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Archived News
31st December 2002
Troubled Zimbabwe marks cheerless holiday
A few enjoy wealth and food, millions confront starvation
State gazettes parallel rates for Zim goods
Mugabe's 'surreal' policies ravage Zimbabwe economy
Reign of terror
$2b set aside for militia centres
Zim fuel crisis eases, supplies uncertain
Fuel shortages cut road death toll in Zim
Food gap still large
Poverty driving rural Zimbabweans to desperate measures
Acute seed shortage in Zim
Who will speak for Zimbabwe's blacks?
Kenya sweeps corrupt ruler out of power
Pressure grows for Zimbabwe decision
Archbishop Pius Ncube A hero’s witness
Cricket's chance to shame Mugabe
Zimbabwe widens price controls to include newspapers
Zimbabwe: staring into an abyss of savagery
Problems point to 2003 being crunch year for Zimbabwe
Cricket - Governments increase pressure over Zimbabwe
Zim daily's editor quits
Journalists face Zimbabwe deadline
Bodies piling up in fuel crisis
'We'll die soon . . . we're too tired to queue for bread'
At the Harare Sports Club, everything is ready. But even the fans say: don't come
Politics has no place in sport - so boycott the World Cup
Govt: We messed up
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From News24 (SA), 25 December
Govt: We messed up
Harare - Zimbabwe's government has admitted failing to ensure adequate fuel supplies for thousands of people to travel over the festive period. Long and winding queues of cars formed at a few petrol stations that had the scarce commodity in the capital on Wednesday while the majority went dry. "I have to admit that the situation is bad," Reuben Marumahoko, the deputy minister of energy and power development told the state daily The Herald in a story on Wednesday. The southern African country has experienced intermittent fuel shortages since December 1999. The acute shortages have been attributed to lack of foreign exchange to import petroleum-based fuels and to corruption at the sole oil procuring parastatal, National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM). Despite promises by the government last week that it had acquired supplies to ease the shortages over the Christmas holidays, petrol remained critically scarce in Harare. The shortage of fuel has led some public transport operators to raise their fares to four times the normal rates.
The government announced last week that it had bought fuel worth more than $15m from Independent Petroleum Group (IPG) of Kuwait, Sasol and Engen of South Africa and Sandstone of Mozambique. A vital fuel deal that President Robert Mugabe struck with Libya appears to have run into problems of late. Over the past two years, Tamoil, Libya's international oil firm had become the single largest fuel supplier to Zimbabwe, accounting for about 70% of the country's needs. Under the deal Zimbabwe paid for fuel in local currency paid into a Zimbabwean bank account. The payments would be offset with exports of beef, tobacco, sugar and other selected products to Libya. But the energy minister last week said "because of the reality on the ground, we have not been able to meet Libya's requirements." Zimbabwe is also experiencing shortages of basic commodities such as sugar and beef, among others.
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From Associated Press, 25 December
Troubled Zimbabwe marks cheerless holiday
Chirunya, Zimbabwe - Frail from hunger and desperate to quiet the crying of her two starving children, Patricia Marapananga received a welcome Christmas gift from international donors - a handout of corn meal. "They cry because I don't have anything to give them. But today we are lucky," she said. Zimbabweans, suffering their worst-ever economic crisis, faced a bleak, cheerless holiday in this predominantly Christian nation plagued by starvation, fuel shortages and a financial meltdown. The economy has been crushed by nearly three years of political violence. The government's seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms has caused a collapse in agriculture, worsening the country's hunger. Inflation hit a record 175 percent this month, according to the government, but analysts say it is actually far higher. Marapananga and another 1,470 families were given corn meal and protein supplements by the World Food Program and the Christian Care charity on Tuesday. But even that gift was bittersweet. Marapananga received only half what she needs to feed her family for the next month, when aid agencies will again bring food to this remote, impoverished district 160 miles northeast of Harare. "There isn't enough to go round," said Hosea Muchapondwa, a Christian Care project officer.
Donors have given only 60 percent of the food aid needed to help feed the 6.7 million Zimbabweans - more than half the population - in danger of starving, according to the World Food Program. Addmore Mukumura, a Christian Care relief official, said careful families might be able to squeeze one meal a day from the limited aid rations. Interviews by relief officials in recent weeks showed some families only scraped together one meal every two or three days. "There isn't the money in this area to buy food, even if it was readily available," Mukumura said. Many in the village have resorted to eating wild fruits and roots, some of them chopped and repeatedly boiled to remove toxins. Most years, relatives from Harare visit the village for Christmas, bringing food, soft drinks, cigarettes and other gifts. "They are not coming. There's nothing to bring and they can't afford the bus fare," said Brighton Hokonya, a father of eight.
Officials at Harare's main Mbare Msika bus station, which usually ferries tens of thousands of city dwellers to their rural families on Christmas Eve, have reported a sharp slump in passengers. "Business is very bad. Our buses haven't been able to get enough fuel and people are worried if they get home they won't be able to get back," said Johnson Kumbula, a ticket seller. Long lines of vehicles still coiled around city blocks Tuesday as motorists waited for promised gas deliveries the government said would ease shortages ahead of the Christmas break. Because drivers spend so much of the day waiting for gas, taxis have stopped using their meters and buses have begun ignoring government-fixed fares. Commuter fares have more than doubled in the past week. In Chirunya, the traditional Christmas meal of bread, chicken and rice is a distant dream for Marapananga's family this year. Instead, she will mash seed pods from a stunted acacia tree to make a sauce to go with the bland, boiled corn meal porridge she will cook over an open fire. "There is nothing else," she said.
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From The Baltimore Sun, 24 December
A few enjoy wealth and food, millions confront starvation
Shortages: Despite ingenuity in the face of drought and hunger, a nation is increasingly divided into a few wealthy and many very poor.
By John Murphy
Harare - From the Mercedes-Benz he drives to work to his new three-story mansion set in the hills outside the city, it is clear that Zimbabwe refrigerator manufacturer Callisto Jokonya is having a good year. In any other country, such success would not be remarkable. But this is Zimbabwe, a country on the verge of economic collapse, where half the population is threatened by starvation and even the wealthy suffer from acute shortages of everything from milk to beef to cooking oil. Jokonya acknowledges that his fortune defies logic: Why would Zimbabweans be buying refrigerators when they have no food to put inside? The answer reveals less about what Jokonya is doing right as a businessman than how much has gone wrong in Zimbabwe. The country of 12 million people, once the breadbasket of Africa, has slid into its worst economic, political and humanitarian crisis since independence in 1980. President Robert G. Mugabe's seizure of the country's white-owned farms - launched more than two years ago - has unraveled the agriculture-based economy, disrupted food production and left thousands of people out of work. If that were not enough, Zimbabwe is one of six southern African countries hit by the worst regional drought in more than a decade, threatening the lives of 14 million people - nearly half of them in Zimbabwe. "Zimbabwe is at the epicenter of the crisis in southern Africa. It's the country where everything is at its worst," said Stephen Lewis, a United Nations special envoy to Africa, during a recent Zimbabwe visit.
To enter Zimbabwe today is to see a country turned upside down: Where 6.7 million people face starvation in a nation that was once celebrated for its ability to produce surplus food. Where a severe fuel shortage has crippled transportation in the country, creating long lines of cars, taxis and buses waiting to fill up at gas stations nationwide. Where Zimbabweans not waiting
for fuel spend much of their days and nights standing in equally long queues for such basic commodities as bread, sugar, salt and maize. Where inflation is so high - 144 percent this year and predicted to jump to 500 percent next year -that some stores announce hourly price increases over loudspeakers. Where, according to one recent economic report, workers who earned $150 a month in 1980 take home less than $15 today. Where that worker would be considered lucky because more than 60 percent of the country's population is unemployed. And where 10 percent to 20 percent of the population, frustrated with life here, has fled the country. The Zimbabweans left behind, no longer trusting their currency, are scrambling to put whatever meager savings they have into assets that might keep their value: cars, bicycles, cell phones, houses and - much to Jokonya's benefit this business year - refrigerators. "If I buy a fridge and I don't even use it, two months down the line it will be worth more," says Jokonya, who has invested his savings in apartments, an extra car and a second house. The absurdities of Zimbabwe's economy are not limited to refrigerator sales. Although the vast majority of the country is hopelessly poor, there is a small group of people getting rich. The stock market is booming. So is the property market, with housing costs up 400 percent in the past two years. Both, like the refrigerators, are viewed as investments that might keep pace with the runaway inflation.
There is a bizarre mix of affluence and poverty. Zimbabwe's well-to-do drive sports cars, build summer homes and flock to Harare's finest restaurants for three-course meals of filet mignon, prawns and goose. The poor flirt with a devastating famine. "There are two classes of people in Zimbabwe today: the low class and the high class. There is no more middle class; they have fallen away to the low class," says Fungai Mutizhe, a used car dealer who is doing a brisk business this year. "In these hard times, there are people doing well taking advantage of the situation." What's driving these economic distortions is the government's refusal to acknowledge the collapse of the currency. Officially, one U.S. dollar is worth 55 of Zimbabwe's currency. But on the black market, one U.S. dollar fetches 30 times that much. The government, however, has bristled at calls for it to devalue the currency, blaming the crisis on enemies of the state. Inflation? That's the result of greedy money traders and businessmen. Shortages? Whites and opposition party leaders must be hoarding goods. In an effort to curb inflation, the government recently slapped price controls on almost every imaginable item, from toilet paper to television sets, and shut down all foreign exchange dealers. These measures only made life more difficult. Unable to sell their products at a profit with price controls, manufacturers are either closing their factories or selling their goods on the black market at hugely marked-up prices. One Zimbabwe family complained that it spent one quarter of its $4 weekly income on a bar of soap. Everyone, it seems, from flower sellers to restaurant owners to bellhops, is involved in the underground trade. No one appears to be afraid to get caught because, traders say, government officials are heavily involved in it themselves. The only concern for currency traders is that the higher inflation grows, so does the weight of the Zimbabwe dollars they must haul around town. "Have you ever carried 3 million Zimbabwe dollars [about $3,000]?" asked Krishna Makurumidze, a black market money trader. "It's heavy. You have to use a shoulder bag to carry it."
One measure of just how far Zimbabwe has fallen is that Mugabe's government freely admits that the country has problems. Not too long ago, government officials offered perpetually sunny forecasts for the economy and the country's harvests. Speaking this month at a conference of his ruling party, the Zanu PF, Mugabe appealed to the country to work together to reverse the economic decline and end the shortages of food and almost all other goods. But he did not accept responsibility for any of these problems. Instead he blamed a regional drought and his growing list of enemies: the British, the West, members of the country's main opposition party and, as always, the country's white population. "We wish that more would join us as we seek common solutions to the hardships imposed on us by our detractors," Mugabe told his party leaders. The solution to all the country's challenges is land reform, Mugabe said. But what's clear, critics say, is that land reform is the source of the country's ills. Consider the case of Stan Magutakuona, 55, a peasant farmer who tilled a small patch of inferior farmland while he watched his white neighbors grow rich with their large commercial farms. Like most Zimbabweans, Magutakuona wanted the government to correct the historic imbalance of land ownership that left former white colonists - who make up less than 1 percent of the population - with the majority of the best farmland. But few were prepared for the tactics employed by Mugabe. His popularity waning in 2000, Mugabe unleashed bands of so-called "war veterans" on the countryside who seized the country's richest commercial farms for redistribution to black peasants. Of the country's 4,500 white-owned farms, about 4,000 were shut down in this way. In the winter of 2000, Magutakuona was one of several dozen peasants who each received 30-acre plots of prime land on Rona Farm, a large white-owned commercial farm north of Harare. Magutakuona left behind his smaller, inferior piece of communal farmland nearby and moved his family onto his new property. He was overjoyed, he recalled, at the prospect of perhaps living someday as well as the previous owner. But two years later, that dream, he says, is gone.
On a recent morning, Magutakuona emerged from the mud hut where he lives with his wife and two children. He was barefoot and dressed in a torn suit coat and tattered pants. His land grant did not include the white owner's home, his farm equipment or any guidance. Tilling the land with an ox-drawn plow, Magutakuona produced 10 tons of maize last year. That harvest gave him enough for his family and a little left over to sell. He hoped to grow more, but without modern farming equipment it was difficult, he said. This year about half of his property was left fallow. "Giving the black man the land is a noble idea, but the government must understand that we are in need of help," says Magutakuona. "It's not what I dreamt of." Without the capital to invest in tractors, seed and fertilizer to plant, many resettled farmers have found it difficult to grow crops. They can't go to a bank for a loan because the government has not given the resettled farmers title to the property. In the hands of a commercial farmer, who could use modern agricultural techniques, Magutakuona's plot might have produced more than 10 times that amount of maize. Now repeat this exercise across thousands of pieces of farmland and it is easy to see why Zimbabweans - even without a drought - will be hungry, critics say. "A single resettled farmer will be able to feed his own family, whereas the farmer he replaced could have fed thousands of families," says John Robertson, a Harare-based economist.
Despite the clear shortcomings of the land-reform program, Mugabe has clung to it as the central policy of his government. Anyone who disagrees with him is dismissed as a supporter of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC. "They are the enemies of the people and our government. We must be on our guard. Our survival is an ongoing war," Mugabe said at the party conference this month. A deep political divide separates the ruling party and the opposition. Just how deep it has become is clear in the town of Chegutu, about a two-hour drive southwest of Harare. A year ago, Francis Dhlakama, a former primary school teacher and member of the MDC, won the mayoral race in Chegutu, an agricultural and mining community of 50,000 people. He defeated a member of Mugabe's Zanu PF. But winning the office was not as difficult as taking it. Members of the Zanu PF refused to allow the newly elected mayor to enter City Hall, blocking the entries to him for more than a month. When he finally got in, the mayor discovered that the deputy mayor, a Zanu PF member, had taken over the mayoral office. Later, the deputy mayor also seized the mayoral car. His year in office has been hazardous work. When he tried to clean up corruption in the town finance department and reshuffle members of various departments, a band of Zanu PF supporters tossed a gasoline bomb in his window. When he went to the news media last month to voice his complaints, his house was pelted with rocks and his bushes were burned down. The next day when he showed up at City Hall for work, a mob of 30 Zanu PF supporters wielding pickaxes and iron bars attacked him. He barricaded himself inside the office until riot police arrived an hour later. He has not returned to City Hall since that day. "I'm afraid of going to the office," said Dhlakama, in an interview from his Chegutu home, where he has been hiding for much of the past month. Two guards stood watch outside. "I'm trying to evacuate my family out of the country." "Zanu PF's strategy is to crush the opposition and crush them into insignificance," said a Western diplomat in Harare. "But even if they crush the MDC, they can't crush the opposition because at least half of the population, or more than half, is unhappy with the government."
In these times of hunger, whether you eat is political, too. In Chegutu, members of the Zanu PF party who sit on the City Council receive government food to distribute in their districts; the mayor and the one opposition party council member receive none. MDC members here accuse the ruling party of handing out the food only to party supporters. Chegutu is not the only place where such accusations have been made. Aid groups have accused Zimbabwe's government of withholding food from opposition party supporters. In October, the United Nations' World Food Program suspended operations in the southwestern district of Insiza when members of Mugabe's party seized tons of donated grain. The WFP, which has warned that it would not tolerate any politicization of its food, has since agreed to restart distribution. There is a joke told on the streets of Zimbabwe these days: One Zimbabwean says to another: "Have you heard that Zimbabweans have the highest IQs in the world?" "Really?" says the second Zimbabwean. "Yes. I queue for gasoline. I queue for bread. I queue for sugar. I queue for maize. I queue for" (the latest item in short supply). The ability to joke in times of crisis reveals one of the oddities of the country. For all the problems here, people manage to limp along. "The collapse of the Zimbabwean economy has seemed imminent for several years but, the more bleak things look from the outside, the more ways to survive are found in this resilient country," concludes a report released this month by South African Institute of International Affairs. From a distance, it could almost appear that nothing is wrong in the capital, Harare. Despite the fuel shortages, business carries on. Despite having to depend on a line of credit for electricity, the government held a Christmas tree-lighting ceremony. While hungry rural dwellers forage for roots and leaves and grow more dependent on international aid, the country's elite hold elaborate year-end banquets and dances in Harare's five-star hotels.
But look closer, and all the hardships come into view. In the past month, Harare residents worried about the safety of drinking water because the government lacked hard currency to import chemicals to keep the water clean. Dozens of companies were considering shutting down because they could no longer afford to do business. A Harare woman tried to bite off the lip of a man who tried to steal her two loaves of bread. At Jokonya's refrigerator manufacturing plant in the outskirts of Harare, Jokonya remains open for business despite all the uncertainties. When there were food shortages, he started giving his 200 employees a free lunch so they would be able to work. When there were fuel shortages, he bought his entire staff bicycles so they would show up at work. He learned recently that the government price controls will apply to his refrigerators. That will no doubt hurt his sales to people looking for a hedge against inflation. He is not so sure business will be as good next year. That is part of the unsettling future he can already see.
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From The Times of Zambia, 27 December
State gazettes parallel rates for Zim goods
Business Reporter
Ndola - Government has gazetted the use of a parallel exchange rate for tax purposes on goods originating from Zimbabwe. According to the Zambia Revenue Authority (ZRA), customs and excise division gazette notice number 631 of 2002, tax rates on all US dollar denominated invoices would be calculated after factoring a 517 Zimbabwean dollar for a US dollar. This value is then multiplied with the exchange rates for the Zimbabwean dollar to the Kwacha which according to the gazette ruling for the period December 16, 2002 to December 31, 2002, is K89.36 to one Zim dollar. The gazette signed by deputy commissioner customs and excise, a Mr S Ling'omba, says all transactions for invoices denominated in other currencies other than the US and Zimbabwe dollars will have to first be converted into the US dollar value before factoring in a Zim dollar exchange rate. The rates will be reviewed every fortnightly by the customs division. The business community has been complaining about the valuation system as being illegal since their was no law backing it. The issue at some stage resulted in the business community dragging the ZRA to court to determine the legality of using the parallel rate for purposes of calculating VAT for goods originating from Zimbabwe.
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From The Washington Post, 27 December
Mugabe's 'surreal' policies ravage Zimbabwe economy
By Michael Grunwald
Washington Post Foreign Service
Harare - In President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe, a 7-ounce hunk of cheddar cheese costs more than 14 ounces of the same cheddar cheese. Motorists line up for hours outside gas stations with no gas. The government has shut down all foreign exchange bureaus. Bakers are required to sell regular bread for less than it costs to make it, so instead they sell raisin bread (with a few raisins) or poppy bread (with a few seeds) or twisted bread (with a few twists) at five times the set price. A recent foreign diplomatic cable summarized Mugabe's new budget with one word: surreal. "It's Alice slipping through the hole. We're living in Wonderland now," said Brian Raftopolous, the chairman of Zimbabwe in Crisis, a coalition of civic groups. "It would be funny if it wasn't so sad."
Mugabe's notoriety stems mostly from his decision to seize productive land from white farmers despite a looming famine, but land grabs are just part of the command-and-control economic regime the longtime president is trying to impose on Zimbabwe. And bread isn't the only part of "Mugabenomics" that seems twisted. As the government issues an ever-expanding list of financial dictates - most notably price controls on everything from Palmolive soap to T-bone steaks, and currency controls fixing the official exchange rate at about 3 percent of the real exchange rate - Zimbabwe's once-vibrant economy is imploding. Unemployment is near 70 percent. The stock market has crashed. Inflation is officially 144 percent but really much higher, while wages are relatively stagnant in a country where most people earn less than $1 a day. Zimbabwe's $500 bill - worth $9 U.S. at the official rate, or about 30 cents on the street - is known as the Ferrari, because it goes so fast. The economy is shrinking 10 percent a year, even though the retail and housing sectors are booming, people with money are racing to spend it before it loses value.
Mugabe has said the fuel crisis is giving him "stomachaches and headaches." The latest joke here is that Zimbabweans have the world's highest IQs: I queue for gas, I queue for bread, I queue for sugar. The food shortage facing Zimbabwe is no joke. The United Nations estimates that 6.7 million of the country's 12 million people are at risk of starvation. The government has a monopoly on grain imports to Zimbabwe, but it is desperately short of foreign currency, so it is now drastically short of food. Its land redistribution scheme drove much of the nation's agricultural expertise into exile and handed much of the nation's fertile soil to Mugabe allies who have no farming experience or poor farmers who have no access to seeds or fertilizer. This is expected to wipe out as much as half of next year's harvest. Mugabe's price controls on maize and other staples are making the problem worse; many farmers say that even if they weren't facing a drought, they wouldn't want to plant crops they would have to sell at a loss. "They went after the white people, but it's the black people who suffer," said farmhand Abraham Phili, who was evicted from an irrigated plantation that lies fallow. "How will I feed my children now?" Phili and many of his fellow villagers have begun panning for gold in the Piriwiri River, but even that livelihood isn't beyond reach of the long arm of the state. Mugabe's government just announced regulations barring the sale of gold by "alluvial gold miners," among other scofflaws.
Mugabe was a rebel leader in the guerrilla war that gained Zimbabwe its independence in 1980, and he has been the nation's head of state since. For much of his rule, Zimbabwe was seen as an African success story, and until recently, it was considered a breadbasket. Mugabe tends to blame his country's current problems on drought, Western colonialism and capitalism, peppering speeches with attacks on greedy entrepreneurs, ruthless markets and the forces of globalization. For too long, he says, rich nations have exploited poorer nations and dictated their economic policies. During a speech this month at the central committee meeting for his ruling party, Zanu PF, he accused his country's bourgeoisie of charging "exorbitant prices." "While many manufacturers and traders want to blame it on production costs, it is clear the consumer is being ripped off, abused and taken advantage of by avaricious, heartless business people, several of whom would want to politicize production processes in sympathy with white landed interests," he said.
While Mugabe studied Marxism at the University of London and is commonly referred to here as Comrade Mugabe, most economists say his policies are driven more by authoritarianism than communism. Since voters rejected Mugabe's bid to rewrite Zimbabwe's constitution in 2000 and especially after he retained power in a disputed election marred by violence this spring - Mugabe and Zanu PF have moved to consolidate their control over the country. And that is the common element of all of Mugabe's economic policies. Zimbabwe now requires its pension funds to deposit nearly half their reserves with the government at paltry interest rates, so inflation is draining away pensions. Banks must buy government debt on the cheap as well. And as of this month, manufacturers must trade in half their foreign currency to the government for Zimbabwean dollars -at the ludicrous official rate - and must deposit the rest of the currency in government banks, to be withdrawn only with government permission. The nation's industrial trade group says half its members might close their doors rather than comply. "It's tough," said Callisto Jokonya, the CEO of a refrigerator manufacturer. "What you learn about business in books is not practical in this environment. The politicians have their own agendas." Charles Zambe, a shopkeeper in Harare, got a taste of the new economy last month when police charged him with "profiteering." His crime: selling a 5-kilogram bag of maize for 350 Zimbabwean dollars. The official price was supposed to be 150, but Zambe had bought the bag for 320. His profiteering amounted to 2 or 3 American cents. Still, his maize stocks were confiscated, and he was fined 5,000 Zimbabwean dollars. "Every day it's getting harder to survive," Zambe said. "It's like making money is illegal."
Mugabe's latest response to Zimbabwe's underground economy was this month's list of price controls on yarn, window frames, building sands and a host of other products. The price controls also tried to address the twisted-bread problem, and the related problem of merchants who split up price-controlled packages and sell both halves at higher prices. It is now illegal to "manufacture, produce or provide any such good or service under a new name or brand, or in units not previously offered for sale, except with the written authority of the Ministry." The government also announced a recruiting drive to find more inspectors to enforce the price laws and has dropped hints in the state-owned Herald newspaper that some kind of freeze on salaries could be imminent. John Robertson, an economist in Harare, warned that this cycle of controls, evasions and more controls cannot last long, that it's impossible and inadvisable to try to stop entrepreneurs from providing new goods. In mid-December, Mugabe shut down all currency exchanges, but they have moved to back alleys. New price ceilings on furniture and refrigerators have simply prompted merchants to demand cash up front.
Meanwhile, Mugabe's government is spending half its revenue to pay interest on its debts. The more foreign currency it tries to squeeze out of exporters, the less incentive they have to export - or at least to report their exports to the government. A recent editorial cartoon in a Harare paper portrayed the funeral business as "the only growing industry in Zimbabwe." "Look, there's only so long you can defy the laws of supply and demand," Robertson said. "It's like defying the laws of gravity. Pretty soon, you're going to come crashing down." The deepest crisis is the fuel shortage. Zimbabwe had a contract to import Libyan oil, but it missed payments, and the flow has slowed to a trickle. There is hardly any gas in Harare, which has not stopped drivers from lining up at stations for hours upon hearing rumors of gas. Buses are grounded; cars are left at home; lines snake around entire city blocks, choking off all of Fourth Street and half of Robert Mugabe Road. "All we do is look for petrol," said taxi driver Champion Mutari. "It's all anybody does around here." Mugabe doesn't have that problem. He still rides in an armored Mercedes limousine with tinted windows, surrounded by two dozen motorcycles and sport utility vehicles with their sirens blaring. The motorcade is known as Bob Mugabe and the Wailers. And it is now a crime in Zimbabwe to make rude gestures or comments as it passes by. "It's all about total power," Robertson said. "The economy is just one more way to expand control."
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From The Observer (UK), 22 December
Reign of terror
A campaign of tactical torture and random beatings ensures Robert Mugabe wins by a landslide. But, as Andy Malone reports, his victory is a defeat for Zimbabwe
Just before dawn, the reason why Robert Mugabe had closed Zimbabwe's borders became chillingly apparent. Caught in the death-white glare of our headlamps, a group of young men in green bomber jackets and polished boots were jogging along the side of the road. They were not soldiers, but they appeared to have been on a mission. When the sun rose a short time later, there was evidence that the young men had been busy that night. Coaxed from their hiding places, black Zimbabweans displayed their wounds and told harrowing stories of torture and death. March was the month when Mugabe's madness plunged his country into mayhem and terror. The men I saw on the road had been hired by the president to terrify the population into voting for him in elections later that month. These were the men Mugabe did not want the world to see, underlining why foreign journalists had been banned from Zimbabwe. Dubbed the Talibobs, the youths were marauding through villages across the country, demanding to see the member- ship cards of Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party. Anyone without a card was beaten. Some were taken away to 're-education' camps, where they were forced to chant Mugabe's name throughout the night. A group of women I met at a safe house claimed they had been raped by the Talibobs; some were sexually assaulted by their fellow male captives, who were forced to do so or face another beating. Those reluctant to swear allegiance to Mugabe had their heads held down in buckets of water until they passed out. Some were 're-educated' for weeks, with regular beatings. Along with stealing ballot boxes and setting up torture camps to punish his opponents, Mugabe also used a new weapon against his people - food. The strategy was straightforward: areas where people voted for him received food, areas of opposition were not allowed any.
This was not what people thought would happen when Robert Mugabe was elected leader of Zimbabwe in 1980. After four years of war against Ian Smith's white minority rule, the former guerrilla was lauded at his state inauguration as a hero of the black liberation movement. More than two decades later, the former breadbasket of Africa, was on its knees. The president had decided to preside over the collapse of the economy, and the torture and starvation of his people, while he and his second wife Grace were helicoptered between their various mansions around the country. How did he manage to wreck Zimbabwe so quickly, and why? By falling prey to a common addiction among African dictators: greed. In 1999, he sent thousands of troops into Congo to plunder minerals and diamonds on behalf of his ruling elite. The troops were not paid. The drain on the country's resources was huge.The people grew restless. Fearing disaster in the March elections, Mugabe decided to invoke memories of the revolution and put the blame on wealthy white farmers, who employed hundreds of thousands working the land. Through his Stasi-trained secret police, Mugabe sent in paid thugs to scare the farmers off their land. A handful were killed; hundreds fled. Foreign investment dried up, the economy collapsed, and unemployment and malnutrition soared. Mugabe 'won' the elections by a narrow majority. People voted for him for one reason: they might die if they refused to. Meanwhile, nine months later, he continues to torture and starve a terrified population, and the world continues to ignore Zimbabwe's cry for freedom.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 20 December
$2b set aside for militia centres
Loughty Dube
Government is setting up more national youth service training centres across the country as it steps up measures to institutionalise its militias, the Zimbabwe Independent has established. The move is part of a programme by government to establish training centres in each district of every province during the first half of the year. Sources within the Ministry of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation told the Independent that half of the ministry's 2003 $4 billion budget had been set aside for the establishment of the national youth service training scheme. The sources said a large chunk of the funds would go towards the upgrading of Kamativi Training Centre in Matabeleland North, which is expected to be the largest national youth training camp in the country. "At least half of the ministry's budget will go towards the setting up of national youth training centres throughout the country," said the source. "The $2 billion allocated in this year's budget is not enough to set up enough centres as we anticipate an increased enrolment of youths for the national service programme."
Currently there are five youth training centres in the country: Guyu in Matabeleland South, Border Gezi in Mashonaland Central, Kamativi in Matabeleland North, and Mushagashi and Dadaya in Midlands province. Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation minister Elliot Manyika confirmed the drive for more centres saying there was nothing sinister in this as government announced the move a "long time ago". "We are setting up national youth training centres in places where there are none and places like Harare, Bulawayo and Mashonaland West are our top priority," Manyika said. He said there were people bent on disrupting the programme but vowed it would go ahead despite public criticism. "Even if you people criticise the programme, we will go ahead with it and come January everything will be in place," Manyika said. Graduates from the Border Gezi National Youth Training Centre have been used by Zanu PF to harass opposition party supporters during election campaigns. So far over 9 000 youths have graduated from the programme and the majority have been absorbed into different ministries as reward for their support during election campaigns. The setting up of the new training centres, according to sources, will work in tandem with government's policy announced two months ago which stipulates that "O" Level certificate holders cannot proceed to "A" Level and government institutions without a national youth service certificate. The government has in the past defended the youth training programme as essential for instilling a sense of patriotism among youths.
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From News24 (SA), 27 December
Zim fuel crisis eases, supplies uncertain
Cris Chinaka
Harare - A severe fuel shortage that almost brought Zimbabwe to a halt this month is starting to ease, but oil industry sources said on Friday supplies remain uncertain due to a foreign currency crunch. The three-week fuel shortage spilled into the Christmas holiday this week, leaving motorists and commuters stranded as Zimbabwe grapples with its worst economic crisis in decades. Industry sources said a week of emergency imports had started to ease the shortage, which has become the most graphic evidence of an economic meltdown critics blame on President Robert Mugabe's government. Thousands of motorists had been forced to spend days in fuel queues as the country ran dry of petrol and diesel. A week ago the government announced it had ordered fuel worth over US$15m from Kuwait and South Africa to ease the shortage, and that other fuel imports would continue to help stabilise the situation. "The situation is getting slightly better in terms of supplies," one fuel filling station manager said on Friday. "We have been getting some fuel deliveries for five straight days, and you can see there are more cars and buses moving on the roads now. "But the problem is that these supplies cannot be guaranteed as long as we have the kind of foreign currency problems that we have as a country," he said.
Zimbabwe has been running out of foreign exchange thanks in part to an official exchange rate well above that found on the black market, and decreasing agricultural exports as its key farm sector lurches into crisis. Zimbabwe Energy and Power Development Minister Amos Midzi and officials from the state oil procurement agency NOCZIM were not available for comment on Friday. Zimbabwe's fuel supplies have been erratic since 1999 due to a foreign currency squeeze. Midzi has said that a barter fuel deal with Libya to provide 70% of Zimbabwe's fuel needs has run into problems because Zimbabwe has been unable to supply the beef, sugar and tobacco it agreed to pay for the Libyan oil imports.But he said the government was working on salvaging the deal as it seeks ways out of what has become the worst economic crisis since Zimbabwe gained independence from Britain in 1980.
The economy has been in recession for four years, and is expected to shrink by about 10% in 2003. Nearly half the country's 14 million people are threatened by severe food shortages which Mugabe has blamed on drought, but his critics point to the state seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless black people. Mugabe denies mismanaging the economy and says the country is a victim of sabotage by domestic and foreign opponents opposed to his land reforms. But critics of the government say Zimbabwe's foreign exchange policy, which has kept Zimbabwe's currency pegged at Z$55 to the US dollar over the last two years despite a black market exchange rate of some Z$1 700 to $1, is a key part of the crisis.
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From IOL (SA), 27 December
Fuel shortages cut road death toll in Zim
By Angus Shaw
Harare - There was at least one silver lining in the cloud of fuel shortages plaguing Zimbabwe: The holiday death toll on the nation's roads fell by about half, police and the state media said on Friday. Since the weekend, 42 people died in vehicle accidents, down from 80 during the same period last year. Police attributed the reduction to fuel shortages that left cars waiting in long lines outside gas stations instead of driving on the roads during the holiday and kept buses from their traditional routes ferrying tens of thousands of urban workers to their rural families. Hard currency shortages have caused sporadic fuel shortages for nearly three years. Supplies dried up almost completely last week, causing the worst transportation disruptions since late 1999. The Ministry of Energy admitted it failed to deliver fuel to meet holiday demand after promising to speed up imports. Ambulances and emergency services were running, but some operations of repair crews of the main electricity utility were curtailed.
Twenty of the reported road fatalities were on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the state Herald newspaper reported. Four people died in the worst crash when a truck rammed into stationary vehicle and caught fire near the central town of Gweru on Tuesday. Many motorists spent much of the holiday in fuel lines or lines for buses that didn't show up. Only a few gas stations in Harare sold fuel Friday to long lines of motorists. Meanwhile, many automatic teller machines ran out of money, state radio said on Friday. The 500 Zimbabwe dollar bill, the largest denomination, has been in short supply, a fact also blamed on hard currency shortages that cut imports of special paper used to print the bills. New lines for corn meal, the staple food, bread, sugar and milk formed as food stores re-opened on Friday. The sugar shortage has forced bottlers of soft drinks to shut down some production facilities.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. At least 6,7 million Zimbabweans, more than half the population, face starvation in coming months because of a sharp drop in agricultural production blamed on drought and the government's seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms. The state Central Statistical Office estimated inflation rose this month to a record 175 percent, up from 144 percent in November. But analysts say real inflation is much higher, fed by a brisk black market in essential commodities that sometimes sell for more than 10 times their fixed government prices. The unofficial hard currency exchange rate is about 1 500 Zimbabwe dollars to the US dollar, while the official rate is 55-1.
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From IRIN (UN), 27 December
Food gap still large
Johannesburg - Large cereal gaps in Southern Africa will be difficult to fill before the end of the current marketing year, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) warned in its latest report. "Of particular concern are Zambia and Zimbabwe. Zambia has made the least progress towards filling its cereal gap, having received less than 10 percent of its import requirements. Food aid imports to Zambia have been slowed by the government ban on GM [genetically modified] maize. According to available data, Zambia currently faces a cereal gap of 617,000 mt," FEWS NET said. Current commercial and food aid import plans, even if they were they fully met, would fill only 63 percent of this remaining gap, although it was unlikely that these plans would be fully achieved based on past import performance, the report added. In Zimbabwe the situation was worse. "With a 907,000 mt cereal gap remaining, Zimbabwe faces the greatest challenge. Current food aid import plans, if realised, would reduce the gap to 500,000 mt. Although government plans to import an additional 336,000 mt, there is concern about government capacity to import this quantity due to foreign exchange and other constraints. Even if all planned imports are received, which is considered unlikely by many analysts, Zimbabwe would still face a sizeable cereal gap of 163,000 mt," FEWS NET warned. Meanwhile, the situation in the rest of the countries affected by the regional food crisis appeared to be better, FEWS NET said. "Although reported imports to Malawi have so far filled 54 percent of estimated needs, there remains a sizeable gap of 262,000 mt. Current import plans, if achieved, would reduce the gap by only 44 percent. "Preliminary information from Mozambique indicates they have already received more than enough imports to fill their cereal gap, with additional commercial imports still expected. Lesotho has imported more than two-thirds of its requirements, and Swaziland nearly 59 percent," FEWS NET noted.
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From IRIN (UN), 24 December
Poverty driving rural Zimbabweans to desperate measures
Johannesburg - The poverty that has accompanied Zimbabwe's economic crisis has driven many desperate rural people to prostitution, robbery and gold panning to survive, the latest Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report said. "Cross border trading with neighbours Mozambique, Zambia and Botswana is also on the increase as households try to find any way they can to make ends meet," the report said. With maize and wheat being sold at eight times the government-set price, and oil, salt and rice prices escalating, income generating opportunities were diminishing for rural households, FEWS NET said. The demand for casual labour, which provided one of the few sources of cash, had declined in 90 percent of rural villages while 96 percent of villages reported a decrease in the flow of remittances from urban areas, researchers found. As a result, 80 percent of rural households reported eating wild foods they did not normally consume, which increased the risk of poisoning.
Preliminary results from a recent assessment trip by NGOs found that the government-controlled Grain Marketing Board (GMB) and food aid sources were supplying only about 40 percent of food needs in the rural areas, with the remainder being met through parallel markets, wild foods, gifts and bartering. Prospects were not much better in urban areas where workers battled inflation and many did not even receive their traditional Christmas bonus. The government's decision to provide relief by freezing the prices on a long list of commodities saw prices shoot up on the parallel markets due to shortages and demand. The Zambia Post reported on Tuesday that the Zambian government had lifted an anti-dumping import ban on certain commodities that speculators with foreign currency were buying in Zimbabwe and selling cheaply in Zambia. A set of controls would prevent further "dumping", the newspaper reported. In addition to current food shortages, comparisons with previous planting patterns and harvests, combined with predicted rainfall patterns and a moderate El Nino, were causing concern over next year's food security situation.
The total area under cultivation for food crops was less than 50 percent of the 1990s average and for cash crops like tobacco, a vital foreign currency earner, it was less than 25 percent of the average, FEWS NET said. Over the past year, foreign exchange shortages have caused disruptions to fuel supplies and the import of fertilisers and agricultural chemicals. Agricultural production was also adversely affected by a lack of seed and fertiliser, and a lack of energy among farmers too malnourished to plant effectively. The land redistribution exercise had also created an environment of uncertainty in the farming sector. "If things do not improve, food security will once again be of major concern in 2003-2004," FEWS NET said. It urged the government to review its grain distribution system and said the procurement and distribution of food aid needed to be stepped up urgently to address the unmet needs of rural households.
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From News24 (SA), 24 December
Acute seed shortage in Zim
Harare - Production of the staple food crop in Zimbabwe, where eight million are facing famine, is threatened by an acute shortage of maize seed and fertiliser, according to a report published on Tuesday. The Agricultural Research and Extension Services (Arex) said in their latest crop and livestock report, cited by the state-run Herald newspaper, that "the problems associated with seed, fertiliser and draught power shortages persist" throughout the country. But Agriculture Minister Joseph Made accused commercial seed producers of holding back inputs in a bid to undermine President Robert Mugabe's controversial land reform programme. "We are aware that some companies are holding on to the seed crop because they do not want to complement the government's efforts under the land reform programme," Made told the Herald. "All these are efforts meant to frustrate the ongoing land reform programme," he added. Zimbabwe, which is threatened by one of the worst famines in memory, with more than two thirds of its 11.6 million people at risk, is almost half way through its current agricultural season. Zimbabwe is the worst-hit among six southern African countries also facing famine. Foreign aid agencies say the problem here has been exacerbated by disruptions to agriculture on white-owned farms acquired by the government for resettlement of new black farmers under a chaotic land reform programme.
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Comment from The Washington Times, 21 December
Who will speak for Zimbabwe's blacks?
Nat Hentoff
With all the continuing attention to human-rights horror stories around the world, there has been only slight attention to the sufferings of the black citizens of Zimbabwe, ruled by Robert Mugabe. The United Nations' World Food Program reported on Nov. 30 that food shortages in Zimbabwe are so severe that half the population - more than 6 million people - will be in acute need of food by March. But Andrew Natsios, the administrator for the United States Agency for International Development, testified before Congress in August: "We now have confirmed reports in a number of areas in the most severely affected region of the country, which is the south, that food is being distributed to people who are members of Mr. Mugabe's political party and is not being distributed based on need. The children of opposition party members have been driven away from school supplementary feeding programs in rural areas." In September, Adotei Akwei, Africa Advocacy director of Amnesty International U.S.A., told The New York Times that "people have been detained and tortured. In (Zimbabwe) now, literally, no one's safety and security is guaranteed if there is even the slightest doubt of support for President Mugabe." The Amani Trust in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, monitors and treats black citizens of that country who have been tortured or otherwise punished as enemies of the state. Tony Reeler, clinical director of the Amani Trust - which is supported by the U.N. Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture and the Swedish Red Cross - told Christina Lamb in the Aug. 25 Sunday Telegraph in London: "We're seeing an enormous prevalence of rape and enough cases to say it's being used by the state as a political tool, with women and girls being raped because they are the wives, girlfriends or daughters of political activists. There are also horrific cases of girls as young as 12 or 13 being taken off to militia camps, used and abused and kept in forced concubinage. But I suspect, as with Bosnia, the real extent of what is happening is going to take a hell of a long time to come out."
Passed by Mr. Mugabe's controlled parliament, the Public Order and Security Act was enacted this past January. As described by the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights in New York and Washington, the act makes it "an offence to make a public statement with the intention to, or knowing there is a risk of 'undermining the authority of or insulting' the president. This prohibition includes statements likely to engender 'feelings of hostility toward the president.'" In October, Sandra Nyaira, former political editor of The Daily News in Zimbabwe, received this year's International Women's Media Foundation Courage in Journalism Award in New York. Accepting it, she said that "day in and day out, journalists in Zimbabwe work without knowing what the future holds for them — could it be a bomb? Could you be thrown behind bars for being too critical?" Many have been arrested. Yet, in November, The New York Times reported that "the South African foreign minister, Dr. Nkosazana Zuma, said it was time for Western nations to consider ending penalties they imposed on Zimbabwe. South Africa hailed Zimbabwe's presidential election in March as legitimate, even though officials eliminated polling stations in opposition strongholds, and the police fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of people who were waiting to vote."
Where is Nelson Mandela, who fought so long and courageously for democracy in South Africa? Where, in this country, are women's groups; the black and white clergy that organized against slavery and gang rapes by government militia in Sudan; editorial writers; and the clamorous commentators on cable television? Where is Jesse Jackson? Zimbabwe, mind you, is a member of the Untied Nations Human Rights Commission, seated comfortably with such other proudly undemocratic regimes as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Libya and Sudan. But then, remember that the United Nations ignored genocide in Rwanda, as did President Bill Clinton. Well, at least Mr. Mugabe has yet to win the Nobel Peace Prize. I have yet to hear of any demonstrations on American college campuses to help children in Zimbabwe who are going hungry because their parents are in the wrong political party - or to protest against the girls and women being raped for political reasons.
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From The Observer (UK), 29 December
Kenya sweeps corrupt ruler out of power
Opposition hails 'fantastic victory' after peaceful election
James Astill in Nairobi
Kenyans revelled in a day few dared to dream of in four decades, as the preliminary results yesterday from Friday's elections suggested a landslide victory for the opposition, sweeping away many crooks and cronies of a ruling party that has terrorised and impoverished them since independence. With about a fifth of the poll already counted last night, Mwai Kibaki, a veteran opposition leader and former Vice-President, had won around 70 per cent of the votes. Uhuru Kenyatta, the candidate of the outgoing President Daniel arap Moi's Kanu party and son of Jomo, Kenya's founding father, had won less than 30 per cent, offering Kenya the chance of one of the most peaceful and democratic transitions from 'Big Man' rule in history. 'We are cruising to a fantastic and historic victory,' said Kijana Wamalwa, a key member of Kibaki's National Rainbow Coalition (NARC). 'The mood here is very sombre,' said an official at Nairobi's State House, the centre of a kleptocracy which has forced some 60 per cent of Kenyans into wretched poverty.
Fearing a repeat of the violence that claimed thousands of lives before previous elections, Nairobeans barely ventured out over Christmas, except to vote. But as radio stations broadcast the unofficial results from polling stations around the country, small, disbelieving crowds emerged. 'No violence and no more Kanu, no more Moi - it's too much, a gift from God,' said Josiah Owade, one of a group of youths hunkered round a radio. After 24 years of misrule, Moi was constitutionally obliged to step aside. Yet many Kenyans feared that he planned to rule on through Kenyatta. 'Choosing Kenyatta was all about self-preservation for the old man and his family,' said one diplomat in Nairobi yesterday. 'But the trick hasn't paid off, because Kenyans wouldn't be fooled.' Even more remarkably in a country where every vote has traditionally had its price, many of Moi's most notorious cronies lost their seats. They include Vice-President Musalia Mudavadi; Justice Minister Julius Sunkuli; Moi's crony-in-chief Shariff Nassir; and John Haroun Mwau, a Kanu vice-chairman. 'This is a glorious day for Kenya,' said John Githongo of Transparency International, the watchdog which ranks Kenya among the world's most corrupt nations. 'All the evidence suggest Kenyans have taken bribes across the country, and then voted with their consciences.' At a military parade yesterday morning to mark his passing, Moi shrugged off the first results. 'That's democracy,' he said. 'As long as Kenyans are united, I am satisfied.' At the time, Moi's thuggish son Gideon - one of the most feared men in Kenya and Kenyatta's likely choice as Prime Minister - represented Kanu's only victory. He stood unopposed after opposition candidates mysteriously withdrew. NARC's likely victory took on added significance in western Kenya where the sun wore a halo on Friday. Meteorologists said the phenomenon was caused by light refracting through ice. But the Luo tribe, one of Kenya's poorest, celebrated it as propitious and more than 90 per cent of them voted for NARC.
As Kenya's likely new government, NARC looks only fairly auspicious. It was formed when many of Moi's leading cronies deserted Kanu, after being passed over for Kenyatta. United only by hatred of Moi, it has no ideology, no concrete policies and could crumble over the division of spoils. With many of Kanu's most violent politicians now in NARC, Kenyans have been spared the politically stirred tribal clashes that claimed more than 3,000 lives before two previous elections. On polling day, the threat of rioting lurked in Nairobi's slums, where NARC's candidate - and likely Prime Minister - Raila Odinga claimed two million voters had been disenfranchised (though NARC had insisted on the regulation that caused this), and threatened to lead a million-man march on State House. But NARC's campaign was better characterised by Kibaki, virtually bedbound for the past three weeks after a car crash. On Friday, the man who promises he will 'Save Kenya' was so frail he had to cast his vote from the back of his Mercedes. NARC's campaign was mostly peaceful, disjointed and lethargic, counting entirely on the poor's desperation for change. Indeed it was they - and not Kibaki's slick London PR consultants - who supplied NARC's real slogan: 'Unbwoggable' - the made-up title of a hit pop song, meaning 'unstoppable'. NARC also boasts Kanu's most accomplished thieves, so Kibaki's promise to fight corruption rings hollow. Yet NARC is also introducing a handful of distinguished activists to politics - notably Wangari Maathai, a celebrated environmentalist - and, most importantly, since Moi began constructing his patronage network Kenya has changed. High rates of literacy and an energetic press are closing many of the tribal divisions Moi abused to divide opposition. The Western donors who allowed Moi's cronies to steal their loans during the Cold War demand change too. Kenya's aid was frozen four years ago because of the corruption. If Kibaki wants the half billion pounds pending to restart Kenya's shrinking economy, he will need to offer stiff guarantees. Already he has promised to pass two anti-corruption Bills. One ensures that all politicians declare their wealth.
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From BBC News, 29 December
Pressure grows for Zimbabwe decision
The England cricket captain, Nasser Hussain, has said the government must take responsibility for deciding whether or not the team plays in Zimbabwe. He said it was "ridiculous" for the players to be left to make "a major political judgement" about whether or not they travelled to Harare in February for World Cup matches. Aid minister Clare Short has branded the decision to go to Zimbabwe as "deplorable and shocking", and called for the tour to be scrapped. A government spokesman responded by saying the decision was up to the cricketing authorities, but "our advice is that they should not go". Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, according to officials, also believes the decision is not the government's to take, but has said "it would be better if England didn't go". However, the chairman of selectors, David Graveney, said that he wants the government to take a more direct role and that if he were asked to go on the tour he would refuse.
In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Hussain said the government should "set up a body of some sort to make this moral decision on our behalf". Mr Hussain made his position clear after the England Cricket Board (ECB) said that it expected the government to take the lead. "There may well be wider political, diplomatic, and economic ramifications from the England team participating in the World Cup," ECB spokesman John Read said. "But if that is truly the case then we would expect the government to come to us directly and speak to us and express their concerns. So far that's not happened, but if and when it does happen we will be very, very happy to sit down with government and talk about it." The position of the chair of selectors is clear though. Mr Graveney told The Mail on Sunday: "If I were asked to go to Zimbabwe, I would have to refuse. I am speaking purely as an individual. I know that many people (in Zimbabwe)... have been suffering horribly. With all that in mind, I just couldn't go there." The squad of 15 players set to play for England will be selected on Tuesday.
Ms Short said the prospect of the team travelling to Zimbabwe was "shocking and deplorable", given the way its government deals with opponents. Commenting on the decision to travel to a country ravaged by political violence and widespread famine, Ms Short's view was unequivocal. She said: "An election has been stolen and people are being starved because they dared to vote freely. "I think they should not go - it is like pretending everything is OK in Zimbabwe and it is not." Ms Short said hungry people were not being fed and asked: "How can you play cricket in the middle of that?" Tory MP Andrew Mackay said Tony Blair should publicly ask the England team to boycott Zimbabwe, where it is due to play six matches. He said: "Our cricketers must understand that by going they will give succour to the Mugabe regime that starves its political opponents and commits dreadful human rights breaches." Former England captain David Gower has also said he is against the cricketers going to Zimbabwe, because of the "immense injustice" there.
The England players are due to travel to Zimbabwe in the new year, after their current tour of Australia. Britain has been leading condemnation of Zimbabwe, where president Robert Mugabe has been pursuing a policy of forced redistribution of land owned by white farmers. His failure to conduct fair elections earlier this year resulted in European Union sanctions being imposed on his ruling Zanu PF party. Mr Mugabe's opponents have faced beatings and murder, and now a massive food shortage in Zimbabwe is widely seen as being manipulated to starve them.
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Comment from The Tablet (UK), 21 December
Archbishop Pius Ncube A hero’s witness
By Michael Auret, former Director of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe
"I come to you today to appeal to you for prayers to ease our most serious situation in Zimbabwe, and to appeal to you to lobby, by all means possible, for a peaceful solution in the Zimbabwean crisis. We face an absolutely desperate situation in Zimbabwe and our government is lying to the world about it. Our government continues to engage in lies, propaganda, the twisting of facts, half-truths, downright untruth and gross misinformation, because they are fascists."
These were the opening words of Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo in Zimbabwe as he delivered the 2002 Archbishop Hurley Lecture. The archbishop was clearly under some stress, and as he spoke the emotion in his voice and his body language was obvious. His deep concern for the people of Zimbabwe and, in particularly, the people of his diocese, who have suffered so much for so long, added power to his message. In recent months Archbishop Pius has been the butt of unsavoury innuendo and ridicule from the government-controlled media in Zimbabwe. For example, the Chronicle in Bulawayo has alleged there was a "surprising increase in homosexual pornography in Khami prison" after Archbishop Ncube visited the inmates. Such slurs are the work of Jonathan Moyo, the propaganda minister. Most recently Archbishop Ncube has been accused of trying to prevent development in his diocese by refusing to hand over his hospital at Lupane, St. Luke’s, for government use as a provincial hospital. The reasons for the archbishop's reluctance are very clear, as the government health facilities have all but failed. There are no drugs, few trained staff, inpatients are not fed, nor must be fed by relatives bringing in food when there is none, and equipment is either lacking or in disrepair. But under Church control, the hospital is providing a remarkable service to the people, as it has done for many decades, throughout the liberation struggle and the Matabeleland violence.
Archbishop Ncube spoke of the many thousands of his people who are facing almost certain starvation, not only because food is very scarce, but also because the government will not allow supplies to people perceived to be supporters of the opposition party. Indeed, several tons of food lie rotting in a church hall near Bulawayo, after the so-called war veterans, acting on government instructions, stopped the distribution. Archbishop Ncube’s lone Catholic voice has recently been supported by leaders of the non-Catholic churches in Matabeleland. They announced: "We fully support Archbishop Pius Ncube’s statement of 6 November as reported on the BBC. We hear the cries of the suffering, the harassed and starving people of our country for help." They added: "We condemn in the strongest terms the action of (President Robert) Mugabe and his government in hijacking food supplies and distributing them in a partisan way and in hindering the work of non-governmental organisations and other concerned bodies in their efforts to feed the hungry and suffering people in our midst." Unhappily, Mugabe and his cronies have so divided the church hierarchy along racial and tribal lines that Archbishop Ncube is isolated in his struggle. The Catholic Church, which played such a leading role as the voice of the voiceless in the past, has itself become all but voiceless. This tactic was less successful in the early 80s, when Mugabe first tried to divide the bishops on those grounds. Then the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference approved a statement from their Commission for Justice and Peace: "It should be clearly understood that the Catholic bishops of Zimbabwe stand united, and when they speak publicly they speak with one voice."
More than two years ago I wrote to Rome to warn the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace that Mugabe would become a serious embarrassment for the Church. I even used such exaggerated words as "ostentatious Catholic" to describe him as I tried to impress on the Vatican the danger facing the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe from the proximity of certain members of the hierarchy to the presidency. That danger is now realised in Zimbabwe, and the Church suffers grievously as a result. I understand that the Mugabe government has even approached the Vatican to request the retirement of Archbishop Ncube. If this is true, and I have no reason to doubt it, it emphasises the government’s fear of the truth. All the governments of Zimbabwe for the past four decades feared that truth, but none to the extent of the present regime. The world view on corruption and crimes against humanity has become more focused than in the past, inspiring fear in the ruling Zanu PF party and its leadership. But the people of Zimbabwe, who can see the evil all around them, are confused that only one Catholic voice is raised and, in a country where the majority have access only to the medium of the government-controlled radio, that voice is not heard. One of the local independent weeklies in Zimbabwe recently recalled that in the past it was the Catholic bishops, Lamont and Karlen, who were "in the forefront for the push for democratic change." : Lamont during he liberation struggle and Karlen, who was the Bishop (later Archbishop) of Bulawayo, during the Matabeleland terror in the early 80s. That could explain the militancy of the present government against the Archbishop of Bulawayo, the newspaper thought. It regretted that Archbishop Ncube was being left to wage a "sole crusade" for democratic rule, respect for human rights and depoliticisation of food aid. Yet some of his colleagues in the episcopacy were apparently "of the firm belief that all is well in the country", the newspaper remarked. "Many people would not be ready to forgive" the isolated position of Archbishop Ncube, it concluded.
The current situation in the country has been well described in the latest report from the Physicians for Human Rights. This Danish group has previously highlighted the physical torture carried out by the government on its enemies. This new report also carries harrowing reports of torture, but focuses on the use of food as a political weapon. This, it states, if "the most serious and widespread human rights violation in Zimbabwe at this time." The report quotes Didimus Mutasa, a senior member of Zanu PF and formerly the respected colleague of Guy Clutton-Brock, who must be turning in his grave (a national celebrity during the struggle for independence, he is buried at Heroes’ Acre). Mutasa says: "We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don’t want all these extra people." The population of Zimbabwe stands at 13 million: such a comment clearly indicates the attitude of the government towards the people it rules, a party which claims ad nauseam that it brought human rights to the nation. The report is amply illustrated with case studies and photographs, and vindicates Archbishop Ncube’s assertion that people are starving in his diocese. It is true, of course, that a very large number of Zimbabweans have Aids, which inflates the figures when they succumb to the disease; but many of the deaths are premature because the sufferers are starving. Zanu PF blames Aids for deaths that should be ascribed to hunger.
There are many extraordinarily courageous people in Zimbabwe, trying desperately to assist the poor. But in the face of a government determined to hold on to power, charitable work is extremely difficult, and many lives will be lost unnecessarily. Many thousands of citizens have been forced to seek refugee status in other countries, notably Britain and South Africa; many hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs; the churches are prevented from looking after the hungry; many who are HIV-positive will die prematurely from starvation. Evil is manifest in Zimbabwe today.
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Comment from The Observer (UK), 29 December
Cricket's chance to shame Mugabe
Move the World Cup from Zimbabwe
When England's cricketers arrive in Zimbabwe to play in the World Cup in February, they will not be shown any of the abuses of a country increasingly regarded as an international pariah. They will be insulated from the murder, torture and repression used daily against the opposition. It is unlikely that their hosts will mention that journalists are prevented by both law and force from reporting events that do not suit President Robert Mugabe's agenda, or that entire areas that voted for the opposition are denied food in a country sliding daily towards humanitarian disaster. The International Cricket Council, the game's ruling body, was wrong to award Zimbabwe six of the World Cup matches. It has compounded its error by insisting that the fixtures should go ahead simply because there is no perceived risk to players' safety. But this is about much more than safety. Mugabe - the patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union - will almost certainly exploit such a prestigious event to attempt to prove falsely to the outside world that his country is, if not normal, then certainly in much better shape than critics allege.
Mugabe should not be given the opportunity to distort Zimbabwe's grim realities in this way. Until now, international disapproval of Mugabe's regime has been restricted to suspension from the Commonwealth and limited sanctions, none economic, by the EU and United States. So far, no country has imposed a sporting boycott. It is time that position changed. While sport should strive to remain above politics, sporting boycotts must be available as a sign of our disapproval - as a last resort and on a case-by-case basis. Nelson Mandela acknowledged that refusals to play South Africa in official matches helped isolate the apartheid regime. The ICC still has the opportunity to move the six matches to South Africa with a minimum of disruption to the tournament. Mugabe's odious behaviour demands that none of the World Cup matches should be held in his country. But our government also needs to put spine into its policy on Zimbabwe. It is not good enough for Tony Blair to distance himself from this issue. The England and Wales Cricket Board complains, perhaps understandably, that it is a victim of double standards - that Ministers urge it to shun Zimbabwe while making no such pleas to the 300 British companies which trade there. But if the Government, and the wider international community, is serious about ending Mugabe's tyranny, now is the time to take action which will help restore democracy to Zimbabwe and honour to cricket.
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From Reuters, 29 December
Zimbabwe widens price controls to include newspapers
Harare - Zimbabwe's government has frozen prices of all newspapers as part of sweeping controls aimed at curbing soaring inflation in its crisis-hit economy. The Ministry of Industry and International Trade, in a government gazette published this weekend, said prices of newspapers, both state- and privately-owned, would remain at current levels. President Robert Mugabe's government announced sweeping price controls in early November covering hundreds of goods and services, from food and fuel to farm machinery, light bulbs and toilet paper, saying this was necessary to fight inflation. The list also included newspapers and newsprint but had not set any prices. Since then, the government has been announcing new prices for various products and services. Both state and privately-owned newspapers had been forced to raise prices to offset the cost of soaring newsprint. Some newspapers are likely to suffer if the government fails to control other costs such as labour. Staff at the privately-owned Daily News went on strike before Christmas after the newspaper failed to meet demands for a 150 percent wage rise. The Daily News sells for 100 Zimbabwe dollars, while the state-owned Herald newspaper costs Z$70 a copy. Prices for other newspapers range from Z$60 to Z$200 a copy. The measures announced in November came just days after Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa had said price controls on other goods set two years ago had not worked because they ignored the impact of rising input costs. Analysts have said the price controls will not work and are clear sign of desperation by government as the economy sinks deeper into crisis. The southern African country is grappling with shortages of fuel and foreign currency, while nearly half its 14 million people are hungry due to drought and the upheaval caused by the state seizure of white-owned farms for black resettlement. Unemployment and inflation are running at record highs of 70 percent and 175 percent respectively.
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From The Sunday Independent (SA), 29 December
Zimbabwe: staring into an abyss of savagery
By Basildon Peta
For most Zimbabweans 2002 was the most difficult in 22 years of independence, but the new year promises even greater misery. As 2003 beckons, President Robert Mugabe has already signalled that his focus will remain on his knack for the extraordinary to entrench his position instead of policies that will reverse his country's relentless decline into squalor. In an unprecedented move yesterday, Mugabe's government announced that it was imposing price controls on the prices of newspapers. The newspapers will now sell at their current prices and no more increases will be sanctioned. The move will suffocate many independent newspapers that don't get state subsidies and have been grappling with production costs that increase every month. Newsprint costs have increased by more than 300 percent in the past few months, leaving publishers with no option but to increase their cover prices regularly. For instance, the privately owned Daily News, which cost Z$2 when it was launched three years ago now sells at Z$100. Many Zimbabweans will naturally wonder how state control of the prices of newspapers will put food on their tables. Mugabe's government also gazetted controlled prices of school uniforms, rice, toothpaste, electrical appliances, body lotions, hair care products and building materials. The move means Zimbabweans will have to do without almost every commodity required for daily livelihood in the new year as manufacturers stop producing them at a loss.
The decision to control the prices of newspapers is widely seen as a deliberate ploy to destroy the private press and entrench Mugabe's autocracy. While this year Zimbabweans grew accustomed to going without the very basics such as maize meal, bread, milk, cooking oil, sugar and salt, many will be disappointed to learn that their children will no longer be allowed to enrol at tertiary colleges without proof of support for Mugabe's Zanu PF. Shuvai Mahofa, the youth development, gender and employment creation deputy minister, told the weekly Standard newspaper that secondary school graduates would no longer apply directly to tertiary institutions for places. Instead they would apply to a committee of six cabinet ministers tasked with first vetting whether they had undergone the national youth service before being considered for places at colleges. The decision means thousands of pupils wishing to pursue tertiary education would be automatically rejected as preference would go to the Zanu PF militia.
Zimbabwe's annualised inflation hit a record high of 175,5 percent last month despite the price controls, but it is expected to spiral to 200 percent in the new year. The International Monetary Fund expects it to hit 500 percent in the first few months of next year despite the price controls. The central bank has run out of the paper required to print the worthless Zimbabwe dollar and the local currency is now in short supply. Commercial banks have started rationing the amount that can be withdrawn from the banks. The central bank has no foreign currency to buy the paper amid the worst fuel crisis in the country's history. The registrar-general's office has also run out of paper to produce passports and Zimbabweans eager to leave their country will now wait for at least one year to get passports. With no respite expected next year, Zimbabweans are expected to focus more and more on how they can extricate themselves from Mugabe and his discredited isolationist policies. "None but ourselves are to blame for what has gone badly wrong in Zimbabwe. A people get the leadership they deserve. How could any sane people put up with this terrible situation," wrote Bornwell Chakaodza, a respected academic and editor of the Standard. "The capacity of Zimbabweans to tolerate this tragedy is amazing. Is it just plain lunacy or stupidity on our part?"
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From The Financial Times (UK), 30 December
Problems point to 2003 being crunch year for Zimbabwe
By Tony Hawkins
"If you think the current food situation is bad, just wait until next season," says the white farmer's wife. "That's when we'll see a real disaster." Her husband, one of Zimbabwe's most successful farmers and president of the Commercial Farmers' Union in the 1980s, was recently evicted from his farm. The property used to produce 400,000kg of tobacco annually, along with flowers, citrus and beef for export, and maize for domestic consumption. Today it is nearly derelict. The land has been split into more than 20 plots for "new age" black farmers, only two of which are occupied. His workforce had been with him for most of his working life, leaving him with a redundancy bill of Z$60m (£700,000). As the campaign gathers momentum in England and elsewhere to boycott six cricket World Cup games scheduled to be played in Zimbabwe next year, hundreds of commercial farmers across the country have similar stories to tell. While the government insists that it has broken the mould of white colonialism and "given the people back their land", even government ministers are now backing away from claims of a great leap forward in farm production.
Official figures show some 300,000 to 350,000 people have been resettled on the 3,000-plus farms acquired from their former owners - without compensation, although some have been partially paid out for improvements. But even Joseph Made, the agriculture minister, is unable to say how much is being planted and what the 2003 harvest is likely to be. "We only hope that the new farmers will be able to produce enough grain to feed the country," he recently told a parliamentary committee. First-hand assessments by those who have driven through or flown over the country are near-unanimous: huge areas of former commercially owned land lie idle. The Zimbabwe Tobacco Association recently upgraded its forecast for the coming harvest by 20 per cent to between 80m and 85m kg but this is still about half the 2002 figure and two-thirds down on 2000's record. The crop is unlikely to earn more than US$180m £112m), less than half the 2002 level. Since tobacco normally accounts for 25 to 30 per cent of export earnings, it is clear that Zimbabwe's import capacity will be squeezed even more during 2003, especially as beef and horticultural exports, and possibly also cotton, will fall too, albeit less dramatically.
As exports slide, import demand is increasing - specifically for food. The Zimbabwe Grain Producers Association (ZGPA) is estimating a 17 per cent reduction in the area under maize to 1.1m hectares. The combination of erratic rainfall, severe shortages of seed and fertiliser, and a shift from high-yielding commercial farming to semi-subsistence production could mean a crop of only 660,000 tonnes. This is little more than half of estimated human consumption and 37 per cent of total demand, including livestock requirements. The ZGPA expects a shortfall of at least 400,000 tonnes in the current season ending next March. As a result, Zimbabwe will have to import upwards of 1.6m tonnes of maize during 2003. In their recent assessment of the regional food supply situation, the International Monetary Fund and World Bank warned that prospects for 2003 were "very poor". They estimate food production has fallen to one third of previous years' levels while the prevalence of HIV/Aids, foreign exchange shortages and growing unemployment have exacerbated shortages.
The World Food Programme defines some 6.7m Zimbabweans more than half the population - as "food insecure". But by the end of last month, aid agencies had reached only 2.2m people, and current food aid stocks can feed less than half of those in need. In its December report, the USAid-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network said food security was "still critical in most rural areas". As well as the staple maize meal, people queue for bread, sugar, cooking oil and salt. But with food price inflation of 21.5 per cent last month and 235 per cent over the past year, fewer and fewer can afford to buy what they need. Predictably, across-the-board government price controls are being either ignored or bypassed via a booming black market. While some of this deepening catastrophe can be laid at the door of last season's drought - and a widely forecast poor rainfall season in 2002-03 - analysts say President Robert Mugabe's government must shoulder much of the blame. As one bank economist puts it: "Interest rates, the exchange rate, the budget, price controls, land resettlement - you name it, the government has got it wrong." As the problems pile up, 2003 increasingly has the look of a crunch year. Threatened cricket boycotts notwithstanding, Mr Mugabe's statements and demeanour suggest that for him, at least, change is not on the agenda.
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From Reuters, 30 December
Cricket - Governments increase pressure over Zimbabwe
London - The British and Australian governments have stepped up the pressure on their cricket teams and urged them not to play World Cup matches in Zimbabwe. British Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien joined Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer on Sunday in voicing opposition to their sides playing in Zimbabwe during the one-day tournament starting in February. "We cannot order the ECB (England and Wales Cricket Board) not to go to Zimbabwe, but we have asked them not to," Mr O'Brien said in a statement. "The final decision must rest with them. Our opinion is clear. Given the abuse of human rights and the dire circumstances of the people of Zimbabwe, it would be wrong to play a game of cricket there." Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has received widespread international criticism for his controversial land reform programme. Downer said the Australian government was against its team going to Zimbabwe but also had no power to direct the Australian Cricket Board (ACB) not to play. "We are not telling the Australian Cricket Board what to do, it's a matter for them," Downer said. "But we are entitled to an opinion - and the government's opinion is that it is very regrettable that these international, high-profile cricket matches are going to go ahead in Zimbabwe. We are certainly not going to intervene and stop the Australian cricket team from going. It's a matter for the cricket board to judge...but we are very concerned about the decision."
The International Cricket Council (ICC) ruled earlier this month that it was safe to play World Cup matches in Zimbabwe. Six of the tournament's 54 matches are being played there with England scheduled to meet Zimbabwe in Harare on February 13 in a Pool A match, while Australia meet the home nation in Bulawayo on February 24. South Africa is hosting the World Cup. O'Brien said Foreign Office officials had been meeting with ECB representatives since October and briefed them on the situation in Zimbabwe, a former colony of Britain's. England captain Nasser Hussain has said the decision on playing in Zimbabwe should be made by the government. Writing in his column in the Sunday Telegraph newspaper, Hussain said it was "ridiculous" to rely on cricketers to make such a delicate political decision. "It is, yes, faintly ridiculous to suppose that the England captain and management have the time to come to the informed moral judgement which it is necessary to make about going to Zimbabwe," Hussain wrote in the newspaper. "I'm expected to make a major political judgement on whether or not I should lead the England cricket team to Zimbabwe or perhaps shake the president by the hand. It must be right that the decision is made at a higher level. The government should set up a body of some sort to make this moral decision on our behalf and we will then happily abide by it."
The ECB said on December 19 it accepted that it was safe for its team to play in Zimbabwe and did "not consider it appropriate to make political judgements about the acceptability or otherwise of foreign governments". England, Namibia, India, Australia, the Netherlands and Pakistan will play a match each in Zimbabwe in the tournament starting on February 9. The ICC has steadfastly defended its decision to stage the matches in Zimbabwe despite the deteriorating political and economic situation there. "In administering cricket we can't take into account whether one government has a bad relationship with another government," ICC chief executive Malcolm Speed said. "We can't be swayed by these sorts of considerations. We can only make our decision based on cricketing considerations and sporting considerations. We have 84 member countries that have come under all sorts of political regimes. It will be a good tournament for Zimbabwean cricket. As one of the 10 full-member countries of the ICC, they've earned the right to host these matches and there are a lot of dedicated cricket supporters and cricket administrators who want these matches to go ahead." Speed added that any team that refused to play matches in Zimbabwe would forfeit their points. "If the ECB said that they weren't going to play that game because they have been told by their government that they are not to play that game, they would forfeit the points," Speed told a news conference in Melbourne. Australia and West Indies forfeited points at the 1996 World Cup when they refused to play in Sri Lanka because of bomb blasts in Colombo before the start of the tournament, hosted by India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
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From News24 (SA), 30 December
Zim daily's editor quits
Harare - The award-winning editor-in-chief of Zimbabwe's leading independent daily newspaper, the Daily News, resigned Monday as a strike at the paper entered its tenth day, he told AFP. Geoff Nyarota said he had handed in his resignation "in the interests of the Daily News" but gave no specific reason for his decision to leave. The resignation comes as the paper, the most widely read in the country, failed for the 10th consecutive day to appear on the streets due to a strike over salaries by journalists. Earlier, state-run ZBC radio reported that Nyarota had been fired "for siding with workers in the ongoing industrial action" but Nyarota dismissed the report. The Daily News, which is highly critical of President Robert Mugabe's government, has a readership of more than two million - the highest in the country, according to a recent survey. Its closest competitor, the state-controlled Herald, has a readership of 1.9 million. Nyarota, who has been arrested on several occasions and also won numerous awards for journalism and press freedom, said it had not been an easy decision to resign from the paper he helped to found in 1999. "It was not an easy decision. It breaks my heart," he said. Meanwhile, the strike at the paper looked set to continue. "There doesn't seem to be any breakthrough in the impasse," said Nyarota. The Daily News strike and Nyarota's resignation come as many of the country's independent journalists await a decision due this month by the government's media commission on who will be registered to work in the country under tough press laws passed after Mugabe was re-elected in March.
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From BBC News, 30 December
Journalists face Zimbabwe deadline
By Hilary Andersson
Johannesburg - Independent journalists in Zimbabwe are in a precarious position as the end of the year approaches. They have been working under draconian legislation that was introduced at the start of what has been a tense and dangerous 2001. They have been required by law to register themselves with the government by the end of December if they are to be allowed to practise journalism in Zimbabwe next year. The legislation holds that journalists publishing falsehoods or undermining the credibility of President Robert Mugabe can be heavily fined or liable to a two-year prison sentence. In addition, the law requires independent journalists to register with a special government commission. So far journalists in the country have been allowed to continue to practise pending the approval of their request for registration but that grace period is expected to expire at the end of this month. And so far the registration process has been plagued by delays. If journalists are not registered on time, they will be legally obliged to stop work and the entire future of independent journalism in Zimbabwe will be in jeopardy. Already a number of foreign media organisations, including the BBC, have been banned from the country. The media bill is being challenged in court by a group of independent journalists, but there is no guarantee that this will change anything. Zimbabwe this year has degenerated into a desperate state where huge sections of the population face severe food shortages and where political criticism is suppressed. President Mugabe has cracked down on the media because he believes that a foreign conspiracy is to blame for his country's woes.
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From News24 (SA), 30 December
Bodies piling up in fuel crisis
Harare - Bodies are piling up in Zimbabwe's funeral parlours as the fuel crisis enters its fourth week and is not sparing any sector. Harare's major funeral parlours are struggling to get fuel and meet funeral arrangements for hundreds of bereaved people. Chomi Makina of Moonlight Funeral Services says: "The situation is bad and we have been forced to pre-programme our operations. Our hearses can't transport bodies and the bereaved to burial places - and, in some cases, in rural areas - or cemeteries on time. We are in the business where trust is the key word and we find ourselves in the invidious position of going back on our word of being able to deliver on time."Makina said the government should chip in and give a special allocation to funeral parlours since they provided an essential service. "If we could get a special allocation or first priority at filling stations it would help, but sometimes hearse drivers are told to join the queue, while at other filling stations they are allowed to jump the queue only after pleading. As this goes on, bodies will be piling at mortuaries and very soon we face the real risk of running out of space."
Officials at the leading funeral parlour in Zimbabwe, Doves Crocker Morgan, said the fuel shortage had gravely hampered their operations. One said: "The fuel crisis has not spared our operations because, in this service, transporting bodies to their final resting places is a major part of our business." One bereaved family in Harare's Budiriro suburb said they had been highly inconvenienced by the failure of one funeral parlour to get fuel. "We have now gone into the second day without being able to ferry our relative to Chivu for burial," said Samson Mbasera, whose elderly father had died. Chivu is about 240km south of Harare. And, you must realise that we have been forced to feed two crowds, one gathered here and the other in Chivu, and this is no joke in these hard times." Makina said: "Clients are increasingly getting mad with us, not realising we, like everyone else, are failing to find fuel." There is no end in sight for Zimbabwe's fuel crisis which has entered its fourth week.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 31 December
'We'll die soon . . . we're too tired to queue for bread'
Harare - From the wide city street running close to the pitch where England is due to meet Zimbabwe for a World Cup cricket match in six weeks, the only sound yesterday was the swish of water flicking on to the well-tended field. The fuel crisis has stopped the traffic along the avenue south of the pitch at the Dutch-gabled Harare Sports Club and just round the corner from President Robert Mugabe's state mansion. Mr Mugabe, the patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union, sees nothing of the fuel shortage. Naturally, he does not queue for food and nor will the international cricketers due to play in Harare and the second city, Bulawayo. To the thin men and women walking to and from work or between queues, cricket means little. "I don't know cricket," said a man who had just come off a 12-hour shift with a Harare security company. "I just want to go to a place far from here where there is cheaper food. My wife waited for six hours for bread yesterday. She had the baby with her and she got one loaf."
Zimbabwe is in the grip of its worst food and economic crisis, caused by Mr Mugabe's chaotic and often violent seizures of 90 per cent of white-owned farms, which for decades produced most of the agricultural output and exports. A man who survives on the occasional job as a packer at a city centre warehouse said his mother was feeding beer to his younger siblings. Sorghum-based chibuku, known as "scud" on the streets, sells for less than 22p a litre and is the cheapest source of protein. "My mother boils it to get rid of the alcohol and feeds it to the kids with white cabbage," he said. The two major supermarket chains have stopped stocking beef as government price controls forced them to sell at below cost. A retail executive said: "We had six packs of meat left on Christmas Eve at one store. Inspectors came in and charged us - then asked if they could buy the meat at the price we were selling it at. It's crazy."
Yesterday more price controls were imposed on pork, toothpaste, rice and baby food among many other products. "We will die soon," said a young woman queueing for bread. "We are too tired to queue. I have to walk a long way to get here early." She can afford to buy bread only at the controlled price of 4p and that means being in the queue by 6.30am. Next month, for the first time in Zimbabwe's history, the World Food Programme will start feeding children under six in Harare in addition to nearly three million in rural areas. Life grows harder by the day for the people of Zimbabwe. Even those with money cannot find what they want. It will be different, of course, for the World Cup cricketers in their five-star accommodation. Steaks will be served with chilled drinks and South African wine. From their air-conditioned bus along the route to the luxurious sports club, they will see no fuel queues.
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From The Guardian (UK), 31 December
At the Harare Sports Club, everything is ready. But even the fans say: don't come
Andrew Meldrum in Harare
Zimbabwe Cricket Union officials are busy in their new office on the grounds of the Harare Sports Club in preparation for the World Cup matches next month. The union has spent nearly $1m (£624,000) on media facilities and improved stands. But there is growing anxiety that a political furore will destroy their well-laid plans. "We are all set," said one official. "We have good facilities and there is no security problem here. The political situation is a different matter, but the International Cricket Commission did not want to open that can of worms." Another Zimbabwean working for the cricket union confided that cricket officials are aware that public sentiment in Zimbabwe is against the World Cup matches. "Even big cricket fans, people who come here to watch league cricket matches on the weekends, they don't want to see the World Cup matches here. The cricket union thought everything would be OK because the ICC gave them the all clear. But now the politics in London are heating up and they are worried."
Fans drinking chilled beers on the clubhouse veranda on the other side of the ground are also troubled. "Look at that pitch, it has never looked better," said a burly cricket enthusiast. "That is where we want to watch top notch international cricket. But if that means the world gets the message that everything is all right in Zimbabwe, then I say no, the matches must not be played in Zimbabwe. You cannot separate politics and sport." Evidence of the close link between sports and politics is in plain view. Posters of Robert Mugabe waving a clenched fist glare at visitors entering the sports club. They are leftovers from the violent presidential election campaign in March. Though the posters have been taken down everywhere else, club officials are apparently fearful of removing them because of the presence of presidential guards bristling with automatic rifles. The club is across the street from Mr Mugabe's office and residence complex. "Those posters should be taken down, but they are too **** scared," the fan, who refused to give his name for fear of retribution, continued. "Why do you think Mugabe is the patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union? They want the World Cup matches to be held here so they can get good publicity."
Most of Zimbabwe's cricket fans are white, but black players are now being included in the national cricket team and growing numbers of black fans go to matches. A black computer technician echoed the sentiments of the white fan. "The World Cup matches must not be held in Zimbabwe," he said, declining to give his name. "It would make me sick to see Mugabe and his lot sit here and pretend like everything is fine. We have people starving, we have no fuel, people are afraid of being beaten. It is more important for the world to know that than to hold a few international cricket matches here." Zimbabwe's minister of information, Jonathan Moyo, criticised British politicians for urging the English cricket team to refuse to play in Zimbabwe. "This is obviously not about safety and security, it is just political mumbo-jumbo," he told the state-controlled Herald newspaper. Only a minority of fans supported the matches. "So many things are wrong here, we need one good thing to look forward to and that is the cricket. Let's do it!" one fan said.
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Comment from The Daily Telegraph (UK), 31 December
Politics has no place in sport - so boycott the World Cup
By David Coltart
The decision of the International Cricket Council (ICC) on December 19 to allow Zimbabwe to host World Cup matches has aroused fierce debate in Britain. A similar debate has raged within Zimbabwe for several months, and has threatened to split the cricketing fraternity. As a passionate supporter of Zimbabwean cricket, I have agonised over what stance I should take.
There are some compelling arguments why the matches should go ahead. The situation in Zimbabwe is not analogous to that which prevailed during apartheid in South Africa in certain important respects. Unlike in South Africa, where boycotts of sporting events hurt the people supporting the apartheid regime, namely white spectators and players, the vast majority of Zimbabwean players and supporters detest the Zanu PF regime just as much, if not more, than Britons. Robert Mugabe and his cronies do not care much for the game. Aside from losing the political capital they could have made out of the matches, they would not be hurt by a boycott. Paradoxically, holding the matches in Zimbabwe opens up a tiny piece of democratic space for those fighting tyranny. The mere prospect of the matches and the eventual presence of several hundred reporters, albeit cricket reporters, in Zimbabwe for a very short time, has restrained the human rights excesses of the regime. If no matches take place, there will be no further reason for the regime to behave better. Against this is the fact that the Zanu PF regime itself is desperate for the World Cup to be held in Zimbabwe because it is a wonderful opportunity to present to the world a facade of normality without having troublesome journalists in the country too long to scratch beneath the surface. If the situation in Zimbabwe were improving - or at least stabilising - this would not be too bad. Tragically, however, the situation is worsening, and Zimbabwe is in the throes of a catastrophe largely the fault of the regime.
The ICC faced this dilemma in making its decision. The Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) pressed to be allowed to host the World Cup for entirely sporting reasons. Both the ICC and the ZCU made the mistake of believing that sport could be separated from politics and, in making that mistake, played into Mr Mugabe's hands. They must have known that their decision would be unpalatable to the governments and sporting publics of Australia, England and Holland. Having made that decision, there is now a real danger that only these "white" cricket-playing nations (although that is a misnomer, as virtually the entire Namibian team is white) will be forced to boycott. If that happens, it will be a godsend to Mr Mugabe, who will proclaim it as further proof that his is a just battle against racists who are concerned only about the plight of white farmers. The struggle in Zimbabwe is not about race, but about tyranny, which is why it would be wrong for Australia, England and Holland to act alone. A white boycott would offer Mugabe a double victory: he would be relieved of prying British journalists, and would still be able to present an appearance of normality to the hundreds of millions of Commonwealth cricket lovers who will watch the Indian and Pakistani matches just weeks before the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in March.
The only way out of this mess is for the ICC to revisit its original decision and consider the following. First, while it is entirely correct to keep sport out of politics, this works both ways. In other words, the ICC should seek an assurance that the regime will not be allowed to make any direct political capital out of hosting the matches. It should demand, for example, that Mr Mugabe does not open the matches and is not introduced to any of the players. Tony Blair did not open the last World Cup, so such an undertaking should not be too onerous. If this assurance cannot be given, it must be clear that the matches are going to be used for political purposes and, in accordance with the ICC's commitment to an apolitical World Cup, the matches should be moved to South Africa.
Second, the ICC has said that it based its decision entirely on whether the safety of players could be guaranteed. What it has not apparently considered is whether it can guarantee the safety of the thousands of cricket supporters of all the nations playing in Zimbabwe. Just days before the ICC made its decision, Mugabe said: "The more they [European governments] work against us, the more negative we will become to their kith and kin here." In the same week, a white Canadian woman was charged in Victoria Falls for refusing to pay a bill using Mugabe's rate of foreign exchange. In view of these racist hate speeches and policies directed randomly against whites in Zimbabwe, how can the ICC or the ZCU - possibly guarantee the safety of thousands of the "Barmy Army" from attacks by war veterans and the youth militia? Unless the regime gives an undertaking that such racist hate speech will end immediately and that steps will be taken to protect spectators, I do not see how their safety can be guaranteed.
Third, if the ICC is committed to politics being kept out of sport, why did it agree to political conditions being imposed on the press corps? Only registered sporting journalists will be allowed into the country, and only to visit Harare and Bulawayo. There are cricketers (all of whom have views on cricket and other matters) living throughout Zimbabwe who would treasure the opportunity to speak to the press. Surely by colluding in such an act of censorship the ICC has itself acted in a political manner. Unless the regime can give an undertaking that there will be unfettered access to the entire country by all bona fide journalists for the duration of the World Cup, the ICC should not be party to a political gagging of the media. If no such undertakings are given, it is not too late to move Zimbabwe's matches to South Africa. While such a move would prevent many cricket lovers, including me, from watching matches that we have longed for, there is no doubt that this decision would be in the interests of both cricket and democracy.
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