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Archived News
5th August 2003
A fistful of dollars is no reward in Zimbabwe
UN appeals for $530m Southern African aid
That letter
Zimbabwe church leaders to visit SA, Nigeria
'Quiet diplomacy' won't get rid of Mugabe: free elections will
Man-made element to crisis
Zimbabwe's ruling party to hold important meeting
Judgment reserved in exemption bid by Mudede, Chinamasa
Price control dam to burst
It has happened before...
Zim opposition offers to drop election challenge
Zimbabwe: light at the end of the tunnel
Zim church mediators 'not honest'
Give up extra farms, orders Mugabe
A health system on the edge
Tumbling Zim dollar hits Unisa's back pocket
Zanu PF split on talks
Pitfalls on the road to reconciliation
Scepticism nearly scuppers revival of talks
Pressure mounts on Zimbabwe to print more money
Shortage of bank notes makes life difficult in Zimbabwe
Bread shortages set to worsen
Reward offered for Quebec man
Cadavers pile up at Zimbabwe hospital
Cash crisis threatens to unseat Mugabe
MDC seeks overturn of Zanu PF victory
Green Bombers to run council elections
Despite government denial, life has become absurd when not tragic, writes Dumisane Muleya
Zimbabwe a case of no money to print money
Chefs hijack tractor scheme for new farmers
Reward offered for suspected fraud artist from Quebec
The prosecution of presidents
The opposition position
Talks agenda will not be set through Press: Shamuyarira
MDC denies dropping case against Mugabe
From pride to pauper
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From The Times (UK), 30 July
A fistful of dollars is no reward in Zimbabwe
From Jan Raath in Harare
Zimbabwe unveiled radical plans last night aimed at easing a critical shortage of banknotes, including the withdrawal of the highest- denomination note in circulation and the imposition of anti-hoarding laws. Herbert Murerwa, the Finance Minister, seeking to redress a "severe cash shortage", said that the present Zim$500 note, worth about 13p, would lose value after 60 days, as a way to encourage people to deposit into banks cash they have hoarded. A new note would replace the existing tender, he said. In addition, a law against hoarding and trading in cash is to be implemented with immediate effect. Retailers will be required to deposit their cash with banks "promptly". Financial catastrophe has engulfed Zimbabwe, with rampant inflation, which has rendered all currency other the Zim$500 note completely worthless. Government printing presses have been running 24 hours a day in an attempt to meet demand for the notes, but the output is falling far short of demand. The Central Bank is trying to raise £4 million on the threadbare local foreign exchange market to contract a printing company in Germany to ease the backlog. Mr Murerwa said the Central Bank had been injecting Zim$700 million into the market each day, but had failed to ease the shortage. A new Zim$1,000 will be introduced in October, a month earlier than had been planned.
Zimbabwe, which already has the fastest-collapsing gross domestic product in the world, now has the distinction of being probably the only country in recent history to run out of money, and the effects on normal life are startling. Queues of people anxious to cash their monthly pay cheques now start forming outside urban banks at 2am. By mid-morning, the lines are hundreds-strong and crowds have tried to force their way inside to be repelled by riot police. This week, most banks reduced the maximum cash withdrawal from Zim$10,000 to Zim$3,000 (about 78p), enough to buy a loaf of bread or a pint of beer. An increasing number of banks have no money delivered at all, but people wait on the off chance that something will turn up. Zimbabweans depend on cash and, with inflation running at 365 per cent, they need masses of it. Until now, the main cause of slow queues at supermarkets had been customers laboriously counting through stacks of banknotes. A small percentage of Zimbabweans earn enough to qualify for chequebook or credit card accounts, but this elite is also in trouble. Banks, which usually issue new chequebooks in 24 hours, are telling customers that they may have to wait a month.
Zimbabwe’s desolate version of the "cashless society" is the result of the inescapable arithmetic of inflation. The index has risen nearly 200 per cent since December, trebling the number of banknotes needed. The Central Bank has remained silent. The state-controlled press has accused it of sabotage. Mr Mugabe did not mention the issue when he spoke at the annual opening of parliament last week. His record of disastrous economic policies includes dismissing his previous Finance Minister for suggesting devaluation of the currency, lowering interest rates and controlling prices of all commodities to deal with inflation. Like the scarcities of fuel, bread, maizemeal, milk and sugar that preceded it, the banknote shortage has created a frenetic black-market trade. Businesses routinely offer discounts for cash purchases. On Monday, the discount went up to 25 per cent. Members of the close-knit Indian community, mostly traders, confirm that many of them have dispensed with dealing in individual notes. Their unit of currency, traded with each other, has been replaced by sealed shoeboxes containing Zim$1million. Four clingfilm-wrapped "bricks" of Zim$250,000, issued by the Central Bank in Zim$500 notes, fit into a shoebox. For those without cash, the primitive pre-money society alternative of barter is returning as a commonplace of everyday life. A Harare garage owner closing down his business had to tell his workers he could not possibly raise the cash to pay them out. "They asked me to pay them in lubricating oil instead," he said. "They reckoned they’d be able to get bits of cash now and then to keep them going."
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From Business Day (SA), 29 July
UN appeals for $530m Southern African aid
UN agencies launched a new $530 million emergency appeal on Tuesday for aid to southern Africa, saying the humanitarian crisis in some countries, notably Zimbabwe, had worsened. At a simultaneous launch in Geneva and Johannesburg for renewed aid in six countries, UN officials said food was needed to keep alive 6.5 million people, most of them in Zimbabwe, plagued by a deep political and economic crisis. "I implore those generous donors to keep fighting to save hundreds of thousands of families, the vast majority in Zimbabwe, which are still in grave danger," James Morris, UN special envoy for humanitarian aid in the region, said in a statement issued in Johannesburg. "With quick action from the international community, the UN and its non-governmental organisation partners were able to save millions of lives threatened by an acute humanitarian crisis in southern Africa over the past year," he added.
While conditions in Zimbabwe and Mozambique have worsened, conditions in Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland have improved, Morris said. He said the appeal, down from $656 million last year - of which some 73% or $477 million was received - would not only focus on food aid but also on combating the devastating effect of HIV and Aids in the region. "Not only is HIV/Aids killing millions of people prematurely, but it is also wiping out its most productive members like farmers, teachers and health workers, leaving millions of orphans." Southern Africa has an estimated 11 million Aids orphans - and the number is rising fast, Morris said. "Even if rains begin to improve, as they did in parts of the region during the last season, how will fields be planted if there are no farmers to till the soil?" he asked. "The world cannot afford to avert its gaze from southern Africa right now. If it does we will see an accelerated and irreversible unravelling of societies in the region."
This included Zimbabwe, where the annual inflation stood at 365% last month, one of the highest in the world, and nearly 80% of the population live in abject poverty. UN figures released on Tuesday said the average life expectancy of Zimbabweans had dropped from 56 in the 1970s to 33. "If you are born in Zimbabwe today, you have a 25% chance of making it to the ripe old age of 40," one UN official said. Zimbabwe has also been rocked by shortages of nearly all basic commodities, as well as a foreign exchange crunch that has left the country dry of imported fuel. "From a country perspective, Zimbabwe is still the largest recipient by far within the regional context," said UN regional humanitarian co-ordinator Mike Sackett, adding that it needed an estimated $312 million or 59% of the total $530 million. Sackett blamed climatic problems, the impact of HIV/Aids and political unrest for the current humanitarian crisis there. He added the UN agencies were planning to lay a foundation for a "sustainable recovery process", but conceded problems in the region would not be solved within the next year. "The problems that I have alluded to are not going to be fixed within 12 months. "But we believe by the injection of significant resources we can make a difference and we can lay the groundwork for a more endurable future for people in the region," Sackett said.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 30 July
That letter
Last week, the government finally presented a formal appeal for food and humanitarian aid to international donors. The letter was late - very late - as cabinet committees argued over crop estimates. This delay, says the letter, was because the government "wanted to be exhaustive in its assessment in order to come up with a fairly accurate crop forecast figure". Some observers say the real reason is that the government was anxious not to reveal the true effect on food production of the "fast track" land reforms of the last three years. Be that as it may, the government puts the food deficit at almost 712 000 mt of maize. With 120 000 mt already in the WFP pipeline, the net appeal for international donors is for around 600 000 mt. Donor agencies were yesterday said to be "dismayed" that the government had made no plans to meet any part of this food deficit on its own, and that they were expected to meet the appeal in full. The letter states blandly that whatever the government was able to procure would be "to ensure that there is some reserve and that the country does not feed from hand to mouth". Have they not noticed that the country is already feeding from hand to mouth?
But almost as shocking, is the tone of the letter. One does not expect an appeal for food aid at an official level to be in the language of abject begging. But the letter is resentful and combative. "The Agrarian reforms have necessitated making hard choices more so in the face of antagonism to the programme and general skepticism to pro-poor policies by some in the donor community", the document begins. And there then follows page after page about drought - a veritable lecture to the donor agencies on how drought is to blame for everything. Well, not quite everything. In a section entitled "Lessons Learnt", the donor agencies themselves are blamed. "WFP and some of the donors refused to work in resettlement areas" the document charges. "Some of the aid agencies who bought seeds and fertilizers end up dumping them in the communal areas, which had enough while the rest of the farmers were looking for these precious inputs," it continues. No mention of the endemic violence in the newly-resettled farming areas, or the repeated attacks on aid workers in places such as Binga. And the lack of foreign exchange is brushed off as if it were an external factor, an act of God, beyond the government's control. Not even a glimmer of an acknowledgement that the balance of payments crisis and the food crisis are inextricably linked, and both caused by the government itself. In the rarified atmosphere of the government ministries, it does indeed seem that beggars can be choosers.
FROM ZWNEWS: If you would like to read the appeal letter sent to international donors by the government, please let us know. It will be sent as a Word attachment to an email message - total size approximately three times the size of the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 29 July
Zimbabwe church leaders to visit SA, Nigeria
Harare - Zimbabwe's top church leaders plan to visit South Africa and Nigeria as part of their bid to press their own country's rival political parties to resolve the political crisis here, a clergyman said on Tuesday. Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe president Trevor Manhanga said that after recent meetings with the heads of the country's top political parties, church leaders planned to meet with the South African and Nigerian presidents, Thabo Mbeki and Olusegun Obasanjo. The two African presidents last year brokered talks that have since stalled between the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). "We will also pay courtesy visits to the countries that have been involved in the dialogue to update them on the initiative ...and also to find out what had taken place so far," Manhanga told reporters. Manhanga and other top church leaders have met with President Robert Mugabe and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and offered to mediate between the two rivals in the politically divided country.
Last year's fledgling talks broke down after the MDC filed a legal challenge to Mugabe's re-election in March 2002 polls, widely condemned as flawed. The opposition wanted the issue of Mugabe's legitimacy discussed in the talks, forcing Zanu PF negotiators to break off their participation. Obasanjo, Mbeki and Bakili Muluzi of Malawi held separate talks in May this year with Mugabe and Tsvangirai to try to resuscitate inter-party dialogue. Mugabe has ruled out any talks unless the MDC recognises his legitimacy as president. The MDC, which has for the past three years boycotted Mugabe's parliamentary addresses, this year ended the action, saying they wanted to clear the air and end political tensions in the troubled southern African nation. Manhanga said that now "there is a sense of urgency on both sides. Our country is bleeding, there is a lot of political polarisation, we must find a way of bringing the two parties back to the negotiating forum." The churchman was speaking after his organisation set up a peace and justice desk to help promote tolerance among Zimbabweans. Manhanga said he had asked the two sides to put down their respective positions in writing. He said thereafter they "would like to move this process and set deadlines". Early this year South Africa's most powerful church leader, Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town Njongonkulu Ndungane, held talks with the two sides to prepare for mediation efforts. He admitted, however, the process would be long and difficult.
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Comment from The Daily Telegraph (UK), 29 July
'Quiet diplomacy' won't get rid of Mugabe: free elections will
By Kate Hoey
It is the moment I dreaded. "They are after us," shouts David, sitting behind me in the car. I look back and hard on our tail, headlights flashing, is a truckload of Robert Mugabe's heavies. Having been warned by the Foreign Office of the dangers awaiting any British MP caught sneaking around Zimbabwe, we have been spotted filming while driving past the Grain Marketing Boards depot in Mvurwi. In other police states, it is a crime to film military bases. The state secret here is that the grain silos are empty. The truck gets past, but immediately our skilful driver leaves the narrow tar strip and, throwing up clouds of dust, we succeed in overtaking. He continues to block the pursuers, zig-zagging from side to side. I quickly take the cassette from the camera and hide it in my sock. The chase continues for 10 minutes, then suddenly stops, probably because of lack of fuel, a rare commodity in this country. It was as I handed out black armbands outside Lord's in solidarity with victims of Robert Mugabe's brutal regime during the England-Zimbabwe match that I decided to see for myself. Since my last visit 10 years ago, the hunger, poverty and terror resulting from the 79-year-old dictator's determination to cling to power have relegated Zimbabwe from a respected nation to a rogue state. Desperate to quell opposition to his inept and corrupt government, he has tried to resurrect the anti-colonial mindset of the 1960s and turn the British into bogeymen. There was no chance that I would be granted a visa had I applied through the usual channels. I resolved to enter by the back door. Shredding paper into the waste bins at the transit lounge at Johannesburg airport, I recall the FCO official's stern reminder only 24 hours earlier when I let him in on my plan to enter Zimbabwe secretly. "Always remember, Miss Hoey, that you were a minister in Her Majesty's Government." I must lose my persona as a British MP and become a sports teacher visiting Victoria Falls. At Bulawayo airport, pulling my safari hat down and hiding behind my dark glasses, I hand over the fee of $55. I wait anxiously as immigration officials behind a half-closed door decide my fate. Then, relief as I hear the thud of the stamp.
Waiting unobtrusively to meet me is Jenni Williams. Repeatedly arrested and harassed, Jenni is an activist who has spearheaded the increasingly influential Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza). Whether in the urban squatter camp of Killarney or the remote and hungry district of Tsholotsho, she works to endow communities with a spirit of resistance. Two days after I leave Bulawayo, she is arrested again. Women bear the brunt of the crisis. Spiralling food prices are putting the staples of mealie meal and bread beyond the reach of most people. A loaf of bread that last year cost Z$100 now costs Z$1,000. The weekly wage of an unskilled worker is Z$6,000. With 85 per cent unemployment, most families never taste bread. People queue for hours at banks to receive huge wads of rationed banknotes worth a pound or two, with a face value less than the cost of printing. Half the population of 12 million is fed through food aid, provided mainly by America and Britain. Grain is shipped halfway round the world and paid for by the taxes of my constituents in Vauxhall. In this country, once the bread-basket of Africa, I drive for miles past uncultivated fields. Where wheat and maize once grew, irrigated from the well-filled dams, only weeds flourish. Mugabe's "land reform" has seen his cronies installed in agricultural properties, and even small-scale plots are allocated to members of the ruling party. Most have jobs. The unemployed farm workers with agricultural skills who have always worked those fields are prevented, by force, from growing a few crops for their families. The food distribution network is controlled by Zanu PF. Party officials have hoodwinked aid agencies and get rich on scams while entire districts that oppose Mugabe are denied food.
Everywhere, I hear terrible accounts of state terrorism against individuals suspected of being Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters. One man tells me how he was blindfolded for three days with electrodes attached to his body, badly beaten, then left for dead by the roadside. His small farm, leased from a commercial farmer, had been ransacked and taken from him when the owner had his land stolen by "war veterans". While much of the violence is targeted at the black population, the white farming community has also suffered brutality and murder. Farmers who have seen their lifetime's work destroyed, and their displaced workers alike, with no home other than Zimbabwe, await the day when they can begin to rebuild the agricultural industry that was the mainstay of the economy. It is impossible to describe the fear. The Public Order and Security Act is used to harass those who protest against the state-sponsored repression. You break the law when you meet more than one other person to discuss the crisis. You can be arrested for sitting down with a group of pastors to hear of their plans to involve the church in the struggle for freedom. Despite facing trial on two trumped-up charges of treason, Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, finds time to talk to me in his home. The covert nature of my visit has given me the privilege to live with those who stand up to Mugabe. Sharing the lives of people on the move and sleeping in safe houses gives me an insight into fearing a night raid from security police. I wish I could do justice to the courage of the people I meet. They want me to tell my Government what it is really like. Mugabe's apologists, led by his South African ally, President Thabo Mbeki, claim the solution is their own quiet diplomacy. But it is free and fair elections, overseen by international programmes so that voters no longer feel intimidated by violence, that the people of Zimbabwe desperately need. The message from the brave Zimbabweans who one day will be leading the reconstruction of their country is to tell Tony Blair - don't be fooled by Mbeki.
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From IRIN (UN), 30 July
Man-made element to crisis
Johannesburg - Alongside the impact of drought, Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis has also been man-made, the UN Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal (CAP) for 2003/04 has noted. "What initially appeared as a food crisis in Zimbabwe in 2002 has turned into a major humanitarian emergency due to the deteriorating economy, immense policy constraints, the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS, and depleted capacity in the social service sector," the appeal said. The country was in its fifth successive year of economic decline and "faces critical shortages of foreign exchange to maintain essential infrastructure, fuel and energy needs".Commentators have linked the country's economic woes to its political crisis and the government's fast-track land reform programme. Aid agency assessments have shown that Zimbabwe still has the highest number of people in need of food aid, around five million, despite recoveries in most other countries affected by last year's food shortages. "As of the end of June, the inflation rate reached 364 percent and is forecast to reach over 500 percent by the end of the year. The industrial and agricultural sectors have been severely undermined by the state of the macroeconomy, causing mass unemployment and worsening rural and urban poverty," the document noted.
The UN Inter-Agency appeal also warned that the "rapid and continued decline in the government's capacity to support national food security and sustain life-saving social services will need to be urgently addressed by humanitarian agencies in 2003/04", adding that "a much greater attention to preparedness measures will be necessary to prevent starvation and increasing mortality." A loss of skills in the health and social services sector due to emigration and HIV/AIDS was noted as another factor aggravating the crisis. "Thus, Zimbabwe faces a severe food security crisis in 2003/04. With a cereals deficit close to 1.3 million metric tonnes (mt), the country has sufficient food to feed its population for just four to five months. It is estimated that 5.5 million people will require food aid during the coming year. The Zimbabwe government is unlikely to have the resources to finance a major maize import requirement," the appeal added. The CAP for Zimbabwe covers the period July 2003 to June 2004 and requests nearly US $114 million, mostly for programmes in the social services and agricultural sectors. This amount is over and above the World Food Programme's $308 million call for food aid requirements, made in the Regional Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal for Southern Africa.
The role of the Zimbabwe government in response to the humanitarian crisis was also highlighted in the appeal. "Despite consistent efforts on the part of the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator (UN HC) and agencies throughout the year, coordination and cooperation between the government and the humanitarian agencies could be much improved," the appeal observed in the section on progress over the past year. As an example, it pointed out that while needs assessments are "the cornerstone in planning an effective response" to the crisis, this process has "frequently been difficult and delayed, with negotiations [with government] sometimes taking several months". "The government also strongly influences the operational environment [of aid agencies], including issues such as respect for human rights and humanitarian principles, and NGO operations. NGOs are integral to humanitarian planning and implementation capacity, so that restrictions or delays in building their capacity and constraining their operations impact directly on the speed and volume of aid delivery to beneficiaries," the CAP concluded. Adding that "at the policy level, government commitment is a precondition to the strategic aim of moving toward recovery and a development agenda".
It was therefore critical to foster stronger linkages between the government and humanitarian agencies. The "main causes of the humanitarian crisis identified in the 2002/03 CA [Consolidated Appeal] were: policy constraints; socio-economic conditions; environmental factors (drought and cyclone Eline); all of which were aggravated by the impact of HIV/AIDS". These factors would still be relevant in the coming year. But the state control of prices, currency exchange rates and a monopoly on the import and marketing of maize and wheat were characteristics of an "economic framework within which the economy has contracted by one-third in four years". This had contributed to greater vulnerability as "structural unemployment is estimated at over 70 percent, and rising, as the major sectors generating employment" and forex continued to contract. The 2003/04 CAP would concentrate on three main areas of humanitarian response: preventing loss of life through food, nutrition, and critical health interventions; mitigating the impact of the crisis on vulnerable groups; and developing a productive dialogue among stakeholders to strengthen coordination and provide focus. It was noted that recovery interventions and policies were essential to reducing Zimbabwe's reliance on international relief assistance and strengthening food security. But recovery "is only viable if a wide range of [policy] reforms takes place" - reforms which the international community was committed to supporting, if they led to a long-term resolution of the problems affecting Zimbabwe's most vulnerable.
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From VOA News, 30 July
Zimbabwe's ruling party to hold important meeting
Harare - Leaders of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party will hold a crucial meeting late Wednesday to discuss the future of negotiations with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The talks follow this week's meetings between church leaders and representatives of the two political parties. It is expected that President Robert Mugabe will brief his party leadership on his talks with the church leaders and their request for details of the ruling party's plan for dialogue with the opposition. Observers here say the key issue for the Zanu PF leadership to decide is devising an exit plan for Mr. Mugabe and choosing his successor. But they said, in order to speed up the talks with the opposition and address Zimbabwe's rapidly deteriorating economic situation, the leaders may skip the leadership issues for the time being. The rising hope of political dialogue follows meetings between the ruling ZANU-PF party and Zimbabwe's leading church representatives. The talks between Zimbabwe's Anglican, Catholic and Methodist churches and the party were attended by President Robert Mugabe. The church leaders met with the head of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, on Monday. The latest flurry of talks follows President Bush's visit to Africa earlier this month. Mr. Bush agreed with the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, that Zimbabwe must urgently resolve its political crisis and hold new elections. Mr. Mugabe has said he will not meet with Mr. Tsvangirai until he drops his legal challenge to last year's presidential elections, which many political commentators say were rigged. The MDC said it would suspend the legal challenge if serious dialogue begins. Zimbabwe is in the midst of the worst economic crisis since its independence in 1980, with unemployment running at 70 percent and the country running out of everything, including currency needed to buy essential supplies.
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From The Daily News, 30 July
Judgment reserved in exemption bid by Mudede, Chinamasa
Court Reporter
High Court judge Justice Antonia Guvava yesterday reserved judgment in an application by Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa for an order to remove them from the list of respondents in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)’s presidential election petition. Mudede and Chinamasa argued in an urgent chamber application filed on 8 July that they were improperly cited in the election petition, which also has President Robert Mugabe and the Electoral Supervisory Commission as respondents. The application came two days after another High Court judge, Justice Ben Hlatshwayo, granted an order sought by the MDC to compel the Registrar of the High Court to allocate a date for the hearing of the election petition. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai wants the High Court to nullify Mugabe’s March 2002 re-election, citing violence and what he has termed "massive electoral fraud". Advocate Adrian de Bourbon, representing Tsvangirai, said Chinamasa and Mudede played vital roles in the election petition and that their presence would be required by the court during the petition hearing. The lawyer queried why Mudede and Chinamasa delayed their application to be struck off the list of respondents. He said if Chinamasa and Mudede believed that they should not be parties to the election petition, they should have filed their application in May last year when the MDC launched its court petition.
"Clearly, the motivation relates to the fact that the election petition is now to be heard rather than some Damascan revelation that the first and second applicants had been mis-joined from the beginning," the lawyer said. "The present applicants have gone through all the processes relating to the election petition, including the filing of affidavits, the pre-trial conference, discovery and inspection without once raising the spectre that they should not be parties." De Bourbon said Chinamasa and Mudede should not have opposed the application by Tsvangirai to have their defence in the election trial struck off if they believed they were wrongly cited. The MDC applied to have the two respondents’ defences struck off for allegedly failing to comply with a court order to furnish the party’s lawyers with documents relating to the 2002 presidential election. A judgment is pending before Justice Susan Mavangira in the matter. "If the applicants truly felt that they were improperly joined in the election petition, they should concede that application," de Bourbon said. "But, in fact, they opposed that application. Even now, they have not asked the learned judge to make an order against them so that by having their defences struck out, they will play no part at the hearing of that petition."
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From The Financial Mail (SA), 25 July
Price control dam to burst
Tony Hawkins
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's government is both unwilling and incapable of doing anything about Zimbabwe's economic crisis. Last month, inflation surged 65 percentage points to a temporary high of 365%. There has been no official comment, let alone policy response. Because it is calculated using official prices for products such as bread, maize meal and fuel - prices at which goods are no longer traded - the official inflation number understates the real rate by a wide margin. Economists believe the real number is close to 400%. By August, the official inflation rate will have breached that level, as the price control dam holding back price hikes for basic necessities, including petrol and diesel, finally gives way. Economists cannot agree whether inflation will end the year at around 700% or over 1 000%. Either way, it won't be finance minister Herbert Murerwa's budget prediction of 96,1%. Increasingly, the state of denial is confined to a shrinking circle of Mugabe sycophants, including the state media, though occasionally even the daily press publishes damning reports of official chaos and incompetence. One such report was that bakers had been fined Z$20m (US$2 400) for increasing the price of bread to absorb the hike in the price of flour originally imposed by the state-owned Grain Marketing Board.
A senior official in the state-owned Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) admits that it is selling electricity at an average of US0,4c/kilowatt hour, though it costs US2,8c/kWh to generate and import. Fuel tariffs are being increased, but Zesa will continue to lose money. Small wonder that Murerwa is unable to disclose the extent of public-sector debt and his government's exposure to parastatal borrowings in the form of contingent liabilities. Murerwa will come under pressure to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar - for the second time in five months - at a meeting this week. Tobacco farmers, the country's main exporters, say they need an exchange rate of at least Z$1 600/US$ (the ruling rate is Z$824). They are unlikely to get it at this stage, though it is a matter of time before the devaluation dam crumbles too.
The parallel market is trading at Z$2 650/US$ (three times the official rate) and business is convinced Murerwa will devalue at least twice before the year ends. "If he doesn't," says a leading tobacco grower, "we will be lucky to have a crop of more than 40m kg next season." The 2003 crop is estimated to be 90m kg, down 62% on peak levels. The most alarming example of official paralysis is the delay in submitting an appeal to the World Food Programme (WFP) for continued food aid in 2003/2004. The WFP says it will run out of cash at the end of August. By then it will be feeding 1,8m Zimbabweans and it expects demand to reach 5,5m or 47% of the population by January. But some ministers insist that food aid is unnecessary because the 2003 crop is large enough. In fact, the maize and wheat crops are 1 Mt -1,3 Mt short, but to admit this would be to admit that fast-track land reform had failed.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 31 July
It has happened before...
Hyperinflation is not unique to Zimbabwe. Countries in South and Latin America, and Eastern and Central Europe, have all experienced hyperinflation in modern times. The German experience in the 1920's is the classic example. The stories from that time have become folk-lore. People bought two beers at a time, because beer went flat more slowly than prices were rising. Taxis were preferred to trams, because taxi-drivers were paid at the end, not the beginning, of the trip. Companies paid wages by furniture van, and wheelbarrows replaced wallets. The Zimbabwean catastrophe may not yet be as extreme as Germany's, but the symptoms are beginning to sound familiar.
The root causes of the German hyperinflation were very different to that of Zimbabwe's. Political instability played an important part, as did excessive government spending backed up by the printing of money by the central bank. But the dominant factor was the reparation payment imposed by the victorious powers after the First World War. This placed a burden on the war-depleted German economy far larger than it could bear, with the result that the exchange rate fell, and prices rose, in an accelerating vicious circle. Zimbabwe's hyperinflation is different. The problem is a huge shortage of goods and services, not only excessive money creation. There is a balance of payments crisis, but it was internally created. The problem is a sharp fall in all forms of production, caused by a calamitous land reform programme, the discarding of the rule of law, and endemic political violence. It is not due to an external burden suddenly being thrust upon the Zimbabwean economy by the government's enemies - however much the government would like us to believe it.
When hyperinflation takes hold, it is standard for there to be a run on foreign currency. Zimbabwe has been no different. What is decidedly less common is a cash crisis for the domestic currency, like that currently devastating Zimbabwe. However, Zimbabwe is not unique even in this aspect of the financial collapse we are now less than privileged to witness. In the latter stages of 1923, Germany also experienced a cash crisis. Queues grew longer at the commercial banks and the Reichsbank, as the demand for paper money grew faster than the ability of the printers to supply it. Towards the end of that year, the payments mechanism had all but collapsed. The demand for notes was so immense that at one stage there were over 130 companies using almost 1800 presses to produce cash for the government. The Germans eventually conquered their hyperinflation, (at enormous cost in terms of unemployment, which is the start of another tale). They implemented stabilisation measures, many of which are not applicable to Zimbabwean circumstances. But one factor does stand out as a lesson from the 1920's. Whatever measures are taken - whether addressing the symptoms or the causes - they must be backed by credibility. The world outside the finance ministry has to believe that the government means it.
You certainly can't address hyperinflation by announcing a withdrawal of the Z$500 note in 60 days time, to be then replaced by another, different-looking, Z$500 note. You won't even solve the cash crisis, which is a symptom and not a cause, unless you also introduce other policies to address the shortage of goods and services. Without those other policies, all that will happen will be a period during which people will play an increasingly frantic game of pass-the-parcel, trying to get rid of Z$500 notes before they become totally worthless when the music stops in 60 days time. And what will happen after that date? Is the government planning to put a time limit on the new notes as well? At the current rate of inflation, prices will be almost 70% higher in 60 days time. Unless there is widespread belief that in two months time there will be sufficient cash to be had, or that inflation will stop, the frustrated queues will continue to grow outside the banks and building societies.
There are many measures which need to be taken. A sharp rise in interest rates. A credible plan to restore food supplies in the short term, and food production in the longer term - however that is done, and whatever the time frame. A credible and unequivocal demonstration that the rule of law will be restored. The abolition of the ridiculous exchange rate regulations. The independence of the Reserve Bank. An admission that the policies of the last three years were wrong, so that external balance of payments support can be restarted. But this government cannot announce, let alone implement these measures. Nobody would believe they were serious. Tackling hyperinflation has costs, and the measures needed would directly hurt the government's dwindling band of supporters. A sharp rise in interest rates, and the abolition of exchange rate regulations, would substantially reduce the one-way currency bet which is yielding massive incomes to those with foreign currency. A return to the rule of law would put the state-sponsored thugs at immediate risk. The chances of independence for the Reserve Bank are smaller then a snowball's in hell. So the government will try to buy time, at increasingly shorter intervals. With his new plans, including - irony of ironies - contracting a German firm to produce banknotes, finance minister Murerwa is now trying to buy as few as 60 days. And then will come more emergency measures, more pompous pronouncements, more risible laws and regulations, as the existing ones fail. The route out of the economic crisis remains political, and the same as it has been for years. The current incompetents must go.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 31 July
Zim opposition offers to drop election challenge
Zimbabwe's main opposition party on Thursday offered to suspend its challenge to President Robert Mugabe's 2001 election victory if the ruling party commits itself to resolving the political crisis in the southern African country. If Mugabe's Zanu PF "demonstrates good faith and a commitment to resolving the crisis Zimbabwe is facing, the MDC will consider suspending or holding in abeyance the electoral challenge", the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said in a statement. The MDC's legal petition against Mugabe's presidency, which is due to be heard in court in November, is one of the main sticking points in stalled inter-party dialogue. The opposition rejected Mugabe's victory in the March 2001 election, claiming the polls were marred by fraud as well as widespread intimidation and violence.Mugabe, who insists he was elected in a free and fair poll, has said he will talk to the MDC only if they recognise his legitimacy as president. The new pledge by the MDC comes at a time of renewed efforts to get the two political rivals talking. Last week top church officials met with Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a bid to kick-start the talks, which hit a deadlock last year when the opposition filed its petition challenging the election result. But Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who is also Zanu PF's secretary for legal affairs, said in comments carried by the state-run Herald newspaper on Thursday that the MDC would be doing Mugabe "no favours" by withdrawing its petition. "He [Mugabe] needs to be vindicated in a court of law because we knew for a fact that the presidential election was freely and fairly conducted and there was nothing to hide," he was quoted as saying. The MDC says it wants to talk to the ruling party in order to resolve severe economic problems in the country, as well as to defuse tensions in the politically divided country. They also want the inter-party dialogue to pave the way for the 79-year-old Mugabe's exit from power after 23 years as president.
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From SAPA, 31 July
Zimbabwe: light at the end of the tunnel
Pretoria
South Africa has reported a major improvement in relations between Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. "There is a light at the end of the tunnel and it is showing," Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota told reporters in Pretoria on Wednesday. "The greatest achievement - something we are very happy about - is the fact that there is major improvement in relations between the two parties." The current atmosphere should have been there a year ago, Lekota said. "If it could have been there a year ago... I am sure we would have been far ahead by now." South Africa remained anxious that talks between the two parties should proceed as soon as possible to resolve the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe. "It should be resolved in time to present the Zimbabweans with the best possible conditions to work themselves out of the difficult situation now with them." Lekota added: "The parties in Zimbabwe are confronting their issues, and there is an observable improvement of interaction between the ruling party and the opposition."
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From AFP, 31 July
Zim church mediators 'not honest'
A bid by Zimbabwe's churches to start negotiations between President Robert Mugabe and the opposition was in jeopardy on Thursday after a top government minister denounced some of the religious leaders as opposition "activists" under the control of "foreign masters". Less than a week after Mugabe met three Christian leaders, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was quoted as saying Anglican Bishop Sebastian Bakare, the head of the Protestant Zimbabwe Council of Churches, and Bishop Trevor Manhanga, the president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, a church umbrella body, were "not honest brokers". "Their interest is out of self-interest," Chinamasa told the daily Herald. "They are MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) activists wearing religious collars." Manhanga, the spokesman for the mediation group, could not be reached for comment. The third member of the group was Bishop Patrick Mutume, of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference.
The mediation effort comes against the backdrop of growing international pressure for the two sides to begin talks to end the country's crisis. The move followed a meeting earlier in July between South African president Thabo Mbeki and United States president George W Bush at which both urged for "urgent action" on Zimbabwe. The religious leaders met Mugabe last Friday for two hours, and on Monday held talks with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Both sides were asked to submit written outlines of their positions on the proposed talks in the next few days. The trio said this week they would travel to South Africa and Nigeria to brief Mbeki and Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo on their initiative. Both presidents have spearheaded efforts to get the two sides to the negotiating table. Chinamasa told the Herald that the fact that the bishops were "going to engage other outside players proved they were carrying (the) mediation on behalf of their foreign masters". He said Bakare and Manhanga could not be expected to be impartial because they were "MDC members who had in the past used different platforms to denounce the government and the ruling party". It was unclear why Chinamasa did not include Mutume in his denunciation. In April, the Catholic bishops' conference warned that the government's "frightening abuses" would "surely destroy our society".
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From IOL (SA), 31 July
Give up extra farms, orders Mugabe
By Ryan Truscott
Harare - President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has ordered top officials in his party to relinquish farms if they have acquired more than one under a controversial land reform programme, state media said on Thursday. The state-controlled Herald newspaper quoted a spokesperson for Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF as saying Mugabe issued the directive at a politburo meeting on Wednesday. "President Mugabe said he would not allow people to have more than one farm," Nathan Shamuyarira told the Herald. "He advised those with multiple farms to choose one and give up the rest to the government for resettlement," he added. The paper reported that Mugabe wanted the farms to be relinquished within two weeks. His instruction came as government published an advert calling on 418 listed former white farmers whose land was forcibly seized, to urgently contact the Lands Ministry to discuss payment of compensation for their lost farms. Many of the white former Zimbabwean farmers have resettled in neighbouring Mozambique, Zambia, Botswana and Uganda, while some have quit farming and emigrated.
Mugabe's government, which launched a fast-track programme of acquiring white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless blacks in 2000, has been criticised for allowing ruling party members to grab prime farms. The 79-year-old Mugabe appointed a Land Review Committee earlier this year to investigate multiple farm ownership, among other tasks. The Herald reported that Shamuyarira said Mugabe had made reference to a preliminary report by that committee "which indicated that a number of people in the party's top hierarchy had multiple farms." Aid agencies say the land reform programme, which has seen the majority of Zimbabwe's 4 500 white farmers evicted from their land, has contributed to food shortages threatening 5,5 million Zimbabweans, or about half the population, with famine. Last week the government appealed for 700 000 tons of food aid to see the country through to the next harvest in 2004.
Renson Gasela, the shadow agriculture minister of the Mugabe's comments were calculated to pacify Zanu PF critics. "He knew all along there was some greediness from his people," said Gasela, adding that the directive would be difficult to enforce because most of those who had multiple farms had registered them under different names. "At the end of the day only those with farms registered in their own names will be affected," he said. Mugabe's land review committee was also asked to examine the impact of the land reform programme on the lives of the white farmers and their workers. Those findings are yet to be revealed. In June the United Nations issued a report saying that 400 000 farm workers and their families had not benefited from the land reform exercise and many had been displaced from their homes. And the white-run Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) earlier this month claimed that evictions were continuing of the country's few remaining white farmers, including those whose land did not meet the criteria for seizure. State media claim that so far more than 300 000 peasant farmers and 54 000 commercial farmers have been resettled on 11 million hectares of formerly white-owned land. But recent government figures put the number at 210 000 and 14 880 respectively.
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From IRIN (UN), 31 July
A health system on the edge
Zimbabwe's main public hospital, Harare central, does not inspire confidence. Its shabby exterior is dotted with broken windows and leaking pipes. The wards themselves are little better, epitomising the decline of this country's once proud health system. Outside visiting hours the relatives of the patients wander the grounds. Many spend all day at the hospital, simply because they cannot afford the bus fare to make more than one journey. Chido Rugare is typical of those whiling away the time before she can again visit her sick daughter, Maria, in the ward. A round-trip bus ride from her home in the high-density suburb of Mufakose is far too expensive, so each day she walks the 17 km to be with her daughter. Maria has meningitis and can no longer look after herself unassisted. "Every day I have to prepare food from home and come and feed my daughter. I also have to bath her, since she can longer do that on her own," said Rugare. What she also cannot do is afford the Zim $257,000 worth of drugs prescribed by the doctors.
Zimbabwe has entered its fifth successive year of economic decline, which has whittled away the ability of households to make ends meet. The country faces critical shortages of foreign exchange, inflation has reached 364 percent and is forecast to hit over 500 percent by the end of the year. Five million Zimbabweans, more than half of the population, are in need of food aid. Even if Rugare could afford the drugs her daughter needs, there is no guarantee they would be available in the poorly-stocked hospital pharmacy. Harare central is where the city's poor, who cannot afford health insurance, are forced to come. Within its morale-sapping walls, there seems to be more dying than curing. The high death rate is linked in part to AIDS. Recent estimates indicate that around 34 percent of Zimbabwe's 15 to 40 age group is HIV-positive, and more than 2,500 people die every week of AIDS-related causes. Poverty and poor nutrition accelerate the process. "Most of our beds are occupied by people suffering from AIDS. In the children's wards there are children who are suffering from kwashiorkor," said a senior matron who asked not to be named. She noted that most of the children with kwashiorkor are from Mbare and Epworth, the poorest suburbs of the capital.
The morgue at Harare central receives the daily toll of the dead. It is overflowing and the stench is inescapable. "The refrigerators sometimes do not work and they also have no capacity to keep the bodies well," said an attendant who declined to be identified. "We no longer go inside there. If you bring your relative you have to find somewhere to put them yourself, or we will charge you if you want us to do that," he added, leaning on the wall outside the morgue as he ate his lunch. The morgue is also a place of business for a number of undertakers who hang around waiting for clients. When relatives come to claim the body of their deceased, they are immediately propositioned with offers of cheap coffins, body dressings and transport. Harare central, like most other health institutions in the country, is in dire need of medicines, equipment and medical supplies. In addition, there is a serious shortage of professional staff, from nurses and doctors to pharmacists. Nurses at the hospital complain that their working conditions are deteriorating. Apart from salary disputes causing walk-outs, the nurses say they are fed up with seeing their patients die as a result of the shortages. "Almost on daily basis we lose at least three babies in our ward," said nurse Maude Chitambo. "Sometimes we work without gloves, sometimes there are no drugs for patients and food is rationed. When we see patients dying, this affects us as well. Most of the time there is only one qualified nurse for each ward and the rest will be students. When we face emergencies, students sometimes have to take over duties normally done by qualified staff," she explained.
Almost half the nurses trained in Zimbabwe are lost annually to better paying jobs in South Africa, Britain, Australia and the United States. Harare central and Parirenyatwa, the country's two biggest hospitals, share a single neurologist and other specialised staff. The problems at the health institution seem to affect all departments. In the laundry room, the steam cleaners had not been working for a week. "The laundry is just piling and now relatives have been asked to bring clothes from home," a matron said. Heaps of rubbish mount up around the hospital. To cut costs, the hospital retrenched a number of cleaning staff and hired a private company, but the company's workers often strike. Last month junior doctors were again on a work stoppage. Their demand, like the nurses', was that their conditions must be improved. Zimbabwe's parliament has acknowledged the impact of staff shortages on the country's health centres. But Health Minister David Parirenyatwa has argued that the country's economic crisis makes it difficult for the government to invest in health. He concedes that the situation is unlikely to improve in the near future, and the haemorrhage of skilled staff abroad will continue.
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From The Star (SA), 1 August
Tumbling Zim dollar hits Unisa's back pocket
By Jos Charle
Zimbabwe's woes have become Unisa's worries. A projected R46-million shortfall - blamed mostly on the Zimbabwean situation - in the university's budget has resulted in a moratorium on new appointments, and tightening of overtime and consultants' payments. There has also been a massive clampdown on the use of telephones and hired cars. The university yesterday dismissed the issue as "not too serious", with the registrar, finance, Professor Gerhard Cronjé, saying that "it is not a crisis." This week, university principal Professor Barney Pityana sent a note to staff informing them of the belt-tightening, indicating what would be frozen. These include: Appointments and the purchase of equipment; Operational expenses (tight control on overtime, consultants and supply/short-term staff contracts; Employment equity fund (payments out of this fund not yet committed will be frozen). The university will also clamp down on the use of phones, warning that staff will be billed for private calls, and managers must use the travel budget more responsibly.
Putting the matter into "perspective", Cronjé said it was a normal business practice to look at the long-term situation and take appropriate action. "If we do nothing about putting brakes on expenses, we will see a R46-million deficit. "This situation is made worse by our Zimbabwean students. While they do pay their dues in Zimbabwean dollars, our accountants there have not been able to hand sufficient money over to us due to the poor exchange rate. "This situation has impacted on us to the tune of about R42-million, but we are bound by the government's Nepad initiatives to assist other African students, and we are committed to that," Cronjé explained. Unisa has 5 700 students in Zimbabwe, who attend a number of colleges assisted by Unisa. Cronjé said Unisa had previously been praised for its sound financial management and he wanted to point out that the projected deficit did not represent a crisis. "It is not a big thing."
Referring to the recent 130-year anniversary celebrations, Cronjé said R2,5-million had been budgeted for that, "and in any case, we were able to offset this with sponsorships". "In the end we will probably pay only between R400 000 to R500 000 for the celebrations. So that did not impact negatively on our efforts. "Besides, it was an excellent marketing tool for the university in the face of the pending mergers." Unisa was also facing "approved but unbudgeted-for items", including R5-million for "emergency security provision", R6,3-million for "additional pay settlements" and R2,5-million for the anniversary celebrations. In spite of the projected shortfall, Unisa did not expect to see any job losses at this stage, nor was it envisaged that students would have to foot the bill via increased annual fees, Cronjé said.
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From The Daily News, 1 August
Zanu PF split on talks
By Sydney Masamvu, Assistant Editor
The ruling Zanu PF party leadership is split over the involvement of local church leaders in facilitating dialogue with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to resolve the country's deepening political crisis, the Daily News established yesterday. Senior ruling party officials said the divisions were so deep that there was intense lobbying by the so-called hawks within Zanu PF to dump the church-brokered initiative led by Zimbabwe Council of Churches president Sebastian Bakare. The Zanu PF insiders said Bakare and Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe head Trevor Manhanga were being labelled as pro-opposition by ruling party hard-liners. The sources said a campaign had been stepped up to discredit the church leaders, a development the Zanu PF officials said they feared would lead to "a stillbirth of the talks". They said the ruling party hard-liners had in the past week been lobbying President Robert Mugabe - who met the church leaders last week - not to lend his support to efforts by Zimbabwean churches to mediate between Zanu PF and the MDC. According to the officials, the hard-liners were also decampaigning the possibility of a government of national unity between the country's two main political parties.
"The church initiative is in danger of collapsing because some senior party officials are decampaigning the whole exercise for their own interests," a Zanu PF Politburo member from Mashonaland East province told the Daily News yesterday. "The unfortunate thing is that the campaign is being spearheaded by individuals who have a dubious history within the party and who, in any future dispensation, are not going to be of any significance. If they have their way in the meantime, they could derail the whole process," the Politburo member added. Ruling party officials said the church initiative was the subject of debate at Tuesday's Cabinet meeting and at Wednesday's Politburo meeting. Representatives of local church groups, who have met Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai separately, say they are awaiting the two parties' positions on the proposed resumption of talks, which broke down last year when the MDC filed a court application challenging Mugabe's re-election. Zanu PF insiders said the churches had been given the chance to facilitate dialogue between the ruling party and the MDC by Zanu PF information and publicity secretary Nathan Shamuyarira and the party's national chairman, John Nkomo. Before the church leaders met Mugabe last week, they held three meetings with Shamuyarira and Nkomo, the sources said.
But Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa this week blasted Bakare and Manhanga, whom he described as MDC members who had denounced the government in the past. Chinamasa dismissed Bakare and Manhanga as "MDC activists wearing religious collars". He accused the two church leaders of becoming involved in the mediation effort on behalf of their "foreign masters". Zanu PF insiders told the Daily News that Chinamasa had been pursuing a parallel effort and had been in informal contact with MDC leaders in an attempt to expedite the resumption of dialogue. The sources said South African government officials, who have been working to facilitate the resumption of dialogue in Zimbabwe, were privy to the efforts. Contacted for comment yesterday, Chinamasa said he was not in a position to talk because he was attending a function at State House. MDC officials would not discuss reports that there had been informal contact between opposition party leaders and Chinamasa.
However, ruling party officials said there was concern among some Zanu PF leaders that Chinamasa's initiative seemed to have been eclipsed by that of the church leaders. The church representatives are already in the process of arranging a meeting with President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa to apprise him of their progress. Shamuyarira would not comment on allegations of a split over the dialogue initiatives, saying: "I don't want to comment on that. We are pursuing efforts for talks to resume." Meanwhile, Manhanga and Bakare on Wednesday held brief meetings with representatives of both the MDC and the ruling Zanu PF to follow up on earlier discussions. Manhanga said he had briefly met Tsvangirai over the written submissions the MDC and Zanu PF are supposed to make on the proposed talks. "I spoke to MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai to find out whether they had written their submissions. I was just following up on what we discussed and resolved at our initial meeting, that they should make sure the matter is resolved as a matter of urgency," he told the Daily News. Manhanga said he had been assured by the MDC leader that the opposition party’s responses were almost complete and would be submitted by today. Bakare is also said to have met with Shamuyarira as well in Vumba, where a peace and conflict resolution workshop was held this week. Sources said Zanu PF’s responses would be submitted before next Wednesday, which would be followed by an immediate meeting with both parties’ representatives.
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From IRIN (UN), 1 August
Pitfalls on the road to reconciliation
Johannesburg - Church mediators on Friday dismissed accusations of political bias by a senior government official accusing them of political bias and unable to play the role of "honest broker" between Zimbabwe's two rival parties. The Herald newspaper on Thursday quoted Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa as saying: "They are [opposition Movement for Democratic Change] MDC activists wearing religious collars." In response Bishop Trevor Manhanga told IRIN: "Comments suggesting that any member of the mediation team are members of the MDC are without foundation. None of us are members of MDC, nor do we desire to be members of any political party. We feel that we do not have to respond to innuendos, especially since President [Robert] Mugabe was very cordial during our meeting at State House." Talks between the government and the MDC broke down in April 2002 after the opposition went to court to challenge the presidential election result which they alleged was stolen. But as Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis has deepened, the church has stepped in as mediators in recent weeks to reopen the dialogue between the two parties. The local clergy have largely remained neutral since the start of the political troubles. However, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches recently apologised for "not having done enough at a time when the nation has looked to us for guidance".
Observers told IRIN the church intervention has come at a time when both sides of the political divide might be feeling they had exhausted their options. "For a long time the churches took a back seat to what was going on in the country, but as their constituencies become more impoverished they are forced to sit up and take notice. Their role is also brought on by the deteriorating economy and the pressure from the US and South Africa. But also, there is a greater realisation amongst members from both political parties that they have reached a stalemate in their own strategies. Out of this frustration, the church has emerged as a sensible option because of their apparent non-partisanship," said Brian Raftopoulos of the Institute of Development Studies. He warned that the road towards a resolution of the country's apparent political impasse was likely to be long and full of pitfalls. "The backlash such as Chinamasa's remarks was expected, especially since there never was consensus within Zanu PF whether they should proceed with talks. A number of individuals within the ruling party have a great deal to lose, should the talks get underway. It is likely that there are going to be further attacks on the process as the momentum towards a negotiated settlement increases," said Raftopoulous. Meanwhile, Manhanga said the church-led mediation team was still awaiting written responses from the political parties to proposed talks. "The MDC has said it would respond by today (Friday) and we are not sure when Zanu PF will respond. As soon as we have their responses, we can then look at the convergences and divergences and take it from there," he confirmed.
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From The Daily News, 1 August
Scepticism nearly scuppers revival of talks
President Robert Mugabe and his counterpart in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Morgan Tsvangirai, were both sceptical of the church team which shuttled between them on Friday and Monday to try to revive stalled inter-party talks and find a solution to Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis, according to sources close to the meetings. Officials knowledgeable about the closed-door talks said yesterday that both Mugabe and Tsvangirai had shown their unspoken and yet apparent fears during the talks. Mugabe wants control of the change process while Tsvangirai wants a hand in it. When the church delegation arrived at State House to set out its mission to Mugabe, one of the sources said, the President received it with suspicion and was "aloof and very cold" as he sat upright in his seat, displaying "some impatience". "When we arrived at State House, the President was apprehensive and felt uneasy in our presence," the source said. "There was that feeling that we had come to attack his position and condemn his leadership."
According to the source, Mugabe was actually defensive as he repeated his attack of the MDC as a front for the British and the American governments. "But when we laid out our agenda - and one of us explained to him that our mission had no interest in their personal wars as the issues we wanted to discuss transcended his personal and party's interests - he relaxed and started opening his heart. He wants to control the process." The sources said Mugabe, long viewed as an uncompromising leader, had then softened his position and welcomed the church's initiative, assuring the delegation of his readiness to open the way for sincere dialogue with his counterpart in the MDC. But there were moments of blundering and even apprehension among Mugabe's officials during the meeting. In the initial stages of the discussions, Vice-President Joseph Msika told the three-member church team that the army still backed the government's leadership, to which John Nkomo, national chairman of the ruling Zanu PF party, and Zanu PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira retorted that the army should not be involved because it served any sitting government.
When the church trio went to Tsvangirai's Strathaven home in Harare, it found him tense and concerned about a range of issues, although he later expressed his willingness to discuss and resolve Zimbabwe's collapse. Another source said: "The MDC leader was more forthright in his desire for dialogue but it appeared he also felt insecure. There was a feeling of wanting a direct hand in the change process but we explained to him that the time for their personal differences was over and both had to be accountable to the nation because the people are really suffering." The sources said delegations from both parties were keen to understand the position of the other, but the church leaders indicated to them that they wanted a clean slate of trust and honesty to avoid a situation where the negotiators could be misconstrued as agents of the other. Sebastian Bakare, president of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and also the Bishop of the Anglican Church in Manicaland, Bishop Trevor Manhanga of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe and Bishop Patrick Mutume of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference shuttled between Mugabe and Tsvangirai in a renewed effort to thaw icy relations between the country's main political rivals. The church delegation wants the two men to urgently find a solution to an array of problems that have beset Zimbabwe, which range from runaway inflation, unemployment and poverty to critical shortages of food, foreign currency and fuel, all blamed on Mugabe's misrule.
Manhanga yesterday told the Daily News: "We are cautiously optimistic of the outcome. The President understands the urgency of the matter just as Mr Tsvangirai does." Speaking at a media briefing in Harare on Monday after completing their first round of meetings with the two political leaders, the three bishops boldly stated that "a solution to Zimbabwe's crisis was imminent". Saying Mugabe and Tsvangirai had undertaken to climb down from their tough positions, the church leaders said both men appeared to be committed to resolve their differences and find a lasting solution to the country's problems. Although the talks may appear entirely influenced by the deteriorating fundamentals on the ground, another source said there was urgency for both parties to find a durable and credible solution that would be accepted by the Commonwealth at its next meeting in Nigeria's capital Abuja in December. The official said: "They (Mugabe and Tsvangirai) also acknowledged their own deadlines to find a solution. We have agreed to work tirelessly and get the best result by November so that the country is not entirely suspended from the grouping by December."
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From SABC News, 1 August
Pressure mounts on Zimbabwe to print more money
Pressure is mounting on the Zimbabwean government to print more money notes as the economic crisis worsens in that country. The Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has given President Mugabe's government 14 days to print money or face rolling mass action. The South Congress of Trade Unions (Cosatu) has vowed to support the workers of Zimbabwe. The inflation rate stands at about 365%. The unemployment rate is estimated at about 80% and more job losses are expected. The ZCTU has called on all South African workers to put pressure on Zimbabwe for a new democratic order. Lovemore Matombo, the ZCTU president, said: "We are saying they have to print the money and we have given them 14 days and we expect Cosatu through and through to support us because what we know for certain is once we start that action we are going to be abused by the government." Michael Makwayiba, of Cosatu, said: "We cannot have a diplomacy that is quiet when workers are being abused. Evidently human abuses in Zimbabwe everyone can see and time and time again, Cosatu will stand tall and condemn those." The solidarity pledge follows a week long series of meetings facilitated by the Institute of Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) aimed at a peaceful political settlement in Zimbabwe.
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From VOA News, 1 August
Shortage of bank notes makes life difficult in Zimbabwe
Harare - Zimbabwe's informal economy, where most people work, has been hit hard by the deepening shortage of bank notes. Outside a Harare supermarket Friday, vegetable sellers said their turnover has slumped by 80 percent since the cash crisis began two months ago. One of the traders said he has been selling vegetables outside the suburban supermarket for 12 years, and that he traded in cash. He said he was saved from starvation by the supermarket, which has long tolerated competition from street traders because the store is keeping him afloat by cashing checks written by his customers. But the lucky beneficiaries of a benevolent supermarket are few, and most struggle to survive. The latest figures show more than 70 percent of Zimbabweans are unemployed, and the number of those losing jobs is rising as more and more businesses close their doors. Over 400 large factories closed in a year, and the number of failures of smaller businesses is not even recorded. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Ministry of Finance said this week people should use credit cards or check books. But informal traders - those who don't appear in government records - say they cannot afford to buy check books or even pay bank charges. On Friday, a week after traditional payday, there were still long lines outside every savings bank and building society, which serves those in formal employment. Most say they managed to withdraw some cash, but even they are dreading the day there will be no income coming in.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 1 August
Bread shortages set to worsen
Staff Writer
Bread shortages are set to worsen next year as the country's winter wheat and barley production continue to falter, it has been learnt. Figures obtained by the Zimbabwe Independent at the close of this year's winter planting period show that a record low hectarage has been put under wheat. A Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) survey shows that only 4 500 hectares have been put under wheat in the commercial farming sector. The figure is a mere 6% of the area that used to be planted. The survey shows that an estimated 6 500 hectares of barley have also been planted this year, a 50% drop from the plus or minus 12 000 hectares normally planted each year. Commercial farmers used to put between 65 000 and 80 000 hectares of land under winter crop, producing up to 280 000 tonnes of wheat. "Irrigation schemes for winter cereals were 65 000 hectares but these have been looted and damaged and we estimate that only 15 000 hectares are still operational," the CFU said. "As poverty and unemployment increase, theft of assets increases, making it difficult for farmers to continue their operations."
The CFU has forecast this year's winter crop at around 8% of annual average because of continued vandalism and looting of equipment on farms. An estimated 22 500 tonnes of wheat and 26 000 tonnes of barley are expected from the commercial farming sector. Local demand of about 400 000-500 000 tonnes and the deficit used to be met through imports of gristing wheat used to blend the local product to get high quality flour. "New farmers are not achieving desired production levels due to lack of knowledge, skills and finance. They do not have the capacity to match production levels of displaced commercial farmers," said the CFU. The Zimbabwe Farmers' Union (ZFU) said the number of their members entering winter crop production had increased since the beginning of the land reform programme. "Though we are in the process of compiling data on the number of farmers who planted wheat this year, there is clear evidence that the hectarage has increased," said an official at the ZFU. An agricultural analyst said the increase in hectarage planted by new farmers would not make much difference to the food security situation because of their small portions. "ZFU members, though many, grow very little wheat, mostly for household consumption," the analyst said. "The main drawback faced by subsistence farmers is lack of equipment, finance and skills to produce for commercial purposes." The majority of the crop is irrigated using overhead sprinkler systems, though a small amount is irrigated using flood, and centre-pivots. Major production areas are along the major water courses in Mashonaland, Makonde and mid-Save areas.
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From The Montreal Gazette, 1 August
Reward offered for Quebec man
Levon Sevunts
A Toronto-based private detective agency hopes a $10,000 reward will help it track down a Quebec man wanted on fraud charges in Florida and Louisiana. However, the reward money for Alexander Henri Legault, a U.S. citizen, posted in the Gazette’s classified section last week is being put up not by the U.S. government but by supporters of a Zimbabwean opposition party. The Movement for Democratic Change alleges that Legault, as vice-president of the Montreal-based political consulting firm Dickens & Madson, and Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and the firm’s president, participated in an elaborate operation to frame Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC. Tsvangirai, who was President Robert Mugabe’s main rival in last year’s presidential elections, is on trial for treason in Zimbabwe after accusations that he tried to hire Dickens & Madson to assassinate Mugabe and stage a coup d’état. Legault was considered a key prosecution witness in a trial taking place in Zimbabwe. But he was dropped as a witness in the Zimbabwe trial in February when he did not travel to Harare.
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From Associated Press, 2 August
Cadavers pile up at Zimbabwe hospital
Harare - Zimbabwe's economic disaster is horrifyingly evident in the morgue at Harare Central Hospital, packed to more than three times capacity with the dead that relatives can't afford to bury. The morgue, designed for 164 corpses, holds nearly 600. Trays in the morgue often hold more than one adult body, along with the tiny corpses of infants. Others, shrouded in canvas and cotton sheets, lie in gurneys or on the floors of the refrigerated corridors. Some of the unclaimed cadavers are those of vagrants found dead on the streets. Others are the victims of violence kept for as long as three years during police investigations, often delayed by fuel shortages and logistics problems amid Zimbabwe's worst political and economic crisis since independence in 1980. Many of the corpses are awaiting collection by impoverished relatives, including some who ``just disappear and abandon them'' in hopes they will be given decent "paupers' burials" by the city, said Dr. Chris Tapfumaneyi, the hospital's medical superintendent.
As a result of the crisis amid rising mortality rates, Tapfumaneyi said Friday hospital officials have decided to give dozens of the bodies to the city's medical school. The hospital recently donated 42 cadavers to the Zimbabwe University medical school, the first such donation for at least three years, he said. The medical school has promised a proper burial of the remains after they're used for teaching purposes. In a nation plagued by a hunger crisis and an estimated 5,000 AIDS-related deaths a week, funeral homes hired to bury the unclaimed dead also are overwhelmed. At the same time, city authorities have run out of money and gasoline, paralyzing ambulance, garbage collection and other services. Zimbabwe is suffering massive inflation and unemployment. A hard currency shortage has led to shortages of food, medicines and fuel, which has crippled industry. A routine burial - including cemetery and grave fees, a casket and transportation - costs at least $120 at the official exchange rate or less than $40 at the black market rate. That's twice what the average Zimbabwean's annual income and is well out of reach of the 70 percent of people here living in poverty. Most rural poor bury their dead on family plots in the bush, following African spiritual traditions.
As the Harare municipal cemeteries filled with AIDS victims in recent years, a raft of suggestions - for mass graves, for bodies to be buried vertically, and for cremation - were met with outcry by political and tribal leaders. White Zimbabweans of Indian descent favor cremation, but in June, Harare's cash-strapped city council ran out of imported gas for the furnaces at its only crematorium. Since, private funeral homes have accumulated nearly 100 bodies due for cremation. A few bodies have been taken to the second city of Bulawayo's diesel-fired crematorium. But diesel fuel, like regular gasoline, is also in short supply, and Bulawayo's ordinances make it difficult to cremate a person who did not live there. Leaders of Harare's tiny Hindu community, meanwhile, have said they are considering waiving strict religious rules to allow non-Hindus to be cremated in their small diesel-fired crematorium here.
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From The Observer (UK), 3 August
Cash crisis threatens to unseat Mugabe
As banknotes run out, president admits Zimbabwe is suffering
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Zimbabwe's riot police battled all week to restrain angry citizens, using batons, tear gas and arrests - but the surging crowds smashed windows and stormed restricted areas. These are not anti-government protests but the actions of furious depositors at banks across the country demanding their money. In addition to dire shortages of food, cooking oil and petrol, Zimbabweans now face a drastic shortage of the most precious commodity of all - cash. Zimbabwe's banks are surrounded by snaking queues of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people who wait until a shop or business deposits some cash. The bank doles out meagre portions of Zimbabwe dollar notes to the restless crowds. Iddah Mandaza, a Harare factory supervisor, said: 'Women are sitting on the floor and crocheting, they feed their babies. Some people sleep on the floor. At night people sleep in the queues outside. It is chaos, but we need our money!' Mrs Mandaza said people blamed President Robert Mugabe for the latest crisis. 'They say Mugabe should have to come to the banks to get his pay. They say betta andaye (better for him to go).'
With inflation of 360 per cent and rising, the government has not provided enough banknotes to keep the economy afloat. As a result banks do not have cash to pay people whose salaries have been deposited into accounts. People desperate to buy whatever food and petrol they can find and pay their monthly bills cannot get money from their accounts. Some banks that have money are limiting people to Z$5,000 a day, which does not go very far when bread costs Z$1,000 a loaf. Those storming the banks to demand their money include police and army officers and schoolteachers. Most civil servants got hefty pay raises this month. But they cannot get their pay. The crisis even affects the dead. Harare's mortuary cannot cope with the number of bodies unclaimed by families unable to afford burial costs.
Zimbabwe was once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, but now has the fastest-shrinking economy in the world. It has lost a third of its Gross Domestic Product in four years. Such a contraction is usually only experienced in war, say economists, who point to Mugabe's over-budget spending, fixed exchange rate, price controls and negative interest rates. Mugabe's economic policies are now becoming one of the most potent pressures against his continued rule. Those in the bank queues and their hungry families are pressing for political change. Last week, Mugabe was forced to admit to a delegation of church leaders that his people are suffering. He agreed to co-operate with their efforts to mediate in negotiations with the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Bishops from the Catholic, Anglican and evangelical faiths also met with the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Evangelical bishop Trevor Manhanga, one of the mediators, expressed 'cautious optimism' about talks. 'The President understands the urgency of the matter, just as Mr Tsvangirai does,' he said. Both sides need to agree to a credible solution before the heads of government meeting in Nigeria in December to prevent Zimbabwe from being expelled from the Commonwealth.
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From The Daily News, 2 August
MDC seeks overturn of Zanu PF victory
Court Reporter
Eleven members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party have petitioned the High Court to order Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede to consider their nominations to contest council elections in Chegutu at the end of this month. The opposition members were last month prevented from submitting nomination papers to the nomination court by suspected ruling Zanu PF party youth militias, who attacked and chased them away from the Chegutu Town House where nomination was held. Seven of the aspiring MDC candidates and six party activists sustained various injuries when they were attacked with stones and sticks by the suspected ruling party activists. They were treated at a private clinic in the town. All the MDC candidates were disqualified from contesting the election because they had not submitted their papers while Zanu PF candidates were declared winners because no contestants were registered against them. Chegutu mayor Francis Dhlakama, who was elected on an MDC ticket, said in an affidavit to court that Mudede and the police had failed to ensure that the nomination process was conducted in a free and fair manner. He said despite his persistent appeals to the police to provide adequate security and the police’s own pledges to maintain order at the nomination court, rowdy youths invaded an open space surrounding Town House.
"I was personally confronted by one youth who had formerly supported the MDC but is now a known Zanu PF supporter, who demanded from me a folder that I was carrying into my office," the mayor wrote in his affidavit. He added: "The general atmosphere was tense and threatening and the Town Clerk and I phoned the officer-in-charge at Chegutu Central (police station) and asked him to clear the Town House and its environs as previously arranged. The police then deployed 10 officers to monitor the situation." "However, shortly after that, I found that again the venue for the (nomination) court and the premises of the Town House were full of people who were in a large crowd and challenging anybody carrying papers," Dhlakama said. One candidate, Shepherd Jack, said he tried unsuccessfully to slip into the nomination court with his papers tucked under his jacket. Revai Mahano, an aspiring contestant for Ward One, said he sustained injuries on his face and back when a group of men raided his home and took away his national identity card and other documents. Zanu PF and Mudede have not yet filed papers opposing the MDC petition.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 1 August
Green Bombers to run council elections
Itai Dzamara
The Registrar-General's office has recruited graduates of the national youth training service to work as polling officers during the rural and urban council elections at the end of this month. The Zimbabwe Independent last week observed more than 100 members of the Zanu PF militia, contemptuously referred to as the Green Bombers, gathered at the RG's office in Harare. Sources in the RG's office said the militia were being registered to run the municipal elections at the end of the month. "They were being registered to assist in the running of the rural and urban council elections as well as the two by-elections. They will be performing various roles including those of polling officers," said a source in the RG's office this week. Efforts to get comment from Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede were in vain this week as he was said to be out of office on several occasions.
Municipal elections will be held in Mutare, Rusape, Marondera, Chegutu, Kadoma, Kariba, Norton, Chitungwiza, Bindura and Ruwa on August 30 and 31. By-elections will be concurrently held in the Harare Central and Makonde constituencies. The sources at the RG's office added that the services of the Zanu PF militia had been enlisted in past by-elections. Previously the RG's office enlisted the services of teachers to assist in the running of elections. The department doesn't have sufficient manpower to run elections MDC director of elections Remus Makuwaza said the involvement of youth militia in the running of elections was highly irregular. "Considering what they have come to be known for, the militia can't be trusted with the running of elections. Their ability to help the ruling party cannot be doubted," said Makuwaza. Although trained under the name of national service allegedly to inculcate patriotism, the Green Bombers have proved to be nothing but a Zanu PF tool of coercion. During mass actions organised by the opposition MDC the militia was unleashed on the public to violently to thwart dissent.
Comment from The Sunday Times (SA), 3 August
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From one crisis to another - that's life in Zimbabwe
Despite government denial, life has become absurd when not tragic, writes Dumisane Muleya
For Zimbabweans, tackling everyday problems has become like playing a game of solitaire with a deck of 51 cards. No matter what you do, you never win. Think about it: 70% of the population lives on less than US$1 a day in a country where inflation is 364.5% and unemployment is around 80%. Thousands of companies have closed down or reduced operations. The economy is shrinking at an average of 10% annually. Zimbabweans have to cope daily with shortages of food, fuel, electricity and money. Shops have empty shelves. Go to a service station and you invariably come across the "No Fuel" sign. Enter a bank and you will be told there is no money. If you are lucky you can withdraw Z$10 000. This can buy only 10 loaves of bread or less than 10l of petrol - if you can find these commodities. It's not enough to buy 5l of cooking oil or 10kg of the staple mealie meal. The cash crisis is worsening. Banks have run out of money because of government's failure to print enough bank notes. The government has no foreign currency to buy the special paper needed to produce bank notes and its printing facilities lack capacity to generate adequate paper money. Countries such as Germany which used to print money for Zimbabwe have withdrawn their services due to non-payment. Since last week clients have been besieging banks, demanding their money to buy foodstuffs and pay essential bills. Long queues for cash are now manned by armed riot police. Last weekend police had to use teargas and baton sticks to control angry crowds in Harare and Mutare who had broken into banks, threatening to seize their deposits back. "This crisis is threatening the whole financial system and the banking sector and it might precipitate an economic collapse," a senior bank manager said. "I have never seen anything like this. Can you imagine a government which can't even print money?"
In a bid to alleviate the cash crisis, government recently introduced Z$24-billion, but it proved to be a drop in the ocean. Now the government is threatening to withdraw or change the colour of the highest currency denomination - the Z$500 note - to encourage people to return money to banks. Most people, especially black- market dealers, are holding onto billions that they sell at a commission to banks. Many people say it's now better to keep cash under the bed than in a bank. "Zimbabwe is the only country in the world where its highest bank note can't buy a pint of beer or a loaf of bread," says Martin Kaseke, a Harare resident. "It has become worthless. Malawi's kwacha is now stronger than our currency, which is getting as weak as the Zambian kwacha." Inflation is one of the major problems in Zimbabwe. "In the early 1980s bread cost 10c. I never dreamt I would live to see bread selling for Z$1 000 in Zimbabwe," Kaseke said. Many families now are forced to forgo some meals and Zimbabwe's breadline workers are increasingly getting agitated about the hardships they have to suffer. Trade unions are negotiating for quarterly wage increases instead of the traditional annual pay reviews. They also are demanding frequent cost-of-living adjustments to try to get to grips with the situation. After work people who don't have cars now resort to standing in the middle of roads to try to get lifts home. Desperate hitch-hikers sometimes try to physically stop cars to get lifts. Some people cycle, others walk 10km to and from work every day. Due to worsening poverty and suffering, people are now resorting to bizarre strategies to survive. Some sell local money. If you want Z$50 000, for instance, you can buy the money with a Z$70 000 cheque - upon producing evidence that your account has got money in it.
Black-market entrepreneurs use dead bodies to jump the fuel queues, as funeral parlours are given preference. Recently a Chitungwiza Hospital mortician and his assistant were arrested for issuing fake burial orders and releasing bodies awaiting paupers' burials to buy fuel and sell it on the black market. Other public transport operators now make a living by queueing for fuel, then emptying their tanks and selling the fuel on the black market. They say this is more profitable than their normal business. In another incident that illustrates the depth of the economic crisis, a man recently lost his lip after being bitten by a woman during a fight over a loaf of bread. These occurrences bear graphic testimony of just how bad things are in the country. Social service institutions, like hospitals and schools and the former illustrious University of Zimbabwe, are increasingly becoming dilapidated. Hospitals have no drugs or equipment. It is now more expensive to stay at a hospital than at a five-star hotel. Schools do not have sufficient learning materials and teachers are running away, as are other professionals such as nurses and engineers, to other countries as part of the Great Trek abroad. The brain drain is severe and has left Zimbabwe having to hire nurses and doctors from countries such as Cuba and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Roads - most of which were built during colonial times - are poorly maintained or simply neglected. Land seized from white commercial farmers and parcelled to government cronies and peasants without resources to utilise them lies uncultivated.
While the people suffer, the government continues to remain locked in denial and continues its habit of blaming others for the country's woes. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, unpredictable weather patterns, including cyclone and drought conditions, global economic trends and imperialists - especially the British and Americans - are blamed for everything, even erratic rainfall. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo's propaganda saturates the airwaves. At any given time if you switch on the television or any one of the four radio stations - which are all state-controlled - you are likely to hear propaganda jingles urging the people to remain resilient. Through television and radio stations 24 hours a day, Zimbabweans are always urged: "Rambai makashinga (continue to endure), our land is our prosperity." Politicians also sing the same refrain at meetings and rallies. There is an attempt to use popular pastimes, such as football, beauty contests and music, to mobilise people behind President Robert Mugabe, whose support is rapidly evaporating.
However, all is not gloom and doom in Zimbabwe. In the middle of the crisis people still revel at night clubs, parties and at other festive occasions. In Harare a popular place where different people - ranging from businessmen to journalists - drown their sorrows is the Cresta Oasis Hotel. A veteran Oasis patron is prominent businessman and telecommunications expert Chemist Siziba, who drinks beer there with his friends almost every day. Siziba likes to stir controversy and sometimes asks - often to the utter disbelief of colleagues: "How can you say there is a crisis when most of you here can still afford to buy a round? Zimbabweans are the most sophisticated Africans and that's why we are still surviving now. Our economy is the most advanced in Africa." In a country in such turmoil, Oasis is never short of dramas. Debates, especially on politics, often get heated and people at times come near to physical blows. But the Oasis remains a good hide-out. Some jokingly call it "the Matabeleland embassy in Harare" because most people from Matabeleland provinces drink there. Mugabe's secret agents also are something of a feature at the hotel. Inevitably, there have been dramas involving his spooks and some of the drinkers. One day an amateurish secret agent brought a tape recorder and tried to capture a conversion involving journalists, diplomats and other patrons. But a businessman spotted him and seized his equipment before ripping it apart. And why not? In a country where dead people queue for petrol and the freedom of expression is brutally suppressed, our voices must remain, at least, our own. It is all we have, after all.
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Comment from The Daily Nation (Kenya), 4 August
Zimbabwe a case of no money to print money
By Chege Mbitiru
It’s a truism that official currency indicates the pulse rate of a nation’s top political pump and its effort to flush out clots from the national blood stream. Hopefully, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s national number one pump isn’t about to knock. Last week there were a few, as Mr Mugabe would gloat, unruly and disgruntled elements out to discredit his long struggle to eject white domination from his country. The disgruntled lot, he would say, were very busy trying to undermine his wise leadership.
Usually when a currency doesn’t buy what it should, which happens now and then, governments - largely made of individuals wallowing in egoism - come along. They resort to measures that would drive to the verge of suicide serious first-year university students of economics. A favourite move is to order central banks to retrieve old notes, which should have been shredded because they were filthy, illegible and carriers of germs but were saved for some nebulous national good. When the notes are depleted, central bank governors, or rather centrally glorified clerks, get orders from above to print more notes and mint coins of varied sizes and billions-worth tin foil. Citizens then need wheelbarrows, if they had any in the first place, to carry money to buy a loaf of bread. That’s assuming the baker had a truck to carry the money to the miller, the miller more trucks to get the money to the farmers and the latter donkeys, bullocks and, in Africa, many wives and children to clear the land, plant and tend the crop. Again that’s if the land and all on it hadn’t been grabbed overnight on orders from above. No wheat. No bread. No maize. No ugali. No fufu. No sukumawiki. The list is endless.
Zimbabwe, under Mr Mugabe’s 23-year-old leadership, has added an interesting twist to that old story: The government isn’t saying print more notes or mint more coins. That’s why last week there were very unhappy people in Zimbabwe. Some of them broke a few things in and around banks. Figures showed these people had money in banks. The banks had precious little. It takes production to produce money and manufacture currency. It appears the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe can’t print or mint even fake notes and coins. That ’s worse than being bankrupt. That’s not all. According to the Financial Gazette of Harare, the country’s external debt arrears stand at $1.6 billion. A young Zimbabwean couple, white or black, with some saleable knowledge or muscle, won’t hang around watching Ian Douglas Smith snigger, probably saying: "I told you these ....... won’t amount to nothing.'' Anyway, who would want their great great-grandchildren to pay debts incurred when they themselves went to jail, if lucky, for saying: Please, Sir. I want some more and there is plenty on your and your friends’ tables? Mr Mugabe said he was fighting to ensure that wouldn’t happen again. It’s happening and, like they say in any navy: During his watch.
In all fairness, Mr Mugabe’s credentials as a nationalist are beyond reproach. Personal sacrifices, at least those publicly known, are gargantuan. Like all mortals, Mr Mugabe seems to have forgotten that it isn’ t worth a dollar, even a Zimbabwean one, to expect to see fruits of the good things one does in his or her lifetime. Egoists are lucky to be historical commas. In May this year, Thabo Mbeki, South Africa’s president, defended Mr Mugabe. Mr Mbeki went through Africa’s liberation route. Compared with Mugabe’s trek, Mr Mbeki’s was a vanilla ice cream sort of thing. So Mr Mbeki, dutifully respectful of Mzee, can only wish away the 79-year-old biltong. Mr Mbeki explained why Mr Mugabe isn’t to blame for all Zimbabwe’s problems. There was a rider. Mr Mbeki said, referring to Zimbabwe, that "the state will have to emphasise law and order". Mr Mugabe would say: The state is Me. That is guerrilla mentality at State House. Mr Mugabe has a string of university degrees, most obtained while he was in jail. He isn’t stupid. But university degrees and AK47s don’t necessarily amount to common sense. A lot of people are telling Mr Mugabe and his opponent, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai: Have a little talk. It might help if the two had a cup or glass of their favourite liquids. Who knows, it might be useful if after that, they might pay Mr Smith a visit. He knows something about ignominiously keeping a country under siege going.
Mr Mbitiru, a freelance journalist, is a former 'Sunday Nation' Managing editor
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 3 August
Chefs hijack tractor scheme for new farmers
By Henry Makiwa
An ambitious programme set up by President Robert Mugabe to empower newly resettled tobacco growers by providing them with cheap tractors has been looted on a massive scale by senior government officials, Tobacco Growers' Trust (TGT) employees and their cronies, it emerged yesterday. The programme, launched by Mugabe in April this year under the TGT's mechanisation programme, was meant to help small-scale tobacco farmers acquire crucial equipment needed to produce next year's tobacco crop, Zimbabwe's major foreign currency earner. Sources in Harare's Graniteside industrial area where a firm at which the tractors were being assembled is located, said one senior judge was last week seen test driving a tractor while some Cabinet ministers had also toured the premises to view the equipment. At least one TGT official is accused of having taken 35 tractors for himself. Under the programme, TGT was allowed to retain 20% of tobacco export earnings to buy, among others, tractors for members, most of whom only have basic subsistence agricultural equipment such as oxen, axes and hoes.
Investigations by The Standard have however revealed that the programme was hijacked by government ministers, judges and TGT officials and their friends, who got commercial land through the fast track land reform programme. Disgruntled tobacco growers yesterday said some top TGT board members had also "corruptly appropriated" the tractors for themselves. Sources at the trust said there was a scramble for the first batch of 224 tractors that have arrived in Zimbabwe from overseas since April. Most of these tractors had been taken by leading Zanu PF officials. TGT chairman Wilfanos Mashingaidze dismissed allegations that he had taken over a fleet of 35 tractors for himself, a charge made by Duncan Miller of the Zimbabwe Tobacco Association (ZTA). Mashingaidze yesterday dismissed the allegations of looting as "baseless and sour grapes" from members of the ZTA whom he said should not expect many tractors because "their mainly white members have since left the country". "This time around black farmers will benefit more," said Mashingaidze. White commercial growers from the ZTA and the Air Cured Tobacco Association (ACTA) say they have been allocated only 16 tractors each.
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From The Montreal Gazette (Canada), 2 August
Reward offered for suspected fraud artist from Quebec
Also wanted for fraud in U.S. Henri Legault is on the run, and will likely spend the rest of his life in prison if caught
Levon Sevunts
A Toronto-based private detective agency hopes a $10,000 reward will help it track down a Quebec man wanted on fraud charges in Florida and Louisiana. However, the reward money for Alexander Henri Legault, a U.S. citizen, posted in the Gazette's classified section last week is being put up not by the U.S. government but by supporters of a Zimbabwean opposition party. The Movement for Democratic Change alleges that Legault, as vice-president of the Montreal-based political consulting firm Dickens & Madson, and Ari Ben-Menashe, a former Israeli military intelligence officer and the firm's president, participated in an elaborate operation to frame Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC. Tsvangirai, who was President Robert Mugabe's main rival in last year's presidential elections, is on trial for treason in Zimbabwe after accusations that he tried to hire Dickens & Madson to assassinate Mugabe and stage a coup d'état.
Legault was considered a key prosecution witness in a trial taking place in Zimbabwe. But he was dropped as a witness in the Zimbabwe trial in February when he did not travel to Harare. Legault was to be deported from Canada on May 30 and sent to New Orleans, but he did not show up at Dorval airport. U.S. authorities told The Gazette that Canadian immigration officers went to visit three locations listed as residences, but there was no sign of Legault. Robert Gervais, an Immigration Canada spokesperson, said there has been no sign of Legault since. Alfons Altmann of Advocate Investigations, the agency hired by the MDC to track down Legault, said he felt the Canadian government was not really looking for Legault, however. "If they were looking for him, they would have some investigators or a special task force set up," Altmann said. "For 20 years this man has been ducking and doing everything he can to avoid facing criminal charges. Canadian authorities knew there was no chance this man will show up (at the airport)." The agency has received strong leads that Legault is still in Quebec, Altmann said. "And I also have some information that he supposedly has acquired a passport from the Dominican Republic and may be travelling in South America."
Legault had managed to stay in Montreal since 1982. The U.S. tried to extradite him in the early 1980s without success; Immigration Canada ordered him out in 1988. In 1993, Legault sought refugee status, saying he was a former Central Intelligence Agency employee and that the CIA wanted to frame him. He later sought refugee status on humanitarian grounds because he is married and has six children. He eventually won his case, but the federal government successfully appealed that ruling in March 2002 in Federal Court. U.S. authorities allege Legault has used Canada as a base for a huge securities fraud in Florida that bilked hundreds of seniors out of $13 million between 1993 and 1996. Legault faces 24 charges in Florida, including racketeering, conspiracy, security and investment fraud, and committing organized fraud. Legault is also wanted in Louisiana on fraud and conspiracy charges, said Dawit Fikru, an assistant prosecutor in the Florida attorney-general's office. If convicted, Legault is likely to spend the rest of his life behind bars, Fikru said. "He knows that," he said. "That's why he is running." Both the state of Florida and the U.S. government have issued arrest warrants for Legault, Fikru said. The FBI has also alerted Scotland Yard.
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Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 1 August
The prosecution of presidents
Miren Gutiérrez
Liberia, Zimbabwe and South Africa face diverse dilemmas with a common theme: the prosecution of sitting presidents or of their deputies. Liberian President Charles Taylor has been subpoenaed to appear before the war crimes tribunal. In Zimbabwe, negotiators from both sides - the ruling Zanu PF and opposition Movement for Democratic Change - are debating the future of President Robert Mugabe, who faces charges of gross human rights violations. And in South Africa the country was agog this week at the allegations being contemplated by the Scorpions in their possible corruption charges against Deputy President Jacob Zuma. The Sunday Times revealed 35 questions that prosecutors allied to the Scorpions team want to ask Zuma as they seal up the alleged corruption charges against him. Zuma’s not yet been charged, but should he be, the case will be a novelty. South Africa is in a minority of countries that allow for the prosecution of sitting presidents. "The habit was to have immunity from prosecution while in office, but the modern trend is against that - if you’re serious about accountability," says Richard Calland of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa.
The dilemma of whether to prosecute is not Africa’s alone. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is off the hook for the time being. In June the Parliament approved an Immunity Bill that will freeze a trial in which he is charged with bribing judges over a 1985 corporate takeover battle. The magistrates can investigate but cannot touch him while he is in power. In the same case, his former attorney, Cesare Previti, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for bribing judges on his behalf. Immunity is not his only buffer. He faced criminal charges of false accounting before his government decriminalised it and gave defendants the right to have their case transferred if they have "legitimate suspicion" that a court is biased. Berlusconi has been cleared of most charges. In one remaining case, he has applied for the trial to be transferred. But if he loses the elections in 2006 or loses power before then (recent history shows this can happen), he could go to prison if found guilty. Corrupt presidents cannot afford to lose power. Without the armour of presidency, the world is inhospitable. "All presidents generally, corrupt and not corrupt, want to hold power for as long as possible," says Charles Lewis, executive director of the Centre for Public Integrity in Washington. "But a corrupt president also wants to stay in power to keep getting rich and protect himself from the jaws of justice." Peter Eigen, chairperson of Transparency International in Berlin, says: "It is essential that politicians and public officials know that corruption is a high-risk strategy." The main obstacle to bringing former Nicaraguan president Arnoldo Alemán to justice was that he enjoyed immunity: he was appointed president of the Nicaraguan Assembly after he stepped down as president. Alemán faces charges of misappropriating at least $100-million in one of Latin America’s poorest countries. Former Zairean president Mobutu Sese Seko is probably the most notorious case of a president using the state as private property while protecting himself from prosecution. He ruled for more than 30 years, and pocketed an estimated $5-billion. He had the backing of Western leaders and institutions that saw him as a foil to leftist states such as Angola.
Liberia comes close as a leading example of semi-official kleptocracy. The l |
