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Archived News
30th September 2003
Entire staff of banned Zim paper will face the music
New 'currency' for cash-strapped Zimbabwe
Mugabe vetoes devaluation attempts
SA quiet over Mugabe summit issue
Zimbabwe farmers may forfeit payouts
War crimes court eyes 'blood diamond' buyers
They can't hide the evidence
I am a big brother, Mugabe tells MDC
MDC rejects Mugabe's call for unity
Chance to mend fences will be lost if Mugabe clings to old guard
Media body queries Zimbabwe media laws
Resettled farmers encounter fallout from economic meltdown
Married women take Zim to court
Zimbabwe charges unlicensed journalists
Journalists harassed as crackdown on Daily News continues
Cricket sponsor warns against tour
Zimbabwe to allow WFP to handle food distribution
Church leaders hit out at Zimbabwe government
Gas explosion injures 13 in Harare
Zanu PF in succession quandary
'Biblical beast of anarchy'
Daily News wants equipment
Zim city-dwellers get food aid
Government wants tour stopped
Muzenda's death upsets Mugabe's plans
Less soft diplomacy
Zimbabwe - lest we forget
Mugabe succession debate group axed - reports
Zanu PF succession team sparks row
Mugabe blamed for drop in aid
Media freedom victory in Zim
Desperate Zimbabweans spark unofficial dollarisation
Higher education another casualty of economic crisis
Zimbabwe sets up courts to deal with economic crimes
UN food aid hope rests on Harare agreement
MDC is not talking to Zanu PF
Extract from an interview with President Obasanjo
What’s the big deal?
'It is like losing a son'
Zim paper still out of action
Mbeki to look into Zim paper
Mbare residents forced to attend Muzenda funeral
In for the long haul
The Daily News will return
The curse of a quiet diplomacy
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From The Star (SA), 24 September
Entire staff of banned Zim paper will face the music
Harare - Zimbabwean police intend charging the entire editorial staff and the owner of one of the country's only independent newspapers with operating for an unregistered organisation. Following on the threat, the SA National Editors' Forum yesterday asked to meet Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to discuss what it said was media repression in Zimbabwe. "We are concerned at these developments and what appears to be a lack of firm response by your office to the violation of freedom of expression in Zimbabwe," Sanef's letter to Dlamini-Zuma said. The Zimbabwe government has already shut down the Daily News for operating without a licence. It has also charged five other directors of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), which published the Daily News, with operating a media house illegally, and plans to take them to trial soon. The Daily News, which began publishing in 1999, refused to register its operations as required by tough media laws passed in 2002 in protest against the legislation. The laws were enacted soon after President Robert Mugabe was re-elected last year.
Police spokesperson Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said the police wanted to question ANZ board chairperson Strive Masiyiwa, who lives in South Africa, over his role in the illegal operations. Masiyiwa, who moved to South Africa three years ago, also owns majority shares in Zimbabwean cellphone operator Econet Wireless. "The ideal situation would be for us to interview Masiyiwa face to face, but he is not here. However, we are still going to charge him, one way or the other, with the same charges his fellow directors are facing," Bvudzijena said. "We are also going to charge all those journalists who have been working at the ANZ without registration and the requisite accreditation." The group employed about 60 journalists. A government-appointed media commission on Friday denied a licence to the ANZ, saying the group had been found guilty by the courts of publishing the Daily News for nearly nine months without registration. The commission's decision came a week after police shut down the Daily News.
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From Business Day (SA), 24 September
New 'currency' for cash-strapped Zimbabwe
Harare - Zimbabwe's central bank has launched a new form of payment in the latest bid to help ease a cash crisis that has rocked the country since April. Some Z$8.8 billion worth of bearer cheques were released to banks to dispense, according to the bank. On Friday a new Z$500 note will be launched, while a Z$1,000 note will be released on Wednesday next week. But economists expressed varying opinions on the new payment system, coming just days before the introduction of new higher denomination notes. Last month authorities introduced travellers’ cheques but the cash shortage has not eased, as people still queue for hours to cash their pay cheques. "I believe these are going to help ease the scarcity (of cash) and make things a bit better," said independent economist John Robertson. But opposition Movement for Democratic Change shadow finance minister, Tapiwa Mashakada, said the bearer cheques would not likely help stem the cash shortages. "I don't think it is going to solve the cash crisis because the public does not have confidence in these instruments as legal tender," said Mashakada. The new bearer cheques, which will even be dispensed at cash machines, will be in use for six months only while the government assesses market needs. Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa announced last July that Zimbabwe's current 500-dollar note would be withdrawn at the end of September and replaced with a new banknote of the same value. But at the weekend, he said the old note would now be kept in circulation until end of the year. "People are now confused," said Mashakada. "We have a broken record - one small country with different forms of legal tender," he said. The acute shortage of cash, the first of its kind in the history of the country, has forced banks to limit maximum withdrawals to amounts which are so little they suffice to buy just five loaves of bread. Economists blame Zimbabwe's soaring inflation rate, now standing at 426.6%, for the note shortages.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 21 September
Mugabe vetoes devaluation attempts
Kumbirai Mafunda
President Robert Mugabe has since May vetoed eleven times his Cabinet's efforts to have the local currency devalued against Zimbabwe's major trading partners, it was learnt this week. Government sources said Mugabe, who is vehemently opposed to devaluation and once denigrated former Finance Minister, Simba Makoni, over the issue, has turned down 11 proposals that had been agreed to by his Cabinet to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar. Mugabe called Makoni "a saboteur" after he had suggested devaluation, and fired him. In February, Finance and Economic Development Minister, Herbert Murerwa, adjusted the dollar from a pegged $55 to the American greenback after an outcry from exporters that the currency was over-valued. The local currency has since then been trading at $824 to the American unit on the moribund official market, but brisk business is being conducted on the parallel market where this week it was selling at $3 500 to the US dollar. Murerwa, who also adjusted the price of the Zimbabwean dollar against the Pound Sterling, the South African Rand and the Botswana Pula in February, had promised commerce and industry that he would make a further review in May and again in August.
"In the past four months, Cabinet has discussed devaluation eleven times. In a greater number of those discussions, Cabinet has voted in favour of devaluation but Mugabe said no," said the highly placed source. Ever since Makoni's dismissal, no government minister has dared to go public about their feelings on the local currency which experts say, judging by its value on the thriving parallel market, is grossly over-valued officially. Bulawayo-based economic analyst, Eric Bloch, said government's unwillingness to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar against those of the country's main trading partners, was depriving the few exporters left of "price competitiveness". "Exporters are losing price competitiveness because the increased costs of production are not being compensated by the foreign exchange they are getting. Foreign earnings are down which in turn triggers further unemployment and shortages of commodities on the local market," said Bloch.
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From The Natal Witness (SA), 24 September
SA quiet over Mugabe summit issue
Showdown avoided as Mbeki accepts Zim leader's absence at Commonwealth meet
South Africa has defused a potential showdown at December's Commonwealth summit by accepting that Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe will not be invited, diplomatic and official sources said on Tuesday. The political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe has hung like a cloud over the 54-nation Commonwealth for the past three years and threatened to dominate the summit in Abuja, Nigeria. But the sources said South African President Thabo Mbeki will not make a stand over the issue of Zimbabwe's participation, depriving Mugabe of his only powerful backing. Host Nigeria has already said Mugabe will not receive an invitation and Mbeki has avoided a confrontation with his friend and ally, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. "We will not oppose Nigeria's decision not to invite Mugabe. We accept that he will not be there," one senior South African official told Reuters yesterday.
Mbeki has a policy of "quiet diplomacy" towards Mugabe, resisting international attempts to isolate Zimbabwe's Zanu PF government and persuading former colonial power Britain and the United States to let him handle the crisis in his own particular way. Only last week Mbeki told Parliament that technically Zimbabwe is no longer suspended from the Commonwealth and therefore is entitled to attend the summit. The Commonwealth secretariat and key anti-Mugabe members, Britain and Australia, insist Zimbabwe is still suspended, 18 months after he was declared the victor in elections considered rigged by Commonwealth observers. South Africa's backroom pressure on Mugabe and the opposition for a political settlement has made no tangible progress. Optimists suffered a setback in the last week when police closed Zimbabwe's main opposition newspaper, laid charges against the paper's journalists and owners, and broke up a demonstration by pro-democracy activists in Harare.
Nigeria is seldom chosen to host major international events and is desperate for a successful summit, with Britain's Queen Elizabeth attending the gathering. "Obasanjo knows that it can't be a success if Mugabe is there," one London-based diplomat, familiar with the negotiations over Zimbabwe's participation, told Reuters. South Africa is unlikely to make any public announcement that it has sided with Nigeria at Mugabe's expense. "We have always said that it is for Nigeria to issue the invitations and that we will respect that," Mbeki's spokesman Bheki Khumalo told Reuters from New York, where Mbeki was attending the UN General Assembly.
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From Business Day (SA), 23 September
Zimbabwe farmers may forfeit payouts
Harare - Zimbabwe's white farmers have been told by the government that they must take the compensation package offered to them for their land or risk getting nothing at all, the agriculture minister has said. Many white commercial farmers have not collected the money because they are contesting the sums offered. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made was quoted in the state-run Herald newspaper yesterday as saying that Z$8bn in compensation money would be disbursed to new black farmers if the white farmers did not claim it. "There is a fund sitting idle and the intended beneficiaries are holed up somewhere in Australia, Canada, Britain or New Zealand," Made said. He did not give a deadline for farmers to collect the money. Under its controversial land reform programme launched in 2000, the government took over white-owned farms for redistribution to new black farmers. The government said it was paying for work done on the land, and not for the land itself, which it says was stolen by 19th century white settlers. But the white farmers' lobby, Justice for Agriculture (JAG), yesterday dismissed the latest move by the government as a "mere propaganda exercise". It said the figures being offered by the government to compensate dispossessed white farmers for work done on their farms represented on average 10%-25% of the real value. JAG vice-president John Worswick said: "They (the government) have failed to raise the finance for land reform. This is just another way of robbing Peter to pay Paul." According to a recent survey by the white-run Commercial Farmers' Union , an estimated 485 commercial farmers out of about 3291 operating in 2000 have remained on their land. The eviction of white farmers has been partly blamed by aid agencies and critics for Zimbabwe's worst famine in living memory.
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From Reuters, 23 September
War crimes court eyes 'blood diamond' buyers
By Karl Emerick Hanuska
The Hague - Foreigners who bought "blood diamonds" from the Democratic Republic of Congo could be charged with complicity in war crimes and genocide, the prosecutor of the world's first permanent criminal court said Tuesday. International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said crimes linked to the civil war in the central African nation that killed around three million people may have been committed as far away as the United States and Canada. Foreign businessmen and firms who supplied cash or weapons in exchange for diamonds to people they knew were guilty of war crimes are just as liable to be prosecuted as anyone who actually carried out those atrocities, Moreno Ocampo said. "If they received diamonds and knew that the people delivering them were getting them because of genocide then they could well be part of the crime," he told reporters. Rough diamonds from illegitimate sources, dubbed "blood" or "conflict" diamonds, are used to fund wars, mostly in Africa. "Follow the trail of the money and you will find the criminals. If you stop the money then you stop the crime," said the Argentine prosecutor, who is focusing on Congo for what could lead to his first formal investigation.
Moreno Ocampo, who helped prosecute Argentina's military junta in the 1980s for crimes committed during its "dirty war," said he expected a probe into possible war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity in the Congo to start next year. "This is the most important case since World War II," he said, adding that he was gathering information from national prosecutors in countries where the links to the purchase of blood diamonds had been found. Among those countries identified are the United States, Canada, Britain, Russia, Finland and Zimbabwe, and Hong Kong. The global court, which took effect last July to tackle the world's gravest crimes, has no formal cases on its books yet. Moreno Ocampo's office has received six complaints of atrocities committed in Congo's northeastern province of Ituri, including two detailed reports from nongovernmental organizations alleging execution, rape, torture, sexual slavery and the use of child soldiers.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 24 September
They can't hide the evidence
By Michael Hartnack
Zimbabwe's state-run daily newspaper The Herald celebrated the suppression of the privately-owned Daily News by increasing its price from Zimbabwe $300 to $500, despite years of plummeting readership. For the first time since 1999, the Herald's publishers, Zimbabwe Newspapers, are back with a monopoly over the market for dailies, thanks to the September 12 forced closure of the Daily News. From a circulation topping 130 000 a morning in the 1980s, the Herald is now down to 45 000, according to advertising industry sources, while the Daily News last year managed 120 000 print runs before the shortage of cash and newsprint caused cutbacks. Sam Sipepa Nkomo, chief executive of Associated Newspapers Zimbabwe which published the Daily News, said when police moved in on Sept. 12 the paper was publishing 70 000 a morning, reaching a 940 000 readership through many poor families sharing copies. The Daily News overtook the century-old Herald despite the January 2001 blowing up of its presses in a military-style operation, and thugs of Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF party placing informal bans on its circulation in many rural areas. They have frequently beaten vendors and seized copies while police looked on. The Daily News lured profitable classified advertising where rival Modus publications' Daily Gazette failed in the early 1990s (burdening Modus with a $40 million loss). Many firms and individuals refused to place business with Zimpapers as it became filled with slavish Zanu PF propaganda.
The Sept. 23 issue of The Herald was largely devoted to funeral arrangements for Mugabe's vice president, Simon Muzenda. With no Daily News, Zimbabweans will have to wait until weeklies are published to read resolutions highly critical of Mugabe's regime, passed at the South African trade union (COSATU) congress in Midrand on Sept. 22. COSATU President Willy Madisha announced it would send a delegation to Zimbabwe and pressure President Thabo Mbeki for policy change. COSATU also endorsed demands by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trades Unions for an interim government, a new democratic constitution, restoration of the rule of law, and repeal of repressive legislation such as the draconian press law, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The Herald reported none of this. The Herald has also ignored international jurists' censure of the Supreme Court for its Sept. 11 ruling the Daily News should have registered under the Access to Information Act before it has the right to challenge the Act as an infringement of constitutional rights of free expression. Jurists said the judges, newly appointed by Mugabe to replace a formerly independent-minded bench, undermined their credibility with a decision based on case law not cited by the Daily News or the regime. The judges had become extra counsel for the state, critics alleged, giving Daily News' lawyers no chance to comment on the fresh case law they raised. "Had we been challenging the death penalty we would have had to hang first and appeal from hell," said Daily News legal adviser Gugulethu Moyo.
The day after the ruling, police pounced on 100 computers, chasing staff from the ANZ building, and warning of prosecution for "publishing illegally". Five directors have been charged, and face possible two-year jail terms. The company obtained an injunction from Judge Yunis Omerjee for return of its equipment and resumption of publication, pending registration with the Media and Information Commission required by the Supreme Court. Police openly defied the judge’s order, keeping ANZ's offices sealed. They pleaded lack of transport to return the seized computers and said officers who knew where they were stored, and had the keys, had gone on leave. The computers were miraculously discovered the following day when Media Commission chairman Tafataona Mahoso announced the ANZ registration application had been considered and rejected - in record time. He claimed ANZ had missed the 2003 deadline. The French-based Rapporteurs Sans Frontiers slated Mahoso's speedy decision as conspiracy with the regime to deprive Zimbabweans of alternative news sources. Secretary-general Robert Renard noted that in the past it had taken months for Mahoso to announce decisions. ANZ has now lodged a second appeal to the Supreme Court, against Mahoso's refusal of registration, while Mahoso is seeking a ruling the Daily News must stay off the streets until the registration appeal it heard. The jobs of 300 members of staff hang in the balance, with the company having to meet overheads while no revenues come in.
Brian Raftopoulos of the Crisis Coalition, a grouping of church and civic organisations, said: "Zimbabweans are left with only the virulent propaganda disseminated by the state media. A key part of the Mugabe regime's strategy is to silence dissent and criticism of its abuse of power." Professor Anton Harber of Wits University contrasted the backing South Africa's independent press got under apartheid, with Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy" reponse to Mugabe's onslaught. The Movement for Democratic Change has called for advertisers and readers to boycott the state media until the Daily News is allowed to resume publication. However, sources requesting anonymity suggest Zimbabweans should now turn to "underground newspapers" as South Africans did during apartheid. New legislation allows the authorities to impose sweeping controls on operators of electronic services but experts believe it might be impossible for them to prevent fax as well as e-mail transmission of uncensored news. Wealthier Zimbabweans buy satellite dishes and their poorer countrymen tune to foreign radio stations. But the ordeal of trying to make ends meet tells them a daily story of chronic misgovernance that Mugabe cannot hide from anyone.
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From The Star (SA), 25 September
I am a big brother, Mugabe tells MDC
By Brian Latham
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe wants the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to treat him like a "big brother". And the MDC should be talking with his Zanu PF party - behind closed doors, he said in a rambling and contradictory speech at the funeral of Vice President Simon Muzenda on Wednesday. Muzenda died at the weekend aged 80. In a surprisingly conciliatory moment, Mugabe embraced the MDC as fellow Zimbabweans and "sons of the soil" but then went on to rebuke them. "Sons of the soil should behave like sons of the soil. They should not rise against each other." "Of course, there'll be differences. But I am a big brother and you will listen to a person who is bigger. A person who is bigger is bigger, and there is nothing you can do." Mugabe went on to say: "We sort things out in our house, not (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair's house. Then, when we go out, people won't see we've been shouting. But when it comes to a fight, we can fight." And, after saying that Zimbabweans should unite regardless of colour, religion or tribe, Mugabe took a swipe at the country's few remaining white farmers, accusing them of being "Rhodesians" bent on undermining Zimbabwe. "I read that an association of farmers has decided to defy the land acquisition policy and not work with new farmers. Instead they've decided to go to the European Union to ask the EU to withdraw our beef exports. They like our beef, it is delicious. If they were really Zimbabweans, would they really do this?" he asked. In fact, Zimbabwe's beef export quota of just more than 9 000 tons a year was withdrawn by the EU two years ago over concerns about foot-and-mouth disease, largely caused by the rampant cutting of farm fences by Mugabe's supporters. Then, in a speech that lasted for about an hour, Mugabe veered off to say: "We don't recognise these farmers as Zimbabweans. We must show them the gate."
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 25 September
MDC rejects Mugabe's call for unity
Harare - President Robert Mugabe called yesterday for unity between all Zimbabweans, including the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. But the MDC quickly rejected the rare display of conciliatory rhetoric as "public posturing". In a rambling speech at the state funeral of Vice-President Simon Muzenda, Mr Mugabe called on Zimbabweans to settle their differences internally and not "in Blair's home", referring to the British Prime Minister. "We are sons of the soil together, and sons of the soil should behave like sons of the soil, not rise against each other," he said. Since the formation of the MDC four years ago hundreds of its supporters have been killed and thousands beaten or imprisoned by Mr Mugabe's supporters and state security agents. Paul Themba Nyathi, an MDC spokesman, said: "Mugabe is leading a country where 70 per cent are unemployed, 80 per cent live below the poverty line and more than five million people require food aid. If he was serious about rectifying the situation he would take practical steps." The funeral, which began three days of national mourning, was attended by thousands of Zimbabweans who cheered the call for unity. But the loudest cheers came when Mr Mugabe castigated white farmers for failing to take part in the government's land seizure programme and blamed them for the loss of lucrative beef exports to the European Union.
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Comment from The Cape Times (SA), 25 September
Chance to mend fences will be lost if Mugabe clings to old guard
By Basildon Peta
Has the death of Vice-President Simon Muzenda created an opportunity for President Robert Mugabe to unite his divided country by appointing the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change as a replacement? After all, some of Mugabe's staunch allies, like President Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, have fought hard to encourage a united government in Zimbabwe as the only realistic way of rescuing the country from its seemingly bottomless economic and political quagmire. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the top brass of his party, including secretary-general Welshman Ncube and national chairman Isaac Matongo, demonstrated unprecedented magnanimity by visiting Muzenda's home in Harare to convey their condolences. As the country mourns the death at the weekend of Muzenda, who was 80, speculation has been mounting about how Mugabe will use the sudden vacancy to settle the succession question. Analysts say that in a functional democracy it would not be unreasonable to expect Mugabe to use his deputy's death as an opportunity to offer an olive branch to the opposition.
"But in the mad circus that Zimbabwe has become, it is more than foolish to expect this to happen," said University of Zimbabwe analyst Lovemore Madhuku. The reason is not the opposition's dislike for an unity arrangement with the Mugabe regime, but mainly Mugabe's demonstrated belief that Zimbabwe and his government would be far better off without an opposition. Although the MDC would probably refuse to be part of Mugabe's government, if Mugabe extended an olive branch this would portray him as a magnanimous statesman eager to take steps to resolve the crisis in his country. Although this would play to his advantage, Mugabe would most likely rather miss the opportunity. As it is, Mugabe used a memorial service for Muzenda as an opportunity to demonise the MDC as "British puppets" who would never rule Zimbabwe "as long as I live".
If the prospects of Mugabe's appointing Tsvangirai are zero, what about a young candidate from within Zanu PF who has the credentials - such as former finance minister Simba Makoni - to improve the party's credibility and standing? "There is no chance of this happening, either," said University of Zimbabwe political scientist Elphas Mukonoweshuro. "Mugabe will stick to the old guard and Muzenda's successor is going to come from the old school." Any young Zanu PF politicians who have shown a serious inclination to work with the opposition and engage the international donor community have been branded "traitors". None of the many analysts interviewed thought Emmerson Mnangagwa would not be Mugabe's choice. Mugabe has done everything to ensure that Mnangagwa, the Speaker of parliament and Zanu PF head of administration implicated by a United Nations report in looting the Democratic Republic of Congo - will succeed him. "If Mugabe delays announcing Mnangagwa's appointment, it will be because he wants to give him more time to consolidate his power in the party before elevating him," said Madhuku.
There are many reasons for Mugabe's sticking to Mnangagwa, but the most compelling is that the speaker is Mugabe's best insurance policy against future prosecution. In the early 1980s, as minister of state security in charge of Zimbabwe's dreaded spy agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation, Mnangagwa oversaw the systematic elimination of an estimated 25 000 Mugabe opponents in Matabeleland. The findings of a 1984 inquiry commissioned by Mugabe to investigate the Matabeleland massacres after an international outcry have not been made public, despite pressure by civic groups. Any moderate candidate who may, after taking office, bow to public pressure and release the findings is therefore automatically disqualified from the succession race. If, through some stroke of fate, Mnangagwa fails to be appointed, Mugabe's next choice, analysts agree, would be Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi, another hardcore Mugabe fanatic also implicated in the DRC looting. John Nkomo, the charismatic Zanu-PF national chairman considered by many as one of the few Zanu PF men who could make a difference by breaking with Mugabe's past, is out of the equation because of his moderate tendencies. Like many other opportunities that have arisen to resolve Zimbabwe crises, that of settling the succession question and brightening the country's prospects by appointing a credible candidate has come - but is certain to go begging since it is likely that Mnangagwa - a prominent member of Mugabe's old guard - will be appointed.
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From Business Day (SA), 25 September
Media body queries Zimbabwe media laws
Harare - The Zimbabwe branch of a regional media advocacy group said it had filed a court application challenging the legality of the state-appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC). The Media Institute of Southern Africa - Zimbabwe (MISA-Zimbabwe) said it had filed the application against the commission, which licences media in the country. Its application also seeks to have the requirement of an operating licence declared unconstitutional. The move comes amid intense international and local concern over a government crackdown on Zimbabwe's last independent daily, which was shut earlier this month over the licencing issue. Police were preparing to charge some 45 journalists of the Daily News for working without accreditation, and the paper's owners were charged on Monday for not having an operating permit. MISA-Zimbabwe has also asked in its court application whether, as an advocacy body, it is also obliged to register with the commission. "We asking the High Court to determine whether we are a mass media house or not. We want it to determine our character," group chairperson Reyhana Master-Smith told AFP.
MISA is an arm of a regional non-governmental organisation promoting media pluralism and independence which has branches in all southern African countries. The commission licences media services and journalists who operate in the country under the media law which came into effect last year shortly after President Robert Mugabe was re-elected to office in disputed polls. The law states that at least three of the maximum seven MIC board members should be nominated by an association of journalists and an association of media houses. MISA argues that neither an association of journalists nor any of the media houses had forwarded any names for the commission. "The board is therefore improperly and unlawfully constituted rendering any purported exercise of the functions and powers conferred upon... (it) null and void," the advocacy group said. The requirement for media organisations to register "places an undue restriction on the free flow of information by requiring organisations to register with a politically compromised body before disseminating information", it charged. Meantime the Daily News, which has been closed for 12 days after the Supreme Court ruled it was illegal, has filed applications with the Zimbabwean courts seeking an overturn of the MIC decision to deny it a licence.
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From IRIN (UN), 24 September
Resettled farmers encounter fallout from economic meltdown
Bulawayo - The prospects for agricultural revival in Zimbabwe in the new farming season have been thrown into doubt following reports that a parastatal charged with implementing the tillage programme among resettled subsistence farmers, is facing serious problems including the poor state of mechanised and other farming implements and a chronic shortage of fuel. District Development Fund (DDF) officials said more than half the tillage fleet of tractors was in a state of disrepair due to the shortage of spare parts, a situation which worsened early this year when Tanaka Power, a Harare-based agricultural equipment and supplies company, withdrew its services following DDF's failure to service its debt.
This year's crop farming season, which comes as the country is going through a multi-faceted social and economic crisis, holds little promise for these farmers. The DDF has said they will be required to pay Z$32,000 upfront per hectare tilled, and buy their own fuel at a subsidised rate of Z$200 per litre. Although the price is a remarkable climb-down from the current price of Z$2,000 a litre, DDF officials in western Matabeleland province said the farmers had complained, saying most of them could not afford the fees. "The situation in the tillage sections throughout the country is very bad. It would be a dangerous gamble for farmers to look to the DDF, because the tractors are in a state of disrepair. If they insist, they will find that the few that are in working order have no fuel, which they will have to buy themselves," said an official who refused to be named. "Besides the impossibility of villagers securing fuel without government help, the high cost of tillage charges can only be met by established, highly productive commercial farmers, as opposed to those coming from a subsistence background. Disc ploughs are also in short supply, while the few that are there also need to be replaced or somehow repaired - so the DDF is not ready for the tillage task and government is aware of that."
He said the DDF's plight worsened early this year when a Harare agricultural equipment and spares distributor withdrew from a service and equipment spares supply contract, citing the parastatal's failure to pay for services rendered in last year's farming season. "The company said it was failing to cope with the increasing ... [quantity] of equipment requiring service as the parastatal's debt soared, so they turned back all the DDF equipment. The situation, as it prevails now, is that even if the farmers manage to pay, they will not get the service. So failure by the farmers to pay would be a blessing in disguise for the DDF, because it has no capacity to deliver tillage services at the moment," he said. He added that under normal conditions, the DDF should have at least seven tractors assigned to tillage per district, but some districts still did not have any. "The highest number you can find working in the districts in Matabeleland will be two, but they also do not have fuel and the tillage programme has not started."
Farmers are required to organise themselves into groups and approach the Agricultural Rural Extension Services (AREX), which would in turn visit them individually to assess the hectarage they want tilled, and then calculate the amount and cost of the fuel required. AREX is charged with procuring the fuel, while the local rural district council is required to provide fuel storage facilities in the area where the tractors would be working. Given the new maize seed prices announced by the government last week, and the overall cost of tillage, a farmer has to fork out a total of Z$133,000 to till and plant one hectare of farmland. A 10 kg bag of seed maize, enough for 1 hectare, now costs Z$21,00, it takes Z$80,000 to fill the fuel tank of a tractor, and the cost of tillage will stand at Z$32,000. The DDF Director of Operations declined to give details on their state of preparedness and referred IRIN to the DDF Director-General, who was not immediately available for comment.
The managing director (MD) of Tanaka Power refused to expand on the circumstances surrounding the withdrawal of their contract with DDF, and referred IRIN back to the DDF. "This is a government contract and such issues are sensitive. DDF would be the best people to discuss that with." The government announced new maize seed prices, which were roundly condemned as unaffordable to farmers, following a submission to parliament by seed companies citing the low government-controlled prices as one of the major factors that could threaten their viability and, therefore, the sustainability of seed supplies in the new season. In the past two weeks the majority of stakeholders in the farm inputs and other agro-supplies sectors have pointed out that the combination of factors making up the Zimbabwean crisis would most likely scuttle any effort at agricultural revival, unless government acts to address the economic meltdown in the country.
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From News24 (SA), 22 September
Married women take Zim to court
Bulawayo - What's in a name" Married women in Zimbabwe are taking the government to court over a procedure that compels them to adopt their husbands' surnames as a precondition to official documents, including registering the birth of infant children. Under the leadership of the Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association (ZWLA), the women have embarked on a class action suit meant to free them from the burden of assuming their husbands' surnames before getting a passport or a child's birth certificate. The lawsuit is based on an application by a married Harare woman, Violet Mutyamaenza, who has had problems registering the birth of her child and has been compelled to first change her surname. In terms of Zimbabwean marriage law, a married woman is legally free to keep her last name. She also has the option to use it in combination with her husband's. However, for reasons that may partly be traced to the colonial period, the central registry continues to demand that women with registered marriages first drop their maiden names before they can be issued with official documents.
According to Emilia Muchawa, the director ZWLA, a countless number of women in the country are caught up in what she terms an unlawful application of the law. "It's extremely rampant; very many people are affected by this." She says to insist that married women change their names without giving them the option is illegal and discriminatory. "We are saying without giving women a choice, it is against their democratic rights." The association is arguing that provisions of section 10C of the National Registration Amendment regulations of 1979 do not compel women with registered marriages to change their surnames to those of their husbands on their identity documents if they do not wish to do so. Lawyer Wozani Moyo says when a woman gets married, the law allows her to retain her maiden surname yet the registrar-general's office (births and deaths) still requires women to adopt their husbands' names before they can get passports or their children's birth certificates. "It's totally unconstitutional because it treats women as second-class citizens and denies them the right to express themselves," she says. "Effectively it means this practice contravenes a certain section of the bill of rights as well as the Birth and Deaths Registration Act which says the registrar-general may enter a husband's name," Moyo says. "It is discretionary and that discretion is being abused."
Included in the class action are women with registered marriages who upon application for a new Zimbabwe passport or the replacement of a lost passport, have been obliged by the national registry to replace their surnames as they appear on their identity documents with their husbands'. Also included in the lawsuit are married women who have infant children born of their marriages and who have been, or are being compelled, to change their surnames to those of their husbands before the children's births can be registered. The third group consists of married women who at some point, either voluntarily or otherwise, changed their surnames to those of their husbands but now wish to revert to their maiden surnames on their identity documents and Zimbabwe passports. The case is expected to be heard in the next two months. "For us it has reached an advanced stage," says Muchawa who noted the most challenging stage was getting the High Court to agree to hear it. The lawsuit aims to enforce a woman's right in retaining her maiden name even when she needs to obtain official documents. Unmarried women used to face similar problems in that obtaining a passports for a minor born of out wedlock required the consent of the father who could be thousands of kilometres away, in another country. However, a judgment handed down in April this year (Katedza versus Chunga), in a matter relating to a man and women formerly in a customary union, re-affirmed that a single mother has guardianship over her child. Women's groups including ZWLA celebrated the judgment as a victory for their cause. "The law is clear here," Moyo says. "An unmarried woman has guardianship over her child and may obtain a passport or birth certificate without even using the child's father's surname."
However, apart from pushing for women's recognition in the office of the Registrar-General, ZWLA is looking at the broader issues centring on marriage. The association is presently consulting widely and is lobbying for marriage reforms in Zimbabwe. The initiative began in 2001 and is being undertaken with support from the country's Ministry of Justice. There are three types of marriages in Zimbabwe: a legally-registered customary marriage which allows polygamy and an unregistered customary union under-which the man complies with traditional procedure but does not register the marriage. There is also a civil marriage which does not allow polygamy and can be registered at any magistrate's court or church in the country. Community of property in this marriage only applies if the property is registered in both spouses' names. Among the many problems being experienced under the current marriage system is that only the High Court has powers to dissolve a civil marriage. This creates a lot of financial and geographical problems since the court operates only from the two major cities. Furthermore, the procedures of instituting divorce are complicated making it difficult for couples to divorce even if the marriage has broken down irretrievably. Given that the three marriage types provide for different rights, there are situations where a man with a civil marriage goes on to take another wife in an unregistered customary law union without divorcing the first wife
Moyo says the unregistered customary marriage is the source of most major problems women face in a matrimonial union. Problems centre on the fact that it is not recognised at law. "Under this marriage women cannot go to court and divorce because they are considered unmarried." Generally, polygamy can be problematic, especially as the property rights of the numerous wives in that union are unclear. Because of the present property regime which says marriages are out of community of property, most houses are registered in the name of the husband and therefore he can sell the house and the wife cannot stop him unless she is claiming divorce at the same time. This means that for a woman to have any share in a matrimonial home she has to claim for a divorce even if she does not want one. ZWLA's consultations on marriage laws are expected to end next year when it hopes to influence Parliament into acting on people's views.
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From ABC News (Australia), 26 September
Zimbabwe charges unlicensed journalists
Nine journalists from Zimbabwe's only independent daily, shut down two weeks ago for operating illegally, have been charge for practising without licences. The nine, who deny the charges, are the first out of a list of 45 Daily News journalists whom police want to question over their association with the embattled daily. "The police have charged nine of the journalists under Section 83 [the license requirement] of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act," said Daily News legal director, Gugulethu Moyo. The charges against the reporters come after police shut down the paper because it was operating without a licence. Five of the paper's executives have already been charged. Under the country's strict press laws, all journalists have to register with the Government's Media and Information Commission (MIC). Most of the paper's journalists, who had applied for accreditation last year, were turned down on the grounds that their employer had not applied for an operating licence. Journalists who operate without accreditation risk being fined, barred from working for a period specified by the media commission or having their name deleted from the roll of journalists. The Daily News did not register with the MIC, arguing the law was unconstitutional. The paper's publishers unsuccessfully challenged the law in court. They were ordered to comply with the law before challenging it. But the media commission has since refused to register the Daily News.
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From IRIN (UN), 25 September
Journalists harassed as crackdown on Daily News continues
Harare - Police in Zimbabwe on Thursday released a list of 45 Daily News staffers whom they instructed to report to Harare Central Police Station. The list included past and present Daily News employees and journalists, all of whom applied for accreditation, but whose applications were not forwarded to the government-appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC) because the publishers of the country's only independent daily newspaper - Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) - were challenging the constitutionality of the Access to Information and Protection and Privacy Act (AIPPA). Journalists who failed to register at all are not included on the list. By mid-afternoon on Thursday, 15 of the company's Harare-based reporters were still having their statements recorded at Harare Central Police station. "The list was submitted at The Daily News offices about 11 am [by the police], and a message was passed on to say all those on the list should report to Harare Central Police Station. It includes the names of reporters in all four bureaux of Bulawayo, Gweru, Mutare and Masvingo, so there are 15 reporters in all here," a journalist on the phone from the police station told IRIN. The situation in the bureaux was still tense but normal by mid-afternoon, with reporters anticipating police raids on the provincial offices.
It was not possible to reach any of the Daily News management for comment, as they were said to be preparing for a board meeting to be held on Friday in Johannesburg, South Africa. Although the agenda for the Johannesburg meeting was not immediately available, the board is expected to discuss the newspaper's options, should the Administrative Court rule in favour of the State. Earlier this week the ANZ group applied to the Administrative Court for the MIC's ruling that the organisation and its reporters would not be allowed to register be overturned, saying the decision was unlawful and unconstitutional. The ANZ group argued that the MIC was improperly constituted, as no associations of media houses and journalists were consulted when it was appointed. Meanwhile, the ANZ director of operations, Innocent Kurwe, and the Daily News editor, Nqobile Nyathi, are expected to address workers at all the bureaux about the latest developments and the way forward from Monday next week.
Police raided the Daily News offices and printing works to stop production on 12 September, a day after the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe ruled that ANZ was operating illegally. Police occupied the Daily News premises and confiscated all the computers from its Harare head office. Although some of the equipment was returned last week after ANZ secured a court order compelling the police to do so, more computers were seized after the police and the attorney-general's office won another ruling which cancelled the earlier order. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena announced on Tuesday that the police were keen to interrogate all the journalists whose articles had appeared in the Daily News and its sister publication, the Daily News on Sunday, between January and the day of the ruling. The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-Zimbabwe) has since condemned the harassment of the journalists as yet another blow to the establishment of a free press and democratic governance in the region. In a statement on Thursday the NGO coalition, Crisis in Zimbabwe, called upon all Zimbabweans "who value democracy to join in the campaign to demand the resuscitation of the Daily News".
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From The Guardian (UK), 26 September
Cricket sponsor warns against tour
Mike Selvey, cricket correspondent
Vodafone has warned the England and Wales Cricket Board that its £3m a year sponsorship of the game could be jeopardised if England tour Zimbabwe next autumn. Lord MacLaurin of Knebworth, chairman of the telecoms multinational, yesterday described the prospect of an England team visiting Zimbabwe with the current regime of Robert Mugabe in power as "abhorrent", and said that his company would be doing all it could to dissuade such contact. Earlier this year, after much controversy, England pulled out of a World Cup fixture in Harare, but that was for safety reasons. Lord MacLaurin, 66, a former chairman of the ECB, is adamant that an England visit to Zimbabwe would be bad for cricket and for his company on moral grounds. He said: "We do not want to support a side that goes and plays in a country with the sort of regime that is reviled not just by this company but by many in the country. To do so would be abhorrent and would be good for the brand image neither of Vodafone nor England cricket." Lord MacLaurin added: "We have told the ECB that we would rather the team did not go to Zimbabwe. We believe in the cold light of day, and having had the experience of the World Cup, that it would be inappropriate for the tour to take place and as major sponsors we would certainly urge them to withdraw."
Tim Lamb, ECB chief executive, played down the implications yesterday, and stressed that the prospective tour was constantly under review. "Of course we have concerns too and have expressed them," he said. "It is a regular item of discussion at meetings that deal with England matters. We are very mindful of the issues that arose before the World Cup, and we will need to give serious consideration to concerns expressed by our sponsors. There has been no suggestion that Vodafone would pull the plug although we fully understand their image concerns." The pressure from such a major sponsor will leave cricket's governing body in another quandary. On the one hand, it is obliged to fulfil its international fixtures unless the venue is deemed unsafe. On the other, it will not wish to antagonise a sponsor that has been generous and staunch over the past six years. The ECB's decision not to go to Zimbabwe in March was taken only days before the game and after opposition from the Foreign Office, human rights campaigners and Zimbabwe's opposition, Movement for Democratic Change. Since then, conditions in Zimbabwe have deteriorated with the government earlier this month closing down the independent paper, the Daily News. The ECB is halfway through a four-year, £3m a year sponsorship deal that covers England teams at all levels.
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From VOA News, 25 September
Zimbabwe to allow WFP to handle food distribution
Tendai Maphosa
Harare - The government of Zimbabwe Thursday agreed to allow the World Food Program and its affiliates manage the distribution of food aid. Harare had earlier decreed all food distribution would be handled by pro-government local authorities, which led to protests from the donor community. The recent decree issued by President Robert Mugabe's government would have put local authorities in charge of deciding who gets emergency food and who doesn't. However, food donors raised strong objections, arguing that this would upset the established practice of having independent groups distribute food and would, in addition, politicize the process. A WFP official who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity said the U.N. agency had agreed with the government that food would be distributed solely on the basis of need, irrespective of political, racial, tribal or religious affiliation. The official said that the WFP would continue working with the non-governmental groups they had been working with in the past. The agreement affects only the WFP and its affiliates, and it is unclear how other donor groups involved in food aid would be affected. Government officials were unavailable for comment. According to the latest estimates, more than five million Zimbabweans will need food aid this year. Poor harvests and President Mugabe's controversial land reform program are being blamed for Zimbabwe's dire shortage of food.
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From AFP, 26 September
Church leaders hit out at Zimbabwe government
Harare - Zimbabwean church leaders have hit out at the government's "irresponsible, inhuman, violent (and) partisan" methods of land redistribution, and accused it of fuelling a culture of violence. In the strongly-worded statement put out by more than a hundred clergymen from 59 churches, the church leaders said that "draconian pieces of law", such as the country's security and press laws were stifling fundamental freedoms. "We acknowledge the historical imbalances in respect of land redistribution. However, we do not approve of irresponsible, inhuman, violent, partisan and non-transparent methods of addressing the problem," it said. In 2000 President Robert Mugabe's government launched a fast-track programme of redistributing white-owned farms to new black farmers, which aid agencies say is partly to blame for chronic food shortages here.
The church leaders also strongly criticised the government's two-year-old national youth service programme, saying its members were responsible for serious human rights abuses. Zimbabwe is deeply politically divided between supporters of Mugabe's Zanu PF party and those of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Three church bishops are currently trying to get the two parties talking. The church statement acknowledged their efforts, but said it was concerned at the lack of progress. "We therefore urge all parties concerned to treat the talks with urgency," said the statement, which came from a meeting held earlier this month. It said South African delegates were also present at the meeting. The church leaders called for the immediate abolition of the youth service, "the immediate repeal of POSA (Public Order and Security Act) and AIPPA (Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act)" and a new constitution.
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From Reuters AlertNet, 25 September
Gas explosion injures 13 in Harare
Harare - A gas cylinder exploded in a shop in central Harare on Thursday, injuring 13 people and sending glass flying over a wide area, witnesses and firemen said. "It was a gas cylinder explosion, 13 people were hurt and taken to hospital," a fireman at the scene in Zimbabwe's capital told Reuters. "No one was killed." There were no further details. "We heard an explosion in the shop next to ours and I saw glass flying everywhere," a woman bystander said. Police cordoned off the area around the damaged shop for about 300 metres as fire engines and ambulances sped to the explosion in an alley adjacent to Julius Nyerere Way and Robert Mugabe Avenue. Thousands of bystanders also rushed to the spot. "There was an incident...we do not have details at the moment," Police Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena told Reuters. Tension linked to Zimbabwe's deepening political and economic crisis is mounting in Harare, a stronghold for the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.
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From The Financial Gazette, 25 September
Zanu PF in succession quandary
Brian Mangwende, Chief Reporter
Jockeying for President Robert Mugabe’s position has moved a gear up following the death of veteran politician and Zanu PF chief strategist Simon Muzenda, as it emerged this week that whoever takes over from the late vice-president could be the head of state’s chosen successor. Although President Mugabe has previously indicated a distant departure date, Vice President Muzenda’s death at the age of 81 could prematurely end the heated succession debate by giving glimpses into the candidate President Mugabe would want to occupy the most powerful office when he retires. The vice president’s death also inadvertently lends credence to an imminent Cabinet reshuffle, whose only justification so far were the eagerly-awaited findings of the land audit report presented to President Mugabe about two weeks ago. The findings of the land audit exposes some top government officials who went against government’s policy of "one man, one farm."
High ranking Zanu PF officials yesterday said front-runners for the decisive late Vice President Muzenda’s post include Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa, Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi and former secretary in the President’s Office and Cabinet, Charles Utete. The ruling party officials however said that although it was a three-horse race, Mnangagwa had a more realistic chance of becoming the co-vice president, alongside Joseph Msika. Minister of Special Affairs John Nkomo, who had temporarily taken up the late Vice President Muzenda’s duties, would cede the duties to the late vice president’s successor to maintain the balance of power within the government. President Mugabe, the Zanu PF officials said, would not want to have both vice presidents from former PF-Zapu. Nkomo, Zanu PF’s national chairman, now ranks third after President Mugabe and co- vice president Joseph Msika. "There is no way President Mugabe would surround himself with two vice presidents, both former PF Zapu stalwarts," the source said. "No way. That’s highly unlikely. Instead, this is a chance for him to push the Mnangagwa agenda and I see that happening because he is a very senior member in the party. It was not by mistake that Mnangagwa ended up the party’s secretary for administration and Speaker of Parliament. It’s all a strategy."
Mnangagwa, widely viewed as President Mugabe’s confidante and preferred successor, has few allies in the politburo, Zanu PF’s decision-making body. He was defeated by Nkomo in 1999 for Zanu PF’s national chairmanship, but the following year, ruling party legislators voted the former Central Intelligence Organisation chief as Speaker of Parliament after he lost the Kwekwe seat to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the historic 2000 parliamentary election. Alternatively, they said, President Mugabe may not replace the late vice-president to avoid exposing his personal choice of a successor when he finally steps down from office. Muzenda died last Saturday at one of the country’s referral infirmaries, Parirenyatwa Hospital, after a long illness and was buried at the National Heroes Acre yesterday. His death is also set to re-ignite power struggles in the volatile Masvingo province where the late veteran politician flexed his powerful position in government to quell divisions. President Mugabe’s trusted commander of the Defence Forces, General Vitalis Zvinavashe, is tipped to replace Muzenda.
There is widespread speculation that the army boss, aged 60, who was a senior member in the late vice president’s camp, could retire in December this year to concentrate on the new political career laid before him. There are however, doubts on whether Zvinavashe, who caused panic within the MDC after announcing that uniformed forces would not salute a leader without liberation war credentials ahead of the March 2002 presidential elections, has what it takes to dislodge the opposition in Masvingo urban. Although it is President Mugabe’s desire to have his ally at the fulcrum of the politics in Masvingo, highly placed sources within Zanu PF said Zvinavashe was likely to meet stiff resistance from former air marshal Josiah Tungamirai. Tungamirai, who is aligned to former Zanu PF legal supremo Eddison Zvobgo’s camp that also includes former chairman of the province Dzikamayi Mavhaire, poses the biggest threat to plans to shuttle Zvinavashe to the helm of the province.
Heneri Dzinotyiwei, a political analyst at the University of Zimbabwe, argued that if President Mugabe appointed a new vice-president soon, he would be giving away his personal choice of a successor as well as contradicting his call for open debate on the succession issue. "Naturally as a leader who has indicated that he’s willing to have open debate on succession issues, he’ll feel uneasy to appoint anyone anytime time soon," Dzinotyiwei said. "We are not likely to see that position filled in the near future. The moment he appoints someone to that position, it will indicate the person whom he wants to take over from him. In fact, I see a situation where we will not have a second vice president until or after the next parliamentary elections." Lovemore Madhuku, a constitutional law expert and political analyst, shared Dzinotyiwei’s sentiments and said: "There is no way Mugabe would appoint anyone soon. Anyone who thinks otherwise is mistaken. He will wait for the party’s congress in December, see the signals from his people and thereafter designate a vice president. Muzenda’s death has been unfortunate for them in that Zanu PF is now forced to debate the succession issue. The next vice president would obviously indicate President Mugabe’s successor, that is why he will take his time. But first they have to resolve the question of factionalism within Zanu PF."
"The other option is that President Mugabe would appoint a person who is clearly going to be accepted as his successor in a deliberate move to keep the succession debate open. There was no way Muzenda was going to re-enter the political game taking into consideration his ill health," the source said. "Everything has already been planned and I can assure you that with the scenario we have now, people like Mnangagwa and Zvinavashe are set to rise. There is no doubt about that. Zvinavashe is more senior than Tungamirai and that may cause a problem with him as Tungamirai is a bigwig as well." Zvobgo, who was later dropped as cabinet minister, but fought against all the odds in the June 2000 parliamentary election to win a seat on a Zanu PF ticket, would remain in the shadows of the unfolding political drama in Masvingo. Zvobgo, is expected to appear before the ruling party’s disciplinary committee any time soon on allegations that he refused to campaign for President Mugabe in last year’s deeply divisive presidential election. Questioned whether he would accept Zvinavashe to head the political management of Masvingo, Zvobgo said: "I have been out of the country and I am hearing this from you for the first time. I don’t know anything about that."
Sources said Mudenge and Governor Josiah Hungwe would also remain in Zvinavashe’s armpit. Vice President Muzenda, who hails from Mberengwa, Midlands, resettled in Masvingo joining his relatives from the Hungwe family and later became the Member of Parliament for Gutu North, the source said. At that time legislator for Masvingo South Zvobgo, then Zanu PF’s legal advisor, was running the affairs of the province together with Mavhaire, who was expelled from Zanu PF for publicly urging President Mugabe to retire. Muzenda, by virtue of being the second most powerful person in the ruling party, took over Masvingo’s political management - a situation which did not go down well with Zvobgo. Ahead of the presidential election, two bitter factions emerged in Masvingo, one led by Muzenda the other by Zvobgo, prompting army commander Zvinavashe to reportedly convene a meeting with the two parties at his Tynwald home in Harare to iron out the differences in the face of a stiff challenge from the MDC.
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From The Cape Argus (SA), 26 September 26
'Biblical beast of anarchy'
Members of Zimbabwe's major churches have denounced President Robert Mugabe's government as the biblical "beast of anarchy". They vowed yesterday to mount a campaign to force the government to restore democracy and end its "oppressive" rule. A statement by 109 pastors, priests and laymen from 59 churches condemned the government for political violence, the breakdown of the rule of law, suppression of the opposition and the erosion of democracy. "Any government that negates these fundamental principles (of the rule of law, equality of citizens) to which we are committed, forfeits its God-given mandate to rule," they said. "It cannot therefore demand submission and obedience of its citizens." The statement described Mugabe's government as the biblical "beast" of the Book of Revelations, "which usurps power and terrorises God's defenceless people, thus fomenting anarchy and lawlessness in the land".
Their tough words came after a meeting of churchmen and women. Organisers said the declaration was not a formal position taken by the churches' hierarchy. Klaas Tebogo, from the South African Council of Churches, was also present. Conference spokesman Jonah Gokova said the statement was to have been published as an advertisement in the Daily News, Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspape, at the end of a conference two weeks ago. But the newspaper was banned on September 12, the day the conference ended. Heavily armed police stormed the Daily News offices and seized its computer equipment. It was formally banned last week. Lawyers said yesterday that nine of the newspaper's 64 journalists had been charged with "assisting in the production of an illegal newspaper". Police said 45 more journalists were sought for questioning and were also likely to be charged, according to Gugulethu Moyo, the newspaper's legal adviser. Since its launch in 1999, the Daily News has given a voice to critics of Mugabe's 23-year rule. The paper, with 300 employees and a daily readership of more than 940 000, has said it will challenge the ban in court.
The churches' statement yesterday demanded that Mugabe's government "immediately" repeal the current constitution which "does not nurture democracy" and replace it with a "new people-driven constitution". It also demanded the repeal of all repressive legislation - including the laws used to ban the Daily News. It also called for the abolition of Zanu PF's "youth national service" which, it said, was used for the "indoctrination and abuse of young ... to commit serious human rights abuses and violence for party political ends". The churchmen said the "culture of violence" begun when Zimbabwe was under white minority rule "has been taken to higher levels with impunity by the present regime". They accepted there was a need for a redistribution of land after a century of white domination, but condemned Mugabe's "revolutionary land reform programme". "We do not approve of irresponsible, inhuman, violent, partisan and non-transparent methods of addressing the problem," they said. Zimbabwe is classified as having the fastest-shrinking economy in the world. Gross domestic product is forecast to drop 15% this year and inflation has hit 427%.
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From News24 (SA), 26 September
Daily News wants equipment
Harare - Lawyers for Zimbabwe's Daily News, which has been shut down by the government, went to court on Friday to try to have confiscated equipment returned to the company, said one of the lawyers. Adrian de Bourbon said they filed an urgent application in the Harare High Court, seeking to overturn a police search warrant that had allowed the authorities to seize equipment at the newspaper's city offices. "It was an application to have the search warrant declared invalid," de Bourbon said. He said the judge was due to make a ruling on the application at 15:00 on Monday. Two weeks ago police shut down the Daily News and its printing presses after a court here ruled the paper was operating illegally by not being licensed with a state-appointed media commission. The Daily News subsequently applied to register with the commission but was turned down. The paper, which is a fierce critic of President Robert Mugabe's government, is now likely to be off the streets for months while it tries to challenge the media commission's refusal to register it.
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From News24 (SA), 26 September
Zim city-dwellers get food aid
Bulawayo - The broad smile on her face said it all as she stepped out of a shop clutching her one-year-old daughter with one hand and a five-kilogramme bag of sorghum meal with the other. Ntombizodwa Moyo is a widow and a mother of four. She has been struggling to source food for her children as the famine currently gripping Zimbabwe begins to have a telling effect in the urban areas. Matabeleland Province, in which Zimbabwe's second largest city Bulawayo is situated, is one of the worst hit areas. "Life has been very difficult for me and my four children since the death of my husband last year. We cannot get mealie-meal from the shops and also cannot afford the price ... on the black market, it is too expensive," said Moyo. As she balances the bag on her head while strapping her daughter Monica to her back, Ntombizodwa said the sorghum meal she had just bought would go a long way in easing the hunger her family has had to endure in recent months as a result of shortages of the staple cornmeal.
Zimbabwe's urban areas have largely been ignored by humanitarian agencies that responded to the country's two-year-old food crisis. Urban dwellers, some of whom do not have any stable source of income, have been left to fend for themselves, and many have turned into street beggars and scavengers of garbage bins. However, in a first of its kind in Zimbabwe, the United States government this week launched an urban hunger intervention programme to deal with the swelling numbers of urban hungry people. Targeted to benefit the low income earners in the country's townships, the US-funded scheme subsidises the price of sorghum meal so that it is sold at a quarter of the normal retail price. The programme, dubbed the Market Assistance Pilot Programme, (MAPP) was launched in Zimbabwe's second largest city of Bulawayo on Tuesday this week to address the increasing food shortage in urban areas in a country where over half the population is in need of food aid.
"The reason for this programme is that while most food aid is being distributed in rural areas it is clear that food insecurity has been worsening in urban areas and that a major reason for this has been the lack of food in markets," said US envoy to Harare Joseph Sullivan. The programme will run for an initial pilot period of six months. The sorghum is being sold in 40 working class urban suburbs of Bulawayo at a subsidised price of Z$1 900 for a 5kg bag. The government controlled price for a five-kilo sack of the staple corn-meal is Z$3 320 but it is scarce on the shelves. On the black market it sells for over Z$10 000. Zimbabwe has been hit by a famine since 2002, partly blamed on bad weather and government policies. The US government representative did not mince his words and openly accused the government of exacerbating the food shortages through its controversial land reforms scheme of taking farmland from white large scale commercial farmers and giving it to blacks. "Zimbabwe used to export food and it has the potential to feed itself and its neighbours but its government has embarked on policies that have led to the shortage of basic food," said Sullivan at the launch of the MAPP. MAPP is being implemented by the Catholic Relief Services alongside World Vision and Care International. The US government is the largest single donor of food relief in Zimbabwe, providing over 40 percent of total international contributions, according to Sullivan.
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From The Guardian (UK), 27 September
Government wants tour stopped
Politicians join sponsor in call for boycott of Zimbabwe
Mike Selvey
The England and Wales Cricket Board yesterday came under increasing pressure from the government to cancel next year's England tour to Zimbabwe. A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport said: "Essentially our position has not changed. Ministers made it clear before the World Cup that they did not want an England cricket team to play in Zimbabwe and nothing has changed on the ground to alter that view. The tour is still a long way away but if things remain the same in Zimbabwe we would suggest that the team does not tour." After much soul-searching England pulled out of their World Cup fixture in Harare in February, days before it was due to be played. The government had made clear that it felt England should not fulfil the fixture but it stopped short of banning the team from playing in Zimbabwe. The decision to pull out of that match is expected to cost the ECB close to £1m in compensation. Now the government's view has underlined opposition to next year's tour voiced on Thursday by Lord MacLaurin, chairman of Vodafone, which is the England team's sponsor. MacLaurin is a former chairman of the ECB. The ECB had set itself a spring deadline to decide whether to travel to Zimbabwe next October. But it seems likely now that the decision will be taken early in the new year. Responding to MacLaurin, Des Wilson, the head of the ECB's corporate affairs committee, said that though the organisation would not be drawing hasty conclusions, it would assess all the evidence sooner rather than later. He added that, despite what is a veiled threat from Vodafone, it would not be motivated by money alone. "We fully accept that this decision must be taken early," he said. "We frequently monitor the situation in Zimbabwe. It is under review and early in the new year we will look at all the evidence. I am advised that there is a Commonwealth head of states' meeting in December and we will wait to see what comes out of that."
The Professional Cricketers' Association, which did much to bridge the gap between the England team and the ECB during the discussions before the World Cup, has lent its support to the board this time, according to the PCA chief executive Richard Bevan. "We have been communicating with David Morgan, the ECB chairman, and its chief executive Tim Lamb and we are happy with the procedure and timing of the decision-making," he said. "We are not going to rock the boat. The ECB is correct in taking the line it has in seeing what comes out of December's Commonwealth meeting. Mistakes were made by all parties before the World Cup and these will not be made again. There is no point in making a decision now when the political climate may have changed in six months." The ramifications of England not touring Zimbabwe would not be as far-reaching as earlier this year. In the World Cup they were contracted to the International Cricket Council, which in turn had agreements with television and sponsors. In this instance, though, there is nothing more than a bilateral agreement between the countries, something reinforced by Morgan's visit to Zimbabwe after the World Cup at a time when it was possible that Zimbabwe would pull out of this summer's tour of England. That agreement to reciprocate next year stopped short of a contract, however. "Zimbabwe have not been given a guarantee," explained Wilson, "and unlike the World Cup there is no contractual obligation for us to go. What we indicated at the time was that it was our intention to have the tour to Zimbabwe but that we would have to monitor the situation." The ICC, whose Test championship depends on a continuous series of matches between all the Test-playing countries, has no direct role to play other than to provide an arbitration process should there be disagreement.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 26 September
Muzenda's death upsets Mugabe's plans
Dumisani Muleya
President Robert Mugabe's succession battle is expected to intensify ahead of the ruling Zanu PF's annual conference in Masvingo following the death of party stalwart, Vice-President Simon Muzenda. Zanu PF sources said horse-trading has been gathering pace over the past few months and is likely to accelerate in the aftermath of Muzenda's death that has left Mugabe in a dilemma about how to re-arrange his party line-up. The current party hierarchy shows that Zanu PF chair John Nkomo, who was acting vice-president during Muzenda's long illness, is the next in line for promotion. However, Nkomo's elevation is not possible in the context of the 1987 Unity Accord between Zanu PF and PF Zapu in which the two vice-presidents come from the two constituent wings of the party. Vice-President Joseph Msika is a former PF Zapu deputy to the late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo.
Promoting Zanu PF secretary for administration Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is the next in line from the old Zanu crew, has its own problems. It would upset the party's existing pecking order as he would suddenly become senior to Nkomo who defeated him in the race for the chairmanship during the party's congress in 1999. Mnangagwa was rescued by Mugabe from the political scrapyard where he was dumped in the 2000 parliamentary election by an opposition Movement for Democratic Change candidate. He was imposed both as Speaker of Parliament and in his current party position. It is thought Mugabe could leave the vice-presidency post vacant for some time. Following Nkomo's death in July 1999, he did not appoint his replacement for over six months. There was controversy over Msika's appointment as the Zanu PF Women's League tried to push its leader, Thenjiwe Lesabe, as Nkomo's replacement.
"The current situation is interesting because Mnangagwa and Nkomo are the frontrunners in Mugabe's succession race," a source said. "Although Mnangagwa is seen as Mugabe's favourite, the odds are heavily stacked against him." Sources said after Mugabe declared his succession debate open in April, three Zanu PF heavyweights, retired army commander General Solomon Mujuru, retired Air Marshal Josiah Tungamirai and politburo supremo Dumiso Dabengwa approached Mugabe to ask him about speculation that Mnangagwa was the anointed successor. "Mugabe simply denied the rumour," a source said. "But he tasked them to make an input on how to deal with the succession and they later submitted a document to him on that. They made it clear that if Mnangagwa was imposed, they would have nothing to do with the party anymore," the source said. That introduced new dynamics into the whole issue. It is understood some of the 10 Zanu PF provinces had already nominated their candidates who will be presented to the Masvingo conference if the issue arises. The ruling party will soon elect new provincial and districts leaders ahead of the Masvingo conference. But Zanu PF elects new leaders at congresses that occur every five years and not annual conferences. The next congress is next year.
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Comment from The Washington Post, 27 September
Less soft diplomacy
In an interview with The Post this week, South African President Thabo Mbeki defended the "soft diplomacy" that he says he is using in his efforts to persuade Robert Mugabe, the dictatorial president of neighboring Zimbabwe, to introduce political and economic reform. His quiet approach -- which has in the past been praised by President Bush -- will, he says, bring change faster than shouting or economic sanctions. "One of the worst ways to have proceeded would have been to make statements to make good newspaper headlines," he said. "That wouldn't produce any results." The trouble is, Mr. Mbeki cannot show that he has gotten any results from failing to make good newspaper headlines. In Zimbabwe itself, there are no headlines worth reading at all. This week, the government took the final steps to shut down the Daily News, the country's biggest-selling newspaper, its only remaining independent media outlet and home to an unusually brave group of journalists. The Daily News was shut down after it lost its legal bid to overturn a pernicious media registration law. Among other things, the law requires media outlets to register with the government and holds journalists liable for reports which the country's Media and Information Commission deems to be inaccurate. More than a hundred people protesting the decision have been arrested. The newspaper's computers and printing equipment have been confiscated by armed police, and journalists have been interrogated.
But the banning of the Daily News is only the latest in a long string of outrages from President Mugabe. During an election campaign held last spring, he unleashed a campaign of terror. His police systematically arrested, tortured and murdered opposition activists. His political party, Zanu PF, extorted money from companies and sent gangs of thugs around the country to beat up people who failed to show party membership cards. Thanks, in part, to a series of violent attacks on white farmers, the country has suffered food shortages for the past several years. Despite all of this, the organized opposition to Mr. Mugabe, known as the Movement for Democratic Change, continues to make some progress in elections. Indeed, many fear that their success will propel Zimbabwe's president into ever more gratuitous acts of violence. Before this happens, Presidents Bush and Mbeki should reconsider their unwillingness to use some less soft diplomacy in Zimbabwe. Mr. Mbeki in particular - as the leader of Africa's most visibly democratic country - owes it to his Zimbabwean neighbors to start talking loudly about the shortcomings of Mr. Mugabe, and to consider using economic and trade sanctions against him. Mr. Bush should support Mr. Mbeki in these efforts. There are, it is true, few political or strategic stakes in Zimbabwe. That only makes it all the more important for the president to demonstrate, forcefully, that Americans believe in their democratic rhetoric, even when it isn't in their direct interests.
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Comment from The Daily News (SA), 25 September
Zimbabwe - lest we forget
By the Editor
These are dark days indeed for our namesake in Zimbabwe - the Daily News. Not only have the newspaper's owners been interrogated and charged with publishing without a licence, but its 45 journalists now face a bleak future. They don't have a newspaper to work for, and have now been told they will be charged for working without proper accreditation. For the Daily News, however, licences and accreditation are just a smokescreen. It is clearly the newspaper's highly principled and courageous stand against excesses by the Zimbabwean government that has incurred the wrath of that government, prompting draconian measures that have seriously threatened the independence of privately-owned newspapers.
It is no secret that the Daily News has been a thorn in the side of the Zimbabwean authorities. Its journalists refuse to be lackeys of Robert Mugabe's government, which displays scant respect for the rule of law and human rights. The intimidation and harassment they are being subjected to today is no different to what many journalists in South Africa endured only a decade or so ago under apartheid. Lest we forget, it is critical for us to recall the many instances of imprisonment, arbitrary detention without trial, torture and withdrawal of basic rights and liberties our journalists had to endure. If we are indeed proud of the role we played here as journalists in challenging injustice, it is imperative for us to make our voices heard when the government of a neighbouring state is guilty of similar excesses.The people of Zimbabwe gave us succour and support in our dark days. It is time we as South Africans - and that includes our government - reciprocated. Save the Daily News and press freedom in Zimbabwe.
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From Reuters, 27 September
Mugabe succession debate group axed - reports
Harare - A Zimbabwe ruling party committee, spearheading debate on who should succeed President Robert Mugabe when he retires, has been disbanded for causing party divisions, a state-owned daily reported on Saturday. But political analysts said the committee has probably been dissolved because Mugabe wants to manage the debate after the death of one of his two deputy presidents. Earlier this year the Mugabe, 79, who has ruled for 23 years, encouraged members of his Zanu PF party to begin debating who should succeed him as leader, sparking speculation he planned to quit well before his six-year term ends in 2008. Zimbabwe's Herald newspaper reported on Saturday that "a committee formed by some senior Zanu PF politburo members to discuss the succession issue has been disbanded after it emerged that its activities were causing divisions in the party.""The Herald understands that the committee had not been sanctioned by the presidency, which resulted in party members questioning its mandate and composition," it said.
Political analysts said disbanding the committee was an indication that Mugabe wants to tightly control debate over his possible successor, especially after the death last week of his long-serving deputy president Simon Muzenda. "I think this is an indicator that he wants to manage the debate in a way that does not threaten the cohesion of his party, and undermine the government," Professor Heneri Dzinotyiwei of the University of Zimbabwe told reporters. "I don't think it's an indicator that he has changed his mind on the issue," he said. The Herald did not say who was in the committee. But private media reports suggested recently that a five-member Zanu PF group, including some cabinet ministers, was garnering party members' views on the succession issue. Senior Zanu PF officials were unavailable for comment, but the Herald quoted Zanu-PF national chairman John Nkomo as saying the succession issue should not be discussed clandestinely but through "relevant party forums." Mugabe's choice of new deputy could be a pointer of who he wants to eventually succeed him as president. Zimbabwe has plunged deeper into crisis since Mugabe's re-election last year was condemned as fraudulent by some Western governments. The President's main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, has gone to court to challenge Mugabe's victory. Mugabe, the country's sole ruler since its independence from Britain in 1980, says Zimbabwe's crisis-hit economy is the result of sabotage by domestic and Western opponents of his campaign to seize white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 26 September
Zanu PF succession team sparks row
Dumisani Muleya
A fierce battle is unfolding in the ruling Zanu PF over a controversial committee tasked to look into President Robert Mugabe's succession. Official sources this week said Mugabe's succession struggle - likely to be fuelled by the death of Vice-President Simon Muzenda last weekend - has intensified amid clashes over the committee's role. Zanu PF heavyweights are said to be quarrelling over the committee which some fear is being used as an instrument to promote personal political agendas in the escalating power struggle. Political combat has been rumbling on within the party structures for five months, partly reflected in the state media where recently the succession issue has been given prominence. The committee, chaired by Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs and Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, was formed in March to engage the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in informal talks to resolve the country's political and economic crisis. Chinamasa's committee originally included Zanu PF secretary for security Nicholas Goche and secretary for the commissariat Elliot Manyika, but was later enlarged to deal with the succession issue after Mugabe's April ZBC interview in which he authorised the debate.
It is understood Zanu PF secretary for external affairs Didymus Mutasa added impetus to the succession drama after he approached Mugabe on behalf of party cadres seeking permission to get the debate rolling. "Mutasa met Mugabe and suggested the idea of going around the country soliciting people's views about the succession," a source said. "He was given the go-ahead but Mugabe wanted to know what Mutasa's interest was in the whole issue. Mutasa said he wanted to succeed Mugabe but only after working under him for some time as vice-president." The source said that explained why Mutasa later appeared in the Herald on June 28 saying he wanted to be vice-president. Afterwards, Chinamasa expanded his team to include party barons from different provinces. Politburo members such as Retired Air Marshal Josiah Tungamirai, Dumiso Dabengwa, Oppah Muchinguri, Ignatius Chombo and Sabina Mugabe, among others, were brought in. It was, however, agreed the party's top five - Mugabe, Muzenda, party second secretary Joseph Msika, chairman John Nkomo and secretary for administration Emmerson Mnangagwa - would not be involved.
Sources said Zanu PF political newcomers like Jonathan Moyo were excluded to give the committee credibility. "There were some like Stan Mudenge who were approached but refused because they did not know that Mugabe had sanctioned the issue," a source close to the issue said. "Mudenge and his Masvingo faction members like Shuvai Mahofa, who later clashed with Chinamasa over the committee, did not join it." After his exclusion, Moyo is said to have unleashed the state media in a bid to nip the initiative in the bud. "When the plot became clear to Moyo, journalists were deployed to approach party heavyweights to find out whether they had succession ambitions," the source said. "That is why the Herald started in June running succession interviews just from the blue." The interviews - seen as fishing expeditions to catch the unwary - started on June 14 with Mnangagwa, seen as Mugabe's anointed heir, followed by Nkomo on June 21, Mutasa on June 28, Msika on July 5 and Dabengwa on July 12. Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi and ex-Finance minister Simba Makoni declined the interviews. As the succession plot thickened, Moyo is said to have brought Mahofa, a politburo member, into the fray to try to sink the initiative. Mahofa was given considerable space in the Herald to denounce the committee. This is said to have angered senior Zanu PF members like party spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira who knew what was going on.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 28 September
Mugabe blamed for drop in aid
Bongiwe Mlangeni
About 6.5 million people in Southern Africa stand to have their food supplies rationed next month because international donors are reluctant to give aid to Zimbabwe. The World Food Programme announced this week that it was short of about $243 -million needed to feed citizens of drought-stricken Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland after donors failed to stump up the $308-million it had appealed for. World Food Programme spokesman Mike Huggins said he could not say why donors were not forthcoming. But a political analyst in South Africa said the political situation in Zimbabwe - which will receive two-thirds of the food aid - was seen as one of the reasons international donors were withholding funding. Ross Herbert, of the South African Institute of International Affairs, said: "Governments have politicised the food-aid process. In the case of Zimbabwe, they have driven off their commercial farmers so their food problems are more than just about drought. The political situation has an effect on the response donors will have to the food crisis." But Kuseni Dlamini, a Wits University international relations lecturer, said donors who were not paying attention to the needs of the region were using Zimbabwe as a scapegoat. "Donors are not driven by charity but by national strategic interests. Africa does not matter when it comes to strategic issues," he said.
Donor agencies and countries said they could not comment on whether Zimbabwe was a sticking point as they would need to investigate. Huggins said the organisation would have to reduce rations from Wednesday unless it received cash urgently. He said the World Food Programme had in June appealed for $308-million to feed millions in Southern Africa until next July, but had received just over 65-million from the US, the European Union, Denmark, Italy and Ireland. "We urgently need cash to buy food on the local market. If we don't get enough, we will have to reduce rations," Huggins said. Years of severe drought have pushed food shortages to crisis levels in the region. In June this year, the programme reported that it had fed 10.2 million people. The organisation said that while the region had produced enough food to meet two-thirds of its needs, Zimbabwe and Mozambique continued to face serious food shortages. The World Food Programme estimates that 5.5 million people in Zimbabwe are in need of emergency food aid. Huggins said the programme was feeding 1.3 million people but aiming to reach 3.3 million if it received enough money. In Mozambique, almost a million people need emergency food aid. The programme was already feeding 523 000, but aimed to reach about 855 000 by next June. The organisation said food production had improved in the north of Mozambique, but serious food shortages were experienced in 40 districts in the south and central regions.
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From News24 (SA), 27 September
Media freedom victory in Zim
Harare - The top court in Zimbabwe has struck down a section of the country's controversial broadcasting law that gave the information minister the power to license would-be broadcasters, a newspaper said on Saturday. The law, which was passed in 2000, is seen by rights activists here as part of a raft of recent laws that are inhibiting freedom of expression and assembly. The state-controlled Herald newspaper said the court struck down Section 6 of the Broadcasting Services Act, which gives the minister the authority to license broadcasters. "I, accordingly, hold the view that Section 6 of the Act is unconstitutional because it totally subordinates the regulatory authority to the minister in the process of granting broadcasting licenses," Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku was quoted as saying in his ruling. Media freedom here has been in the spotlight since the recent forced closure of the country's only private daily, the Daily News, after the Supreme Court ruled the paper was operating illegally. The ruling on the broadcasting law was made after Capital Radio, a private station that was closed down by armed police in 2000, applied to the Supreme Court to have sections of the law declared unconstitutional. The radio station filed its application after the government's Broadcasting Authority refused to license it.
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From AFP, 28 September
Desperate Zimbabweans spark unofficial dollarisation
Harare - Flipping through the classified advertisements of Zimbabwe's state-run daily paper The Herald, it is now common to see prices of houses and apartments for sale or lease being quoted in US dollars. Cars are similarly being sold in US dollars or British pounds. Firms changing hands are also being sold for foreign currency, while petrol and diesel which are in short supply are also bought with dollars. Although it is illegal to trade goods or services in a foreign currency, unofficial dollarisation is increasingly becoming the trend as people seek stability for their investments in a volatile economy, economists say. "It comes about because of lack of stability of our exchange rate, lack of stability in our own economy," said independent economist John Robertson.
While the government has fixed the exchange rate of the Zimbabwe dollar at 800 to the greenback, the US currency is not available on the official market. On the parallel market, one US dollar fetches up to 6,000 Zimbabwe dollars. An economist with a leading insurance firm here said the hyperinflation environment the country is now operating in, "has distorted asset prices". "Because inflation erodes the value of one's currency, people are now willing to find alternative arrangements that preserve the value of their assets," he said. Zimbabwe's annual inflation, which stood at 31.7 percent five years ago has now galloped to 426.6 percent as of last month. By asking for payment in a foreign currency people are trying to "get more value which is stable" said a financial expert from a Harare discount house. Some sellers prefer to give a discount in transactions conducted in foreign currency.
A real estate agent said people prefer to sell or lease their properties in a foreign currency to "hedge against inflation" fearing that by the time the sale is concluded the money could have lost value. To illustrate the levels to which inflation has affected prices in real estate, the agent cited an example of a three-bedroom house in Harare's upmarket suburb of Borrowdale, that five years ago would have cost two million Zimbabwe dollars, but is now worth up to 350 million Zimbabwe dollars. It is mainly properties in upmarket northern suburbs of the capital Harare that are being advertised in US dollars. Most buyers of properties with foreign currency are Zimbabweans who fled economic misery at home and are now working overseas, often in Britain, the United States of America and neighbouring South Africa and Botswana.
Economists forecast that unless the rate of inflation and the foreign exchange market stabilise, unofficial dollarisation will grow. There are practical restraints on using foreign exchange to trade for good and services in Zimbabwe, however. Not only is it illegal, there are not many US dollars floating around. The lack of foreign exchange on the official market has seriously affected the country's balance of payment. The government has failed to service foreign debt on time, and it is now forecast to reach up to 5.3 billion US dollars by the end of the year. It has been hamstrung by the acute shortage of foreign exchange which is a result of declining exports and a lack of balance of payment support which was frozen by international donors around five years ago. Arrears on foreign debt have reached unprecedented levels and are projected to soar to 1.9 billion US dollars by December according to bankers. "It's a reflection of the chaos around us," Robertson said.
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From IRIN (UN), 24 September
Higher education another casualty of economic crisis
Harare - Tertiary education in Zimbabwe was at one time ranked among the best in Africa, but the achievements of the country’s education system are threatened by growing dissatisfaction and underfunding. Thousands of students who completed undergraduate studies at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), the country’s oldest institution for higher learning, failed to graduate last month when lecturers complaining of poor working conditions and low salaries resorted to industrial action. Some lecturers withheld examination results while others did not complete marking scripts, insisting that their salaries should be raised, among other issues. As the deadlock between lecturers and the government continued, the university failed to open in early September for the second semester. Lecturers and non-academic staff from five other universities joined the industrial action. The government recently agreed to raise the salaries of university employees. The entry point for a lecturer is now Z$755,360, up from Z$218,156, while senior lecturers will earn a monthly gross of Z$819,200, up from Z$242 240. Although a compromise has apparently been made in relation to salaries, most university employees are still reluctant to go back, while the bulk of students are not sure whether to report at their various tertiary institutions or not. Employees have not been paid their September salaries. Besides salaries, staff and students alike complain of falling standards due to low levels of funding. Computers and other communication facilities go for long periods without maintenance, while lecture rooms, laboratories and libraries are ill-equipped. University residences can no longer accommodate the ever-increasing number of students, who have been reduced to a life of near-destitution following the privatisation of catering and accommodation services without a commensurate rise in funding.
"Tertiary institutions of learning have lost their glamour... This is a result of a combination of factors, chief among them the inability by the government to prioritise the problems that have been dogging universities, teachers’ colleges and polytechnics," James Mahlaule, secretary-general of the Association of University Teachers (AUT), told IRIN. Mahlaule ascribed most of the problems bedevilling institutions of higher learning to the lack of effective communication structures between employees, the government and other stakeholders. "Existing communication channels are unsuitable, largely ad hoc, and they complicate our situation. Most of the time we are confused over whom to approach when airing our grievances, and we are not happy with the bureaucracy we encounter. We are often directed to make our submissions to the vice-chancellor, who then approaches treasury - where money matters are concerned - with the treasury supposed to deliberate on our concerns before going back to the vice-chancellor," said Mahlaule.
The long process often led to frustration among lecturers and other members of staff and inconvenienced employees because, by the time they obtained feedback, their financial demands would have been overtaken by inflation. He complained that university employees did not enjoy the right of collective bargaining, which had led to the labour court recently declaring their strike action illegal. The dissatisfaction has been around for some time. In 1999 a parliamentary committee on education undertook a study in which it identified a lack of communication and consultation as one of the key problems plaguing tertiary learning institutions. "Academics expressed concern about [the] lack of openness to students and staff, poor consultation and poor responses from the Ministry [of Higher and Tertiary Learning] regarding students' genuine complaints," read the report presented to parliament at the time. University deans charged that complaints forwarded to central administrative structures were largely ignored, as were faculty inputs on the running of universities. Although the parliamentary committee made recommendations to improve the situation, Mahlaule said, they were still being ignored. The situation was compounded by the government's tendency to interfere politically in the running of tertiary institutions. "There is a lot of despondency, caused by political interference in the day-to-day affairs of the learning institutions. However, this is inevitable, considering the funding structures of our establishments."
In theory, staff of state universities are employees of each university's council, which should provide the bulk of the funding for the institution. Since the councils do not have independent coffers, in practice the government provides up to 96 percent of the learning centres' financial needs, virtually acting as a donor. The institutions are therefore left with no alternative but to follow government directives. To resolve this dilemma, universities such as the Midlands State University (MSU) and the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) had started independent income-generating projects that they hoped would reduce their dependence on the government by 70 percent. But analysts said the drive towards financial self-sufficiency might be frustrated by the institutions' poor financial control records. The 1999 parliamentary report acknowledged that "financial systems at the UZ had a lot of leakages" - there were "ghost" students and lecturers, while accountability regarding donor funds was "questionable". Reports by both privately owned and official media have indicated that a significant number of students graduating from universities did not pay back government loans due to poor recovery systems.
Mahlaule said a significant number of postgraduate science programmes had been funded by international donors, particularly in Sweden, Norway, and Belgium. However, large numbers of donors had withdrawn their support following the condemnation of Zimbabwe by many western governments over the government's fast track-land reform programme, which began in 2000, as well as alleged human rights abuses and electoral fraud. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank had also suspended aid. Mahlaule suggested that universities and other higher learning institutions should fall under the finance ministry instead of the higher learning department. "In line with the recommendations of the [parliamentary] committee on education, it makes sense that we be transferred to the finance ministry. This is the ministry we mostly deal with, and placing us under the higher learning ministry only succeeds in increasing bureaucracy," he said. Because there are high levels of political interference, lecturers say, the government always accuses the employees of tertiary institutions of being driven by political motives whenever they air their grievances. The acting higher education minister, Ignatius Chombo, recently threatened to stop paying lecturers' salaries if they continued with their strike. He charged that the striking workers had a political agenda to make universities ungovernable. Mahlaule dismissed the allegation, saying the government's tendency to politicise employees' genuine demands was one of the reasons the same problems kept recurring, and he regretted that these had adversely affected the morale of employees. "Members of staff are literally walking out because of disillusionment. They are handing in their resignations almost on a daily basis, and this is sad." Medicine, veterinary science, engineering, law, agriculture, commerce and the social sciences were the most affected faculties, he said. Lecturers have been joining the private sector, where better salaries and conditions of service were offered, or migrating to other countries such as Britain, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, Botswana and South Africa.
The UZ is currently operating with less than 50 percent of the minimum number of lecturers required and the growing number of resignations is having a detrimental effect on the teacher-student ratio. Some faculties, particularly the medical school, are reducing their intakes. Departments have resorted to hiring part-time lecturers from the private sector in a bid to salvage the situation. A recent report by the Scientific and Industrial Research and Development Centre (SIRDC) indicated that close to 500,000 Zimbabweans, a substantial number of whom are college graduates, were economic refugees in the diaspora, particularly in the United Kingdom, Botswana and South Africa. Around 34 percent of them had left the country because of poor salaries at home, while 29 percent migrated in anticipation of career advancement opportunities, said the report. More than 80 percent of doctors, nurses and therapists who graduated from the UZ medical school since independence in 1980 had gone to work abroad, seriously affecting the health delivery system.
Irked by the massive brain drain, President Robert Mugabe last year accused Britain of "stealing" Zimbabwean professionals. Employers said the problems dogging higher learning institutions had adversely affected the quality of education and the qualifications produced by the learning centres. "There is now a low regard for the kind of graduate being churned out by our universities and other tertiary learning centres," said an executive member of the Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe (EMCOZ) on condition of anonymity. "The general feeling is that the disturbances taking place at those institutions compromise the degrees and diplomas being churned out. Take the current strikes at state universities, whereby students ... have already lost more than a month of precious time. How is that time going to be made up for?" the executive member asked. "In any case, there is no guarantee that the situation will be normal when learning resumes, considering that students are underfunded and disgruntled. We might see a wave of demonstrations as students take to the streets to protest against poor financial payouts," he said. Since the late 1980s, university, polytechnic and teachers’ college students have been engaging in protests over poor conditions of study and living. The protests led to numerous prolonged closures of the institutions. The executive member said employers mostly preferred to train their own staff and, in cases where they absorbed college products, the graduates should demonstrate an excellent academic history. "Basically, the student suffers most. The employer treats him with suspicion and this makes unemployment levels soar," he added. Zimbabwe's unemployment rate stands at more than 75 percent amid massive company closures and an ailing economy with inflation at 400 percent and rising.
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From AFP, 28 September
Zimbabwe sets up courts to deal with economic crimes
Harare - As the Zimbabwe government battles with critical banknote shortages, special courts are to be set up to deal with "economic and financial crimes", the state-run Sunday Mail reported. President Robert Mugabe's government blames the four-month-old shortage of banknotes on |
