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Archived News
18th March 2003
Harare trial split marriage, Canadian tells court
'Death by accident' for Mugabe
MDC youth feared dead
The succession struggle
Tsvangirai tape played up during key meeting
State fails to link witness’ bicycle accident to MDC
Tsvangirai witness stands to make a killing
'Corruption infected all society,' says Zanu PF founding member
Buthelezi breaks his silence on Zimbabwe
Propaganda shift
Treason: 'Appropriate demise'
No notes, witness told
Probe into leaked land report
Ndungane is hoping 'to turn the Titanic'
Academics call for sanctions against Zimbabwe
GMB loses US$20m in grain deal
Ben-Menashe aide confesses she lied
MDC was 'consultant's only client'
Treason trial interest wanes
Commonwealth report may keep Zimbabwe suspended
Green Bombers’ assault Binga council chief
UZ student finds bullets, death threat at doorstep
Olonga goes into hiding to dodge secret police
MP in Bulawayo car chase
Gloves off as US tackles Harare over human rights
IMF delivers scathing report on Zimbabwe
Nigeria denies rift with Mbeki over Zim
Massive protests in Zim?
Violence hits Harare
Zimbabwe police fire tear gas to disperse rally, one dead
Opposition urges anti-Mugabe protests
Zimbabwe ban extended
Govt land consultant leaked audit report
Leaked report details abuse of govt scheme
Zimbabwe prepares for possible anti-government protests
Police will crush protests
Zimbabwe police to charge MP over woman's death
Witness asked to identify plot meeting chairperson
SA appears surprised at McKinnon decision
Mugabe's youth militias 'raping women held captive in camps'
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From The Globe and Mail (Canada), 11 March
Harare trial split marriage, Canadian tells court
Colin Freeze
The key Canadian witness in the treason trial of Zimbabwe's opposition leader said Monday that his role in the case has wrecked his marriage, a remark that his wife's divorce lawyer later rejected as "not true." "I am in the middle of a very, very nasty divorce case that has been created partly because of this case," Ari Ben Menashe, a Montrealer, told a Harare court Monday. Among other things, Mr. Ben Menashe said that his wife, Haya Chetrit, has received "telephone calls from lots of people that if her husband appeared as a witness in Zimbabwe, she and her child will be in danger." This, he said, placed a strain on their marriage. Contacted by The Globe and Mail, Ms. Chetrit's lawyer, Anne-France Goldwater, said she was surprised to hear this. She checked with her client and said no elaborate foreign controversies were involved in the marital breakdown. "This case [in Zimbabwe] has nothing to do with anything between them," Ms. Goldwater said. "Maybe he should ask himself, as a human being, what contributed to wrecking his marriage....We don't start blaming political opposition leaders several thousand of kilometres away as to why we wreck our marriages," Ms. Goldwater said. She denied that Ms. Chetrit received threatening telephone calls from strangers.
There are, however, accounts of her own husband threatening her. This past August, after receiving complaints from Mr. Ben Menashe's wife and mother-in-law, Quebec police charged him with two counts of assault and one count of threatening death or harm. That matter is still before the courts. An Iranian-born Israeli, Mr. Ben Menashe came to Canada more than 10 years ago after becoming persona non grata in the United States. Shortly after arriving in Montreal he married Ms. Chetrit, a lawyer who is now a stay-at-home mother. Mr. Ben Menashe is one half of a controversial consultancy duo in Montreal who once boasted of doing $50-million in global business. He had not been charged with a crime in Canada until the recent charges. These prompted him to sign an undertaking to "be of good behaviour" and to keep 300 metres away from his wife, according to documents obtained by Toronto-based Advocate Investigations. The investigative agency has been hired by Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change to probe Mr. Ben Menashe's controversial business activities. He and the MDC were once on better terms.
In December, 2001, Mr. Ben Menashe filmed MDC Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai by means of a camera hidden in the ceiling of a Montreal boardroom. A month later he signed a contract to work for Mr. Tsvangirai's archrival, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The videotape is now the basis for the treason charges against the opposition leader and two other party members, all of whom could be executed if convicted. Mr. Ben Menashe has been giving testimony in Harare for weeks, and at times has shown frustration at the MDC's myriad attempts to prove he is not a credible witness. Monday, he told reporters that his wife perpetrated a kidnapping of his young child, which precipitated the charges against him. Ms. Goldwater, the divorce lawyer, said that is not true. Mr. Ben Menashe made allegations that resulted in Ms. Chetrit's arrest, she said, but no charges were ever laid against her. "The whole thing was trumped up to begin with," Ms. Goldwater said. She added that her client didn't want publicity but rather hoped to set the record straight after Mr. Ben Menashe's remarks were carried around the world by news-wire services Monday.
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From News24 (SA), 11 March
'Death by accident' for Mugabe
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition leader wanted so see President Robert Mugabe to be assassinated in what looked like an accident, a state witness in a treason trial alleged on Tuesday. Tara Selene Thomas, an assistant to the key state witness in the trial of Morgan Tsvangirai, told the court she picked this up at a meeting she was asked secretly to record by her boss Ari Ben Menashe. She said Tsvangirai, who faces a death penalty if convicted, wanted the assassination arranged in such a way that there would be no chaos with the army stepping in because it had become too obvious that Mugabe had been murdered. "One of the things that stuck in my mind was that he stated that in order for it to be a smooth transition it had to appear to be an accident or natural causes, say a heart attack or something like that," Thomas said. Tsvangirai, along with two of his party officials, allegedly requested the help of Ben Menashe's political consultancy firm Dickens and Madson in eliminating Mugabe ahead of presidential elections last year. The three Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leaders deny the charges, alleging they were set up by the Zimbabwe government. Thomas related how she failed successfully to record the meeting between Tsvangirai and Ben Menashe at the Royal Automobile Club in London. The tape is almost inaudible because of construction work that was taking place outside the club during the meeting. Thomas, 32, who is a native American and Canadian by birth, is the second state witness to testify against the MDC officials after Ben Menashe, a Canadian-based political consultant took the witness stand for nearly five weeks. Ben Menashe, who claims to be a former member of Israeli military intelligence, has implicated Tsvangirai in a plot to kill Mugabe ahead of the 2002 presidential elections. His testimony hinged on a video tape he secretly made of a meeting with Tsvangirai at his firm, Dickens and Madson, in Montreal in December 2001.
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From The Daily News, 12 March
MDC youth feared dead
From Chris Gande in Bulawayo
Mthulisi Mloyi, an MDC youth, is feared dead after he was kidnapped by so-called war veterans in Nkayi on Saturday. Mloyi’s clothes, including his underwear, were on Sunday found where he was believed to have been abducted. The incident occurred at Nkabayinde Business Centre a few kilometres from Nkayi Growth Point. Several other MDC youths, who were preparing for a rally to have been addressed by the opposition party’s vice-president, Gibson Sibanda, escaped from a group of armed war veterans who are former dissidents. The rally was cancelled after the group of 20 marauding so-called war veterans went berserk at Nkayi, assaulting suspected MDC supporters. Villagers who witnessed the incident said the Zanu PF supporters, led by a former dissident identified as Khiwa, pounced on Mloyi and other youths as he was putting up posters. Khiwa was one of the former dissidents who launched a reign of terror in the run-up to the 2002 presidential election, controversially won by President Mugabe. The group allegedly dragged Mloyi to a District Development Fund truck which had no number plates. After brief consultations with State security agents prowling the area, they bundled him into the truck. The MDC said a report was made at Nkayi Police Station, but yesterday the police refused to comment. Paul Themba Nyathi, the MDC spokesman, said the party was concerned that Mloyi, who is a former ward chairman, could have been killed by the "lawless rogue elements". "We are equally astounded that Jonathan Moyo (the Minister of State for Information and Publicity) has the audacity to call this a normal and peaceful country where innocent young men are kidnapped in broad daylight, their crime being that they support the opposition,’’ Nyathi said.
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From ICG, 10 March
The succession struggle
The one new element that suggests early and positive change in Zimbabwe’s critical situation may just be possible involves reports that began to surface in January 2003 that senior ZANU-PF officials were seriously exploring possible retirement scenarios for President Mugabe. Widespread enthusiasm greeted the notion that Mugabe might step down. The news of a potential deal boosted Zimbabwe’s stock exchange. A subsequent poll by the Harare-based Mass Public Opinion Institute found 65 per cent of respondents wanted Mugabe, who is 79 and whose term runs to 2008, to announce his plans for retirement immediately. As the story of ZANU-PF manoeuvring began to emerge, it was learned that in November 2002, Fr. Fidelis Mukonori, a Jesuit priest in Harare, approached Morgan Tsvangirai on behalf of Mugabe, with a message that the president was considering retirement and wanted to meet with the MDC leader. Although nothing came of it, retired Zimbabwean Army Colonel Lionel Dyck confirmed to ICG that he spoke to Tsvangirai a month later on behalf of Speaker of the House and former head of the security services Emmerson Mnangagwa and armed forces chief General Vitalis Zvinavashe. Both men have been close to Mugabe and appeared to indicate that they could offer assurances that he would accept early retirement and possibly exile. Since Mugabe was known to have been saying privately that he was willing to step down, and key elements within the ruling party had indicated a desire to break the political impasse, this initiative appeared somewhat credible. Colonel Dyck, at the behest of the two, inquired if Tsvangirai would be willing to agree that, if he retired, the president and other top ZANU-PF officials would have immunity from prosecution for human rights abuses and corruption. Tsvangirai was also reportedly asked if he would be willing to join a transitional authority if Mugabe left power.
Tsvangirai rejected this offer and, concerned that a trap was being set and he was being used in a power struggle within ZANU-PF, revealed it to journalists and civic leaders. Tsvangirai told ICG that the offer was unacceptable and Zimbabwe would need to return to democracy through a process that was transparent and accountable, not a backroom deal that presupposed Mnangagwa as the new president. The MDC and most civil society leaders have consistently argued that top officials of Mugabe’s government must be held accountable for their actions, particularly Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe, who were involved in the mass killings in Matabeleland in the 1980s and, more recently, in the looting of diamonds in the Congo. Tsvangirai has told ICG, with some ambiguity, that the MDC would not pursue the prosecution of Mugabe should he step down, but also that any decision would need to be fully and openly debated in a national forum. He has not extended any kind of promise to other members of ZANU-PF. There are two problems with any amnesty or non-prosecution assurance. First, it would be a difficult sell to some members of the MDC, who want Mugabe held accountable. Secondly, Mugabe does not trust the Tsvangirai’s ability to make good on immunity since he knows there are Zimbabweans who would pursue action against him whatever deal was struck. At the least, any arrangement would probably not preclude the possibility that Mugabe could be investigated and the likely highly embarrassing results made public.
The revelations surrounding Dyck’s mission brought into the open long-suspected divisions within the ruling party. Two camps have emerged in the struggle for post-Mugabe leadership of ZANU-PF. Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe are on one side, while on the other are retired Army Commander Solomon "Rex" Mujuru, Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi, current Army Commander Constantine Chiwenga, Air Force Commander Perence Shiri, sacked Finance Minister Simba Makoni (whom Mujuru has been pushing as successor to Mugabe), former Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo, ZANU-PF businessman Ibbo Mandaza, and elder statesman Eddison Zvobgo. This second group seeks initially to consolidate its control of the army by ensuring that Shiri succeeds Zvinavashe when the latter retires this summer, though the impatience of the top military brass over the political stalemate is growing, adding to the general aura of uncertainty. If this manoeuvre succeeds, the group will then concentrate on ensuring that Mnangagwa is not well positioned to succeed Mugabe. A third group will ultimately play only a spoiler role at most. It is led by the trio of Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa. None of these has a major support base inside the party, much less in the broader public, but they have retained President Mugabe’s favour due to their vociferous defence of his policies.
Conventional wisdom has always had Mnangagwa as Mugabe’s hand-picked successor, but the recent events have placed this in doubt. It appears that his faction approached the MDC without the president’s blessing on something of a fishing expedition. Recent Mugabe statements ("there are those that seek to divide us from within") indicate that some things have gone on behind his back. He said that the plot to exile him could have been orchestrated by ZANU-PF officials: "Those rumours came from people who wanted to reverse our land reform program, or maybe it came from some of our party members who want to sow seeds of division". As Africa Confidential concluded, "Mugabe's greatest fear is an exit strategy he doesn't control: that the mass food and fuel shortages, along with the rising death toll from starvation and HIV/AIDS, will finally propel his opponents onto the streets for a Ceaucescu-like showdown". If Mugabe directed the feelers to Tsvangirai, it is likely he is indeed ready to retire; if not, then it is probable that the long knives are already being drawn in the succession battle. Mugabe may also see these events as a plot by the Karanga ethnic group, to which Mnangagwa, Zvinavashe, Mutumwa Mawere (a key business associate of Mnangagwa in Zimbabwe and the Congo), and Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge belong. Other factions within ZANU-PF are stoking his fears about the intentions of Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe. The degree to which Mugabe will be able to control the fallout from these manoeuvres is uncertain.
General Zvinavashe raised the stakes early in 2003 by announcing that the "military will assist" in addressing the economic crisis in Zimbabwe. "[W]e must do something about it … it is not right to keep quiet and let nature take its course". While this could be a bluff to cow opposition to the planned elevation of Mnangagwa to the presidency, his proposal to form a national task force to find solutions to the country’s problems was widely taken in Zimbabwe as an extraordinary admission of awareness of widespread dissatisfaction with Mugabe. It probably is just the tip of the iceberg, however, in terms of the unhappiness within the military, particularly those who have returned from the Congo, and segments of the ZANU-PF leadership that are experiencing diminishing benefits as a result of Zimbabwe’s political isolation and weakening economy. These forces want to manage a process of change that builds a bridge back to international legitimacy, aid, debt relief, trade and investment, while maintaining their personal authority. There is increasing belief, at least within the ruling party, that Mugabe’s retirement is the only way to accomplish that goal. The Mujuru faction is vehemently opposed to Mnangagwa as Mugabe’s successor. In the first week of February 2003, Mujuru and Air Marshall Shiri asked Mugabe when he intended to retire and conveyed their desire for a more open succession process. It should be remembered that in Kenya a pattern of ignoring the will of the party leadership on the Moi succession issue resulted in the recent decisive election defeat. Party pressure on Mugabe to devise an exit strategy is thus likely to continue to build. If an acceptable process does not materialise, Mujuru’s faction might bolt from ZANU-PF, form its own party, and try to attract others as the Rainbow Coalition did in Kenya. Some of the less radical war veterans also are organising and could provide another point of independent opposition to ZANU-PF over the coming months.
Both major factions within ZANU-PF believe that the other faction will try to make a deal with the MDC that would leave them out in the cold. The one thing that unites them, however, is their desire to see Mugabe off the scene. Their leaders share the view that he is a liability to the party, the country, and, most importantly, their personal fortunes. "They are aware that with Mugabe at the helm the entire regime is pushed to their last supper", observed a Zimbabwean analyst. "The sacrificial game has now begun". Some ZANU-PF officials will attempt to place all blame on Mugabe but no one should be fooled that Zimbabwe’s problems result from one person. Any solution will have to deal with reform of the entire system, not just changing the guard. South Africa is active behind the scenes in promoting a succession plan. Its preference appears to be a quiet deal that would be arranged within and primarily by ZANU-PF with a relatively minimal role for the opposition. It has severely alienated the MDC by not meeting directly with it while pushing it to drop its court challenge to the legitimacy of the March 2002 presidential election. It has been working on behalf of one specific successor, Mnangagwa, who has spent considerable time in South Africa and was embraced by President Mbeki embraced recently at the African National Congress (ANC) annual conference. Mnangagwa has given the South Africans the questionable assurance that he has the army on his side.
However, South Africa may have initially underestimated the unpopularity of Mnangagwa, who in 2000 lost the parliament contest in his hometown of Kwekwe and later in the year the ZANU-PF chairmanship to John Nkomo. It has now widened its search for a credible replacement for Mugabe, recently hosting, for example, Simba Makoni, a member of the ZANU-PF politburo and the Mujuru faction’s apparently preferred candidate. Makoni is increasingly viewed in Zimbabwe and the region as a viable alternative to Mugabe, someone not tainted with the scandals, state looting, and human rights violations of the last two decades. One ZANU-PF parliamentarian said, "People applaud him before he even speaks. They say, ‘He has new ideas, let him try’. They say he is a decent person without so many rumours and scandals about his wheeling and dealing. But he may not be strong enough to cope with the ZANU-PF heavyweights". After the meetings in South Africa, Makoni said that the ruling and opposition parties should work together: "[A] country should have a national government mandated by the people of that country to govern it. There is a difference between a government of national unity and a national government". Notwithstanding Makoni’s admonition, President Mbeki continued his pursuit of a government of national unity, and received support from France at the Franco-African Summit.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 12 March
Tsvangirai tape played up during key meeting
Harare - A state witness in the treason trial of Zimbabwe's opposition leader testified on Tuesday a tape recorder hidden in her purse malfunctioned during a key portion of a London meeting about what she said was a plot to kill President Robert Mugabe. Other parts of the meeting were also inaudible, said Tara Thomas, an assistant of Ari Ben Menashe, the Canadian-based political consultant who claims opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai sought his help to assassinate the Zimbabwean president. Thomas (32) told the Harare High Court she concealed a tape recorder in her purse during a meeting between Ben Menashe and Tsvangirai and aides at a London club in late 2001. She said she heard Tsvangirai say the killing of Mugabe must be made to look like an accident or death from natural causes. "He said if it didn't look like an accident, the army would step in and there would not be a transitional arrangement," in which he would become Zimbabwe president, she said. The tape, however, revealed no such comments. Thomas told state prosecutor Bharat Patel she left the room to check the tape recorder and was shocked to discover it was not recording. However, after the batteries were replaced, and the machine functioned properly, much of the rest of the tape was still unintelligible, she said. Ben Menashe has accused Tsvangirai and two other opposition leaders of hiring him to help them kill Mugabe. The opposition officials deny the charges, saying Ben Menashe was secretly on the government payroll and framed them. The three could face the death penalty if convicted. Tsvangirai was charged with treason two weeks before he ran against Mugabe in presidential elections last year. Mugabe, who has been president since Zimbabwe won independence in 1980, won the election, which international observers said was swayed by rigging and political intimidation.
Ben Menashe, who spent over four weeks on the stand - the longest single testimony in Zimbabwe's judicial history - testified Tsvangirai sought help at the London meeting to assassinate Mugabe. Because that audio recording failed, another meeting held December 4 2001 was secretly video taped at the consultancy firm's Montreal offices. That video became the main state evidence in the trial. Ben Menashe said he recorded the meeting to gather evidence on the assassination plot so he could hand it over to Canadian, US and Zimbabwean authorities. He insisted he was not working with the government to entrap the opposition. He has testified he received $200 000 from the government two weeks after he gave the secretly recorded video to Zimbabwe agents. Defence lawyers for Tsvangirai have argued the video, also of poor quality, does not contain incriminating evidence. Defence lawyer George Bizos has said he will demonstrate during the trial that Ben Menashe, whom he described as "an unmitigated liar," has meddled in other foreign elections and used his political consultancy as a front for fraud, lies, and conspiracy. In his court testimony Ben Menashe alleged agents acting for the Zimbabwe opposition attacked and injured Thomas in Montreal and threatened his own wife and six-year-old daughter, leading to the breakdown of his marriage. Thomas appeared in the Zimbabwe court limping and leaning on a chrome and rubber-tipped orthopaedic walking aid. Bizos said information made available to the defence showed she was injured in a bicycling accident.
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From The Financial Gazette, 13 March
State fails to link witness’ bicycle accident to MDC
Staff Reporter
The state yesterday failed to establish a link between the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and a freak accident that befell Tara Thomas, the second witness in the treason trial of three MDC leaders. Ari Ben-Menashe, the state’s key witness in the trial against Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube and Renson Gasela, had earlier alleged that Thomas’ July 2002 bicycle accident was linked to the MDC. Ben-Menashe is the head of Dickens and Madson, the Canadian political consultancy firm the MDC allegedly tried to hire to assassinate President Robert Mugabe before last year’s presidential election. Thomas, an employee of Dickens and Madson, yesterday told the High Court that she could not link her accident, which occurred in Montreal, Canada, to the opposition party although the accident was an "unusual" one. When asked under cross-examination by the state counsel, led by Deputy Attorney General Bharat Patel, if she thought there was a link between her accident and the MDC treason trail, she said: "I don’t think so. It was an unusual accident...I will hope it was not connected to this case."
Thomas, who walks with the aid of a crutch because of the accident, described to the court how she fell off her bicycle last July, for the first time since she learnt to ride at the age of seven. "One second I was on my bike, and the next I was on the ground. It was an unusual accident," Thomas said. She said shortly after the accident, two black men approached her and started talking to her in English. However, the men walked away when a female motorist stopped at the scene of the accident and offered her a lift to the doctor. Ben-Menashe, who was on the witness stand for a record 22 days before being released this week, had told the court that Thomas was attacked by MDC thugs in Montreal, shortly after announcing her plans to travel to Harare to testify in the treason trial of the three MDC leaders. Thomas said she had been informed that after the accident, Dickens and Madson had instituted a private investigation into the accident and a man had come forward with pertinent information. But she said she was not told what the informant had revealed. For the greater part of yesterday, the state counsel asked Thomas questions on Dickens and Madson’s meetings with the three MDC leaders and her affidavit on the case. The state counsel also double-checked the accuracy of the transcript made from the videotape that forms the state’s evidence-in-chief. The tape allegedly depicts the MDC leaders attempting to engage Dickens and Madson to assassinate Mugabe. The trial continues today. If convicted, Tsvangirai, Ncube and Gasela could face the death penalty.
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From The Cape Argus (SA), 12 March
Tsvangirai witness stands to make a killing
Basildon Peta
Ari Ben-Menashe, witness in the Zimbabwean government's case against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, is smiling all the way to the bank. While Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is struggling to import food to feed his starving population, the Zimbabwean government will fork out hundreds of thousands of US dollars to pay Ben-Menashe for his month-long testimony against Tsvangirai. This is in addition to his huge hotel bill in presidential suites in Harare and the cost of flights to and from Canada for him and his assistants. One official said Ben-Menashe would be paid close to $500 000 (about R3,9-million) for his testimony and time spent in Zimbabwe during the trial. Ben-Menashe has already admitted to being paid more than $615 000 for work he has done for Mugabe's government. It has now emerged that Ben-Menashe had held the Zimbabwean government to ransom, threatening not to turn up for the trial unless he was paid a hefty amount for time spent during the trial. The Zimbabwean government then acceded to Ben-Menashe's request.
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From VOA News, 12 March
'Corruption infected all society,' says Zanu PF founding member
Harare - A veteran ruling party politician in Zimbabwe has unexpectedly criticized the country's senior officials and their friends, accusing them of corruption, which he says has infected all of society. A founding member of the ruling Zanu PF party, Edison Zvobgo, electrified parliament late Tuesday when he called for the urgent establishment of an anti-corruption commission. Mr. Zvobgo, who was close to President Robert Mugabe until about five years ago, accused the ruling elite of massive corruption. He said this class of people has built mansions which he described as obscene, and which he said cost more than the owners lawfully earned. He said he had personal knowledge that some corrupt individuals had taken the opportunity during the recent land reform program to seize up to five formerly white owned farms each. He said this should be investigated by a well-staffed anti-corruption commission.
Recently, several local and foreign publications have published photographs of massive houses owned by top military officers. Local media have identified many leading politicians in the ruling party who are reported to have illegally seized several white-owned farms each. Mr. Zvobgo said Zimbabwe's government institutions are inefficient and corrupt. He said their corruption has poisoned the whole society. Unlike many senior ministers who were appointed by President Mugabe, Mr. Zvobgo was popularly elected to parliament. He was one of the few ruling party members to keep his majority intact at the last general elections in 2000. He is known to oppose draconian security legislation which was pushed through parliament last year and is seen to be a major player in the emerging reformist wing of Zanu PF. Mr. Zvobgo is trusted by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and the business community. But he has shunned joining the opposition. Several political analysts say Mr. Zvobgo is destined to play an important role if there is any move from the present administration to a transitional authority leading to fresh elections.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 13 March
Buthelezi breaks his silence on Zimbabwe
Ben Maclennan
Cape Town - Home Affairs Minister Mangosuthu Buthelezi has taken his Zimbabwean counterpart to task for what he called the "rapidly degenerating" political situation in that country, saying it could lead to a flood of refugees. He has also called for an explanation of what Zimbabwe plans to do to avert economic collapse and to guarantee the "freedom and safety" of its citizens. His pointed remarks - considerably more outspoken than anything his Cabinet colleagues have ever ventured - were part of a prepared statement he read out when the two men met at his office in Cape Town on Wednesday to discuss border issues. However the Zimbabwean minister, Kembo Mohadi, brushed aside Buthelezi's concerns, saying claims of a deterioration were a figment of the imagination. In the document, which he released to the media, Buthelezi said that as home affairs minister he was "concerned" about issues of asylum and refugee status. "The rapidly deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe's democratic and institutional life may force my department to deal with an ever increasing number of asylum applications of Zimbabwean citizens. We need to adjudicate these applications in terms of international law and on the basis of objective criteria of well-found fears of persecution in a country which, according to the applicants, no longer offers them human rights protection and the guarantees of the rule of law."
He said that as Zimbabwe's neighbour, South Africa was committed to help solve its problems. South Africa, he said, had been told that health services in Zimbabwe were in dire straits, increasing the link between the spread of communicable diseases, including HIV/Aids, and population movement. "Any major exodus which may occur will almost inevitably burden our medical health delivery system," he said. The state of the Zimbabwean economy was also a matter of "great concern" from a migration viewpoint. He had been advised by the International Organisation for Migration that the South African government should make contingency plans to deal with a possible emergency in Zimbabwe which would spill over into South Africa. "I have avoided making any such plans with a significant public profile, in order not to increase the real or perceived problems that Zimbabwe is experiencing," he said. "However, on this occasion I would appreciate receiving an indication of what Zimbabwe is planning to do to prevent an economic collapse, to ensure food security and to guarantee the freedom and safety of its citizens so as to avoid the possibility of a mass influx into South Africa."
But Mohadi, questioned by journalists at a joint media briefing with Buthelezi after the talks, said he did not share Buthelezi's concern about the deterioration of democracy. "There is nothing that is said to be deteriorating in terms of political situation, the human rights side of it. What is obtaining in Zimbabwe is that a situation has been created between the two countries Zimbabwe and Britain, and this is a bilateral issue." "There is no disorder in Zimbabwe, everything there is just a figment of anybody's imagination. "A case in point is the [World Cup] cricket matches that took place in Zimbabwe. Everybody was against... that there is no security in Zimbabwe and that people should not play in Zimbabwe. Those countries that went to play in Zimbabwe are witnesses today that there is security in Zimbabwe, there is peace in Zimbabwe. You don't see anybody walking around in Zimbabwe carrying a gun etcetera. So the situation in Zimbabwe is a normal situation."
Zimbabwe's problem was that it was under sanctions, which led to shortages "here and there" and an increasing burden of unemployment. Mohadi also said he did not believe any Zimbabweans came to South Africa on the pretext of seeking political asylum. Before the Zimbabwean presidential election last year, South Africa and other countries were asked to prepare for an influx of refugees seeking asylum, but that did not materialise. "Where will they come from?" he asked. "There is no war in Zimbabwe. You don't see anybody going around carrying a gun in Zimbabwe. It's even more peaceful maybe than in South Africa. You can sleep in the street and no one will ever harm you there...We're so much demonised that everyone thinks we are a certain animal with no brains." Buthelezi declined at the media conference to comment on the divergence of views with Mohadi, saying he did not want to enter into a "slanging match". Human rights groups have accused Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's government of an organised campaign of political repression and terror, of subverting the independence of the judiciary and undermining media freedom. The country's economy is in tatters, with endemic fuel shortages and a rampant inflation rate, problems that critics lay at the door of government mismanagement rather than outside factors.
Meanwhile, the United States said on Wednesday it would lead a campaign to condemn Zimbabwe for what it called flagrant and ruinous human rights abuses at the upcoming meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission (UNHCR). In addition, Washington said it would work to convince the international community, especially Zimbabwe's neighbors, to ratchet up pressure on President Robert Mugabe and his aides to end their repressive behavior and press them to hold "early free and fair elections." To that end, the State Department released a glossy 16-page pamphlet entitled "Zimbabwe's Man-made Crisis" documenting a litany of abuses committed by the country's leadership since independence in 1980. "Mugabe has brought the country of Zimbabwe untold suffering," said Scott Carpenter, an official in the department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor which published the booklet.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 13 March
Propaganda shift
By Michael Hartnack
Since the beginning of the month there has been a major shift in the ruling Zanu PF party’s misinformation onslaught. On the bright side, the jingle broadcast every 20 minutes on state radio for the past six months, that civil war has come against whites "who have barbed wire tails" has ended. One or more of the singers has reportedly joined the mass exodus to Britain and South Africa - despite proudly telling their remaining compatriots that "Our land is our prosperity" and "Now, we have the Land". The new thrust, ordered by information Minister Jonathan Moyo, shows the regime has given up trying to catch the public imagination with pictures of weed-choked fields and the ethnic cleansing of their former owners. Robert Mugabe’s propaganda chiefs now appear to recognise that it is daily hardships - not racist slogans - that preoccupy most families' every waking minute. The focus of the new propaganda is to get people to blame anyone but Mugabe, by creating the fiction that Zimbabwe has been under seven years of "sanctions". The following extract from a recent editorial in the state-controlled Herald newspaper encapsulates the new propaganda line - it’s all the fault of sanctions stirred up by the British. The Herald editorial closely followed the wording of the 49-page "National Economic Recovery Programme" released the following day:
"Before the advent of British hostilities against the ruling Zanu PF government towards the end of 1997, our international relations were fine and the major economic indicators were showing signs of good health. Inflation was running at a manageable 15 percent, the Zimbabwean dollar was trading at around 11,4 to the American Greenback while unemployment was hovering around 30 percent. Enter the Tony Blair Labour government with its bullyboy tactics and New Labour expansionist policies, and all hell broke loose. The economy was ruthlessly shaken, the country's politics thrown into turmoil and a new civic (sic) society created to cause mayhem, all in a bid to remove the Zanu PF government from power...A significant number of Zimbabweans were made to lose confidence in their own country. Mr Blair cannot simply walk away from the mess he has created in Zimbabwe."
A succession of whopping lies is contained in this summary. Trouble broke out for Zanu PF in 1997 because ex-guerillas learned the equivalent of US$13 million at contemporary exchanges rates had been given to the elite for non-existent "war disabilities". Mugabe then blew the equivalent of US $165 million at contemporary exchange rates giving all self-styled "ex-combatants" gratuities, thus causing a crash in the currency. Simultaneously, he embarked on his five-year Congo adventure in search of new sources of economic patronage, causing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to freeze further loans. Mugabe only launched his Fast Track Land Reform or "third Chimurenga" after losing the February 2000 constitutional referendum. Blair, who, alleges Mugabe, intervened to defend whites, had no cause to do so in 1997. Yet friends tell me children, particularly, are swayed by the note of fanatical conviction in the voices of Mugabe and Moyo.
Economists do not take the 10-point National Economic Recovery Programme seriously since it is founded on the fundamental falsehood that the economy has been distorted by political pressure from abroad, when in reality it has been ruined by political vandalism at home. Lifting import duty on foodstuffs and musical equipment will do nothing while inflation runs at 208 percent, wiping out pensions and savings. No one has any confidence to invest in anything except short-term consumption and talented Zimbabweans emigrate. The regime, meanwhile, continues to posture as the fearless upholder of the rights of ordinary citizens against corruption and exploitation manipulated - horror of horrors - from abroad. It is amazing how resilient the bulk of Zimbabweans to have been in the face of years of saturation hate speech. However, it seems to be making some inroads, particularly among the young and among rural people who know the price of disbelief may be denial of a place in the queue for maize meal. What riles many in Zimbabwe is that not just callow teenagers and elderly rural folk, exposed exclusively to the state media, are taken in by each fresh Zanu PF invention. Supposedly informed members of the South African elite swallow Mugabe’s line. Just one example. South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said the Zimbabwean authorities have admitted they "made mistakes" in implementing fast track land reform, and are correcting them. There has been no such confession or any corrective action. In this particular case, inventing lies is easiest when there are people eager to swallow them.
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From News24 (SA), 13 March
Treason: 'Appropriate demise'
Harare - A state witness in the treason trial of Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claimed on Thursday that President Robert Mugabe's death by natural causes was an "appropriate demise" for the head of state discussed at a key meeting. This was the testimony given by the second state witness, Tara Thomas, in the ongoing treason trial of opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and two senior party officials accused of plotting to kill Mugabe. Thomas, an assistant at Dickens and Madson, the Canada-based consultancy firm which implicated the opposition trio in the alleged plot, said a natural death had been suggested by one Edward Simms at a meeting in Montreal, in December 2001, where Tsvangirai allegedly requested Mugabe's elimination. "Natural cause will be the appropriate demise for our friend," Thomas claims Simms told Tsvangirai at that meeting. She was giving her version of what was said on a barely audible video tape that had been secretly made of the four-hour-long meeting. The tape is seen as crucial evidence in the state's case. The opposition trio deny the treason charges and claim they were set up by Dickens and Madson, which has been linked to Mugabe's ruling party, to sideline the opposition ahead of 2001 presidential elections. They face the death penalty if convicted.
Thomas, who earlier this week alleged that Tsvangirai wanted Mugabe's assassination to look like an accident, said Thursday the opposition leader also wanted Dickens and Madson to arrange discussions between his party and the army. "He wanted us to arrange some kind of communication between the army and the MDC," she said. The court heard that Tsvangirai wanted the vice president to form a transitional government with the MDC. On an audible portion of the tape played on Thursday, Tsvangirai is heard to say a transitional phase should be the foundation for "a clean election", and that the military should not step in to fill the breach, but remain impartial guarantors of peace and stability. "In my view, that would be the most stable way to proceed and, in my view, it will not raise suspicions," Tsvangirai was heard to say in the recording. Thomas also alleged that Mugabe's elimination was to take place within 10 days of the December 4 meeting in Montreal. The treason trial, which is now in its fifth week, has already heard the testimony of Ari Ben Menashe, the head of Dickens and Madson. Another nine state witnesses are due to testify.
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From The Daily News, 14 March
No notes, witness told
Court Reporter
Judge President Paddington Garwe yesterday ordered Tara Thomas, a witness in the high treason trial of three top MDC officials, to stop testifying with the aid of a document scribbled with notes. Said Garwe: "The general rule is that a witness cannot refresh his or her memory by statements or notes made before the trial." He said, however, expert witnesses were exempted from the rule. The judge made the ruling after defence lawyer, George Bizos, protested on Wednesday that Thomas had written notes on a transcript she was using in giving evidence. "From the submissions made, it appears the witness made comments to the transcript. I am satisfied, this she can’t do." Bizos said there were fears Thomas would be influenced by what she had written on the transcript. For the better part of yesterday, Bharat Patel, the Deputy Attorney-General, led Thomas through the video and transcript of the surreptitiously recorded meeting at the Montreal headquarters of Ari Ben-Menashe’s political consultancy, Dickens and Madson, where Morgan Tsvangirai, one of the suspects allegedly revealed a plot to assassinate President Mugabe and overthrow the Zanu PF government. Thomas conceded the transcript was "not completely accurate". Tsvangirai, the MDC president, Welshman Ncube, the party’s secretary-general and Renson Gasela, the shadow minister of agriculture, have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trial continues today.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 14 March
Probe into leaked land report
Mthulisi Mathuthu
The government has launched an investigation to find who leaked the controversial land audit report to foreign newspapers before it had been discussed in cabinet. Among those being questioned are officials close to the audit team which was led by the Minister of State for the Land Reform Programme, Flora Buka. The contentious interim report exposed evidence of multiple farm ownership. But political pressure could lead to an airbrushing of some of the findings. Press reports last weekend said London-based Ugandan fugitive David-Nyekorach Matsanga is also a suspect although he denies any connection to the audit team. Last week Buka told the Zimbabwe Independent she was investigating who had leaked the report based on what she called "unverified information". Matsanga, who was in Zimbabwe from December to February, told students at the Zimbabwe Open University that he was involved in a land research programme on behalf of the government. But in letters sent to newspapers this week Matsanga reacted angrily to the allegations and threatened to sue the South African Sunday Times which carried the reports of his involvement. "The most naked lie and distortion is to say that I leaked a report I have never even seen or which I did not know existed," he wrote. "I have never said and never been near the Hon Flora Buka leave alone ever sat down to compile a report with her. Which report is this? How does it look like? Where is sanity in Zimbabwe politics gone? Who in Zimbabwe politics is trying to damage my good work I have done for the Zanu-PF in Britain against the British oligarchy? How on earth can I spoil the same plate that I am trying to repair?" The report has already caused a stir among Zanu PF heavyweights who stand accused of using their influence to get more than one farm under the resettlement scheme. Release of the substantive report has been put on hold as ministers and others argue they were not consulted about its contents. The list is not exhaustive, the report said, "as the people interviewed were afraid to reveal any individuals lest they might be victimised by the multiple-farm owners who seem to have their loyalists within the various land committees".
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From The Star (SA), 14 March
Ndungane is hoping 'to turn the Titanic'
By John Battersby
Could the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town become the saviour of Zimbabwe? This is the question being asked in the country after a whirlwind visit to Harare this week by a delegation led by Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane. He is mediating, at the behest of President Robert Mugabe, between the ruling Zanu PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the crisis that has followed last year's flawed presidential election. "It is going to be like trying to turn the Titanic while avoiding the iceberg," Ndungane said. "We are going to need the wisdom of Solomon." The core of Zimbabwe's political crisis is that the MDC will not recognise the legitimacy of the Zanu PF government because it has mounted a legal challenge to the election result. And Mugabe does not want to discuss any transitional authority because it would imply that his government is illegitimate. Zanu PF also faces a mounting succession struggle as opposing factions jockey for power when Mugabe goes. Diplomats in Harare say Mugabe will step down as soon as there is agreement on an heir.
In contrast to his first trip last month, which left civil society and local church leaders in the cold, Ndungane this time held lengthy consultations with civil society groups, church leaders and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who is currently on trial for treason in Harare. Tsvangirai, who has given Ndungane his cautious backing, did not want to be drawn on the details of the talks. Ndungane said he would report back to Thabo Mbeki at his earliest convenience. "President Mbeki is my president and I will engage with him on my visit and hopefully he will be able to convey to (Nigerian) President Olusegun Obasanjo my impressions after the wide-ranging meetings with various sectors of Zimbabwean society," Ndungane said. He said he hoped his mediation efforts would be complementary to those initiated by Mbeki and Obasanjo. The archbishop said he had avoided engaging in "megaphone diplomacy" as this was not the role of a mediator.
This week, the International Bar Association called on the International Criminal Court to prosecute Mugabe for "serious violation of international humanitarian law", while Obasanjo called for Mugabe's resignation. In contrast, Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said last week that South Africa would never criticise the Zimbabwean government. The crisis over a potential successor has deepened ever since a secret plan to manoeuvre Mugabe's favoured choice of heir, speaker of parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa, into the post of executive prime minister was exposed and scuttled by Mnangagwa's opponents earlier this year. Ndungane did not indicate what the next step in his mediation effort would be, but he noted that both church and civil society leaders in Zimbabwe had requested that he should send an independent fact-finding mission to the country. Some civil society leaders had also suggested the assembling of a group of "eminent persons" to oversee the mediation and to ensure that Zanu PF kept its side of the bargain on any transitional arrangements agreed to.
Ndungane said he was confident that Zimbabweans would be able to resolve their differences once the conditions for open dialogue could be created and the space opened for democratic debate. The archbishop said he was spurred to do something about the situation by a flood of letters and emails from concerned members of the Anglican congregation. The state-controlled Herald newspaper gave Ndungane's meeting with Mugabe splash treatment on Thursday, but portrayed it mainly as a mediation between the archbishop and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Ndungane said on Thursday he had undertaken to approach the British authorities. But he made clear that he also intended to take up pressing issues relating to human rights violations, issues of governance and the humanitarian crisis. He said he was encouraged that Mugabe had vowed that there would be no hindrance of his efforts.
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From SABC News, 13 March
Academics call for sanctions against Zimbabwe
A number of South African academics have called on Government to impose targeted sanctions against the Zimbabwean leadership. They were speaking during a round table discussion organised by the Institute for International Affairs at the University of the Witwatersrand today. "Quiet diplomacy without teeth will not work." This is the view of a number of South African academics who attended the 'New Tools for Reform and Stability' meeting. They say President Robert Mugabe's regime will not undertake any meaningful reforms, unless the South African government flexes its muscles. Hussein Solomon, a professor at the University of Pretoria says: "The way to do that is by targeted sanctions, targeting Zanu PF political bureau and cabinet ministers." The academics say the lack of free political movement in Zimbabwe require external intervention. They argue that South Africa in particular, should take the lead because political and economic deterioration will see an influx of refugees. Failure to act, they say, will raise questions about New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) commitments to good governance.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 14 March
GMB loses US$20m in grain deal
Augustine Mukaro
The cash-strapped Grain Marketing Board (GMB) could have been prejudiced of over US$20 million paid to a South African company for maize imports which were never delivered, the Zimbabwe Independent established this week. Officials at the GMB said in February last year the parastatal awarded a contract to Blazepoint Trading to import over 100 000 tonnes of maize. Blazepoint Trading, a South African firm, allegedly failed to deliver the maize despite being paid in full to cover the procurement expenses. The landed price of maize at the time was US$200 per tonne, meaning the GMB paid at least US$20 million for the 100 000 tonnes of maize. Agriculture minister Joseph Made last year told reporters that South Africa's Blazepoint Trading had been contracted to supply 100 000 tonnes and that transport logistics were made to ensure the smooth movement of the grain.
Highly-placed sources at GMB said the company was paid for the first consignment and a deposit for two other orders to enable it to process the import procedures. To date nothing has been delivered. "Blazepoint has not delivered anything despite the payments," sources said. "The GMB has since been informed that Blazepoint has gone into liquidation." Sources said in November last year the GMB took Blazepoint to court for breach of contract but nothing has materialised. "As we speak, some members of the GMB taskforce are in South Africa trying to negotiate with liquidators of Blazepoint to recover GMB money," an official said. "The acting audit manager and financial accountant, who were also part of the delegation, returned to South Africa after compiling documents to enable GMB to claim its money from the liquidators."
Officials at the GMB said Blazepoint went into liquidation soon after receiving payment from the parastatal, raising questions about how the company won the contract. Sources said GMB officials were only shown silos of grain and told by word of mouth the quantities held, after which Zimbabwe proceeded to pay Blazepoint. Sources said the Blazepoint contact person in Zimbabwe was GMB board chairman Enock Kamushinda who is understood to have used his influence to arm-twist the parastatal into paying the South African company deposits for two other consignments before it had delivered the first one. "Grain importation in the country has been politicised and is being done in an ad-hoc manner, which explains why the contracts haven't been going to tender since the beginning of grain imports in January 2002," a GMB source said. Kamushinda had not responded to written questions from the Independent by the time of going to press. Blazepoint is understood to be a subsidiary of Blaze Holdings, based in Cape Town, South Africa. Efforts by the Independent to get comment from Blaze Holdings were fruitless as their telephone lines were continuously engaged.
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From The Daily News, 15 March
Ben-Menashe aide confesses she lied
By Fanuel Jongwe, Court Reporter
A state witness in the treason trial of three top MDC officials yesterday confessed that she acted and lied in order to deceive the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, during a meeting in Montreal, Canada. Tsvangirai is jointly charged with Welshman Ncube, the MDC secretary-general, and Renson Gasela, the shadow minister of agriculture. They have pleaded not guilty. "I was told not to look surprised, but to go along with what was being discussed at the meeting," Tara Thomas, a personal assistant to Ari Ben-Menashe, president of Dickens & Madson, a Canadian-based political consultancy, told the High Court. She was being cross-examined by Advocate Chris Andersen of the defence team, about the secretly video-taped meeting at the Dickens & Madson headquarters on 4 December 2001, where Tsvangirai allegedly outlined a plot to assassinate President Mugabe and overthrow his government ahead of last year’s election. "I was doing what I was asked to by my bosses," she said. Thomas said she pretended to agree with Tsvangirai on his presidential election campaign plan when "exactly the opposite" was true. Asked whether she had rehearsed the deception before the meeting, Thomas said: "I acted in high school, yes." She denied, however, that she wanted to undermine Tsvangirai. "I am not someone who can control someone’s mind," she said. "I did not make him do or say what he said. He undermined himself."
She said she did not personally initiate anything during the meeting which Ben-Menashe, the key prosecution witness, said was arranged to gather evidence of the alleged conspiracy against Mugabe by the opposition leaders. "None of this was my initiative. I just sat in on the meeting," Thomas said. She said during the meeting, Tsvangirai talked about a plot to eliminate Mugabe and said that Mugabe’s death would have to look like an accident. Earlier, Thomas had told the court that Ben-Menashe and his deputy, Alexander Legault, told her they had closed their commodity company, Carlington Sales, because of financial problems and formed Dickens & Madson. She said when she joined the firm in May 2001, it did not have any paying clients until the MDC came along. "I don’t remember exactly, but the other client, Cote d’Ivoire, came at the end of 2001 or the beginning of 2002." But in spite of their problems, Thomas said, Ben-Menashe and Legault led flamboyant lifestyles and lived in a posh part of Montreal. Ben-Menashe drove a BMW car, while Legault had a Toyota van, she said. Asked where the pair could have got their money from, Thomas said she assumed they had savings. She said she was not privy to the company’s accounts and details of the contracts with their clients. The trial continues on Monday. "I am not a curious person as some people are," she said, when asked why she did not bother to find out about the company’s finances and history. "I get paid. That’s what I am worried about."
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From News24 (SA), 14 March
MDC was 'consultant's only client'
Harare - A state witness in the treason trial of Zimbabwe's main opposition leader told a court Friday that her company had only one client in 2001 and that was Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Tara Thomas is the second state witness to appear in the trial of Tsvangirai and two senior party officials accused of plotting to assassinate President Robert Mugabe ahead of 2002 presidential elections. Defence lawyer Chris Andersen said the $100 000 the MDC is reported to have paid the firm, Dickens and Madson, in consultancy fees must therefore have been "like manna from heaven". The defence has been attempting to prove that Dickens and Madson is not a bona fide consultancy firm. They have said the opposition party was lured by an offer from the head of the firm, Ari Ben Menashe, to raise at least two million dollars for the MDC in the United States if he was first paid $500 000. The state's case hinges on evidence supplied by the Canada-based firm which filmed a meeting Tsvangirai held at Dickens and Madson's Montreal offices in December 2001, at which Tsvangirai allegedly requested the consultancy's help in eliminating Mugabe. The opposition trio has denied the treason charges, which carry the death penalty on conviction.
Andersen suggested to the witness Friday that Ben Menashe had "grossly misrepresented" the firm as having international contacts, and a large staff including a team of researchers. According to Thomas's testimony, the company only consists of her, Ben Menashe, his associate Alexander Legault and a receptionist. The witness, who said she was employed as a researcher, said other people worked with the company but were not employees, adding that she did not have details of contracts the firm signed with its clients. "They tell me what they think I need to know. I don't ask questions," she said. She said that, subsequent to the MDC, Dickens and Madson had done work for Zimbabwe's ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) as well as consultancy work in Ivory Coast. The treason trial, which is now in its fifth week, has already heard the testimony of Ari Ben Menashe, the head of Dickens and Madson. Another nine state witnesses are due to testify.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 14 March
Treason trial interest wanes
David Masunda
Harare - Public interest in the treason trial of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, which held Zimbabweans spellbound when it began in February, has fizzled out, with only a handful of people now attending the daily court sessions at the high court in Harare. In fact, another trial involving a well-known preacher accused of raping some of his congregants, had been attracting more people before it adjourned at the end of February. Tsvangirai and two of his senior lieutenants, Welshman Ncube and Renson Gasela, are charged with high treason. The trio were allegedly videotaped by former Israeli spy Ari Ben Menashe trying to arrange for President Robert Mugabe’s "elimination". In the second week of March the small courtroom where the trial is being heard was half empty, with only supporters of Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), his wife and relatives, the battery of lawyers for the state and the defence and a few journalists and foreign diplomats attending. An MDC official said few people were now attending the court case because some members of the party, such as its women’s league, were being denied entry into court by police who told them the courtroom was full.
Tsvangirai’s trial attracted hundreds of people, including the British high commissioner and the United States ambassador in Harare, when it started in February. Zimbabwean riot police forcibly turned away hundreds of MDC supporters and journalists because they said the courtroom was too small to accommodate all who wanted to attend the trial. This week those attending the hearing heard Tara Thomas, Ben Menashe’s personal assistant, testify. Thomas, who is on crutches after an accident in Canada, told Judge Paddington Garwe, she could not be sure the MDC was involved in the incident in Ottawa when she was almost run over by a motorist. Ben Menashe, who stepped down from the witness stand earlier in the week after a record 22 days, testified that the MDC had tried to kill Thomas. Thomas’s testimony was stopped on Wednesday afternoon after the defence lawyer, South African advocate George Bizos, asked why she wanted to use notes written down on her affidavit during cross-examination. "The witness cannot go into court with notes for the purpose of giving evidence. She can’t be allowed to do so," said Bizos. Garwe adjourned the hearing, saying he needed time to make a ruling on Bizos’s objection.
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From The Times (UK), 15 March
Commonwealth report may keep Zimbabwe suspended
By Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
The Commonwealth has compiled a report about continued abuses in Zimbabwe over the past year to try to ensure that it remains suspended from the organisation. Despite efforts by African nations to have President Mugabe readmitted to the Commonwealth when the suspension expires next week, most of the 54 member states seems to favour keeping Zimbabwe out until the next summit meeting in eight months’ time. The leaders of Australia, Nigeria and South Africa, who were to review the suspension before it expires on Wednesday, have been unable to agree. John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, believes that Mr Mugabe’s regime should be excluded because of persistent human rights violations. President Mbeki of South Africa and President Obasanjo of Nigeria favour the country’s readmission. The argument may be decided by the report, which was drawn up by senior Commonwealth officials and sent to the three leaders this week. The contents are confidential, but sources who have read the document said that it was damning of Mr Mugabe. "There was hardly a good word said about Zimbabwe in the report," one source said. Another described it as sombre and serious and said that it faulted Mr Mugabe’s regime on human rights, land reform, democracy and the rule of law.
Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, has been consulting member states about Zimbabwe. The issue had threatened to divide the organisation along racial lines, but many leaders of developing countries have now hardened their attitudes towards Mr Mugabe. Caribbean nations, for example, turned against Zimbabwe after Henry Olonga, a Zimbabwean cricketer, was dropped from the national side for protesting against the Government by wearing a black armband during the first match of the World Cup. The state-owned Herald newspaper in Harare denounced the report this month, even before it was circulated, and alleged that it had been compiled by Brian Donnelly, the British High Commissioner in Harare. African high commissioners in London met this week to try to co-ordinate a defence for Zimbabwe. South Africa, for instance, has lobbied to have European Union sanctions against Zimbabwe lifted and for it to be readmitted to the Commonwealth. One move open to Nigeria would be to invite Mr Mugabe to the next Commonwealth heads of government meeting, which it is hosting in December. Diplomats said, however, that that could lead to a boycott by other nations.
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From The Financial Gazette, 13 March
Green Bombers’ assault Binga council chief
Staff Reporter
Dete - Youths believed to be trainees of Zimbabwe’s controversial national service programme have severely assaulted Herbert Sinampande, the chairman of the council in the Matabeleland North district of Binga, an opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) stronghold, it was learnt this week. Eyewitnesses told the Financial Gazette that the youths, derisively referred to as "Green Bombers" because of their uniforms, physically assaulted Sinampande last Wednesday at Siansundu Secondary School in Binga, the only rural district that overwhelmingly voted for the MDC during the 2000 parliamentary election and last year’s presidential poll. The witnesses said Sinampande was in the company of Binga Rural District Council chief executive Shadreck Mudimba and Dube Mukombwe, a councillor. They said the secondary school where the assault took place was the venue of a rally that was addressed by Elliot Manyika, the ZANU PF national commissar who is also
the Minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation. Manyika’s ministry is in charge of the national service programme, which critics say is being used by the ruling party to train youth militias that are accused of violence against opposition party members and the general public.
"The Green Bombers swooped on him (Sinampande) at the school without any provocation," said an eyewitness who spoke to the Financial Gazette after the burial ceremony of victims of last month’s Dete train disaster. The witness added: "They were shouting at the old man, accusing him of being a supporter of the Movement for Democratic Change. People just watched as the boys used fists and sticks and booted the chairman. He missed death by a whisker. He had to be rushed to hospital with a series of head and body injuries. The councillor was gasping for air. Initially, the Green Bombers were adamant he should not be taken to hospital, saying MDC supporters were not supposed to be treated at ZANU PF hospitals." Mudimba, who witnesses said was saved by senior ZANU PF officials from a serious beating by the youth militia, confirmed the incident but would not comment further. "There is nothing I can tell you, go to the chairman (of the district council)," said Mudimba. "You should get all the information you need from your sources. I don’t want any trouble." Mudimba was forced to flee from members of the youth militia several times in the run-up to last March’s presidential election.
Efforts to secure comment from Sinampande this week were unsuccessful as he was said to have travelled to Hwange for treatment at Wankie Colliery Hospital. Jealous Sansole and Peter Nyoni, legislators for Hwange East and West respectively, also confirmed the assault on Sinampande. "He passed through here (Dete) on his way to Hwange for further examination. He was in serious pain," said Nyoni. "It is sad that no one has been arrested yet it is an open secret that the people who assaulted him are the Green Bombers." A Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) spokesman in Hwange, the headquarters for the police force in Matabeleland North, however told the Financial Gazette that the incident had not been brought to the attention of the ZRP.
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From The Daily News, 15 March
UZ student finds bullets, death threat at doorstep
By John Mokwetsi
Nkululeko Nyoni, the secretary for the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) Student Executive Council (SEC), was shocked on Wednesday night when he found an envelope with two bullets and a note at the doorstep of his hostel room. Nyoni said he discovered the khaki envelope, addressed to him, as he returned from the dining hall with fellow SEC member Tafadzwa Machirori. Nyoni said: "The envelope contained two bullets numbered PMP 10.380 and ASC 73-1 and a note written: ‘Tshomi: your excesses are too much, start praying for the next world’." Elizabeth Karonga, the UZ director of information yesterday said: "I can confirm the incident. The security and the dean of students have all confirmed that the student received the bullets and the note. The matter is now in the hands of the police at Avondale Police Station." A Constable Mugadza of Avondale Police Station said a docket was opened but the case had been referred to the CID homicide department which deals with cases involving firearms. Nyoni said: "I fear for my life. This institution is riddled with State security agents bent on silencing the voice of reason. I don’t underestimate their capabilities." He alleges that at one time Machirori’s room was ransacked by unknown people "who were probably looking for SEC documents". Nyoni said the death threat against him was an intimidation tactic to stop him from representing students on issues affecting their academic life. He accused the authorities and the government of failing to run the institution in a transparent manner. The UZ was closed indefinitely as the strike by 700 lecturers continued with no resolution of their pay demands in sight.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 16 March
Olonga goes into hiding to dodge secret police
Neil Manthorp
Henry Olonga's international career came to an end last night in dramatic circumstances with a secret journey to a safe house somewhere in South Africa. He will hide until he is able to start a new life in a different country. The amiable fast bowler's last few hours as an international cricketer were spent nervously looking over his shoulder for a tap on the shoulder that could have threatened his life. Seven plainclothes officers from Zimbabwe's secret police, believed to be from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), arrived in East London on Friday and were entertained by World Cup hosts during Zimbabwe's 74-run defeat by Sri Lanka yesterday. Their real purpose for being in the sleepy, coastal town was more sinister than watching their country's emotionally ravaged cricket team bow out of the World Cup. Olonga has received numerous threats during the last month but this one was different. He had been told the officers intended to "escort him home", where a likely charge of treason awaited. The punishment for treason in Zimbabwe is death.
The drama began in mid-afternoon when officers from the World Cup-appointed Close Protection Unit returned to the players' hotel and packed all of Olonga's personal possessions in case he was intercepted after the match. Olonga even appeared on the field to perform 12th man duties early in the afternoon to create the impression that everything was proceeding as normal. But everything was far from normal despite Olonga's impossibly courageous attempts to stay calm. "He was pretty shaken but he seemed to be coping as well as anyone can in a situation like that," said a team-mate after the match. "He sounded reasonably clear about what was going to happen, if it all went well, and was staying positive." Details regarding Olonga's immediate future were a tightly guarded secret last night. Even his team-mates had no idea where he was heading when they bade their final, emotional farewells. While Andy Flower confirmed his retirement during the lunch break of the match, Olonga selflessly kept his secret until the last ball had been bowled. "He was always a team man, first and foremost. He's still a team man," the same colleague said.
A statement from Olonga read: "It is with great sadness that I am officially announcing my retirement from international cricket. My continued involvement with the Zimbabwean team has become untenable for the following reasons: "The stand I took earlier in the World Cup has undoubtedly had repercussions that have affected both my career and my personal life. I have received threatening e-mails which, I believe, make it dangerous for me to return to Zimbabwe. "I was never under the illusion that my stand would have no consequences but I believe that one should have the courage of one's convictions in life and do all one can to uphold them. "I believe that if I were to continue to play for Zimbabawe in the midst of the prevailing crisis I would only be neglecting the voice of my conscience. I would be condoning the grotesque human rights violations that have been perpetrated - and continue to be perpetrated - against my fellow countrymen. "To my fellow Zimbabweans: the Zimbabwe we dream of must merely remain in our hearts. We must be strong, stand united and strive to give our children the brighter day in which they belong."
Olonga's dedication to the team was never more obvious than during his final month as an international player. Having worn black armbands and issued a statement, with Flower, to "mourn the death of democracy" during Zimbabwe's first match against Namibia, Olonga was told by senior cricket and government officials that he would never play again for his country again. His response was to bowl faster, longer and harder in the nets to help his team-mates prepare for the remainder of the tournament. Then, out of the blue, he was picked to play against Kenya in Bloemfontein last Wednesday. He was stunned but never once contemplated refusing his selection - his fellow players were delighted to have him back. But Zimbabwe's politically motivated selection panel back in Harare had one final, cynical move in store and Olonga was dropped for yesterday's match for fear he might use the occasion to speak out once again. But they were unable to stop him. Once Olonga and his deeply loyal friends are convinced the coast is clear, they will make arrangements for passage to another country. England remains the most likely option as long as political asylum is granted, a condition Olonga's friends are convinced is necessary.
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From ZWNEWS, 16 March
MP in Bulawayo car chase
MDC MP David Coltart was involved in a car chase yesterday morning, with an unidentified vehicle chasing him through Bulawayo's southern suburbs. The vehicle, a blue Mazda pickup truck, was driven by three young men, one of whom was armed with what seemed to be a service issue rifle. Coltart had left his home soon after 9:00 am, travelling with his 9 year old son and his 18 month old daughter. Stopping briefly to talk to the security guard at the gate of his home, he saw the truck, which had been parked further up the street, drive slowly past. It is thought that the truck had intended to follow Coltart as he left his home, but had not anticipated him stopping at the gate. Coltart took a different route to that which he had intended, and a chase ensued as the pursuers found and followed him again. The MP, who is also the opposition justice spokesman, contacted his security detail, who intercepted the two vehicles, and delayed the pursuers long enough for refuge to be found at a safe house in Bulawayo. The pursuers stayed parked outside the safe house for some time. Coltart and his children left the safe house without being seen, and are now elsewhere in the city. There have been four carjackings in the area over the last week or so, one taking place at the home of an immediate neighbour in which the car owners were beaten and the car stolen. Service issue rifles were used in the attacks. In each of these cases, however, cars had been followed back to the area from the city centre. Information received around the time of the incident contained a warning to opposition leaders that the government intended a further escalation of the repressive measures taken over the last month, in an effort to forestall any protests against the state's human rights abuses and dire economic conditions.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 16 March
Gloves off as US tackles Harare over human rights
Washington to detail abuses and introduce UN motion condemning Mugabe government
Sunday Times Foreign Desk
The lines have been drawn in what could be a diplomatic showdown between the US and Zimbabwe at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva tomorrow. US State Department officials intend introducing a motion condemning rights abuses in Zimbabwe. Mark Bellamy, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for African Affairs at the State Department, and Scott Carpenter, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, said Washington would relentlessly "ratchet up pressure" on President Robert Mugabe's government to abandon repression. However, Zimbabwe has declared it is ready to confront the US. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said he would travel to Geneva to "oppose the machinations of imperialists and defend Zimbabwe's position". "We are aware that they are brewing something. Last time they tried it and they lost," he said. "The American and British machinations will not succeed. Our position has now been understood internationally as a colonial question."
The US officials said they would try to mobilise South Africa and other countries on the 53-member commission to denounce "appalling human rights violations that have turned Zimbabwe into a bastion of tyranny". SA will be represented by Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who will present a paper on human rights. But she is unlikely to censure Zimbabwe. Recently she said Pretoria would not condemn Harare over accusations of human rights abuses. Zimbabwe Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge said Harare was now in a much stronger position "to resist foreign aggression" than it was a few months ago. He said African Union and Southern African Development Community foreign affairs ministers who met in Chad and Angola earlier this month expressed solidarity with Zimbabwe. But the US State Department said it would distribute a comprehensive document titled " Zimbabwe's man-made crisis" as clear evidence of systematic repression by Mugabe's regime. The 16-page document details a litany of human rights abuses, including the massacre of over 20 000 Ndebeles during the 1980s and ongoing acts of repression.
The document also contains claims of arbitrary arrest and detention. More than 300 people have been arrested in a crackdown on dissent over the past few weeks. The US document was released hardly five days after President George W Bush proclaimed targeted sanctions against Mugabe and 76 associates. The sanctions, similar to the European Union measures against Harare, include travel restrictions and a freeze on assets. "Zimbabwe is in crisis," the US document says. "Intimidation of political opponents is a practice out of the darkest corners of Zimbabwe's colonial and minority-rule history. A revolution dedicated to the freedom of all Zimbabweans to join and form organisations of their choice has been hijacked by a new form of authoritarianism." According to the report, Mugabe has succeeded in reducing Zimbabwe "to a state of ruin, desolation and isolation". It adds that "those resisting tyranny have borne the brunt of state terrorism. Many brave Zimbabweans have spoken out against the violence, corruption and mismanagement of their illegitimate government." "Some have been murdered; others have been tortured and imprisoned. Many have been forced into exile."
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From IOL (SA), 14 March
IMF delivers scathing report on Zimbabwe
Harare - Concerns over governance issues, pervasive price controls and a grain marketing monopoly have contributed to Zimbabwe's crippling food shortages, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said. An IMF team which had been visiting Zimbabwe for nearly three weeks until Thursday, also blamed Zimbabwe's grave food security situation on the chaotic land reforms. In a statement received by news agencies on Friday, the IMF said while some foreign donors poured in large amounts of humanitarian aid, "other donor assistance has been curtailed because of concerns over governance." "Pervasive price controls and other policies such as the GMB (Grain Marketing Board) monopoly contributed to shortages, damaged business confidence, drove up prices," said the IMF. Nearly two thirds of Zimbabwe's 11,6 million people face hunger, which the government has blamed solely on bad weather. Price and foreign exchange controls which were further intensified in November last year "further damaged" production and created new shortages, the IMF said. Zimbabwe is going through its worst economic crisis in two decades. The economy, according to the IMF, has deteriorated sharply, especially in the past four years. "Real GDP has declined by about 30 percent and is still contracting," it said. Inflation stood at 208 percent last month and "could well rise further". "There are widespread shortages. Poverty and unemployment have risen, and the HIV/Aids pandemic is worsening," said the Bretton Woods institution.
Apart from food shortages, Zimbabwe has experienced an acute shortage of foreign exchange which has led to a scarcity of all other commodities and services that are imported. The government last week devalued its currency from 55 Zimbabwe dollars to one US dollar, to 824 to one for most transactions, a move described by IMF as "a courageous step forward" but which "will require careful follow-up". The IMF said it has observed that there has been a "modest tightening of monetary policy in recent weeks, and that if pursued with increasing vigour, inflation will eventually be brought under control". Because of the foreign currency shortages, Zimbabwe has fallen into arrears in its loan repayments to the IMF in recent years. Zimbabwe incurred arrears to the IMF in mid-February 2001, and was seven months later declared ineligible to use IMF resources. It was then removed from the list of countries eligible to borrow resources under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility. The visiting team of experts welcomed the southern African country's renewed undertaking to make small quarterly payments of $1,5-million to the IMF on its $282,4-million loan as of January 31.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 16 March
Nigeria denies rift with Mbeki over Zim
The Nigerian government has refuted suggestions that it differs with South Africa over the situation in Zimbabwe and the future of President Robert Mugabe. In a statement issued in Johannesburg on Sunday, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo's press secretary described as "mischievous" reports that he and President Thabo Mbeki were at odds on the issue. "President Obasanjo states categorically that his recent visits to South Africa and Zimbabwe have not in any way created any division in the views held by both Nigeria and South Africa on the situation in Zimbabwe," Tunji Oseni said. Oseni's statement was headlined "Obsanjo, Mbeki still share common position on Zimbabwe". "To suggest that President Obasanjo 'may want to see leadership change' in Zimbabwe is to indulge in an unhelpful and baseless speculation," Oseni said.
Asked in an interview with the London Sunday Times last week if Mugabe should quit, Obasanjo appeared to suggest that Mugabe should consider leaving office. "It's entirely up to him, but obviously he knows he has to work for a succession," Obasanjo said. "I don't have to tell him, but if I say I am thinking about my succession that's an indication that I think he should think of his. In my part of the world, there are many ways you can tell a man to go to hell." Media reports in South Africa interpreted Obasanjo's statement as a sign of difference with Mbeki who has declined to publicly call for a regime change in Zimbabwe, preferring instead the route of "quiet diplomacy". Both Mbeki and Obasanjo, both members of a special Commonwealth troika on Zimbabwe, have indicated they want Zimbabwe to be readmitted to the councils of the multi-lateral body when its one-year suspension lapses on Wednesday. The chairman of the troika, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, wants the suspension extended. Oseni said in his statement that Obasanjo stood by the position he expressed to Howard in a letter in February -- that Zimbabwe's suspension should be allowed to lapse and the country readmitted to the Commonwealth's councils. "President Obasanjo looks forward to a re-establishment of contact and re-engagement which will be beneficial to Zimbabwe and the Commonwealth," Oseni said. The secretary-general of the 54-member Commonwealth, Don McKinnon, was due to have presented a report last week to the troika, detailing the views of the rest of the Commonwealth on the Zimbabwe issue.
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From News24 (SA), 15 March
Massive protests in Zim?
Harare - Police raided a print shop and seized fliers calling for a nationwide strike and anti-government protests next week, Zimbabwe's opposition party, MDC, said on Friday. Paul Themba Nyathi, spokesperson for the Movement for Democratic Change, said police alleged the fliers were "subversive material" likely to incite violence. Managers at the private printer in Harare were summoned to the Central Police station for questioning, but were released without charge. About 120 000 printed sheets, some still to be cut into fliers, were confiscated. Police were not immediately available for comment. The government has said it will not tolerate protests that breach stringent security laws banning political demonstrations. Nyathi said a meeting of opposition leaders on Tuesday agreed to go ahead with national protests, known as "mass action", against the government. An announcement on the timing of the protests is expected to be made over the weekend. Opposition officials said privately, however, a national work stoppage will be called on Tuesday, the first of several days of protests.
At least 4 million fliers had been ordered. Many were being distributed before the police raided the Harare printers on Tuesday. One complained that Zimbabweans were tired of economic mismanagement and state oppression and said: "The time for action is up". Others referred to disputed presidential elections last March that gave President Robert Mugabe another six-year term. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai narrowly lost that poll which independent election observers said was swayed in Mugabe's favour by political violence, intimidation and vote rigging. As Zimbabwe suffers its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, with massive shortages of food, fuel and essential imports, the opposition has been under growing pressure to stage mass demonstrations. Another flier said: "We continue to experience hardships everyday under Mugabe's government which we did not elect." Tsvangirai, as head of the main labour federation in 1998, organised a series of national strikes that shut down the economy. The opposition has called for new internationally supervised elections, and says it does not recognise Mugabe's victory by a slender 400 000 votes of about 2.8 million ballots cast last year.
Prominent South African church leader, the Njongonkulu Ndungane, the Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, on Thursday announced a new mediation initiative aimed at restarting dialogue on a settlement in Zimbabwe. But the state media on Friday accused him of bias against the government. "The so-called political and human rights crisis only exists in the eyes of the opposition and its legion of clerics," the state Herald newspaper said. A month of talks between Mugabe's ruling party and the main opposition collapsed in acrimony over human rights violations and curbs on democratic rights. An often violent campaign launched by the government in 2000 to confiscate 95% of farmland owned by white farmers, disrupted the agriculture-based economy. Erratic rains slashed harvests of corn, the staple food. At least 7 million people, more than half the population, need emergency food aid. The opposition accuses the government of stifling its activities through violence, police torture, intimidation and stringent security and media laws. In the past month at least 300 people, including church clerics on a peace march, have been arrested for staging political demonstrations declared illegal under the security laws.
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From The Daily News, 17 March
Violence hits Harare
By Columbus Mavhunga and Sam Munyavi
For the second time in two days, the police yesterday attacked opposition MDC supporters trying to attend a rally in Harare two weeks before key by-elections in Kuwadzana and Highfield. Meanwhile, the State-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation last night claimed that one person was killed yesterday when a car in which the MDC's Kuwadzana candidate, Nelson Chamisa, was in rammed into a crowd. MDC sources said the driver was not Chamisa. Yesterday, the police fired shots into the air and tear-gassed thousands of MDC supporters on their way to a rally in Kuwadzana Extension. The supporters scattered in all directions as four plainclothes officers armed with pistols and scores of baton-wielding riot policemen charged at them. Later, a vehicle carrying two MDC Members of Parliament was ambushed by Zanu PF supporters who fired shots at it, forcing the MPs to flee into a maize field for refuge. The MPs, Job Sikhala (St Mary's) and Paurina Mpariwa (Mufakose) said they survived the attack "by the grace of God". A bloodied MDC supporter said he was assaulted by State security agents. On Saturday, several people were injured and business brought to a halt in Highfield as police fought running battles with ruling Zanu PF supporters determined to prevent the MDC from holding a rally at Zororo Grounds. Tendai Marima, 18, was rushed to Harare Central Hospital after an attack by Zanu PF youths in the ensuing melee. The youths, wielding stones and catapults, assaulted anyone they suspected to be an opposition supporter. Motorists abandoned fuel queues and drove away as the youths went on the rampage. Marima was severely assaulted and left for dead.
The problem started in the morning when Zanu PF supporters clashed with MDC youths who were putting up posters for the 2 pm rally. Armed riot police reacted swiftly to control the explosive situation and the Zanu PF supporters, numbering about 100, then retreated. Later, when an estimated 10 000 MDC supporters gathered for the rally at Zororo grounds, about 500 Zanu PF supporters clad in their party regalia descended on the venue. The MDC supporters abandoned their rally and some of them charged towards their adversaries. The police again forced the Zanu PF supporters to retreat as the two groups pelted each other with stones. The police dispersed them with teargas. The rally proceeded about an hour later. Addressing the rally, Welshman Ncube, the party's secretary-general, told the people of Highfield not to succumb to Zanu PF's vote-buying gimmicks. Ncube said: "If there is maize meal, please go and get it. But you have to be clever on the day of voting. Harare belongs to the MDC." Pearson Mungofa of the MDC will contest the seat against Zanu PF's Joseph Chinotimba in the 29 and 30 March by-election to fill the seat vacated by Munyaradzi Gwisai, when he was expelled from the MDC last year. Gwisai is standing as an independent.
Yesterday in Kuwadzana Extension, hundreds of Zanu PF supporters invaded the football grounds where the MDC was due to hold its rally for the 29-30 March by-election. They were later repulsed by the police who in turn, barred the MDC supporters from proceeding to the grounds, more than 300 metres away. Nelson Chamisa, the MDC's candidate, who is standing against David Mutasa of Zanu PF, deplored the police action. He told his supporters: "We don't want violence in this constituency. The problem is the police don't want us to go ahead with our rally. The people who are inciting violence are the police. They are letting the Zanu PF supporters do as they please." As soon as he finished speaking, shots and teargas were fired, resulting in panic-stricken supporters fleeing in all directions. When they sped off from the scene, Chamisa, his campaign manager Charlton Hwende, and the MPs Mpariwa and Sikhala, escaped death by a whisker after their Nissan double-cab truck was ambushed by Zanu PF supporters on the Harare-Bulawayo road. They fled into a maize field from where they hid. Mpariwa said: "They fired shots into the field and we only survived by the grace of God."
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From AFP, 16 March
Zimbabwe police fire tear gas to disperse rally, one dead
Harare - Police in Zimbabwe Sunday fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of people at an opposition rally, and one person died after being run over in the ensuing panic, an eyewitness and the opposition said. Around 50 riot police officers fired tear gas to disperse Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters in the low-income suburb of Kuwadzana where a by-election is due to be held later this month, an AFP photographer witnessed. He said there was an altercation between the police and the MDC's candidate for the area, Nelson Chamisa. Opposition spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi told AFP that two MDC vehicles had accidents as they tried to flee the scene. Chamisa was slightly injured when his vehicle rolled, while another vehicle accidentally ran over a bystander, killing him, Nyathi said. However, state Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) television said that the bystander was killed when Chamisa's campaign team rammed a crowd. One person has been arrested, ZBC added. Political tensions are running high in Kuwadzana, in western Harare, ahead of this month's by-election. The poll will pit the MDC against President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party.
Contacted for comment on the police action, police spokesman Bothwell Mugariri said two rallies were scheduled for the same venue, ZANU-PF in the morning, and the MDC in the afternoon. "As ZANU-PF were withdrawing from the venue, there was a clash between ZANU-PF youths and MDC youths," he said. Police dispersed the crowd by firing tear gas, he said. The opposition accuses police of hampering their political activities in Kuwadzana, an opposition stronghold, and in the neighbouring suburb of Highfield, where a by-election is also to be held. The clashes in Kuwadzana came as the opposition called Sunday for mass action against President Robert Mugabe's government starting next week. In press advertisements the party called for "peaceful action carefully calculated to express discontent and disgust with the state of affairs within our nation." The country is currently suffering from high unemployment, food and fuel shortages as well as record-high inflation, all of which are increasing hardships for ordinary Zimbabweans.
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From The Star (SA), 17 March
Opposition urges anti-Mugabe protests
Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition group has called for protests this week against President Robert Mugabe's "oppressive" rule as the country grapples with its worst post-independence political and economic crisis. "This is a call for peaceful action carefully calculated to express discontent and disgust with the state of affairs within our nation," the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said yesterday. "We therefore ask all Zimbabweans to register their anger against the oppressive system," it said. The group called for protests tomorrow and on Wednesday, without specifying what form they would take. The private owned weekly Zimbabwe Standard newspaper quoted MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai as saying the mass action would set the stage for a showdown with Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party. Public meetings are forbidden without police clearance under legislation Mugabe signed into law just before he was re-elected in March last year, in a poll that critics said he rigged. Western governments have accused Mugabe of quashing human rights and fomenting violence against his political opponents, including the MDC. They have also criticised his policy of seizing white-owned farms to distribute among landless blacks, saying it contributed to a hunger crisis now threatening 7-million people. The country is grappling with soaring unemployment and an acute shortage of hard currency, squeezing fuel and food imports.
Police yesterday fired teargas to disperse hundreds of people at a rally called by the MDC. The rally was due to take place in the low-income suburb of Kuwadzana, in western Harare, where political tensions are running high ahead of a key by-election scheduled for later this month. Last week, baton-wielding riot police beat dozens of women - including three MDC members of parliament and the wife of the party's vice-president - at an International Women's Day gathering and briefly detained at least 15 organisers for questioning, witnesses said. "The security situation for all Zimbabweans has deteriorated to an unacceptable level. There is rampant misuse of police power to violate and criminalise with impunity the freedom of expression and the right to assemble," the MDC said yesterday. In February, police arrested more than 40 women as they handed out roses and sang songs at a protest on Valentine's Day. Mugabe denies mismanaging the economy during his 23-year rule, and accuses enemies abroad of sabotage over his land redistribution programme.
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From BBC News, 16 March
Zimbabwe ban extended
By Barnaby Phillips, Southern Africa correspondent
The Commonwealth has announced that Zimbabwe's suspension from the organisation which was due to expire this week has been extended until the end of the year. Leading African members of the Commonwealth had argued in favour of Zimbabwe's immediate readmission. Zimbabwe was originally suspended in March last year after Commonwealth observers reported violence during the presidential elections. The extension of Zimbabwe's suspension for at least another nine months is a significant setback to President Robert Mugabe and will encourage the opposition. In recent weeks, it has appeared that the diplomatic tide has been turning in President Mugabe's favour, despite the desperate political and economic situation in Zimbabwe. Two key African leaders, South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, have argued that sanctions against Zimbabwe should be lifted and that it should be allowed back into the Commonwealth. These presidents, along with Prime Minister John Howard of Australia, comprise a Commonwealth troika mandated to deal with Zimbabwe. The Commonwealth Secretary, General Don McKinnon, said he had consulted leaders across the organisation and that the broadly held view was that Zimbabwe's suspension should remain in place until the heads of government meeting due to take place in December. Mr McKinnon said the troika had now also concluded that this was the most appropriate action. This decision will not endear Mr McKinnon to President Mugabe's Government, which has already said the secretary general is no longer welcome to visit Zimbabwe.
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From The Sunday Mirror, 16 March
Govt land consultant leaked audit report
Mirror Reporter
Professor Sam Moyo, a land expert who was engaged by the government as a consultant and took an active part in the compilation of the controversial land audit report, was involved in leaking the document to the foreign media, The Sunday Mirror was told. Moyo, who is believed to have had access to the report, allegedly leaked the report to a British based newsletter, Africa Confidential, whose editor, Patrick Smith is a close associate of his. A source privy to the alleged transaction between Smith and Moyo said the latter worked in cahoots with one Osias Hove, an official under Flora Buka, the Minister of State for the Land Reform Programme in the President's Office. Buka headed the team that carried out the land audit and compiled the report. Buka and Vice President Joseph Msika, who chairs the national land committee, have since denied that the land audit report is out, insisting that it is still being worked on before it can be presented before Cabinet in accordance with procedure. However, The Sunday Mirror is in possession of the document, which is marked "Confidential" and written in the first person, believed to be reflecting Buka's account. Moyo is said to be Smith's long time friend and was allegedly persuaded by the Africa Confidential editor to avail him with the report when he indicated that it was out. Africa Confidential subsequently wrote a story based on the leaked document, exposing several malpractices by senior government officials who reportedly used their influential positions to grab multiple farms for themselves, in violation of the one-man-one farm principle that was supposed to guide the land reform programme. The report makes thinly-veiled innuendoes at the incompetence of the Ministry of Agriculture, Lands and Rural Resettlement. Moyo reportedly does not get along well with lands and agriculture minister, Joseph Made. According to sources, Moyo had sharp disagreements with Buka over which names to include in the report. Ultimately, the names that appeared in the report were the result of a selective process, which was informed by politics and personal feelings, the sources said.
In the land audit report, there are allegations by Buka that some people were issued with Certificates of No Present Interest to acquire farms for resettlement under suspicious circumstances, given the fact that the "indigenous people" were given such certificates despite the fact that there were people who were already settled on those farms. "Moyo insisted on the exclusion of some names, while specifically ensuring that certain individuals' names appeared in the report. On multiple farm ownership, too, the number of people who were directly named for having taken more than one farm falls far too short of the people who were supposed to be named," the source said. The audit report in the possession of the Sunday Mirror confirms this allegation. Most of the districts in which certificates of no present interest were issued, such as Mazowe, Bindura, Makonde, Hwange and Umguza only reflected the names of the farms but not the beneficiaries. However, in a few instances, the alleged beneficiaries were mentioned, adding weight to our source's claim of selectivity. The Sunday Times of South Africa, which also wrote a front page story based on the leaked document, reported that it was believed that David Nyekorach-Matsanga, who is based in London and is believed to have strong ties with the Zimbabwean government, could have obtained the report and leaked it to Africa Confidential. Nyekorach-Matsanga however denied any involvement and said his lawyer, Victor Evans of London, was suing the Sunday Times. The editor of the paper, Mathatha Tsedu, professed ignorance of Nyekorach-Matsanga and said he was not aware of the legal suit. He denied that his paper implied that Matsanga leaked the report. Moyo could not be reached for comment as according to his wife, he was outside Harare and his cellphone was not reachable.
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From The Sunday Mirror, 16 March
Leaked report details abuse of govt scheme
Innocent Chofamba-Sithole
A leaked government audit report of its multi-million dollar livestock restocking scheme, which was originally intended to benefit newly resettled farmers under the two land resettlement models, exposes widespread abuses and manipulation of formal processes to benefit senior government officials and politicians. According to the secret audit report, of which the Sunday Mirror has a copy, the government last year advanced Z$450 million to the Livestock Development Trust (LDT) for the purposes of sourcing and distributing livestock to communal, old and newly resettled farmers under both the fast-track and commercial farming resettlement models. The LDT, which falls under the lands and agriculture ministry, launched the scheme in the first week of March last year and was supposed to allocate a maximum of five and 15 heifers to successful applicants under the small-scale and commercial farming models, respectively. But instead of solely catering for its intended beneficiaries, the scheme fell victim to senior government and senior politicians, who were allocated more cattle than was formally permissible. "The whole programme lost focus on distribution as some individuals got more than one hundred herd of cattle instead of a maximum of fifteen herd. Some farmers got more heifers than what they signed for on the hire purchase forms or contract forms," the report reads. According to sources privy to the audit, some of the senior government officials who have allegedly irregularly benefited from the scheme include Vice President Joseph Msika, who was allocated 70 herd of cattle and Mashonaland East governor, David Karimanzira, who received a total of 40 heifers under the scheme. Other undeserving senior officials who fraudulently received more than the permissible number of livestock include Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi, Higher Education minister Swithun Mombeshora, Education minister Aeneas Chigwedere, Health Minister David Parirenyatwa, Mashonaland West governor Peter Chanetsa, and Zanu PF legislator, Webster Shamu. The LDT bought and distributed over 14 000 cattle across the country under the scheme at a total cost of Z$471 million, Z$21 million above its allocated budget.
Further, the audit report slams the Trust for its failure to abide by the programme's enabling agreement by subcontracting the procurement of cattle to a third party without the approval of the lands and agriculture ministry. "This was a serious breach of the contract which resulted in the Trust fund losing Z$24 385 000, in the interim, to bogus middlemen who took advantage of loopholes in the system," reads the report. The audit reveals that some time last year, LDT subcontracted a private company, Leswick Investments, to source 3069 heifers worth Z$106 072 300 for its livestock input scheme. The audit also shows how the company overpriced its livestock, thus prejudicing LDT of the Z$24 385 000. Ironically, Leswick Investments was registered with the Registrar of Companies on March 12 2002, barely a week after the launch of the livestock input scheme. The company is alleged to have strong links with a high-ranking officer in the Airforce of Zimbabwe. The Trust is also accused of having entered into a contract with Jupiter Insurance Company to insure livestock purchased under the scheme without the authority of the Government Tender Board. As at July 8 2002, LDT had paid over Z$15 million to the company as insurance premiums. Many farmers who experienced livestock deaths have, however, complained that the company has failed to compensate them.
In an undated and unsigned response to the audit, the LDT dismisses the allegations levelled against it as baseless and lacking evidence. The Trust dismisses the audit as having been "motivated by politics". "Some sections of the community are saying that LDT provided cattle to ruling party members, and therefore should be disbanded," reads the response. "It is unrealistic to suggest that a 100 percent success should have been achieved given the fact that this was a huge programme that was to be implemented within a very short time and in a volatile political environment," it adds. Contacted for comment, LDT boss, Forbes Muvirimi defended the programme as having been a success. "It was a huge programme and, therefore, it is not unusual to find a few rough ends in it, but generally the scheme was a success," he said, adding that they had managed to distribute cattle to a significant number of beneficiaries, notwithstanding the "politics" that prevailed at the time. "We actually managed to keep the programme on track. There are instances where I had to cancel the agreements for some influential people who would claim more than the stipulated number," Muvirimi said. There are fears that the livestock loan input scheme, which is supposed to be a revolving fund, may actually grind to a halt owing to serious difficulties in recovering loans from beneficiaries. "The physical addresses of some beneficiaries could not be established because of false addresses provided on agreement forms. This is likely to have a negative impact on the loan recovery strategies," the audit notes. The abuse of the livestock input loan scheme is the latest in a series of breaches of government initiatives designed to buttress the land reform programme. There are widespread reports that senior politicians and influential people have also hijacked the government's agricultural inputs scheme, which was intended to provide new farmers with free seed and fertiliser. Large tracts of acquired farmland lie fallow owing to failure by poor, newly resettled farmers to buy seed in time for the crop |
