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Archived News
4th March 2003
Hunger gnaws as villagers wait in vain for maize
Mudede refuses to release voters’ rolls
Senior public prosecutor leaves job after threats
Zim nearly doubles petrol price
Still no movement at Beitbridge border post
UN says Kinshasa blocks probe of its rebel links
Two non-existent days to renounce non-existent citizenship
Zim envoy to Tripoli on Gaddafi’s payroll
Fighting for survival
Unpaid Zim tycoons take DRC to court
Andy Flower Protest To Continue
CBZ bankrolls Menashe
Mugabe court bars passport to native daughter
No plans to amend Posa - AG's office
New farmers among the hungry
44 Karoi farmers evicted
Devaluing the truth
Harare police arrest protesting clerics
Zim spies stalk Botswana?
Flower injury allows Olonga to resume protest on home soil
Fans find protest platform
Zimbabwe families lurch through country's hard times, quietly criticize government
Police arrest cricket protesters
Mugabe's police 'beat and jail' peaceful World Cup protesters
Over 50 Zim opposition members arrested
Arrest warrant out for editor
British asylum laws shelter mouthpiece for Mugabe
Moyo grabs land from peasants
Churches engaged in soul searching over role in Zimbabwe's crisis
State House beatings
Sikhala torture probe a smokescreen
Govt denies existence of land audit report
Mugabe won poll with army of ghost voters
Beit Bridge gridlock cleared
Forty-one cricket fans jailed in Zimbabwe
Dissenting fans still in jail: lawyer
Names and injuries
State witness was not attacked by MDC, says defence lawyer
Witness quizzed on Congo trip
Sanctuary echoes to tales of torture
Zim crisis 'boggles the mind'
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From News24 (SA), 26 February
Zim crisis 'boggles the mind'
Washington - The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe is "almost beyond comprehension", says World Food Programme director James Morris. "It is a disaster," he told congress, adding that he had failed to make headway with Mugabe despite six meetings with him in six months on the politics, bad economics and bureaucracy damaging food output and aid response. Traditionally, Zimbabwe has been a food exporter. However, under Mugabe's land-distribution scheme, thousands of productive farms are idle and food output is expected to be at 40% of normal levels this year. "This scheme, along with restrictions on private-sector food marketing and a monopoly on food imports, is turning a drought that might have been managed into a humanitarian nightmare," said Morris. The United States Agency for International Development head, Andrew Natsios, agreed. Zimbabwe had become "a basket case rapidly sliding into a disastrous famine that is politically induced", he said Compounding the problem, Morris said, was that about one-third of the adult population in Zimbabwe was infected with Aids. "Children are heading households." According to the WFP, more than seven million agricultural workers have died of Aids in 25 African countries, aggravating the famine in southern Africa and decimating the rural labour force.
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From African Church Information Service, 24 February
Hunger gnaws as villagers wait in vain for maize
Tim Chigodo
Nairobi - No words can best describe the debilitating effects of food shortages and the hopelessness that have hit rural Zimbabwe than those of Josephat Madzamba, a leader of a Pentecostal church in rural Headlands. Church halls are either empty or congregations have shrunk, reports AANA Correspondent, Tim Chigodo. Fifty-two-year old Madzamba says that food shortages in villages have become so acute that it is difficult to try to spread the Word of God. "There is nothing new for the people. When I pay home visits to members of my congregation and other members of the community, they confess to still being Christians. But they make it clear that they can no longer attend church services due to hunger. There is nothing I can do," he says. Villagers in Chiendambuya area in rural Headlands are going without sadza (a local staple food) and are surviving on vegetables, due to the critical shortages of maize. They say they are uncertain about their future as their children now have to do with the little food available. The World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that nearly six million Zimbabweans are in need of food assistance until March this year. Luis Clemens, WFP spokesperson, says 630 metric tonnes of maize have so far been distributed to 50,000 people in nine wards in Makoni North since early January. The remaining 60,000 villagers in another nine wards are expected to receive food relief by the end of this month. Madzamba says several villagers he has visited narrate harrowing hunger-related ordeals, which vary in nature and magnitude. "We see and read a lot of media reports claiming there is plenty of food in the country. [But] there are severe food shortages here, which have potential to kill vulnerable members of the community," he notes.
According to the church leader, during food shortages caused by drought, maize was available to members of the community in a transparent and impartial manner. That changed when allocation and distribution was reposed in the hands of the National Youth Services members and the army. The green-uniformed national youth service officers, who have become a law unto themselves, determine who should receive the food largess or buy grain from marketing depots. Madzamba says people recently spent several days and nights camped at the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) depot at Chiendambuya business centre but ill treatment by the youths forced a large number to return home empty-handed. The villagers last received food rations from the GMB at the end of November, before stocks reportedly ran out. Zimbabwe's food distribution exercise has been tainted by greed and corruption among government officials and overzealous Zanu PF party functionaries, leading to near riots in Bulawayo and Chitunqwiza districts recently. Julius Kamwendo, 41, a villager, said the food distribution exercise by the state was heavily weighed against those suspected of supporting the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). It favoured known supporters of Zanu PF. Kamwendo said he had failed to secure maize, despite his ill-health and constant pleas to the youths and GMB officials. "I had not eaten sadza since mid-November until December 5, when the WFP came to our rescue," he said. He went on: "My wife had to fend for the family, doing part-time jobs in exchange for maize meal. She continues to do various chores but it's draining her energy. We hope the WFP assistance will continue until we are able to feed ourselves." Didymus Mutasa, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Makoni North, under which Chiendambuya falls, said he could not comment on the hunger facing villagers. He declined to give reasons. Villagers most seriously affected are in drought-prone Mayo, Nyagadzi, Tanda and Chikore areas. Godwin Manyara, 38, of Sherenje village, said the food crisis looked far from being over as their maize crop was wilting due to prolonged dry weather.
Across the country in south-western Zimbabwe, the food situation has deteriorated rapidly in most parts of Bulilima District, following a setback in distribution by World Vision. The organisation, which distributes food aid in the Beitbridge area, was forced to suspend operations late October after running out of supplies. Moses Mzila, the MP for Bulilimangwe, says villagers resorted to eating wild roots, which they survived on before the introduction of food aid in the area a few months ago. "A crisis of unimaginable proportions is unfolding in that area, and if steps to arrest the situation are not taken immediately, lives could be lost," he said. He implored the international community to rescue the villagers from the clutches of hunger, which he said, had reached frightening levels. "The situation is very desperate, and I am appealing to the international community to consider people's lives and ignore the current political and diplomatic row, and deal with this human crisis," he said. Zimbabwe is embroiled in a diplomatic row with western countries, particularly the European Union, Britain and the United States of America over its abuse of human rights and lack of good governance. Mzila said the Plumtree area was among the worst hit by food shortages in the country, accusing the government of neglecting it. He said the government should complement efforts by non-governmental organisations to assist people with food. World vision recently said food distribution would resume "very soon" as they had replenished supplies. Vongai Makamure, the World Vision information officer, said distribution had resumed. Mzila, however, said he was in the area recently, and no food had been distributed. He said: "What the World Vision did was to add more names to their list of beneficiaries, but up to date, no food has been distributed, and the level of expectation is very high, as everyone is waiting for the food." Mzila said he visited a number of health centres and established that there was also a critical shortage of drugs, and that the incidence of malnutrition was high. Nurses at Ndiweni and Tshitshi clinics confirmed the rising rate of malnutrition and related diseases, but would not give statistics, referring all requests for data to the district medical officer at Plumtree District Hospital. "Yes, it's true the situation is extremely pathetic, but I would rather have you speak to the district medical officer at Plumtree," said a Ndiweni clinic official. At Madlambudzi, the head of the clinic, a Mr Ngwenya, said, his latest records reflected a nine percent increase in malnutrition.
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From The Daily News, 26 February
Mudede refuses to release voters’ rolls
By Pedzisai Ruhanya Deputy News Editor
Tobaiwa Mudede, the Registrar-General, has reportedly refused to give the MDC’s candidates in the looming Kuwadzana and Highfield by-elections copies of the main voters’ and supplementary rolls, raising fears the whole exercise may be rigged. The by-elections are scheduled for 28 and 29 March. This comes in the wake of a letter written to the opposition party on 3 February by one Goredema on Mudede’s behalf. The letter, titled Supplementary Roll for Kuwadzana Constituency, addressed to Nomore Sibanda, the MDC national elections co-ordinator, reads in part: "Reference is made to your letter dated 28 January 2003 on the above underlined matter whose contents we have noted. "We write to inquire in terms of which law you are claiming a copy of the supplementary roll. In any case, we do not have a copy of the supplementary roll for Kuwadzana constituency." The respective MDC candidates for Kuwadzana and Highfield, Nelson Chamisa and Pearson Mungofa, on Monday tried to meet Mudede in a bid to have access to the voters’ rolls but were denied audience. As a result, Chamisa yesterday threatened to take court action to have the process stopped until Mudede avails the voters’ rolls to him before the poll date. Chamisa said: "If Mudede does not give us the voters’ roll, there will be no election in Kuwadzana. We want to move away from complaining after we have been cheated as has previously happened. It is not necessary to have an election that is predetermined. "It is sad that Mudede is denying us the voters’ rolls while the ruling Zanu PF’s candidates are using them as registers to discriminately distribute maize-meal. We are going to resist moves to rig the elections." Mungofa said they were shocked by Mudede’s attitude. He said: "I went with Chamisa to see Mudede, but he refused to have an audience with us. He was very stubborn and we do not know his intentions." Mungofa said officials from Mudede’s office refused to give him the inspection roll for Highfield, arguing that they were still working on it. The two opposition candidates said they wanted to inspect the voters’ rolls following reports that Zanu PF was busy registering outsiders from as far as Hurungwe and Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe.
Mungofa alleged that Joseph Chinotimba, the Zanu PF candidate in Highfield, was secretly registering people from outside the constituency. He said: "I am going to take up the case with my party seniors to make sure that people from Hurungwe are not allowed to vote in Highfield. The intention to rig the poll is there. That’s why we are being denied access to public documents which are readily available to Zanu PF." But Chinotimba dismissed the allegations as false, saying: "Mungofa is not telling the truth. That’s rubbish." Chamisa said his party also wanted to verify allegations that at least 15 people from outside Kuwadzana were registered at the homes of Zanu PF activists. Chamisa is contesting against Zanu PF’s David Mutasa. "In the absence of these voters’ rolls, we have reasonable suspicion that Mudede is conniving with Zanu PF to steal the election. If that is not his intention, then he must operate in a transparent manner. "But let it be known to him that we will not allow people from Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe to vote in Kuwadzana and Highfield," Chamisa said. In January, the MDC alleged that it had unearthed hundreds of phantom and non-resident voters in Kuwadzana, with 10 000 new names from outside the constituency being added to the voters’ roll since the March 2002 presidential election. The MDC’s campaign manager in Kuwadzana, Charlton Hwende, told The Financial Gazette a further 150 people registered actually live in Uzumba-Maramba-Pfungwe in Mashonaland East province. Some of the new voters were traced to Dzivaresekwa, close to Kuwadzana, while others were from Epworth just outside Harare, and Seke communal lands.
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From The Daily News, 26 February
Senior public prosecutor leaves job after threats
By Brian Mangwende Chief Reporter
Thabani Mpofu, a senior public prosecutor based at the Harare Magistrates’ Court abruptly left the Attorney-General’s Office amid allegations he acted in favour of the defence in two separate cases involving an MDC legislator and a foreign journalist. Mpofu is the second public prosecutor to desert the Harare Magistrates’ Court following the abrupt departure of his colleague, Kennedy Mupomba, two years after he was allegedly threatened by war veterans over a case he was handling. Mpofu reportedly left the Harare Magistrates’ Court last month and never returned after he was confronted on several occasions by secret agents over the manner in which he was handling cases involving those perceived to be enemies of the State. Reports were that Mpofu resigned but Joseph Musakwa, the director of public prosecutions, said he was still to receive the resignation letter. "People say he has resigned but there is no correspondence to that effect," Musakwa said. "The Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is now handling the matter." No comment could be obtained from that ministry yesterday. Last June, the State-controlled Herald newspaper reported that the State intended to probe Mpofu after he made submissions in court saying Andrew Meldrum, a journalist with a British newspaper, The Guardian, might not be jailed if convicted. Meldrum had been dragged to court for allegedly publishing falsehoods after he reproduced a story initially published by The Daily News in which a man claimed his wife was beheaded by Zanu PF supporters in Magunje. The Herald said Mpofu had said if Meldrum was convicted the State would try to have him fined instead of jailing him, and "raising eyebrows".
A public prosecutor is, however, supposed to assist the court in arriving at a fair decision that meets the justice of the offence. Magistrate Godfrey Macheyo acquitted Meldrum of the offence but John Nkomo, then Minister of Home Affairs and now Minister of Special Affairs in the President’s Office, ordered his deportation. The deportation papers were served on him by officials from the Immigration Department. But High Court judge, Justice Anele Matika, suspended the deportation order and referred the matter to the Supreme Court for a constitutional determination. Last month, Mpofu is said to have baffled the court when he agreed to bail of $30 000 for Job Sikhala, the MP for St Mary’s, who had been charged with allegedly contravening Section 5 of the draconian Public Order and Security Act. It was the State’s case that Sikhala, human rights lawyer Gabriel Shumba and three others torched a Zimbabwe United Passenger Company bus in Highfield in an effort to overthrow the government. Initially, the State had opposed bail, but Mpofu later changed his attitude saying: "Given the medical report whose contents cannot be divorced from the charges and the case, the State is of the opinion that if they are granted bail, justice would be allowed to prevail."
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From News24 (SA), 26 February
Zim nearly doubles petrol price
Harare - The Zimbabwean government has nearly doubled fuel prices, according to figures released by state radio. The less-expensive, common brand of petrol went up by slightly more than 91% to the equivalent of R21.31 a litre, with the hikes effective from midnight on Tuesday. Energy minister Amos Midzi gave the rise in fuel price on international markets and increases in operational costs like freight charges as reasons for Tuesday's hike. Zimbabwe, which imports all its petroleum products, is facing an acute shortage of foreign exchange and has been experiencing fuel shortages since December 1999. The government last hiked fuel prices in June 2001, when prices increased up to 82% and sparked national protests.
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From SABC News, 25 February
Still no movement at Beitbridge border post
The situation at the Beitbridge border post has not improved as hundreds of trucks on South African soil are still waiting to be released and cross the border. Herman Lemmer, CEO of the road freight association says the delay is costing the transport industry between R20 and R30 million a month. He says they are doing everything in their power to address the situation. Seolo Makwela, a customs controller at the gate, says the congestion of north bound traffic is being caused by the upgrading of the parking area on the Zimbabwean side. Makwela says only half of the parking space is available. The delay is a cause of concern and frustration to truck drivers, who are made to wait for days before they could cross the bridge.
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From The New York Times/ Reuters, 25 February
UN says Kinshasa blocks probe of its rebel links
United Nations - The United Nations accused the Democratic Republic of Congo on Tuesday of blocking U.N. peacekeepers from investigating whether its government was secretly supporting armed groups in rebel-held eastern Congo. Despite assurances from Congo President Joseph Kabila, the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the vast Central African nation has been refused the unrestricted access it requires to airports in the capital Kinshasa and the northern town of Gbadolite, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said. It has also been prevented from fully monitoring rail and air traffic leaving the southeastern town of Lubumbashi, he said. "Thus the mission has no direct evidence to address suspicions that the Democratic Republic of the Congo continues to support armed groups in the east," Annan said in a new report to the U.N. Security Council, which is monitoring the Congo peace process after more than four years of civil war. Congolese rebel leader Jean Pierre Bemba accused the government last week of trying to derail the peace process by sending arms to rebel-held areas in the northeast. Bemba, whose Movement for the Liberation of Congocontrols most of northern Congo, said Kinshasa had been flying in weapons to the eastern town of Beni, which is controlled by a rival rebel faction, the rebel Congolese Rally for Democracy-Kisangani (RCD-K-ML). The government, rebels and civil society groups agreed to a power-sharing deal in December under which Bemba would become one of four vice presidents.
Kinshasa has denied allegations it is trying to delay or derail implementation of the accord, saying it is keen for a complete end to hostilities that have killed 2 million people since 1998 and made 2.5 million people homeless. The civil war began in 1998 and has sucked in five neighboring states although most foreign troops have now been withdrawn. It began when rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda invaded to topple the central government, which was then propped up by troops from Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia. According to Annan, the government has acknowledged providing training and technical assistance to the RCD-K-ML, which in conjunction with ethnic Mayi-Mayi militias controls swathes of jungle in the northeastern region of Ituri and is fighting Bemba's forces. "But it claims that such assistance is to facilitate future integration of all military forces,'' Annan said. The secretary-general also faulted Kinshasa for allowing government forces to violate peace accords by occupying the strategic eastern port town of Moliro, allowing access to Lake Tanganyika. The U.N. mission has asked the government to withdraw to the defensive positions it has agreed to, Annan said. U.N, peacekeepers were also having trouble investigating reports that Rwandan troops had reoccupied some parts of eastern Congo and were still providing support to Congolese rebel groups even after publicly declaring last year that Rwanda had withdrawn all its forces, Annan said. Despite an all-inclusive peace agreement, "military activities continued in practically all areas" of the country over the past four months, he reported.
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From ZWNEWS, 27 February
Two non-existent days to renounce non-existent citizenship
Zimbabwe's supreme court on Thursday gave Judith Todd, a civil rights campaigner and daughter of a former Southern Rhodesia prime minister, two days to renounce theoretical New Zealand citizenship, or be stripped of her Zimbabwean passport and citizenship. Zimbabwe-born Ms Todd, 59, who has never held any other citizenship or passport, learned of the judgement in a telephone call from her lawyer in Harare as she ended a four week visit to London. She is due to leave Thursday night, arriving in Zimbabwe early Friday. Ms Todd said she could make no immediate comment before studying the judgement. It was not immediately clear what options she had - a matter of hours before she is due to return home. The judgement was handed down on Thursday by appeal judge Luke Malaba, with the consent of chief justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, a political ally of Robert Mugabe, and another judge. The judgement was delivered with record speed - within a matter of weeks - giving rise to suspicions that it was timed to coincide with Ms Todd's being out of the country. Other Supreme Court judgements have taken months or even years.
The Todd challenge was a test case for he rights of some two million other Zimbabweans, mostly of Zambian, Malawian or Mozambican descent, who face statelessness. Many are former commercial farmworkers now destitute after having been driven off land seized from white farmers by Mugabe supporters. New citizenship laws, aimed largely at removing likely opponents of Mugabe from the voters' roll, were enforced before the disputed presidential election last March. Registrar-general Tobaiwa Mudede maintained that Ms Todd has automatically forfeited her Zimbabwean citizenship because she did not renounce any claim to foreign citizenship that she may have inherited from her New Zealand- born father, Sir Garfield Todd. Ms Todd's lawyers argued that it was not up to her to renounce a theoretical right she had never attempted to exert.
Thursday's judgement contravened the regime's own interpretation of its stringent citizenship rules. An official clarification of the rules by the justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, that was published in the Government Gazette on 22 November last year said: " A person who is a citizen of Zimbabwe by birth may not be deprived or denied his citizenship of Zimbabwe unless he is or has become a citizen of some foreign country." The announcement, approved by Mugabe's cabinet, also said that a person with a potential claim to foreign citizenship need not renounce it. "A person who merely has a claim or entitlement to foreign nationality whether by official discretion or as a matter of legal right is not presently a foreign citizen and therefore cannot be required to renounce a citizenship that he does not actually and presently possess," added Chinamasa, in what he described as a "clarification" of the laws. During the supreme court hearing, Chidyausiku described the official interpretation as irrelevant. Shortly before the presidential election, Ms Todd's father was also stripped of the citizenship he had held for 67 years and denied the right to vote. He died soon afterwards in Bulawayo, aged 94. Garfield Todd, a long time campaigner for the rights of black Zimbabweans, had been imprisoned by the white-minority regime. He later became equally critical of Mugabe’s repressive regime. Ms Todd resisted attempts by the regime to declare her father, in death, a national hero.
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From The Financial Gazette, 27 February
Zim envoy to Tripoli on Gaddafi’s payroll
Staff Reporter
Eccentric Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is believed to be paying the salary of Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Tripoli, John Mvundura, and rent for both the high commissioner’s residence and the chancery building itself, officials in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said this week. The flamboyant Libyan leader, well known for using his oil wealth to buy the allegiance of poorer African states by frequently bailing them out of their financial troubles, is said to have even provided a utility vehicle for use by Mvundura and his staff. "Our high commissioner to Libya is lucky in that Gaddafi, under a promise made when the chancery was opened, is providing his salary and perks when most of our ambassadors elsewhere can’t get paid because of the government’s forex troubles," said a source, who spoke on condition he was not named. Zimbabwe’s foreign currency squeeze has affected the salaries of diplomats posted overseas, forcing the government to consider cutting back its staff abroad to slash its wage bill. Ministry of Foreign Affairs senior permanent secretary Willard Chiwewe this week however denied that Mvundura was on the payroll of the Libyans, but admitted that Tripoli had provided a car for the high commission and also paid rent for the chancery building. He said it was Libya’s policy to assist African governments when setting up their representative offices in Tripoli. Chiwewe told the Financial Gazette: "The Libyan government has a policy of assisting African countries when they open diplomatic missions in Tripoli. The assistance is in respect of two things and that is the provision of a utility vehicle and an advance payment of about six thousand Libyan dinar for the payment of rent for the chancery during the first year. In that respect, Zimbabwe is also a beneficiary of this policy."
It was however not possible to confirm with other African governments yesterday whether the same facility had been extended to them. The Libyan embassy this week refused to comment on the matter. Chiwewe could not categorically say whether the Libyans had stopped paying rent for the Zimbabwe chancery, which was opened in Tripoli about two years ago, saying the payment could have been done as one lump sum or it could have been made in instalments. But Foreign Affairs Ministry officials said the deal for Libya to provide for the upkeep of Zimbabwe’s representative in Tripoli was arranged by former Libyan spy Yousef Murgham, who was deported from Zimbabwe last year. Murgham, whose fate since he left Zimbabwe is unknown, is widely seen as responsible for laying the groundwork for the very warm relations between Harare and Tripoli.
In a letter he wrote last year to President Robert Mugabe in a desperate bid to have his deportation reversed, he cited the benefits enjoyed by Zimbabwe’ s ambassador to Tripoli as one of the ways he had fostered solid ties between Harare and Libya. Murgham said in his letter: "(I arranged) the visit by Comrade Mvenge, the former ambassador to Cairo, in 1995 to Libya and his meeting with Cde Mussa Kosa and the agreement to open a Zimbabwean embassy in Libya with a promise by the Libyan side to provide the residency of the ambassador, the embassy building, transport and even the salaries if needed. This was shown in a letter from Cde Mussa Kosa to your Foreign Minister at that time, Cde Nathan Shamuyarira, and this is the privilege that Cde Mvundura your ambassador in Libya now enjoys." Gaddafi has rescued Mugabe and his government from a potentially politically crippling fuel crisis, agreeing to a multi-million-dollar barter deal under which Tripoli supplied fuel to hard cash-strapped Harare in return for investments in prime Zimbabwean agricultural, banking and other business establishments. The fuel shortage has worsened again since Libya halted the oil shipments due to some misunderstandings over the secrecy-shrouded barter deal.
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From Newsweek, 26 February
Fighting for survival
By Karen MacGregor
Job Sikhala, 30, a tall, energetic leader of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change, chain smokes as he tells his story: Although he sits in Parliament, he has been arrested 17 times in the last three years. The last time police took him, blindfolded, to a basement room outside Harare. During the next eight hours they beat him, applied electrodes to his mouth and genitals, urinated on him and forced him to swallow poison. Two days later they released him on bail, charged with sedition - an accusation quickly thrown out in court. During hospitalization, doctors confirmed evidence of torture. "It was a terrible experience, gruesome and horrendous," he says. "This regime has lost control of its senses. It should not be recognized by anyone."
Is Zimbabwe really on the way back up? Two of Africa’s most respected leaders say it is. At about the same time that Sikhala poured out his story in his lawyer’s Harare office, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo was arguing that Zimbabwe should be readmitted to the British Commonwealth on March 19 after a year’s suspension. The government of Robert Mugabe, Obasanjo said this month, had eased a brutal crackdown on the legal opposition and "substantially ended" the worst abuses of a chaotic land-reform program that has seen 4,000 white commercial farmers evicted by peasants and government officials. South African President Thabo Mbeki said that Zimbabwe had agreed to reconsider harsh new press laws. The two presidents could exercise a pocket veto on renewing Mugabe’s suspension from the Commonwealth, simply by failing to reconvene the "troika" of commonwealth countries - the third is Australia - assigned to monitor sanctions against the country. In more good news for Mugabe, the ostracized president edged his way back onto the world stage this month. Last week, he was permitted to attend a recent Africa summit in Paris despite of travel restrictions imposed on him by some European countries. French President Jacques Chirac shook his hand rather than wrap him in the embrace reserved for other African leaders, but Mugabe was given a 33-room wing of the Plaza-Athénée hotel, where the fare can include $300 truffle dinners. Mugabe also received expressions of support at this week’s Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Malaysia, where the Zimbabwean leader lashed out at what he called the "born-again colonialists" of the United States and Britain. "Is it not ironical that [President George W.] Bush, who was not really elected, should deny my legitimacy," Mugabe added.
For ordinary Zimbabweans, the daily struggle to survive overshadows such wrangling. Osborn Jambawo, 54, looks to the heavens, searching vainly for rain: "Without rain, I can’t hope to feed my family," says the stick-thin father of five who works on a tobacco farm called Nicotina near Banket in northwest Zimbabwe. Jambawo considers himself lucky to still be receiving a salary of $146 a month - many of his colleagues lost their jobs after invaders took over parts of the farm and the white owner fled. They are among tens of thousands of farm laborers who have been laid off (and many displaced) from commercial farms. Aid workers consider these laborers as particularly vulnerable, since food aid has not been forthcoming from a government that sees them as loyal to whites, or from agencies scared off by the fraught politics of commercial farms. Jambawo says a woman starved to death there recently and that many children are too sick to go to school. The United Nations reports that 7.2 million Zimbabweans face starvation. Life is not much easier in the towns and cities. Zimbabweans wryly wished each other "Happy Queue Year," as 2003 ushered in ever-longer lines to obtain basic necessities - fuel, sugar, cooking oil, salt and corn meal. Most Zimbabweans are obsessed with finding food or fuel. Lines are everywhere and they are very long, stretching far down roads, some for miles. A man was killed recently when tempers flared in a maize queue, and police sometimes have to be called in to quell disorder. Riot police dispersed a line of thousands of people outside the Harare passport office earlier this month. At a gas station at the foot of Christmas Pass in Mutare recently, more than 200 cars squatted in lines that snaked wildly in all directions, many of them spilling dangerously onto the highway leading from the poor town in the eastern highlands to the capital of Harare. People of all races milled about, grumbling about wasted time and the state of the country, sharing water and helping each other push the cars that ran out of fuel before reaching the station.
Pressure on Mugabe’s political opposition - which failed to win power in the 2000 and 2002 elections that foreign observers described as rigged - has been unremitting. In the past three years, some 100 party supporters have been killed. Thousands have reported a wide range of abuses by militia members who support the governing Zanu PF party. Far from dialing back, say critics, the Mugabe government has steadily ratcheted up the pressure. This year scores of people, including even more senior officials previously off-limits to torturers, have been caught up in the growing web of oppression. At least a dozen opposition members of Parliament and city council members as well as the mayor of Harare, have been arrested on charges later thrown out of court. Many say they were tortured. Mugabe’s government is also denying opposition supporters food aid aimed at offsetting a regionwide drought. Meanwhile, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is facing the death penalty in a trial on dubious charges of plotting Mugabe’s assassination. With regional leaders hastening to the sidelines, the courts may eventually provide the only redress for Zimbabwe’s dalliance with radical misrule. "African leaders have betrayed us," says Job Sikhala, lighting up another cigarette. He and four others arrested with him will sue the government, he said, for the abuse they received in custody. In Paris, Chirac invoked the increasingly effective International Criminal Court to help distance himself from his pariah guest. "The days of impunity, or when people were able to justify the use of force, are truly over," he said. Indeed, even the most pessimistic Zimbabweans may draw some encouragement from events in neighboring Zambia, where former president Frederick Chiluba appeared in court Monday on charges of more than 50 counts of corruption. Considered untouchable during his term of office, Chiluba was arrested after Parliament lifted his immunity from prosecution last week. "Zimbabwe’s ordeal is never going to end," says Nhanio Nkomo, a magician who plies his trade to entertain those waiting in a long fuel line north of Mutare. He may be wrong. But for hungry and demoralized Zimbabweans, a day of reckoning can’t come soon enough.
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From The Financial Gazette, 27 February
Unpaid Zim tycoons take DRC to court
Staff Reporter
Zimbabwe-based Great Lakes Corporation has applied to the High Court for permission to seize the assets of the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) over unsettled bills for supplies to the Congolese army two years ago. According to papers filed with the High Court, the company has cited the DRC government as the first respondent in its suit, while the Congolese embassy in Harare is the second respondent and First Banking Corporation managing director Livingstone Gwata is the third. Gwata is cited in his personal capacity because Great Lakes Corporation wants the courts to force him to disclose the banking details of the DRC government, which has an account with First Bank. The company is seeking an order forcing Gwata to disclose the bank records and another requiring the Deputy Sheriff to seize the money in this account. In his founding affidavit, Great Lakes Corporation executive director Brian Dzimwasha said his company wanted to recover close to US$90 000 owed for supplies made to the Congolese army in September 2001. The money would amount to nearly $5 million at the official exchange rate and close to $135 million at the parallel market for foreign currency. It is owed for supplies made during the four-year DRC war, which ended with a cease-fire last year and to which Zimbabwe sent troops to defend the Kinshasa government against Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebels.
Dzimwasha said efforts to secure payment had been unsuccessful in the past two years, forcing his company to seek a court order authorising the seizure of Kinshasa’s assets in Harare, namely the DRC’s bank account at First Bank. He said Great Lakes Corporation was asking the High Court to force Gwata to reveal the DRC government’s banking details to its lawyers, to make it possible for its contents to be seized to settle the debt. "The first respondent has failed to pay for the goods despite numerous demands by the applicant, the last of which were made on October 8 and 30 2002," Dzimwasha said in his affidavit. "Now, the applicant wishes to cause summons to be issued out of this honourable court claiming the sum of US$89 880.00." According to a copy of an invoice attached to the court papers, some of the items supplied to the DRC forces in Lubumbashi and Katanga by Great Lakes Corporation included 5 000 webbing belts, 5 000 berets and two consignments of jet engine oil. The company also supplied 10 000 litres of Jet A1 fuel. High Court judge Justice Tadias Karwi yesterday postponed hearing the case to March 12 in order to allow Great Lakes Corporation’s lawyers to put their papers in order.
My protest goes on says Flower
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From The Age (Australia), 27 February
Andy Flower Protest To Continue
Zimbabwe batsman Andy Flower revealed that his controversial anti-Robert Mugabe protest will continue despite enormous pressure on him to abandon the gesture. Flower and team-mate Henry Olonga both donned black armbands in their opening match against Namibia to mark what they described as the death of democracy in Zimbabwe and lashed out at the violence and famine which has ravaged the country. "We have had meetings, been spoken to often by cricket authorities and received letters. But we are not going to back down. How can we?" Flower told AFP here today. After being reported to the International Cricket Council (ICC) by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU), and cleared of any wrongdoing, Flower toned down his protest to a black wristband in the team's second game against India in Harare. Olonga was dropped for that match and for the game with Australia in Bulawayo last Monday, while Flower continued to play. Both men were summoned to a meeting of the ZCU last weekend where they warned to drop their protest or lose their places in the team. Flower was going to be dropped for the game against Australia until a group of senior players said they would not play in that match if the threat was carried out. Flower, one of the world's top batsmen, said his protest will now be represented by wearing white armbands. "We are standing up what is right," he said. Both men are available for selection against the Netherlands at the Queens Sports Club on Friday but Olonga, who was sacked by his club last week, is still expected to be squeezed out by Andy Blignaut.
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From The Daily News, 28 February
CBZ bankrolls Menashe
By Lloyd Mudiwa
The Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ), now trading as the Jewel Bank, allegedly provided US$200 000 (about Z$11 million at the official exchange rate, but Z$300 million on the parallel market) towards the US$615 000 (about Z$33,825 million officially against Z$922,5 million at the parallel rate) the government paid Ari Ben-Menashe, the principal State witness in the adjourned high treason trial of three top MDC officials. Gideon Gono, the bank’s managing director, yesterday, however, denied that the money in question belonged to CBZ. He said the bank had merely facilitated the transfer of the funds on behalf of an unnamed customer. According to exhibit number 10 in the trial against MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, secretary-general Professor Welshman Ncube, and the opposition party’s shadow minister of agriculture, Renson Gasela, CBZ is listed as the ordering customer for the US$200 000 payment made on 18 December 2001. This inferably means the bank could have either paid the foreign currency or provided the hard currency on behalf of a customer who paid in Zimbabwean dollars. The money was paid in a situation of critical foreign currency shortages. Exhibit number 10 comprises the schedules of payments to Dickens & Madson, a Canadian-based political consultant firm in which Ben-Menashe is president. The schedules were produced by the State as an exhibit in court. The exhibit shows that Zimbank, in which the government holds a controlling share, and CBZ, facilitated seven payments to Dickens & Madson between 30 November 2001 and 5 August 2002. Zimbank and CBZ arranged all except one of the payments on behalf of the Harare Trust and the Chiltern Trust, respectively. This means that the banks merely debited these organisations’ foreign currency accounts with them. In the outstanding transaction, CBZ was listed as the ordering customer and also facilitated the transaction. The money was paid into account number 694500996865 held with JP Morgan Chase Bank of New York in the United States of America. The account belongs to Ben-Menashe’s attorney, William H Scharp, and was kept there in trust for Dickens & Madson, according to the schedule of payments for the political consultancy.
Gono, however, said: "Just because Gono signs a cheque that doesn’t mean the money came from his account. "If you are a holder of a cheque book you can sign using the bank’s cheque." He said it was possible for a client to request for a payment to be made on their behalf in the form of a bank cheque so that it appears as if it as the CBZ which had paid. Banks, Gono said, were simply intermediaries which kept other people’s money. They did not enquire as to who the client was paying and why, he said. Gono said: "We (CBZ) don’t enquire. We don’t go behind the corporate face to see who you are paying and why." Tsvangirai, Ncube and Gasela are being charged with high treason, an offence punishable by death. Their lawyers believe Ben-Menashe was paid about US$615 000 to entrap the three, so they could be charged with high treason ahead of the March 2002 presidential election disputedly won by Mugabe. The defence team says the agreement entered into by the consultancy and the Zimbabwean government on 10 January 2002, ostensibly to spruce up the country’s battered international image, was actually a cover to reward the Israeli for trapping their clients. Ben-Menashe has, under cross-examination, admitted that his political consultancy, on behalf of the government, tricked Tsvangirai, so it could film him purportedly plotting to kill Mugabe.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 28 February
Mugabe court bars passport to native daughter
Harare - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a respected pro-democracy figure and critic of President Robert Mugabe's rule had no right to a passport from the country of her birth because her father was a citizen of New Zealand. The ruling by chief justice Godfrey Chidyausiku, a supporter of Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party, and two other pro-government judges, gave Judith Todd, the daughter of former liberal Rhodesian prime minister, the late Sir Garfield Todd (48) hours in which to return to Zimbabwe and renounce her alleged New Zealand with the appropriate Zimbabwean officials. However, New Zealand officials said the court's presumption that Todd automatically took her father's citizenship was wrong. "She doesn't have New Zealand citizenship," said a representative for that country's high commission in South Africa. Todd has no further course of appeal. Todd was ending a holiday in Britain at the time the controversial ruling was made. If she fails to meet the deadline, her rights to Zimbabwean citizenship will be cancelled. She will have theoretical rights to live in Zimbabwe as a foreign resident, and could apply for New Zealand citizenship, lawyers said. There is also a possibility Todd will become stateless. She will not be allowed to vote in Zimbabwe. However, she still has a chance to clear the bureaucratic obstacle course in time. Todd's lawyer, Bryant Elliot, said she was booked on a flight leaving Heathrow airport in London on Thursday for Harare. "Her return ticket to Zimbabwe was booked when she left in December," he said. "It's a remarkable coincidence" that the court deadline falls due at the same time as she is due to return. Chidyausiku's judgement offered no explanation why Todd should have only 48 hours.
A former missionary, Sir Garfield was ousted from his position as prime minister by right-wing Rhodesian colleagues in 1958. Judy was a fiery critic of the white minority Rhodesian government, and won the respect of black nationalists - including Mugabe - who were fighting for black majority rule. Both Todds supported Mugabe at the country's independence in 1980, but soon became outspoken critics of his government's human rights abuses. Sir Garfield was banned from voting in presidential elections last year under hastily-drafted citizenship legislation that stripped most of the country's 50 000 whites - a group likely to have voted against Mugabe - of their Zimbabwean citizenship and therefore their right to vote. Shortly after, Judith was refused a Zimbabwe passport because of the same law. It outlawed dual citizenship and declared that anyone with foreign ancestors had the right to the citizenship of their ancestors and would have to renounce it in order to retain Zimbabwean citizenship, whether or not they were born here. Todd took her case to the high court, arguing that she had never possessed New Zealand citizenship and did not need to renounce it. The high court endorsed her argument and ordered registrar-general Tobaiwa Mudede to issue her with a new passport. Mudede refused, and appealed instead. The ruling was seen as a test case not only for whites of foreign descent, but also for over a million descendants of migrant farm workers from neighbouring Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi who were equally affected by the law. However, in his judgement passed down today, judge Chidyausiku said that Sir Garfield's New Zealand citizenship was automatically conferred on his daughter. "She did not have to take any steps to claim it," he said.
Wrong, said a representative for the New Zealand high commission in Pretoria. "She is entitled to New Zealand citizenship, but she has never taken it up. She cannot renounce something she is entitled to but which she has not taken up." Lawyers expressed surprise at the speed with which the supreme court - which international legal organisations say Mugabe has "packed" with his supporters to ensure favourable verdicts - ruled on Mudede's appeal. It took one month to make up its mind after hearing argument. By contrast, there are about a dozen appeals against election wins by Mugabe's party in the 2000 election that Chidyausiku has not bothered to set down for argument, 18 months after the first ruling was given.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 28 February
No plans to amend Posa - AG's office
Vincent Kahiya
Contrary to claims by South African President Thabo Mbeki that the government was amending the Public Order and Security Act (Posa) to increase the democratic space in Zimbabwe, no such process is taking place, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt. Sources at the Attorney-General's office last week said there were no plans to amend existing provisions in security legislation which has been criticised by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and civic groups as repressive. In an interview with SABC two weeks ago, Mbeki said his government had discussed with the Zimbabwe government legislation that was "limiting democratic freedoms...and indeed they are looking at that". But the government was not amending Posa - the hallmark of the Mugabe's autocracy, the sources stated. "We are not sure what President Mbeki meant when he made reference to laws limiting democratic freedoms because if that is to happen, various provisions under Posa have to go," said the source.
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa had not responded to written questions sent to his office by the time of going to press. No comment could be obtained from the Minister of Home Affairs Kembo Mohadi as his secretary repeatedly promised the minister would call back, which never happened. Mbeki also stated that Zimbabwe's repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa) would be reformed. "One of the matters we've raised with them is that there have been complaints raised about... legislation passed that has an impact on the press. That it was necessary to look at that legislation and see what was wrong with it and change it. And indeed the Zimbabweans have agreed to that," said Mbeki. But the amendments to Aippa to be considered by parliament are not viewed as significant improvements to ensure press freedom in the country. On both issues of democratic and press freedoms, it appears the government has made promises to Mbeki that it does not intend to carry out in parliament. The amendments to the Citizenship Act which were gazetted recently, are also expected to stir up controversy. The provisions to extend citizenship to permanent residents from countries in the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) have been praised. But legal experts warn that the amendments will create a second class status of permanent residents who are not of African descent. The new amendments could be used to discriminate against permanent residents whose families are not from Sadc countries, for instance those from Britain and other European countries.
Meanwhile, the government has introduced a Bill in Parliament to prevent dilution of its majority shareholding in the power utility, Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa). The Electricity Amendment Bill will result in the formation of a company to hold state shares in new companies created by the unbundling of Zesa into smaller firms. This effectively means there would be no private sector investment in the power supply system. The Bill appears to contradict the Electricity White Paper which proposed the unbundling of Zesa into four companies and their privatisation. The Electricity White Paper proposes the unbundling of Zesa into generation, transmission, distribution and supply companies; the preparation of a privatisation programme for the business entities at all levels of industry and the setting up of a regulatory authority for the sector. But the Bill's memorandum says the amendment will prevent dilution of the state's control by the creation of a holding company for state shares in the new companies. The Bill also proposes the formation of a holding company to warehouse the shares in the successor companies. Nominees appointed by the government will hold shares in the companies. The Bill will make it illegal for government shareholding to be diluted by sale, transfer or disposal of shares.
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From News24 (SA), 27 February
New farmers among the hungry
Harare - New black farmers resettled on formerly white-owned land are among Zimbabweans in need of food aid, the UN food agency revealed on Thursday. "Many of these of people do not have sufficient food at this stage," said Kevin Farrell, World Food Programme (WFP) director in the southern African country. "There is concern that many of these people for whatever reason have not been able to harvest very much... certainly in part because of the drought," he said. The other reasons the new farmers were unable to harvest much were shortages of input and equipment to cultivate the fields. Zimbabwe embarked on a controversial land reform scheme in 2000 during which about 11m hectares of land have been compulsorily acquired from white farmers. Farrell said former farm workers and some urban poor were vulnerable to hunger which is affecting more than seven million people in the country. "The combination of drought, price controls, the government monopoly on cereal imports and the drop in commercial maize production due to the land reforms programme and HIV/Aids has stripped Zimbabwe of its former status as southern Africa's breadbasket," the WFP said in its 2003 brief. Farrell spoke at a ceremony where the British government gave an additional $8.5m to WFP for its emergency operations in Zimbabwe. Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FewsNet), a US-funded agency, recently said that up to a million former workers on formerly white-owned commercial farms have been adversely affected by the resettlement programme. At least 7.2 million people, more than half of the country's population of 11.6 million, face hunger. "The humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe is deteriorating at a dangerously rapid pace," said WFP. WFP director James Morris this week told US lawmakers that the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe is "almost beyond comprehension". Britain's latest donation is expected to feed about 4.5 million Zimbabweans until the middle of this year.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 28 February
44 Karoi farmers evicted
Augustine Mukaro
Government intensified its purge of white commercial farmers from their properties this week after more than 40 farmers in the Karoi-Tengwe area were served with Section 8 notices.Section 8 notices demand the farmer to cease operations and vacate the property within 90 days. The latest move flies in the face of recent assurances given by President Robert Mugabe to a South African fact-finding mission that farm invasions had ended last August. Ian Gibson of Kiplingcotes Farm was handed a section 8 notice on February 21 ordering him to quit his farm in 90 days, just when his crop was approaching maturity, according to farmers in the Karoi area. Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) director, Olivier Hendrik, confirmed to the Zimbabwe Independent that the union had received reports from Karoi. "We have received the initial reports but we are trying to get details of developments in the area before we can comment on the matter," Hendrik said. Justice for Agriculture (JAG) chairman David Connolly confirmed the service of the Section 8 notices Karoi-Tengwe farmers. "As of yesterday night (Wednesday) 16 farmers had actually been served with notices," Connolly said. "We are informed however that more farmers would be served with the notices in the next few day," he said. Connolly said government had always misrepresented the situation on the ground to the international community to build up its image. "The land reform programme is not over as government has been claiming since August last year. Some of our members are still being evicted. Jag will challenge the notices in court," he said.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 28 February
Devaluing the truth
By Michael Hartnack
As the Zimbabwe crisis deepens, so the gap between the regime’s rhetoric and reality widens. Last week state radio took Orwellian doublespeak to new depths when it announced that a slide in the official rate of exchange for the US dollar from Zimbabwe $55 to Zimbabwe $800 was "not a devaluation." It was merely a move to "assist exporters and stimulate the economy". The devaluation (announced, typically, while Robert Mugabe was out of the country) still fails to bring the official exchange rate into line with the more realistic underground or "parallel market" of Zimbabwe $1 500 to the US dollar. At the root of the problem is the belief that the state can force anyone with something valuable - in this case, foreign currency - to hand it over to the ruling elite for a fraction of its real worth at international rates. Mugabe has always believed he can get the productive sector to subsidise the cost of chronic bad governance. If production collapses, this is due to lack of patriotism on the part of owners and managers. In similar vein, while it poured with rain in Harare on Mugabe’s 79th birthday last week and he celebrated with his young wife Grace in an opulent Paris hotel suite during a French-Africa summit, ruling Zanu PF publicity chief Nathan Shamuyarira repeatedly announced the anniversary would be marked only by "modest, low key celebrations because of the drought." Modesty and economy did not stop the publication of a 10-page supplement of congratulations in the state-controlled Herald. An amazing array of bankrupt enterprises, including the Grain Marketing Board, bought advertising space - at the expense, ultimately, of the Zimbabwean taxpayer and consumer.
Again, while Mugabe insists there will be no going back on a rigid system of price controls, deputy minister Shuvai Mahofa was caught selling maize meal at her rural store for four times the legal maximum - and given a trifling fine. There is no question of Mugabe demanding her resignation, since he turned a blind eye to past criminal activities, including forgery of a liquor licence. And there is also no question of politicians such as Mahofa ever putting national interest before their own selfish survival - Mugabe has too much "on" her. Meanwhile acting president Simon Muzenda and the Zanu PF principal spokesman in London, George Shire, blamed all Zimbabwe’s hardships on five years of British-sponsored "sanctions" - their way of describing 1998 loss of aid due to concealed multi-billion dollar spending on Mugabe's Congo military adventure and gross breach of all agreed conditions.
Every attempt to get the regime and Zanu PF to confront the honest facts of Zimbabwe's situation fails - and their foreign friends, notably South Africa, Nigeria and Namibia, egg them on. Namibia's President Sam Nujoma declared recently "he knows of no human rights abuses under Mugabe". The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation announced that a standing commission of South African and Zimbabwean diplomats and civil servants met in Harare February 17 and 18. The commission praised President Thabo Mbeki’s "principled stand on the situation in Zimbabwe"; congratulated Nigeria for telling Australia that Zimbabwe’s isolation should end; and "visited the rural areas and applauded the success of the land reform programme". The magazine Africa Confidential published an official Zimbabwe internal audit on land redistribution which confirmed a well-known fact - that the influential elite have cornered massive holdings for themselves and are busy trying to evict rural people who were earlier encouraged to chase away the white owners. Mugabe's sister, Sabina, military chiefs, and information minister Jonathan Moyo were named. Africa Confidential reported that presenting the audit, Vice President Joseph Msika said: "It is very important to take urgent corrective measures, particularly where the leadership is perpetrator of anomalies, as the general public is restive...a multitude of people are still on the waiting list."
No amount of doublespeak can hide from the Zimbabwean people and business community that the regime has suffered a massive loss of credibility over maintaining the level of the currency. However, those who really felt the Zanu PF ship of state lurch alarmingly under their feet will have been Mahofa and her farm-grabbing colleagues, now afflicted by deep feelings of insecurity. It was reported last week in South Africa that Mbeki still thinks the Zanu PF ship can be kept afloat by a new helmsman, in the form of ex-finance minister Simba Makoni, and is making yet another effort to bring that about. Here, we are watching for a stampede for seats in the first-class lifeboats.
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From The Guardian (UK), 1 March
Harare police arrest protesting clerics
Chanting officers in riot gear round up church leaders
Andrew Meldrum in Harare
Twenty-one church leaders were arrested in Zimbabwe yesterday when they tried to deliver a petition to the police urging an end to its abuse of power. The ministers from the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Methodist, Lutheran, Dutch Reform, Presbyterian and Pentecostal churches were still being held last night. Carrying three big wooden crosses, they walked through the streets of Harare to the police headquarters to deliver a petition urging "immediate corrective measures to ensure that the police force in this country performs its duties with respect for the church and all citizens of Zimbabwe". As they approached they were surrounded by police officers in riot gear who sang "It's been a long time since you were beaten" in Shona, and banged batons on their truck. The officers arrested the ministers and took them to the central charge office.
The petition accused the police of "many cases of violence against people, pastors and clergy in this country", and added: "We find this misuse of police power completely objectionable and unacceptable." Since the beginning of the year more than a dozen people, including three MPs and a lawyer, have claimed that they have been tortured by the police. The police have also held a high court judge in jail overnight. The ministers called for a public apology from the police and an assurance that "the present abuse by the police will stop forthwith". Pastor Joseph Munemo, secretary of the National Pastors Conference, described their arrest as "very serious". "The police are provoking church leaders and trying to frighten us from carrying out our duties," he said. "We just wanted to hand over our petition." Bishop Trevor Manhanga said the arrests would "strengthen the resolve of the church to stop police abuse of power. "The police cannot cow the church into silence". Bishop Manhanga, president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, was arrested two weeks ago when he tried to speak at a church function. "We have not broken any law, we are just carrying out our role to be the conscience of the nation," he said. "We cannot be silent in the face of violence and torture. The church must be the ears for those who cannot hear, the eyes for those who cannot see and the voice of the voiceless. "We are taking up our man date to call for a stop to this harassment and intimidation."
In Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, the Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, an outspoken critic of the Mugabe government, was warned by the police at his cathedral offices not to make political statements in his sermons. The warning was made after seven victims of alleged state-sponsored torture made statements at a service he conducted on Thursday night. "They [the police] pointed out that the service should purely be of a religious nature and not mention aspects critical of government," the archbishop said. He said he had told the police that it was impossible to separate issues of hunger, economic hardship and violence from religion. "If people are suffering the church cannot excuse itself."
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From Mmegi (Botswana), 28 February
Zim spies stalk Botswana?
Ryder Gabathuse
Francistown - The arrest of a Zimbabwean police officer in the village of Mabudzane has confirmed fears that Francistown and the North-East District could be home to a number of Zimbabwean spies. It is believed that members of Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation have been deployed in Francistown and North-East District. A local newspaper has reported the arrest and prosecution of Collen Mabaya at the Monarch Customary Court. He was reportedly sentenced to six months wholly suspended for a year. Mabaya is alleged to be a Bulawayo based policeman. He has since pleaded guilty for working in the country without a work and residence permit. He is alleged to have been working for a local designer when he was nabbed. The arrest of Mabaya is viewed to be a tip of an iceberg by those in the know. "More of these guys are employed illegally around and they are many," suggested a mid dle-aged man who spoke on condition of anonymity. He encouraged the police to do their best to get rid of the spies. He said the police should not simply arrest and deport Zimbabweans, but they must "work on them thoroughly to establish their reasons for coming here". He feels it is not safe for a number of Zimbabweans and security officers.
Last year a number of skeletal remains were spotted around Francistown and the North-East. The majority of the remains were positively identified as those of Zimbabweans. Up to now the cause of deaths remain mysterious. Prior to the presidential elections in Zimbabwe last year, there were reports that members of the CIO were regulars visitors in Francistown nightclubs and other areas. They were said to be monitoring the movements of members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) who were suspected to be operating secretly here. A Botswana newspaper even reported the arrest of some suspected CIOs in the Dukwe Refugee camp who were allegedly spying on the presence of MDC members in the camp. The rumour mill has it that the spying at the Centre for illegal immigrants at the Gerald Estate, the Police Stations and the Kgotla has been top priority for the operatives. The officers are alleged to be searching for concrete evidence supporting recent reports of the abuse of illegal Zimbabwean immigrants at the hands of the Botswana police. Some Zimbabweans shopping in Francistown are alleged to have spotted members of the Zimbabwe police alighting from a bus that plies the Bulawayo-Gaborone route. The trio is alleged to have dropped in Francistown at night.
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From The Times (UK), 1 March
Flower injury allows Olonga to resume protest on home soil
By Geoffrey Dean
Bulawayo - Andy Flower and Henry Olonga were again at the centre of attention as a crowd of 3,000 sang protest chants against the Zimbabwe regime and unfurled anti-government banners. One read: "Mugabe = Hitler." Two youths, one black and one white, at one point rang along the bank beneath a stand with another banner reading: "Zimbabwe needs Justice." Flower had helped his side to 301 with a fine 72-ball 71, but he could manage only ten overs in the field because of a groin strain. Olonga, his fellow protester, prevented by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) from going on as a substitute against Australia last Monday, was unexpectedly permitted to carry out twelfth man duties yesterday. When Olonga, whose father lives in Bulawayo, came on to field, there was a huge roar from the crowd. He fielded for the remaining 40 overs. A Zimbabwe team source said he thought the publicity given in the international press, and in particular in The Times, to Olonga’s treatment had helped to force the ZCU to allow him to field. "There’s no doubt in my mind that this sort of pressure will have an effect on how the ZCU handle the whole Olonga and Flower affair," the source said. Olonga took a catch in the deep off Doug Marillier to dismiss Henk Mol. Faced with such a daunting target, Holland were never going to get remotely close. Several of their batsmen got starts, but none went on to make the necessary big score. For Zimbabwe, Andy Blignaut, who had hit a 25-ball fifty against Australia, needed only 32 balls to reach his half-century. He then conceded just 30 off ten overs to cap an excellent all-round performance.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 1 March
Fans find protest platform
By Martin Johnson
Zimbabwe (301-8) beat Holland (202-9) by 99 runs
They sang the home team's national anthem before the game, which ends with the words, "this is our land, our Zimbabwe". A stirring sentiment indeed, unless you happen to be a white farmer in which case it perhaps ought to end "this used to be our land, Bob's Zimbabwe". It is, in fact, the black population who are suffering most from the desperate food situation in the heartland of Mugabe opposition - they're boiling tree roots for soup in the nearby townships - and it was not surprising when Zimbabwe's match against Holland here yesterday provided the opportunity for an anti-government demonstration. This sort of thing is not allowed, of course, and resulted in the police moving in to confiscate banners reading, among other things, "We Want Justice In Zimbabwe". And at least two of around 50 chanting demonstrators received what passes for justice in Zimbabwe, from a police force modelled more on the East German Stasi than Dixon of Dock Green. The two demonstrators made the mistake of leaving the grassy bank to nip behind a temporary stand to join the hot dog queue, and once out of sight of the television cameras, it was collar-feeling time. This also happened after the recent game against Australia here, and the customary fate for anyone frogmarched to the cells for political agitation is to spend three nights in custody. The first night to be taught the error of their ways, and the other two to allow the bruising to subside.
The Zimbabwe situation has been a prominent feature of this World Cup, and there has been much speculation that Henry Olonga, one of the two black-armband protesters in Zimbabwe's opening match, has not played again since as a result. However, a more likely explanation is Olonga's propensity to be expensive in this type of cricket, along with the return of two injured players. Andy Flower - his co-protester - has remained in the team, though Flower was telephoned by a selector before the Australia match and threatened with being dropped for "not trying" against India. Meanwhile, the country has more or less been split in half by the issue of whether visiting teams are actually legitimising Mugabe's regime, and the Zimbabwean captain, Heath Streak, who spoke out in favour of the matches going ahead, has received enough hate mail to paper the walls of what remains of the family farm. As for the match itself, it was an otherwise welcome diversion for people whose friendliness is remarkable in the circumstance of a miserable existence, and there was a lively and good humoured crowd inside the ground despite an admission charge of 1,000 Zimbabwean dollars. This is actually such a small sum that it will buy you only one-and-a-half meat pies, but in Bulawayo one-and-a-half meat pies is something to kill for. Literally, maybe, if things get much worse.
The singing and dancing were certainly not the result of a thrilling contest, but the ICC are so money driven that the next World Cup will probably include the likes of Papua New Guinea and the Outer Hebrides in an effort to extend the preliminary rounds to several months. Perhaps they should introduce a handicap system, as in the far-off days when England were teaching the world how to play, and the 11 members of the MCC would take on 22 from New South Wales. In the game Peter Willey declined to umpire in, Zimbabwe, put in to bat, barely broke sweat in making 301 against a club standard attack and fielding that can best be described as arthritic. Holland then scraped 200 for the first time in the tournament, without getting remotely close to doing England a favour. The permutations will keep going until the last group game, Zimbabwe v Pakistan here at Queens Club on Tuesday.
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From The San Francisco Chronicle, 28 February
Zimbabwe families lurch through country's hard times, quietly criticize government
Dina Kraft, Associated Press writer
Mabvuku - It's the end of another long, hungry day. Chipo Riusika woke before dawn for a job that no longer pays the bills, and her four children - out of school for lack of money - stood in bread lines for hours under a fiery sun. In Riusika's blue-collar neighborhood outside Harare, supplies are so scarce and expensive that shoppers at the grocery buy cooking oil in minibar bottles, rice by the handful and one egg at a time. The disintegrating economy has sent black market prices soaring. There are shortages of everything from basic foods to cooking oil to detergent. Lines for gasoline wrap in thick rows around city blocks and can last for days. At night, Riusika and the youngsters huddle in the darkness of their cramped cinderblock house at the end of a barren yard. The electricity was turned off months ago, when the economic crisis first came home for the Riusika family. In the afternoon shade, conversations among the women are punctuated by bitter complaints about President Robert Mugabe and his government. Anger simmers but is kept in check by fear of roving gangs of youths organized by the government to silence dissent violently. "I have such pain," says 38-year-old Riusika, clutching her chest. "My heart feels the pain. Others are going to school but my children are not. I want them to make good livings, to be doctors, teachers." Riusika complains her salary as a security guard hasn't risen with inflation - which the government pegs at 195 percent but most economists agree is closer to 400 percent - and says she can no longer afford her children's school fees. At the average black market rate, the real gauge of buying power, Riusika's monthly pay is worth about $6.50, and a semester's tuition for her four children runs about $6.
Zimbabwe's vast corn and wheat fields once fed the region, and its plentiful tobacco crops brought in foreign capital. But agriculture has crumbled in the wake of erratic rains and Mugabe's often violent land reform program, and hunger threatens more than half the population of about 13 million. Thousands of white-owned commercial farms have been seized since 2000 for redistribution to landless blacks, ruling party officials and their relatives. Fields now lie fallow and support only subsistence crops. Even when Riusika scrapes the money together for a complete meal, there is often nothing available to buy. Sometimes she cannot get to work because the bus is out of gas. The family often gets by on one meal a day: a few vegetables and rice. The children say they miss sadza, Zimbabwe's staple of cornmeal mush. The price of a 22-pound bag of cornmeal is fixed at about 50 U.S. cents - but is usually only available on the black market at 10 times that amount.
The grocer is talkative, but refuses to give his name, saying he is afraid of the government's young enforcers. In an adjacent room his 1-year-old daughter is crying. She has malaria, but he says he can't afford to send her to the hospital. The anger toward Mugabe overcomes others' fear as the afternoon wears on. "We are tired of the government, we are tired of him. They are causing the food shortage and we are starving," says Fungayi Katema, 39, a bone-thin mother of three in a threadbare green dress. She rails against the government's excuses. "You cannot blame the drought. It is because the government chased away the commercial farmers and gave away the land to people ill-equipped to farm." Some of her neighbors, wary of beatings and harassment for such blunt talk, send disapproving glances, but Katema continues boldly: "It's not a secret life is tough in Zimbabwe. Everyone is talking about it." Sitting next to her, a 5-year-old boy writes in the dirt with a stick the letters MDC - which stands for Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition party, whose leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is on trial on treason charges. And while the flame from a kerosene-soaked rag softens the darkness of her sparse home, Riusika speaks of the faith she still tries to put in prayer and song. "I pray to God for a better life, for food, and for my family," she says, then begins to sway and sing. "Every burden becomes a blessing ..." she sings, her whispery, lilting voice trailing off. She shakes her head in frustration.
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From The Weekend Australian, 2 March
Police arrest cricket protesters
Forty-two cricket supporters who held up banners and sang songs denouncing Zimbabwe's government at an international cricket match here this week have been arrested, a lawyer has said. Perpetua Dube told AFP that those arrested, who included a 15-year old girl, were picked up in the second city of Bulawayo after a match between Zimbabwe and the Netherlands yesterday. The girl was released today, but the other 41, including about a dozen women, were still in police custody this morning, Dube said. "No official charge has been laid, or disclosed to lawyers," she added. Police in Bulawayo were not immediately available to confirm the arrests. "We were just doing it as Zimbabweans, saying 'Enough is enough'," said the wife of one of the demonstrators who asked not to be named. She told AFP that her husband was being kept in a prison cell along with 22 others. During the protest, banners were waved that claimed "Mugabe equals Hitler" and "Zimbabwe Needs Justice". President Robert Mugabe's government has been accused by the opposition and some Western countries of human rights abuses. The woman said the police failed to arrest the protesters during the match because they all linked arms. But they were picked up after the match that saw two of Zimbabwe's star players wearing thick white armbands in protest against the government. The two, Henry Olonga and Andy Flower, had been warned by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) to stop wearing the black armbands and wristbands they sported in previous matches. Zimbabwe won the match against the Netherlands by 99 runs.
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From The Observer (UK), 2 March
Mugabe's police 'beat and jail' peaceful World Cup protesters
Andrew Meldrum in Harare
More than 40 people were jailed and some of them beaten by police after a peaceful demonstration at the World Cup cricket match between Zimbabwe and the Netherlands in Bulawayo on Friday, lawyers said yesterday. Protesters held up banners reading:'Mugabe = Hitler' and 'Zimbabwe needs justice'. The lawyers said the police refused to release the names of those jailed and denied them legal representation. A protester who was not detained said: 'The world needs to know what is going on here. It was a completely peaceful demonstration. The International Cricket Council and World Cup organiser Ali Bacher said peaceful demonstrations would be permitted.'
From ZWNEWS: The total of at least 42 arrested is believed to include 29 men and 13 women. Lawyers for the detained have had immense difficulty in establishing precisely who is still in detention, as those picked up by the police have been dispersed to a number of police station around Bulawayo. It is thought that 23 men and 12 women are being held at Bulawayo Central, six men at Queens Park, and one woman at Mzilikazi. Some were picked up at their homes, others at the Queens Park cricket ground itself. It also appears that the vice president of the Queens Park Club was also arrested, although it is not clear whether he is still detained. One relative of one of the women arrested said that police had told him that they planned to continue detaining the protesters until after the end of the Zimbabwe-Pakistan match due to be played in Bulawayo next Tuesday.
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From IOL (SA), 1 March
Over 50 Zim opposition members arrested
Harare - Police in the Zimbabwean capital Harare on Saturday arrested more than 50 members of the main opposition party who were canvassing ahead of a by-election, the opposition claimed. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said in a statement that those arrested were carrying out home visits in the suburb of Kuwadzana, where a by-election is to be held at the end of the month. The arrested were being held for violating Zimbabwe's stringent Public Order and Security Act (POSA), the MDC statement said. There has been no police confirmation of the arrests. Under POSA, public gatherings of more than five are prohibited. The MDC said its members were moving round in groups of three. The opposition says that it is the victim of a state-orchestrated campaign of intimidation. It claims many of its members have been tortured, by police and supporters of President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF. The MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is currently standing trial on charges of high treason.
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From News24 (SA), 28 February
Arrest warrant out for editor
Harare - A Zimbabwean court has issued an arrest warrant for Zimbabwean independent journalist Geoffrey Nyarota for failing to appear in court on charges of abusing journalistic privileges, his lawyer said on Friday. The award-winning former editor-in-chief of Zimbabwe's leading independent daily newspaper the Daily News is currently at Harvard University receiving a fellowship award. He is accused of abusing his journalistic privilege and of publishing falsehoods after a report appeared in the paper last April describing how a woman had allegedly been beheaded in front of her daughters by pro-government militias. The story later proved to be false and the Daily News retracted it. Nyarota was supposed to have appeared in court for a remand hearing but his lawyer said it would have been very expensive for the newsman to fly all the way from the US to Harare for a remand hearing. Chibwe said he would press for a date for the actual trial to start at the next hearing. Nyarota was dismissed from his job last December after a strike by journalists at the paper over a pay dispute prevented the paper from being published for 11 days. The former editor, who has won numerous local and international awards for journalism and press freedom, has been arrested on several occasions. The country's media law under which Nyarota has been charged has been criticised both at home and abroad as an attempt to muzzle the free press in Zimbabwe, which has been increasingly critical of President Robert Mugabe and alleged human rights abuses perpetrated by his supporters.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 2 March
British asylum laws shelter mouthpiece for Mugabe
By David Bamber and Jonathan Erasmus
Britain is sheltering a former supporter of an outlawed terrorist group who also acts as a propagandist for the Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. David Matsanga, a Ugandan businessman, acts as a public relations adviser for Mr Mugabe. He also writes a weekly column for a Zimbabwean newspaper in which he regularly denounces Britain. Mr Matsanga, 43, a former official of the disgraced former Ugandan president Milton Obote, has lived in Croydon, Surrey, with his wife and four children for nine years. He was granted political asylum on the grounds that he would be killed if he returned home. Until recently he was the British spokesman for the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda, a proscribed terrorist organisation which conscripts child soldiers and has been accused by Amnesty International of terrorising the population. Two months ago it was accused of killing 104 people and, last Wednesday, of abducting 30 children from a school. In January 1999, Kampala magistrates issued a warrant for Mr Matsanga's arrest, along with leaders of the LRA, for three murders allegedly committed by the terrorist organisation on February 14, 1997, in the northern town of Gulu. It requested his extradition.
Mr Matsanga has denied visiting Uganda since 1990 and rejects the charges, saying that they are politically motivated. His solicitors say he is a "peaceloving man" and that he only became a spokesman for the LRA in March 1998. It is understood that a bank account held by Mr Matsanga was frozen by the British Government in London in 1999 because of his LRA activities. Mr Matsanga, who claims to have worked as a researcher for Robin Cook, then the shadow foreign secretary, before the 1997 election, writes a vitriolic anti-British column in the Daily Herald, a Zimbabwean newspaper. Among his many rants are attacks on Tony Blair and journalists who have written about Mr Mugabe's despotic rule. He described an article in The Daily Telegraph about a possible coup in Zimbabwe as "nothing but a faked story by gay gangsters", adding that British "gays who hate President Mugabe" were sneaking into the country under the pretext of playing golf. In another column, Mr Matsanga wrote: "Let Tony Blair seek the help of African medicine men to cleanse this soul that is haunting the very centre of British democracy."
The revelation of Mr Matsanga's activities despite being granted asylum comes just two weeks after The Telegraph revealed that Wali Khan Ahmadzai, a fighter for the Taliban in Afghanistan against British forces, was living in London and had sought asylum. On Friday, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, announced that 110,000 asylum seekers came to Britain in 2002, the highest number ever and up 20 per cent on 2001. Last week Mr Matsanga boasted about his Zimbabwean connections when he met two undercover journalists from The Telegraph at a hotel in Croydon. He said: "I know all the government, all the ministers they turn to me for advice. Mugabe is always interested in what I have to say." With Zimbabwean government cash, Mr Matsanga runs a company trading as Africa Strategy. Its aim is to try to win favourable publicity for the regime. Despite his attacks on Mr Blair, the businessman claims to have got a British passport and be a member of the Labour Party. Over lunch at the hotel in Croydon, Mr Matsanga tempered his criticism of Britain. He said: "Britain is my home. I have been here many years. I worked for Robin Cook before the 1997 election and I am still in the Labour Party." He admitted to having been the "political secretary" of the LRA until recently but claimed he had resigned. A spokesman for the Home Office said that he could not speak about this particular case but added: "We are not in the business of giving asylum to those who pose a risk to others. "We are not prepared to offer sanctuary to people who abuse our hospitality."
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 2 March
Moyo grabs land from peasants
Andrew Donaldson
State audit exposes new wave of farm seizures by Mugabe's cronies
Johannesburg - A second wave of Zimbabwean farm appropriations has begun. High-ranking Zanu-PF officials are violently evicting peasants settled on farms taken from white commercial farmers - so that they can have the farms for themselves. This is according to a government audit of seized properties commissioned by President Robert Mugabe after disgruntled would-be beneficiaries complained of corruption and bribery by party officials in the allocation of seized lands. The audit began in August last year. At Zanu PF's December congress in Chinhoyi , Mugabe promised to act on its findings. But, as a confidential addendum to the report reveals, some of the worst violations were, in fact, committed by Mugabe's closest allies. Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba said yesterday : "We're not in the business of commenting on such matters." The Sunday Times is in possession of the document , which was originally leaked to the London-based Africa Confidential newsletter. Most of the offenders it lists have violated the controversial "one man, one farm" ruling. They include:
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, who has three farms, identified as Little Connemara, in the Nyanga district; Patterson, in Mazowe; and Lot 3A of Dete Valley, in Lupane;
Air Marshal Perence Shiri, commander of the air force, who has at least three farms, one of which, Eirin, is more than three times the maximum size allowed. Shiri had approached Agriculture and Land Resettlement Minister Joseph Made for a certificate declaring that the state had "no interest" in Eirin, thereby overriding the decision of the local land committee. Then, when they resisted eviction, Shiri brought in government troops to kick 96 "resettled" families off the property;
The president's sister, Sabina Mugabe, who has at least three farms;
Former higher education minister Ignatius Chombo;
Provincial governors Elliot Manyika, Obert Mpofu, Peter Chanetsa and Josia Hungwe;
Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramyi. Some 21 families had to be evicted so he could take possession of Ulva farm in Marondera;
Barclays Bank chief executive Alex Jongwe, who is alleged to have acquired three farms - all of which had already been "resettled"; and
Newspaper publishers Ibbo Mandaza and Mtuma Mawere.
The audit adds that an agricultural and industrial supplier company owned by Mawere, FSI Agricom, is "alleged to have acquired a number of farms, thereby prejudicing the resettled families. Mandaza and Mawere denied violating land policy, but agreed that they had investments in companies owning several farms. Mandaza told the Sunday Times that the report did not make the distinction between those who had bought farms and those who had been given them. He added that his newspaper, The Sunday Mirror, would be publishing "furious denials" by the government about the report's existence. The audit notes that its list of dozens of alleged transgressors "is not exhaustive as the people interviewed were scared to reveal any information lest they be victimised by the multiple farm owners who seem to have loyalists within the various land committees". Particular mention is made of Fountain Farm, in Insiza, which, because of its highly developed infrastructure and its varied citrus crops and livestock, was earmarked as a national service agricultural skills training centre to be run by the Ministry of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation - but instead went to Small and Medium Enterprises Development Minister Sithembiso Nyoni. "It is disturbing to note," the audit says, "that violence is the order of the day on this farm with 'hired thugs' allegedly driven in from Bulawayo by the Hon Minister. The violence has not spared the members of the district land committee, who threatened to resign if the relevant authorities do not intervene." In another case, former Hurungwe district administrator James Munetsi is accused of holding back more than 500 letters of offer to beneficiaries of the land programme and substituting letters of his own that he sold to "illegal beneficiaries". Munetsi has since been suspended.
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From The Christian Science Monitor, 26 February
Churches engaged in soul searching over role in Zimbabwe's crisis
By Nicole Itano
Bulawayo - On a recent weekday evening, a dozen young members of the Bulawayo Baptist church met in their congregation's spacious hall for a jam session and prayer group. Seated on wooden benches amid scattered bibles, the young musicians animatedly discuss the topic of the day: praise and worship and the difference between them. This is a church that would prefer to stay focused on its parishioner's spiritual - not political - education. But here in Zimbabwe, events on earth are not so easily ignored. President Robert Mugabe has tightened his grip on the country since winning re-election nearly a year ago. Zimbabwe is experiencing severe food shortages, skyrocketing unemployment, and heavy-handed repression of anyone who dares oppose the government. Now spiritual leaders here are doing some soul searching about what their role in the crisis should be. "God has heard the suffering of the people of Zimbabwe," says the Rev. Ray Motsi, the fiery pastor of this 3,000-strong congregation. "He has heard the cries of the people, not just in Israel, but also in Zimbabwe.... I don't believe the church should be involved in politics, but if politics means bread and butter issues, then I'll talk about it."
The role of African churches during crises has been an uneven one. The continent is full of haunting memories of times the church has failed to speak out for the poor and powerless - and even contributed to the turmoil. Some religious leaders here hope Zimbabwe won't be added to that list. While a few parishes have railed against Mr. Mugabe and his ruling party - even in the face of threats and violence - others have remained silent or even sided with the government. "By and large, the church in Zimbabwe is fearful, docile, and selfish," says the small, stocky Mr. Motsi, whose manner bounces between intensity and lighthearted teasing. "The majority don't want to get involved because they are afraid they will be victimized by the government." One of those who has been victimized is Archbishop Pius Ncube, head of the Bulawayo Catholic diocese. He is a tireless campaigner against the violence of Mugabe's regime. For his efforts, he has been vilified in the government press. These days he often sleeps in safe houses, but worries more about the safety of his elderly mother, against whom he says multiple threats have been made. "It all depends on one man - Robert Mugabe," he says with conviction. "He is the source of all our suffering." Fr. Ncube, Motsi, and several other ministers here have united to form Christians for Peace and Justice, a group of about 10 religious leaders and 100 members formed in response to the current crisis. But too few, they say, have joined the cause.
Indeed, not all churches here agree that the government is responsible for Zimbabwe's current plight, or that it is the responsibility of men of God to speak out against it. The majority have remained silent. Still others have sided with the ruling party. The Anglican Bishop of Harare, Nolbert Kunonga, uses his sermons to praise Mugabe and last year attempted to ban 19 parishioners from church property for their opposition to his pro-government stances. While government foes here in Zimbabwe take inspiration from those like Nobel-laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was instrumental in ending South Africa's state-sponsored racism, and Martin Luther King Jr. - Motsi's personal hero - they also take warning from the places where churches here have failed. Many African churches openly supported the slave trade, or opposed the fight for independence from European colonizers or for racial justice. In South Africa, for example, the Catholic church was criticized for its initial failure to challenge apartheid. In Nigeria, Christian and Muslim leaders have been accused of inciting religious violence that has left thousands dead in the past few years. Still others have been closely tied to corrupt African regimes or have actively engaged in violence themselves. Last week, a Rwandan minister was sentenced to 10 years in prison by an international court for his involvement in that country's 1994 genocide.
"The [Zimbabwe] church runs the risk of becoming irrelevant if we don't speak out," says the Rev. Barnabus Nqindi, a handsome young Anglican priest who is saddened by the silence in his own church. "People will say, 'Where were you when I was hungry? When I was raped?' " Fearing that churches are fomenting dissent, the government has tried to declare some meetings and church services illegal, and has prevented churches from feeding the hungry, saying that the food will be used to build support for the opposition party. Motsi was arrested for distributing food, while Father Nqindi's colleague, Father Noel Scott, spent four days in jail before last year's election for leading a public prayer for Zimbabwe. Two weeks ago, a priest was strangled to the point of unconsciousness by police for taking pictures of a women's march against violence. Back in his office before a trip to South Africa to garner support, Ncube - the man who may one day be remembered as Zimbabwe's version of Bishop Tutu - laments Zimbabwe's lack of religious leadership. In India, he says, there was Gandhi; in South Africa, they had Tutu. Here in Zimbabwe, he says, there are more than 300 different churches, divided among and within themselves. While Ncube condemns Mugabe in Bulawayo, in Harare, priests serve him weekly communion. "Mugabe has managed to divide us," he says. "Churches are no longer speaking with one voice." "But," he adds, "we will not be bullied, whatever the cost."
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From ZWNEWS, 3 March
State House beatings
Twenty six opposition members, including three women, were forced into the grounds of State House on Sunday, where they were assaulted for four hours by members of the presidential security detail, the MDC said yesterday. The group had been travelling to a rally in Hatcliffe, and were accused by the security officers of wearing MDC T-shirts and singing party songs while travelling past State House. The group were kicked and beaten with sticks and rifle-butts, said an MDC spokesman. They were then taken to Harare Central police station, and were finally released after paying fines of Z$5000 each. Five of the activists were later taken to hospital for treatment for their injuries. Also on Sunday, seventy MDC members were arrested after a successful rally in Mufakose. Police arrived ten after the rally and rounded up youths who were carrying away the benches which had been used at the rally, forced them to lie on their stomachs and assaulted them before taking them to Marimba Police Station. Both the Hatcliffe and Mufakose rallies had been authorised by the police.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 2 March
Sikhala torture probe a smokescreen
By our own Staff
The Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has swept under the carpet a probe into the torture allegations made by St Mary's member of parliament (MP), Job Sikhala, and human rights lawyer, Gabriel Shumba, police sources told The Standard this week. The probe was opened last month after Harare magistrate, Caroline-Anne Chigumira, ordered the police to carry out a through investigation and bring those implicated to book. However, official sources this week said the matter seems to have been ignored altogether, confirming earlier fears that the exercise was a mere smokescreen meant to hoodwink the international community and the Commonwealth troika in particular, into believing that Zimbabwe did not condone human rights abuses. Said a source: "Nothing has really taken place beyond the recording of statements. Sikhala and the other torture victims simply gave statements to Superintendent Dhlakama who is in charge of the supposed probe, and that was the end of it. The officers implicated are going through their business as usual and are not bothered at all."
Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, reportedly asked President Robert Mugabe about allegations of state-sanctioned arrests of opposition legislators and the torture of Sikhala when he visited Zimbabwe last month. Sikhala, together with Shumba, Taurayi Magaya and Bishop, Shumba's younger brother, were allegedly tortured by the police after they were arrested in Chitungwiza on charges of plotting to overthrow the government. They implicated top police law and order section officers, Garnet Sikhova, Crispen Makedenge and four others as having performed the alleged torture. In court, a weeping Sikhala told Chigumira of how the police zapped him with electrical current on his genitals and was forced to write documents incriminating himself and other senior MDC officials. However police spokesperson, Wayne Bvudzijena, said reports that the investigations had been shelved were baseless. Bvudzijena said: "Since when has anyone outside of the police force become privy to our business, especially if it is the MDC? As far as we are concerned the investigations are still going on." But Sikhala said the torture had been sanctioned from "the highest office in the land" and that there had been no evidence of any investigations going on. "We knew from the onset that the whole thing was a farce and hogwash. The perpetrators of our torture clearly acted from instructions from Mugabe himself. "We have now resolved to engage an international lawyer to contest the matter before international channels and the United Nations."
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From The Sunday Mirror, 2 March
Govt denies existence of land audit report
Innocent Chofamba Sithole, Assistant Editor
The government has denied the existence of a confidential interim report on the national audit carried out to probe land allocation in its land reform and resettlement programme. The denial comes as a South African weekend paper - the third foreign publication to carry the report after London newsletter, Africa Confidential, and the globally circulating Financial Times - has published a report on the secret document, a copy of which the Sunday Mirror is now in possession of. "There is no such report, and whatever report there is, is merely an invention of the enemies of the State," a senior government official said. He strongly castigated the Sunday Mirror for having reproduced the Africa Confidential report, which broke the story in its February 21 issue. "It was an act of mischief on your part to have reproduced that story, for there was definitely no report to leak since it does not exist," the official reprimanded. However, the Sunday Times of South Africa has also published its own story based on the same "confidential" report, ostensibly prepared by the Minister of State for Land Reform in the Vice President's Office, Flora Buka. The report, a copy of which the Sunday Mirror is now in possession of, highlights violations of the land reform and resettlement policy and gives specific information related to the provinces covered under the land audit. "The audit was carried out to identify anomalies and policy violations in the implementation of the Land Reform and Resettlement Programme with a view to re-aligning the programme implementation to the policy and the legislative provisions," reads the preamble to the report. Written in the first person, the report details serious violations of the land programme's guiding policy by influential personalities, including prominent politicians and senior government and military officials.
Controversy surrounds the issuance of certificates of no present interest by the Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement Ministry, which, according to the report, could not provide the audit committee with information on the farms whose certificates had been rescinded and the farms re-gazetted. As such, confusion and conflict arose between some blacks who had purchased their farms, and settlers who had occupied the same properties. The report also details the displacement of landless peasants from farms they had been allocated, following the re-planning of A1 farms to A2 model farms. On Mayfield farm in Mazowe district, which was allocated to war veterans leaders Chris Pasipamire and Mike Moyo, 36 settlers were displaced following recommendation by the Mashonaland Central provincial land committee's withdrawal of their offer letters. Telecel boss, James Makamba, Zanu PF legislators Edward Chindori-Chininga and Saviour Kasukuwere, Airforce of Zimbabwe commander Perence Shiri and Defence Minister, Sydney Sekeramayi, are named in the report as having displaced A1 settlers from the properties they were allocated. The report also mentions the flagrant violation of the maximum farm size policy in Mashonaland Central province. "All A2 Model allocations of more than 350 ha in Mashonaland Central are done with the blessing of the governor, Cde (Elliot) Manyika. All the farms (in the province) mentioned (in the report) are above 350 ha, meaning that the honourable governor is aware of the existing problem caused by these allocations.
Launched in February 2000, following a wave of farm invasions by war veterans and landless peasants, the government's land reform programme has so far resettled over 330 000 families under the fast-track A1 Model, while a further 55 000 are said to have been resettled under the A2 commercial farming scheme. However, contentious land allocation in some provinces has halted agricultural production, resulting in sharp depression in crop output. One such area is the Gwebi/Hunyani ICA in the Nyabira area of Mashonaland West. According to the report, almost 90 farms have remained unallocated for about two years now because the provincial governor, Peter Chanetsa and the ruling Zanu PF party's provincial leadership, "including the provincial chairman, Cde Phillip Chiyangwa and the Honourable Dr. (Ignatius) Chombo have failed to come to an agreement on the prospective beneficiaries". Chiyangwa confirmed to the Sunday Mirror that there was, indeed, such a dispute over the Gwebi /Hunyani area. "To start with, I don't want to dispute that there are issues in Gwebi/Hunyani that involve me. If that is Buka's report, then it is accurate," he said, explaining that the core of the conflict over the farms was that the people who had been settled there had done so irregularly and were not from his province. "I don't know anyone who's there, and I was never consulted by those who put them there," Chiyangwa said. "These people came in during the "Jambanja" period, and some of them became looters who vandalised farm equipment. Now, we are saying because these people were unprocedurally allocated land, they should be removed and the exercise started afresh with new applicants," he added.
The audit report recommended that the province urgently resolve the impasse since it was holding back production in a highly productive area that contributes significantly to the country's food security. It also cited the province as moving sluggishly on A2 allocations. Other contentious allocations include Fountain Farm in Insiza district, where Minister of Small and Medium Enterprises, Sithembiso Nyoni irregularly took over the highly developed poultry, citrus and livestock producing farm, which had been designated as a skills training centre for the National Youth Service training programme. "It is disturbing to note that violence is the order of the day on this farm, with "hired thugs" allegedly driven in from Bulawayo by the honourable Minister. The violence has not spared the members of the District Land Committee, who threatened to resign if the relevant authorities do not intervene," reads the report. The audit also found widespread evidence of violations of the government's one-man-one-farm policy. Several high ranking government officials appear on a list of people allegedly in possession of more than one farm. "The list is not exhaustive as the people interviewed were scared to reveal any information, lest they might be victimised by the multiple farm owners who seem to have their loyalists within the various land committees," the report states. The audit committee recommended the correction of the glaring anomalies, particularly where the leadership was the perpetrator, warning that the public was restive where such cases existed. While the government dismisses the authenticity of the audit report as the work of "enemies of the State", it has not made public findings of its own investigation into the allocation of land under the resettlement programme.
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From The Sunday Times (UK), 2 March
Mugabe won poll with army of ghost voters
RW Johnson, Cape Town
Zimbabwe's opposition has obtained evidence that President Robert Mugabe won re-election in March last year with the help of as many as 1.8m "ghost" voters who were added to the electoral roll. Tobaiwa Mudede, the registrar-general and a Mugabe loyalist, has repeatedly refused requests by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for a copy of the roll to be used in a court action challenging the result - even though the roll is a public document. Last week, however, it was revealed that the MDC had succeeded in obtaining a copy. Mugabe, 79, beat Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC candidate, by 434,000 votes in a poll that provoked widespread accusations of vote-rigging. Analysts say that even a pro-government judge would find it difficult to reject the evidence of the electoral roll. A judgment in the MDC’s favour would mean that the election would have to be invalidated and a fresh one held. Mugabe, whose international standing was boosted when President Jacques Chirac invited him to a summit in France last month, would be barred from standing again. John Robertson, a Zimbabwean economist who has analysed the electoral figures, said they showed "the illegality of the election is proven beyond doubt". "The discrepancies are so wide, the various forms of cheating so obvious and the interference in the process so aggressive and blatant, no country on earth should recognise Robert Mugabe as president of Zimbabwe," Robertson said.
In its court action the MDC alleges huge state violence against opposition voters and candidates. It says it was not allowed to campaign in much of Zimbabwe or to appear on state-owned media. Many opposition voters were deliberately prevented from voting by a cut in the number of urban polling stations and the unconstitutional disenfranchisement of some white Zimbabweans, it is claimed. The Mugabe government has, from the outset, taken the gravest exception to the case and repeatedly insisted it will not participate in talks on power-sharing with the MDC unless it is abandoned. The last thing Mugabe - who is named as a respondent in the case and would be expected to appear - wants is an open trial in which the full extent of the vote-rigging and the violence that accompanied the poll would be explored. The MDC last week |
