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Archived News
16th December 2003
Zimbabwe threatens to cut UK ties
Neighbours rally round in support of Mugabe
Mugabe risks losing his title of knight
The Commonwealth may never have such an eligible dictator again
Hoogstraten is out - and this time he is angry with 'nearly everyone'
Internet a tool of British imperialism, says Mugabe
Mugabe takes to Swiss luxury for UN address on technology
Zim lawyers demonstrate against abuse
Human rights award for 'courageous Zimbabwe lawyer
Zim parliament in uproar
Howard's a dictator, says woman who works for one
Nigerian envoy off to Harare
Rising numbers in need of food aid
Zambia to export maize to Zim
Rebuke for 'desperate' Zimbabwe diplomat
Mugabe's faux pas
Mugabe's commonwealth defeat is Mbeki's too
Mbeki claims UK to blame for crisis in Zimbabwe
Cutting UK ties a costly blunder
Be happy, Mugabe tells the starving
Mugabe commandeers AirZim plane to Geneva
Jailed van Hoogstraten trained as Samaritan
Mbeki to visit Zimbabwe again
Hospitals turn patients away as strike begins to bite
First Lady's Iron Mask project fails to materialise
Mugabe and the Commonwealth
On the trail of the Landlord from Hell turned Good Samaritan
Shock at Mbeki's 'offensive' Zim comments
Botswana not party to decision by some SADC members on Zimbabwe
MDC may talk to Mugabe
Ministers behind illegal gold trade
Tourists' money is needed, but boosts Mugabe regime
The open sore of Zimbabwe
Tutu 'baffled' at Zimbabwe debacle
Zimbabwe to announce new monetary policy, seeks to prevent economic collapse
End of era for Kwekwe’s ‘makorokoza’
Zim diplomacy set to get 'louder'
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From The Guardian (UK), 10 December
Zimbabwe threatens to cut UK ties
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Robert Mugabe's government indicated yesterday that it was considering severing diplomatic ties with Britain and Australia in response to their tough Commonwealth stand over Zimbabwe. "The time has now come for Zimbabwe to fully engage Britain head-on by cutting all diplomatic ties with the former colonial master and its sidekick, Australia," said an editorial in the Herald. The newspaper is regarded as the mouthpiece of the information minister, Jonathan Moyo. On Sunday, President Mugabe announced he was pulling his country out of the Commonwealth because of the 54-nation organisation's refusal to lift its suspension of Zimbabwe's membership. This was imposed last year after accusations of fraud and violence during Mr Mugabe's re-election campaign. Yesterday, the Herald called for the closure of diplomatic missions and ending communication with the British government. It stopped short of demanding the repatriation of about 40,000 British citizens in Zimbabwe and the closure of the 300 or more British-based firms operating there.
If the Mugabe government forced Britain to close its mission in Harare, it could set off a chain reaction of diplomatic closures involving the embassies of other EU states. The British high commission declined to comment on the newspaper's suggestion. In the past, the Herald has vilified Brian Donnelly, the British high commissioner to Harare, accusing him of plotting to overthrow the government. "If we lost sleep over every scurrilous article printed about us in the Herald, we wouldn't go to bed at all," one diplomat said. But observers interpreted the Herald's editorial as a serious escalation of its campaign against British representatives in Zimbabwe. The call to cut all diplomatic ties with Britain is viewed in Harare as a reflection of Mr Mugabe's anger over the weekend Commonwealth summit in Abuja, but not yet a statement of government policy.
"This shows the current rancour that Mugabe feels more than what he actually plans to do," said Iden Wetherell, editor of the Zimbabwe Independent, one of the country's few privately owned weekly papers. "But it could be a harbinger of things to come. Now he has quit the Commonwealth, Mugabe will want to beat the nationalist drum. That would place Britain in the firing line, but it will have implications for Zimbabwe's relations with other countries which might lead him to hesitate." The Herald's editorial said that by breaking off relations with the British government, Zimbabweans would prove to be the "true torchbearers to other African and third world countries suffering under the yoke of imperialism". In the Commons, Tony Blair said Zimbabwe was being driven further into chaos by "ruinous economic policies". Half the population now relied on food aid - with Britain the leading cash donor. "In these circumstances, I and others argued that it was inconceivable that Zimbabwe should be readmitted to the councils of the Commonwealth, and that... it should remain suspended until we saw concrete evidence of a return to democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law."
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 10 December
Neighbours rally round in support of Mugabe
Britain's attitude towards President Robert Mugabe's regime was denounced as "intolerant" and "rigid" by southern African countries yesterday, reigniting the row over Zimbabwe's withdrawal from the Commonwealth. The 12 Commonwealth members from southern Africa closed ranks behind Mr Mugabe with a statement condemning Zimbabwe's suspension from the group. Earlier, Tony Blair angrily denied that Mr Mugabe's regime was the victim of a racist plot. Ending Zimbabwe's suspension would have been "inconceivable", he said. Mr Mugabe had appealed for the "solidarity" of his neighbours and the Southern African Development Community duly rallied to his support. It blamed Zimbabwe's withdrawal from the Commonwealth on the "dismissive, intolerant and rigid attitude" of Britain and other member states. The present situation in Zimbabwe calls for engagement by the Commonwealth and not isolation and further punishment," it said.
Botswana is among the countries which endorsed the statement, yet it backed Zimbabwe's continued suspension from the Commonwealth during the summit in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is believed to be the prime mover behind the criticism of Britain. His persistence with his policy of "quiet diplomacy" towards Mr Mugabe's regime has baffled and enraged his critics. Zimbabwe's economy is in ruins, with inflation above 500 per cent and unemployment at 70 per cent. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans have fled to South Africa and Botswana. Reporting to the Commons on the Commonwealth summit the Prime Minister strongly defended Zimbabwe's suspension. He said it had made no effort to address international concerns and was going "backwards." He said Mr Mugabe's "ruinous economic policies" were "driving the country further and further into chaos." Mr Mugabe's regime raised the possibility of breaking all diplomatic ties with Britain. The Herald, the government daily, said: "There is no need for us to continue pretending that there is a semblance of diplomacy with Britain or its Australian appendage." But the regime can ill afford to cut links. Britain has given the country more than £62 million in humanitarian aid since September 2001.
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From The Times (UK), 10 December
Mugabe risks losing his title of knight
By David Charter and David Sharrock
Robert Mugabe is set to join a select band whose deeds are so heinous that they have been stripped of their knighthoods. The Zimbabwean President, whose country lies on the brink of ruin, was given the honorary award for his contribution to relations with Britain in 1994. That rapport has now soured to the point where Britain would like to see the back of him. Having failed to usurp Mr Mugabe through sanctions, Tony Blair agreed reluctantly to a more symbolic gesture yesterday. This comes after the decision of the Commonwealth at the weekend to continue Zimbabwe’s suspension and Mr Mugabe’ s retaliatory exit from the organisation. Mr Blair was asked by Andrew Robathan, Conservative MP for Blaby, whether he would recommend withdrawing the knighthood awarded to Mr Mugabe on his last state visit to Britain. Ministers have previously brushed aside the question of the knighthood which was raised earlier by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Mr Blair said: "We will certainly look at the issue of the honorary knighthood, although I somehow question what the impact of that might be on him."
A small band of heroes-turned-villains have been stripped of their knighthoods. They include Roger Casement, the official who lost his knighthood and was executed in 1916 for conspiring to supply German weapons to Irish Nationalists and Anthony Blunt, the Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures and former MI5 agent. He lost his title in 1979 after being exposed as a Soviet spy. Jack Lyons, the financier, forfeited his in 1991 after being convicted in the Guinness trial of theft and false accounting. Other recipients of honorary knighthoods include Nicolai Ceausescu, the former Romanian leader. Honorary knighthoods are awarded by the Queen on the advice of the Foreign Office to those who have "made an important contribution to relations between their country and Britain". They are not allowed to use the title of "Sir". Mr Mugabe also has India’s most prestigious decoration, the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding, awarded in 1989 for being a "a champion of the oppressed". The Indian High Commission last night said there were no plans to review the award. As Mr Blair reported back to the Commons on the Commonwealth summit in Nigeria that eventually agreed to continue Zimbabwe’s indefinite suspension, Mr Mugabe flew to a technology conference in Geneva due to be attended by 60 heads of Government.
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Comment from The Cape Times (SA), 9 December
The Commonwealth may never have such an eligible dictator again
By John Scott
Commonwealth heads of state lost a marvellous opportunity when they extended Zimbabwe's expulsion from that body. And now that Robert Mugabe has voluntarily left, the opportunity may never offer itself again. It was perhaps the last chance to have a genuine copper-bottomed, A1 Lloyds-approved, Sothebys-authenticated dictator as a member, after the retirement some years ago of Uganda's irrepressible Idi Amin. No wonder Thabo Mbeki fought to have Mugabe's suspension lifted. Few of the world's other leading dictators, present and past, qualified for Commonwealth membership. Take Hitler, for instance. His country was never a British colony. In fact he tried to turn Britain into a German colony. And he might have succeeded, too, had Britain pursued Neville Chamberlain's policy of letting Nazi Germany reform itself from within while everyone turned blind eyes. Come to think of it, Chamberlain would have got on well with the South African president. He, too, believed in quiet diplomacy. For the same reason Benito Mussolini could never have joined the Commonwealth, either. Nor could Josef Stalin, who was busy colonising large parts of Asia, whether they liked it or not, and bumping off millions who didn't.
The world abounded with other dictators who never gave the Commonwealth a chance to enlist their membership - Augusto Pinochet of Chile, General Alfredo Stroessner of Paraguay, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Papa Doc Duvalier of Haiti and Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. Nearer home Emperor Jean Bédel Bokassa of the Central African Republic and Mobutu Sese Seko of the then-Zaire set new records in repression of their peoples and theft of state assets, but neither country had ever been settled by Britain, so the Commonwealth chaps had no reason to invite them for drinks and study their differing dictatorial techniques. Unfortunately Nero, Caligula, Ghengis Khan and Attila the Hun all massacred millions before the Commonwealth's time, and George W Bush unilaterally (with a bit of help from Tony Blair) put paid to Saddam Hussein before any Commonwealth leader could invite the Iraqi dictator to become an honorary member. The options for tyrannical camaraderie were thus further reduced. But so long as Mugabe continued to run his country into the ground, starve his people, beat and torture his opposition, undermine the judiciary, seize land for his political cronies, and turn millions of Zimbabweans into refugees, there was hope that the Commonwealth might number among its members a dictator in his own right. Alas, the Commonwealth failed the test. At least no one can accuse President Mbeki of not trying.
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From The Independent (UK), 10 December
Hoogstraten is out - and this time he is angry with 'nearly everyone'
By Danielle Denetriou and Matthew Beard
Be afraid, be very afraid. The message from Nicholas van Hoogstraten, dressed in his trademark leather coat, pin-stripe suit and two-inch Cuban heels, was as clear as it was chilling. Britain's most notorious landlord was back with a vengeance. Yesterday, Mr van Hoogstraten celebrated the overturning of his conviction for the manslaughter of a business rival by declaring that he was planning to sue "just about everybody". The man who received his first criminal conviction at the age of 11 before becoming the youngest self-made millionaire in Britain at 22 left no doubt that his legal crusade would go on. From the Criminal Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Metropolitan Police, to his former lawyers and business associates, Mr van Hoogstraten ominously suggested that few would escape from his attempts to seek justice. One of his targets may well be Michaal Hamdan, a former business associate believed to have been instrumental in putting Mr van Hoogstraten in the dock. He refused to testify during the trial and is thought to have fled the country without giving any evidence at all.
Speaking to the assembled media at the Old Bailey, Mr van Hoogstraten said: "This prosecution should never have been brought. I have suffered two years of legal incompetence and dishonesty. Evidence was deliberately hidden by the CPS and the police. It would have shown who the instigators and the participants in this crime were." It was when asked whom he was planning to take legal action against, that he ominously replied: "Just about everybody." He added: "I'm not allowed to give further details at this stage." But the shock waves that ensued from the release of Mr van Hoogstraten, a man with a volcanic temperament and a notoriously Machiavellian management style, were not confined to his business associates. Residents near his sprawling, unfinished neo-classical edifice, Hamilton Palace, in the East Sussex countryside, also expressed fear at the prospect of his return. Yesterday, Mr van Hoogstraten, 58, revealed that his stint in prison had done little to dent his dogged tenacity and fiery temperament. He made his avowal to "sue" immediately after he was formally acquitted of the murder of Mohammed Raja, 62, in Sutton, south London, four years ago.
Less than 24 hours earlier, Mr van Hoogstraten had been released from Belmarsh Prison following a Court of Appeal ruling that there was no foundation for a manslaughter case and he would not have to face a retrial. He had served 17-months of a 10-year sentence for the manslaughter of Mr Raja, who was stabbed five times and shot in the face with a sawn-off shotgun at his home in July 1999. While two small-time thugs, Robert Knapp and David Croke, were jailed for life for the murder of Mr Raja, Mr van Hoogstraten was convicted for allegedly masterminding the assassination of his business rival. After Monday's hearing at the Old Bailey, the property tycoon appeared to be revelling in his new-found freedom yesterday. Finally agreeing to talk after keeping the gathered media waiting for more than an hour as he chatted to his entourage, he did not fail to live up to his explosive reputation. He revealed that he had made a formal complaint to the Metropolitan Police that evidence revealing the perpetrator of the crime for which he was imprisoned had been withheld during the trial. "This investigation was commenced but it was stayed pending the hearing at the Court of Appeal," he said. "I trust that this investigation into the police conduct of this case as a result of my complaints last year will be diligently pursued. If it is not, I will have further recourse."
The Metropolitan Police later confirmed that a complaint was to be investigated into allegations of the "irregular practices" of an officer involved in Mr Raja's murder trial. The next legal battle on the list for Mr van Hoogstraten involves the family of the late Mr Raja, who was in the process of suing him at the time of his death. After his family pursued the civil action and won £5m last December, Mr van Hoogstraten launched an appeal which will be heard in the High Court next March. Despite insisting that he was sympathetic towards the Raja family, he said: "They have partly bought this upon themselves." While Mr van Hoogstraten's fortune was once estimated at £500m, his assets of £90m remain frozen in connection with the pending High Court case involving the Raja family, while a further £30m has been sequestrated. Mr van Hoogstraten, who states that his political allegiances lie " to the right of Attila the Hun", refused to answer any further questions from The Independent, because he claimed it was a "left-wing, anarchist publication". But the family of Mr Raja expressed greater disappointment than surprise at the comments of Mr van Hoogstraten, possibly in the light of the fact that he has previously told one of Mr Raja's six sons: "Your dad is a maggot." Yesterday, his son Amjad Raja, 42, told The Independent: "His release does send shivers down our spines. He has made these comments against our father as he knows that a dead man cannot take action against him. It is very hard for us but we have to continue fighting otherwise our father will have died in vain. Someone has to stand up to this man."
For many whose paths have crossed with that of Mr van Hoogstraten, his unsavoury comments about Mr Raja should come as little surprise. He once described a number of tenants who died in a fire in one of his properties as "low-life, drug dealers, drug takers and queers - scum". His own mother was referred to as "a miserable cow". Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean President, on the other hand, warranted the description "100 per cent decent and incorruptible". Meanwhile, for the residents of his home village of Uckfield, the prospect of the return continues to instil fear. The property magnate had made his mark locally, not only with his £40m home, but as landlord to scores of tenants. He is also a vociferous critic of ramblers, whom he has described as "perverts" and "the great unwashed". In the 1980s, he came to blows with the Ramblers' Association, who represented local walkers aggrieved at being denied an ancient right of way across his estate. Shelley Garner, 81, from the nearby village of Framfield, said: "I have lived here since 1969 and I have never seen him but, at one stage, you were frightened to go walking near the estate. It was just very intimidating, all the lengths he went to to keep people off his land." The Ramblers' Association said full rights of way had been restored on the footpath, which takes walkers within no more than half a mile of Hamilton Palace. A spokesman for the organisation said: "He went out of his way to keep out what he termed riff-raff. I went down there myself to sort the issue out and felt pretty scared by his minders."
Mr van Hoogstraten claimed yesterday that he received up to 900 letters of support during his stint in Belmarsh Prison, and admitted that he had received four negative letters, two of them from ramblers. During his time at Hamilton Palace, named after the capital of Bermuda, he has lived in an adjacent building while keeping a careful watch on building contractors. Work on Hamilton Palace has come to a halt during the owner's imprisonment, but locals fear that may soon change. One neighbour in her thirties from the hamlet of Palehouse Common, on the edge of the estate, said: "He was more of a hate figure for my parents when he was gaining a reputation in the 1960s. But he won't be welcome back here. The main concern is that he's going to make it his base now.''
Why is he free?
Nicholas van Hoogstraten has never admitted sending his henchmen to intimidate his business rival, Mohammed Raja. In a pre-trial hearing last week Mr Justice Stephen Mitchell ruled that even if Mr van Hoogstraten had ordered the intimidation he could not have expected them to use guns to kill Mr Raja. Before the case against Mr van Hoogstraten reached the Old Bailey last year, witnesses for the prosecution withdrew their co-operation. Police are still investigating three allegations of attempting to pervert the course of justice in connection with the first trial. Without all their witnesses the Crown Prosecution Service say the case of murder was weakened, and the jury acquitted Mr van Hoogstraten of premeditated killing. The judge offered the jury an alternative charge of manslaughter for which the multimillionaire was duly convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. The property tycoon appealed against his conviction and sentence. On 23 July his conviction was quashed on the grounds that the trial judge had misdirected the jury, as the direction did not properly explain the relationship between the charge of manslaughter and the possible use of a loaded firearm.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 11 December
Internet a tool of British imperialism, says Mugabe
By Fiona Fleck and Anton La Guardia
President Robert Mugabe's anti-British diatribes rose to new extremes yesterday when he declared that Britain was using the internet to destroy Zimbabwe and recolonise the Third World. Making his first public appearance since withdrawing from the Commonwealth three days ago, Mr Mugabe used a United Nations conference on information technology to deliver his attack. Many delegates at the summit in Geneva hailed a new era of free access to information. But Mr Mugabe saw the internet as pernicious. "Beneath the rhetoric of free press and transparency is the iniquity of hegemony," he said. He controls all broadcasting in his country and in September closed the Daily News, the only independent daily newspaper. He said information technology was dominated "by a few countries in the selfish interests of those countries which are in quest of global dominance and hegemony". He singled out Britain, the United States and Australia for using their information technology superiority to "challenge our sovereignty through hostile and malicious broadcasts calculated to foment instability and destroy the state through divisions".
Mr Mugabe told the conference that the internet and computer revolution were "spin-offs of the same industry that allows once again for the conquest of our societies . . . the same platforms used for high-tech espionage". New technology provides one of the few channels of information still open to his opponents. During the failed referendum campaign to approve a new constitution enlarging his powers in February 2000, critics distributed a highly effective mobile phone text message declaring: "No Fuel. No Jobs. Vote No." The opposition Movement for Democratic Change and Zimbabwean human rights groups have made extensive use of e-mail. Zimbabwe's withdrawal from the Commonwealth provoked a bitter session in the Harare parliament yesterday. The foreign minister, Stan Mudenge, said the Commonwealth was dominated by white "racist bullies" and the ruling party whip, Rabson Gumbo, called on Zimbabwe to sever diplomatic relations with Britain.
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From The Times (UK), 11 December
Mugabe takes to Swiss luxury for UN address on technology
From David Sharrock in Geneva
In an extraordinary display of indifference to what the world thinks of Zimbabwe’s woes, President Mugabe of Zimbabwe began a three-day visit to Switzerland for a United Nations conference by checking into one of the country’s most exclusive hotels. Mr Mugabe selected La Réserve, a country club-style spa on the shores of Lake Geneva, for his 20-strong entourage. Rooms at the Réserve cost from £380, with the presidential suite available for £4,500. Jacuzzis and flatscreen televisions come as standard with the suites and at sunset every guest receives a handwritten weather report for the next day. Whether or not Mr Mugabe feels he needs such pampering after the exertions of pulling Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth last weekend, he was certainly reluctant to come out of his suite yesterday. When he finally did, the Zen-like calm that the Réserve strives to create was shattered by a display of thuggish behaviour from his bodyguards, who manhandled several waiting photographers.
For his part, Mr Mugabe beamed genially from behind his corridor of minders, but ignored questions from reporters about his decision to withdraw from the Commonwealth after Zimbabwe’s suspension from the body was renewed in Nigeria. Earlier, Jonathan Moyo, the Zimbabwean Information Minister, when asked why the decision had been made, replied: "Ask Tony Blair." Mr Mugabe was granted a visa to travel to Geneva even though Switzerland has followed the lead of the European Union and the United States by imposing sanctions on Zimbabwe, including a travel ban for the President, his wife and 77 close associates. The UN conference - on the urgent need to bridge the technology gap that threatens to leave the Third World in the Dark Ages while industrial nations make swift progress in the digital age - has given him an opportunity to cock a snook at the EU’s sanctions and give a high-profile demonstration that he is far from friendless in the world.
Mr Mugabe used his speech to attack Britain and the United States. He told the summit: "These last two years have shown us how information and communications technologies (ICT) superiority are often deployed as a prelude and accompaniment to aggressing the sovereignties of poor and small nations. I say this because my country Zimbabwe continues to be a victim of such aggression with both the UK and the United States using ICT superiority to challenge our sovereignty through hostile and malicious broadcasts calculated to foment instability and destroy the state through divisions." Mr Mugabe revelled in the role of international statesman when he addressed the leaders of more than 60 nations. They listened attentively and he received the applause of half of Africa, the presidents of the Baltic states, much of the Middle East and the French Prime Minister for his innocuous words on technology. Yet his enthusiasm for the internet may come as a surprise in Zimbabwe. Last month 15 people were arrested and charged under the Public Order and Security Act for sending out e-mails from an internet café in Harare, which urged demonstrations in protest against the President’s rule. The alleged miscreants were released on bail and are awaiting trial in the first case of its kind in Zimbabwe.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 10 December
Zim lawyers demonstrate against abuse
Harare - Scores of Zimbabwean human rights lawyers staged a half-hour demonstration in the capital, Harare, on Wednesday to protest at the assault and harassment of lawyers and judges. Dressed in their black gowns and some in white T-shirts, the lawyers, including senior attorneys, held placards as they marched from the Supreme Court across the city's busiest streets during the lunch rush hour. The demonstration was held to mark World Human Rights Day. Some of the placards read "No to torture", "Stop harassing judges and lawyers now" and "Freedom of expression now". The demonstration was probably the first street protest by rights activists to be authorised and escorted by police officers since a new security law was introduced in Zimbabwe early this year. Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights Nokuthula Moyo read a list of more than 10 lawyers who had been "assaulted and harassed by the police" either in their line of duty or as complainants in 2003. "The police record for the protection and defence of human rights has been appalling," she told the protesters at the end of the march in the city's main park, Harare Gardens. "No matter how abused we are ... we must soldier on until we restore the dignity this country deserves," she said. Moyo, however, applauded the police for approving and even providing escort for their protest. "I hope what has happened is the beginning of good things. We hope from now on our police will start to observe and protect human rights," she said. Almost all attempted demonstrations against rights abuses and in support of democratic reforms in Zimbabwe by a host of civic activists this year have been broken up by police.
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From The Guardian (UK), 11 December
Human rights award for 'courageous Zimbabwe lawyer
Mark Oliver
Beatrice Mtetwa, a fearless Zimbabwean lawyer who has defended those arrested by President Robert Mugabe's government, including a Guardian journalist, was named Human Rights Lawyer of the Year last night. Judges at the Human Rights Awards in London paid tribute to her courage in fighting for human rights and press freedom in a dangerous country. In October she was taken into custody by Zimbabwean police and beaten up. Mrs Mtetwa defended and won acquittal for the Guardian's former Harare correspondent Andrew Meldrum, when he was tried for "publishing a falsehood", a criminal charge carrying a jail term of two years. She also won court rulings ordering the government to allow Meldrum to stay in the country but he was illegally abducted and expelled in May. The award, from the legal and human rights campaigning group Justice and the civil rights campaigners Liberty, was presented to Mrs Mtetwa at the Law Society Hall. The citation praised her "courage and commitment to human rights whilst working in an environment hostile to lawyers and the rule of law and her disregard to the risks of her personal safety". Speaking from Pretoria, Meldrum described Ms Mtetwa as a "fearless" lawyer. "She has defended freedom of the press and the rule of law in Zimbabwe under the most difficult and dangerous of conditions," he said. "It is a great honour not only for her alone but for so many other committed Zimbabwean lawyers who are trying to maintain their profession despite harassment and even violence." After her beating by police she needed treatment for severe bruising and cuts to her face, throat, arms, ribcage and legs. Police had been called to assist her when her vehicle was attacked by car thieves but instead took her into custody for allegedly driving while intoxicated. "They said the tables have turned, you are no longer a lawyer, you are a suspect," Mrs Mtetwa said at the time. Zimbabwe pulled out of the Commonwealth at the weekend after its leaders ruled that its suspension, imposed after allegations of election fraud and violence, should continue.
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From News24 (SA), 10 December
Zim parliament in uproar
Harare - Uproar broke out in Zimbabwe's parliament on Wednesday as government and opposition MPs debated the country's withdrawal from the Commonwealth. Through a barrage of interjections from MPs of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and repeated demands for order from speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge opened debate by dismissing criticism of issues of human rights and democracy and declaring that the decision was taken in preference "to being treated as a lackey." He called Australian prime minister John Howard "the butcher of Baghdad" and Commonwealth foreign secretary-general Don McKinnon "the liar." An enraged President Robert Mugabe made the decision on Sunday night, immediately after he was told that the Commonwealth summit in Abuja, Nigeria, had decided to continue indefinitely the government's suspension from the 54-member body. On Tuesday Mugabe's cabinet approved withdrawal from the 54-member body of mostly former British colonies. Both cabinet and parliamentary endorsement have to be given for the pull-out to be legally effective, lawyers said.
Mudenge also said that Commonwealth membership brought no benefits, and said that scholarships and preferential visas for subjects of Commonwealth nations were "as good as dead" as "(former British prime minister Margaret) Mrs Thatcher did away with all that." About 100 000 Zimbabweans have fled to Britain, Australia, Canada and New Zealand in the last four years of economic and political mayhem and secured residence there on the strength of being Commonwealth citizens, many of them on scholarships provided by the "club." Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party has a comfortable majority in the 150-seat legislature, although party officials had to broadcast orders over state radio today to its MPs to attend parliament, in an apparent bid to avoid previous embarrassing defeats by the MDC when ruling party MPs didn't bother to turn up for debates.
MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube praised the Commonwealth's decision to extend Zimbabwe's suspension, but said that Mugabe's response "shows his determination to maintain dictatorship, violation of human rights, and denial of people's democratic rights." Zimbabwe was suspended in April last year, after Commonwealth election observers reported that Mugabe's victory in a presidential ballot a month before was the result of violent intimidation and fraud. The Commonwealth secretariat said shortly before the Abuja summit that Mugabe's government had done nothing since the suspension to merit having it lifted. The government has since attacked the Commonwealth as an "imperialist" body controlled by "the racist white Commonwealth." The committee recommending the suspension was openly backed by East and West African, Caribbean and Pacific nations, as well as India.
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From The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia), 11 December
Howard's a dictator, says woman who works for one
By Mark Riley, Political Correspondent
The Zimbabwe Ambassador to Australia has accused the Prime Minister, John Howard, of acting like a dictator towards her country, as reports suggest President Robert Mugabe is considering severing diplomatic ties with Australia. In her first comments about the soured relationship between the countries, Florence Chitauro accused Mr Howard yesterday of "taking it upon himself to be some kind of messiah for Zimbabwe" in its international relations. "John Howard has not helped this situation by more or less accusing people of being dictatorial," Ms Chitauro said. "As chairman of the Commonwealth troika on Zimbabwe, he was dictating his own position on the other members." Until last week, Mr Howard headed a troika with Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and South African President Thabo Mbeki reviewing Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth. Mr Howard spoke strongly against Zimbabwe's readmission because of continuing evidence of widespread vote rigging, militia attacks on the Mugabe regime's political opponents, the violent removal of white farmers from their land and the engineering of an economic crisis that has impoverished millions.
Mr Obasanjo, who hosted the latest Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Abuja this week, accused Mr Howard of undermining the troika's work by taking too hard a line against Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe accused Australia of adopting a racist attitude and withdrew his country from the Commonwealth because of CHOGM's refusal to lift the suspension of Zimbabwe. The Guardian newspaper in London reported overnight that Mr Mugabe was now considering breaking diplomatic ties with Britain and Australia. The Zimbabwe Herald said in its editorial yesterday: "The time has now come for Zimbabwe to fully engage Britain head-on by cutting all diplomatic ties with the former colonial master and its sidekick, Australia." Ms Chitauro said she had not been informed of any such move and cautioned against "believing what you read in the newspapers about Zimbabwe". She laid the blame for the collapsed relationship at Mr Howard, accusing him of being contemptuous of the Mugabe Government. "How come John Howard seems to know so much about what is happening or is not happening in Zimbabwe when he has never been there to see the reality on the ground?"
Ms Chitauro spoke to the Herald soon after receiving a letter from the Australian Government downgrading her status from high commissioner to ambassador as a result of the decision to pull out of the Commonwealth. She said relations between the countries would not improve while Mr Howard adopted a "closed-minded attitude". "You can engage with someone diplomatically if there is room to listen, but the contempt shown by Australia tells us they are not interested in repairing the relationship," she said. A spokesman for Mr Howard said the Prime Minister would not respond to the attack. However, he pointed to conciliatory comments made by Mr Howard before his return to Canberra yesterday. "The suspension continues but there will be a renewed effort to get the parties together in Zimbabwe," Mr Howard said.
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From News24 (SA), 10 December
Nigerian envoy off to Harare
Harare - Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo is expected to send a high-ranking envoy to Harare in the next two weeks, after Zimbabwe quit the Commonwealth, a diplomat said here on Wednesday. "Our president will send an envoy before Christmas, but when the man is coming, I am not informed, who is coming, we don't know yet," a diplomat at the Nigerian embassy in Harare said. He dismissed local media reports that Obasanjo himself would head for Harare next week. "He will send an envoy, he did not say he is coming," said the official. Obasanjo was last in Harare three weeks ago before he took the decision not to invite President Robert Mugabe to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which was held in the Nigerian capital at the weekend. The Commonwealth decided on Sunday to prolong Zimbabwe's suspension from the grouping of mainly former British colonies and appointed a seven-nation committee made up of Australia, Canada, India, Jamaica, Mozambique, Nigeria and South Africa to undertake a dialogue with Mugabe. Mugabe said if any of them visited him, he would "welcome them in a brotherly and friendly way as leaders of their respective nations, but not as representatives of the Commonwealth".
Comment from The Nation (Kenya), 10 December
Mugabe on isolation path
Nairobi - President Robert Mugabe might have seemed quite petulant when he pulled Zimbabwe out of the Commonwealth with the famous words that there were "many other clubs". Yet shortly before quitting, after the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting had extended Zimbabwe's suspension from the "Club", President Mugabe had threatened to gatecrash the Abuja parley if he was not invited. Zimbabwe's exit from the grouping of former British colonies and dominions might mean little. The Commonwealth provides only modest economic assistance to its poorer members. Other countries have at various times been suspended or have walked out on the Commonwealth, but have invariably returned. Zimbabwe can very well survive without the Commonwealth. But how long can it survive the growing international isolation? That is the real issue. The decision to quit the Club came barely a week after Zimbabwe was suspended by the International Monetary Fund. Once southern Africa's breadbasket and one of the strongest economies on the continent, Zimbabwe is now a basket case. The leader has a right to grouse that racism, rather than politics, dictated the harsh line adopted by the Commonwealth towards his regime. Indeed, one can see a direct link between the line pushed by the Anglo-Saxon states - Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada - and his treatment of their kith and kin, the small minority of white farmers who owned all the agricultural land until they were violently evicted. But he misses the point. President Mugabe had all the opportunity since he came to power in 1980 to oversee a peaceful land redistribution programme. But when faced with a pivotal general election 20 years into his reign, he sent in thugs under the guise of dispossessed freedom fighters to kick out the white farmers. Populist yes, but the result was economic disaster. Followed by growing repression. Dr Mugabe might have quit the Commonwealth, but he will find that in this day and age precious few alternate clubs to join. Dictators have gone out of fashion.
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From IRIN (UN), 11 December
Rising numbers in need of food aid
Johannesburg - The number of Zimbabweans needing food aid next year is expected to rise well beyond original estimates, according to new research. Aid agencies had forecast that 5.5 million people - half of the population - would require food aid during the pre-harvest months of January, February and March 2004. However, the latest Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) report on Zimbabwe noted that "the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee has revised the estimates of the rural population in need of food assistance from October to December to 4.1 million, and for January to March to 5.1 million". World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman Richard Lee told IRIN the original estimates indicated 4.4 million people in rural areas would need food assistance from January to March 2004, with an additional 1.1 million urban residents bringing the total to 5.5 million nationally. However, "if the FEWS report is saying the number in rural areas is over 5 million, then we are looking at more than 6 million people in need for the whole country, if you include the original estimate for urban areas". WFP had been concerned for some time that needs were outstripping the earlier estimates, mainly due to Zimbabwe's economic decline.
Lee noted that with rising numbers of people requiring help, WFP "really does need extra donations, particularly cash, so that we can buy food and speed up the process of getting food to beneficiaries in Zimbabwe who need it". IRIN reported last month that the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had warned in an appeal to donors: "what began as a food crisis in Zimbabwe in 2002 has grown into a major humanitarian emergency, with people suffering the effects of a deteriorating economy, HIV/AIDS, depleted social services and policy constraints". OCHA pointed out that "as the country enters its fifth successive year of economic decline, Zimbabwe faces critical shortages of foreign exchange to maintain essential infrastructure, and inflation has soared", leading to greater vulnerability in urban areas. An urban vulnerability assessment is currently underway in Zimbabwe, which Lee said "would give us even more accurate statistics on the situation in key urban areas". It was highly unlikely that the assessment would show a decrease in urban vulnerability. "I very much doubt the figure will be less than the original estimate, given the continuing economic problems in Zimbabwe," Lee said.
During 2002/03 crisis, vulnerability peaked at around 7 million. The latest figure indicated that people in need were "still less than in [2002/03] but, clearly, it is still a very serious crisis, and we are still struggling to get enough resources to meet the original estimates", Lee stressed. "If the numbers continue to rise we are going to find it even more difficult to meet the needs in the country," he warned. FEWS NET reported that access to food for both urban and rural people "remains a serious concern, as the prices of basic commodities and all other basic services continue to rise at astronomical rates". It warned that the total cereal gap of 493,000 mt "still remains unfilled, and [the] government's capacity to respond continues to be seriously compromised". Last month aid agencies requested US $109.4 million to meet outstanding funding requirements for their Zimbabwe programmes.
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From The Star (SA), 12 December
Zambia to export maize to Zim
By Anthony Mukwita
Lusaka - Zambia, which was only last year threatened with starvation, is due to export more than 50 000 tons of maize. Chance Kabaghe, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Co-operatives, yesterday said Zambia decided to export the maize to Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo because it has harvested more than it can consume. "Zambia needs 60 000 tons of maize a month," Kabaghe said. "We produced 1,2-million tons of maize during the last season, so we decided to export some to our neighbours who are in dire need of it," Kabaghe added. Kabaghe admitted that Zambia had no strategic food reserves to fall back on in times of a crisis, raising fears that in case of another drought, Zambia would start importing maize at a high cost instead of falling back on reserves. "It is true we have no reserves for grain at the moment," Kabaghe said. "We need at least three months' supply of strategic food reserves (about 180 000 tons) and we are starting to build up some this year." The government has often come under fire for exporting grain in the absence of a strategic reserve, especially after last year's food crisis. That threatened up to 3-million people with starvation at the time, and forced the government to import more than 300 000 tons of maize costing about R1 300 a ton.
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From The Age (Australia), 12 December
Rebuke for 'desperate' Zimbabwe diplomat
By Meaghan Shaw
Canberra - Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday rebuked Zimbabwe's ambassador to Australia for "desperate and undignified" comments that have further strained relations between the two countries. The ambassador, Florence Chitauro, was called to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and given a formal dressing down for accusing Prime Minister John Howard of acting like a dictator. Mr Downer said Ms Chitauro was told her remarks were "completely inappropriate (and) utterly out of order". He said Zimbabwe was in "flagrant breach" of a commitment by Commonwealth countries to the principles of democracy, an independent judiciary and human rights. "We could do without the gratuitous personal insults coming from her or other elements of the Zimbabwe Government," he said. "It doesn't enhance the status of their Government, it undermines the dignity of their Government, it makes their own Government look desperate and undignified." Mr Downer said President Mugabe's regime was "flaying around, abusing and insulting people left, right and centre". "And the reason it's doing that is it's guilty as charged - it's a regime which is in breach of the expected norms of international behaviour and it knows it."
Ms Chitauro's comments came as Mr Howard was labelled the "butcher of Baghdad" by Zimbabwe Foreign Minister Stan Mudenga, a reference to Australia's participation in the war in Iraq. Ms Chitauro yesterday stood by her comments in which she said Mr Howard was acting like a dictator in his position as chairman of the Commonwealth troika reviewing Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth. She said Zimbabwe wanted to know why Australia was taking such a hard line when there was no bilateral problem between the two countries. "He came with a position, and if you go with a position to it, to me that's dictating your position," she told ABC radio. "But I stated, and I still state, that that is the problem we have. We have no problem with Australia in general but we are just wondering why he's taking this rigid position." Mr Howard yesterday said he was untroubled by Ms Chitauro's accusation. "In fact, I'm not fairly untroubled, I'm very untroubled," he said. Zimbabwe quit the Commonwealth on Monday.
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Comment from The Independent (Ghana), 11 December
Mugabe's faux pas
Accra - Reports that President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has led his country out of the membership of the Commonwealth are disturbing. Zimbabwe had been on suspension by the Commonwealth since last year when it held elections, which were widely held to be unfair. Interestingly, Pakistan, another country that has been on suspension from the Commonwealth for similar reasons, however has not announced it is leaving the Commonwealth. The Independent is concerned about what we think is a grievous mistake on the part of President Mugabe in deciding, single-handedly as usual, in leading his countrymen out of the Commonwealth on one of his ego trips, since the issue of land redistribution came up in that country. We maintain that President Mugabe's response to the continued suspension of his country from the Commonwealth is a mistake.
Many people have wondered whether President Mugabe has done anything wrong against the background of the Lancaster House Agreement and The Independent wishes to take this opportunity to take issue with many of such persons that even though the Lancaster House Agreement has largely been ignored by Britain, there is no basis for Mr. Mugabe to resort to all the tactics he has employed to perpetuate himself in power. The African leader of the old stock that he is, Mr. Mugabe has cleverly introduced the element of land redistribution into the Zimbabwean equation. Unfortunately, for many so-called Pan-Africanists, they have swallowed Mr. Mugabe's bait hook, line and sinker. For us, the real issue is all about the suppression of opposition in Zimbabwe. Mr. Mugabe has virtually gone berserk in his attempts to prevent the growth of opposition in Zimbabwe.
The state-sponsored atrocities being meted out to the leadership and membership of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) throughout that country, are for us, the real McCoy in the Zimbabwean equation. Indeed, anyone who supports the actions of Mr. Mugabe on the land redistribution question in Zimbabwe is expressly and impliedly giving the thumbs up to Mr. Mugabe to continue to suppress the growth of a political alternative in that country and we consider this illogical and contradictory, because, for many of the so-called Pan-Africanists supporting Mr. Mugabe, the political situation in their countries allows alternative political existence. We recall how the Mugabe-led Zanu PF used all sorts of means to get the late Joshua Nkomo's Zapu PF to join with the offer of a Vice Presidential position to Nkomo after years of struggle between the two parties. Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC's only 'mistake' is that they are not prepared to go the Zapu PF way and their punishment is for Mugabe and his cohorts to portray them as unpatriotic and not fit to live in Zimbabwe.
Mr. Mugabe is the head of a nation that has fallen to a net importer of food from a previous position of a self-sufficient food producer and other economic indices worth talking about. The Zimbabwe problem, we maintain is beyond the mere issue of 'land redistribution,' which Mr. Mugabe has introduced to deceive many people to believe in his cause. The Independent believes in land redistribution in Zimbabwe but certainly not along the lines Mr. Mugabe is pushing. In our consideration, Mr. Mugabe is politicising the land redistribution issue to his political advantage. Need we point out that Zimbabwe was only on suspension from the Commonwealth and would definitely have been restored to its membership with time, of course, subject to respect for human rights and other standards? Nigeria has been on suspension from the Commonwealth before and its response was not to exit the organisation. Today, many recognise that the sanctions of the Commonwealth among others, helped it to sanitise its image and democracy. Mr. Mugabe is too intransigent and we would not be surprised if in the end he begins to negotiate his exit for Zimbabweans to have their real independence after the one he led them to in 1980.
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Comment from The Guardian (SA), 12 December
Mugabe's commonwealth defeat is Mbeki's too
Martin Woollacott
Two ideas of Africa and of how to bring about change in the world clashed at the Commonwealth summit in Abuja. One sees Africa as a failed region that will have to be gradually induced, with much surveillance by outsiders, to do better. The other sees a continent that, in order to come into its own, will have to join and perhaps lead a radical re-ordering of global economic and political power. The attempted coup over Zimbabwe at the summit displayed this division, but it also brought on to the scales the weight of those states that regard both positions as extreme. The consequences of the coup's failure may be, as the optimists hope, that the end for the Mugabe regime has been brought nearer and that the Commonwealth has been strengthened by sticking to the positions on democracy, the rule of law and human rights that it so often rhetorically endorses. Against that, a disappointed South Africa could become a more difficult partner, because the summit represents above all a defeat for the ambitious foreign policy that has emerged under Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki tried to do something that would have been regarded as pretty amazing had it not been attempted inside an organisation that many wrongly regard as belonging to the backwaters of international life. He tried simultaneously to depose its secretary general and restore full membership to a country that by common consent is even further derelict in democratic practice, the observance of human rights and good government than it was when suspended in early 2002. To do this he forged an alliance of southern African states and got the support of all the south Asian members except Bangladesh for the candidate who stood against Don McKinnon, the New Zealander seeking a second term as secretary general. Presumably the hope was that most African states and enough Caribbean and Pacific states to make up a majority would follow. Had the southern Africans and the south Asians been successful in their two objectives, that would truly have been an outcome with implications going well beyond the Commonwealth. The white states and others that opposed Zimbabwe's return to full membership would have had to make the best of whatever arrangements for monitoring might have been attached and to accept a new secretary general. But they would have done so with gritted teeth, while relations between America, with its strong position on Mugabe, and many African states would also have suffered.
It is true that if a restoration of membership to Zimbabwe led to an agreement between government and opposition and to Mugabe's swift departure from power, as South Africa argued, all these consequences would be ameliorated. But even if that were to have happened, the Commonwealth would have abandoned the strict conditionality on which it had earlier agreed. Did the supporters of Zimbabwe come to Abuja with the idea that they might actually win? Mugabe may well have thought so. According to some reports, he had an aeroplane standing by at Harare airport to fly him to Nigeria. In the event, the coup failed fairly comprehensively in its first phase: the election of the secretary general. The Sri Lankan candidate got four south Asian and six southern African votes. He got no east African, west African or Pacific votes, and only one from the Caribbean. After this defeat, indicative of the balance of opinion on both issues, it was highly unlikely that Zimbabwe was going to be brought back into the fold. No doubt some countries that voted for McKinnon sympathised with South Africa's push, or with Zimbabwe, but it was not a make-or-break issue for them, particularly as it was clear that this was not a well-planned or well-prepared effort.
South African foreign policy displays contradictory strands. On the one hand, there is an emphasis on cooperation with western countries, both as economic partners and as states sharing in the liberal and democratic tradition to which South Africa has returned. On the other hand, the ANC in office is the continuation of a radical liberation movement imbued with "anti-western sentiment, not informed by direct interests, but rather by a history of colonialism and apartheid and the socialist background of many members of the ... leadership," as a recent study puts it*. Mbeki in particular is identified with the idea that there has to be a global redistribution of power. It is not remotely a new idea, but nor is it one that has lost its force or relevance. African societies find themselves in the situation of being at the same time victims of western policies, both past and present, and of being forced to sit still for moral lectures on their political iniquities. In the case of the African big four - Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa - they also find themselves identified by the US as "preferred partners", an honour that they may find both flattering and disquieting. The South African government has not found President Bush a reassuring figure. It has been in the front rank of opposition to his Iraq policies and is resistant to American pressure on Zimbabwe.
The leading role Mbeki has played in launching both the New Partnership for Africa's Development and the African Union show him as a man who wants Africa to be a power in the world and to create institutions that will make its economic and political development self-sustaining and that will allow it to do itself whatever surveillance and monitoring of African states may be required. He is also a leader attached to the idea that the transition from liberation movement to dominant party in an African country does not necessarily have to be followed by a further transition to a true multi-party system that allows alternation in power. Zimbabwe embodies the need for that second transition, and its opposition leadership comes from the same social quarter - the trade unions - that could in future provide a counterweight to the ANC in South Africa. The ANC's rural supporters may see in Mugabe's "reforms" only that land has gone from white to black people and not that a vital national industry has in the process been destroyed. So, for both high-minded reasons and because of more cynical considerations of political advantage, Mbeki has chosen a certain course. The first difficulty is that at the ambitious, African level the policies may be beyond South Africa's resources. The second is that at the more expedient level they can also be counter-productive, at home and abroad. The Abuja summit, which illustrates both difficulties, ought to have a sobering effect in Pretoria.
* The Future of Africa, by Jeffrey Herbst and Greg Mills, International Institute for Strategic Studies, Oxford University Press
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From The Independent (UK), 13 December
Mbeki claims UK to blame for crisis in Zimbabwe
By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa correspondent
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has sprung to the defence of Robert Mugabe and blamed Britain for the crisis in Zimbabwe. In his weekly letter to the ruling African National Congress, Mr Mbeki said President Mugabe's seizures of white farms had become inevitable because Britain had not honoured its commitment to fund land reform. Mr Mbeki also criticised the Commonwealth, saying it did not have the interests of Zimbabwe's people at heart when it decided to renew the country's suspension from the organisation. Mr Mugabe pulled his country out of the Commonwealth on Sunday night in protest at the decision. President Mbeki dismissed Commonwealth concerns about human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, saying it had lost sight of the land issue, which he described as the core of the problems in Zimbabwe. His remarks are certain to further disappoint those who are already angered by his defence of Mr Mugabe at the Commonwealth summit in Nigeria and his attempts to oust its secretary general Don McKinnon, who has been a vocal critic of Mr Mugabe. Lovemore Madhuku, a prominent Zimbabwean academic, said: "The point is that Mbeki is now looking a bit silly by his campaign to defend the totally indefensible. I think he has made it clear that his African Renaissance and Nepad [New Partnership for Africa's Development] pet projects, which are predicated on good governance, are not worth the paper on which they are written. Rich countries must take note and not waste time on these things."
In his defence of Mr Mugabe's government, Mr Mbeki quoted the Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiongo: "Africa actually enriches Europe but Africa is made to believe that it needs Europe to rescue it from poverty." Mr Mbeki said those who fought for a democratic Zimbabwe "with thousands paying the supreme price during the struggle, and forgave their oppressors and torturers in a spirit of national reconciliation, have been turned into repugnant enemies of democracy". In a direct reference to Britain, he said: "Those who, in the interest of their [white] 'kith and kin', did what they could to deny the people of Zimbabwe their liberty, for as long as they could, have become the eminent defenders of the democratic rights of the people of Zimbabwe." Mr Mbeki asked why the land issue had disappeared from the global agenda when it was at the "core" of the problems in Zimbabwe. Whenever the land issue was mentioned, he said, it was only "to highlight the plight of the former white landowners, and to attribute food shortages in Zimbabwe to the land redistribution programme".
He accused Britain, the United Nations and European Union of not honouring commitments to help finance land redistribution in Zimbabwe after colonial rule left most productive farms in the hands of the white minority. "A forcible process of land redistribution perhaps became inevitable," Mr Mbeki said. He accused "some within Zimbabwe and elsewhere" of treating human rights as a tool to overthrow the Zimbabwe government. While acknowledging that "many things have gone wrong in Zimbabwe", Mr Mbeki attributed the crisis to machinations by British governments which were meant to protect the interests of their "white kith and kin".
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 12 December
Cutting UK ties a costly blunder
Vincent Kahiya
Zimbabwe's plans to sever ties with Britain will have far-reaching consequences for aid and development assistance as other European Union member-states are likely to stand by the British, diplomatic sources said this week. EU ambassadors have for some time been acting in concert in response to events in Zimbabwe. This week Zimbabwe pulled out of the Commonwealth and has threatened to cut ties with Britain, which President Mugabe accuses of being responsible for Zimbabwe's isolation. Government's official mouthpiece, the Herald, called for the severance of links with London this week. Western diplomats in Harare said all the EU and the acceding countries were in accord with Britain's position on Zimbabwe. There was an agreement to act in concert on this as in all matters. The diplomats said Zimbabwe's position was already compromised after its withdrawal from the Commonwealth and cutting ties with Britain would have damaging consequences.
President Mugabe's position is more precarious now as diplomats who attended the Commonwealth meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, said the new government in Malaysia supported Zimbabwe's suspension. The watershed decision by the post-Mahathir Mohamad administration headed by Abdullah Ahmad Badawi delivers a potentially lethal blow to Mugabe's "Look East" policy which is hinged on Malaysia's goodwill. Mugabe believes that Zimbabwe's salvation lies in forging ties with the Asian Tigers and China. Britain, despite vexed relations with Zimbabwe, is still the largest humanitarian and technical support donor to Zimbabwe. Since September 2001 Britain has provided humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe worth £62 million. The diplomats said Zimbabwe would soon be counting its losses after plunging itself into less-than-splendid isolation. "Mugabe should not forget that he has asked the donors to provide US$142 million in food and non-food assistance," said a European Union diplomat. "What he needs at the moment are friends. Subtracting them will not help much," he said.
Government spin-doctors this week tried to defend Mugabe's decision to leave the Commonwealth saying there were no benefits accruing to Zimbabwe's membership of the club. But economic analysts said the move by Zimbabwe would further tarnish the country's image as an investment and tourist destination. "Zimbabwe's image is already tarnished and investors from countries in the Commonwealth will think twice about coming to Zimbabwe," said analyst Eric Bloch. "The loss cannot be readily quantified but without aid, it means Zimbabwe will have to get foreign currency to buy food and medicines," he said. Bloch said any decision to cut ties with Britain would compound the country's isolation. "I think that would be the stupidest thing imaginable. I hope this is just idle talk," he said. He said humanitarian support to Zimbabwe was bound to be affected as key donors in the Commonwealth were likely to retreat.
Zimbabwe's parliament is set to lose its support from the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, which is a key donor to the House of Assembly's capacity-building activities. These include training of MPs and parliamentary staff through workshops. The CPA was instrumental in funding the parliamentary reform exercise over the past four years. Zimbabwe has also benefited immensely through scholarships offered to Zimbabwean school leavers and graduates by Commonwealth countries such as Britain, Australia and Canada. Working-holiday visas are exclusive to Commonwealth applicants. Sport has been assisted by the provision of training facilities and funding for local sports associations. Last year Canada funded implementation of the strategic plan for the Sports and Recreation Commission. In addition to the loss of such benefits, Zimbabwe will now be booted out of the Commonwealth Games.
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From The Guardian (UK), 13 December
Be happy, Mugabe tells the starving
Government begins huge TV and radio propaganda campaign
Rory Carroll in Harare
Zimbabwe's government has begun a huge propaganda campaign to cheer up the country with music, football and sex. All the main forums of popular culture have been harnessed to depict government policies as reasons to smile and break into song. State-sanctioned jingles with upbeat tunes which feature wriggling female dancers and next month's African Nations Cup football final dominate television and radio. It is being compared to the Roman emperors' attempt to appease the masses with bread and circuses - though in Zimbabwe's case, without the bread. President Robert Mugabe's regime has difficulty importing fuel and other necessities but its well-funded publicity drive was in full flow this week, the radio and television stations playing new jingles every 30 minutes. Musicians, actors and other artists said the Zanu PF party was on its way to monopolising popular culture, forcing them to either collaborate or go without work. Some vowed to fight back. One theatre group said it would open a chain of cinemas in the townships soon to show films of political satire. An exhibition at the national gallery in Harare included strident criticism of the government. But such defiance will have limited impact in the absence of independent daily journalism, said Andrew Moyse, head of Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, a watchdog group in Harare. "The ruling party is totally setting the agenda. It is closing down independent and external avenues of information to make people more susceptible to propaganda," he said.
A recent decision to champion the national football team, the Warriors, showed that the information minister, Jonathan Moyo, had learned the value of sport, he added. Mr Moyo has ended years of official neglect of the Zimbabwe Football Association and is now funding the team, which delighted fans by unexpectedly qualifying for the African Nations Cup in Tunisia. He is believed to have written the lyrics which are aired almost hourly: "We are the hunting grounds; we are going for goals, goals, goals. Score Warriors; go, go, Warriors." One western diplomat credited Mr Moyo with a publicity coup, but doubted that the feel-good factor would last. "After a match you want to go home and eat, but what if you can't afford the bus fare and there is no food in the house?" Since Mr Mugabe's rigged re-election last year was followed by a political crackdown, the economic collapse has turned Zimbabwe into the world's fastest shrinking economy. Much of the hunger, poverty and unemployment has been blamed on the chaotic seizure of white-owned farms, but in jingles the policy is depicted as a heroic redress of colonial injustice. Their production values are good, and some of the tunes so catchy that even opposition supporters have found themselves humming along. But accompanying one on screen with a traditional dance, the kongonya, has prompted protests from TV viewers appalled at the pelvic grinding of young women and children. "Pornographic, sexually perverted, disgusting," some of them said. Mr Mugabe has defended the advert and this week the state-owned Herald newspaper devoted two pages to explaining that the dance epitomised the fight against colonial domination. "The sexually suggestive connotations of the waist wriggling and the fast rhythmic throwing upwards and downwards of buttocks is again a sign of defiance of the detractors of the land reform," the Herald explained.
Since the independent Daily News was closed, opposition groups have boycotted the Herald, but people are so starved for news that even in Harare, an opposition stronghold, it sells out quickly. Opposition groups praised the bravery of independent weekly newspapers such as the Independent and Standard, but said they were too small to counter the government's daily propaganda. Some art forms considered elitist are swelling the criticism of Zanu PF. Theatre in the Park, a trust, has just finished a season of outdoor shows in Harare which included satires on nepotism and dictatorship. Plays such as Up the Vice Staircase and Super Patriots and Morons, which savage tyranny, have been left unmolested by Zanu PF's secret police and youth militia. "They use [them] as a barometer for what people are thinking," said Daves Guzha, a producer. Defiance was also evident at the national gallery. The ground floor showed idealised images of happy cotton farmers - an exhibition commissioned by a parastatal company - but an exhibition upstairs had bleak images of oppression with such titles as An Illusion of Freedom. "My work is getting more political. You have to speak out," said Charles Kamangwana, an artist whose depiction of women selling oranges made a statement in the way the paint dripped. "You know they're not going to sell any oranges. The drips are like tears," he said.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 12 December
Mugabe commandeers AirZim plane to Geneva
Dumisani Muleya/Itai Dzamara
President Robert Mugabe, still chafing after his ban from the just-ended Commonwealth summit, on Monday disrupted Air Zimbabwe operations when he hastily arranged a trip to Switzerland to attend the World Summit on the Information Society to prove he was not isolated. After his angry withdrawal from the Commonwealth on Sunday over the country's continued suspension, Mugabe on Monday hurriedly left for Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the summit. He was able to get a visa even though he is under a Swiss travel ban because the summit fell under the auspices of the United Nations. Mugabe and 79 of his associates are under European Union and American travel sanctions for repression and human rights abuses. Switzerland, which is not an EU-member, has imposed its own separate travel restrictions.
High-level sources said Mugabe travelled to Geneva to prove he was not isolated after his Commonwealth humiliation. The state media this week trumpeted his presence at the summit as evidence that he was not isolated. Official sources said Mugabe's decision to go to the Geneva was an afterthou ght following events in Abuja, Nigeria. Initially, Science and Technology minister Olivia Muchena was expected to represent Zimbabwe at the summit. Sources said Air Zimbabwe was only notified on Sunday that government wanted a plane to Geneva. This was after Mugabe had been told Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth remained. Sources said Mugabe commandeered an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 767-200, the broke national airline's cash cow which plies the Harare-London route. The plane will be at his service for nine days. This could lead to Air Zimbabwe losing billions of dollars.
The aircraft makes three trips a week to London and generates over $3 billion for Air Zimbabwe over that period. Due to the advance bookings, Air Zimbabwe had to hire a plane from a British airline for US$1 million after Mugabe had taken the Boeing 767-200. "Bookings had already been made and the aircraft was expected to leave for London on Sunday evening," a source said. "But the flight had to be cancelled because Mugabe wanted the plane the following day." Mugabe's persistent disruptions at Air Zimbabwe have caused the ailing airline serious financial prejudice. Currently Air Zimbabwe is reeling under the economic crisis and heavy losses and debts. At Independence in 1980, it had 15 aircraft but now out of the five planes it remains with, only three are operational. Contacted for comment yesterday Air Zimbabwe acting managing director Mordecai Magaisa declined to discuss the matter. He referred questions to company spokesman, David Mwenga, who was out of his office. Due to lack of preparation, Mugabe suffered on his way to Geneva. At first he had to wait for three hours at Harare International Airport as Air Zimbabwe officials tried to secure permission for the use of Ugandan and Sudanese airspace. After Uganda and Sudan refused to cooperate, Mugabe had to use an alternative but longer route over the Democratic Republic of Congo which required refuelling. The plane was refuelled in Egypt. Mugabe was last night expected to travel to Ethiopia for the Sino-Africa summit.
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From The Times (UK), 13 December
Jailed van Hoogstraten trained as Samaritan
By Christopher Walker
Best wishes from Robert Mugabe, President of Zimbabwe, may not be sought in many quarters, but for Nicholas van Hoogstraten, Britain’s most notorious property developer and one of the African nation’s largest landowners, it clearly means a lot. The despotic President was one of the first to congratulate him on his release from jail this week, Mr van Hoogstraten claimed yesterday, after the quashing of his conviction for arranging the death of a business rival, Mohammed Raja, 62. The multimillionaire served only 13 months of a ten-year sentence at Belmarsh high-security prison where, he disclosed, he had been trained as a "listener" by Samaritans. During an interview with his local paper, the Brighton Evening Argus, Mr van Hoogstraten, 58, once described by a judge as a "self-appointed emissary of Beelzebub", displayed a certificate received from the organisation set up in 1953 as a 999 phone service counselling potential suicides. HM Prison Service Document 10380 declared: "This is to certify that Nick van Hoogstraten has been trained by The Samaritans of Bexley/Bromley in listening and befriending skills at HM Prison Belmarsh."
Mr van Hoogstraten, from Uckfield, East Sussex, was freed after a legal battle during which he argued successfully that the judge had made a mistake and had misdirected the jury at the original trial where he had been found guilty of manslaughter. Yesterday the Court of Appeal ruled that an Old Bailey judge’s unchallengeable ruling that Mr van Hoogstraten should not face retrial on a manslaughter charge thwarted the interests of justice. "Those interests require that Mr van Hoogstraten be retried," said Lord Justice Kennedy, sitting with Mr Justice Curtis and Mr Justice Forbes. But, as the law stood, he added, the court was powerless to entertain an appeal by the prosecution against the decision of the retrial judge, Sir Stephen Mitchell, that Mr van Hoogstraten had no case to answer. In the interview, Mr van Hoogstraten who is one of the largest landowners in Zimbabwe, where he acquired 218,000 hectares (540,000 acres) of farmland in the 1990s, denied claims that his property had been seized by black squatters. He said that he was still accumulating assets, including a coalmine, in Zimbabwe. He is also building a grandiose second palace there to match the £30 million Hamilton Palace he was constructing - until imprisonment interrupted the works - in the Sussex countryside as a mausoleum and home to his valuable art collection. In a hint of a conversion, Mr van Hoogstraten told the paper he had learnt from his time in jail. "I have been too straightforward in the past. If you are, you are going to get hammered. I have been learning and Belmarsh is a good place for learning," he said.
Mr van Hoogstraten, whose precise worth is now unknown but who at the time of his trial was named as one of Britain’s richest men with a fortune estimated at more than £500 million, claimed that while inside he had helped a number of inmates who he felt had also been wrongly convicted. "I am a good listener," he added. Among those he advised was a Jamaican "Yardie" gangster, who was freed last month after being acquitted of a murder in South London, although he is now back behind bars awaiting deportation. Mr van Hoogstraten spent his time in the high-security wing of Belmarsh and boasted that he could have escaped had he wanted to. "I could have got out, but I wanted to stay and prove my innocence," he said. Instead, he spent his time studying the law, giving tips to fellow prisoners as well as sharing his knowledge of the stock market with them and the officers. He tried to rebut suggestions that he was a slum landlord, claiming to have sold most of his properties, and he insisted that his tenants would be overjoyed by his release. "I am all right as long as you do not upset me," Mr van Hoogstraten, trained listener and befriender, added.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 14 December
Mbeki to visit Zimbabwe again
Sunday Times Foreign Desk
South African President Thabo Mbeki is set to visit Harare to hold talks with his Zimbabwean counterpart, Robert Mugabe, in the wake of Zimbabwe's dramatic withdrawal from the Commonwealth this week, the Sunday Times has learnt. Mbeki's visit, expected before Christmas, is likely to coincide with a similar trip to Zimbabwe by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo or his envoy. Mbeki, meanwhile, has lashed out at the failure of the Commonwealth to address the land question in Zimbabwe, which he said was "at the core of the crisis". Writing his weekly column on the ANC website, Mbeki said that at the time of Zimbabwe's first suspension in March last year, the Commonwealth had decided that land was a key issue. "At the Abuja meeting, the land question in Zimbabwe was not discussed," he said. "Indeed, the land question has disappeared from the global discourse about Zimbabwe, except when it is mentioned to highlight the plight of the former white landowners and to attribute food shortages in Zimbabwe to the land distribution programme," Mbeki wrote. He said solutions to the land issue, including promises of large sums of money by Britain and the US, have never materialised.
Mugabe pulled out of the now 53-member club after the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, extended Zimbabwe's suspension. Zimbabwe was initially suspended on March 19 last year after Mugabe's hotly disputed re-election, which was marred by political violence and vote-rigging. Mbeki's meeting with Mugabe is aimed at finding ways of securing a negotiated settlement to the Zimbabwe crisis. Southern African leaders are also said to be planning an emergency summit on Zimbabwe. Mbeki and Obasanjo have been trying for three years to break the political impasse and unscramble Zimbabwe's litany of problems. The two presidents were last in Zimbabwe in May. They tried to arrange for direct talks between Mugabe and opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai, but failed.
Mbeki's forthcoming meeting with Mugabe will follow talks he held in Pretoria on Thursday with Zimbabwean church leaders battling to resolve the crisis. Bishops Sebastian Bakare of the Anglican Church, Patrick Mutume of the Catholic Church and Trevor Manhanga of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe met Mbeki to enlist his support in tackling the situation. After meeting Mbeki, Zimbabwean church leaders briefed Tsvangirai on their mission on Friday. They are expected to brief Mugabe next week after his return from the Sino-Africa summit in Ethiopia. The bishops started their initiative to break the political impasse in July, with separate meetings with Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Their initiative was designed to complement Mbeki's aim to get the derailed informal talks between Zanu PF and the MDC back on track. However, Mugabe is likely to harden his stance against the MDC after the Commonwealth fiasco. Tsvangirai met with Zanu PF chairman John Nkomo in September to pave the way for a meeting between Mugabe and the MDC leader. But the meeting aimed at breaking the ice failed at the last minute after Mugabe decided to indefinitely postpone it.
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From IPS, 12 December
Hospitals turn patients away as strike begins to bite
Chris Anold Msipa
Harare - The strike by medical doctors and nurses in Zimbabwe is crippling the public health sector, at a time when the poor cannot afford high fees that private hospitals charge. Monica Ngwere, an asthmatic patient from Shurugwi in central Zimbabwe, was last week turned away from Parirenyatwa Referral Hospital in the capital, Harare. "They said I should come back after the strike. But nobody told me when that would be. I had come to see the specialists. Nurses at our clinic said I should be put on different medication from what I am taking now," she said during an interview, while waiting to board a bus back home. Other patients in Harare and the commercial city of Bulawayo share her dilemma. Government hospitals in the two towns have reportedly closed some of their wards and are not admitting patients due to the industrial action. Rumbidzai Mutero, a resident of Harare, said this week she witnessed the ugly face of the strike. "We boarded a kombi (commuter omnibus) with one old woman accompanying her daughter to Harare Central Hospital. They had a prematurely born baby carried by the old woman". What shocked Mutero on their way back from the hospital was that the two still had the baby, now wrapped in a piece of cloth like a parcel. She said she saw the young woman's medical papers, which read "uterus contracted normally, breasts back to normal and baby brought dead, weighing 1.8 kgs". Mutero said it was obvious the old woman, with the corpse strapped to her back, and her agonised daughter, had been turned away without receiving help.
The government of Robert Mugabe has ordered the arrest of the striking doctors and their union leaders. At least 12 of them had resigned in protest against a labour court ruling their industrial action was illegal. Close to 20 doctors have been arrested and charged under a section of the Labour Relations Act, which bans public workers from taking part in strikes. Health Minister David Parirenyatwa has condemned the strike and urged doctors to return to work, without giving them satisfactory answers. His ministry has even threatened to take action against the striking nurses, if they do not start reporting for duty. "While it is appreciated that medical staff should not abandon patients, it is unfair to expect someone to work for peanuts in the name of patriotism," said Maria Kanekora, a social worker in Harare. She said, although the salary being demanded by the striking doctors was too high, the government should feel for its workers in the face of the increasingly difficult economic situation in the country. It can at least show concern and negotiate in good faith, instead of trying to use force to silence them, she said. "The doctors' cries have fallen on deaf ears over a long period. They have been harassed, threatened and fed on false promises like kids. It's high time this matter is solved once and for all, if the health sector is to start functioning normally again," Kanekora said.
Junior and middle-level doctors have since October been striking, for the fourth time this year, to demand better salaries and working conditions. They want monthly pay of 30 million Zimbabwe dollars, which is 6,000 U.S. dollars on the thriving parallel market and about 37,500 dollars at the official exchange rate. Sources within the health sector say Cuban doctors working in Zimbabwe are earning 6,000 U.S. dollars per month, and their Zimbabwean colleagues want similar remuneration because they do the same job. Minister Parirenyatwa says the government cannot pay such amounts. The striking doctors say their take-home pay is not enough to meet their basic needs such as food, accommodation and transport. This happens in a country where inflation, which now hovers at more than 600 percent, is expected to reach 700 percent early next year.
A spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, Mlamleli Sibanda, is quoted as saying his organisation expects the conditions in the hospitals to worsen, prompting more medical professionals to resign due to the heavy-handedness of the government. Dr. Phibion Manyanga, president of Zimbabwe's Hospital Doctors' Association, said the striking doctors fully appreciate, and that it is in their conscience, that they are guided by their professional ethics. "But everyone has a breaking point," he said. Manyanga said one cannot professionally consider another person's wellbeing if one cannot fend for oneself. Dismissals and resignations of medical staff have left Zimbabwe with only around 900 instead of the required 2,200 doctors. The striking doctors complain about poor pay, working long hours without rest, shortages of soap, towels, gloves, x-ray films and other equipment needed daily in wards, theatres and laboratories.
Acute foreign currency shortages have caused deficiencies in equipment and medical supplies in the hospitals. Parirenyatwa Referral Centre in Harare, the biggest in the country, has shortage of ambulances. "The hospital uses old pick-up trucks as ambulances. But most of the vehicles are parked due to shortages of spare parts and money to maintain or repair them," said one security guard, a former labourer at the institution. A recent report, financed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), shows Zimbabwe has lost about 125,000 doctors, nurses and pharmacists, who have left for greener pastures to escape the depressing economic, political and social crises at home. Two years ago, the British Medical Journal said Zimbabwe was graded last out of 191 countries the World Health Organisation, WHO, had surveyed. It even performed worse than the struggling Democratic Republic of Congo, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland and Zambia. The WHO study says Zimbabwe's public health delivery system was once a shining example to Africa, but it is now bleeding from years of neglect and inadequate funding by the government.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 12 December
First Lady's Iron Mask project fails to materialise
Augustine Mukaro
Sixteen months after First Lady Grace Mugabe collected the keys to Iron Mask Farm to establish a home for street children, the project has not taken off, the Zimbabwe Independent established this week. In August last year the Independent revealed that Grace Mugabe had collected the keys to the $100 million, 27-roomed mansion at the farm which had been acquired by government for resettlement. The government controlled Sunday Mail jumped to defend the acquisition saying the farm would be used for charity purposes. The paper quoted banker Gideon Gono as saying the farm had been allocated to the Zimbabwe Children's Rehabilitation Trust (ZCRT), of which Grace Mugabe is a founder and patron. Gono, the trust's chairman who is now Reserve Bank governor, went on record saying the trust had as of August 2002 mobilised about $50 million to kick-start charity projects on the farm.
A visit to Iron Mask Farm this week revealed no developments to suggest the existence of a multi-million dollar project. There is instead a flourishing maize crop and armed police and Central Intelligence Organisation officers guarding the property. The farm used to produce peas, potatoes and other vegetables supplied to supermarkets. Government three months ago evicted settlers from the farm including those mining for gold on and around the farm as reports that Grace Mugabe could be moving into Iron Mask spread in the Mazowe area. "All people who had invaded Iron Mask and those operating small gold mines close to the farm were told to relocate," said a local, Simione Garura. He said the First Lady regularly visited the farm with an entourage of three four-wheel-drive trucks. It is not known what happened to "Operation Firm Fatherly Hand" which former mayor Solomon Tawengwa presided over that was touted as addressing the problems of street kids.
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Comment from The Namibian, 12 December
Mugabe and the Commonwealth
President Robert Mugabe's decision to withdraw Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth, and the conflicting opinions on this move, has raised the question as to whether there is more likelihood of effecting change through inclusion or ostracism. While several southern African governments have taken the view that Mugabe should be 'in' rather than 'out' so that 'soft diplomacy' could be given the chance to work on getting the Zimbabwean President to change; whereas the Western world has opted instead for exclusion to force Mugabe to effect change in that beleaguered African nation. Mugabe's move to pull out of the Commonwealth was sparked by a decision to prolong Zimbabwe's suspension from that organisation, a move put into place in March last year. It is of course a difficult question for anyone to answer. Whether in fact Mugabe would be more responsive to 'quiet diplomacy', opted for by leaders such as South African President Thabo Mbeki, than the decision to exclude the southern African nation from the Commonwealth, is a matter for conjecture.
Little however, appears to have been achieved through the suspension. Mugabe's stance has remained as intransigent as ever and the situation continues to go from bad to worse. Neither, however, does the 'soft diplomacy' of fellow African nations appear to have made any difference. It is equally unlikely that Mugabe, having now left the Commonwealth, will change of his own volition. The Zimbabwe issue has to a great extent polarised Western and African worlds, although the divide is not exclusively along these lines. There is some African opinion, and this was mirrored by Namibian opposition reaction to the continued suspension of Zimbabwe, that believes only tough tactics are likely to have any effect on President Mugabe. They argue that the 'softly, softly' approach will simply have the effect of propping up Mugabe's rule rather than bring about change.
Whatever the case may be, it is self-evident, since Africans want to make their decisions without undue pressure from the West, that the organisations at their own disposal should do something about a deteriorating situation that is impacting not only on Zimbabweans themselves, but neighbouring countries and the rest of the region too. So while one has sympathy for the viewpoint that Africans feel Western pressure has brought about the further suspension of Zimbabwe and the resultant decision by Mugabe to withdraw, equally one must ask why they have failed to date, to get the Zimbabwean President to make concessions for the sake of his country, its people and their future. Africans should decide their own future, but they should then act, and act timeously, if they wish to prevent countries from the so-called First World from taking the initiative because none has been taken so far. Most of us on the continent would be extremely proud to know that our own regional and continental organisations, such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and African Union (AU) could act without fear or favour in dealing with leaders such as Mugabe, instead of shielding them from criticism from within and without. As things stand, it appears most unlikely that Mugabe will change, unless he is forced to do so, and if African nations themselves joined hands to make the continent a better place, this would be the best solution of all.
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From The Independent on Sunday, 14 December
On the trail of the Landlord from Hell turned Good Samaritan
So Nicholas van Hoogstraten trained to be a Samaritan in prison. Cole Moreton and Steve Bloomfield sought the notorious tycoon's ear - and found they were not alone
"Is Mr van Hoogstraten available?" The hotel receptionist was afraid not. "Can you confirm he is there?" She could not. "Would you take a message for him?" Yes, she said, blowing the subterfuge: "I'll see that he gets it." But what sort of message to leave for one of the most feared and loathed men in Britain, the property developer a judge once described as "a self-imagined emissary of Beelzebub"? Perhaps an appeal to his new, charitable side. Unlikely as it seems, Mr van Hoogstraten trained as a Samaritan while in HMP Belmarsh and has a certificate to prove it, signed by the director of the charity and the prison governor. Not that the ruthless tycoon is likely to do a shift at the local Samaritans. "Many people," he said on Friday, "already know where I am." They used to. Until last week he was behind high-security bars, serving 10 years for ordering the death of Mohammed Raja, a fellow landlord in Brighton. His conviction for manslaughter was quashed in July and a retrial ordered, but he was released instead. After threatening to sue "just about everybody" connected with his prosecution, Mr van Hoogstraten said he was "not the sort of person who would disappear quietly". Then he was driven from the Old Bailey and back to Hove, where more than a few people must have been eager to test his new listening skills.
The lawyers will have wanted to discuss possible lawsuits against the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, his own former legal team and the Home Office for what a very cross Mr van Hoogstraten perceives as a miscarriage of justice. Then there is the fight to get back assets worth £92m frozen by the courts and others worth £32m seized by sequestrators. These do not include Hamilton Palace, the copper-domed mansion near Uckfield that he once estimated would be worth £60m. Bigger than Buckingham Palace, it was to have Louis XV furniture, a Holbein painting in a 600ft art gallery and a mausoleum for his sole use. It must have been a blow to his ego, then, when the courts valued his palace at closer to £600,000. The roof is rumoured to be unfinished and leaky and the sequestrators decided it was too expensive to guard and maintain. Billy BJ Smart, heir to the circus fortune, expressed an interest in buying the place earlier this year but nothing was agreed. The property is said to be in the name of Caroline Williams, a former lover and mother of two of Mr van Hoogstraten's five children. Now Mr van Hoogstraten is free again, his scaffolded palace will become the jewel in the legal battle.
The copper domes shone through bony trees on the edge of his estate on Friday, and scaffolding was visible on the flat roof. It was easier than ever to get closer by following Framfield 9, the footpath cleared after yet another legal battle, this time between the landlord and the Ramblers Association - or "riff-raff" and "perverts" as he called them. He lost that one, and the shed, barbed wire and fridges with which the way was once blocked have been removed. "Keep out" said red warning signs, but it is hard to know who would prosecute. Mr van Hoogstraten was obviously not there, and neither was anyone else. The gates to the site access road were closed and no vehicles could be seen. The building work was put on hold at the time of the trial and may not resume for a long while. Asked to comment on the possible return of a squire whose demeanour once "scared the life out of" local council officials, a man living in the hamlet of Palehouse Common said, "You must be joking". Asked why not, he said, "Use your brain," and hurried off.
Meanwhile Mr van Hoogstraten was a 45-minute drive away in Hove, the heart of his former empire where he was once said to own more than 400 properties. The seaside town is also where he made his name as a landlord to rival Rachman, acquiring run-down flats and using every possible method - from horse manure in the gardens to power cuts and sending in the heavies - to force out the sitting tenants he called "scum". When five people burned to death in one of his alleged properties he denied having anything to do with it but branded the victims "low-life, drug dealers, drug takers and queers". Twenty years ago a bill for £5.3m in unpaid tax forced him to restructure the business. Three years ago The Independent on Sunday discovered he was hiding his wealth behind at least a dozen aliases, including Nicholas Adolf von Hessen. Confronted with this serial flouting of the Companies Act he admitted everything, as well as using bribery to gain property in Cuba and other countries across the world, very little of which could be traced back to him. His friends in Zimbabwe, where he has given a lot of money to the ruling Zanu PF party, have already been in touch: President Mugabe was one of the first to offer congratulations on his release.
These days Mr van Hoogstraten is less flamboyant about his property. The general manager of the Hotel Langfords in Hove said she was "not at liberty to say" whether he owned the place. Asked if the Imperial Hotel was still part of the Hoogstraten empire, a member of staff was "not at liberty to say". Which is also what they said at the Courtlands. Perhaps it is the company motto, given how recently he was not at liberty himself. Others in Hove were less reticent about their most notorious neighbour. Colonel EA Harvey-Sinnock, 88, was the county rent officer in the 1970s, responsible for setting fair rents at the same time as "that rat of a man" Mr van Hoogstraten was building his empire. "His idea of legality wasn't everyone else's. The last time I saw him he said if I didn't do a certain job he'd have me topped. He had got a case and I had refused to accept it because it wasn't legal and then he threatened me." But Mr van Hoogstraten has never attempted to carry out his threat. "Just as well," said the colonel. "I held the Army boxing championships, a man like Hoogstraten is not going to worry me. Just as soon kill him as a German."
Ivor Caplin, the local Labour MP, took a more diplomatic line. "We crossed swords over Paulingsgate, which was a disgraceful piece of housing," said the man who once called Mr van Hoogstraten the sad Citizen Kane of Sussex. "The way that those people who lived in Paulingsgate were treated was absolutely outrageous." It's a view backed up by Tony Greenstein, secretary of the Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers' Centre. "He's the most notorious landlord you can find. He was involved in the most thuggish behaviour against vulnerable people." Many people in Hove, Brighton and Uckfield thought the reign of Nicholas van Hoogstraten was over when he was jailed. They were wrong. Old Nick has told the local paper he will spend Christmas at the Courtlands with his family before renewing the fight with the law next year, so anyone in need of counselling should head there. The hotel is taking bookings for Christmas dinner in its restaurant, Nick's Place. Which, of course, has nothing to do with him.
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From The Sunday Independent (SA), 14 December
Shock at Mbeki's 'offensive' Zim comments
By Peter Fabricius and Toye Olori
President Thabo Mbeki has shocked foreign diplomats and some local observers by justifying Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's forcible seizure of white farmland as "perhaps inevitable". They have also reacted with dismay to what they called Mbeki's "deeply offensive" remarks written in his weekly electronic letter in his party's website journal, ANC Today. These include the charge that Britain opposed Zimbabwe's readmission to the Commonwealth this week merely to protect its "white, settler, colonial kith and kin". And that western powers are using the demand for Mugabe to respect human rights merely as a tool for "regime change" in Zimbabwe. Mbeki used his weekly letter to mount a major broadside assault on those, especially Britain, who opposed Zimbabwe's readmission. Zimbabwe has since quit the Commonwealth over its extended suspension. The Democratic Alliance called Mbeki's letter " a disgusting defence of a disgraceful tyrant". And on Saturday, Nigeria dismissed South African criticism that the Commonwealth summit in Nigeria this week had steamrollered a decision to keep Zimbabwe suspended from the organisation.
Mbeki complained in his newsletter that the land issue, which was central to the Zimbabwe crisis, had not been discussed at the Abuja summit. He concluded that Mugabe's forcible seizure of white farmland in 2000 had become "perhaps inevitable" because Britain and other western countries had broken promises, dating from 1979, to fund peaceful land redistribution. Britain has in the past firmly rejected such charges, insisting that it did donate money for land redistribution until it became apparent that the land was going to Mugabe's cronies and not to needy peasants. Mugabe charged that Britain and other western powers had reneged on their promises to fund land redistribution. Britain and the United States promised this at the Lancaster House negotiations on Zimbabwe's independence in 1979. "The large sums of money promised by both the British and US governments to enable the new government to buy land for African settlement never materialised," Mbeki said.
South Africa and others had called an international land conference in Zimbabwe in 1998, at which Britain, the United Nations, the European Union and others agreed to help finance the programme of land redistribution. "Nothing came of these commitments," Mbeki said. Later South Africa again "intervened to help solve the Zimbabwe land question. We managed to get pledges from various countries, other than the UK, to provide this £9 million (R100 million). "Having handed this matter over to the UN, it collapsed in the intricacies of the UN bureaucracy. Though there were willing sellers and willing buyers, and the necessary funds, the 118 farms were not bought. With everything having failed to restore the land to its original owners in a peaceful manner, a forcible process of land redistribution perhaps became inevitable," Mbeki concluded.
British government sources said Mbeki's newsletter was being "digested" in London, which would decide whether and how to respond. However, Britain has in the past denied criticism that it broke its promises to fund land redistribution. On Britain's foreign office website it says "between 1980 and 1985, the UK provided £47 million for land reform". The British foreign office website said that Britain took part in a 1998 land conference, and agreed to give more funds provided the Zimbabwe government observed the principles it agreed to there. "Those principles included the need for transparency, respect for the rule of law, poverty reduction, affordability and consistency with Zimbabwe's wider economic interests." Britain said its preparations to fund the programme were "interrupted by the illegal farm occupations and the subsequent violence in the run-up to the 2000 parliamentary elections".
In his letter Mbeki insists that Britain's real motive in Zimbabwe is still to protect its own people and suggests that Zanu PF are the real democrats: " Those who fought for a democratic Zimbabwe, with thousands paying the supreme price during the struggle, and forgave their oppressors and torturers in a spirit of national reconciliation, have been turned into repugnant enemies of democracy." Mbeki adds that those campaigning for human rights in Zimbabwe are really just using human rights "as a tool for overthrowing the government of Zimbabwe and rebuilding Zimbabwe as they wish". Graham McIntosh, the Democratic Alliance's spokesperson on Africa, said Mbeki's letter "offers a fascinating but frightening insight into the president's disturbed logic and devotion to lost causes". As with the Aids issue, Mbeki had revealed a "dissident" view on Zimbabwe, he said. "Any informed individual who has visited Zimbabwe and seen the reality of the Mugabe regime's disastrous policies and programmes will agree that the sentiment expressed by President Mbeki is utter nonsense. The president's letter is a disgusting defence of a disgraceful tyrant. He should be ashamed of the way he has used race and smear tactics against the other members of the Commonwealth and its secretary-general and the astonishing trashing of the world's commitment to human rights as 'a tool of US foreign policy'," said McIntosh.
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From The Botswana Government, 15 December
Botswana not party to decision by some SADC members on Zimbabwe
Government has clarified its position on the suspension of Zimbabwe from Commonwealth. A statement released by Press Secretary to the President, Jeff Ramsay states that contrary to a recent news report emanating from the UK Daily Telegraph Newspaper of December 10, Botswana was not and is not a party to the statement issued by a number of SADC member states, dated December 9, "On the Continuation of the Suspension of Zimbabwe from the Councils of the Commonwealth". It should be further noted that Botswana was not in fact present at the meeting at which certain SADC countries agreed to issue the said Statement distancing themselves from the position taken by the Commonwealth as a whole. Also contrary to the same report it has also been Botswana's consistent position that the suspension imposed on Zimbabwe by the Commonwealth should be lifted so as to allow Zimbabwe to remain fully engaged as a member of the Councils of the Commonwealth. "In the spirit of compromise, Botswana accepted the Commonwealth Heads of Government of member state's (CHOGM) decision to endorse the recommendations of the special Committee as was reflected in the final CHOGM Statement on Zimbabwe. This is in accordance with our known democratic traditions".
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From News24 (SA), 14 December
MDC may talk to Mugabe
Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition party will discuss, among other issues, dialogue with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF when it holds its annual conference. Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said Secretary General Welshman Ncube, who heads a team tasked with negotiating with Zanu PF, was expected to present a report on the contentious issue of inter-party dialogue. "The party will make resolutions based on the report by Ncube," Nyathi said. The conference is due to take place from December 20. Talks brokered by Nigeria and South Africa between the two political sides fell apart last year after MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai mounted a court challenge against Mugabe's disputed victory in 2002 presidential polls. Although there have been reports of low-level talks between the two parties, Mugabe has ruled out talking to the MDC unless it recognises him as president. But the opposition says it will not drop its challenge. The opposition party's conference will take place two weeks after a similar one by Zanu PF mandated Mugabe to pull the country out of the 54-nation Commonwealth grouping of mainly former British colonies. Mugabe took the decision last week over what he said was an unfair decision by the Commonwealth to prolong Zimbabwe's 20-month long suspension from the group over charges the Zimbabwean leader used vote-rigging and violence to win the presidential election. Zimbabwe is currently in the grip of severe economic problems, with inflation at 526%, 70% unemployment and chronic shortages of hard cash to import food, medicine and fuel. Nyathi said the opposition party wanted to use its conference, which is to be held in the capital Harare, to come up with strategies "to address the country's decline".
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 14 December
Ministers behind illegal gold trade
By Kumbirai Mafunda
Four Cabinet ministers, two deputy ministers and an army general (names supplied), have been identified as kingpins in the illegal trade in gold that is draining the country of one of its most valuable resources, The Standard has established. The ministers, who include an influential former Zapu leader from Matabeleland South, are said to have cornered the illegal gold market by employing agents who sale the precious metal to dealers on their behalf. The dealers market the bullion mostly in South Africa. Others accused of illegal gold deals include a retired army general, two Cabinet ministers from Mashonaland Central, another from Mashonaland West, a recently retired provincial governor and two deputy ministers, one from Mashonaland Central and the other from the Midlands Province, among others.
Senior government officials involved in mining told The Standard that it was clear that the illegal mining and sale of gold outside Zimbabwe would continue unless President Robert Mugabe acted and punished some of his closest advisers involved in the scam. "These culprits are very influential. So how then do you make decisions to eliminate the trade when you are involved in it," a top mining official said. "Nyaya haisi yemakorokoza. It is about those organising the makorokozas," he said. "Makorokoza" is slang for illegal gold panners whom the government is publicly accusing of gold smuggling. The ministers and army and police officers, it is alleged, own milling concessions and work with most of the prominent illegal gold dealers in Kwekwe, Kadoma, Filabusi and Shamva. The Midlands town of Kwekwe, which is 214 kms from Harare and lies along the gold rich Great Dyke belt, is under siege from gold panners who have been locked in running battles with the police gold squad, after the government recently banned trading in the metal.
"The issue of gold smuggling cannot be resolved as long as those in government or positions of authority are working in cahoots with white-owned and black-owned milling centres," said a highly-placed government official. "Unless the kingpins who are smuggling gold are dealt with, we can forget about clamping down the trade," he added. Apart from the ministers, other officials alleged that gold smuggling was still very rampant - even after the recent government crackdown - and most of the culprits were senior serving members of the army and police as well as leading politicians. The government abruptly cancelled 14 gold concessions last month alleging that licenced gold buy |
