|
Archived News
1st July 2003
MDC women call to unite against oppression in Zimbabwe
COSATU lobby Mugabe ouster
ICFTU Africa writes to Mugabe
MDC Encouraged By Cosatu's Signal of Solidarity
Do you know the "mysterious figure", known as "Edward Simms", who chaired the meeting which was taped by Dickens & Madson? We have an artist's impression of this man, done by viewing the poor quality evidence tape, where his face is almost impossible to see consistently on any single frame.
Powell attack on 'tyranny' of Mugabe
SA spurns Powell's plea to do more to end Zim crisis
Airforce chief alleges MDC offered him money
Everything's in short supply but hope
Mugabe in reckless mood may risk a new rigged election
Zim treason trial evidence 'inaudible'
Zimbabwe witness says Tsvangirai tape not doctored
Zimbabwe uses coupon system to thwart black marketeering of fuel
Mugabe heads to Libya for fuel talks
Contaminated water kills 16
Farmers tell of terror in squatter mob siege at ranch
Human rights activist quizzed over prayers
Mugabe leans heavily on rural strongholds to hang on to power
Govt turns to France for fuel
Mugabe gives nation's oil assets to Libya to secure fuel
Zimbabwe opposition lawyers seek treason discharge
Farm family assaulted
Zimbabwe musician tells of torture
Haunting hymns
President targets 3 leaders
Remarks by the President to the Corporate Council on Africa's U.S.-Africa Business Summit
Zimbabwe needs ''roadmap to peace'' - opposition leader
SA betting on French counter to US power
Mugabe risks humiliation to restore Libya fuel deal
Zimbabwean police arrest newspaper editor
Zim police try to search opposition offices
Zimbabwe formally asks UN for food aid
Dispossessed farmers to export maize
More to Zimbabwe than meets the eye
Police sent white farmer to his death
Rich elite prosper in Zimbabwe's economic crisis
Pahad calls on US to show its hand in financing a solution for the Zimbabwe crisis
MDC leader: Don't push too hard
Tsvangirai says Lekota has got it all wrong
Pretoria must engage the MDC in transition
Zimbabwe's brutal police tactics
Zim 'racial slurs' irk US
Powell again calls for "change" in Zimbabwe
Powell to join Bush in SA
Zimbabwe drops charge against judge
MDC leader dreams of freedom
Welcome President Mbeki
Top
From The Scotsman (UK), 25 June
Powell attack on 'tyranny' of Mugabe
Two weeks ahead of President George Bush's first visit to Africa, the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, yesterday unleashed a blistering public broadside against Robert Mugabe. Mr Powell, writing in the opinion pages of the influential New York Times, condemned the "violent misrule" of Zimbabwe' s president and pledged to back the "brave men and women" resisting his "tyranny". He urged Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party and neighbouring South Africa to bring Mr Mugabe to the negotiating table and ease the transition to a new government. In the wake of the Iraq war, where Mr Powell was often at odds with the hawkish policies of the American Right, he appeared to be reasserting his own agenda yesterday. Mr Bush is to visit South Africa for the first time in early July, also stopping in Senegal, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria. Ahead of that trip, Mr Powell - as the first black US Secretary of State - used a highly public forum to put Zimbabwe squarely at the top of the agenda.
It was not the first time Mr Powell had criticised Mr Mugabe's government. Washington has followed Britain's lead with visa restrictions barring travel to the United States by members of Mr Mugabe's inner circle. In recent days, the state-run Herald newspaper has run a series of leaders criticising the US. It said "lies" to justify aggression in Iraq were on the same footing as "lies" about Zimbabwe. Mr Powell described how Zimbabwe's agricultural sector collapsed after Mr Mugabe confiscated commercial farms, "supposedly for the benefits of poor blacks". "But his cynical 'land reform' has chiefly benefited idle party hacks and stalwarts, not landless peasants," Mr Powell wrote. As a result, Zimbabwe's most productive land has been occupied by Zanu loyalists, military officers, "or their wives and friends". Mr Powell's verdict - that the entire Zimbabwean economy is near collapse, the victim of "reckless governmental mismanagement and unchecked corruption", with unemployment of 70 per cent and an inflation rate of 300 per cent - will not come as news to Zimbabweans. For weeks, most petrol stations have lacked supplies. Queues of rusting cars sit abandoned outside garages. Yesterday, the Mugabe government announced that anyone found carrying jerrycans of petrol would be arrested. The measure was justified "to curb the selling of the commodity on the thriving black market". Zimbabwean car owners with enough cash buy containers of fuel on the black market whenever they can, typically for about four times the official pump price. Last year, the government banned foreign exchange bureaux in a bid to stifle the currency black market. Rates for scarce foreign currency have since nearly doubled. This month, carrying large quantities of cash also appears to have become a crime.
The Bush administration - particularly in the wake of the 11 September attacks - had opted to repeat the Clinton administration's hands-off attitude to Zimbabwe. But Mr Powell seemed to signal growing impatience with South Africa's long reluctance to put serious pressure on the Zimbabwean government. Mr Bush, on the heels of approving a multi-billion AIDS funding package aimed partly at Africa, now seems likely to take that message to the South African president, Thabo Mbeki. South Africa and other African countries "can and should play a stronger and more sustained role that fully reflects the urgency of Zimbabwe's crisis", Mr Powell said. "If leaders on the continent do not do more to convince President Mugabe to respect the rule of law and enter into a dialogue with the political opposition, he and his cronies will drag Zimbabwe down until there is nothing left to ruin, and Zimbabwe's implosion will continue to threaten the stability and prosperity of the region." He firmly threw his weight behind the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, whom he compared to the Nobel prize-winning Burmese dissident, Aung San Suu Kyi. Rescuing the people of Zimbabwe, Mr Powell said, was "a worthy and urgent goal for us all".
Top
From The Star (SA), 25 June
SA spurns Powell's plea to do more to end Zim crisis
By Basildon Peta
South Africa will maintain its policies on Zimbabwe despite a strong appeal by US Secretary of State Colin Powell for President Thabo Mbeki's government to play a "stronger and more sustained role" to achieve change in Zimbabwe. Writing in The New York Times yesterday, Powell said South Africa should play a stronger and more sustained role that fully reflected the urgency of the crisis in Zimbabwe and help to achieve change in that country. He also likened opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who spent two weeks in jail recently, to Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent her life fighting the military junta in Myanmar. But Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa said the final solution to the Zimbabwean crisis lay in the hands of Zimbabwe's people themselves. He added there was no need for South Africa to change its policy of quiet diplomacy. "There are well-known, ongoing efforts by South Africa and regional leaders to help the people of Zimbabwe. Those will continue, but in the end the solution to the problems there lies with the Zimbabwean people themselves," said Mamoepa. But Powell made it clear in his article that he wanted to see more African pressure applied on President Robert Mugabe. Declaring that Mugabe's time had "come and gone", Powell said American and European efforts to help achieve change in Zimbabwe would not succeed until South Africa and other African countries applied more pressure on Mugabe. "If leaders on the (African) continent do not do more to convince President Mugabe to respect the rule of law and enter into a dialogue with the political opposition, he and his cronies will drag Zimbabwe down until there is nothing left to ruin," said Powell. He said Mugabe's government was illegitimate and he had no authority to rule after rigging last year's election.
Top
From Business Day (SA), 24 June
Airforce chief alleges MDC offered him money
Harare - The chief of Zimbabwe's airforce claimed on Tuesday he was offered money by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to pacify generals and members of the army in the event of an opposition presidential victory last year. Air Marshal Perence Shiri was testifying in the ongoing treason trial of Morgan Tsvangirai, head of the MDC, and two senior party officials charged with trying to eliminate President Robert Mugabe ahead of last year's presidential poll, which Mugabe won. The charges, which they deny, hinge on a videotape of a meeting Tsvangirai held with Canada-based political consultant, Ari Ben Menashe, during which the MDC leader allegedly requested Mugabe's "elimination" ahead of the 2002 poll. Shiri's name is mentioned on that tape. According to a transcript of the tape, Tsvangirai told the meeting that his shadow minister of defence had met with Zimbabwe's defence minister as well as Shiri and the Zimbabwe army chief, Constantine Chiwenga "to smooth the relationship and lay down our views, that the army has to remain professional." Shiri denied that any such meeting took place, but did say he was approached by two opposition lawmakers in January 2002, after they requested a meeting with him.
Speaking in the local Shona language through a translator, Shiri claimed he had two meetings with the MDC lawmakers. At the second meeting he said Tsvangirai sent his party's deputy secretary-general Welshman Ncube to explain the MDC's policies to him. He also said one of the MDC officials present at the meeting, lawmaker Job Sikhala, offered him 10 million Zimbabwe dollars to win over the country's army generals and the rank and file of the armed forces to an MDC government if it won the election. He said that Sikhala told him that the MDC leader wanted Shiri to be the commander of the armed forces and to play "a pacifying role to war veterans and the armed forces", assuming Tsvangirai won the poll. Veterans of the country's 1970s liberation war against white minority rule are amongst Mugabe's most loyal supporters. "Sikhala pointed out that if I were agreeable to work with the MDC ... the MDC would pay me 10 million Zimbabwe dollars (12,000 dollars)," Shiri told the court. He said he refused the offer.
Like the 79-year-old Mugabe, Shiri is a veteran of the country's 1970s liberation war against white minority rule. A few months ahead of last year's presidential poll, the air marshal was among five of the country's armed forces chiefs who issued a statement suggesting they would never accept a leader who did not possess liberation war credentials. However, in his testimony Shiri denied having a part in that statement, which he said was authored by his superior, the commander of the armed forces, General Vitalis Zvinavashe. Under cross examination by defence lawyer Eric Matinenga, Shiri also denied that the statement was intended to discourage non-war veterans from becoming president. Tsvangirai did not fight in the independence war. The MDC has denied it requested the meeting with Shiri. The opposition party claims the meeting was held at his behest. It also denies offering money to Shiri. Shiri, who has been commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe since 1992, is the eighth witness to testify in the marathon trial, which started in February.
Top
Comment from The Daily Nation (Kenya), 25 June
Everything's in short supply but hope
By Wilf Mbaga
At the beginning of this year, I would queue for three hours to get fuel. A few months ago, I often had to leave my car in the queue overnight. Last week, my car was in the queue for five days - and I never got a drop. Like most Zimbabweans, I am now grounded, unable to move further than I can walk, ride a bicycle or find a rickety, overloaded, dangerous commuter omnibus to carry me. And those are few and far between - the majority of them having been parked in fruitless fuel queues since the beginning of May when Zimbabwe ran out of petrol, diesel and aviation fuel. This is just one more nail in the coffin of life as we used to know it in this beautiful, once prosperous and promising bread-basket of Africa. Annual inflation is currently estimated by economists at 450 per cent, although the official figure is 270 per cent. any salaries have remained static, while most have not increased more than 60-70 per cent at the most. What does that mean at a personal level? The quality of life has deteriorated considerably, leading to a mass exodus of literally millions of Zimbabweans. Whoever has been able to wangle a visa or slip past the authorities in many countries, mainly Britain and South Africa, has gone - most in tears, reluctant to leave the land of their birth but compelled by economic realities and survival instincts. For me, still living in Zimbabwe, it means petrol was Z$74 a litre last year. The pump price is now Z$450. But it is unavailable. So the black market flourishes and petrol goes for around Z$2,000 a litre - if you are lucky. It means that a loaf of bread, which last year cost Z$60, now costs Z$550 - and I have to wait in an unruly queue for several hours to get it. A kilogramme of beef was Z$200 before Christmas, 2002. It now costs Z$3,000 a kilogramme. Our staple diet, maize meal, is also unobtainable in the shops. On the black market street corners, a 10kg bag that used to cost around Z$100 now sells for Z$3,000.
The list of shortages is endless. It includes water, electricity, matches, soap, flour, sugar, margarine, cooking oil, bread, drugs, transport, spare parts, skilled personnel, coal, political tolerance, etc. Although this list comprises daily essentials, two of the most alarming recent additions are seeds and cash. The seed shortage, occasioned by the haphazard and chaotic land reform programme, is ominous for the future. If we don't have seeds to plant today, what shall we eat tomorrow? The last few weeks have seen an unprecedented shortage of cash. Long queues snake their way out of banks and building societies as people queue for hours to withdraw the limited cash available, which is now rationed to between Z$5,000 and Z$30,000. depending on the institution. Last week, the Central Bank announced a plan to start printing Z$1,000 bills. But, with the shortage of foreign currency to import the paper and ink, it will cost them as much if not more to source the raw materials as the notes will be worth when they come into circulation. How has Zimbabwe, with its sophisticated infrastructure, educated population, rich natural resources and good soils, ended up as a basketcase in so short a time? For starters, there has been economic mismanagement, serious corruption and lack of political will to legislate for an open economy. Politically - plain bad government is to blame. President Robert Mugabe's 2002 election victory has been widely challenged as fraudulent. Dr Mugabe has aged and is widely believed to have run out of ideas about how to fix the problems. He uses draconian legislation and his still loyal police and army to bludgeon the people into line and keep a lid on any discontent. A fortnight ago, 2,000 women praying peacefully in the centre of Harare were accosted by baton-wielding police and beaten mercilessly. Police brutality and State-sponsored violence have increased since 2001.
So there is a shortage of everything in Zimbabwe - including solutions to our problems. The only things increasing in supply are unemployment, inflation, arrests of human rights activists, journalists and lawyers, wild-cat strikes and heightened political frustration and discontent. In the economic meltdown, shortages of electricity, water and coal, many industries have been forced to close down or operate a short week, putting more hungry, and angry, people onto the streets. But ironies abound. Supermarket shelves, instead of being laden with local, affordable produce, as they always used to be, are now stocked with imported luxury substitutes, such as powdered milk and tinned cream, Australian butter and French perfumes - way beyond the reach of any ordinary Zimbabwean. With the foreign currency to procure these items being obtained on the black market at around Z$2,500 - Z$3,000 a US dollar, the prices in Zimbabwe dollars inevitably have many zeros. I certainly have never been able to purchase these goods. Zimbabweans, however, are a resilient bunch and the current problems, although of tragic proportions, have given rise to a certain "graveside" sense of humour. There is the one about a guy who goes shopping with a wheelbarrow full of Zimbabwe dollars. On the way to the shop, he is mugged - the muggers overturn the barrow, tip out the cash and make off with the wheelbarrow! Or the one about the fellow who used to go shopping with a wallet in his pocket and would come out pushing a trolley full of goods. Now he has to take a trolley full of money and can fit the few groceries into his pocket! However, Zimbabwe's increasing problems are no laughing matter. As the saying goes, "The darkest hour is before dawn." And the one thing in plentiful supply in Zimbabwe is hope.
Mr Mbaga is a veteran Zimbabwean journalist
Top
Comment from ZWNEWS, 25 June
Mugabe in reckless mood may risk a new rigged election
By Michael Hartnack
Signs are that Zimbabwe may be headed for a parliamentary election within the next few months, creating serious dilemmas for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and for South African President Thabo Mbeki. An election would also present Robert Mugabe with grave problems, but in his present devil-may-care mood he may not grasp the risks of calling a third consecutive national ballot. Mbeki has made unguarded remarks about Mugabe's possible retirement before the end of his term in 2008, and Mugabe has been warning supporters at rallies to prepare now for polling for the 120 elected seats. He nominates a further 30. A parliamentary general election is not due until mid-2005, but Mugabe has the legal right to call one at any time before then. The attraction of a snap election for Mugabe and his Zanu PF party would be the chance of getting Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change down below the threshold of 50 of the 150 parliamentary seats, at which it is currently able to veto constitutional change. If the level of rigging and naked intimidation at the June 2000 general election and subsequent by-elections, and at the March 2002 presidential election is anything to go by, this reduction seems to be eminently feasible - superficially. Mugabe may also feel an increase in Zanu PF seats would silence claims he lacks a moral mandate to govern. Principally, Zanu PF wants constitutional amendments so if 79-year-old Mugabe dies, resigns or is incapacitated, it does not have to hold a fresh presidential election within 90 days, but may appoint a successor to complete his six-year term.
The first point worth noting is that Mugabe has a subtly different agenda from his politburo and party. He has kept himself in power for the last 23 years by dangling carrots of patronage. Refilling his store of patronage and destroying civil society were the twin motives for seizing 5 000 white-owned farms. If the constitution is amended, he will be able to dangle the juiciest carrot of all - the succession. Given half a chance, he will behave like some will-wagging Victorian dowager pretending to favour first one child then another. The independently-owned Daily News last week reported that Parliamentary Speaker Emmerson Mnanagagwa - a former head of the secret police and justice minister - is in line to take over within a year, with Mugabe's approval. It would be wise to regard both this time scale and the suggested heir with great scepticism. Mnangagwa comes from the southern Karanga section of the Shona people. Their feuds with northern clans go back long before the arrival of the whites. It would be in keeping with past tactics for Mnangagwa to be strung along until he has steered the amendment through Parliament, then dumped. At one time, Mugabe's favourite seemed to be Sydney Sekeramayi - now, significantly, Minister of Defence - who is linked to a powerful faction including former army commander Solomon Mujuru. Sekeramayi has with brutal thoroughness turned his Marondera home area into a virtual one-party state.
If they are allowed any say, party rank and file will eschew an autocrat for an apparently amenable personality whose weakness might guarantee consensus politics. Another faction of reckless ultra-sycophants who know they are expendable want Mugabe to cling at any cost. Mugabe himself believes that while he has health and strength, he has complete power to control - or suspend - the selection process. However, a general election would set all these factions at each others' throats. All the speculation about Mugabe's choice of successor underlines that he and Zanu PF probably do not grasp the scale on which the MDC might mobilise the nation on one single, simple, overriding issue: selection of the next president not being left as an internal Zanu PF matter. The MDC may tell voters their one chance of escaping 25 years of Mnangagwa, Sekeramayi, or worse, is to cast their ballots against Zanu PF. Passions might be roused to such an extent that the election result becomes unriggable. If polling takes place amid another epidemic of intimidation and blatant fraud, Mbeki's election dilemma will be whether or not lamely to recognise the result as "a legitimate reflection of opinion", as he did the March 2002 vote for Mugabe. Every travesty of democratic norms in Zimbabwe embarrasses Mbeki more and more with the international community. Another chaotic election will remind bankers and finance ministers that South Africa has what they see as a satellite state, which according to the World Economic Forum meeting in Durban last week is one of the worst examples of misgovernance.
The MDC's dilemma would be whether to fight with their funds depleted, their leaders locked up and harassed by the security police, or to boycott the whole sordid business. Some MDC members strongly advise a boycott, declaring that the certain loss of life and waste of money cannot be justified while the police, the youth militia, the ex-guerilla "war veterans" and Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede continue inventing and breaking the rules with complete impunity. Others in the MDC tell me they have evolved strategies which, they believe, would enable to party to make a good showing regardless of dirty tactics. They feel that, whatever happens, Mugabe and his heirs must not be able by default to turn the country into a self-perpetuating dictatorship. They want to show the world there is a voice of protest trying to be heard, even if the voice is strangled into a scream. Mugabe appears in utterly reckless mood and indifferent to the perils of holding an election. The detention of Tsvangirai, on flimsy new charges, and the stage-managing on June 13 of four hangings in the prison complex where he was being held indicate a regime that is immune to reason. MDC justice spokesman David Coltart believes the hangings were a calculated show of brute force to warn Tsvangirai what may happen to him if the state can contrive to have him convicted on either of the treason charges he now faces. However things turn out - and we are entering a time of dangerous instability - Mugabe will conceive a general election as a crafty delaying tactic, a rear-guard action.
Top
From AFP, 25 June
Zim treason trial evidence 'inaudible'
Key evidence produced in the treason trial of Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was "inaudible," a government recording expert told the court Wednesday. Constantine Musango, a court official tasked with making transcripts of recorded evidence, was appearing as a state witness in the ongoing treason trial of Tsvangirai and two other senior Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) officials accused of plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe. The evidence against the three hinges on secretly recorded tapes of meetings Tsvangirai had with Canada-based political consultant Ari Ben-Menashe, at which Tsvangirai allegedly requested Mugabe's "elimination" ahead of 2002 presidential elections. Musango said he was not given an original copy of an audio tape of a meeting Tsvangirai held with Ben Menashe in London, while the images on a videotape of a meeting he had with him in December 2001 were unclear. He said he had brought his concerns about the inaudibility of the tapes to the attention of the government's law office, which is representing the state against the MDC trio. "I just wanted to explain to them the tapes were inaudible," Musango said. "The impression I got from the Attorney General was that I should go ahead in transcribing." Defense lawyer Chris Andersen claimed police had suppressed information. He said an original, clearer audiotape had not been turned over to Musango or the Attorney General's office. Tsvangirai, MDC Secretary General Welshman Ncube, and senior party official Renson Gasela deny they plotted to kill Mugabe, and claim they were set up. They face the death penalty if convicted.
Top
From Reuters, 25 June
Zimbabwe witness says Tsvangirai tape not doctored
By Stella Mapenzauswa
Harare - A state witness in the trial of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Wednesday he had found no evidence that a videotape in which Tsvangirai allegedly plots President Robert Mugabe's assassination had been tampered with. Tsvangirai and two senior members of his Movement for Democratic Change could face the death penalty if convicted of the treason charges, which they all deny. The state's case against the three rests mainly on a videotape of a meeting in Montreal between Tsvangirai and Canadian-based political consultant Ari Ben-Menashe during which the state alleges that Mugabe's ''elimination'' was discussed. The defence says the videotape was doctored to discredit the MDC, but Edward Chinhoyi, a technical expert at state broadcaster ZBC, said he had found no evidence of interference when police called him in to examine the video. ''On the number of times that I watched the video I did not see any evidence of any break in the recording and in my opinion the picture flow was continuous,'' Chinhoyi told High Court judge Paddington Garwe. ''I did not see any time when there was a jump in the clock time (on the video) which would mean that it had been broken by editing,'' he added. The defence team will have the opportunity to cross-examine Chinhoyi, and is likely to call its own technical experts. Ben-Menashe, challenged as an unreliable witness by the defence, denies entrapping Tsvangirai but admits he taped the meeting solely to obtain evidence for the government -- with which he consequently signed a political lobby contract. Tsvangirai is currently on bail and faces a second treason charge that he tried to instigate the overthrow of Mugabe's government through mass protests staged by the MDC this month. The MDC leader has mounted a court challenge to Mugabe's victory in a 2002 presidential poll which the opposition and Western governments condemned as fraudulent. Zimbabwe has chronic shortages of fuel and foreign exchange, one of the highest rates of inflation in the world and a food crisis affecting half of its population.
Top
From Business Report (SA), 25 June
Zimbabwe uses coupon system to thwart black marketeering of fuel
By Sapa-DPA
Harare - The Zimbabwe government on Wednesday introduced fuel coupons for commuter taxis and minibuses. The move follows an announcement that the state is to ban all vehicles from carrying petrol and diesel in containers to prevent black marketeering. Energy minister Amos Midzi said some commuter crews were no longer plying their routes and were instead buying fuel at filling stations reserved for them by government order and then reselling the commodity at profits of up to 500 percent. Most filling stations serving the general public have had no stocks for the past month, and have had only erratic supplies for the past four years as Zimbabwe's economy collapses along with foreign currency earnings for imports. On Tuesday Midzi's deputy, Rueben Marumahoko, announced that police at road blocks would search for and seize containers with fuel, although there is no legal basis for their doing this. The independently-owned Daily News Wednesday described the seizure threat as "desperate", protesting it would make it impossible for motorists to rescue vehicles that had run out of fuel using borrowed supplies. Midzi announced in a statement that commuter minibuses would be able to buy one tankful of fuel a day, irrespective of the size of the tank, with a card obtainable from the government on production of full documentation. No similar rationing system has been announced for private motorists. Midzi said ration cards were already being distributed. In addition to seizing fuel containers, police have been seizing sums of cash they deem to be unlawful since a shortage of 500 dollar notes hit the country. The notes, worth only 25 US cents in terms of real purchasing power, are the largest denomination in circulation as runaway inflation reaches 300 percent, according to conservative official figures.
Top
From SABC News, 25 June
Mugabe heads to Libya for fuel talks
Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe president and several government officials left for Libya this afternoon, to hold discussions about the supply of fuel to the country, state radio said. "Negotiations with Libyan authorities are expected to centre on the provision of more fuel to Zimbabwe," the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) reported. Libya supplied Zimbabwe with 70% of its fuel needs before the supply line was cut after Zimbabwe failed to keep its side of a bargain to supply Libya with sugar, tobacco and beef in return. Since then fuel of all types has been critically short. However, this month, the government claimed that the fuel deal had been resumed, and that Libya was going to continue supplying Zimbabwe with fuel at the end of June. The radio said Mugabe was leading "a high-powered delegation" to the north African country, and that he would hold talks with President Muammar Gaddafi ahead of the African Union summit due to take place next month. Zimbabwe has been experiencing erratic fuel supplies for the past three years due to a shortage of foreign currency needed to import it. The situation has become worse in recent months, with most fuel stations unable to serve the scarce commodity. The Zimbabwe government has come up with restrictions to try and curb the sale of existing scarce supplies on the black market at exorbitant rates. Yesterday it banned motorists from carrying fuel in containers, and today it said public transporters would now have to obtain fuel using coupons.
Top
From News24 (SA), 25 June
Contaminated water kills 16
Harare - Sixteen people, nine of them children, have died from drinking contaminated water in Zimbabwe's northern town of Chinhoyi, state radio reported on Tuesday. The report said nine children had been "brought in dead from their homes", adding to seven people already dead from an outbreak of diarrhoea in the town, 115km northwest of Harare. Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation quoted a medical official in the town as saying the diarrhoea was believed to have been caused by contaminated drinking water. Several schools in the town have been affected by the outbreak of the water-borne disease, with one school reporting 50 children sick, said ZBC. Zimbabwe has a shortage of foreign currency, needed to import the chemicals to properly treat municipal water supplies.
Top
From Daily Telegraph (UK), 24 June
Farmers tell of terror in squatter mob siege at ranch
Beit Bridge district, southern Zimbabwe - Sam Cawood, a rancher in southern Zimbabwe, appeared at a police station on the South African border last week, accused of assault, days after he was besieged in his farm by a mob baying for his blood. He never fired his weapon, a pepper spray, but policemen loyal to the ruling Zanu PF charged him anyway. The public prosecutor in Beit Bridge refused to proceed with the case against the 75-year-old and ordered police to carry out "further investigations". Most of Mr Cawood's farming neighbours have gone, and the cattle lands and wild-life conservancies are now derelict, game has been eaten, and "settlers", as the squatters are euphemistically called, are living on land seized from whites. There is little food. While the bulk of commercial farms have long since been taken over by President Mugabe's supporters, a hardy and determined group of white farmers still cling to their land in outlying areas, bringing continuing attacks from the squatters. The Cawoods' house, 35 miles north of the South African border, had earlier been surrounded by a gang of about 18 "settlers" screaming at the couple to come out of their homestead. "They shouted that they wanted to rape my wife," Mr Cawood said yesterday. "They wanted to kill me. They beat up our staff. They got into the ceilings to find us. We were terrified." As the squatters rampaged through the homestead, they came to a locked door and asked what it was. "We heard our staff say it was a cupboard, and for some reason they moved on," Mr Cawood said. He and his wife Janet, 71, had dashed into the only room in the house with a key, a bathroom close to a radio network, linking them to their son 40 miles north, and sent out distress messages. Police reached them 32 hours after the house was surrounded and later described the incident as a "peaceful demonstration". The Cawoods emerged from the ordeal physically unscathed but three of their workers were assaulted.
Sam and Janet Cawood, he a land surveyor, and she a chartered accountant, both South African born, left their birthplace during the apartheid regime, and settled in the then gentler political climate of Southern Rhodesia more than 50 years ago. The Cawoods, and most farmers in southern Matabeleland province, initially escaped Mr Mugabe's fury, when he launched land invasions in early 2000 after he lost a referendum. But it came, a year later, and the districts crumbled quickly. The 20,000-acre ranch can, with good management, support up to 900 cattle. Mr Cawood could store 650,000 gallons of water at any one time across the paddocks. Now only one pump is working, and water storage is down to 10,000 gallons a day for the Cawoods, their workers, the "settlers" and their cattle. Pumps have been broken as much by ignorance of the largely illiterate "settlers" as through pressure to force him to leave. More than 300 miles of fencing was stolen from the intensively paddocked farm, and 2,500 wild animals, among them cheetah, leopard and giraffe, have been snared and eaten. The Cawoods' cattle - and they had what was probably the largest privately owned brahman breeding herd in Africa - were forced off by the "settlers" and sent to the abattoirs. In their place are a few hundred tick-ridden "settler" cattle which brought foot and mouth to the area after 50 clean years. Mrs Cawood said: "I hate the destruction. It will affect generations. I don't know if we can ever recover, but I cannot go, go where?" Charges against her for pointing a pistol, which was actually a pepper spray, at squatters were withdrawn two years ago. Her husband was jailed for a night 18 months ago, and released on bail for remaining on his farm "illegally". Their eldest daughter, Jean, 46, chased off her farm 55 miles north of Harare, has been jailed once and attacked repeatedly. Their son, Brian, 45, is on bail on two charges, one of attempted murder, and the other for staying in his farmhouse beyond the date of his eviction. A second daughter and husband, also ranchers, gave up and went to New Zealand 20 months ago. After they left Sam Cawood went to collect their cattle. Many were too weak to be moved after "settlers" cut the water off a week earlier. He was then accused, but not charged by police of cruelty to animals because he was forced to slit their throats.
Top
From The Daily News, 25 June
Human rights activist quizzed over prayers
Staff Reporter
Masvingo Police in Masvingo have summoned and quizzed former Zimbabwe Council of Churches human rights regional chairman Sonykis Chimbuya over prayers that are allegedly anti-government. Chimbuya, a reverend with the Church of Christ in Masvingo, was summoned to the Criminal Investigations Departmentıs Law and Order Section last week and ordered to desist from saying prayers that are political. He was released without being charged. Chimbuya said yesterday: "I was ordered not to say prayers which are political. They even told me that I should write down my prayers for them to scrutinise. They took my curriculum vitae and warned me to be careful with my prayers." Police in Masvingo yesterday confirmed that they questioned Chimbuya but declined to give details. Chimbuya said he was not a political activist but a preacher. "I just believe in peace and unity in the country," he said. "Our church is full of both MDC and Zanu PF supporters and we do not talk about that in the church." Sources said the police seem to have been concerned that Chimbuya was invited to pray before a rally which was addressed by opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) officials. The clergyman has also been invited to pray at functions organised by the militant Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Chimbuya said his mere presence at such functions did not mean that he was an MDC activist. "I am just shocked. I have been invited to minister even at Zanu PF functions but that does not mean that I support that party", he said.
Top
From The Cape Times, (SA), 26 June
Mugabe leans heavily on rural strongholds to hang on to power
By Cris Chinaka
Shurugwi - President Robert Mugabe usually appears stiff and combative in public, his ramrod posture ever more pronounced in the face of a deepening political and economic crisis. But the 79-year-old leader relaxed a little at a rally of his ruling Zanu PF party this month - cracking jokes, and diving into a crowd of cheering supporters for handshakes. The bunting, political posters and party songs all carried one message: Mugabe is counting on his rural power base to head off a rising opposition challenge from the urban areas. "We have faith in you," he told about 20 000 supporters, made up largely of poor peasant farmers in Shurugwi, 350km south of Harare. In the last month Mugabe has returned repeatedly to his rural strongholds to display his muscle as the opposition piles pressure in urban areas with strikes and street protests to drive him from power. It is not an unexpected political strategy for a politician who cut his teeth as a guerrilla leader. "Zanu PF planted its roots in the rural areas during the liberation struggle and it has maintained very strong ties with the rural people ever since," said political analyst Heneri Dzinotyiwei, a professor at the University of Harare. "These are difficult times for Zanu PF which is naturally going back to fight from its strong bases," he said of rural Zimbabwe, where at least 60% of the population live.
The Shurugwi rally provided a glimpse of how Mugabe intends to play the game. The gathering included hundreds of members of the youth brigades, generally called "Green Bombers" and seen by Mugabe's critics as his party's eyes, ears - and fists - in the countryside. Accused of repression by his political opponents, Mugabe was careful to urge his young supporters to end violence in their campaign for Zanu PF, saying the ruling party was the custodian of the law and its activists had to be disciplined. But there was no doubt here about how the party is organised - with a mixture of military and civilian structures deeply rooted in Zimbabwe's 1970s independence war. For many party loyalists, the rally was a call to arms. Mugabe urged resourcefulness in tackling Zimbabwe's mounting problems, including food and fuel shortages, runaway inflation and one of the highest rates of HIV/Aids in the world. He also took a sharp swipe at Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), who stands accused on two counts of treason, for allegedly seeking to assassinate Mugabe and organising his party's predominantly urban supporters in protests and strikes against the government. "Tsvangirai is trying to live his wild dream of marching to State House at the urging of his British sponsors. That will not be allowed," Mugabe said. Mugabe blames his country's political and economic problems on sabotage by Western and domestic opponents opposed to his controversial seizures of white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks.
While participants in the rally sang cheerfully along in the Shona language to such Zanu PF anthems as Mugabe is the Man and We are Ready to Die for Zimbabwe, outside the rural parade grounds the atmosphere was a little less upbeat. Villagers said privately that life had become harder in the past year as the foreign currency shortages afflicting the country had left medicine cupboards bare in rural clinics, among other scarcities. Along the road to Shurugwi, through Zimbabwe's gold- and chrome-mining belt, villagers battling with a crisis that has seen inflation soar to 300% - one of the highest in the world - are resorting to gold panning and selling the results through both legal and illegal routes. Traditional chiefs told Mugabe that they were still assessing the district's farming output this year, but were sure that some families would need food aid. Nearly half of Zimbabwe's population has been surviving on donated food over the past year after a collapse in the farming sector blamed on drought and the seizures of commercial farms by the government.
But there was little overt criticism. "We know things could be better but we also know that they are going to get better if we work harder and remain united," said a 55-year-old villager, repeating almost verbatim the official government line on Zimbabwe's problems and prospects. "I don't belong to the MDC and so I don't believe that Mugabe and Zanu PF are the causes of our problems," he said before walking away. The MDC - which has challenged Mugabe's re-election in 2002 polls that were criticised as rigged by several Western governments - learned the hard way what happens to those who do blame the veteran leader for the country's woes. The party's attempt to organise a "final push" of street protests against Mugabe ended with hundreds of arrests as Zanu PF bussed in thousands of youth brigades and its rural supporters into towns to help the army and police to snuff out anti-government marches. Mugabe ended the rally with promises that he has made at half a dozen other gatherings across the country in the past month - vowing to boost social welfare and address local woes. Then he boarded a helicopter and headed back to town, leaving the rural people to ponder their increasingly desperate lives.
Top
From The Zimbabwe Independent, 27 June
Govt turns to France for fuel
Dumisani Muleya
Government has turned to the French oil giant TotalFinaElf to stem the deepening fuel crisis as the country lurches towards the most critical shortage yet, it has emerged. Official sources said yesterday government was seeking a deal with TotalFinaElf to supply the country with 35% of its fuel needs. This emerged as President Robert Mugabe this week renewed his hunt for fuel in Libya. Mugabe, who last year said the fuel problem was giving him "headaches and stomach pains", left for Tripoli on Wednesday in a bid to resuscitate the frozen US$360 million fuel deal with Libya's Tamoil, first signed two years ago. The deal has been on ice because Zimbabwe is unable to pay. Sources said Mugabe was likely to return from Libya empty-handed unless he mortgages what his government has classified as "strategic assets" as part of the deal. Tamoil has been demanding specific assets before it agrees to revive the arrangement that guarantees Zimbabwe a year's supply of fuel. The Libyans, who last visited Zimbabwe in May in connection with the fuel wrangle, want to acquire Noczim's 50% equity in Petrozim, which it jointly owns with Lonrho. Noczim is asking US$100 million while the Libyans are prepared to pay only US$48 million. Tamoil, which is owed over US$60 million by government, also wants to acquire vital fuel infrastructure before any deal is done. They want to buy the Mutare-Harare pipeline and Msasa depot and acquire service stations as part of the arrangement. The government is reluctant to release the assets because of the deadlock over the price. Before Mugabe left for Libya with a large delegation of government officials, bankers and fuel sector representatives, a meeting was held by stakeholders on Monday at the Jewel Bank's executive chambers. Sources said the asset-mortgaging issue loomed large at the meeting. Efforts to get comment from Jewel Bank chief executive Gideon Gono yesterday were unsuccessful as he was said to be in Libya.
Sources said government is now hoping against hope that TotalFinaElf will help it out of the crisis that has been lingering since 1999. "We understand government has been in touch with TotalFinaElf for a fuel supply deal," an industry source said. "It appears there has been a gentleman's agreement on the issue although there are still things that need to be sorted out first." Stanislas Mittelman, TotalFinaElf Zimbabwe chief executive, and the company's marketing and public affairs director Stanley Hatendi were not available for comment yesterday. The TotalFinaElf group is currently developing a US$3,4 billion oil project in Angola. Angola's state-owned Sonangol, the concessionaire, recently authorised TotalFinaElf to tender key contracts for the development of the Dalia oil field, which includes 34 production wells, 30 water injection wells and three gas injection wells. The multinational has already launched the project capable of processing 240 000 barrels of oil per day. The Dalia floating production storage and offloading facility will have a storage capacity of two million barrels of oil. Government has been trying to entice TotalFinaElf, which is partly Belgian-owned, to enter into a deal. It has sold the company the country's largest storage facilities at Beitbridge. Now the government is in the process of selling its 51% stake in the vital Oil Blending Enterprises Ltd (Obel) which supplies lubricants. Total already controls 49% of Obel. Zimbabwe has been trying to source fuel from Angola for some time now. Angola, the second largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria, is pumping 760 000 barrels a day from its vast offshore oil fields. The government has also been trying to secure fuel from Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Sudan, Iran, South Africa, Botswana, and Nigeria.
Top
From The Independent (UK), 27 June
Mugabe gives nation's oil assets to Libya to secure fuel
By Basildon Peta, Southern Africa Correspondent
The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has mortgaged strategic oil assets to Libya in a desperate attempt to obtain fuel and overcome unprecedented shortages in his embattled country. The Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, has reportedly long wanted Zimbabwe's oil facilities as part of his plans to set up his own "imperial economic empire" in Africa. The assets, consisting of an oil pipeline that runs from Mozambique's port of Beira to Zimbabwe's eastern city of Mutare, and world-class oil blending and fuel storage facilities in Harare, will enable Col Gaddafi to supply fuel to other southern and central African countries, such as Zambia, Malawi, Botswana, Swaziland, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Mozambique. After African leaders rejected Col Gaddafi's attempt to merge Africa's 53 countries into one with him as the likely leader of a "United States of Africa". Col Gaddafi has continued to try to use his oil wealth to gain more influence around Africa. Zimbabwean oil industry officials described President Mugabe's current visit to Tripoli as a "do-or-die" mission for the leader.
Mr Mugabe is trying to revive an earlier fuel deal with Col Gaddafi that stalled last year when Zimbabwe failed to keep its side of the arrangement, after the government's seizures of white farms led to the collapse of agriculture revenues. Col Gaddafi immediately discontinued supplying fuel products to Zimbabwe in the middle of last year, plunging Zimbabwe into a crisis that has worsened by the day. The original US$360m (£217m) deal had been expected to last until the end of August this year, had Mr Mugabe kept up payments. But Mr Mugabe's pleas for Libya to resume supplies fell on deaf ears as Col Gaddafi demanded more assets from Zimbabwe, particularly the oil assets, and labelled his staunch ally President Mugabe a "bad customer". Oil industry officials say Mr Mugabe had not wanted to hand over these assets because of their critical and strategic importance to Zimbabwe. The oil pipeline is an important national asset because landlocked Zimbabwe does not have the capacity to meet requirements by road or rail. But now Mr Mugabe has run out of options because other countries are unwilling to do business with his government, whose policies have impoverished his once prosperous country. Other suppliers had discontinued supplies because of non-payment, and Mr Gaddafi was the only one helping Zimbabwe with fuel before he turned off the tap.
Before Mr Mugabe left for Tripoli on Tuesday, his government had brought in new fuel-saving measures, including banning motorists from carrying fuel in containers without state permits and introducing coupons for urban transport operators to make "good use" of the little fuel that private importers are able to bring into the country. Officials said Zimbabwe had agreed to mortgage its main oil facilities under the deal with Libyan officials who visited Zimbabwe before Mr Mugabe's departure to Libya. The new asset arrangement plan will settle a bill for US$67m that Mr Mugabe already owes Col Gaddafi, while securing fresh fuel supplies from Libya. Mr Mugabe and Col Gaddafi are expected to seal their private deal during the President's current visit. However, officials said they were nervous that Col Gaddafi, who no longer trusts Zimbabwe, could demand more. "Mugabe and Gaddafi will hopefully tie up all loose ends so the deal can take off," said one official. "It's a do-or-die mission because if the trip somehow fails, then Zimbabwe has no other hope of ever getting fuel from anywhere in the world. All other suppliers have severed ties with us due to our failure to pay."
Top
From SABC News, 26 June
Zimbabwe opposition lawyers seek treason discharge
Defence lawyers in the treason trial of Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said this afternoon, they would ask the court for a discharge, saying the state had not presented enough evidence to make a case. Tsvangirai and two senior members of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) could face the death sentence if convicted of the charges, which stem from an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe last year. All have pleaded not guilty. Chris Anderson, defence lawyer, told the court he did not believe a prima facie case against the three men had been made. The High Court judge said he would hear arguments on the discharge motion from both sides on July 7. Tsvangirai faces an additional treason charge in connection with mass anti-Mugabe protests which his followers mounted earlier this month and which the government said constituted an attempted coup d'etat. He is currently free on bail. In the assassination trial, the state's case against the three rests mainly on a grainy, partly inaudible videotape of a meeting in Montreal between Tsvangirai and Canadian-based political consultant Ari Ben-Menashe during which the prosecution alleges Mugabe's "elimination" was discussed. Yesterday, state witness Edward Chinhoyi, technical and communications manager at state broadcaster ZBC, said he had found no evidence of picture interference when police called him in to view the video. However, under cross-examination today, Chinhoyi conceded that experts in the field could digitally substitute the sound component of a video tape with different audio material. "Technology has made it possible that this can be done," Chinhoyi said. Ben-Menashe has admitted he taped the meeting using surveillance cameras solely to get evidence for the government - with which he consequently signed a political lobbying contract. But he denies entrapping Tsvangirai. The MDC leader has mounted a court challenge to Mugabe's victory in a 2002 presidential election which the opposition and Western governments condemned as fraudulent.
Top
From ZWNEWS, 27 June
Farm family assaulted
A farm manager, his wife and his son were severely assaulted on a farm near Harare earlier this week, farmers' group Justice for Agriculture reported yesterday. On Monday afternoon, at Chitsanza farm, south of Harare, Ronnie Saul was asked by three Zanu PF youths to open the security gate to discuss "important business". He was then attacked by the youths and six others hiding nearby. His hands and feet were bound, and he was slapped and kicked over a period of five hours by the group, which grew in size to almost 40 individuals. Saul is 72 years of age, and had been driven from his own farm in January 2002. His wife Norma, 70, was prevented from leaving the kitchen in the homestead by Zanu PF youth , who were looting the fridge and pantry of food. She eventually managed to phone her son, Jamie Saul, but the phone was grabbed by one of the militia, who instructed him to send an ambulance, saying his mother was "seriously ill". The ambulance arrived, but was turned away at the gate. Jamie went to the farm, but was then also attacked by the militia. His feet and hands were bound with bark rope and wire, severely disrupting his circulation. He was made to kneel, and was then beaten with chains, sticks, fanbelts, and a burning log. He sustained a broken nose, facial lacerations, and severe bruising and burns. His parents tried to protect him from his attackers, and in the process his mother sustained a broken thumb and severe bruising to her arms. The family were eventually "allowed to leave" later than night.
Top
From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 26 June
Zimbabwe musician tells of torture
Pretoria - A Zimbabwean musician who claims to have been tortured by police in his country broke down in tears at a demonstration in Pretoria on Thursday as he recounted his ordeal. Charles Matorera told a protest organised by Amnesty International SA against state cruelty how he was kidnapped in Harare on March 14 by police and armed men in black suits. He claimed he was targeted for recording music denouncing the political situation in his country. "As we were driving, they asked me why I was singing about Zimbabwean President Robert) Mugabe. They described him as a god." Matorera said he was driven at gunpoint to an undisclosed place and locked in a dark room, where he was repeatedly kicked and hit. His assailants wanted information about a mass stayaway planned by the opposition for a few days later.
After the beatings, he was ordered to remove his clothing. "What they did to me then was not as painful as what they said to me." He said he was made fun of and called a "white puppet". He said his torturers were smoking dagga. "What really scared me was what I saw. It was clear I wasn't the first person to be held there. There was blood on the floor and the walls." Matorera said he was woken up several times during the night by men pouring cold water over him. In the morning, he was beaten again. After losing consciousness, he awoke in a moving car. He feigned an epileptic fit, and ran away when the vehicle stopped. Matorera said he walked for about a day before he encountered passers-by who gave him money for transport to South Africa. He is now staying in a Johannesburg safe-house. The musician started sobbing uncontrollably after pulling up his shirt to show his scars. A candle was lit and a moment of silence observed for victims of torture around the world.
Jabulani Mkwanazi, chairman of the South African branches of the Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change, told the meeting that 48 people died at the hands of his country's government in 2001. He said there were also 329 kidnappings or disappearances, 992 cases of unlawful arrest or detention, and 2 245 people who claimed to have been tortured. He urged the South African government to publicly condemn such human rights abuses. The protest called on the United Nations to put pressure on all countries where torture was still taking place. A memorandum to this effect was presented to a representative of the UN's South African office in Pretoria by about 100 protesters carrying posters reading: "Stop torture", and "Down with Mugabe". Other speakers at the event urged South Africa to pass laws enabling it to arrest and prosecute foreign visitors suspected of committing torture. They also called on the African Union to ensure that perpetrators of human rights abuses were brought to book.
Top
From ZWNEWS, 27 June
Haunting hymns
Exiled Zimbabweans, one woman leaning on a crutch, described beatings, stabbings and other forms of brutality by thugs of Robert Mugabe's regime at a service in London on Thursday commemorating the UN International Day of Support for Torture Victims. After the 90-minute service at St. Martins-in-the-Field church in Trafalgar Square, the congregation, including a Zimbabwean choir, walked in procession to the nearby Zimbabwe High Commission, and sang, beat drums and laid flowers in memory of opposition supporters slain by the regime. London office workers and tourists passing by in brilliant sunshine stared, some anxiously, at the colour posters outside the High Commission depicting lacerated torsos, distorted features and beaten skulls, and the words: "Mugabe Regime Perpetrates This - 3 556 Tortured; 574 Abducted and 110 Killed." High Commission staff hastily shut the doors and kept themselves inside behind dirty net curtains and dusty photographs of wild life once used to attract visitors to Zimbabwe.
During the service organised by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum and the Zimbabwe Association, Shona and Ndebele anthems mixed with traditional English hymns. While the choir sang the hauntingly beautiful Ndebele hymn Tinochema Nhai Baba (We Cry Father), a speaker declared against the background of the descants: "Let's stand and fight another liberation struggle." The service opened with the Shona hymn Nguva yakanakisa - which celebrates the moment of reunion with loved ones who have died. Among the testimonies, Givemore Chindawi, an opposition activist since he was a plastics technology student at the Bulawayo Technical College, described finding the decomposing remains of his father, and the constant warnings that he would suffer the same fate. From a brave widow's house in Bulawayo's Magwegwe suburb, Chindawi continued distributing MDC T-shirts and other materials and campaigning for the party. He fled in July 2001 after being severely beaten by Zanu PF thugs and threatened with death. "The pressure now is on Mugabe's regime," said Chindawi. "He is having sleepless nights."
In a testimony read by his sister, broadcaster Georgina Godwin, Zimbabwean writer Peter Godwin described visiting his mother in hospital in Harare during the MDC protest stayaway in early June. "The nearby beds began to fill with black Zimbabwean women, their legs and arms broken, their heads crunched by the rifle butts of the soldiers and police, their clothes still infused with acrid fumes of teargas," wrote Godwin. He now lives in the United States and departed soon afterward. As his plane left Harare airport he saw three helicopters lifting from a nearby airbase, ready to rain teargas, and to call in police, army, military and Zanu PF youths to beat and imprison protesters. "As we soared away I felt the profound guilt of those who escape," Godwin added. "But there is much we can do even from a distance. We can ensure that our diaspora does not become dispersed and diluted. That we remain exiles and not emigrants. That we amplify the suffering and the bravery of those in the front line as democracy battles dictatorship...That here there is no smoke screen of anarchy within which to hide the appalling misdeeds of a desperate regime. That we tell the world there is no longer a middle ground in this struggle."
Top
From The Salt Lake Tribune (US), 27 June
President targets 3 leaders
By Bob Deans, Cox News Service
Washington - Condemning tyranny across Africa, President Bush called Thursday for new governments in the war-ravaged states of Liberia and Congo and warned that democracy was "under assault" in Zimbabwe. Bush said Liberia's president, former rebel leader Charles Taylor, should resign, after running the impoverished country's economy aground and sparking political unrest that has brought renewed fighting to the capital city of Monrovia. "President Taylor needs to step down, so that his country can be spared further bloodshed," Bush said in advance of his July trip to Africa. Under the terms of a cease-fire accord, Taylor agreed earlier this month to resign. He has since threatened to renege, igniting a populist revolt. Bush urged central African states to join him in pressing for the establishment of an interim government by June 30 in the Congo, as a first step toward democratic rule in a country where more than 3 million have died in five years of war involving nine neighboring nations. Bush stopped short of demanding the resignation of Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe. He made it clear, though, that he wants the aging strongman gone. "The freedom and dignity of the nation is under assault," said Bush. "I urge all nations, including the nations of Africa, to encourage a return to democracy in Zimbabwe." Bush launched his broadside on the leaders of Liberia, Congo and Zimbabwe in a speech Thursday at a meeting of the Corporate Council on Africa. The group represents businesses that account for around 85 percent of U.S. investment in Africa.
Top
From The White House, 27 June
Remarks by the President to the Corporate Council on Africa's U.S.-Africa Business Summit
The relevant extract from the speech...
"The third great goal of our partnership with Africa is to help African nations develop vibrant, free economies through aid and trade. Wealthy nations have a responsibility to provide foreign aid. We have an equal duty to make sure that aid is effective, by rewarding countries that embrace reform and freedom. Too often in the past, development assistance has been squandered or used to prop up corrupt regimes. The world needs a new approach to foreign aid - and America is leading the way with the Millennium Challenge Account. Under my proposal, money will go to developing nations whose governments are committed to three broad strategies: First, they must rule justly. Second, they must invest in the health and education of their people. And third, they must have policies that encourage economic freedom. To fund this account, I've proposed a 50-percent increase in America's core development assistance over the next three years. And I urge the United States Congress to give full support to the Millennium Challenge Account. Corrupt regimes that give nothing to their people deserve nothing from us. Governments that serve their people deserve our help, and we will provide that help. Many African leaders are currently pledged to the path of political and economic reform. That shared commitment is expressed in the standards of NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa's Development. Yet those standards are mocked by some on the continent, such as the leader of Zimbabwe, where the freedom and dignity of the nation is under assault. I urge all nations, including the nations of Africa, to encourage a return to democracy in Zimbabwe."
Top
From Reuters, 27 June
Zimbabwe needs ''roadmap to peace'' - opposition leader
By Stella Mapenzauswa
Harare - Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis will continue unless President Robert Mugabe sets a ''roadmap to peace'' that includes a re-run of the disputed 2002 election, the country's main opposition leader said. Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai told Reuters in an interview that U.S. President George W. Bush's visit to Africa would put new pressure on Mugabe to accept political change. ''For the Zimbabwean agenda it is very important to welcome President Bush's presence in the region. Zimbabwe is again part of the international radar because of his presence,'' Tsvangirai said late on Thursday. ''We expect, of course, political and diplomatic pressure to apply and...we will do everything in our power to make sure that a clear road map to peace in Zimbabwe is presented to the American government during the visit,'' he said. Bush is due to visit Senegal, South Africa, Botswana, Uganda and Nigeria on his first trip to Africa from July 7-12. While Zimbabwe is not on Bush's itinerary, it seems sure to figure in his talks with African leaders. In a speech in Washington on Thursday, Bush said it was ''time to encourage a return to democracy'' in Zimbabwe, while Secretary of State Colin Powell has urged Zimbabwe's neighbours to pressure Mugabe to cede power to a transitional government.
Tsvangirai said the MDC - which has launched a court challenge to Mugabe's 2002 victory in presidential polls which several Western governments say were rigged - was still willing to talk to Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party. ''The first thing is that we are committed to dialogue, to negotiations. If the outcome of those negotiations is a transitional government or a government of national unity so be it,'' he said. But the veteran trade union leader, who was jailed for two weeks this month after MDC supporters staged huge anti-Mugabe protests, said the country's political turmoil would likely continue until new elections are held. ''I'm very confident that the resolution of the Zimbabwe crisis cannot be achieved unless there is a re-run of elections...to restore a legitimate government in this country.'' Mugabe insists that he won fairly in 2002 and says the MDC is a puppet of former colonial power Britain which will only rule in Zimbabwe ''over our dead bodies.'' Tsvangirai said Mugabe had thwarted a regional initiative mounted by South Africa, Nigeria and Malawi to resolve Zimbabwe's crisis, which has driven the economy near collapse. Once an African economic star, Zimbabwe now battles chronic food and fuel shortages and inflation riding at 300 percent, one of the highest rates in the world. ''We have had so many initiatives nationally, regionally and internationally all coming to naught,'' Tsvangirai said. ''Mugabe is not sincere. He's the one who's shooting one initiative against the other... It also reflects the extent to which the African leaders have a leverage over Mugabe.''
Top
From Business Day (SA), 28 June
SA betting on French counter to US power
Jonathan Katzenellenbogen, International Affairs editor
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who ends his three-day visit to SA today, is likely not to say anything in public that is critical of Zimbabwe. De Villepin rose to prominence for mounting a hard but futile diplomatic effort to prevent US military action in Iraq and he is not about to stick out his neck on "regime change" in Harare. The talks with his SA counterpart, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, covered "everything", according to a French diplomat, a clear sign that this visit was about placing down broad political markers. His visit followed that of UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and preceded a visit by US President George Bush. While they pledged co-operation in Africa, Franco-British jostling continues and gave the trip a greater urgency after Straw's recent visit. Of all the world powers, France has demonstrated a consistent, high-level focus on the continent, and there is no sign that this is wavering. It is intent on making diplomatic and commercial headway into the Anglophone countries. And for SA that alone is important, although SA as a regional power will from time to time have to seek to rival French influence.
The absence of a tough public line on Zimbabwe will place SA officials at ease with De Villepin. By not highlighting the issue, France is able to get closer to African governments and potentially provide an alternative channel for dialogue. But this sort of opportunism has its risks and costs. A future government in Zimbabwe may want to have little to do with the French. The French manoeuvred the European Union into allowing a temporary lifting of a travel ban to allow President Robert Mugabe to attend the Franco-African Summit. Clearly France was unprepared to have the event scuttled by African leaders refusing to attend because Mugabe was barred. Considering that France supplied the apartheid government with fighter aircraft and submarines, the ruling African National Congress is particularly well disposed towards Paris. In some ways that shows the adeptness of France's Africa policy and its standing on the continent.
But the world outlook against a superpower-dominated world also helps. SA took the French line towards the Iraq war, in insisting on more time for the inspectors and opposing military action. Over and again France has shown a heavy commitment to supporting and intervening in its old colonies. When the peacekeeping force put together from the Economic Community of West African States was delayed, France stepped in and arguably averted a civil war in Ivory Coast. And, more recently, France intervened to try to prevent further bloodletting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. However, in the case of Rwanda in 1994, France came under criticism after claims that it continued to support the Hutu-led government even after the genocide of a half-million Tutsis began in April 1994. SA and France have had their differences over the Congo. France has always supported the Kabila government, but SA is widely perceived to have leaned towards Uganda and Rwanda. However, with the signing of the Congo peace accord, SA and France do not have significant differences on the issue now. While SA may be pleased that French interests can balance those of the UK and the US, it may find that French interests are deeply entrenched and difficult to handle.
Top
From The Times (UK), 28 June
Mugabe risks humiliation to restore Libya fuel deal
From Jan Raath in Harare
Robert Mugabe won a vague pledge from the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi last night to restore some of the $360 million fuel supply deal to combat Zimbabwe's worsening shortages. The Zimbabwean President had flown to Libya for negotiations on the deal that ended last September after Harare failed to meet payments. Mr Mugabe's decision to risk humiliation again, seven months after being rebuffed in his last attempt to persuade Colonel Gaddafi to relent, is a measure of his desperation. Fuel supplies in Harare are in chaos. The international oil companies that distribute fuel to petrol stations have not received deliveries for more than a month from the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (Noczim), the state-owned fuel company with a monopoly on importation. Noczim is bankrupt after nearly two decades of a policy, directed by Mr Mugabe, of selling fuel for a fraction of its international market price. Thanks to the black market there is no visible reduction in the volume of traffic on the capital's streets. The Government tried to shut down the black market this week by banning motorists from carrying fuel in containers.
Expectations were not high that Mr Mugabe would succeed in Tripoli, and the statement issued at the end of last night's talk left the extent of Libyan "co-operation" deliberately vague. Amos Midzi, Zimbabwe's Energy Minister, recently announced that Noczim owed Tamoil, Libya's state-owned oil company, $65 million, and was paying off the debt at the rate of $5 million a month. "The Libyans are not going to be impressed," John Robertson, an economist, said. "On the strength of that, are they now going to give us credit for the $30 million worth of fuel we will want every month?" Zimbabwe's state press has said that Mr Mugabe is offering to pay Libya with tobacco, cattle and tea. But with the mass expropriation of white-owned farms, the Zimbabwe tobacco industry has fallen from being the world's biggest exporter to producing only a third of its normal output this year. Mr Mugabe's scourge of commercial agriculture has also decimated the beef industry. Sources said that a Libyan refrigerated aircraft arrived in Harare this month to collect a consignment of beef carcasses but left empty after two days. Libya began supplying Zimbabwe with fuel in 2001. Payment was made partly with an unspecified shareholding in Zimbabwe's fuel pipeline system, storage facilities and petrol stations, only some of which are state-owned. Mr Mugabe has also offered a selection of white-owned farms seized by the government.
Top
From SABC News, 27 June
Zimbabwean police arrest newspaper editor
Nqobile Nyathi, the Zimbabwean Daily News editor, has been arrested and charged under the Public Order and Security Act (Posa), the Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) reported today. Eva Johnsen, a Misa spokesperson, said Nyathi was arrested for publishing adverts that supposedly insulted President Robert Mugabe. The adverts were placed in the Daily News by the opposition Movement of Democratic Change (MDC). They showed a cartoon Mugabe being chased by a crowd. The wording of the advert was: "Do you recognise him: Thief! Thief! Thief!." The advert goes on to say: "Yes of course we recognise him. We recognise him as the senile who stole your voice in March 2002. We recognise him as the father of the militia who murder and rape civilians and women. We recognise him as a plunderer of our national resources, pensions and all. Yes, we recognise him as the one denying us the right to express ourselves. Action for national survival." Johnsen said Nyathi today confirmed that she had been summoned to Harare Central Police Station. Nyathi was quoted as saying: "I was charged under Posa and they were referring to advertisements that appeared from the 16th to the 19th of May. I was made to sign a warned and cautioned statement and they said they are still investigating the case."Nyathi became the third senior newsperson to be charged under Posa. On June 11, Francis Mdlongwa, the editor in chief of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), the publishers of Daily News, was charged with publishing a false advertisement when he was still an editor at the Financial Gazette in 2002. Bill Saidi, the editor of Daily News, was also charged on June 24 for allegedly publishing a false story in 2002.
Top
Mail & Guardian (SA), 28 June
Zim police try to search opposition offices
Harare - Zimbabwe police on Friday attempted to search the offices of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party for "subversive materials", an MDC official said. The official, who asked not to be named, said six police officers led by a detective inspector, came to the MDC's offices in central Harare armed with a search warrant. "The search warrant said they were looking for subversive materials," said the official, but noted that the police only wanted to search one office - that of the party's financial director. They left 45 minutes later, as the financial director was out and his office locked. "We suspect they think we're keeping lots of money in the offices," the MDC official said. He said the police also left a list of nine MDC activists whom they wanted to interview. The government recently accused the MDC of causing cash shortages by hoarding scarce bank notes to pay activists. The opposition party denies the charges.
Top
From VOA News, 27 June
Zimbabwe formally asks UN for food aid
Harare - The World Food Program says more than five million people in Zimbabwe, almost half the population, will need food aid from the international community between now and the next grain harvest in April of next year. This is the second year in a row that the international community is being asked to supply food to millions of Zimbabweans. The United Nations said this week that the worst affected are hundreds of thousands of former workers from commercial farms. There are several reasons for Zimbabwe's food crisis. President Robert Mugabe launched a land reform program in mid-2000, which has, in each season since then, seen less crops produced and foreign currency reserves plummet. Economists say the program, which saw more than 90 percent of productive white farmers evicted from their land, is the major contributor to the collapse of the economy. In addition, erratic rainfall is also blamed for the shortfall in production, as well the government's inability, because it lacked the money, to import agricultural products and equipment from abroad.
This week, World Food Program officials in Zimbabwe presided over a meeting of foreign donors to plan for yet another round of food shipments from abroad, leading to a peak in distribution between January and April next year. The Zimbabwe government has formally asked the WFP for continued food aid, but has still not provided statistics on the latest harvest nor projections for summer plantings. Up until three years ago, Zimbabwe was always able to feed itself, even when droughts hit, as it had enough money to import food when crops failed. Now Zimbabwe's economy is the fastest shrinking in the world and the country does not have foreign currency to import a whole range of commodities from fuel to ink to print bank notes. The World Food Program says the more than 200,000 workers who once worked on the commercial farms are particularly threatened. Not only did they lose their jobs when their employers' land was seized, they have not been allocated land on which to grow crops. But people who live in the city are also suffering. Many of them lack basic foods, such as maize meal. Maize is available on the black market, but not many people in the city can afford to buy it.
Top
From The Zimbabwe Independent, 27 June
Dispossessed farmers to export maize
Blessing Zulu
Zimbabwe is set to import maize and seeds from farmers who migrated to Zambia after losing their land under the land reform exercise. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Stan Mudenge, two weeks ago said Zambia was ready to export maize to Zimbabwe. One of the farmers, Peter McSporran, confirmed that Zimbabwe's former commercial farmers had produced a good maize crop which they would export to Zimbabwe. "Former commercial farmers who have settled here are close to 50," said McSporran. "These farmers managed to grow over 30 000 tonnes of maize and next year this is likely to increase to about 50 000 tonnes and most of it will be exported." McSporran said they were also targeting Zimbabwe for the export of agricultural seeds. "We also hope to export seeds to Zimbabwe and this includes seed maize in excess of 12 000 tonnes, soyabeans and wheat," he said. Zimbabwe has a deficit of 1,2 million tonnes of maize and farmers have complained that they do not have enough seeds for the next season. The taskforce on food security, together with the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, would work out the modalities of importing maize after assessing the quantity required. Mudenge acknowledged that Malawi and South Africa also had bumper harvests and said it would be quicker and cheaper to import maize from these countries than from suppliers in the Americas. Ironically, Zimbabwe was a net exporter of maize before the war veterans led farm invasions.
Top
From The Sunday Times (SA), 29 June
More to Zimbabwe than meets the eye
Even as opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai languished in jail, talks between his party and the ruling Zanu PF continued, writes Ranjeni Munusamy
Something rather inexplicable is said to have happened during Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai's recent detention in Harare on a second treason charge. Zimbabwe's Minister of State Security, Nicholas Goche, went to the Harare Remand Prison to visit him, but was turned away. The prison authorities told him that the commissioner of prisons had instructed that no one, not even the minister, should see Tsvangirai. It seems absurd that Goche, head of the police ministry, would want to visit the government's arch-enemy. Even stranger that he was not allowed into Tsvangirai's cell. The incident illustrates that there's much more going on in Zimbabwe than meets the eye.
The MDC's five-day mass action and stayaway campaign earlier this month forced the hand of hardliners in the ruling Zanu PF. The country and its economy have ground to a halt and, in order to show that the government still wields ultimate power and control, Tsvangirai was arrested and kept in prison for two weeks. He was already on trial for treason, along with MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube and another opposition official, Renson Gasela, this for allegedly plotting with Canadian-based consultant Ari Ben Menashe to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai's defence team is seeking a discharge, saying the state has not presented sufficient evidence to make a case against the accused. The treason case was raised during a visit to Harare in May by SA President Thabo Mbeki, Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo and Malawi's Bakili Muluzi when they tried to coax Mugabe and Tsvangirai toward talks. Obasanjo apparently told Mugabe that the trial was an impediment to progress, making it difficult for the African leaders to plead Zimbabwe's case to the international community. Mugabe is said to have responded that he was aware the case was not going anywhere and would possibly flop or be withdrawn along the way. However, it was a way of dealing with Tsvangirai's arrogance, he said.
The second treason charge is a similar demonstration of who's in charge, but also appears to be crumbling quite spectacularly. Judge Susan Mavangira neatly set out the flimsiness of the allegations in her ruling when she granted Tsvangirai bail last Friday. The state set out to prove that Tsvangirai had tried to provoke a violent overthrow of the government, and had advocated mayhem during the stayaway campaign. Mavangira said of the state's allegations: "There is not a single statement in which the applicant's [Tsvangirai's] precise words are used." "Bits of newspaper reportage relied on by the state were not fact but a matter of editorial deduction that the applicant meant that there must be a revolt, violent conduct or breakdown of law and order," she said. On the contrary, stated the judge, Tsvangirai's defence team submitted into evidence pamphlets and advertisements distributed during the stayaway campaign, urging those taking part to be "peaceful, disciplined, vigilant and courageous". The state produced a pamphlet that read: "Jesus is coming, the signs are here. Action for national survival." That, according to the state, was evidence that the opposition was advocating Armageddon.
Mavangira delivered a little reality check - stayaways are not unlawful in Zimbabwe. Therefore, the pamphlet did not support any allegation of criminal wrongdoing by Tsvangirai. She went on to say that the use of the word "revolt" in an affidavit by the Minister of Home Affairs, Kembo Mohadi - in which he claimed that this is what the MDC leadership urged through its mass action - was a "thumbsuck". And all this came from a member of the Zimbabwean judiciary, allegedly firmly under the thumb of the Zanu PF government. But in the context of the economic implosion, a worsening fuel crisis, acute poverty, food and currency shortages and joblessness, Zimbabweans from all walks of life - even, it appears, Mugabe's disciples - are being forced to choose. The choice is not a political one, between Zanu PF and the MDC; it is now a matter of survival - finding a way to exist within the status quo, or forcing something to happen that can change the course of history. Despite Mbeki and Obasanjo's unfailing faith in him, Mugabe is not about to make a noble exit any time soon. He professes to want to appoint a successor in Zanu PF who will hold the centre in the party. Zanu PF is due to elect a new leader only in 2005. With the party being pulled in different directions by factions, it does not appear to be in any position to reach consensus on a successor within the next year. This realisation has dawned on key players, on both sides of the political divide, who are trying to push the process along. For this reason, Tsvangirai's incarceration - even his humiliating court appearance in leg irons - did not have the effect of scuttling talks between the MDC and Zanu PF. Contact between senior members continued during Tsvangirai's detention. While the talks are played down, and even denied, they grind on secretly and against the odds. The central objective is to arrive at a mutually acceptable strategy that will see Mugabe relinquish power.
It is not clear how much Mugabe knows about the discussions. He is adamant that unless the MDC acknowledges him as the legitimate president, he is not prepared to bring his party to the negotiating table. The MDC argues that if the talks bear fruit, it would be a moot point whether last year's presidential election was credible , as Mugabe would have to surrender the reins to a power-sharing interim government. In such an eventuality, the MDC leadership is ready to accept a Zanu PF leader to head a transitional authority, as long as an election - run by a credible, independent electoral body - is in sight. The preliminary discussions involve members of the national executive of both parties, and aim to set up negotiating committees - responsible for thrashing out different aspects of the transitional arrangement - and a timetable for the process leading up to an election. Ncube - who ran the party while Tsvangirai was in prison - is leading the talks for his party. Next to Tsvangirai, he is the highest-profile member of the opposition, and its intellectual and strategic authority. But it is the Zanu PF representation that is amazing. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who last year was responsible for rubbishing the first round of negotiations after the elections , and who led Zanu PF's walkout, is a leading member of the delegation. Goche is another.
The mysterious attempt to visit Tsvangirai during his detention could therefore have been a display of goodwill, or an effort to reassure the opposition leader that, despite the new complication, their delegation's bona fides were intact. But the process from here on will be rugged, as the MDC has vowed to keep up the pressure through mass action. The state will have to reciprocate with force. But behind the scenes, the delicate process of horse trading will prevail. The MDC demands a judicial termination of the treason trial. Zimbabwe's prison cells are teeming with MDC supporters facing flimsy charges. They do not have the money to apply or pay for bail, and t he opposition wants them released as a display of goodwill from the state. MDC insiders say there is a realisation that it would not be in the country's interest for Mugabe to go into exile or to be prosecuted for human rights abuses. No settlement would be possible if the MDC harboured such ambitions. There now seems to be general consensus that a key element of the settlement would be an amnesty provision for Mugabe. But as long as the talks are secret the process remains complicated. Ordinary Zimbabweans queuing for food, fuel and money need to see a ray of hope to prevent the uprising that now seems inevitable. Mugabe must be bound to the process and its timetable. However ominous this week's call from US Secretary of State Colin Powell for the region's leaders to pressure Mugabe into dialogue may have been, it is really the only way forward. It is surprising how many Zimbabweans - even those around Mugabe - share that view.
Top
From The Sunday Times (UK), 29 June
Police sent white farmer to his death
Christina Lamb
A Zimbabwean policeman who witnessed the murder of the first white farmer to die in President Robert Mugabe's land seizure campaign has admitted that police could have saved the man's life - but were ordered by their superiors to stand by and let a gang of so-called war veterans abduct and kill him. In the first inside account of how Mugabe has turned the police force into an instrument of repression, Lovemore Magombedze disclosed that he and others investigating the killing of David Stevens were instructed by superiors in Harare to present it as a case of killing in self-defence. The former detective has been granted asylum in Britain. He fled from Zimbabwe in fear of his life after a colleague who tried to reveal the truth about Stevens's death was killed by a lorry driven by a leading war veteran. Magombedze was warned: "You will be next." "I used to love my job, I got a lot of respect from people, but Mugabe turned the police into his number one weapon," said the 31-year-old father of two who is now working as a night guard in an Essex hotel. "The system was so topsy-turvy that instead of war vets being arrested they were manning roadblocks with us - and I was ordered to pervert the course of justice," he said.
The killing of Stevens, 48, in April 2000 marked the start of a campaign aimed at keeping Mugabe in power, using the war veterans and thugs from the ruling Zanu PF party. Stevens was abducted from his farm in Macheke, 60 miles southeast of Harare, by war veterans while his wife was collecting one of their four children from a school hockey trip, He was driven to Murehwa where he was tortured, then shot less than three minutes' walk from a police station. One of his murderers drank his blood. Twelve other white farmers have since been killed and all but 600 of an original 4,500 have been driven off their farms. Most farms have been taken over by politicians, generals, police chiefs, judges and relatives of Mugabe. Commercial food production has collapsed, leaving 150,000 labourers unemployed and an estimated 7m people facing starvation. The detective's chilling account of the Stevens murder confirms accusations by human rights and opposition groups that Mugabe has transformed the police into a political tool. It is also an embarrassment for Interpol, which recently offered Zimbabwe's police chief, Augustine Chihuri, the post of honorary vice-president. Stevens's widow Maria, who now lives in Oxfordshire, said she was not surprised by Magombedze's revelations. "I know the police killed my husband," she said. "They are no longer there to protect people. I hope he doesn't expect me to forgive him but I am glad that one of those police has finally decided to come clean. It is time more people spoke out."
Magombedze was one of a small group of men on duty at Murehwa police station on the Saturday morning when Stevens was killed. "Suddenly this procession of vehicles arrived at the police station," he said. "It was like a movie: high-speed cars, clouds of dust, shooting, brakes squealing, people opening car doors and running out. Five white farmers were running away from the war vets, pleading, 'Help us! They are shooting at us and want to kill us.' There were between 30 and 50 war vets singing and chanting Zanu PF slogans and they had vehicles belonging to the party and the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). But we told them to stop and didn't allow them in. They only had sticks and two or three small guns so we didn't think they could overpower us." Then the officer in charge arrived. "This was strange," said Magombedze. "Normally they don't work on Saturdays and nobody from the station had called him. "This officer invited the war vets and CIO men into his office. To our astonishment, he then allowed them to abduct the farmers from the police station and take them to a compound in the township. The farmers were screaming, 'These guys were shooting at us and you are letting them take us? They are going to kill us!' " Shaking his head, Magombedze said: "The police had the chance to save Stevens's life - we knew where he was and could easily have got him out, but we didn't. I followed for a while with a colleague in an unmarked car but we were pulled off so didn't witness the final moments. I know what happened next from our subsequent investigation. The farmers were separated in groups and taken to different places, including the cemetery for heroes of independence. They were beaten up severely. At one point Stevens said 'Why don't you just kill us? I can't take this any more'. One of the war vets put the barrel of his rifle inside Stevens's mouth and fired. But he didn't get a proper grip, probably because they were all high on marijuana. So the bullet just cut through the skin and came out of the mouth. Then one of them started screaming, 'Are you crazy? Don't you know how to kill a man?' He took out his shotgun, placed it against Stevens's chest and fired. The other farmers were severely beaten up and left for dead though they had not been killed."
Magombedze was put on the investigation under the supervision of officers from Harare. "We were given clear orders on the 'facts' the government wanted to come out. The official version was to be that Stevens's death was caused by self-defence. "We were not allowed to arrest the war vets even though they were trespassing on property, abducting and beating people and committing all sorts of atrocities. Murehwa is not a big area and I knew quite well who they were. But this was a political case and the forms where we normally write the grounds of the case were left blank. The statements of the other white farmers were left out and some witnesses were forced to say Stevens was shooting at them." A policeman since 1991, Magombedze felt "torn apart" by the case and was unable to sleep, tormented by nightmares. Last year he and his colleague on the Stevens case decided to approach foreign election observers to tell them the truth. They were spotted by Mugabe's intelligence agents. Shortly afterwards his friend was killed. "Then a CIO guy warned me, 'You know what happened to your colleague? We are after you next.'" The Stevens case was not the only time Magombedze was ordered to ignore evidence. Investigating the murder of a father and son in Nyamhanga village, he found that a local Zanu PF MP had ordered party thugs to kill them. "We even had taped confessions," he said, "but I was told to change the evidence to let the killers free." When Magombedze arrested a well-known war veteran who had burnt down a restaurant his station chief was furious and the arsonist was freed. Magombedze decided to flee and sought leave, claiming his mother was seriously ill. He flew to London with his wife and children - and heard later that his younger brother had been beaten and his mother's house had been set on fire. Four men were tried last October for the murder of Stevens, but were freed. From the safety of his new home in Britain Magombedze said with sadness: "I miss my country but it has become a land of fear."
Top
From Associated Press, 28 June
Rich elite prosper in Zimbabwe's economic crisis
Angus Shaw
Harare - Ruinous government management has left Zimbabwe's once vibrant economy in shambles, and some of its millions of people are forced to sell their furniture to survive -- if they have any. But agencies selling limousines and even luxury cosmetics have reported record sales and the few rich in the country enjoy boom times. "The people who could fix the situation are the ones who are making a fortune out of it," said Harare economist John Robertson. The chaotic government seizures of thousands of white-owned farms have been blamed for three years of political violence and disruptions in the agriculture-based economy that have led to acute shortages of food, fuel, power and medicines. President Robert Mugabe's ruling party elite and their business associates control much of the hugely profitable black market in goods and hard currency. Meanwhile, nearly half of the population will need food aid this year to avoid starvation, according to the U.N. World Food Program. About 80 percent of the population lives in poverty.
In regular stores the shelves are bare, but advertisements in the main state newspaper offer foodstuffs, cooking oil and even bank note counting machines to help traders in the hyperinflationary economy do their business. The black market gasoline sells for four times the government's fixed price. It keeps the traffic moving in Zimbabwe. Other ads regularly offer "fuel available" and give the mobile phone numbers of merchants for price quotations. Most gas stations in the capital have not received fuel deliveries for a month because of hard currency shortages for fuel imports by the state oil procurement monopoly. Zimbabwe's Central Statistical Office said last month that annual inflation reached a record 269 percent and unemployment exceeded 70 percent, driving many unemployed to scavenge for goods to sell furniture and other assets. Ordinary Zimbabweans "get up in the morning and try to find something to survive on," Robertson said. About 6,000 Zimbabwe dollars now buy what 100 Zimbabwe dollars bought in 1995. The official exchange rate rose from about 8 Zimbabwe dollars to the U.S. dollar in 1995, to 824-1 this year, alongside a current black market exchange rate of up to 2,700-1.
Mugabe, 79, who has been in power for 23 years, travelled to Libya this week to discuss resuming gasoline supplies that were cut off after Zimbabwe didn't pay $62 million in arrears for previous shipments. Anti-government strikes called by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change shut down much of the economy June 2-6 but street protests demanding democratic reform were thwarted by a massive show of force by police, soldiers and ruling party militiamen. The protests appeared to be of little concern to one pro-Mugabe businessman who threw his 50th birthday party soon afterward. He hired a replica of a Mississippi paddle steamer on Zimbabwe's northern Lake Kariba. The calligraphy for the handwritten dinner place name cards alone cost five times Zimbabwe's average annual per capita income.
Top
From The Cape Times (SA), 30 June
Pahad calls on US to show its hand in financing a solution for the Zimbabwe crisis
By John Battersby
With nine days to go before United States President George Bush arrives in South Africa, the government has called on the Bush administration to show its hand on a US plan to bankroll an economic revival in Zimbabwe once President Robert Mugabe has stepped down. Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad said in an interview yesterday, that South Africa would like to get more information from the Americans about what they envisaged with the plan. "We would like to discuss it with them and find out what they mean," said Pahad. He said that there were no figures attached to the suggestion by US Secretary of State Colin Powell in an article in the New York Times last week that the Bush administration would earmark substantial funds for Zimbabwe's economic revival once Mugabe had stepped down and elections were on the cards. "The US would be quick to pledge generous assistance to the restoration of Zimbabwe's political and economic institutions even before the election," Powell wrote. The European Union (EU) has made similar proposals and the British have earmarked £20 million. SA government officials have in the past called on Britain - and by implication the US which guaranteed British pledges for land reform at the 1980 Lancaster House conference on Zimbabwean independence - to compensate farmers stripped of their land under Mugabe's land seizure programme. There is an expectation in government circles that some of the US funds could be used for compensating farmers who were unjustly robbed of their land in a process which subverted the rule of law.
At a media briefing earlier in Pretoria yesterday, Pahad called on the US to show its hand on Zimbabwe and see if it could improve on the plan of African leaders. "I hope that we can reach a common approach on Zimbabwe," said Pahad, conceding that there had been progress and setbacks in attempts to resolve the crisis. "If there is another route to go they (the Americans) must put it on the table," he said, in an apparent reference to the US plan to help fund the reconstruction of post-Mugabe Zimbabwe. Pahad said that the Bush visit would afford an ideal opportunity for the two parties to have a thorough discussion on Zimbabwe and for South Africa to explain the African initiative. "If there are tactical differences we will discuss them," he said. Pahad said that there were no fundamental differences between South Africa and the US on either Zimbabwe or America's war against Iraq. Pahad's remarks followed Powell's criticism of South Africa and other countries in the region for not being sufficiently proactive in dealing with the Zimbabwean crisis. Pahad played down Powell's comments. "I don't want to make a judgment on one interview," he said. "There were many positive aspects to what the US Secretary of State had said." Powell will not accompany Bush on his Africa visit. Instead he will be accompanied by Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Walter Kansteiner.
Top
From News24 (SA), 28 June
MDC leader: Don't push too hard
New York - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has urged the United States not to overreach as it pressures President Robert Mugabe to step down. "There must be a balance in how outside pressure can be applied in order to bring results," Tsvangirai told The New York Times in an interview published on Saturday. "These are very delicate issues. We have specific suggestions on how outside pressure can help," he said. "The question is really the restoration of legitimacy of the government. It can only be restored by the free mandate of the people of Zimbabwe," he said. Mugabe frequently accuses Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of acting as a puppet for British and US interests, a charge denied by the party and by Washington and London. Tsvangirai - like the Commonwealth, the United States and most western governments - refused to recognize Mugabe's victory in the 2002 presidential election, which was marred by violence and widespread irregularities. He has been charged with two separate counts of treason, the latest stemming from a five-day labour action in the first week of June that shut down the country in protest over Mugabe. A conviction on either count could be punished by hanging. US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday said Mugabe's time "has come and gone." Writing in the Times, he compared Tsvangirai with Burmese pro-democracy leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, praising his non-violent campaign to remove Mugabe.
Top
From The Star (SA), 30 June
Tsvangirai says Lekota has got it all wrong
By Basildon Peta
Morgan Tsvangirai has rejected claims by Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota that he had called off dialogue with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF. In an interview with SABC3 TV last night, Zimbabwe's main opposition leader said claims by Lekota, who is also the ANC chairperson, were more indicative of South Africa's own frustration with its quiet-diplomacy policies on Zimbabwe and its failure to rein in Mugabe. Lekota recently blamed the continued breakdown of dialogue in Zimbabwe on Tsvangirai, saying his recent strike call - which subsequently earned the Movement for Democratic Change leader two weeks in jail on fresh treason charges - had scuttled dialogue with Zanu PF to resolve the Zimbabwean crisis. Lekota seemed to justify Tsvangirai's incarceration by saying the MDC leader should not have called the strike action in the first place. But Tsvangirai said Lekota's remarks were way off the mark. He said Lekota could not blame the breakdown of dialogue on the MDC, which was a victim of Mugabe's campaign to wipe the opposition party off Zimbabwe's political landscape.
It was Zanu PF which had scuttled any dialogue to resolve the crisis, he said. Mugabe's party had pulled out of the dialogue brokered by President Thabo Mbeki last year, citing Tsvangirai's decision to challenge Mugabe's re-election in court. Zanu PF has since refused to talk to Tsvangirai unless he recognises Mugabe as the legitimate leader of Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai reiterated his party's readiness to unconditional dialogue to resolve his country's problems but ruled out recognising Mugabe as legitimate leader of Zimbabwe. He said doing so would remove the basis of his dispute with Mugabe. In any event, such legitimacy had to be bestowed by the people, he said. Despite numerous reports that top-level negotiations were under way, Tsvangirai said the MDC had only received emissaries and overtures from people claiming to be from Zanu PF. He said these overtures had not translated into a serious co-ordinated Zanu PF strategy for any talks. Tsvangirai believed, however, that Zanu PF was desperate to achieve a negotiated settlement of the crisis.
Top
Comment from The Financial Mail (SA), 27 June
Pretoria must engage the MDC in transition
On the surface it appears that there is some - admittedly marginal - progress towards resolving the Zimbabwe crisis. President Thabo Mbeki predicts a solution within a year. And after a fortnight in a remand prison - which he describes as "appalling" and where, he says, one person dies every day - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been released on bail. Even in Zimbabwean dollar terms, the surety is huge: Z$110m (US$13m), with highly restrictive conditions stipulating that he may not make "inflammatory" statements. Meanwhile the media, especially in SA, less so in Zimbabwe, are awash with claims that just two weeks after saying he had absolutely no intention of leaving office, which would pave the way for national consultations on the reconstruction of the country, Robert Mugabe is allegedly now ready to step down as president. If so, what has brought about the change?
Significantly, the state media in Zimbabwe have published front-page interviews with possible successors - parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, believed to be Mugabe's preferred choice, and John Nkomo, ruling Zanu PF national chairman. Both men are said to be "safe pairs of hands" with more than 20 years' ministerial experience. However, both are firm that there is no vacancy at State House - and therefore they are not running for office. The reality is that they are , but dare not say so unless and until Mugabe gives them the green light. Pretoria remains unhelpful. Defence minister Mosiuoa Lekota blames the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the impasse over talks, but again this is not so. The sole precondition set for negotiations was by Mugabe himself, who will not talk to the MDC unless and until it drops its court challenge to his presidential poll victory last March.
Lekota's comments underline, yet again, Pretoria's unwillingness to play the honest broker. The SA government appears to have made up its mind that Zanu PF - minus Mugabe - should stay in office. It does not want to see Tsvangirai, perceived as too Western, too pro-market, and above all lacking "liberation-war credentials", to take over. Tsvangirai's time in jail has served to strengthen his resolve and that of his supporters. Even while he was incarcerated, the MDC launched an urgent court challenge to expedite the election challenge that is anathema to Mugabe. On his release, Tsvangirai rul |
