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Archived News
7th May 2002
Mugabe declares drought national disaster
Court remands Tsvangirai on treason charges
Talks hopes recede
Ambassador criticizes Zimbabwe election
Tsvangirai says Mugabe not behaving like a poll winner
Zanu PF youths demand payment
Zimbabwe holds reporter over 'decapitation' story
Zim labour urges unity against Mugabe
Why Mugabe lost his cool during UN meeting
Kicked out of Zimbabwe, but others got worse
Leave Zim Indians
Sun City not a done deal, Kabila tells UN
Now only Mugabe stands in way of DRC peace
Mugabe hopes donors will dig him out of 'disaster'
Guardian reporter released on bail
Hundreds of white farmers forced to quit
Chefs’ farms seized
UN envoys see key Angola role in Congo peace
Zimbabwe has slipped off our agenda, but its problems are getting much worse
Farm Trust to expand feeding programme in Matabeleland
Not a nice place for a reporter
Zimbabwe's opposition resolute, but still looks for help
White woman shot in back by land grab gang
Four million face starvation
U.S. Prepares 'Big-Time' Response To Famine
Tekere warns MDC over talks
'War vets' wipe out Zimbabwe's rhino
Libya pulls Zimbabwe's fuel plug
'Trapped' Zim farmer refuses to leave home
Land for the poor
Zimbabwe's children growing old too soon
UN envoys fly to Rwanda for crunch Congo talks
Africa's Challenge
Zim police charge journalist
No surrender for Zimbabwe's reporters
Morgan Tsvangari Interview
Starvation strikes Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe's famished fields
Zimbabwe opposition threatens general strike
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From SAPA, 30 April
Mugabe declares drought national disaster
Harare - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, faced with national famine, has declared a "state of disaster" across the country, according to official documents issued here on Tuesday. The proclamation gives the government powers to take extraordinary measures to bring relief to over 600000 people facing critical food shortages. It also puts the government in a stronger position from which to make appeals to the international donor community for food aid, said aid agency officials. The declaration lasts for three months and can be extended. Like neighbouring countries Malawi and Zambia, Zimbabwe's summer crop of maize, the national staple, has been almost a total write-off after severe drought, the worst in 50 years, during the growing season. The World Food Programme, the United Nations' famine relief agency, is gearing up for a massive operation to feed millions of people in six countries in the sub-continent, 2.6 million of them in Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Judith Lewis, the WFP's regional director in east and southern Africa, warned this week that unless food began arriving within the next four months, there would be "an all-out disaster."
The situation has been aggravated in Zimbabwe where nearly all of the country's commercial farmers have been forcibly prevented by authorities from planting crops while government militias and top officials of Mugabe's ruling clique illegally seize farms and equipment. About 21 percent of the normal maize crop of about 1,5 million tons is expected to be reaped this year, according to estimates by agencies monitoring food security. Lewis said last week that Zimbabwe's commercial farmers accounted for the production of about 40 percent of the country's food needs, but their output this year would fall by more than half. Farm union officials forecast the drop will be much greater. International appeals have met with a reluctant response from donors, with the WFP able to raise only 37000 tons of food out of 117000 tons needed. Only five Western governments - including Britain and the United States - have provided finance for the supplies.
Distribution of WFP relief by Christian Care in the Mugabe stronghold of Muzarabani district in Zimbabwe's northern border area has been suspended because of violence against suspected opposition supporters and the aid agency, reports said here this week. About 23000 people in the district are on the brink of starvation. Christian Care had written to the local ruling party governor to tell him it was withdrawing its operations unless he was able to guarantee its workers' safety, said the Zimbabwe Independent. The government claims it has begun its own programme to import Z$d95 billion (US $ 16 billion) worth of food, but has given no indication how it will raise the finance. This week the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, the country's private manufacturing lobby group, accused the government of producing "unreliable statistics" on its planned imports of food.
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From News24 (SA), 30 April
Court remands Tsvangirai on treason charges
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and two senior officials in his party briefly appeared in court on Tuesday on treason charges, but the case was remanded to May 31. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader and two lawmakers, Welshman Ncube and Renson Gasela, appeared before a magistrate's court in the capital in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai has rejected the allegations, saying he was set up by government agents in a bid to sideline him ahead of a controversial presidential election held in March. The lawyer for the three men, Innocent Chagonda, told the court on Tuesday that if the state fails to fix a date for a trial by the next hearing, he will seek to have his clients taken off remand. The state would then "have to proceed by way of summons", Chagonda said.
Magistrate Peter Mufunda relaxed the conditions on which Tsvangirai and his fellow defendants were required to report to police, from once a week to once every fortnight. The charges, formally laid last month, carry the death penalty on conviction. They arose from a videotape aired by an Australian television station on February 13, purporting to show Tsvangirai discussing a plot to "eliminate" Mugabe with an Israeli former intelligence agent, Ari Ben Menashe, and his business associates in Canada. The public prosecutor, Stephen Musona, said the state was "doing its best to have a trial date even before the next remand date".
Four other MDC officials have been implicated in the alleged plot to kill Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980 and won the March presidential poll amid opposition allegations of widespread fraud and political violence. A Commonwealth team found that the election was not free and fair and the international body has suspended Zimbabwe, but the government says it is being targeted by foreign governments, particularly that of former colonial power Britain, opposed to its land redistribution programme. Western countries have criticised the treason charges, saying they were a form of political retribution. But the government has denied the accusations saying political retribution is not settled in the courts of law. The MDC has since its inception in 1999 posed the greatest challenge to Mugabe's rule in 22 years in power.
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From ZWNEWS, 1 May
Talks hopes recede
Talks sponsored by South Africa and Nigeria aimed at reconciling President Robert Mugabe's government with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have been given little chance of success should they resume, as scheduled, May 13. The state controlled daily, The Herald, said that an initial round of talks in early April "were still-born and when they resume they will have a final pauper's burial.'' However, both sides seem reluctant to appear at fault in dashing the hopes of Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria for a government of national unity that will make Zimbabwe less of a threat to their cherished plan for getting Western aid for African development (NEPAD). The talks were chaired by South African cabinet minister Kgalema Motlanthe and Nigeria's Adebayo Adedeji. The MDC demand irrevocable moves by Mugabe towards dismantling the framework for state-sponsored violence and vote-rigging which, they say, enabled him to claim a spurious victory in March 9-11 polls. Zanu PF, for its part, has denied the accusations, and accused Zimbabwean human-rights groups of "lying" about post-election retributive violence against opposition supporters. However, diplomatic sources yesterday confirmed MDC reports of escalating victimisation of suspected opposition supporters, particularly in rural areas where they are being systematically denied emergency food relief as Mugabe declared a state of "National Disaster". Comprehensive lists of MDC supporters are being compiled by paid ruling party informers, said the sources. "The human rights situation is getting worse and worse," said one Western diplomat. Increasing numbers of white farmers and their workers are being thrown off their farms, in some cases with only the clothes in which they stand, as prominent figures "cherry pick" prime holdings for themselves, says the Commercial Farmers' Union.
"Analysts" - who usually reflect the views of The Herald's bosses at the Presidential Information Department - dismissed the first encounter as mere "talks about talks". They suggested the MDC was only interested in getting a pardon for its presidential candidate Morgan Tsvangirai and others facing trial on the potentially capital charge of treason. However, the government's case against Tsvangirai and others alleged to have discussed Mugabe's assassination with former Israeli agent Ari Ben-Menashe has appeared progressively weaker as the Canadian-based consultant has tried to distance himself from the case. Speaking in Mutare at the weekend, Tsvangirai said the future of the talks depended on Mbeki and Obasanjo applying pressure on Mugabe to end "banditry, violence and terror". Agents of the Central Intelligence organisation, security force members and ruling party militia would one day be called to account for their brutal mistreatment of fellow Zimbabweans, he told a rally. MDC delegation leader at the April talks, Professor Welshman Ncube, said the overriding issue was "a return to legitimacy", both in government and the political process. The Zanu PF delegation head, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, said Mugabe's election was non-negotiable and non reversible". He foresaw no progress until the MDC abandoned all thought of fresh elections.
Chinamasa and Information Minister Jonathan Moyo are key figures in the clampdown against opposition and civil society under the newly passed Public Order and Security Act and the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. While the state media publish with impunity dubious reports of anthrax attacks and white terrorist plots, any alleged inaccuracy in privately owned newspapers triggers a prosecution with a possible two-year jail term. The government-controlled Bulawayo Chronicle took hate speech to new depths in an editorial "wishing that God had not cursed us with the birth of . . Morgan Tsvangirai, who has become so much of a nuisance to Zimbabweans that we ask the Lord why he created him?" Anyone making a similar statement about a government minister would face a life ban from practising his profession under the new Information Act. A prisoner who read a poem "Cry the Beloved Country" to fellow inmates at Plumtree, on the Botswana border, was sentenced to a year's extra gaol for "engendering feelings of hostility" to Mugabe.
Police have so far declined to interview let alone prosecute a man who appears to have given the MDC and the independently owned Daily News false information that his wife was beheaded by ruling party militia. A police denial of the incident was issued only to The Herald but The Daily News reporters involved were Tuesday arrested. Yet the opposition continues to survive, at least in urban areas, as shown by demonstrations organised country-wide by the National Constitutional Assembly demanding curbs on Mugabe's draconian powers. Despite stringent road blocks mounted around the centre of Harare by heavily armed police, 1000 protesters managed to assemble by disguising themselves as shoppers queuing for maize meal. Similar groups ran through other central business districts, pursued by baton-wielding paramilitaries. In Harare, 41 people were arrested. A wave of increases in the prices of already scarce staple commodities has not so far triggered unrest, despite Mugabe's election pledges to maintain strict controls and increase supplies.
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From CNN, 30 April
Ambassador criticizes Zimbabwe election
Kinshasa - A U.S. ambassador on a U.N. Security Council tour of Africa has criticized Zimbabwe's disputed election at a meeting with President Robert Mugabe, triggering an angry reaction from the veteran leader, diplomats said on Tuesday. Ambassador Richard Williamson, U.S. representative for special political affairs to the United Nations, told Mugabe on Monday the March 9-11 election was not free and fair and Harare's intimidation of the media was unacceptable, the diplomats said. The 15-member Council mission is touring the region in a bid to end the nearly four-year-old war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The mission made a brief stop in Harare for talks with Mugabe, who sent thousands of troops to Congo in 1998 to prop up the Kinshasa government against a rebellion. During their meeting with the Zimbabwean leader, Williamson told Mugabe that his comments were a message from the U.S. government, the diplomats said. Mugabe reacted angrily in an exchange that lasted for several minutes, and pointed out that he did not accept President George W. Bush's controversial poll win in U.S. presidential elections in November 2000, the diplomats said. Williamson's comments are not the first time Washington has voiced disapproval of the poll, won easily by Mugabe but criticized as flawed by several observers. However, Williamson was believed to have been the most senior U.S. official to have expressed such opinions to Mugabe face to face. Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has called Mugabe's victory "daylight robbery" and demanded fresh elections. Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party has refused a poll re-run, saying the vote was free and fair. Williamson, who told the meeting he was speaking in his capacity as a U.S. official and not as a Security Council representative, also said Washington had grave concerns about alleged violence against Zimbabwean commercial farmers. After his re-election, Mugabe vowed to press ahead with the government's seizure of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless blacks.
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From The Daily News, 30 April
Tsvangirai says Mugabe not behaving like a poll winner
Mutare - President Mugabe is uncertain about the validity of his disputed re-election in last month’s presidential poll, Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, said in Mutare on Saturday. Tsvangirai pointed to Zanu PF’s willingness to hold talks with the opposition MDC as illustrative of Mugabe’ s dilemma over the legitimacy of his win. The MDC leader, who addressed an estimated 6 000 people at Dangamvura grounds, said Mugabe’s quandary over his disputed victory had resulted in him delaying naming a new Cabinet. "People voted for change, but Mugabe and Tobaiwa Mudede, the Registrar-General, stole the votes. Mugabe says he won the election, why then does he want to talk to the opposition?" Tsvangirai asked. Tsvangirai said this was the first time a victor in a presidential election had engaged the opposition in talks in Africa. "Mugabe must go ahead and rule the country. What is his problem if he genuinely won? He is not convinced that he really won the election and the only reason we are in these talks is to press for a rerun." Mugabe, on the other hand, has stridently ruled out any possibility of such a rerun. The opposition leader warned of unspecified action should Zanu PF reject the MDC demand for a rerun of the poll. He said: "If Zanu PF refuses, then we will respond accordingly."
The MDC-Zanu PF dialogue, convened at the behest of the South African and Nigerian governments, opened earlier this month but was postponed to May to allow both parties to agree on an agenda. Tsvangirai urged the urban electorate not to be angered by the result from the rural areas saying those from the rural areas were beaten up and intimidated into voting for Mugabe. He accused members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), the police and the army of spearheading an orgy of terror against MDC supporters in Manicaland. "Let me warn you that one day you will pay for these acts," he said, amid applause from the boisterous crowd. "The police, CIO and army are being used for political expediency. Before the election they were awarded a 100 percent salary increment, but up to now some have not received a penny of it. They are being used and it’s time for them to wake up and smell the coffee."
He lashed out at some African leaders, accusing them of "blindly endorsing Mugabe’s contentious re-election. He singled out Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, saying his victory last December was equally questionable. "Birds of a feather flock together," said Tsvangirai. "That is why you see Mugabe and Mwanawasa working hand-in-hand." Mwanawasa was in Zimbabwe last week to officially open this year’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair. The Zambian leader’s victory in the presidential election in that country is being challenged by the opposition. Defiant MDC supporters wore their party’s regalia, sang and toyi-toyied under the watchful eye of the police who surrounded the ground. The police in Mutare last week issued a directive to the MDC leader not to use loudspeakers at the Dangamvura rally as one of the conditions for allowing it to proceed.
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From Daily News, 29 April
Zanu PF youths demand payment
Bulawayo - Zanu PF militias who have been harassing suspected supporters of the opposition MDC have turned their anger against the ruling party and hijacked a government truck demanding payment of outstanding allowances promised by the government. The militias, some of whom have reportedly deserted their bases after going for days without food are on the loose in Bulawayo where they have been linked to the thefts of foodstuffs from shops in the city. Last week, the youths hijacked a government truck in Inyathi, about 60 km from Bulawayo and vowed they would only release the vehicle upon payment of their allowances. The police were on Friday maintaining a hawk’s eye on the angry militias who are based at various camps in Bulawayo and Matabeleland after they threatened unspecified actions against the ruling party. Armed men in civilian clothes believed to be war veterans and policemen are now guarding the youths at most of the camps in Bulawayo.
The youths, who spearheaded President Mugabe’s re-election campaign have not been given food or money since the announcement of the results of the presidential election last month. On Friday, the youths broke their silence and narrated the conditions under which they were living. Jacob Mudenda, a top Zanu PF official involved in the recruitment of the militia in Matabeleland North, refused to answer questions posed by The Daily News. He said: "Are you on a mission to find out their problems? If those youths have a problem they know the channel to use." One of the youths from Bulawayo said they were continuing with the pre-election violence, which they were notorious for in order to survive. At Sizinda community hall, one of the notorious militia bases in Bulawayo, the youths have been accused of breaking into shops and stealing foodstuffs. One of the youths said they were surviving on bread only and their blankets were now infested with lice because their clothes have not been washed as they do not have money to buy washing soap.
"Food supplies to the camps were discontinued soon after the election results were announced more than a month ago. Since then we have been surviving on begging which is increasingly becoming difficult," said one youth who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said they had initially been told that they would be released after the elections and would be recalled later, but this had not still happened. Youths based at camps outside Bulawayo were reportedly only paid $1 300 since joining the militia in December last year. Their colleagues in Bulawayo have so far been paid $3 700 out of the $18 000 promised to each one of them. "We are bitter," said one of the youths. "We have suffered enough and now we are spoiling for a fight. We will fight them, after all, they are old men." He said their leaders had made sure the youths from the various camps had no means of communication so as to control them easily. However, he said efforts were underway to bring the militia groups together including those who had deserted the camp to map out strategies on how to deal with their predicament.
At the Ntabazinduna camp, about 30 kilometres South of Bulawayo some of the youths, who abandoned camp, were forced to walk back home to Nyamandlovu - a distance of nearly 50 kilometres. When The Daily News visited the camp on Friday, some of the barefooted youths said their shoes had worn out due to the daily drills. Their frustration and anger reached breaking point about two weeks ago when their bosses broke their pre-election promise of giving them jobs in the uniformed service. Travellers from various parts of Bulilimamangwe District and along the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Road, reported seeing some of the youths walking back to their homes in solemn groups. A number of the female members of the militia are now pregnant while two of them from Bulawayo camp were recently admitted to Mpilo hospital after they tried to terminate their pregnancies.
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From The Independent (UK), 2 May
Zimbabwe holds reporter over 'decapitation' story
Police in Zimbabwe arrested The Guardian's Harare correspondent, Andrew Meldrum, yesterday in a continuing crackdown on independent journalists. Mr Meldrum, 51, who is American by birth but has permanent residence in Zimbabwe, was picked up from his home in Harare on a charge of "abusing journalistic privilege and publishing false news", which carries a two-year jail sentence. He is the seventh independent journalist to have been arrested under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act passed shortly after Robert Mugabe won a new term in the presidential election in March, which according to most international observers was rigged. The arrest of Mr Meldrum follows the detention on Tuesday of two journalists on Zimbabwe's only independent daily, the Daily News, Lloyd Mudiwa and Collin Chiwanza. All three are being held over a story last week alleging that a 53-year-old supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was decapitated by pro-government militias in full view of her two young daughters. The police have denied the report. Mr Meldrum has also been repeatedly named by the government in its attacks on British media coverage of Zimbabwe's two-year political and economic crisis. He was still in police custody last night.
Alan Rusbridger, the editor of The Guardian criticised the arrest and demanded his immediate release. "It is outrageous that he should be the subject of criminal charges for doing the job of a reporter and we call on the Zimbabwean government to release him immediately and to drop charges against him and his colleagues on the Daily News," he said. The MDC originally announced the "murder" of Brandina Tadyanemhandu in Magunje, Mashonaland West Province, but later retracted the statement, saying her husband had cooked up the story in an attempt to get money for her funeral. Interviewed by the Daily News, her husband said his wife had been "murdered". The newspaper has since admitted it could have been misled by Mr Tadyanemhandu, who failed to show reporters his wife's grave, and has retracted its story. International news agencies and newspapers outside Zimbabwe published the story quoting the Daily News and the MDC. It is believed Mr Tadyanemhandu could have been used by the ruling Zanu PF party as part of an attempt to discredit reports about the continuing onslaught against the opposition by pro-Mugabe militants. Human rights groups say 54 opposition supporters have been killed since the election and thousands of others have been beaten, tortured and injured.
The Commercial Farmers Union announced yesterday that Thomas Bayley, an 89-year-old farmer who was besieged in his home for 37 days by Mugabe supporters, had died in his sleep. Mr Bayley and his wife, Edith, 79, had refused to comply with an order to leave a farm in Mazowe which an unnamed top government official had earmarked for seizure. Mr Bayley, who was hailed as a symbol of farmers' resistance against the illegal land invasions, was admitted to hospital last week after collapsing at his home. At a May Day rally, Lovemore Matombo, the president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, described Mr Mugabe as an "enemy" of the people, and said the labour movement would soon call for a general strike to protest against his policies.
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From Business Day (SA), 2 May
Zim labour urges unity against Mugabe
Zimbabwe's leading labour movement, the political opposition and pro-democracy activists Wednesday urged that people unite in opposing President Robert Mugabe, at a Workers' Day rally in a Harare township. "We should be united. When we call for a stayaway, let's all stayaway. When we call for a protest, let's all protest," Wellington Chibebe, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) told the cheering crowd of 12,000 in a soccer stadium. ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo described the government as "the enemy," saying "the political leadership is to blame for the hardships of the country." "What is needed now is a general strike," Matombo said. After the rally Matombo told reporters that the unions would not announce when their next labour action might come, after a stayway in March failed to get off the ground. "We are dealing with an enemy," he said. "We are all prepared to die for (a labour action), but when we do it, we are not going to publicise it."
Zimbabwe's economy has been mired in a deepening depression for four years, with 80% of the population plunged into poverty and inflation soaring at more than 110%. Munyaradzi Gwisai, a lawmaker from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Lovemore Madhuku, a pro-democracy activist who heads the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), also urged Zimbabweans to stand united in protesting against the government. Across town, a rival group of trade unions backed by the ruling party held a simultaneous rally that drew in a few thousand people, many bussed in for the occasion. Alfred Makwarimba, president of the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU), warned workers against striking, calling it "the last resort." "When you strike, know the laws of the company. Follow proper channels before resorting to a strike, for it is the last resort," he said.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 2 May, 2002
Why Mugabe lost his cool during UN meeting
A day after a meeting in Harare between Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and UN Security Council ambassadors ended in a heated argument, an explanation has emerged as to the cause of the outburst. Journalists waiting outside the meeting on Monday in Mugabe's office heard the diplomatic encounter degenerate into a shouting match but were unable to hear the Zimbabwean leader's actual words. Sources present at the encounter, which was aimed at accelerating the peace process in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where Zimbabwe has troops, explained over cocktails on Tuesday night that the row began when US Ambassador Richard Williamson delivered a bilateral message from Washington. Williamson reiterated his government's sentiment that Mugabe's recent election victory fell far short of being free and fair and that the attendant abuse and killings of farmers and repression of the media were beyond the pale, the sources said. Suddenly snapping out of a rather convivial mood, Mugabe rose to his feet, barely able to control his rage. "Well I don't think George Bush won the US election!" he thundered. But I accepted the victory after the Supreme Court ruling." He continued in this excited vein for a good 10 minutes, the sources said. Asked if anything else of note occurred on Monday evening, one diplomat present said: "Not really. But he did serve us fish fingers."
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From The Washington Post, 30 April
Kicked out of Zimbabwe, but others got worse
You know you're in for an interesting day in Zimbabwe when the immigration officer stamping visas at the airport in Harare takes one look at your passport and runs away. That's exactly what happened two weeks ago to John Prendergast, co-director of the Africa program of the International Crisis Group and one-time senior Africa hand at the State Department and White House. "I had just arrived in Harare and when I got up to the visa counter the guy stamping the visas saw my name and he jumped up from his chair and just ran," Prendergast said. "I started laughing. But I didn't laugh so hard when he came back with four immigration officers." Prendergast had never had visa problems in Zimbabwe - until then. The burly quartet took him to a dingy, windowless and entirely too private room in another part of the airport. "Nobody would tell me anything. They were very hostile, all they would say is 'You can't come into Zimbabwe. You're not allowed.'"
After letting him cool in the hole for about 15 minutes, the muscle men took him to the departure lounge and told him to get on the next plane out of the country. "Which I did," he said. Why the unneighborly welcome? Prendergast suspects it's because he and the ICG have been particularly critical of the government of President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe's recent national election, which was marred by deadly violence and allegations of widespread vote fraud. Prendergast said that the same week he was given the boot, two journalists inside Zimbabwe who had questioned the March vote were charged with defamation and a third was detained for questioning. "I'm one of the lucky ones," Prendergast said. "I just got deported. What is happening inside the country is torture, arrests and murder at levels that continue to increase since the election."
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Comment from New Vision (Uganda), 1 May
Leave Zim Indians
War veterans in Zimbabwe have demanded that the Indian community surrender a percentage of their commercial property in urban areas. The war veterans have also ordered Indians to stop dealing currency in the black market, bank in local banks and improve conditions for workers. They claim that Indians have been sabotaging the economy because they had money to buy up property in 1980 when most whites left Zimbabwe. They say Indians are charging too much rent despite benefiting from the liberation struggle. Zimbabwe is moving ominously close to the disaster that befell Uganda in 1972. Land reform was necessary in Zimbabwe after 1980 but it has been grossly mishandled. The few farms that were taken over by the state were parcelled out to ministers and functionaries and have mostly fallen into disrepair. The wave of land invasions in the last two years has led to urban unemployed hijacking farms that they cannot manage. Agricultural production is collapsing. Zimbabwe is becoming a permanent food importer after being a food exporter for decades. Top officials and politicians are also joining the rush to grab the best farms and houses. Recovering European-owned land has become a feeding frenzy. This new targeting of Asian business proves that it is greed rather than history that is driving the war veterans. Indians in Zimbabwe are just businessmen. They had nothing to do with colonial land grabbing a century ago. Seizing Asian property is the road to disaster for Zimbabwe. If the war veterans are allowed to continue, commerce and industry will collapse in Zimbabwe along with the agricultural sector, just as they did in Uganda in 1972.
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From IRIN (UN), 1 May
Sun City not a done deal, Kabila tells UN
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) President Joseph Kabila told the visiting United Nations Security Council delegation on Tuesday that he was willing to include the Rassemblement congolais pour la democratie (RCD-Goma) in current negotiations between his government and the Mouvement de liberation du Congo (MLC) over the details of the Sun City accord. "What happened at Sun City is not a done deal," UK Ambassador to the UN Jeremy Greenstock told reporters in Kinshasa. "He [Kabila] is prepared to bring the RCD in on a deal which is being thrashed out with the MLC." Greenstock said the UN delegation was focused on three interlocking issues: the recently concluded inter-Congolese dialogue (ICD) in Sun City, South Africa; the withdrawal of foreign troops from the DRC; and the demobilisation and disarmament of armed groups. On the triangle of issues, Greenstock said the details of the ICD were not the primary concern of the security council, but rather that the delegation was "looking for a result from the dialogue, because without it there can't be a proper withdrawal of foreign forces". He said that Kabila was pursuing the non-military option, as was demonstrated by the departure from the DRC of some 12,000 to 13,000 allied troops (Angolans, Namibians and Zimbabweans) since Kabila succeeded his father, the late Laurent-Desire Kabila, following the elder's assassination in January 2001.
Asked about Kinshasa's support of armed groups in eastern DRC, however, Greenstock said Kabila "wasn't absolutely sure" whether supplies were still being sent by his government to the Rwandan ex-FAR and Interahamwe (Forces Armees Rwandaises, the exiled army, and Hutu militias, both key culprits in Rwanda's 1994 genocide) and the Burundian Forces pour la defense de la democratie (FDD, one of two main ethnic Hutu rebel groups opposing Burundi's transitional government). However, Greenstock said that Kabila was "quite clearly choosing the non-military track". The disarmament of the ex-FAR and Interahamwe would give confidence to Rwanda that there was no longer a security threat along their border with the DRC, Greenstock said, and that "in order to get the disarmament going, there needs to be a realisation in Kinshasa that it's not in their interests to support them".
"President Kabila has given three times assurances that military support for armed groups in the east, particularly to the Interahamwe, will stop," Greenstock said. "We had an assurance from the president today that supplies to those armed groups will stop. That's something we're going to put to Kigali. Connected with that is the need for RCD-Goma to realise that the motivation for military action is going to recede, and therefore they'd better come to a deal while they can." When the delegation visits the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on 6 May, Greenstock said its focus would be on the need for the Rwandan government to join the peace process. "The rebel factions won't join an agreement if their allies don't see it as being in their interests." As for any aid to the FDD, the FDD on Congolese soil was "falling apart and losing its military capability", Greenstock said. "I'm convinced that president Kabila intends to stop supplies to them as well." As for concerns that exclusion of the RCD from the Sun City agreement could lead to a return to violence, Greenstock cited recent fighting in Moliro as evidence that "people have retained the military option". However, he warned that the security council would be "much more angrily reactive if any party returns to the use of force".
The UN Security Council delegation, in the northeastern DRC city of Kisangani on Wednesday, is scheduled to travel to Angola on Thursday, to meet with President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and the Political Committee of the Lusaka ceasefire agreement. On Friday, the team will be in Uganda, to meet with President Yoweri Museveni and MLC leader Jean-Pierre Bemba, who will serve as prime minister in the DRC's new political order. On Saturday, the mission will be in Tanzania to meet President Benjamin Mkapa. On Sunday, it will be in Burundi, to meet with President Pierre Buyoya, Vice President Domitien Ndayizeye and the presidents of the Senate and National Assembly. Monday will be spent in Rwanda, to meet with President Paul Kagame and Rwandan authorities. A meeting will also be held with a delegation of Rwandan former armed groups. On Tuesday, the team is due to return to UN headquarters in New York City.
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From The Star (SA), 1 May
Now only Mugabe stands in way of DRC peace
Kinshasa - The United Nations Security Council mission to the Great Lakes states has achieved its first success with the return of Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila to the negotiating table. Kabila also agreed on Tuesday to meet rebel groups that were left out of a recent agreement on a transitional government. But Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is refusing to withdraw his forces from the DRC unless the UN brings in peacekeeping troops. The Inter-Congolese Dialogue at Sun City ended in stalemate last month after an agreement on a transitional government between the Kabila government, the non-armed opposition and the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo. The agreement excluded the largest rebel group, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD).
British ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said after Tuesday's meeting with Kabila that the DRC president was willing to "go to the RCD to make sure that they have every chance of coming on board, and we were convinced that that was a genuine offer". A 15-member delegation is currently on a whirlwind tour of the Great Lakes region. Ambassadors representing France, Bulgaria, Cameroon, China, Colombia, Guinea, Ireland, Mauritius, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Singapore, Syria, the UK and the US will try to add some impetus to the peace initiative currently under way. An estimated 2,5-million people have died since the start of a civil war four years ago against the then Laurent Kabila government. The trip will focus on communicating with all the belligerents - the governments of Zimbabwe, Rwanda and Uganda; the armed rebel factions; as well as non-armed opposition groups.
But Mugabe is unimpressed. "UN forces at this point are peace-monitoring, but what we would have instead are peacekeeping and peace enforcing forces. That is the expectation, and we expect the UN to take care of it," he said. Mission leader Jean-David Levitte refused to comment on peacekeeping forces in the DRC, saying the message imparted to Mugabe and the rest of the presidents on the seven-country visit would be to remember the region's people, who longed for peace. Zimbabwe has up to 5 000 troops stationed inside the DRC to prop up the government of Kabila, who in turn has ceded valuable contracts in the resource-rich country to the Zimbabwean government. The UN delegation on Monday also met President Thabo Mbeki, who, it is understood, said all the belligerents would have to be included in a transitional power-sharing government. It is believed he told the UN ambassadors that the involvement of so many foreign powers in the DRC was complicating efforts to secure peace.
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From The Financial Times (UK), 3 May, 2002
Mugabe hopes donors will dig him out of 'disaster'
Opinion in Zimbabwe is hardening against the political compromise desperately needed to reverse an accelerating economic and humanitarian crisis. Grassroots pressure against any form of government of national unity has been exerted on MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, forcing the party last week to publish full-page advertisements saying that such a deal was "out of the question". The MDC sees the talks only as a vehicle for ending political violence and paving the way for fresh elections. But President Robert Mugabe's government, with the apparent backing of a majority of African governments, has repeatedly ruled out new elections. His strategy is two-pronged. The stuttering inter-party talks are necessary to reassure South Africa and Nigeria, whose presidents fear that Zimbabwe will be a disruptive topic at next month's G8 summit in Canada, due to consider funding for the New Partnership for African Development (Nepad). Zanu PF's participation in the talks may help persuade at least some donors to contribute towards a food aid programme for Zimbabwe later this year.
The second prong of his strategy is striking a tough pose. The government is pushing ahead with the prosecution of Mr Tsvangirai and two of his senior party colleagues on charges of treason; a number of journalists have been detained under the country's draconian new press laws; human rights organisations report ongoing violence against known opposition supporters; and the pace of fast-track land resettlement has accelerated. The Commercial Farmers Union says some 85 per cent of the 6,000 white-owned commercial farms have now been listed for compulsory acquisition, meaning that some 10m hectares out of a total commercial area of 11m will be taken over by the state. On Thursday the CFU revealed that 250 white farmers have been evicted illegally from their farms. An unknown number of others have left of their own accord. Colin Cloete, CFU president, said many farmers were being forced off their lands "with little more than the clothes they are wearing". The evictions, he stresses, are illegal, since the Land Acquisition Act requires the issuing of an order by the courts. Many farmers are losing moveable assets - vehicles, tractors, implements - which under the law remain the property of the farmer. "Farmers have had their trucks with equipment seized at police roadblocks," said Cloete.
At a time when Mr Mugabe has formally declared a "state of disaster" in agriculture after one of the worst droughts in the country's history, the seizures highlight the widening chasm between political expediency and rational economic necessity. Officials estimate that some 7.8m people out of a population of 13m will need emergency food assistance this year as food crops such as maize and soybean are forecast to fall off dramatically. While most of the decline in farm production in 2002 can be blamed on the drought, economists warn of a double-whammy effect to come in 2003. Then, they say, the full impact of land resettlement will be felt on production of high value-added products, such as tobacco, wheat, horticulture and livestock, combined with the aftermath of the 2002 drought. Because stockfeed is in such short supply, beef, poultry, dairy and pork production will also fall sharply. The government has announced plans to spend Z$95bn (US$1.7bn) on drought relief, though there is no provision for this in the budget, nor is there provision for the mooted allocation of a further Z$105bn for resettlement. These two items would increase public spending more than 50 per cent this year - pushing the budget deficit to between 25 and 30 per cent of GDP. No wonder Mr Mugabe's advisers hope his declaration of a national disaster will win donor sympathy and support.
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From The Guardian (UK), 3 May, 2002
Guardian reporter released on bail
The Guardian's correspondent in Zimbabwe, Andrew Meldrum, and two Zimbabwean journalists were released on bail from police custody yesterday after appearing in court on charges of publishing false information. They will return to court today for the magistrate, Judge Lillian Kudya, to rule on defence applications for the charges to be dropped. If the magistrate decides that the case should go ahead, the government prosecutor Thabani Mpofu indicated that the men will be released on bail of Z$2,000 (£30) for trial at a later date. Mr Meldrum was arrested on Wednesday and spent the night in a prison cell. His lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, said he had been treated well. Lloyd Mudiwa and Collin ChiwanzaIf of the Daily News were arrested on Tuesday. The charges were brought under the new Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act after both newspapers published stories about a woman allegedly beheaded by supporters of Robert Mugabe.
Under the law, a journalist found to have published "falsehoods" faces a fine of up to Z$100,000 (£1,300) or up to two years in jail. Since the story was published further inquiries have been made by the Daily News and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which publicised the case after paying the woman's husband compensation for burial expenses. The Daily News said it had failed to locate a grave. At yesterday's hearing Ms Mtetwa said that the law was being abused. "There is no reasonable suspicion that any offence has been committed," she said, adding that the state was applying the media law selectively. "We will submit before you that this legislation... is indeed being abused by targeting journalists who are from the independent media." Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian, welcomed the decision to release Mr Meldrum and the Daily News reporters. "We think it is wrong to arrest reporters for doing their jobs and urge the Zimbabwean courts to drop all charges and lift this threat to press freedom." Mr Mpofu, who said he would not oppose bail for Mr Meldrum, said the government had sufficient grounds to suspect that the journalist had committed a crime. "He is accused of publishing a falsehood. It is not being suggested that the accused person falsified any information. The issue is the story that he wrote is false and that is now an offence," Mr Mpofu said.
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From Business Day (SA), 3 May
Hundreds of white farmers forced to quit
Harare - About 250 white Zimbabwean farmers have been forced off their properties by selfproclaimed war veterans since the disputed presidential election last month, the Commercial Farmers' Union said yesterday. Union president Colin Cloete reportedly said his group, which represented about 4500 mainly white commercial farmers, "noted with alarm that the evictions were continuing unabated". "The current spate of evictions of farmers from their homesteads and farms by war veterans and settlers, many leaving with little more than the clothes they were wearing, is clearly unlawful, and is destabilising the entire industry." Cloete appealed to the authorities to stop evictions.
The veterans' official Andrew Ndlovu said last month he had issued more than 800 ultimatums to white farmers to quit their properties. He said the veterans wanted white farmers to leave the country as they advocated sanctions, a reference to a UK drive for global action against Harare for poll violence and intimidation. But Patrick Nyaruwata, acting chairman of the veterans of Zimbabwe's 1970s liberation war who in early 2000 spearheaded often violent invasions of whiteowned farms told commercial farmers last week to ignore Ndlovu's ultimatums. The United Nations food body warned yesterday that the looming food crisis may affect more than 1-million people. "The situation is precarious and continues to deteriorate," said Judith Lewis, head of southern and east African operations of the World Food Programme. This week President Robert Mugabe declared a disaster over the food shortages, blaming drought. Maize rationing has been instituted in communal areas, with some households being limited to sharing a monthly 50 kg (110,2 lb) bag of maize meal enough to feed a family of five for one month, according to the WFP.
Meanwhile, a Zimbabwean judge released yesterday three journalists charged with violating the country's Draconian new media laws by reporting false information. Harare Magistrate Lilian Kudya ordered police to release Andrew Meldrum, a US citizen who is the Harare correspondent of the British newspaper The Guardian. Kudya also freed Lloyd Mudiwa and Collin Chiwanza, two reporters with the independent Daily News. The three were accused of breaching the laws by reporting last week on the killing allegedly by ruling party supporters of a woman near the town of Karoi, 200km northwest of Harare. The woman's husband said she had been hacked to death and decapitated in front of her two children. The Daily News later retracted the story, saying it may have been misled in a politically motivated "sting" to discredit it. Police said the killing never happened. The state media accused the Daily News and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change of "cooking up" the murder report to smear the ruling party at home and internationally through foreign reporters based in Harare. The reporters were the latest of seven journalists arrested since new media laws came into effect on March 22.
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From The Financial Gazette, 2 May
Chefs’ farms seized
Bulawayo - Hundreds of war veterans in Matabeleland South have seized dozens of government farms parcelled out to leading black Zimbabweans three years a go under a scheme to create black commercial farmers, one of the farmers said yesterday. Jonathan Maphenduka, a former journalist at the state-run Chronicle newspaper and one of the farmers in an area known as Marula Block, accused provincial governor Stephen Nkomo and unnamed government officials of being behind the invasions. The invasions started mid-last month and have spread in the past week to most of the block’s 44 large ranches, including the one being leased by the government to Supreme Court judge Justice Misheck Cheda, Maphenduka said. He claimed that Nkomo and the officials wanted to take the farms themselves. Nkomo was not available for comment. His office in Gwanda said he was out of the town and unreachable by phone.
"My farm, which is part of Marula Block, has been invaded. The war veterans on the farm claim they were told to do so by the governor," said Maphenduka, a former assistant editor at the Chronicle, who is also the spokesman for the Marula Block farmers. "They have moved their cattle into the farm and told my workers not touch them because they are acting on the instructions of the governor," he said. "Most of the other farms have been invaded as well." The 44 ranches, which include seven where there are irrigated crops, were leased to leading Zimbabweans by the government for 99 years starting in 1999 as part of the state’s accelerated land reforms aimed at empowering blacks. The 44 were specifically aimed at kick-starting commercial farming by previously disadvantaged groups. The reported invasions are the first on government-owned farms on such a large scale after ruling Zanu PF supporters swooped on largely white-owned farms in the name of land hunger two years ago, forcing the government to launch its fast-track land reforms. The reforms, under which the government has targeted to seize 90 percent of farms owned by whites, plus a withering drought have been blamed for causing severe food shortages now experienced in Zimbabwe, where nearly three million people - or a quarter of the population - need imported food aid. The Commercial Farmers’ Union this week said 250 of its members had been expelled from the farms by the war veterans since Zimbabwe’s presidential election in March.
Maphenduka, who retired from the Chronicle nearly four years ago and is now a full-time cattle rancher leasing Talawunda Ranching, a property measuring 2 600 hectares, said it was disheartening to see the war veterans seizing the property meant to open up commercial farming to blacks. He said of Nkomo: "My lawyers wrote to him on the 17th of April 2002 as the governor to remove the invaders on the farm which I lease from the government. I acquired the property on merit and in a transparent manner. I was a caretaker of the farm for a period of five years before getting a 99-year lease on the property." Maphenduka said lawyers representing the black commercial farmers were on the verge of filing applications to the High Court to have the invaders removed from the unlisted properties. He claimed the governor and other public figures had made public their interest on some farms in the Marula Block largely because of the area’s superb grazing. "The Marula Commercial Farming Scheme might collapse if nothing is done to remove the invaders," Maphenduka said. "The invaders are disrupting operations on the properties. They have brought their cattle on a section of my farm and onto others as well. They are also busy building dagga-and-pole huts."
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From The Star (SA), 2 May
UN envoys see key Angola role in Congo peace
Luanda - United Nations Security Council envoys were due to meet Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos on Thursday to try to gain momentum for their push for peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo from progress in ending Angola's own war. The 15 ambassadors, in Luanda on the latest leg of an eight-nation drive for peace in the former Zaire, were also set to present new proposals to end the many-sided Congo war at a meeting of representatives of the main combatants. "The Security Council believes that the evolution of events in Angola is going to have a direct bearing on the Congo," said Sir Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's representative at the United Nations.
Hopes of an end to decades of conflict in Angola rose sharply after the death of veteran rebel leader Jonas Savimbi in February dealt a devastating blow to the fighters and political activists of his anti-government UNITA movement. Diplomats say that oil-and-diamond-rich Angola, which entered the war in the Congo on the side of the Kinshasa government, was increasingly free of the obligation to keep its large army at home and could now send more troops to support Congolese President Joseph Kabila if necessary. The envoys argue that bigger potential Angolan support could give Kabila the confidence to respond to Rwanda's demand that he hand over former Rwandan Hutu fighters who masterminded the 1994 genocide and then fled to Congo and who now form a key ingredient in his armed forces. "Dos Santos knows that he can react very quickly. He will come back to Congo if Kabila is threatened," Greenstock said.
If Kabila, hitherto desperate for military support from any quarter, felt secure enough to meet this key Rwandan demand he would at a stroke remove one of the main causes of the conflict, they say. Congo's war began in 1998 when Uganda and Rwanda invaded to support rebel movements fighting Kabila's father and predecessor as president, Laurent. The two allies later fell out, but kept supporting rebels fighting over Congo's vast mineral riches as Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent troops to prop up the government. Despite the signing of a ceasefire at talks in Lusaka in 1999, no foreign country apart from Namibia has so far withdrawn all its troops from the country. Rwanda says it will not do so until it no longer faces a threat from former Rwandan Hutu fighters based in Congo.
The approach of peace in Angola, and the signing of a partial peace accord last month at Congo peace talks known as the InterCongolese Dialogue in South Africa, new opportunities are opening up for the players in Angola's war. "The fact that there is an increasing momentum towards political reconciliation in Angola is feeding through in other parts of the Lusaka process," said Greenstock. "The absence of a raging civil war in Angola is showing the other parties that there is a potential interest in getting to a point where there is a reconciliation in their own affairs. We do see a connection between the internal process in Angola and the Congo." The Security Council mission has already had talks with Kabila, with South African President Thabo Mbeki and Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in Harare. They will go on to Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. The envoys will meet all the players in the war later on Thursday at a meeting of the political committee of the signatories to the Lusaka ceasefire agreement that meets regularly to follow up implementation of the process. The diplomats declined to disclose the proposals.
Peace efforts in the DRC are in flux after the partial pact reached at the InterCongolese Dialogue was rejected by Rwanda and the RCD, the main anti-government forces, on the ground that the deal excluded the RCD. Kabila has pledged to pursue his power-sharing deal with Jean-Pierre Bemba, leader of the rebel Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC). Officials of the MLC are now in Kinshasa for talks on forming a new government. But analysts have warned that by sidelining the RCD whose backing by Rwanda makes it the most powerful rebel group - the pact could return the former Zaire to all-out war.
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From The Independent (UK), 4 May
Zimbabwe has slipped off our agenda, but its problems are getting much worse
By Fergal Keane
The man from the Zimbabwe High Commission couldn't have been nicer. I had expected a barrage of criticism or, at the very least, a cold shoulder. But there he was telling me I would be welcome to visit Zimbabwe. And this only weeks after Zimbabwe's Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, had declared that people like me who had sneaked into the country could expect to take up long-term residence in jail if we were caught. "So you are actually saying I can come back?" I said. "Anytime, anytime," the diplomat replied. Then I asked what seemed the obvious question. "I may be able to get in, but will you let me out?" At this the Zimbabwean burst out laughing. He laughed so much he never got around to answering my question. I doubt I will be taking up his invitation any time soon.
The exchange took place in the House of Commons, where I'd gone to give evidence before the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. I was there with another journalist, and I doubt that anything we said could have given much comfort to the Zimbabwean High Commission. The MPs were knowledgeable and concerned. Disconcertingly, they were able to quote back to me the words written about Africa in this column over the years. It was a testing experience, but I came away reinforced in the view that the committee system is the last vestige of genuine parliamentary democracy in Britain. But as far as Zimbabwe is concerned, I left the building in a state of depression. I hadn't quite understood how much things had deteriorated since the presidential elections, or should I say that, like most other people, I had taken my eye off the ball. People are being abducted and murdered by Mugabe's militia. The secret police are smashing any open dissent. The free press is under siege. This week the excellent Andrew Meldrum of The Guardian joined the ranks of journalists jailed and harassed by the regime. A few weeks before that it was Peta Thorneycroft of The Telegraph. Last week the self-styled "war veterans" warned Asian businesspeople that they could lose their shops and factories. Echoes of Idi Amin and Mobutu Sese Seko.
The elections provided a momentary illumination - for a few weeks the world noticed Zimbabwe, and then it slipped from our consciousness. The slide to disaster continued. Part of the problem is that the international media are event fixated. There is an election and Zimbabwe gets on the news agenda. Give us an election and we go and cover it, or a general strike or a war. Give us dramatic pictures of starving children and we will pile in quickly. But rarely, if ever, in the history of modern Africa have we been present "before" the disaster or acted to warn the world that it might be coming. Think of Ethiopia and Rwanda. There was some great reporting once the dying had started, but where were we when the nightmare was being created? I exclude from this criticism the few permanent western correspondents based in African capitals. They tell the stories. It is the editors in London who decide the priorities and Africa is far down the list
This week Robert Mugabe declared a national disaster because of food shortages. It may be the first time he has told a public truth in years. The aid agencies and most resident diplomats accept that something terrible is in the offing. But if you follow the international media, there is no sign that we are heeding the warning. Zimbabwe is facing famine. Much of it is the consequence of Robert Mugabe's appalling economic mismanagement: he has strangled the commercial farming sector. Few farmers are going to plant the annual crop when they know the land is in danger of imminent seizure. The farm invasions have also helped to bring planting to a standstill. But Zimbabwe is also suffering from the drought that is choking the life out of southern Africa. In Zambia and Mozambique and Malawi there are widespread deaths from hunger. The iconography of Africa is yet again the baby with the swollen belly. In Zimbabwe alone more than two thirds of the population of 13 million are in urgent need of food aid. The country consumes about two million tonnes of food every year, but this year harvests are forecast at 750,000 tonnes.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the rate of inflation is running at a staggering 113 per cent. When I travelled around Matabeleland in the run-up to the election, everybody I met complained of food shortages. The hunger was not confined to the peasant farming community; middle class families are also in desperate straits. There is simply no maize meal to be found. While all of this is going on, Mugabe and his grotesque collection of cronies and thugs are eating well. They are still ripping off the natural resources of the Congo (along with all the other armies in that forgotten war) and act in a manner that would bring blushes to the face of the worst colonial robber baron. The opposition is cowed and the people are ever more frightened.
So what may happen in Zimbabwe? None of the possibilities look good. For all the wishful wittering from South Africa there isn't a chance in hell that Mugabe will agree to share power with the Movement for Democratic Change. Nor is the MDC willing to sit down with Mugabe. There is no international pressure on either side to become engaged. The danger - and it is acute and imminent - is that Zimbabwe will slide into starvation and ultimately bloody chaos. We face the risk of huge numbers of people starving to death, of violent confrontation on the streets and the movement of huge numbers of refugees into neighbouring countries. There is no easy route for the international community. In a country that is falling apart you can forget about economic sanctions. Our first priority now is to get food to the hungry.
There is a way of doing this without giving the food to Mugabe. Use the countries of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to distribute the aid. Only South Africa's impressive military machine has the logistical capability to move the maize and other supplies into remote parts of Zimbabwe (and Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique). If it is done as a regional effort, Mugabe can have no excuse for demanding control of food distribution. The Americans successfully called his bluff in 1983 when he tried to starve the Ndebele into submission independent distribution or no aid. The European Union and the United States, in partnership with SADC, should take the same route now. But if Mugabe refuses and the country eventually slides towards civil war or mass political killing, the UN Security Council must order the deployment of an African force to restore order. If Mugabe is willing to destroy his country to save his power, then intervention may ultimately be unavoidable. We have allowed Zimbabwe to vanish from our consciousness, but all the time the problem is growing. If we don't act now we will all be complicit when disaster strikes.
The writer is a BBC Special Correspondent
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 3 May
Farm Trust to expand feeding programme in Matabeleland
The Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe (FCTZ) will spread its supplementary feeding programmes to the two drought-ravaged provinces of Matabeleland once funds for the exercise have been made available. The Trust currently provides supplementary feeding Programmes to over 15 000 children of besieged farm workers in the four provinces of Mashonaland East, West, Centr al and Manicaland. FCTZ director Godfrey Magaramombe this week said his organisation was aware of the plight of families of farm workers in Matabeleland North and South and was in the process of sourcing funds to extend the programme in the country. "We are looking at the possibility of moving into Matabeleland at a later stage but first we have to do an assessment of the whole project before making our intended move, but that can only take place after we have set up infrastructure on the ground," Magaramombe said.
Tens of thousands of farm workers have been displaced since government embarked on its controversial land reforms before the parliamentary election in 2000. An estimated 300 000 farm workers will lose their jobs after the government concludes the acquisition of over 3 000 commercial farms for resettlement. World Food Programme food handouts have not benefited farm workers as most of the food doled out by the international organisation is targeted at rural communities in communal areas. The expansion of the feeding programme by FCTZ would provide relief to starving farm workers in the prime farming areas of Nyamandlovu and Nkayi, areas worst affected by farm invasions since 2000. War veterans in Matabeleland have dislodged farm owners and taken over farm operations amid cases of looting of produce and harassment of workers. The Farm Workers Action Group at the beginning of the year reported that over 20 000 farm workers had become jobless and could not feed their families. The farm workers situation had been compounded by the worst drought to hit the country since 1992.
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From News24 (SA), 3 May
Not a nice place for a reporter
Washington - An international watchdog organisation for press freedom termed Zimbabwe as one of the ten worst places in the world to be a journalist. The West Bank, where journalists daily face Israeli and Palestinian gunfire, and where they generally find it difficult to work, tops the list issued on Friday by the Committee for the Protection of Journalists (CPJ). The release of the list coincided with International Press Freedom Day. Zimbabwe and Eritrea are the only two African countries listed. The CPJ maintains Zimbabwe once had an excellent reputation as a country where an active press could work without the threat of censorship. During the past two years President Robert Mugabe's government has arrested more than 50 journalists, of which at least two were tortured. The government launched almost forty court cases against journalists and their employers. Recent legislation has rendered it practically impossible to criticise Mugabe. In addition, police and Zanu PF militants have often assaulted journalists.
Eritrea, one of Africa's smallest countries, is also the biggest suppressor of press freedom on the continent. At least 13 journalists are currently being held and the entire private press has been banned since September last year. Referring to Afghanistan, where eight journalists were killed last year, the CPJ said actions by the US defence force in that country hampered independent reporting about the war. Columbia, Belarus, Burma, Iran, Kyrgyzstan and Cuba are also listed. CPJ executive director Ann Cooper said journalists in those countries endure assaults, authoritarian actions by governments and financially punitive measures aimed as deterrents. "It is incredible that journalists in many of those countries still manage to report on news events despite personal risks," she said.
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From The Christian Science Monitor, 3 May
Zimbabwe's opposition resolute, but still looks for help
Harare - It has been nearly eight weeks since Zimbabwe's presidential election. Siyakwazi Moyo had hoped by now to be helping to lead his country toward a more positive future, away from the cycle of violence that has blighted Zimbabwe over the past two years. Instead, many here say that things are worse than ever. Mr. Moyo and his fellow Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists have been beaten and teargassed, and have had their houses burned by war veterans and youth militias sponsored by the ruling Zanu PF party. Additionally, Zimbabwe declared a state of disaster this week as a drought affecting much of Southern Africa has exacerbated food shortages throughout the country. Since President Robert Mugabe claimed victory in the March election, which the opposition says was rigged, the terror campaign against MDC supporters has been stepped up, according to the MDC and human rights groups.
"People out there are in fear," says Moyo, who is MDC youth chairman of a ward in a town in Matabeleland. "But we have just resolved that we are going to stick to our political beliefs. Every time they hit us we hurt, but in our minds we feel stronger." In an interview with the Monitor, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai agrees. "This is all an act of retribution but, surprisingly, instead of being discouraged, we see a very strong determination and defiance among our supporters," says Mr. Tsvangirai. "It is having the opposite effect to what Mugabe intended." Mugabe says he is rescuing his country from the "imperialist" intentions of the West. He and the Zanu PF have shunned opposition calls for a rerun of the poll, and talks between the two sides in April failed to reach any accord on the country's political future.
The MDC is pinning its hopes on the president ultimately being frozen out diplomatically and economically by those he once counted as friends on the international scene - in particular South Africa - thereby convincing him to bow out. "[South Africa's President Thabo] Mbeki is under pressure from South Africans to be forthright in condemning Mr. Mugabe's actions," says Masiphula Sithole, professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe. "He is influential. If he spoke out, many others would." Praising international sanctions, but adding that Mr. Mbeki "could do more" to isolate Mugabe politically and economically, Tsvangirai stresses: "The international community can support us [only] so far.... The burden really lies with Zimbabweans to fight for their own freedom. We in the MDC realize that's going to be a long, protracted struggle."
Tsvangirai still faces charges for treason over an alleged plot to assassinate Mugabe, a charge he denies. On Tuesday, a court set a trial date of May 31. Since the election, thousands of MDC supporters have been singled out for retribution. More than 200 white commercial-farmers have been forced off their land, according to the Commercial Farmers' Union, crippling the commercial farming sector. Nongovernmental organizations estimate that some 20,000 rural folk have been displaced. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum says there have been 54 political murders since January, a figure police spokesman Tarwireyi Tirivavi disputes. "They are lying," he says. "They are including in that figure people killed in nonpolitical violence. The number of politically related deaths has gone down a lot since the elections." He declined to give figures.
Earlier this week, a report that the wife of an MDC activist was beheaded by Mugabe supporters was brought into question after police were unable to locate the woman's grave. Two local journalists, as well as an American journalist working for a British newspaper, were arrested after their papers published a story on the alleged murder. An act passed shortly after the March election put a tight rein on independent media working in Zimbabwe. The MDC has also launched a legal challenge to have the election result declared illegitimate. With no further talks between the two sides expected until mid-May, Mugabe's tactics appear to be to sit tight. Observers here, however, say that other Zanu PF heavyweights are jostling for position within the party, saying that its name is being dragged down under President Mugabe and that it must reform. And last weekend, in an interview with New African Magazine, Mugabe even hinted that he might not serve out his full six-year term, though he said he has no immediate plans to resign.
Tsvangirai urges reformist elements within Zanu PF to bring change at the top. "Mugabe is so isolated internally," he says. "They know the consequences of going against him, hence the reluctance of individuals. They speak out, but they never take a step.... It's no good just speaking about Mugabe having destroyed the country. Bold steps must be taken." Certain elements within Zanu PF, however, remain firmly by the president's side. They hail him as a hero who has stood firm against neo-colonialism, claiming that the MDC is sponsored by Britain, whose agenda is to restore the country to white rule 22 years after it won independence. The British government says such a claim is nonsense. Professor Sithole forecasts that time is running short for the president as social, economic, and political factors come together to swell support for the opposition. "Change is coming," he predicts. "The country and the people cannot go on like this."
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From The Sunday Times (UK), 5 May
White woman shot in back by land grab gang
Harare - A woman was fighting for her life in a Zimbabwean hospital yesterday after she was shot in the back in one of the most shocking attacks on a white farmer since President Robert Mugabe was re-elected two months ago. Dr Cheryl Jones, 47, of Yorkshire Ten farm in Headlands, 50 miles southeast of Harare, the capital, was ambushed at the gate of her property on Friday evening. She managed to drive the two miles to her homestead to raise the alarm before she collapsed. Doctors said last night that she had undergone four hours of surgery and was critically ill. It is the latest incident in a wave of violence in which members of the elite are grabbing prime land that has been earmarked for the resettlement of peasant families. A spokesman for the Commercial Farmers’ Union (CFU) said Jones, who runs a market garden business, had found her gate wired up when she returned from the bank with the equivalent of £180 to pay her workers. The money, along with Jones’s handbag and mobile phone, is still missing. Her farm is said to have been listed for acquisition by the government. Although it was not clear yesterday whether settlers who have occupied the farm next door were responsible for the shooting, the CFU fears violence is increasing because of the involvement in many recent seizures of powerful figures in Mugabe’s circle.
Among people who have grabbed land are the president’s brother-in-law Reward Marufu, as well as ministers, MPs, army officers and police officials. "I call it the last supper, Zanu-PF’s final feast," said Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. "It is a case of take what you can while you can." Marufu is among the most glaring examples. He has occupied the 1,400-acre Leopards Flei farm near Bindura, which until two weeks ago was managed by Bob Duncan, 40, and his wife Heidi. Duncan’s great-great-grandfather moved to what was Rhodesia from Dundee in 1893 and his descendants the Duncans have four children, including a six-month-old baby - now find themselves refugees in their own country. Their first visit from Marufu and a gang of war veterans occurred 10 days after Mugabe’s re-election. Later, the gang returned in a pick-up truck. "I locked the door but they broke it open," said Duncan. "One person, who appeared to be drunk, put a pistol in my face and said I had refused to leave despite having been told to do so. They slapped me around a bit, then took me to Marufu, who asked me, "Why aren’t you out?" He said if I wasn’t gone by evening, they would kill me."
Members of the elite who are challenged are said to display fury. When Guy and Ros Cartwright were ordered off Waltondale farm in Marondera by Ambrose Mutinhiri, a retired brigadier, he told their daughter-in-law Lucinda that he did not want his action publicised. "I told him that of course he didn’t, because it is morally reprehensible," she said. "He started shouting at me, spitting and foaming at the mouth." Lucinda Cartwright said her family, sheltering in Harare, despaired of going home. "I have seen my husband cry twice," she said. "Once was tears of joy when our daughter was born. The second was over this."
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 5 May
Four million face starvation
People eat green maize and grass to ward off famine.
South Africa and its neighbours are to hold an emergency meeting with United Nations agencies this month in a bid to get food aid to four million starving people. This comes as relief organisations warn that up to four million people face starvation as a result of food shortages in Southern Africa. About 19 million are said to be in need of food aid. The meeting, between the governments of the Southern African Development Community and agencies such as the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, will be held in South Africa. Already the South African government is making plans to deal with an influx of economic refugees. It is also working on speeding up maize exports to the affected countries. "It is better to do something within those countries than to wait for people to cross the borders," said Home Affairs spokesman Leslie Mashokwe. At least four million people have been directly affected by serious shortages of maize - the region's staple diet - according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. The World Food Programme says 19 million people in Southern Africa need food aid. The programme's regional director, Judith Lewis, said: "People have nothing to eat. They are eating green maize and grass." In Zimbabwe, some schools have been closed and others have stopped sport because children are weak. "We are suffering here, my son . . . It's as if God has abandoned us," Matabeleland resident Mandla Masuku told the BBC this week. The Southern African Development Community director of Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources, Reginald Mugwara, said the situation was getting worse as some countries could not afford to import maize.
The hardest-hit countries are Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique, Angola, Lesotho and Swaziland, with the first three in the worst state. In Zimbabwe, where farm seizures damaged the key agriculture sector, President Robert Mugabe declared a "state of disaster". That will allow aid donors and relief agencies to set up emergency programmes for up to a million people in need of food. Zimbabwe's 12 million people consume 1.5 million tons of maize a year but this season's maize harvest will be only just over 300 000 tons. So far, the government has managed to procure only 200 000 tons of maize from South Africa. And less than half has been delivered to the needy because of a foreign currency shortage and logistical problems. On Wednesday, the Red Cross launched an emergency appeal to the international community to provide relief for nearly half a million people. The Red Cross's Dr Guy Zimmermann said: "The nutritional status is already bad for many people, particularly young children orphaned because of HIV/Aids and the high number of adults infected with the virus." Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili, whose country is facing a deficit of 220 000 tons, has also declared a state of famine. "In no time we will begin to see queues of people converging for bare essentials such as maize," Lesotho economist Wale Ogunkola said. In Angola, the government has asked for help in feeding more than two million people in 42 declared disaster areas. In southern Mozambique, emergency food aid is being distributed to nearly 200 000 people.
The crisis has also put the South African farming community in the firing line, with complaints that it is exploiting the plight of the country's neighbours. A Food and Agriculture Organisation report claims that the worst-hit countries are paying up to 200% more for maize now than in July last year. The organisation says that between last July and this January, the price went up by 100%. In rural Zambia, the figure was 200%. Among the reasons for the steep increase are production costs, exchange rates and a backlog of freight awaiting dispatch in South Africa. Agriculture and Land Affairs Ministry spokesman Nana Zenani said little could be done because farmers were operating in an open market: "The market demand is in rand-dollar trading." Grain South Africa's general manager, Bully Botma, defended the prices, arguing that the increase reflected rising demand and currency weakness.
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From USA Today, 1 May
U.S. Prepares 'Big-Time' Response To Famine
Impact of African crisis could be felt at White House
Washington - U.S. officials are scrambling to cope with what could become the worst humanitarian crisis since President Bush took office: a potentially catastrophic famine in drought-stricken southern Africa that threatens 5 million people with starvation. ''What's unfolding in southern Africa is very big,'' Roger Winter, the assistant administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development's humanitarian assistance bureau, said in an interview Tuesday. ''Even though we don't have in hand all the information we need, we have in hand enough to know that we have to respond big-time,'' Winter said. The looming disaster also could have political ramifications for Bush. For many foreign aid advocates, how aggressively his administration responds will provide the first practical test of whether Bush will keep his word to boost U.S. assistance for needy countries. Bush's commitment this year to spend as much as $10 billion more on U.S. developmental aid by 2005 - roughly double current spending -- was praised by aid advocates. But activists want to see how the administration reacts to a real crisis. ''People have been encouraged by a lot of the speeches and rhetoric that Bush and people around him have used to talk about poor and hungry people,'' said Tom Freedman, an adviser to President Clinton who now is a visiting fellow at Resources for the Future, a Washington think tank. ''Now we have a concrete case. And there's a lot of folks who have their fingers crossed that the action will live up to the rhetoric,'' Freedman said.
Judith Lewis, regional director of the United Nations World Food Program, said in a telephone interview from Kampala, Uganda, that she had just returned from a tour of the afflicted region, where relief efforts are centering on food shortages caused by a severe drought in six countries: Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The United Nations feeds 2.6 million of the 54 million people in those countries. Lewis said she believes the aid will have to at least double because of food shortages already being felt. Lewis said the famine in the region is ''certainly the worst we've seen since 1992,'' when a drought left 18 million people without sufficient food. Lewis said she hopes the world will not lose sight of the crisis because of the war on terrorism. ''We just have to get people to turn back to Africa because there are a lot of competing crises,'' she said.
Experts say conditions are particularly bad in Malawi, with Zambia and Zimbabwe close behind. Zimbabwe declared a state of disaster Tuesday. U.S. officials blame President Robert Mugabe as much as the drought for food shortages in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe recently won a questionable re-election that has plunged the country into chaos. U.N. teams are still conducting a survey of the region, and Lewis said a plan of action won't be proposed until early June. But U.S. officials said they already are responding, even in Zimbabwe, despite their unhappiness with Mugabe. Winter said the Pentagon, State Department, CIA and other agencies met April 11, and reports on the famine have gone to Secretary of State Colin Powell and Bush. Winter said Washington is providing food assistance - a shipment of 35,000 metric tons is on the way and 40,000 metric tons are ready for shipment. That's enough to feed approximately 375,000 people for a year. ''President Bush has said there will be no famines on his watch,'' Winter said. ''We take that very seriously.''
Aid groups point out that the famine is a natural disaster, which Bush's pledge did not address. He promised new foreign aid for long-term poverty reductions in countries that show progress and spend the money responsibly. But aid advocates say more money is needed to avert short-term crises, such as famines, if some struggling countries are ever able to achieve long-term gains. ''The U.S emergency response frequently is generous, and we hope it will be here because there can't be long-term development for people who are in the middle of a famine,'' said Bill O'Keefe, government relations director for Catholic Relief Services. Bush's actions on the famine also will be seen as a pivotal factor in how high Africa ranks on his foreign policy agenda. Though last year's terrorist attacks and the resulting war in Afghanistan have diverted attention from U.S. policy on Africa, activists say they are generally pleased with Bush's approach. Both Powell and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill have visited the continent. ''I give them reasonable marks . . . on a scale of one to 10, maybe a six or seven,'' said Melvin Foote, president of the advocacy group Constituency for Africa.'' Foote said Jendayi Frazier, the Africa specialist on Bush's National Security Council, recently told the group that Bush plans to visit Africa next year.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 5 May
Tekere warns MDC over talks
The ongoing talks between the Movement for Democratic Change and the ruling Zanu PF party could result in the death of opposition politics in the country, former Zanu PF secretary-general Edgar Tekere has warned. Addressing a seminar hosted by the Mass Public Opinion Institute last week, called to evaluate the talks between the two rival political parties, the former president of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM), who is the embodiment of the collapse of the one-party state system, said the MDC risked being swallowed by a "deceitful" Zanu PF. "There is the possibility of being swallowed up like Zapu. The MDC has to be careful. We will end up with no opposition. This exercise means someone will be tricked. It will be to the benefit of Mugabe and Zanu PF if the talks continue," said Tekere.
He argued that there were no talks going on, but just a window-dressing exercise. "It is hypocritical talk, my friends, Zanu PF don't like the idea of talks. VaMugabe vakatsunga (Mugabe is very intolerant). Havadi." Tekere said the Zanu PF delegation was negotiating for Mugabe and not for the party because no one in the party disputed what Mugabe said. "The politburo and the central committee dances to Mugabe's whims and adheres to his decisions," said Tekere. Last month, Mugabe summoned his central committee to a meeting where he openly ruled out the possibility of a rerun of the presidential election. The former ZUM leader said the talks would be to Mugabe's advantage. "It will be to the benefit of Mugabe and Zanu PF, but more for VaMugabe. Hazviiti."
He lashed out at his former leader for using state machinery to ridicule the talks. "ZBC and state-owned newspapers are contemptuous and are used as Zanu PF propaganda instruments. Mugabe uses force to ridicule the entire talks. ZBC lines up lots of voices on television to say these talks will not go on. They have been commenting and jeering at everything that is not about Mugabe," said Tekere. The outspoken politician scorned at Mugabe's repeated calls for national unity and co-operation. "Mugabe speaks of co-operation, day in and day out, but in Chimanimani, his district administrator rejected the MDC's donation of $100 000 and a beast for the independence celebrations saying it was MDC money, and this happened amidst what you call talks between MDC and Zanu PF," said Tekere. He dismissed the mediation efforts of Nigeria and South Africa, saying they were a mere cover for their initial inaction. "Those who want the talks are not Zimbabweans, but other African countries. It is they who want the talks to save their faces. They meddled with our election and people died because they didn't take action," said Tekere. The talks are set to resume on 13 May, despite the intensification of government sponsored terror, torture and mayhem.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (SA), 5 May
'War vets' wipe out Zimbabwe's rhino
Johannesburg - The black rhino, a highly-endangered species, is being wiped out in Zimbabwe, one of its last strongholds in Africa, according to farmers and conservationists. The animals are being killed for their horns, each worth £45,000 - more than their weight in gold - on the Far East market where they are crushed into powder for traditional medicines. The slaughter centres on the giant Bubiana conservancy, in the south of Zimbabwe, where 104 of the country's last 400 black rhino live on 400,000 acres and from where at least two owners have been driven out by the chief whip of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF Party. "It is dire," said Johnny Rodrigues, the director of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force. "When you look at what is going on, you want to cry. They're slaughtering everything." Mr Rodrigues estimates that 30 to 40 of the Bubiana rhino are now dead. Bubiana and other smaller private conservancies intervened when the country's black rhino population fell from 20,000 in the mid-1970s to 263 in 1995. The slaughter in Zimbabwe's national parks was a result of civil war, poaching and corruption. By the mid-1990s, the Mugabe government realised that the bankrupt national parks system could not save the animals and asked white farmers in marginal agricultural areas to form conservancies to set up breeding populations. By careful management, the conservancies increased the national herd to about 400. There are another 2,000 black rhino, mainly in South Africa, with tiny, threatened herds in Namibia and Kenya.
The devastation is not restricted to the rhino. In the 18 months to early January, about 30,000 large animals had been killed at Bubiana, including one black rhino calf. One of the owners driven from the conservancy said: "It's finished: Bubiana will be depleted of all game within a month. The remaining elephants have snares around their feet. The West and the World Wide Fund for Nature don't appear to give a damn." In 1993, the Bubiana owners removed internal fences and erected external barriers strong enough to keep in large animals. They took in 36 black rhino that the government wanted them to use as a breeding population. Each farmer was allowed to run a few cattle, although game farming was the overriding aim. When in March the war veterans invaded, the cattle were slaughtered and the owners threatened. Two have now abandoned their farms and one of them, Peter Abbott, has gone into hiding. "War vets killed Peter's cattle in front of him while police watched," said one of Mr Abbott's neighbours. "He had an internationally renowned fishing camp. It has been trashed by war vets who are netting the lake for bass and bream, drying them and selling them. The lake had a popular hippo, Henrietta. They've killed her."
The story is repeated throughout the country. Wally Herbst, the national chairman of the Wildlife Producers' Association, the private game owners' organisation, said 40 per cent of Zimbabwe's wildlife may have been killed in the past 18 months. "It's a result of land invasions, resultant bad land use, the collapse of any rule of law, and game scouts being threatened and chased away," he said. "There's a huge increase in people invading openly with vehicles and firearms. It can't hold much longer, the infrastructure is collapsing." Even the government admits that at least 50 of the remaining 400 black rhino have been killed this year. Francis Nhema, the environment minister, said that £30 million would be lost this year from the collapse of the hunting industry. He said that wildlife worth £1.5 million had been poached in the past four months. A report on Mr Rodrigues's desk from Lynwood Ranching, a southern Zimbabwe conservancy owned by seven farmers, said that seven of its 36 black rhino had been snared recently. "One baby rhino has been burnt to death," it said. "Meat can be seen drying in almost every settler village. One patrol found seven kudu, zebra and eland in a single snareline. When we sent in helicopters to dart rhino injured in snares, the deputy director of national parks assured us of his immediate response. We have not heard another word from him."
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From The Sunday Independent (SA), 5 May
Libya pulls Zimbabwe's fuel plug
Harare - Zimbabwe has been called a "colony of Libya", and now faces a typical colonial bankruptcy after the oil company Tamoil, which supplies a staggering 70 percent of Zimbabwe's total fuel imports, last month unilaterally cut supplies to the troubled country. As in the mid-April interruption of fuel imports, non-payment was the reason for Tamoil's step. The sudden move coincided with the unrelated closure of Zimbabwe's fuel pipeline from the port of Beira in neighbouring Mozambique. It was closed so a new pump could be installed, said industry insiders. Libya has imposed controversial conditions on its sale of fuel to Zimbabwe, including payment in cash, investment opportunities in Zimbabwean businesses and property acquisitions. So far Libya has acquired a 25 percent stake in Zimbabwe's Jewel Bank and 15 percent in the country's Rainbow Tourism Group.
Libyan demands that the Mugabe regime hand over valuable farms as part of the deal have yet to be met, prompting fears from fuel-hungry consumers that the north African country will soon grow impatient with Zimbabwe. It is understood that groups of Libyan businessmen have been to Zimbabwe and visited vast commercial farms around the country. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi also toured some big commercial farms and identified some for his country's expropriation last year. However, the mechanics of delivering this land to the Libyans seem to have been delayed, prompting cries of impatience from the Libyans. Zimbabwe is now so heavily reliant on the Libyans that the country will cease to function if Gaddafi puts brakes on oil supplies. Mugabe has paid a dozen visits to Libya in the past year to maintain Gaddafi's patronage.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says Zimbabwe has virtually become a "colony of Libya". Libya's cut supplies have only been resumed after interventions at the highest level. "This isn't safe because there's no guarantee the interventions will always succeed. It is like signing your own death certificate," said an industry source. While Libya supplies 70 percent of Zimbabwe's fuel, the other 30 percent comes from Kuwait's International Petroleum Group and from Sasol in South Africa. But they have been inconsistent with supplies, also due to non-payment. The country has experienced intermittent fuel shortages over the past two years, with fuel queues often snaking through city streets for more than a kilometre as frustrated motorists wait for the precious commodity.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean government has plunged itself into further turmoil over the issuing of broadcast licences. Applicants for licences are threatening to sue the beleaguered government, claiming delays have cost them millions. Industry insiders are also questioning the issue of a broadcast licence to Transmedia, a wholly owned state company set to become a satellite broadcaster. The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) has refused to say who else will be given licences. Thomas Mandigora, the chief executive, said the BAZ had processed all applications and made its recommendations to the department of information, which has to decide whether to accept or reject the BAZ recommendations. The department of information falls under Jonathan Moyo, Mugabe's chief spin doctor.
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From The Star (SA), 5 May
'Trapped' Zim farmer refuses to leave home
A Zimbabwean farmer, barricaded in his house since April 16, has for 20 days running continued to resist efforts by war veterans to evict him, Zimbabwe's Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) reported on Sunday. The union also said Shannon Wheeler's Twin River Ranch in West Nicholson, Matabeleland, was just one of a number of farms in the area that had recently been decimated. Jenni Williams, spokesperson for the CFU said MP Kembo Mohadi had told Zimbabweans on Independence Day to take over all the properties in the area, including Wheeler's. Williams said Mohadi had erroneously referred to eviction notices in cases of farms that had only been served with acquisition notices, such as Wheelers. "Eviction of the farmer can only be undertaken by the Ministry of Lands and Agriculture after obtaining a valid order through the administrative court," Williams said.
Meanwhile, police who were summoned to Wheeler's farm after the war veterans assaulted his farm manager and confiscated his Land Rover, were equally unhelpful, Williams said. When district superintendent Madzingo arrived on the farm, he accused Wheeler's farm manager of being a "white man's puppet" and told him to greet his brothers the war veterans. Madzingo even told Wheeler he was lucky to be alive and that white farmers in Chikombe and Shamva were brutally beaten and chased away immediately before fatalities occurred, Williams said. Several farms in Matabeleland have recently been targeted by war veterans who have, in the process, looted thousands of dollars worth of fruit and vegetables. The CFU said they had received reports indicating that Matabeleland Governor Stephen Nkomo, Beit Bridge MP Kembo Mohadi and District Administrator, Eddison Nhkanyiso Mbedzi had told police not to intervene in events that were politically motivated.
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From ZWNEWS, 6 May
Land for the poor
The following is a partial list of farms illegally seized by senior government and Zanu PF officials and others in recent weeks:
Joseph Msika - part of Umguza Block; Simon Muzenda - Chindito Farm, Gutu; Obert Mpofu, part of Umguza Block; Sabina Mugabe - farm of murdered Terry Ford; Elliot Manyika - Duiker Flats; Shuvai Mahofa - Lothian Farm and others, Gutu; Samuel Mumbengegwi - Irvine Farm, Gutu; Augustine Chihuri - Woodlands Farm; Sydney Sekeremayi - Maganga Estate; Swithun Mombeshora - unnamed farm, Mashonaland West; Nicholas Goche unnamed farm; Edward Chindori-Chininga unnamed farm, Mashonaland Central; Saviour Kasukuwere part of Pimento Farm, Mashonaland Central; Joseph Chinotimba part of Pimento Farm, Mashonaland Central; Solomon Mujuru - Alamein Farm; Ambrose Mutinhiri - Waltondale Farm, Marondera West; Dick Mafiosi (Mashonaland Central ZPF youth chairman) part of Pimento Farm, Mashonaland Central.
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From The Times (UK), 6 May
Zimbabwe's children growing old too soon
Harare - Jade, the ten-year-old daughter of Zimbabwean farmers, has the same nightmare, again and again. "I dream they are shooting my mom and my dad, my brothers," she said. "I actually see it. There is like a gang of people. They will come into the door. My mom will be dishing up food. They will have a chain and strangle her and shoot my dad in the back. I’m there but I freeze. I can’t move." The nightmare ruins her sleep and often brings her to tears. "I sleep for a few hours, then I wake up. Then I think about my parents talking, about anything. I think, are they still alive?" Jade is one of thousands of children, black and white, wrenched into premature, disturbed adulthood by the past 27 months of President Mugabe’s campaign to force white farmers and their workers from their homes. Now all Jade wants is snow. Pure, clean snow to play in, in New Zealand. She should be there in a few weeks’ time with her parents and she never wants to come back. "Never," she said.
In March her parents were given 30 minutes to leave the farm they worked on. Her mother ran through the house, unhooking the curtains in each room, bundling into them whatever belongings she could lay her hands on, and then throwing them on to the lorry waiting outside. It was the second time that the family had been illegally evicted. They decline to be identified for fear of retribution. Her uncle has also been driven off his property and her grandparents may be about to lose theirs. "Mom, there’s a car at the gate," Jade’s brother calls as we sit on the lawn of the family’s temporary home in Harare. Jade’s eyes widen suddenly in alarm and focus on each of the adults with her, looking for reassurance. It is another family from their district, who have just fled their home. The eldest son is playing next door with the children of another family, who are also refugee farmers.
When Jade’s family moved here, the youngest son, aged eight, refused to sleep alone in his bedroom. "He said he saw the curtains move, the shelves move," said the children’s mother, who is 33. He and his nine-year-old brother have their own way of venting their anxiety. "There is so much aggression in this house," she said. "It’s a constant punch-up from the moment they open their eyes until they go to bed. And they really want to do each other in. It’s really serious." It was raining, she said, when she and her husband took Jade to see a doctor in Harare, thinking that she had scarlet fever. "I heard the wailers (the nickname given to the sirens of Mr Mugabe’s heavily armed escort). One of the motorbike riders shouted at my husband to get off the road. The Mercs (Mercedes Benz limousines) came past. The next thing I am crying. I started sobbing and sobbing." She was still crying when they reached the doctor’s rooms, and went in to see the doctor with Jade. He asked the girl what was wrong. "She said, "my mom and dad are going to get killed by war veterans". I burst into tears again. I had never heard this from her before. I never realised to what extent these children are perceiving these things. They have got inner torment. She is ten and acting like a 20-year-old."
Jade’s alarming maturity is common among the children at her school. At a "life skills" class recently, one of her teachers asked a class what they fe ared the most. "I was expecting things like being kicked out of school, the break-up of the family," he said. "They said "death"." The children were never present when Mr Mugabe’s militia, armed with sticks, axes and occasionally firearms, came to "jambanja" the homestead, forcing their way through the security gate, beating drums, banging on the door and shouting death threats and filled with racist rhetoric. But they have absorbed the fear. "Every time we drive down the road to the farm, you see two or three people, and in their minds it becomes a crowd of war veterans," the mother said. She has the three children, sitting in the back seat, well drilled in case they are attacked. "Get on the floor, even on top of each other, and keep your head down." Jade’s nightmares have become less frequent now that she is on antidepressants. "She is more relaxed, but she is still not sleeping," her mother said. "You see her wandering up and down the passage at all times of night. She doesn’t feel safe in town. It breaks my heart." Their tickets have been booked and they are looking forward to a new life on the other side of the world. "This is the country of my birth," Jade’s mother said. "I would do anything to stay here, but it’s enough now. I have done my time. It’s not worth it."
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From Reuters, 5 May
UN envoys fly to Rwanda for crunch Congo talks
Bujumbura - A UN Security Council mission trying to end Africa's biggest war makes a crunch visit to Rwanda on Monday for talks with Kinshasa's main foreign foe on reviving shaky peace efforts in Congo. Rwanda and its Congolese guerrilla allies appear increasingly isolated as the senior envoys, building on a partial peace pact among other key combatants, shuttle across Africa to step up pressure on all sides for reconciliation. On their tour of eight countries, the team has explained to belligerents in the Democratic Republic of Congo that the international community is determined to raise the cost of war and make the rewards of peace more visible. Their meeting with Rwandan President Paul Kagame on the trip's last leg should show whether their strategy has leverage on an administration bent on keeping troops in Congo until a threat from Congolese-based Rwandan rebels is extinguished.
"The fact is that Rwanda, which needs international investment, cannot be left on the outside of something which is gradually becoming a bandwagon for everybody else," says Jeremy Greenstock, Britain's ambassador to the Security Council. "The result of a stable and regenerating area in the Great Lakes overall is, beyond the short term, much greater than the plundering of the resources of the Congo and running an army (at war)." "Our understanding from (previous contacts with) President Kagame is that he understands that and sees the advantage of that," Greenstock said. All players now face an array of political and economic incentives which, if applied in concert, may hasten the end of a conflict in which an estimated two million people have died, most of them through disease and malnutrition. And all main players in the many-sided war are unanimous on the need for imposition of sanctions against any combatant found to have violated a cease-fire, or broken a commitment to withdraw troops or demobilize fighters, diplomats say.
Kagame is demanding the implementation of a pledge by Congolese President Joseph Kabila to disarm Rwandan Hutu guerrillas based in eastern Congo who are fighting Rwanda's rebel allies, the Congolese Rally for Democracy (RCD). Kabila has also pledged to fulfil Kagame's demand for the arrest of the Rwandan guerrillas' leaders, who masterminded Rwanda's 1994 genocide before fleeing to Congo, and for their transfer to a tribunal in Tanzania for trial. But Kabila has indicated that peace efforts must be reciprocal, and that Rwanda must at the same time show good faith by resuming a pullback of its troops in Congo to comply with a cease-fire agreement reached in 1999. Peace efforts have been in flux since Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba of the Ugandan-backed Movement for the Liberation of Congo (MLC) rebels signed a partial deal to end the many-sided war at talks in South Africa last month.
The deal, under which Kabila becomes interim president and Bemba prime minister, was rejected as a sham by the RCD, which had sought more senior posts than the jobs offered -- the parliament speakership and a top defense job. Kabila has pledged to press ahead with his power-sharing deal struck at talks in South Africa last month and both sides are busy with preparations to form a new government. Congolese officials and the MLC said on Sunday they planned to install a transitional administration by late June. But diplomats say that by leaving out the RCD, which with Rwanda controls 40 percent of the country, the pact could return the former Zaire to all-out war. Uganda, Tanzania and the Security Council envoys have urged Kabila and Bemba to be flexible in further talks with the RCD to try to bring them on board the accord. The envoys will also want to know what Kagame thinks of a plan floated by the U.N. ambassadors for a security "curtain" of regional troops on Congo's eastern borders to prevent Congo-based rebels attacking Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. Congo's war erupted in 1998 when Uganda and Rwanda invaded to back rebels fighting Kabila's father and predecessor, Laurent. The two allies later fell out, but kept backing rebels fighting over Congo's riches as Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia sent in troops to prop up the government.
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Comment from The Washington Post, 6 May
Africa's Challenge
This could be the year when the rich world focuses on Africa. The United States and Europe both committed themselves recently to expanded development assistance. A global effort is underway to negotiate trade liberalization in a way that benefits poor countries. Africa is at the top of the agenda for this summer's G8 summit. But the new willingness to address the continent's vast problems may be frustrated if Africans themselves do not demonstrate their commitment to development. This is why the news from Zimbabwe is so serious.
Africa's leaders - most notably Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo and South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki - theoretically are committed to something called the New Partnership for Africa's Development. This partnership is founded upon an agreement that economic development requires honest and open government, and in March its adherents announced a new "system of self-assessment" designed to move the continent away from fraudulent elections and corruption. The concept is precisely the right one: In Latin America recently, democratic leaders collectively have put pressure on coup leaders in Venezuela and on Cuba's dictator. But Africa's leaders need to demonstrate that they mean to live up to their rhetoric. Zimbabwe suggests that they may not.
Zimbabwe is a textbook case of the link between governance and development. Only a decade ago, the country seemed to have a good shot at prosperity: It had profitable mines and farms and tourist attractions; its infrastructure was decent; there was a critical mass of educated city dwellers, and it was not obviously corrupt. But President Robert Mugabe single-handedly has squandered these advantages, unleashing violent mobs that have attacked commercial farms and businesses, deterring investment by demonstrating contempt for the legal process and stamping on critics. In March Mr. Mugabe rigged Zimbabwe's election, and since then more than 50 people have died in political violence and some 30,000 have been driven from their homes. A new law muzzling the press has been pushed through parliament. On Wednesday Mr. Mugabe's goons locked up Andrew Meldrum, an American journalist. A combination of mob attacks on farms and a drought has brought agriculture to a standstill. Last week food shortages forced Mr. Mugabe to declare a national "state of disaster."
If Africa's new partnership means anything, it is that the continent's leaders must tell Mr. Mugabe to stop terrorizing his country and call fresh elections. But Africa's leaders have equivocated. Mr. Obasanjo and Mr. Mbeki played their part in expell |
