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Archived News
23rd September 2003
Zimbabwe police raid offices, seize equipment at independent paper
War of words over Mugabe summit ban
No Zimbabwe, Pakistan at Commonwealth meet - Nigeria
Judge arrest 'unconstitutional'
Inflation hits 427 percent in August
Players adapt to Mugonomics
SA must heed Mugabe logic
Protestors, journalists arrested in Zim
Zim cops clean out paper
Zimbabwe tries to tame cash crisis with new money
The latest wheeze
Cabinet files - One down, well done Cde Jonah!
We must ostracise tyrants
Farmer loses cattle to starving 'Green Bombers'
Court grants Daily News permission to publish
Police thwart Harare court order
Paper gets backing of court to reopen
Zimbabwe can attend summit, says Mbeki
Media crackdown tests S.Africa policy on Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe judge prepares to sue government
Cops stop vets at lions' den
Zim cops ignore court order
Daily News denied registration
New charges loom in Tsvangirai case
Doubts mount over govt's new bank notes
Zim insists it wasn't barred from summit
Commonwealth split over Zim
Mugabe seals fate of free press
Zimbabwe's vice president dies after illness
Zimbabwe to keep old bank notes: report
Donors want to see progress on talks
Federation to send mission to Zimbabwe and Swaziland
Message to shout from the rooftops
SA working 'hard' to solve Zimbabwe crisis
Speculation mounts over Mugabe's deputy successor
Banned Zim paper gears up for battle
Mudede's appeal thrown out
Mugabe sits tight at centre of Commonwealth outcry
Simon Muzenda
Zimbabwe newspaper directors charged
Zim civic groups fear crackdown
MDC denies breakthrough deal with Zanu PF
Mugabe not invited to Commonwealth meeting
A bleak ride home for Zimbabwe deportees
Land grab goes on despite audit report
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From AFP, 16 September
Zimbabwe police raid offices, seize equipment at independent paper
Harare - Police Tuesday raided the offices of Zimbabwe's sole independent daily newspaper, shut since Friday for operating illegally, and seized equipment without producing a warrant or court order, company officials said. Police confirmed they had confiscated some equipment to be used as exhibits in court against the management of the Daily News, an outspoken critic of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. "We took some properties as exhibits," police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena told AFP, adding: "We don't need a warrant to confiscate exhibits." He said the authority to seize the equipment stemmed from the fact that the paper had proceeded to publish on Friday, a day after the Supreme Court ruled that it was operating illegally.
Lawyers for the Daily News have filed an urgent application seeking the return of the confiscated equipment and for the paper to be allowed to reopen and resume operations. Lawyer Mordecai Mahlangu said he expected the application to be heard by the High Court on Wednesday. The Daily News was forcibly shut down last week, accused of operating illegally because it has not registered with a state-appointed media commission. Under Zimbabwe's strict media laws all news organisations, newspapers and journalists have to be registered with a government media commission -- which the Daily News has refused to do, saying mandatory registration with the state-appointed commission was unconstitutional. The paper has since applied to register with the state-appointed media commission but Information Minister Jonathan Moyo told state television Monday that the application was incomplete. Mahlangu told AFP the newspaper was seeking an order for the computers and other equipment removed from the Daily News offices to be "returned intact". Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, chief executive of the paper's parent company, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), and Gugulethu Moyo, the firm's legal adviser, said police had produced no warrant or court order authorising them to seize the property.
Meanwhile, two photographers working for international media agencies who were arrested outside the Daily News offices during the police raid were released eight hours after they were charged for obstructing police duties. Tsvangirai Mukwazhi of the Associated Press (AP) and Paul Cadenhead, a freelancer, were picked from a group of other journalists after police told them they were not allowed to take pictures of the raid. Mukwazhi said they were made to pay a fine of 5,000 dollars (about 60 Us dollars) under the country's Miscellaneous Offences law. The Daily News also wants the nullification of the eviction Friday of its workers from their offices, and that they be allowed back to work. Police moved in Friday night ordering all employees to immediately stop work and forced them to vacate their offices as they were working on the Saturday edition of the paper. Mahlangu said the police had no legal basis for removing anyone from the offices. "They must be restored to their offices," he said, adding the law allowed any media house to work while its application was pending. "They should be allowed to work while their application is being considered."
Mugabe's government accuses the Daily News of being a mouthpiece of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The paper has been the target of two bomb attacks and several of its journalists, including the former editor-in-chief Geoffrey Nyarota, have been arrested repeatedly since the paper was launched in 1999. "They are determined to shut us down," Nkomo said. If the paper is permanently closed, 340 full-time workers and 900 newspaper vendors will be out of work in a country where unemployment tops 70 percent, and around 80 percent of the population lives in poverty. Amnesty International, adding its voice to a growing chorus of international condemnation, said in a statement Tuesday: "This latest action by the Zimbabwe government sent a strong and clear signal to regional and international leaders that human rights are under siege in Zimbabwe."
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From The Times (UK), 17 September
War of words over Mugabe summit ban
By Michael Dynes in Johannesburg and Richard Beeston, Diplomatic Editor
The Commonwealth was divided yesterday by a blistering row over Zimbabwe after South Africa bluntly told Australia to stop trying to prevent President Mugabe attending its December 5 summit meeting in Nigeria. South Africa accused John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, of using "mega-phone diplomacy" after he announced that he had received assurances from Nigeria that Mr Mugabe would not be invited to the biannual meeting of 54 mostly former British colonies. Australia has been in the forefront of attempts to block South Africa and other African countries from lifting Zimbabwe’s 18-month-old suspension from the Commonwealth, which was imposed after its flawed 2002 presidential elections. However, Bheki Khumalo, President Mbeki’s spokesman, insisted that there was nothing to be gained from barring Mr Mugabe from the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Abuja. "We want to appeal to the Australians to understand that megaphone diplomacy will not produce results," Mr Khumalo said. "Sanctions have been imposed against Zimbabwe now for a number of months with no result at all, and we don’t think that using megaphone diplomacy will work."
Commonwealth officials are adamant that Zimbabwe’s leader will not be invited to the meeting. Under the Commonwealth’s rules, Zimbabwe’s suspension can be lifted at the very earliest by the other heads of government when they meet in Abuja. Nevertheless, President Obasanjo of Nigeria has told Mr Mugabe that he could still be invited if he formed a national unity government with the Opposition - a move that seems highly unlikely, given that the crackdown against dissent is continuing in Zimbabwe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the main opposition leader, is being tried for treason. It has been made clear to Mr Obasanjo that Britain, Australia and several other key Commonwealth members would boycott Abuja if Mr Mugabe were present. There are real fears that the organisation is being split along racial lines by the row over Zimbabwe, with African governments supporting Harare and Western nations strongly opposed. A taste of that acrimony was evident yesterday when Mr Howard dismissed South Africa’s criticisms and insisted that most Commonwealth leaders supported extending the Zimbabwe’s suspension. "Everything Australia has said about Zimbabwe in the time I’ve been Prime Minister, far from being megaphone diplomacy, has been a plain statement of truth," Mr Howard told Parliament.
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From Reuters AlertNet, 16 September
No Zimbabwe, Pakistan at Commonwealth meet - Nigeria
Abuja - Nigeria said on Tuesday that Zimbabwe was not invited to a Commonwealth summit it will host and that Pakistan would also be excluded because both states were still suspended from the body. The 54-nation Commonwealth has been bitterly divided over whether Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe should be invited to the December summit in Abuja, with leading members South Africa and Australia engaged in a war of words over the issue. South Africa, which favours quiet diplomacy to resolve Zimbabwe's political crisis, sits on a special committee on Zimbabwe alongside Nigeria and Australia, which has taken a combative stance against Mugabe. "Zimbabwe and Pakistan have not been invited to the Commonwealth summit because they are still under suspension for violating the 1991 Harare Declaration," Nigeria's undersecretary in charge of regions and international organisations, Gbenga Ashiru, told Reuters in Abuja. "There is no way the suspension of the two countries can be lifted before the summit," Ashiru said, although a spokeswoman for President Olusegun Obasanjo said some negotiations were continuing.
The Harare Declaration - signed in the Zimbabwean capital - enshrines principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law accepted by Commonwealth members, mostly former British colonies. Under the Declaration, Pakistan was suspended in 1999 after a military coup, and Zimbabwe was suspended for a year in March 2002 following an election that critics and some Western governments said were rigged. Even though the year is now up, Zimbabwe's suspension has never been officially lifted amid disagreements between the three members. Australian Prime Minister John Howard was adamant Mugabe should be barred from the Abuja summit, citing continued rights abuses in Zimbabwe and Mugabe's refusal to talk to Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon about his nation's suspension. "In these circumstances it would be a travesty if Zimbabwe were to be represented at the Abuja meeting," Howard told parliament earlier on Tuesday. His comments came after a spokesman for South African President Thabo Mbeki accused Australia of using "megaphone diplomacy" with Zimbabwe and called on the Commonwealth to overturn the ban. Fresh police action against the media in Zimbabwe on Tuesday fuelled anger against Mugabe. Police briefly detained two photojournalists working for international news agencies Reuters and Associated Press and seized equipment from Harare's sole privately owned daily paper, the Daily News - shut down last week under tough media laws.
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From News24 (SA), 16 September
Judge arrest 'unconstitutional'
Harare - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled as unconstitutional the arrest and detention of High Court judge Justice Benjamin Paradza early this year for allegedly trying to obstruct the course of justice, state radio said. The court ruled that Paradza's arrest and detention at a police station was "unconstitutional", "unnecessary" and "unwarranted". The judgment means the corruption charges the judge faced have been dropped, the radio said. Paradza was accused of trying to influence his fellow judges to release the French passport of his friend and business partner, Russell Wayne Luschagne, who faced a murder charge. The passport was being held by the Zimbabwean authorities while he awaited his trial. Details of the murder he allegedly committed and the outcome of his case were not available. Paradza, 45, was the second judge to be arrested in Zimbabwe. Retired High Court judge Fergus Blackie was arrested in September, also on allegations of obstructing the course of justice. But in June the Zimbabwe government withdrew charges against the retired white judge Blackie. He was arrested last year and detained for several days after irregularly releasing a white woman convicted of fraud. The charges against Fergus Blackie had stemmed from his quashing of a sentence and conviction of Tara White in an appeal case he handled before his retirement. In the past Paradza has handed down judgements that may have been seen to favour the opposition, notably after he ordered the release of opposition mayor of Harare, Elias Mudzuri, who had been arrested for holding a meeting with ratepayers without police authorisation. He also ruled last year that eviction orders served on around 50 white farmers were illegal.
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From SAPA, 16 September
Inflation hits 427 percent in August
Johannesburg - Inflation in Zimbabwe hit a highest-ever 426.6 per cent for the year up to the end of August, according to figures issued Monday by the government's Central Statistical Office. The rise from 399.5 per cent for the year up to the end of July was the third highest this year. In the last month, household maintenance costs were up 39 per cent, bread and cereals were up 30.4 per cent and the cost of meat rose by 24 per cent. In the last year, the CS0 figures said, cooking oil had gone up 759 per cent, shoes by 582 per cent, public transport by 460 per cent and cigarettes by 453 per cent. However, analysts say the figures are conservative. They say the CSO measures prices of commodities as they fixed by the government, and not by the illegal black market prices at which most basic commodities are available. Zimbabwe is classified as having the fastest shrinking economy in the world as a result of reckless economic policies dictated by ageing president Robert Mugabe, and the destruction of the country's agricultural industry as he drove about 4,500 white farmers from their property in the name of his "revolutionary land reform programme". Economists say the regime has taken no serious action to curtail inflation, but insists on maintaining price controls, low inflation rates, big budget deficits and vast subsidies. Thousands of Zimbabweans sleep on the streets of the capital each night in the hope of being able to draw small amounts of cash in a banknote shortage unprecedented anywhere in the world. Reports at the weekend said the currency had lost so much value that prostitutes were now offering their services in exchange for groceries rather than cash. In June, the United Nations ranked Zimbabwe 90th in the list of the world's 94 poorest countries.
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From The Financial Times (UK), 12 September
Players adapt to Mugonomics
By Tony Hawkins
Since the collapse of the Zimbabwe economy President Robert Mugabe's own peculiar brand of economics, Mugonomics, has justifiably had a poor press internationally. It does, however, resonate well with the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, where industrial share prices have risen some 575 per cent so far this year. The fact that this should be happening in a year in which GDP is forecast to fall between 12 per cent and 15 per cent to an 18-year low, is largely attributable to one of the key tenets of Mugonomics - that massively negative real interest rates will boost investment. Inflation, which rose to 400 per cent in July, is 300 percentage points above prime lending rates of about 90 per cent. Seemingly unfazed by this, the 79-year-old president told parliament recently that "interest rates will have to come down . . . to encourage real wealth generation as opposed to speculative wealth". Last week, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe did its master's bidding by cutting its lending rate to some of the country's overlent and financially fragile banks by 30 percentage points to 70 per cent. Unsurprisingly, the government's cheap money policy has had precisely the opposite effect to that claimed by Mugabe. Far from boosting investment, output and jobs, it has sparked asset price inflation in the equity, real estate and foreign currency markets. Official figures suggest that capital formation is no more than 7 per cent of GDP - insufficient to maintain the existing capitalstock, let alone increase it. Despite this, after doubling in the first five months of this year, equities have surged a further 200 per cent in the past three months. The most obvious explanation is inflation, which has accelerated from 200 per cent at the end of 2002 to 400 per cent in July, and is forecast to reach 700 per cent to 800 per cent by year-end. For many investors, equities are the most convenient inflation hedge in town. Property might be a better bet, but needs greater resources, while foreign currency is a risky market.
Market analysts, however, insist the inflation argument is overdone, citing "remarkable" profit gains by listed companies. Latest figures for non-financial quoted companies show pre-tax earnings up 400 per cent in 2003 or some 68 per cent on an inflation-adjusted basis. Analysts are uncomfortable when asked to explain how profits can be growing so fast in an economy whose GDP has fallen more than a third since 1999. Four explanations stand out, of which the most important by far is the increase in margins (pre-tax profits to turnover) from 18 per cent a year ago, to 32 per cent today. This is underpinned by falling real wages, so that although productivity is down, real wages are declining even faster. With companies able to borrow at interest rates as low as 5 per cent if they are exporters, corporate borrowing has exploded, more than trebling in the last 18 months. And while this may be good for the bottom line today, some bankers are increasingly uneasy about the medium-term effect, especially when Mugonomics eventually gives way to economic realism and interest rates increase dramatically. An estimated 8 per cent of bank loans are classified as bad or doubtful - a figure which the International Monetary Fund believes seriously understates the real situation. Reported profits are being boosted too by creative accounting, especially under-depreciation and the treatment of stock gains. Surprisingly, few brokers and analysts seem to believe that the ZSE's inflationary binge will end in tears. It is only if and when Mr Mugabe is forced into retirement, that the rules of the game change. Until then, investors, brokers and analysts will be content to exploit Mugonomics hyperinflation.
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Comment from The Star (SA), 17 September
SA must heed Mugabe logic
By the Editor
Those pinning their hopes on Pretoria playing an active role in resolving the political crisis in Zimbabwe will be disappointed by the statement - released by Bheki Khumalo, President Thabo Mbeki's spokesperson - opposing further punishment of Harare. According to Khumalo, the South African government is against the continued sanctions and further suspension of Zimbabwe. Khumalo was quoted as saying that "sanctions have been imposed against Zimbabwe now for a number of months with no result at all". This assessment is correct, but the fact that they have not worked is hardly a reason for ceasing to put pressure on President Robert Mugabe to end the political and economic crises in his country. In fact, logic should dictate that since the suspension by the Commonwealth and the targeted sanctions have failed to produce the desired results, tougher measures should be imposed on the Zanu PF regime to effect change.
The assault on democracy is continuing and the closure of the Daily News newspaper is just the latest example in the litany of intimidation and harassment tactics on those seeking political change in Zimbabwe. Mugabe has shown that he cares little about his people. Recently, there were reports that he had commissioned the construction of a R72-million mansion amid the deepening poverty and hunger faced by millions of his people. He has become a liability to his country and there is no sign that the economic catastrophe will end soon. The so-called secret talks between Zanu PF and the main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, has so far come to naught. There are constant reports of harassment and the use of food as a weapon to weaken the opposition. Given all these problems, it is difficult to understand the approach of our government on Zimbabwe. Mugabe has not honoured a range of agreements, even the ones he pledged to Mbeki. Pretoria must accept that quiet diplomacy is applicable to honourable leaders. Mugabe has lost his honour and needs to be engaged differently.
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From iafrica.com (SA), 17 September
Protestors, journalists arrested in Zim
Police arrested about 100 activists and three journalists on Wednesday during a demonstration against the state's shutting down of the country's only independent daily newspaper. Douglas Mwonzora, a spokesperson for the National Constitutional Assembly, a reform group that organized the protest, said those arrested were taken to the main Harare police station for questioning. Their march to the parliament building in downtown Harare was to protest the closure by police of the Daily News and "the deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe," Mwonzora said. Under the country's strict security laws, political demonstrations are banned unless given police clearance. The militant constitutional assembly has routinely been refused permission to hold public meetings and marches. Police, meanwhile, continued to seize computers and other equipment from the Daily News offices Wednesday. The newspaper was shut down last week for failing to register under restrictive media laws. Gugulethu Moyo, a lawyer for Associated Newspapers group, owners of the daily newspaper, said equipment was being loaded into police trucks for the second day. She said police broke doors in the offices and carried off computers without packing them in boxes. "There's a lot a damage. The police still have no warrant. It is another example of a blatant illegal action. We are helpless," Moyo said. Police on Tuesday also arrested two freelance photographers for questioning after they had entered the newspaper offices during the seizures. They were released after being held for nearly seven hours at the main Harare Central police station.
President Robert Mugabe pushed through severe new media and security laws last year requiring journalists and independent media organisations to seek government licenses to operate. The Supreme Court, which has been criticised for favouring the government, ruled last week that The Daily News broke the law by not registering for a license under the stringent Access to Information Act and was operating illegally. The Daily News on Monday filed for accreditation with the state media commission. Previously the paper's executives had refused to apply for accreditation, saying the new media laws were an effort to stifle independent and foreign journalists and news organizations. The owners are seeking an urgent ruling from the High Court to have its equipment returned and permit the paper to continue publishing while its application was being considered by the commission, chief executive Sam Sipepa Nkomo said. Since its launch in 1999, the Daily News has given a voice to critics of Mugabe's 23-year rule, as the nation suffers its worst political and economic crisis since independence in 1980. In January 2001, the Daily News printing presses were destroyed in a bomb attack hours after Information Minister Jonathan Moyo described the paper as "a threat to national security which had to be silenced." The state controls the country's two other daily papers and the single television and radio broadcast station. After the closure of the Daily News, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change called for a boycott of the state media by readers and advertisers.
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From News24 (SA), 17 September
Zim cops clean out paper
Harare - Police in Zimbabwe seized more equipment on Wednesday from the country's only independent daily paper, the Daily News, which was shut down last week for operating illegally. Meanwhile, Daily News lawyer Mordecai Mahlangu said the High Court would hear an urgent application to reopen the paper on Thursday. The application had been filed on Tuesday. "The hearing has been set down for tomorrow," said Mahlangu. At the hearing, the Daily News will also seek to obtain the return of the equipment confiscated by police form its central Harare offices. On Friday, the authorities shut down the four-year-old paper, which is highly critical of President Robert Mugabe's government, accusing it of operating illegally because it has not registered with a state-appointed media commission. Under Zimbabwe's tough media laws all news organisations, newspapers and journalists have to be registered with the commission. But the Daily News had refused to do so, saying mandatory registration with the state-appointed commission was unconstitutional. After raiding the Daily News's premises on Tuesday and taking away some equipment, police were Wednesday seizing more of the paper's equipment from its city centre offices, and were threatening to break into offices that were locked, a company official said. Gugulethu Moyo, director and legal advisor for the paper said police had on Tuesday managed only to strip computers from the newsroom and other open-plan offices. "The police are still down there and they're still collecting our property," said Moyo in an interview. "And now they are saying they are going to break down the enclosed offices," she said. "Why can't they wait until tomorrow for a court ruling?" she asked.
Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, the chief executive of the paper's parent company, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), and Moyo said Tuesday police had produced no warrant or court order authorising them to seize the property. The police have said they required no court order to remove the equipment which they said would be used as exhibits in a court case against Nkomo, accused of illegally operating a newspaper. Chief executive Nkomo said he did not understand the rationale of the police taking away all the paper's equipment if it was just for use as evidence. "I really find it strange. They could have taken a copy of the Daily news to say 'this is what they produced'," Nkomo said. The Daily News was forcibly closed last week after the Supreme Court ruled the paper was operating illegally because it had failed to register with the state-appointed media commission. The paper has since applied to register with the commission, but is still awaiting a response. Mugabe's government accuses the Daily News of being a mouthpiece of the main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The paper has been the target of two bomb attacks and several of its journalists, including the former editor-in-chief Geoffrey Nyarota, have been arrested repeatedly since the paper was launched in 1999. If the Daily News is permanently closed, 340 full-time workers plus 900 newspaper vendors will be out of work in a country where unemployment tops 70 percent, and around 80 percent of the population live in poverty.
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From Business Report (SA), 17 September
Zimbabwe tries to tame cash crisis with new money
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's government broke new economic ground on Wednesday by introducing bearer cheques; a form of money that financial experts said had been unknown up till now. A spokesman for the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe was quoted in the daily Herald newspaper as saying that next week it would introduce "bearer cheques" in an attempt to alleviate the desperate shortage of cash in the country. The cheques were printed on banknote paper, looked like banknotes and were as "good as cash", the central bank said. The cheques, which would be dispensed through automated teller machines, would come in denominations of Z$5 000, Z$10 000 and Z$20 000. Banking executives said the only difference between a bearer cheque and a banknote was that the central bank would not call them banknotes, and that they expired on January 31 next year. "This is being done for the convenience of the public while long-term measures are being put in place," Information Minister Jonathan Moyo assured readers. It was not explained why they were not called banknotes.
A senior Harare bank executive who asked not to be named said: "It's an invention... I have never heard of it before. For a central bank to issue something called a bearer cheque is probably unique. It can only be so they can tell Mugabe they haven't had to issue a bigger banknote. He seems to need to reassuring that Zimbabwe is not really a banana republic. I can't think of any other reason." The Reserve Bank warned since the beginning of the year that it was facing a shortage of cash and that the current highest banknote denomination of Z$500 was insufficient in the country's current hyper inflation environment. However, it had refused to print higher value banknotes. Thousands of Zimbabweans could be seen every weekday queuing at banks in the hope of drawing a small amount cash, while cash itself had joined the long list of commodities available only on the illegal black market, and attracted a premium of up to 50 percent.
Economists said the cause was the central bank's failure to print enough money. They pointed out in a Third World society were only a tiny minority of people who had chequebooks and credit cards, and most people used cash. "With inflation now at 427 percent, it means that five times as much cash is needed now than a year ago," said the bank executive. The government claimed the shortage was caused by "hoarding" and last month published regulations that made it a crime to carry more than Z$5-million at a time. Zimbabwe has been classified by the United Nations as having the fastest shrinking economy in the world, with gross domestic product forecast to tumble 12 percent this year.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 18 September
The latest wheeze
Faced with a countrywide shortage of cash, the government first decided it would create a bigger shortage by withdrawing all the $500 notes. Then it issued "internal travellers' cheques", which have proved as popular and useful as ashtrays on bicycles. And now we have "bearer cheques". More in hope than expectation, finance minister Murerwa said yesterday that they would eliminate the perpetual queues outside the banks. The ever-present J Moyo said, in reassuring tones: "This is being done for the convenience of the public while long term measures are being put in place." But his confident words were undermined somewhat by the Herald's headline - RNZ unveils new 'notes' - where the last word was between sceptical quotation marks. Next, they'll be trying to work out how to get ATMs to issue cowrie shells.
These bearer cheques, like the travellers' cheques, are not cash, however many times the government says so. They are time-limited - they will expire next year - and so are distinctly less acceptable than bank notes. They are also considerably more likely to be forged. What they are is an exercise in smoke and mirrors, to try and deflect attention from the fact that the government just cannot bring itself to do what is necessary to sort out this particular facet of the bigger mess it has created. The problem is inflation, and more and more cash is needed every week to finance the same level of transactions. If the government really does not have the foreign exchange to print bank notes, perhaps it should ask Mrs Mugabe for a contribution. It appears she has managed to find over R500 000 to import new kitchen cabinets, which trundled through Beitbridge towards the first family's Harare retirement home last month.
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Comment from The Financial Gazette, 18 September
Cabinet files - One down, well done Cde Jonah!
Dear War Cabinet
After events of this week, I take it for granted that all of you comrades now fully understand why I took a personal decision to bring Cde Jonah into our great revolutionary party. The man is brainy, I tell you. His wisdom is sui generis and I wonder how we would have fared without such a great schemer like him! Until last week, who ever thought we could find a permanent solution to the scandal-mongering Strive Masiyiwa-owned Daily News? We all thought it was no longer possible to get a good night’s sleep in this country again, but - Sweet Judas! - courtesy of Cde Jonah’s unparalleled wisdom and sagacity, the problem has unexpectedly disappeared like dew in the morning sun! The pesky Daily News is now history! So are its barbed articles and cartoons about us, articles and cartoons that not only bordered on sheer rudeness and also on insulting our very manhood!
He-eh Mugabe this and that, he-eh Cde Jonah this and that, he-eh Cde Joseph should resign, he-eh massive corruption, he-eh land grab, he-eh Mugabe’s motorcade, he-eh DRC diamond scandal, he-eh Grace’s shopping binge, he-eh Peter Tatchell is great . . . this and that! All nonsense! Not even a day passed without a lie being said about us! You all saw the nauseating cartoons the paper printed about me, my wife, Cde Jonah, everyone! How could we have allowed that to go on ad infinitum?To hell with their media freedom hogwash! They were taking that freedom too far and they only have the British and their grandmothers to blame! We told them to repent and they thought ours were mere addled threats, but they now know that everything we say, we mean it in religious minute exactitude. Make no mistake about it! Now that The Daily News is gone, so is the mouthpiece of Tsvangirai and his British-owned Movement for the Destruction of the Country. We commiserate with them. We are really sorry that it came this early and fast.No one expected that this week they would be mourning but it was definitely coming. To every fat pig comes his Martinmas! We simply gave them a long rope and like any fool, you all saw what they decided to do with it! In football they call it an own goal!
You know that all our problems started when The Daily News was established in 1999. Before then, we did not have any shortages, be they of fuel, forex, food, drugs, cash or anything! Everything was there in abundance and no one complained. But come The Daily Lies, our fuel pumps ran dry, our strategic grain reserves were suddenly empty, our banks could not give enough cash et cetera, et cetera. All because there had to be something negative for The Daily Lies to report on. Now that The Daily Lies is gone good and proper, so should all our problems. Never mind what the British and the Americans -who prefer to call themselves the "international community" - will say about us, we will remain unfazed. They can go hang! We are simply putting the rule of law they preach day and night into practice. They will make a few noises but as usual, after a few weeks, if not days, they would have forgotten about us and we will be moving on with our lives.
In the past we have chucked out a handful of personae non grata like Joseph Winter, Mercedes Sayagues, Andrew Meldrum and Basildon Peta and there had been a few noises but they soon die down. Now that we have made the biggest of all catches, we should focus our attention raptly on the remaining papers that are still promoting the interests of the British and the Americans. You all know them! Simultaneously, we should deal with the likes of Peta Thornicroft, Angus Shaw and a few local mediocre journalists who write a lot of claptrap about this great country under various pseudonyms in order to get a few coins in foreign currency. We should deal with them pronto! With The Daily Lies out of the way, we can now focus our attention on the 2005 elections, which we now have every reason to win. Cde Tafataona can sit on that belated ANZ application for registration until after the 2005 elections after which he will tell Strive Masiyiwa that his application was unsuccessful. Then if he wants to go and virtually camp at the courts like he did over his Econet licence, he will be free to do that, but licence he will not get. Even if he brings lawyers from Mars, he will be wasting his money because we have indigenised our judiciary. Licence he will not get! I don’t know how I should thank you Moyondizvo, Dhehwa, Bvumavaranda! At least I can now sleep without worrying about how to explain those debasing cartoons to my children!
Kindest Regards
ME
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Comment from The Daily Nation (Kenya), 18 September
We must ostracise tyrants
When it comes to Zimbabwe, South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki seems determined to split the Commonwealth along racist lines by insisting that President Robert Mugabe be invited to the Club's December summit in Nigeria. This is only the latest intervention by the South African leader on behalf of the Mugabe regime. Last year Mr Mbeki attacked "white supremacists" within the Commonwealth who dared criticise the collapse of law and order in Zimbabwe. Australia is one of the countries that have been most vehemently opposed to Mugabe invitation to join other Club leaders at the Nigeria summit. The Zimbabweans are also appealing to other African Commonwealth members to see the whole confrontation as a black versus white affair. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Club last year after Mr Mugabe was re-elected president amid allegations of widespread vote rigging and human rights abuses. Nothing has changed in Zimbabwe since. If anything, the recent assaults on media freedom and all the other oppressive behaviour of the Mugabe regime plainly show that things have actually taken a turn for the worse. While it is true that Zimbabwe has already served its one-year suspension from the Club, President Mugabe's dictatorial tendencies continue and the suffering of Zimbabweans also continues. Dictatorship has nothing to do with race. It is every bit as repulsive as racism and the Commonwealth must stand firm against both evils. The entire world, Africa included, is trying to rid itself of inflexible, repressive dinosaurs of Mugabe's sort, and siding with the man for spurious reasons just won't do.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 14 September
Farmer loses cattle to starving 'Green Bombers'
By Valentine Maponga
Starving PF youths - also known as 'Green Bombers' - who are training at the Eagle Training Centre in Burma Valley recently invaded a farm in the area and slaughtered two beasts for the pot as reports of food shortages at the national service training centres worsen. According to farm workers, about 80 hungry youths descended on the property armed with axes and raided Manyere Farm, owned by commercial farmer Robert Murray, in Burma Valley. They frog-marched the farm's foreman to a dip tank where they slaughtered the two beasts and ordered farm workers to skin the animals before taking away the meat to feast at the centre. The youths were arrested but later released after the commercial farmer withdrew the matter before the courts saying the youths' "superiors" had assured him they would be disciplined and he would be compensated. Last week, there was drama again at the Eagle Training Centre when several female "graduands" fainted from hunger during the centre's first pass-out parade. Senior Zanu PF officials, including national service training head and Minister of Youth, Gender and Employment Creation, Elliot Manyika - and Olivia Muchena, the Minister of Science and Technology - could only stare in disbelief as the female graduands started falling down one after the other, during the parade. Food is reported to be scarce at the Zanu PF institutions which critics say are training rogue elements accused of raping and maiming Zimbabweans who do not support the governing party.
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From IRIN (UN), 18 September
Court grants Daily News permission to publish
Harare - Zimbabwe's beleaguered Daily News newspaper has won a court victory allowing it to resume publishing, after police twice raided its offices and confiscated equipment. The Zimbabwe High Court on Thursday granted an order sought by the Daily News, the country's sole independent daily newspaper, barring police from seizing equipment and giving it permission to continue operating while its registration was being processed. A week ago the Supreme Court ruled that the publishers of the Daily News and its sister Sunday paper, the Daily News On Sunday, were not properly registered and therefore operating illegally. The Supreme Court made the ruling after refusing to hear an application by the company, challenging the constitutionality of the registration exercise being conducted by a government-appointed media and information commission.
On Friday last week, heavily armed riot police and security details from the Law and Order Section and the Central Intelligence Organisation occupied the eight-storey building housing the newspaper's offices in central Harare, as well as the newspaper's printing factory in the industrial area of the city. More than 100 computers were seized from the newspaper's offices on Tuesday as police continued their crackdown. Daily News advocate Adrian De Bourbon told the court on Thursday that the police raids on the newspaper's offices were unacceptable. "It was not necessary for the police to embark on a capture and seize exercise. Police were on an ulterior, sinister and illegal exercise to destroy and suppress press freedom," he argued. However, the first respondent, a police Chief Superintendent Madzingo, countered in papers submitted before the court that "we as the police do not stand by and watch an illegality. We act, we arrest and we seize."
Section 8 of the controversial Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act saved the day for the newspaper as it states that a media house whose registration forms are being considered by the media commission is permitted to continue operations until the matter has been determined. The Daily News lawyers submitted registration papers to the commission on Monday this week. A round of applause reverberated around the courtroom after Judge Yunus Omerjee made his ruling. The chief executive officer of the newspaper, Samuel Siphepha Nkomo, said the company would sue the police for loss of revenue. "We generate a lot of money from sales and advertising, but the overzealous behaviour by police deprived us of an opportunity to earn money." Daily News staffers' jubilation at the ruling was short-lived - upon returning to their offices they discovered that their desk drawers had been ransacked and cash and other personal items were missing. Nonetheless, the staff of the Daily News were said to be battling to produce an edition of the paper for Friday. The closure of the paper had been met with international condemnation, as rights groups warned that media freedom was under threat.
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From Associated Press, 18 September
Police thwart Harare court order
Harare - Police have defied a judge's order to allow Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper to resume publishing, a lawyer for the paper's owners said. Earlier Thursday, High Court Judge Younis Omerjee had also ordered police to return confiscated equipment and allow evicted staff back into their offices. Police shut down the Daily News last Friday for failing to register under the strict media laws imposed by President Robert Mugabe's government. Police evicted the staff, removed the newspaper's computers and have occupied its offices and printing plant since Friday. Gugulethu Moyo, legal adviser for the Associated Newspaper group, which owns the Daily News, said police prevented staff from returning to work in the paper's downtown Harare offices after Omerjee's ruling. "They said they had not received the court order. This is a travesty of justice," she said. Plans to let staff publish a Friday edition were being thwarted by the police action and no equipment has been returned, Moyo said.
Omerjee's ruling followed an urgent application by the paper's owners to resume operations on grounds the closure was illegal. Sam Sipepa Nkomo, chief executive of the publishing group, said after the ruling that The Daily News would be back on the street Friday in a small eight-page edition. "We want to have a paper tomorrow. We are working out something with our friends. Police have assured us they will cooperate," Nkomo said. Chief Supt. Clemens Madzingo, the officer in charge of the police closure of the paper, was in court Thursday to hear Omerjee's ruling. He told reporters then: "It is fair. We have no problem with it." Madzingo, who remained in command at the Daily News offices late Thursday, appeared to have been overruled by superiors acting under government orders. There was no immediate comment available from police or the government.
In Thursday's High Court hearing, Adrian de Bourbon, an attorney for the Daily News, told Omerjee that the paper was entitled under the media laws to reopen until its registration application with the state media commission was completed. The owners applied for registration on Monday. De Bourbon said police evicted the staff, removed equipment and occupied the offices without a warrant. The paper printed only one edition since the pro-government Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that the failure to register meant the newspaper was illegal. The closing of the Daily News came amid a government crackdown on dissent as Zimbabwe struggles with an economic collapse and international isolation. On Wednesday, police broke up a protest march, arresting about 100 pro-democracy activists and three journalists covering the demonstration calling for the reopening of the newspaper. The march to Parliament was also to protest "the deteriorating political and economic situation in Zimbabwe," said Douglas Mwonzora, a spokesman for reform group, the National Constitutional Assembly. Police said the activists were still being held Thursday. Lawyers for the journalists said they and some of the activists were freed later Thursday after paying small fines.
Last year, executives of The Daily News had refused to apply for the paper's accreditation, saying the new media laws would stifle independent and foreign journalists and news organizations. The paper challenged the media laws as unconstitutional in July, leading to last week's Supreme Court ruling. Since its launch in 1999, the Daily News has given a voice to critics of Mugabe's 23-year rule. In January 2001, the Daily News presses were destroyed in a bomb attack hours after Information Minister Jonathan Moyo described the paper as "a threat to national security which had to be silenced." The state controls the country's two other dailies and the single television and radio station.
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From The Washington Times, 19 September
Paper gets backing of court to reopen
By Geoff Hill
Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's opposition leader warned yesterday that increased repression is certain to follow the government's closure of the nation's only independent daily newspaper. "There was hardly an edition of the Daily News that didn't carry reports of the state abusing our citizens," Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, said in a telephone interview. "Now, the repression is sure to be increased because all the other dailies are owned by the government and are not allowed to criticize the regime." Police shut down the Daily News last week after Zimbabwe's Supreme Court ruled that its publisher, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), was operating illegally, as it had not registered under media laws introduced by Robert Mugabe's government. This week, Zimbabwe's High Court ordered that the Daily News be allowed to resume publishing, but it was not clear if the order would be carried out. In Harare, police rounded up about 100 people yesterday for demonstrating against the government crackdown, and police continued to seize equipment from the shuttered newspaper. Mr. Tsvangirai said the government's actions have left the nation "at the mercy of tyrants." Mr. Mugabe pushed through laws requiring newspapers to be registered with the state and to submit details of the political affiliation of each staff member. The Daily News' chief executive, Sam Nkomo, said that on Monday his workers had been allowed into the building, where they produced an Internet edition. "However, on Tuesday, police arrived without a search warrant or any other documents and began removing our computers and all other equipment from the building. They loaded everything into trucks and took it to an unknown location, so we are not even able to publish online. We have been left with nothing."
Mr. Mugabe, 79, came to power in 1980. International observers say that last year's presidential election, which returned him to power, was marred by rigging and intimidation. Most Western countries, including the United States, refused to recognize the result. After nationalizing the nation's newspapers 1982, the Mugabe government held a virtual monopoly on the news media until the emergence of the Daily News in 1999. The paper's journalists have been arrested and harassed repeatedly. Government militias frequently assault anyone carrying a copy of the Daily News. In 2002, human rights groups, including Amnesty International, reported more than 70,000 cases of torture and abuse by government forces, virtually none of which was reported in the state-owned newspapers. The government also controls all radio and television broadcasts. In the wake of Mr. Mugabe's coercive land-reform program, in which white-owned farms were seized and given to landless blacks, the U.N. food agencies estimate that 70 percent of the country's 12 million people now live under conditions of famine. Mr. Nkomo said he was optimistic that his newspaper eventually would be granted a license to publish. "We have now submitted our papers and the act says that we are supposed to be given an answer within between "zero and 60 days so we now have to wait," he said. "Sadly, in the meantime, we have 310 staff who are out of work." But Mr. Tsvangirai said he did not believe that the Zimbabwe government understood the concept of a free press. "Press freedom is no longer a debate. It is accepted as an international right. But Zimbabwe is one of the few places where the state believes that citizens have no right to freedom whatsoever," he said. "Our only hope is that freedom-loving people everywhere will apply whatever pressure they can because that may be the only way the Daily News will start up again," he said. "Until then, we will be at the mercy of tyrants."
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From Business Day, 19 September
Zimbabwe can attend summit, says Mbeki
Cape Town - There was no additional sanction barring Zimbabwe from attending the Commonwealth summit to be held in Nigeria in December, President Thabo Mbeki said yesterday. Mbeki reminded the National Assembly that Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth had been for a period of a year, which had passed in March. He said the decision to suspend Zimbabwe for a year was taken within a very specific mandate. "The troika decided to impose a maximum sentence of suspension for a year and that has been served. I am not aware of any additional sanctions." Mbeki and Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo sit on a troika chaired by Australian Prime Minister John Howard and charged with overseeing the Commonwealth's response to alleged human rights violations in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in March last year over its poor human rights record and President Robert Mugabe's re-election in a vote that was condemned as rigged. When the initial 12-month suspension ended in March this year, the Commonwealth announced that Zimbabwe's suspension would remain in place until December. Nigeria has indicated that it may issue an invitation to Zimbabwe. Mbeki said a country's attendance at the summit was based on an invitation from the host country. "The invitation will come from Obasanjo. This is a matter he will deal with. So I think we will await a decision from the host on whether certain recommendations will be accepted." French news agency AFP quoted a spokesman for the Commonwealth saying that Zimbabwe would not attend the summit even if other African nations wanted it to attend.
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From Reuters, 18 September
Media crackdown tests S.Africa policy on Zimbabwe
By Ed Stoddard
Johannesburg - President Thabo Mbeki faced scrutiny on Thursday over his government's handling of the worsening situation in Zimbabwe, where critics accuse President Robert Mugabe of widespread human rights abuses. South Africa appears increasingly isolated over its softly-softly approach to the crisis in Zimbabwe with a fresh crackdown in Harare discrediting past assurances from Pretoria, analysts said. In the latest blow to South Africa's so-called ''quiet diplomacy,'' Nigeria, which will host the next Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in December, has said Zimbabwe will not be invited - despite Pretoria's efforts to ensure Mugabe attends. Nigeria and South Africa have long presented a united front on Zimbabwe, deepening divisions on race lines in the 54-member Commonwealth, made up mainly of former British colonies. But Nigeria now seems to be cold-shouldering South Africa - although its silence shows it is not lock-in-step with Australia, which has led Commonwealth condemnation of Harare.
Mbeki faces tough questions in parliament on Thursday. Analysts say Mbeki's stance has so far yielded few results. "Zimbabwe has repeatedly embarrassed him...but he is in a box," said John Stremlau, head of International Relations at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University. "He's opposed to sanctions, he can't use force, he doesn't want to use megaphone diplomacy...what does he do now?" Analysts say Mbeki must privately be losing patience with Mugabe, who - judging from Mbeki's own public utterances - has consistently failed to keep his word to Pretoria. In February, Mbeki said Zimbabwe had pledged to review and change new media laws which critics, including Britain, say are being used to stifle the independent media and opposition. "One of the matters we've raised with them is that there have been complaints raised about...legislation passed that has an impact on the press. That it was necessary to look at that legislation and see what was wrong with it and change it. And indeed the Zimbabweans have agreed to that," he said.
Almost seven months on, Zimbabwe's police shut down the private Daily News last week after the supreme court ruled the paper's publisher was operating illegally as it had not registered under the stringent media laws. Mbeki also said at the time that South Africa and Zimbabwe had discussed legislation that was "limiting democratic freedoms...and indeed they are looking at that." On Wednesday, Zimbabwe riot police arrested more than 100 demonstrators during a protest against the constitution, which critics say has entrenched Mugabe's rule. "There must be a feeling in the presidency that Harare has got to give us something to use if we're going to defend them and they're giving us nothing...I imagine they're very irritated," said Tom Lodge, the head of the politics department at Witwatersrand University. "But he (Mbeki) doesn't like to admit that his efforts have been unsuccessful," he said.
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From VOA News, 18 September
Zimbabwe judge prepares to sue government
Tendai Maphosa
Harare - A Zimbabwe High Court judge whose arrest and detention was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court says he will sue the government. The judge, Benjamin Paradza, was dragged by police from his chambers last February and hauled to jail on charges of obstructing justice and corruption. He had fought his arrest, detention, and remand in the Supreme Court, and on Tuesday the state conceded he was treated unlawfully. The Supreme Court ruled accordingly. Mr. Paradza is the first sitting judge in Zimbabwe's history to be arrested and charged with corruption. The state had alleged Judge Paradza intervened with a colleague at another court to help a business partner recover his passport that had been confiscated pending his prosecution on murder charges. Judge Paradza spent the night in a cell with more than a dozen common criminals before he was released on bail. The month before his arrest, Judge Paradza angered the government and its supporters by ordering the release of the opposition mayor of Harare, Elias Mudzuri, who had been arrested for holding a political meeting without police permission. Several Zimbabwean High Court judges took the unprecedented step of signing a petition condemning Mr. Paradza's treatment. They said the procedures for dealing with a judge suspected of having committed a crime is clearly set out in the constitution, and it was violated in Mr. Paradza's case. International legal bodies also criticized the treatment of the judge. Mr. Paradza's lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, told VOA that the judge intends to sue the police, chief public prosecutor, and the Minister of Justice for wrongful arrest and detention.
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From News24 (SA), 18 September
Cops stop vets at lions' den
Aubrey Ntobonge
Harare - War veterans are still hanging around the front gates of the lion and cheetah park near here, but are hesitant to enter. This follows an incident on Monday when they were chased away by riot police. The unexpected police action apparently came in the wake of the Zimbabwe tourism board's attempts to get tourists to return. Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance said in a statement: "The invasion of game reserves by war veterans has made it possible for some professional South African hunters to poach animals that otherwise would be protected." Bigboy Madhonoro, acting manager of the park, said police had arrived in large numbers and forced war veterans to leave the park. They threatened to arrest them if their orders were ignored. The invasion was apparently led by a senior army officer. According to Madhonoro, police returned to the park on Monday afternoon to ensure all veterans had left the area. But, by Tuesday morning, the veterans had returned. Madhonoro said: "The situation is still tense. The veterans are outside the gate, but have closed it off from the outside."
The veterans have also threatened to attack Brendon Snook, the park's manager, if he returns. He was chased off earlier when the veterans said the park had been handed over to them as part of the controversial land-reform programme. The park boasts many animals including elephants, lions and hyenas. Johnny Rodrigues, chairperson of Zimbabwe's conservation task force, said negative publicity about the occupation of the park apparently led to the police action. The Zimbabwean tourism board said last week a delegation, led by minister Francis Nhema, would be sent to South Africa to take part in tourism month. Attempts are being made to attract tourists to the Zimbabwean side of Victoria Falls. The DA, however, condemned the attempts and said the invasion of protected areas had led to large-scale destruction of wildlife. Errol Moorcroft, the party's environmental spokesperson, said those who honestly valued environmental protection would speak out about what was happening in Zimbabwe and ignore Zanu PF's attempts to attract tourists.
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From News24 (SA), 19 September
Zim cops ignore court order
Harare - Zimbabwe's embattled independent daily, the Daily News, on Friday filed contempt of court charges against police after they refused to allow staff to re-enter their offices, defying a High Court order, a company official told AFP. Police on Friday barred staff members at the Daily News from returning to their offices despite a High Court ruling the day before allowing the paper to reopen. The Daily News, a fierce critic of President Robert Mugabe, was shut down a week ago for operating illegally. "We filed our papers before lunch. We're waiting for the registrar to set the matter down for hearing," said Gugulethu Moyo, the paper's legal adviser. Police shut down the Daily News after the country's top court, the Supreme Court, ruled last week that the paper was operating illegally as it was not registered with a government media commission. The paper subsequently applied to register with the commission, and on Thursday the High Court ruled that the paper should be reopened until its application had been dealt with.
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From The Herald, 20 September
Daily News denied registration
Herald Reporter
The Media and Information Commission yesterday unanimously agreed not to register the Associated News-papers of Zimbabwe, publishers of The Daily News, as a mass media service. The commission’s six members unanimously agreed that the ANZ’s application for registration failed to meet the requirements of the law and as result refused to grant it. Firstly, the commission noted that the ANZ filed its application for registration eight and a half months after expiry of the transitional period to register which ended on December 31, 2002. In terms of Section 93 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the initial transitional period ended on June 15, 2002 and since registration regulations had not been put in place by then, the Minister of Information and Publicity, acting in terms of Section 91 of the Act, extended both the transitional period, and the period within which to consider the applications, to December 31, 2002 and two months respectively. All media service providers were allowed in terms of the law to lawfully continue operating while the commission processed their applications for registration.
The commission noted that the ANZ did not take the opportunity given by law to file its application. "Instead, the applicant (ANZ) openly announced that it would not register because it considered the provisions of the Act requiring registration to be unconstitutional," the commission said in its determination. It added that the constitutional challenge was made 13 days after the expiry of the transitional period, which was December 31 2002. The commission said it viewed the operations of the ANZ as being in contravention of the law and in particular in violation of Section 66 of AIPPA. It said it asked the Supreme Court to refuse to hear the ANZ constitutional challenge because the company had approached the court with dirty hands as it was not registered. And in its ruling, the Supreme Court said the ANZ was operating outside of the law. "In the same judgment, the Supreme Court pointed out that ‘compliance with the law does not necessarily mean submission of an application for registration to carry on the activities of a mass media service. It certainly means desisting from carrying on the activities of a mass media service illegally’," said the commission.
It said at the time of the judgment, the ANZ had operated illegally for eight months and 12 days. "The commission noted that, not withstanding the Supreme Court judgment, the applicant continued to publish its newspaper until the police, reacting to the clarification of the legal status of the applicant’s operations by the Supreme Court in the aforementioned judgment, moved in and stopped the illegal operations." The commission noted that the ANZ application, which was filed on Monday this week, came as a result of the closure of its offices by the police and not out of the newspaper group’ s voluntary wish to subject itself to the law requiring it to register. "Against this background, the commission found that for eight months and 12 days, the applicant did actually violate Section 66 of the Act which requires mass media service providers to operate only after being registered."
The commission also noted that the ANZ employed Chengetai Zvauya who could not be accredited because he has a previous conviction. This was found in addition to the fact that none of the ANZ journalists were actually accredited. "The employment of unaccredited journalists is made unlawful by Section 79(6) of the Act. The commission accordingly noted that the applicant, until the date of the closure by the police, also contravened section 79(6) of the Act." The commission said to enable it to properly carry out one of its duties, that is, to monitor the mass media and raise user awareness of the mass media (Section 39 (1) (0), Section 76 of the Act requires mass media service providers to send a free copy of every publication to the commission. But the ANZ did not serve the commission with any such free copy for the eight months 12 days that it persisted to operate illegally.
The commission said in terms of Section 65 (1) (b) of the Act, a person may not be a mass media owner if the activities of such a person are prohibited by law. "Section 66 prohibits the carrying on of activities of a mass media service before receiving a certificate of registration. For purposes of the applicant, this position is made clearer by the Supreme Court judgment. Further in terms of section 69(1)(a) the commission may not register an applicant who fails to comply with the provisions of the Act." The commission said at the time it applied to register, the ANZ still employed unaccredited journalists including an unaccreditable one. It also noted that the ANZ was facing criminal charges for breaching section 72 Chapter 10:27 of AIPPA. "The commission accordingly finds that, as a matter of fact, applicant continued to violate section 66 of the Act even after being advised by the Supreme Court of the illegality of its operations. "The above is compounded by the fact during the eight months and 12 days of applicant’s operations outside the law, it also violated Sections 76 and 79 of the Act. "The commission accordingly unanimously agree that the applicant’s application fails to meet the requirements of the law and in the result refuse to grant it."
From ZWNEWS: If you would like to read the supreme court judgement against The Daily News, please let us know. It will be sent as a Word attachment - total size 30 Kb, or somewhat smaller in size than the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 19 September
New charges loom in Tsvangirai case
Vincent Kahiya
The state has applied to the High Court for permission to bring a supplementary indictment against Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai, currently on trial for treason, in a move described by lawyers as baffling. Legal experts say the latest development in the Tsvangirai trial saga exposes the weakness of the state's evidence in its bid to convict the MDC leader on allegations of trying to assassinate President Mugabe. Tsvangirai's co-accused, the MDC's secretary-general Welshman Ncube and agriculture spokesperson Renson Gasela, were in August acquitted by Judge President Paddington Garwe in a case that has attracted international attention. The Zimbabwe Independent heard this week the state wanted to change the indictment to supplement the video and audio evidence supplied by Canadian lobbyist Ari Ben-Menashe which has been described as grainy and inaudible. Efforts to get confirmation of the intended amendment from the Attorney-General's office were unsuccessful yesterday. However, Tsvangirai's lawyer Innocent Chagonda on Wednesday confirmed the state's filing of an application to bring supplementary evidence. "We are aware that the state filed a notice in court to amend the indictment but I cannot say much at the moment," said Chagonda. The case should have restarted on Monday with Tsvangirai being put to his defence but was postponed to October 27.
Legal sources said the manoeuvre by the state was potentially embarrassing as it exposed the possible failure of the first indictment to secure conviction in the treason trial using the taped evidence. The state closed its case on June 26. While Chagonda could not provide details of the amendment, sources at the Attorney-General's office yesterday said the state wanted to move the goal posts and allege that Tsvangirai attended a meeting where the issue of a transitional government was discussed. The state would use this to bolster its argument that Tsvangirai's attendance at the meeting was tantamount to wanting to eliminate Mugabe. "Since the state has already closed its case, in the event of the court allowing the amendment to the indictment, it means the state would have to retrace much of its footsteps," a legal source said. "This might also entail re-calling Ben-Menashe and other witnesses." A senior lawyer in Harare yesterday said the state's action would amount to applying double jeopardy. "This is baffling. A case should either fall or stand on the basis of evidence presented when the state says it has closed its argument," the lawyer said.
Tsvangirai, Ncube and Gasela denied the charge when the trial opened in the High Court in February. The three MDC leaders applied for a discharge when the state closed its case in June saying the prosecution had failed to prove a prima facie case against them. The court acquitted Ncube and Gasela but ruled that Tsvangirai had a case to answer. The state case revolved around the secret recording by Ben-Menashe of meetings held with the MDC leaders in Montreal and London. The evidence-in-chief was the tape made on December 4 2001, three months ahead of a disputed presidential election that pitted Tsvangirai against Mugabe, and which Mugabe won. It was made using hidden surveillance cameras in the offices of Ben-Menashe whom the MDC say they approached to do promotional work for them in North America. On the tape, which Ben-Menashe gave to the Zimbabwe authorities, Tsvangirai is alleged to have requested the consultant's help in "eliminating" Mugabe and organising a coup d'etat to oust his government.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 19 September
Doubts mount over govt's new bank notes
Shakeman Mugari
Government efforts to ease the biting cash crisis have hit a snag with revelations that, despite a vigorous advertising campaign, it is not yet ready to inject fresh bank notes into the financial system. This comes as depositors show every sign of holding on to their cash, anticipating a government reprieve on plans to withdraw $500 notes from September 26. Government had expected companies and the public to offload excess cash into the system. But they appear to be hanging on to the little they have. Cash remittances to the central bank have plunged despite announcements that the $500 note would soon cease to be legal tender. It is reliably understood that government might extend the grace period for individuals holding the notes to deposit them. The cash crisis this week remained critical as depositors declined to surrender their cash, preferring to spend it on day-to-day needs as inflation officially reached 426,6% but in reality nudged 600%. An official at Intermarket Building Society's Newlands branch said the situation had worsened during the last two weeks with deposits shrinking even further. "Deposits are at their lowest since the cash crisis started. There is also very little coming in from the central bank," the official said. Banks are receiving as little as $1 million a day from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).
Government announced this week that it would introduce "bearer cheques" for use as cash to ease bank-note shortages. But analysts said it remained unclear to business and the general public how the new purchasing system works. "The government has remained silent on what will happen to the old notes that are in circulation," the analysts said. "There is no proper framework for the transition from the $500 notes to the rebranded ones. It is also not clear what will happen to retail shops who receive the old notes a day before the deadline." Analysts said government's campaign to encourage individuals and businesses to surrender their cash was flawed. They said the advertisements flighted in the media only notified the public of the introduction of new notes without saying clearly what the fate of the old ones, which are still in circulation, would be.
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From SAPA, 19 September
Zim insists it wasn't barred from summit
Zimbabwe insisted on Friday it has not been barred from the Commonwealth summit later this year and dismissed as racist Australian demands that President Robert Mugabe should not be invited. Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said only the host of the December summit, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, could bar Mugabe and that he has not done so. On Tuesday, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said his nation was firmly opposed to Zimbabwe attending the summit of leaders from the Commonwealth of Britain and its former territories in Abuja, the Nigerian administrative capital. He cited human rights violations and Zimbabwe's economic ruin under Mugabe. Mudenge said invitations to the two-yearly summit were routinely sent out by the host country. "Howard has been abundantly racist" in his criticism of Zimbabwe, Mudenge told the state Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp. "I think it is clear to anybody that Mr. Howard has abandoned his senses. It is not for him to decide whether Zimbabwe should attend the Commonwealth," he said.
Howard last month described Mugabe as "an unelected despot." Zimbabwe was suspended from all decision-making councils of the 54-nation Commonwealth group after Mugabe's government was accused of intimidation and vote rigging in the March 2002 presidential elections, narrowly won by Mugabe. Earlier this week, an official of the London-based Commonwealth secretariat, conveners of the summit, said 52 invitations to the summit in Nigeria have been sent, indicating that Zimbabwe and Pakistan would not attend. Pakistan was suspended from the grouping in 1999 after a military coup. Howard is a member of a three-member Commonwealth panel on Zimbabwe, along with Obasanjo and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa. The two African presidents have been trying to bring Mugabe's ruling party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to the negotiating table on the country's deepening political and economic crisis. South Africa opposes Zimbabwe's exclusion from the Abuja summit, saying it favors diplomatic efforts in the group's handling of the Zimbabwe crisis.
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Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 19 September
Commonwealth split over Zim
Jean-Jacques Cornish
The fact that Zimbabwe’s political self-destruction threatens to split the Commonwealth summit later this year comes as an unwelcome development for Commonwealth leaders, who had been assured that Robert Mugabe would no longer be president by the time they gather in Abuja, Nigeria, in December. Mugabe himself is unlikely to be at the gathering of leaders from 54 countries, whose 1,3-billion people account for a third of the world’s population. Since he stole the presidential election last year Zimbabwe has been suspended from the decision-making councils of the Commonwealth. As host of the summit, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has indicated that he will not be inviting the besieged Zimbabwe leader. To evaporate any lingering doubt, Australian Prime Minister John Howard vowed this week that Zimbabwe would be barred from any Commonwealth decision-making until Mugabe is removed from power. Howard’s uncompromising language reflects the extent of the dispute within the Commonwealth over Zimbabwe. The Australian leader feels strongly that Mugabe’s human rights record justifies his continued exclusion from the 54-nation body, not to say expulsion. "Zimbabwe is a disaster, a human disaster," Howard said in a national radio interview. "It is quite unacceptable that Zimbabwe be allowed to resume participation in Commonwealth affairs until there’s a complete change of approach - and that can only happen with the disappearance of the Mugabe government." Howard chairs the troika of Commonwealth leaders, including President Thabo Mbeki and Obasanjo, tasked with monitoring the Zimbabwe issue. They agreed in March last year to suspend Zimbabwe, but they have differed angrily on renewing its punishment this year.
Mbeki spokesperson Bheki Khumalo warned this week that "megaphone diplomacy" would not produce the desired results in Zimbabwe. "Sanctions have been imposed on Zimbabwe for a number of months now with no result at all and we don’t think that using megaphone diplomacy will work," he said. "Our view is that the Commonwealth imposed the maximum penalty on Zimbabwe by suspending it for one year. We do not understand this business of Australia saying that Zimbabwe [should still be] excluded. You cannot impose a specific punishment on a country and then, because you don’t like it, simply decide to continue that punishment." Mbeki and the Department of Foreign Affairs maintain that their "quiet diplomacy" will achieve the political transformation Zimbabwe requires. For months they have been putting out the message that the democratic process in Zimbabwe will see Mugabe leave - probably before the Commonwealth summit, or at least by mid-2004. Khumalo repeated this week that despite their repeated denials the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were talking. Mugabe has relished giving the lie to South Africa’s upbeat approach. Several times he has denounced speculation about his impending departure as "wishful thinking". His action this past week in closing the independent Daily News and allowing the illegal ransacking of the newspaper’s premises demonstrates that he is determined not to help even those who believe they are helping him. Amnesty International declared: "This latest action by the Zimbabwe government has sent a strong and clear signal to regional and international leaders that human rights are under siege in Zimbabwe."
Going back 37 years to Ian Smith’s Rhodesian rebellion, the Commonwealth has grown used to being divided over Zimbabwe. The "old" Commonwealth members, comprising Britain and its former empire stalwarts, were accused of tolerating and even supporting Smith’s illegal regime. Today the Third World members - particularly Africans - are being painted as protecting Zimbabwe’s patently undemocratic rulers. African leaders have taken a hard line in international forums against excluding Zimbabwe. They shunned a Lisbon summit with the European Union in February because the EU was not prepared to lift travel restrictions imposed on Mugabe. Parliamentarians from the 77-member African, Pacific and Caribbean (ACP) organisation have joined this show of solidarity. They have threatened to boycott a gathering with EU counterparts in Rome next month if Zimbabwe government representatives are barred. A similar protest is unlikely to hit the Commonwealth summit, but the organisation does not need another gathering split by Zimbabwe. With the bulk of its members being small and developing countries, the Commonwealth has found a very useful forum for expressing the needs and aspirations of the poor. Little purpose will be served by the pro- and anti-Zimbabwe factions squaring off at Abuja. The worst impact will be an erosion of relations between Australia and South Africa, who represent the opposite polls of the argument over whether to embrace or eject Mugabe. Britain and New Zealand would be reluctantly drawn in to support the ejection camp, fully aware of the damage this will do to their unique organisation.
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From The Observer (UK), 21 September
Mugabe seals fate of free press
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Zimbabwe's largest daily newspaper was closed down yesterday when President Robert Mugabe's government refused to issue the licence needed to publish. By shutting down the country's only privately owned daily publication, the Mugabe regime has struck a blow at the country's struggling free press, which is left with just a couple of independent weekly papers. The Daily News has been shut for the past week and police seized the paper's computers and other equipment in defiance of a high court order that the paper should be allowed to publish. News editors and reporters had been trying desperately to print a paper by alternative means, but by denying the paper a licence the Government yesterday finally and firmly closed every door. Under Zimbabwe's severe press restrictions it would be illegal for any business to give assistance to an unregistered paper. The paper's closure will make it even more difficult for Mugabe supporters to argue that Zimbabwe should be readmitted to the Commonwealth. When Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in March 2002 the Mugabe government was warned specifically to improve freedom of the press before the country could be readmitted. 'This is obviously a very big blow to democracy, freedom of expression and press freedom in our country,' said Trevor Ncube publisher of the Zimbabwe Independent, one of the remaining privately-owned weekly newspapers. 'It shows the world, once again, that the regime of Robert Mugabe will stop at nothing to hold on to power, even when it is clear that it is politically bankrupt.' Ncube is also owner of the Mail and Guardian in South Africa.
Mugabe was put under further pressure yesterday with the reported death of Vice President Simon Muzenda. Muzenda, 81, who had been in failing health for some time, was one of Zimbabwe's two Vice Presidents. The Government had recently denied that Muzenda was in a coma and in declining health. One of Mugabe's most trusted allies, Muzenda's death highlights a dilemma for the President: that he is surrounded by an ageing leadership. Muzenda was a long-time African Nationalist and a veteran of the war to end white minority Rhodesian rule. But yesterday Zimbabweans showed little sympathy at his death because of their antipathy to the Mugabe Government. 'Maybe we will get a public holiday because of his death,' said one Zimbabwean worker. 'In other times we would have had a braai "barbecue" but now we can't even do that because we can't afford the meat. Without the Daily News we won't get the truth about Muzenda's death or anything else. We will just get propaganda from our own Pravda, the Herald .' In the four years it was published the Daily News became Zimbabwe's largest circulation paper. It uncovered numerous corruption scandals and regularly exposed state violence and human rights abuses. The paper continued publishing despite two bombings, including one which destroyed its printing press. Daily News editors and reporters have been jailed and beaten by Mugabe's supporters. In one incident a rural schoolteacher found with a copy of the Daily News was beaten to death by Mugabe's youth militia.
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From Reuters, 20 September
Zimbabwe's vice president dies after illness
Harare - Zimbabwe's Vice President Simon Muzenda, a close ally of President Robert Mugabe who has served in government since independence from Britain in 1980, has died after a long illness, Mugabe said on Saturday. How Mugabe fills the vacancy left by his second-in-command, one of the veteran leader's most loyal aides, could be a key indicator of who he wants as his own successor after he hinted earlier this year he might be ready to retire. "Fellow Zimbabweans, it is with a very heavy heart that I announce the death of Vice President Simon Vengai Muzenda. He is no more," a sombre-looking Mugabe said in a live broadcast on state television. "Vice President Muzenda...is and shall always remain a great revolutionary leader... He took it upon himself to join the struggle for the freedom of this country from British settler colonialism," Mugabe added. He did not disclose the nature of Muzenda's illness.
A founding member of the ruling Zanu PF party, Muzenda had been Mugabe's deputy for the past 23 years, first as deputy prime minister and later as vice president when the southern African country adopted the executive presidency system in 1987. Muzenda, who would have turned 81 next month, backed Mugabe's controversial land redistribution programme and said he had held off his planned retirement to see the first phase of the programme to a successful conclusion. He was at the centre of a controversy last year when the mainly white Commercial Farmers Union accused him of leading a group which forcibly ejected a farmer in his southern home province of Masvingo. Mugabe's government is accused of plunging what could be one of Africa's richest countries into a political and economic crisis through controversial policies including the compulsory transfer of white-owned farms to landless blacks. Mugabe says the programme aims to correct colonial imbalances since the former Rhodesia gained independence. Local media had reported in recent months that Muzenda was ill, but earlier this month the official Herald newspaper said he was making ''remarkable progress'' and dismissed reports that his condition was critical. The government has also repeatedly dismissed reports of Mugabe's own ill-health.
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From Business Day (SA), 21 September
Zimbabwe to keep old bank notes: report
Harare - The Zimbabwe government, faced with a chronic shortage of bank notes, has said it will keep old notes in circulation until the end of the year, reversing an earlier decision, state-run media said today. Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa said last July that Zimbabwe's most common 500-dollar note (worth around 60 US cents, 50 euro cents) would be withdrawn at the end of September and replaced with a new banknote. The Zimbabwe government blamed hoarders of the note for the shortages, which have led to long queues outside banks and building societies around the country. The Herald said the decision to extend the deadline "was reached after consultation with various stakeholders." "The withdrawal of the old 500-dollar notes will be managed to minimise hardships to the public and business and avoid the resurgence of queues for cash," acting Finance Minister John Nkomo said. Zimbabwe is four months into its cash crisis, and government measures have not alleviated the long waits for people queuing to withdraw money from banks. The measures have included introducing a local form of travellers' cheque and, this week, a "bearers' cheque" which will be available from cash dispensers. Independent economists blame Zimbabwe's soaring inflation rate, now standing at 426%, for the note shortages.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 19 September
Donors want to see progress on talks
Itai Dzamara
Zimbabwe's request for humanitarian assistance through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) faces resistance from the predominantly Western donor community due to lack of tangible political progress, the Zimbabwe Independent has established. A donors' conference will be held in New York at the end of this month at which the UNDP's Harare office faces the daunting task of convincing the donor community of political progress in Zimbabwe. Diplomatic sources said Zimbabwe was still viewed in the donor community as a rogue state and was seen to be dragging its heels on political dialogue. "Efforts towards reviving dialogue between Zanu PF and the MDC have not yielded anything tangible so far, despite the so-called talks about talks," said a diplomatic source. Victor Angelo, the UNDP resident representative in Zimbabwe, has been arranging meetings between the government and donors' representatives with the aim of making both sides understand the other's needs as well as expectations. "The resident representative has in the past weeks convened several meetings between the government and donors' representatives to consider the appeal for humanitarian assistance as well as assess the situation," said Annika Rosing, a UNDP official in Harare. The meetings are understood to have culminated in the reversal by government of an earlier policy to have food aid only channelled through government structures.
Zimbabwe, with the world's fastest shrinking economy, appealed for humanitarian assistance at the end of July. Harare has requested 600 000 tonnes of food aid, a large variety of medicines, as well as $885 billion for revival of the agricultural sector. It is understood the local UNDP office has urged government to address the land reform issue and was given an assurance by President Mugabe that he would implement the recommendations of the Presidential Land Review Committee. The first step, as Mugabe has already indicated, would be recovering farms from government and Zanu PF officials who are multiple owners. Another diplomatic source added that food and medical assistance could eventually be secured from donors who are keen not to punish the most vulnerable groups for their government's "sins". But it may not be on the scale needed.
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From The Cape Times (SA), 19 September
Federation to send mission to Zimbabwe and Swaziland
Johannesburg - Cosatu said yesterday it would lobby the government to pressure Zimbabwe and Swaziland to accede to trade union demands for democracy and freedom of the press. The deepening political and economic crises in Zimbabwe and Swaziland should not be allowed to go on, Cosatu president Willy Madisha told delegates on the final day of the labour federation's national congress in Midrand. "We will send a fact-finding mission comprising all affiliate representatives to Zimbabwe to gain at first hand information about what is really taking place there," he said. The four-day congress, under the slogan "Consolidating Working Class Action Power for Quality Jobs Towards 2015", started on Monday. Madisha said the labour federation supported the call by trade unions in Zimbabwe for an interim government and the drafting of a new democratic constitution to allow for free elections."We also support the call of the international community for free political activity, the repeal of the draconian laws that limit freedom of speech and free political activity, and the restoration of the rule of law in Zimbabwe and Swaziland," he said. "We back the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions' call, backed by other democratic formations in that country, for King Mswati III to issue a commitment to create free political activity and restore the rule of law as a condition for genuine dialogue."
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Comment from Business Day (SA), 19 September
Message to shout from the rooftops
Anton Harber
When government closed The Weekly Mail for a month in 1988, the distinguished British ambassador, Sir Robin Renwick, arrived carrying a bank bag stuffed with money. With his Savile Row suit and Tory accent, he was clearly uncomfortable handling something as crude as cash. "Use it well," he said, "I want no receipts, no thanks, no mention of this at all." This was her majesty's government's way of helping us through a difficult month, he said. On the other hand, he used a conspicuous cheque to order a subscription for 10 Downing Street. It would be of assistance, he explained, if Pik Botha (then foreign affairs minister) could be told that Mrs Thatcher received this paper every week, and would not be pleased if she failed to receive it. On the first day of the closure, I received a call from a US senator. "I am about to go into the senate and propose a resolution that we give you support to ensure you survive," he said. "What are your costs for the month?"
I tell these stories to highlight the way the international community rallied around during the 1980s to keep alive as much press freedom as they could in this country. They recognised press freedom as a litmus test, a freedom that could help protect other freedoms, one that could give hope and succour to many who lacked other freedoms. We would not have survived without such support. On receiving a warning of state action, we could phone one or two people in London, such as the veteran South African activists David Astor and Anthony Sampson, and within hours we would get copies of protest letters sent to government from every Fleet Street editor. The Committee for the Protection of Journalists in New York would sweep into action and mobilise a network of international reaction. They didn't care what we wrote, they never questioned whether we deserved closure, they just rallied around when the call was made.
South African business made its own intervention. One day we were summoned to a grand old building in the city centre to meet a major business leader who was concerned that closure of our paper would add impetus to calls for sanctions. He kept calling our paper the Financial Mail. We didn't correct him for fear he would realise we were just a rag-tag bunch of lefties, but he rallied support for a letter signed by eight top businessmen to then president PW Botha, which was crucial in staying his hand.
This week the authorities in Zimbabwe closed that country's biggest daily, the independent and outspoken Daily News. The paper declined to register under the new media laws, they challenged the law in court and were told they could not do so unless they first complied with the law and registered. Meanwhile, armed police closed them down. Registration of journalists is familiar to South Africans, who fought against repeated attempts to introduce it in the apartheid era. It was blocked because journalists and employers stood together in resisting what would have been a death knell for dissident voices; if one paper had agreed, the edifice would have been broken, and those who resisted would, like the Daily News in Harare, have been isolated. Zimbabwe's other papers decided together to register under protest then challenge the law. The Daily News made a lone stand not to do so. But their tactics are not the issue. Their survival is.
It is not a coincidence that as Zimbabwe's democratic institutions have come under attack the country has seen inflation rise to about 450%, unemployment to 70%, and shortages of food and other essentials have worsened. These things seldom happen when democratic institutions are strong because those responsible for them are called to account. Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen made the point that you do not get famine in a democracy of which a free press is an essential ingredient. You can predict that the more Zimbabwe's democratic institutions come under attack, so the risk rises of shortages turning to famine. Reading international coverage of Zimbabwe this week I noted that most articles in the major global papers quoted condemnations of the attack on press freedom from the US state department, the British foreign secretary, the Commonwealth secretariat and international media freedom organisations. SA's government was conspicuous by its absence, probably because its response was so wishywashy it did not merit repetition. But South Africans who care about these things particularly journalists should not let this stand as our response. Our government has chosen the path of diplomacy so quiet no one, least of all Zimbabweans, can hear it.
Pass me the megaphone.
Harber is the Caxton professor of journalism, Wits University, and was founder of The Weekly Mail (now Mail & Guardian).
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From Business Day, (SA), 22 September
SA working 'hard' to solve Zimbabwe crisis
Chief Political Correspondent
Government moved to calm nerves over the closure of Zimbabwe's independent newspaper, Daily News, with an assurance that a lot of "behind the scenes" negotiation was taking place to arrest the situation. This has fuelled speculation that Zimbabwe's continued clampdown on an independent critical voice was symptomatic of political problems spiralling out of control and that regional leaders have run out ideas to convince Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe to return to the rule of law. Foreign affairs and the presidency closed ranks yesterday, assuring the public that all stops were being pulled to resolve Zimbabwe's problems. President Thabo Mbeki had said the deadline of June next year, which he set for himself to have Zimbabwe's political parties working on tangible solutions, was still achievable, said presidential aide Bheki Khumalo. Foreign Affairs spokesman Ronnie Mamoepa said the public could "safely assume government is doing its best to help Zimbabweans resolve their problems amicably".
Dr Eddy Maloka, CEO of Africa Institute of SA, said Zimbabwe's problems were making it difficult for the African Union, and the Southern African Development Community especially, to continue supporting Mugabe. "They have been giving him support and lots of opportunities to prove their critics wrong. Unfortunately, his party is very divided on how it should move forward and end the chaos." Maloka said Zimbabwe had become a crisis that was not of Mbeki's making, but which had come to affect his programme for Africa's vision and Nepad. "It does not matter what people outside the country do or say, without a protagonist element inside both parties (the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change) that see eye to eye in the interest of the country, regional efforts will not succeed." Meanwhile, the African Editors' Forum and the South African National Editors' Forum have requested an urgent meeting with SA's foreign affairs department. Mathatha Tsedu, interim chairman of the African Editors' Forum, said if the ban was permanent it would shut down the voice of dissent in a country where democratic gains had been rolled back significantly in the past few years. The Daily News said yesterday it was preparing to challenge the state media commission's refusal to grant it a licence.
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From SABC News, 21 September
Speculation mounts over Mugabe's deputy successor
Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean President, choice as a replacement for his deceased deputy could shed new light on who the veteran leader wants to eventually succeed him, political analysts said today. Mugabe announced the death of Simon Muzenda, his first Vice President, after a long illness late yesterday. Analysts said Mugabe could now either elevate Joseph Msika, the country's second Vice President, to Muzenda's post, or appoint a new candidate. Either way, the new entrant was likely to be someone Mugabe wanted as his own successor after he hinted earlier this year he might be ready to retire, analysts said. "Muzenda's death obviously has implications for the whole succession debate," said Brian Raftoupoulos, a professor at the University of Zimbabwe's Institute of Development Studies.
Zimbabwe is mired in its worst political and economic crisis since Mugabe assumed power at independence 23 years ago. Critics have accused Mugabe of mismanaging the economy, helping to push the jobless rate up to 70% and inflation to nearly 430%. Muzenda had served in Zimbabwe's government since independence from Britain in 1980 and was one of the president's most loyal aides. He would have turned 81 next month and was the same age as Msika. Mugabe is two years younger. Local media have speculated over the past few months that all three were under increasing pressure even from within their ruling party Zanu PF party to retire and make way for younger blood. "The two most likely contenders at the moment appear to be John Nkomo and Emmerson Mnangagwa," Raftopoulos said, referring to Zanu PF's national chairperson, and speaker of parliament respectively. Mnangagwa has long been touted as Mugabe's favoured successor, but the president himself has publicly kept quiet on his preferred heir. It was not clear when Mugabe would fill the vacant deputy post. It took him five months to name Msika as a replacement for veteran nationalist Joshua Nkomo who died in 1999.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 22 September
Banned Zim paper gears up for battle
Harare - Zimbabwe's outlawed independent daily newspaper, the Daily News, is preparing to go to court to challenge the state media commission's refusal to grant it a licence, a company official said on Sunday. Daily News legal adviser Gugulethu Moyo said the paper's publishers were preparing to take the Media and Information Commission to court. "We're working on a number of applications," Moyo said, adding that she hoped court papers appealing the commission's decision would be filed on Monday. The commission denied the Daily News a licence late on Friday, scuppering desperate attempts to get the paper back on the streets after a week of legal wrangling. Police shut down the paper more than a week ago after the Supreme Court ruled it was operating illegally because it did not have a licence. The paper quickly filed an application to register. The closure of the Daily News has provoked strong criticism in Zimbabwe, though there has been no sign of street protests. "Let's not make them silence the media. Bring back the Daily News," urged press watchdog Media Institute of Southern Africa in press advertisements on Sunday. Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge claimed, however, that the Daily News wanted "to court martyrdom", the Sunday Mail reported.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 19 September
Mudede's appeal thrown out
Vincent Kahiya
The High Court has dismissed with costs an application by Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede for the court to rescind a ruling compelling him to move to Harare electoral material from the 2002 presidential poll. High Court Judge Moses Chinhengo said last week that Mudede had a statutory obligation to move the papers from the constituencies. "Here the issue is simply one where the applicant is required to perform a function required of him by statute and in the normal course of his duties. The facts are quite distinguishable," Justice Chinhengo said. Opposition Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai last October obtained an order in default after Mudede failed to file the requisite opposing papers on time. Mudede subsequently filed the application asking the court to rescind the ruling. He argued in his application that the delay in filing the requisite papers was caused by a mix-up by lawyers at the Attorney General's Office. The electoral material is key evidence in Tsvangirai's petition challenging Mugabe's re-election as president last year. Section 78 of the Electoral Act compels constituency registrars to seal packets containing electoral material and transmit them to the Registrar-General.
Justice Chinhengo said Mudede had failed to comply with an earlier High Court ruling last year regarding the handling of the electoral material, which compromised the bona fides of his application for rescission. "The failure to comply with the interim order indicates an initial unwillingness (to comply) with the terms of the provisional order. I do not think that I need to say more about the application's bona fides," said Justice Chinhengo. He criticised Mudede's lawyer, Caroline Mudenda of the Civil Division of the AG's Office, for failing in her duties to ensure that the papers were filed on time. "The failure by anybody to clearly explain what clearly happened to the affidavits once they were delivered to the Civil Division indicates unconcern or insouciance which the court cannot condone or approve of," the judge said. "The subsequent failure by the applicant's legal practitioner to prosecute this matter diligently is further evidence of the ineptitude with which she conducted this case," he said. "I accordingly regard the information given as vague, intended to delay matters and quite insufficient."
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From Reuters, 19 September
Mugabe sits tight at centre of Commonwealth outcry
By Cris Chinaka
Harare - Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has kept uncharacteristically quiet as Commonwealth powers trade blows over whether to invite him to a summit. The former freedom fighter normally pulls no punches, but this time analysts say a media crackdown at home is making it hard for him to step into the fray without making things worse. In the past he has branded his Australian critics as a nation of criminals for their campaign to bring him to book for human rights and other abuses as his country slides ever further into economic and political crisis. Yet as an increasingly bitter war of words rages between Australia and South Africa, which favours ''quiet diplomacy'' to guide Zimbabwe back into the democratic fold, Mugabe has kept his head below the parapet. Meanwhile his police have waged a campaign to shut down the privately owned paper the Daily News.
Mugabe's spokesman accused Australia of racism for saying he should not attend a summit in Nigeria in December but that was a far cry from Mugabe's usual hard-hitting style. Political analysts say the move was calculated, as usual, to portray Mugabe as the victim of a racist campaign, but also measured not to annoy his key African allies in the Commonwealth, Nigeria and South Africa. "It was a very measured response in three ways, in advancing the picture of a victim, in making no adverse judgment on other members, especially Nigeria and South Africa, and in giving the impression that the government is not desperate," said Professor Heneri Dzinotyiwei of the University of Zimbabwe. "Mugabe's greatest weapon so far has been his ability to persuade Third World members of the Commonwealth that Britain, Australia and, to some extent, Canada, are waging a racist campaign against his government, and that these countries are trying to assume veto powers in the organisation," he said.
Britain, Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler, has virtually stopped making anti-Mugabe statements in public, heeding requests from Mbeki and Africa to give their diplomacy a chance. The 54-member group suspended Zimbabwe for a year from March 2002 after Mugabe's re-election, which critics said were rigged. Nigeria is caught between Australia, which says the suspension stands until Zimbabwe shows progress on democracy, and South Africa, whose President Thabo Mbeki said on Thursday that the suspension had now expired. Nigeria has proved a less firm ally than South Africa, and Nigerian officials confirmed this week Mugabe was not invited to Abuja. One said there was no way the decision could be reversed. Mbeki and Mugabe hope there may be a change of heart, but there is confusion over who has the final say: the host nation or the Commonwealth secretary general, Australian Don McKinnon. "It is the prerogative of the president of Nigeria, and only Nigeria can issue out invitations," Mugabe's Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge told Zimbabwe state television on Thursday evening. In his bid for acceptance, Mugabe might get some attention by waving the race card, said a senior Western diplomat. But he had made it difficult for his apologists with his current crackdown on the private media, and the arrest this week of over 100 rights activists protesting for a new national constitution. "'I just cannot see how anyone can put a gloss over these developments. The impression out there is that the situation here is not improving at all," the diplomat said.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 22 September
Simon Muzenda
Simon Muzenda, who died on Saturday aged 80, was Zimbabwe's vice-president and one of the less colourful but more important members of the ruling Zanu PF; he played a vital role as a backroom power-broker among the clique whose personal loyalty to President Robert Mugabe remained unquestioning and steadfast even as the country descended into political turmoil and economic chaos. Muzenda's organisational and administrative skills were largely responsible for healing the bitter rifts within Zanu during the guerrilla war in the 1970s that led to the transition from white-ruled Rhodesia to black-ruled Zimbabwe. The movement's then leader, the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole, caused turmoil among the thousands of freedom fighters massed on Rhodesia's borders by renouncing violence as a |
