained suspended "until further notice". On Monday evening it appeared that Zanu PF were winners by a wide margin. "It wasn't an election, it was a circus," said Maxwell Zimuto, MDC spokesman for the election. "One player was both the referee and the player. Our candidates were monitored and arrested and we still don't have a copy of the voter's roll. How can we win an election like that?" The US government confirmed that it had an unofficial observer monitoring the polls, but spokesman Bruce Wharton said he was not sure whether their observations would be released. According to the state-controlled Herald newspaper, Sweden, Spain and the United Kingdom also had unofficial observers at Insiza.
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From The Daily news, 28 October
CIO monitors Insiza election
Staff Reporters
Despite widespread evidence of vote-buying by Zanu PF, very few of the 45 000 registered voters cast their ballots in the two-day Insiza parliamentary by-election that ended yesterday. However, the MDC alleged Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) officers and youths from the Border Gezi Training Centre observed and monitored the poll in a clear breach of electoral laws as they have no such statutory role. Nearly 10 000 people cast their ballots by the end of the first day, representing some 22 percent of the voters in the constituency. There were bags of maize stacked at most polling stations in a clear case of vote-buying by Zanu PF. Some village heads stood outside some of the polling stations with lists of names of their subjects. At Ntute and Mbokodo polling stations, several headmen stood outside the polling stations recording the names of the people going in to vote. The MDC said it had established that some of the voters had received seed packs and $2 000 each from the ruling party. In a statement, the MDC said some of its polling agents were barred from entering the stations by presiding officers. Jabulani Mbambo, the constituency registrar, alleged the MDC had failed to register polling agents for some polling stations.
Voting began on Saturday morning with a reasonable turnout, but because of intimidation by Zanu PF in the run-up to the by-election, many people refused to talk to The Daily News. The by-election pitted Zanu PF’s Andrew Langa against Siyabonga Malandu Ncube of the MDC. "We have suffered enough. I hope there is going to be peace now. I have voted, but please do me a favour by going away," said one terrified villager at Tshazi. Yesterday, Ncube, the MDC candidate, could not travel to the constituency after the police told him they could not guarantee his safety. Ncube, who has survived an assassination attempt last week, said: "I could not go to Insiza after the police told me that I would go there at my own risk." Members of the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) yesterday refused to comment on the incident. The Zanu PF candidate, Langa, who was chosen to represent the party at the last minute, allegedly shot and injured an MDC supporter, Darlington Kadengu, during the campaign period. Professor Welshman Ncube, the MDC secretary-general, said the incident and widespread State-sponsored violence were some of the irregularities that made the whole process not free and fair.
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From VOA NEWS, 28 October
Zimbabwe's ruling party wins crucial election
The ruling Zanu PF party won a crucial parliamentary election in southern Zimbabwe during the weekend. But the opposition Movement for Democratic Change charges the ruling party bribed voters with government food. Opposition member of parliament David Coltart says the Movement for Democratic Change will challenge the election results. He says food, paid for by Zimbabwe's taxpayers, was used by the government's Grain Marketing Board as an inducement to hungry people to persuade them to vote for the ruling party. Mr. Coltart says voters were told a vote for Zanu PF meant food, and a vote for the opposition meant starvation. Independent observers, including several western diplomats, confirm that government officials gave grain to voters. In addition, the Movement for Democratic Change says several of its polling agents, who monitor voting and look after the ballot boxes, were forced to flee their posts. The opposition candidate fled the area during the two days of voting, because he said police told him they could not guarantee his safety. On Monday, a gang of youths attacked the party's offices in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, in the same Matabeleland province as Insiza. The party says the offices were badly damaged and accuses ruling party militiamen of carrying out the attack. Zanu PF officials declined to respond to the opposition charges, but government-run newspapers call the weekend election 'peaceful and orderly.'
According to official results, the ruling party candidate, Andrew Langa, was elected with a margin of 6,000 votes. He will replace an opposition member of parliament who died in office. The Insiza district, in the Matabeleland province, where the election took place, is one of the poorest and driest in Zimbabwe. The World Food Program stopped distributing food to starving people at Insiza two weeks ago after it said Zanu PF youths stole three tons of food. The WFP complained to the police, and says it has raised the theft, and also intimidation of relief workers, with the highest authorities in Zimbabwe. No arrests have yet been made, and there is no date yet for the resumption of U.N. food distribution in Insiza. The opposition also accuses Mr. Langa, the winning Zanu PF candidate, of shooting and wounding one of its activists, who doctors say needs surgery to remove a bullet from his back. Police have made no arrests in the case and accused the opposition of initiating violence before the election.
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From SABC News, 28 October
Memorial service held for late MDC comrade
About 10 000 people thronged the Harare City Sports Centre today for the memorial service of Kuwadzana Learnmore Jongwe, the late former Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesperson and member of Parliament, who died in controversial circumstances at Harare Remand Prison last week. Morgan Tsvangirai, |
