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Archived News
7th January 2003
Zim daily back on streets
Botswana's envoy dies in Zim road smash
Zimbabwe: Praying for rain and democracy
Mugabe bid to lure Becks to Zimbabwe
Cricket poll result
Graffiti against Registrar General blasted
Zim/Libya fuel deal on rocks
Commuters stranded as fuel crisis worsens
Mugabe accused of importing too little maize to aid crisis
Zimbabwe releases inmates to relieve prison overcrowding
Nyarota speaks out on Daily News saga
Mugabe's newspaper nemesis gets his marching orders
Eight million now need food aid in Zimbabwe
Hungry millions denied food by Mugabe's ban
Zim opposition lawmaker arrested
Bennet acquitted of contravening Electoral Act
Whitecliffe settlers to vote in Kuwadzana
Amani Trust shuts down
Food riots in Zimbabwe
ACP states in bid to break Zim/EU stand-off
Hain calls for English cricket to boycott Zimbabwe in favour of South Africa
England should not play into the hands of Mugabe's odious regime
Aussie tourist killed in Zim
Zimbabwe food riots 'caused by war veterans'
Mugabe's bizarre cricket threat blocked
Beaten up for jeering at Mugabe
Zim crisis: Windfall for North East
The New Year message Zimbabwe needs: Mugabe fools no-one
Zimbabwe food riots spread
Mugabe loyalists to run opposition strongholds
'Honk against Mugabe' charges dropped
Editor of Zimbabwe provincial newspaper jailed
Zimbabwe players oppose World Cup
New muzzle on Zimbabwe press
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From The Guardian (UK), 2 January
New muzzle on Zimbabwe press
Andrew Meldrum in Harare
The last vestiges of the independent media in Zimbabwe face new pressure as the government prepares for next week's launch of a repressive new licensing system which will give it the power to close any newspaper and to stop any journalist working. It comes days after the latest incident in an escalating campaign by President Robert Mugabe's government to muzzle the critical independent press - the sacking of the editor of Zimbabwe's Daily News, Geoffrey Nyarota. Mr Nyarota, the founder and editor of the country's most widely read newspaper, was sacked on Monday by the Daily News's board of directors. The assistant editor, Davison Maruziva, resigned in protest at the action. Although the Daily News board has suggested it fired Mr Nyarota on managerial grounds, it appears the board chairman, Sam Nkomo, succumbed to pressure from the government. According to media sources, the board feared that the government would refuse to register the paper under the new regulations if Mr Nyarota remained as editor. Mr Nyarota said that he believes the Daily News board gave in to pressure from the minister of information, Jonathan Moyo. "Moyo has collected my scalp without lifting a finger in public, but I am sure has been busy plotting this behind the scenes," he said. "It is no coincidence that the Daily News has come under this pressure at this time."
Mr Nyarota launched the Daily News in 1999. Its crusades against corruption and human rights abuses won it a large following and it overtook the state-owned Herald as the country's largest selling newspaper. Mr Nyarota and his staff have been arrested and jailed several times. The paper's printing plant was destroyed by an explosion two years ago, shortly after government officials vowed the paper would be silenced. No arrests have been made for that bombing, nor for an earlier explosion at the paper's editorial offices. But where explosions failed to muzzle Mr Nyarota's voice at the Daily News, the threats posed by the government's new licensing system appears to have succeeded. The Zimbabwe National Editors Forum hailed Mr Nyarota as "a courageous editor" who provided readers "with unadorned news and robust views, for which there is a clear public demand". Iden Wetherell, deputy chairman of the editors' forum, spoke of a sustained campaign by the government. "This is not the time for media managers and workers to show timidity or division that can be exploited by enemies of a free press," he said. The Media Institute of Southern Africa also voiced its worry the dismissal of Mr Nyarota would be the start of increased restrictions against independent newspapers.
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From News24 (SA), 31 December
Zim daily back on streets
Harare - Zimbabwe's leading independent daily, The Daily News, was back on the streets Tuesday, a day after its founding editor was sacked and after a 10-day strike. Tuesday's issue led with a story that the paper's award-winning editor-in-chief, Geoffrey Nyarota, had been relieved of his duties. The company that owns the Daily News, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) announced "with regret, its decision to terminate, with immediate effect, the employment" of Nyarota. ANZ did not disclose the reasons for firing the veteran journalist. Journalists at the paper went on strike 11 days ago over a pay dispute. The editor has been arrested on several occasions by state authorities and has also won numerous local and international awards for journalism and press freedom. Nyarota's departure come as many of the country's journalists await a decision by the government's media commission on who will be registered to work in the country under tough press laws passed after President Robert Mugabe was re-elected in March. The Media and Information Commission said Tuesday it will start issuing press accreditation next week. "Press cards bearing the commission logo would be issued out to practising journalists in the first week of January," Tafataona Mahoso, the chairperson of the commission, told the state-run daily The Herald.
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From IOL (SA), 1 January
Botswana's envoy dies in Zim road smash
Harare - Botswana's High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, Cecil Manyeula, has been killed in a traffic accident in Zimbabwe, a newspaper reported Wednesday. According to the state-controlled Herald newspaper, Manyeula was killed when his vehicle was involved in a head-on collision on Monday night on the main road linking Harare to the country's second city of Bulawayo. Zimbabwe is notorious for fatal traffic accidents, especially over national holidays. This year's total figure of road deaths over the Christmas period was, however, around half of that in the same period last year, with observers putting the decline down to a critical fuel shortage that has stopped people travelling.
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From The Guardian (UK), 1 January
Zimbabwe: Praying for rain and democracy
Andrew Meldrum, Seke
The Seke communal area is just two hours' drive from the metropolitan buzz of Zimbabwe's capital, but it is at the heart of the famine that is sweeping across southern Africa. Misheck Ngazana, 52, the head of a household of seven, spent New Year's Eve as he spends every day, worrying about how to feed his family. "We are down to one meal a day and our mealie meal [maize meal, Zimbabwe's staple food] is running out. We are able to buy mealie meal from the government, but they have not come here for a month." Mr Ngazana's family has been reliant upon the government supplies of maize for five months, but he says the government's food relief has been erratic. "Sometimes they refuse to sell maize to people here, saying that we voted for the MDC [Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change]. That kind of politics makes us worry." The Ngazana family is better off than some of their neighbours. "I see children who have not eaten, sometimes for three days," he sighs. "I want to share our food, but I know that we won't have enough. It is a terrible situation."
Fifteen million people are threatened with starvation across six countries in southern Africa, according to the United Nations. Zimbabwe holds more than half of those in danger, with seven million people affected by the famine out of the country's total population of 13 million. Many people in Seke travel by donkey cart and bicycle. Many more walk along the dusty roads, often with large bundles balanced on their heads. Everybody is wiry and thin. An enterprising man, Mr Ngazana is out in the hot sun, tending his maize crop. "Look at these plants," he says. "We have not had any rain for nearly a week now and they are starting to wilt and burn. We need more rain soon if we are going to have enough food to eat next year. Maybe Mother Nature is grumbling and telling us she is not happy with what is going on here. Some people say that a drought is sanctions from God." Mr Ngazana says that he remembers the famines that affected Ethiopia and Somalia. "I remember reading about them, but I never expected that our country and all of southern Africa would suffer like that, too." Looking ahead to the coming year, Mr Ngazana says he hopes for "a stable political situation that will see the economical situation improve". "If we can have a truly democratic situation in Africa, it would help us all. And, of course, good rains would
help us, too."
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From The Mirror (UK), 31 December
Mugabe bid to lure Becks to Zimbabwe
By Oliver Holt and Bob Roberts
Robert Mugabe tried to lure David Beckham and other England soccer stars to Zimbabwe - but was turned down immediately. Mugabe and Zimbabwe football bosses approached the English FA two months ago. They wanted Beckham, Michael Owen and the rest of the England squad to stop in Zimbabwe on their way to their friendly fixture with South Africa in Durban on May 22. The visit would have included a trip to the Victoria Falls and the provision of training facilities. FA acting chief executive David Davies is believed to have swiftly said No. The FA are now congratulating themselves on making the right decision as pressure piles on English cricket to boycott their World Cup match in Harare in February.
Ministers are to meet English cricket officials next week to discuss the controversial Zimbabwe visit, it was announced last night. In an apparent breakthrough in the row, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell and Foreign Office Minister Baroness Amos have agreed to a request from the England and Wales Cricket Board for talks. The Government repeated its position that the ultimate decision remained with the ECB. Earlier, Zimbabwe opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said captain Nasser Hussain would be endorsing Mugabe's ruthless regime if the visit went ahead. Labour MP Ann Clwyd, chairman of the all-party human rights group, said: "More than half the population of this country are facing starvation, people are scavenging for berries and roots to stave off starvation. I just find it inconceivable that anybody can pretend it is business as normal. Surely cricketers have morality." Tony Blair's official spokesman said: "It is worth remembering that Mugabe is president of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union. You can expect him to exploit the situation for his own purpose, seeking to give the impression of normality and stability when the situation is anything but that."
Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith accused the Government of mishandling the issue "in a dangerous and neglectful way". Shadow foreign secretary Michael Ancram declared: "The idea of Robert Mugabe parading himself at an international sporting occasion like this when he is at the same time starving literally millions of his people to death I think is absolutely abhorrent." The International Cricket Council said England could have to pay compensation of up to £1million if it did not fulfil its February 13 fixture in Zimbabwe. Nasser Hussain and Australian captain Steve Waugh called for clearer guidance from government. Hussain said: "It's a political issue, it's a moral issue. You can't expect some of these young lads who are touring around the world to make a moral decision about Zimbabwe."
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From ZWNEWS, 2 January
Cricket poll result
On 31 December, we asked readers to have their say on the planned World Cup Cricket matches in Zimbabwe. We asked: Do you think World Cup Cricket matches should be played in Zimbabwe? YES or NO. The voting has been brisk. The NO vote was 94.8%. The YES vote was 4.4%. 0.8% were undecided. A total of 4687 votes were cast. Voters were restricted to a single vote per email address. The ZWNEWS poll result is in line with other recent polls on the same subject. On 19 December, Channel 4 News, a UK TV News programme, asked their viewers: Do you believe England should send cricketers to Zimbabwe? Of a total of 7128 votes cast, 93% voted that the England team should stay away. A recent online poll by mweb.co.za, a South African internet service provider, asked: Do you agree with the International Cricket Council's decision to stage six of the World Cup matches in Zimbabwe? Of 2989 votes cast, 9.6% agreed with the ICC’s decision. 18.6% disagreed, on the grounds that the safety of players and spectators could not be guaranteed, while 71.8% said that sporting sanctions should be imposed on Zimbabwe, regardless of the safety of players and spectators. An ongoing online poll by the UK Guardian newspaper asks: Should England's cricket team boycott their upcoming World Cup fixtures in Zimbabwe? Of 1370 votes currently cast, 87% said Yes.
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From The Herald, 31 December
Graffiti against Registrar General blasted
Harare - The Registrar General's Office yesterday expressed concern at the graffiti against the person of the Registrar General, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede, written on pre-cast walls along Leopold Takawira and Harare streets. A central registry spokesman said there were strong indications that the denigrating remarks were by unscrupulous tricksters and conmen who had been cheating applicants of passports, birth certificates and other documents of their hard earned money. "Those responsible for this misbehaving are warned that the matter is being fully investigated and stern measures will be taken against the perpetrators," he said. The graffiti was written after the central registry took decisive steps to deal with conmen and tricksters and reduce congestion in queues. The department was mounting daily security checks as to the genuineness of applicants. It was also maintaining all time presence of security details, carrying out effective investigations and prosecutions of suspected perpetrators of fraud and extortion. All extortion activities by tricksters and conmen to the unsuspecting public were being revealed through television and the print media programmes. "Let it be known that the said derogatory statements and graffiti against the person of the Registrar General and the department will not deter the management from taking sterner measures to effectively deal with any attempted obstruction or interference with persons wishing to apply or renew their personal documents," said the spokesman.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 3 January
Zim/Libya fuel deal on rocks
Vincent Kahiya
The troubled trade agreement between Zimbabwe and Libya has been rocked by a fresh crisis amid revelations this week that Noczim wants to defer implementation of a proposed joint-venture arrangement with Tamoil of Libya. The Zimbabwe Independent can reveal that officials from Noczim, the Ministry of Energy and Power Development and the Jewel Bank held a meeting yesterday afternoon to see how Zimbabwe could extricate itself from the deal which would have seen the Libyans taking control of key petro-chemical installations in the country. Yesterday's meeting resolved that there should be a proper evaluation of the business before any transactions took place. Amos Midzi, the Minister of Energy and Power Development, yesterday confirmed there was a meeting but said it was a routine one. Zimbabwe is keen to defer committing itself to the deal, which will tie the country to procuring fuel from the North African country. Currently, Zimbabwe is importing the bulk of its fuel from Kuwait.
The Independent heard yesterday that Noczim's orders for this month through the pipeline were all from Kuwait. This apparently had the blessing of the Office of the President and Cabinet. Tamoil is keen to recoup monies owed by Noczim through the acquisition of oil industry assets. Government sources yesterday said Noczim would soon advise Tamoil that the issue of valuation should be dealt with by the companies' banks, which would prolong the process of setting up the joint-venture company while giving Zimbabwe the opportunity to explore other fuel procurement options. The Jewel Bank representing Noczim and the Libyan Arab Bank for Tamoil would now renegotiate the deal, sources said. On November 27, Minister Midzi told parliament that Noczim had gone into a 50/50 partnership with Tamoil to form a company called Tamoil Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd. Government sources said Midzi's announcement was premature as the company has not been registered and there is no shareholder agreement.
A technical team comprising Libyan and Italian engineers visited Zimbabwe a fortnight ago to assess storage and pumping facilities. The team failed to agree with government on a price and left empty-handed. Government sources this week said the negotiations around the assets owned by Petrozim, which owns the Feruka pipeline and is 50% owned by Noczim, was the final push by the Libyans to expand their influence in Zimbabwe where it has interests in banking, tourism and agriculture. The collapse of talks on the acquisition of the pumping and storage facilities should sound the death knell for any future dealings with the Libyan suppliers which have been eclipsed by the Independent Petroleum Group of Kuwait in supplying fuel.
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From The Daily News, 2 January
Commuters stranded as fuel crisis worsens
From Sandra Mujokoro
The fuel situation in Bulawayo deteriorated yesterday forcing many residents to walk long distances to and from their places of work. Hundreds of commuters were stranded yesterday morning on the city’s roads. Areas such as Cowdray Park, severely under-serviced by commuter bus operators, were on the brink of rioting. Some Cowdray Park residents walked to Luveve, where the situation was equally bad, while others decided to walk the 15km to the city. In a scene reminiscent of people on a peaceful demonstration, scores of people flooded and flanked the roads, walking without fear of being run over by vehicles, which were, thankfully, very few on the roads. The long and winding fuel queues that could be seen around the city during the weekend disappeared as motorists gave up queuing for the unavailable fuel. Vehicles were left in queues while the owners conducted business in the city centre. They would occasionally check if there were any supplies. By the end of the day yesterday, however, no service station had received any fuel. A resident of Montrose suburb said he had walked to and from work yesterday. "Is this the liberation war they are always talking about?" he asked. "People have to walk, not because they have no money, but because the country has run out of fuel." The few motorists who had fuel cashed in on the situation and charged as much as $150 per trip from the high-density suburbs to the city centre. Ndabezinhle Moyo of Magwegwe North said the government should deal with the fuel situation urgently. "For how long are we going to go on like this, scrambling for transport every day? Not all of us are strong enough to walk to and from work," said Moyo. Others said they now lingered until late at work to avoid the endless queues and have to be prepared to pay double the normal fares in the late hours.
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From Business Day (SA), 3 January
Mugabe accused of importing too little maize to aid crisis
Harare The main opposition party in Zimbabwe yesterday blamed President Robert Mugabe's government for aggravating food shortages by importing too little maize. The government has said it was importing maize at the rate of 22 000 tons a week into the country where as many as 8-million of a total population of 11,6-million people were threatened by famine. In his state of the nation address last month, Mugabe said that the government was stepping up grain purchases, and that more than 600 000 tons had been delivered to "all our people". The Zanu PF government has consistently denied it is involved in partisan food distribution. However, Renson Gasela, shadow agriculture minister in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said at a media conference that the maize shortages would continue as "the regime had admitted" that it wanted to punish people and was supplying maize in small quantities to force people to buy Zanu PF cards to qualify for the staple food.
Gasela claimed that distribution of maize meal was "so militarised" it was distributed by the army from the millers' floors. The army was not available for comment. Gasela predicted that food shortages gripping the country would last well into 2004 due to poor harvests. "The current food crisis will be with us until (at least) May 2004," he said. He said that only 136 000 tons of wheat had been harvested, less than half the country's average harvest of 320 000 tons. He also predicted a shortfall of 800 000 tons of maize between now and 2004. Poor rains have devastated crops and grazing in Zimbabwe, once hailed as the breadbasket of southern Africa. The MDC, aid agencies and western nations also blame the government's land reform programme.
Meanwhile, police have arrested 12 park rangers who opened fire on a crowd in a village that was suspected of harbouring poachers, injuring 17 people, state radio reported yesterday. The 12 rangers would be charged with attempted murder, the radio said. After the shooting spree in remote southeastern Zimbabwe, the rangers escaped in an off-road vehicle. They were caught later by police in the Chipinge district, 450km southeast of Harare. All but one of the injured villagers were released from district medical facilities yesterday radio said. Police investigating the shooting called on people to be cautious when being questioned by armed personnel, radio said. Earlier reports said that the rangers had tried to arrest the wife of a suspected poacher after searching a house and finding meat. The angry villagers had then threatened to attack them.
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From VOA News, 2 January
Zimbabwe releases inmates to relieve prison overcrowding
Harare - Zimbabwe has released more than 10 percent of its prison population in a post-Christmas amnesty, following repeated complaints from human rights groups and the justice ministry about severe overcrowding in the country's jails. Frankie Meki, spokesman for Zimbabwe's prisons department, said Thursday that 3,600 prisoners are being released from overcrowded jails around the country. He said eight categories of prisoners benefited from the amnesty, particularly women who were breastfeeding and those who had been jailed for infanticide and abortion. In addition, all prisoners over the age of 60 have been released, as well as those who are disabled or terminally ill and those serving sentences of less than a year. According to human rights groups, most of the terminally ill prisoners who have been released are suffering from HIV-AIDS. The prisons department said the amnesty did not apply to prisoners sentenced to death. Mr. Meki said Zimbabwe has the prison capacity to hold 16,000 inmates, but in the last year the prison population had soared to more than 24,000. Prisoners released from jails in the last few months have complained that they were not given enough food and the cells were filthy. Prisoners say a chronic water shortage, at the maximum-security prison outside Harare, has made conditions dangerously unhealthy. Nearly all Zimbabwe's prisons were built during the colonial era, and few have been upgraded since independence in 1980. Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa pledged last year to reduce prison overcrowding following widespread complaints about conditions in jail.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 3 January
Nyarota speaks out on Daily News saga
Dumisani Muleya
Former Daily News editor Geoff Nyarota says his dramatic exit on Monday came against a background of shocking statements by the paper's owner Strive Masiyiwa and "strange" behaviour by company management. In his first public statement after his forced exit, Nyarota said Masiyiwa had stunned him a week before he left when he told him he wanted to close down the Daily News. "After the strike I phoned the majority shareholder to tell him about what was going on and to express my concern about it," Nyarota said. "But Masiyiwa said he was not making any money from the Daily News, he was fed up and wanted to close the paper down." Nyarota said be was alarmed by these remarks. "Each time I spoke to Masiyiwa he said he was not making any money from the Daily News and wanted to close it," Nyarota said. "I asked him why he wouldn't sell it but he insisted he wanted to close it down. He actually said: 'You don't understand me, I don't want money from the Daily News but what I want is to close it'."
Nyarota said Masiyiwa's statements were startling and unbelievable. "From that day onwards I became extremely worried and concerned," Nyarota said. "I told (Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe chair and chief executive Sam) Nkomo but he was non-committal. The veteran award-winning editor said he phoned Masiyiwa again on December 24 but the Econet boss shocked him further. "Initially he told me that he was on holiday but in the end he said I kept on talking about the Daily News collapsing but its collapse would be good riddance," Nyarota said. "I was shocked, flabbergasted, amazed that those statements could come from Masiyiwa." However, Nkomo yesterday said Nyarota's claims were simply untrue. "All those statements are very untrue," he said. "Masiyiwa put a lot of money into the Daily News and there is no reason for him to close it down. Recently he put in about $100 million and now his investment is about $200 million. The claims of closure are unfounded and fictitious."
On his departure from the Daily News, Nyarota, who said the paper will never be the same again, said he was not fired but resigned. "It is not true that I was fired but it is true that I resigned," he said. "As far as I'm concerned I tendered my resignation on Monday at 12.30pm. I only heard it on the radio that I was fired. But I never received any letter saying I was fired. What I received was a letter threatening to suspend me without pay. It did not give reasons." Nkomo admitted Nyarota was not fired but suspended pending dismissal. "He was suspended pending dismissal for insubordination," he said. Nkomo said Nyarota was suspended for borrowing money and paying workers without authorisation. Nyarota conceded he borrowed money to pay desperate workers but said he had no regrets about it. Nkomo said Nyarota's action was irregular and unacceptable. Responding to a Herald story that he was a shareholder in Zimpapers, Nyarota said: "I'm prepared to donate those shares to an enterprising journalist at the Herald if there is one." Nkomo said Nyarota's dismissal had nothing to do with government's threats against the Daily News and issues of accreditation but had everything to do with "insubordination".
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From The Age (Aust), 3 January
Mugabe's newspaper nemesis gets his marching orders
Harare - Zimbabwe's most celebrated and persecuted journalist, Geoffrey Nyarota, says his "heart is broken" after being sacked as editor of the country's only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News. His removal, coinciding with the implementation of President Robert Mugabe's new draconian media laws, prompted accusations that the management had buckled under pressure from the authorities, fearing that it would not be allowed to continue publishing this year if Mr Nyarota remained editor. Iden Wetherell, deputy chairman of the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum, said: "It is hoped that Nyarota's removal is not part of an attempt by management to stifle the newspaper's outspoken voice. We hope in due course the full details of Nyarota's exit come to light and that The Daily News quickly resolves its internal problems so it can continue to provide Zimbabwe readers with unadorned news and robust views for which there is a clear public demand." Sources in the newspaper suggested, however, that the sacking might also have been connected to Mr Nyarota's championing of the paper's workers in a strike in December.
In its last edition before the new year, The Daily News led its front page with a report that Mr Nyarota, 52, its founding editor, had been sacked. "My heart is broken. But my brother said to me this evening it's the first time I have been at home with my family for a long time," Mr Nyarota said on Wednesday after he was fired. "What has happened played straight into (the government's) hands. Why do we always do this?" Mr Nyarota was referring to the Zimbabwe Government, which detests The Daily News. It overtook circulation of the state-controlled daily The Herald within a year of its first edition in March, 1999. Day after day Mr Nyarota and his cash-strapped team turned out the only alternative source of information in a society dominated by the state's electronic and print media. New press laws introduced shortly before Mr Mugabe's disputed election victory last March were widely believed to have been aimed mainly at The Daily News.
In the past three years Mr Nyarota has been arrested at midnight at home, detained at his city office, charged and defamed so often he says he has lost count. A bomb was hurled into the lobby of The Daily News two years ago and in January, 2001, a series of explosions destroyed its printing press. No one has been apprehended over either attack. The announcement of Mr Nyarota's dismissal came in the first edition published for 10 days after staff went on strike when the management refused not only to provide an annual pay rise but withheld their December salaries until further notice. Mr Nyarota stepped in and provided advances for most of the about 200 striking workers. And that, according to Sam Nkomo, executive chairman of the holding company, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, was the last straw, said a source within The Daily News. The last threat against The Daily News was made by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo last month when the paper carried a report claiming Mr Mugabe was attending the African National Congress conference in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Mr Mugabe was not there. The paper apologised for publishing the news agency report. The state's media has relished Mr Nyarota's dismissal. "He was a propaganda tool for the British and protection of white interests," the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said.
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From The Star (SA), 3 January
Eight million now need food aid in Zimbabwe
By Basildon Peta
Zimbabweans have started the new year with long food queues as the supply of basic commodities from South Africa dries up. From the fuel, maize meal, sugar, salt, cooking oil, bread and milk queues they endured for most of 2002, Zimbabweans go into the new year to new shortages of beef, chicken, eggs and cooldrinks. But at least some wealthy Zimbabweans interviewed on Thursday said they could at times resort to making the long journey from Harare to Musina in Limpopo province to buy basic commodities during weekends. "Again, the problem is to get the foreign currency and fuel. I am a bank manager, but I too can't favour myself with foreign money. We have nothing. I have to resort to the expensive parallel market," said a bank executive who did not want to be named. He said he did not know for how long he would rely on travelling to buy things in Musina as a drum of petrol he had stocked up on was running out. Cosmas Ndoro, a security guard, said that when his last bag of maize meal runs out in four days' time, he will ask for food aid. "(Aid agencies) can't say they only feed in the rural areas when there is more starvation in the cities. At least those in the rural areas have options like wild fruit and roots," he said.
The government blames everything on the drought. It has said the drought has killed more than 15 000 head of cattle in the past three months. But critics blame government supporters who have occupied commercial farms and killed breeding cows for food. The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change on Thursday accused President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party of exacerbating the food shortages. The MDC has raised money to import maize to feed its supporters, but the government has refused it an import licence. The MDC has tried to bring in food without the licence, but all of it has been confiscated at the border. The opposition party wants to bring in its own food because it claims its supporters have deliberately been left out of the government's relief exercise. Mugabe insists he will go it alone and will not work with multilateral lending institutions, like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, because of their opposition to his land policies. Aid agencies say the number of Zimbabweans requiring food aid has soared to eight million out of the country's 11,6 million people. Meanwhile, Mugabe's government now controls the price of newspapers, a move seen as an attempt to stifle the independent press, which has been regularly increasing prices to meet rising production costs. And the government-appointed media commission will this week start distributing licences to journalists to operate in Zimbabwe.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 4 January
Hungry millions denied food by Mugabe's ban
Murambinda - Robert Mugabe is refusing to let Zimbabweans import food, a decision which is condemning millions of people to shortages, United Nations officials said yesterday. More than 5,000 people gathered at Viriri School, Murambinda, 140 miles south of Harare, to collect hand-outs of corn, beans and oil from the World Food Programme. Patience Mukondomi, 31, was not given any. As a teacher she has a job and therefore does not qualify for aid. "There is nothing in the shops. We have money, but there is no food to buy, please sell us some," she implored officials. But Luis Clemens, a WFP spokesman, explained that doing so would be against the rules. "We cannot sell food, however much we want to help people," he said. "We would be able to feed many more people if the government allowed private importation of corn." The Mugabe regime has awarded a monopoly on trading in grain to a government agency and there are countless verified reports from opposition supporters that they have been denied permission to buy this food.
At the WFP distribution centre another desperate woman, with a baby on her back, said her husband was in the army 40 miles further south and so she too did not qualify for food aid. "We are starving," she said. "Even if my husband sent money, which he doesn't because I am the second wife, there is no food to buy. My neighbour helps me. Without her we would be dead." The neighbour is one of three million people receiving food from WFP, half of those on the brink of starvation. Mugabe undertook to feed the rest, but has been unable to find foreign currency to import anything but a trickle of grain from South Africa. "Private importation of corn would change the situation dramatically," said Mr Clemens. "We have made the offer to facilitate the importation of food, but there is no change in policy." He said the WFP would need to continue its Zimbabwe operations beyond April, when harvests are due. Few crops have been planted by the inexperienced farmers who replaced more than 4,000 white commercial farmers evicted in the past three years under the government's land reforms.
Teresa Madamombe, 41 a mother of five, said: "This is the first time in our lives there is no food to buy. In 1983 and in 1992 there was drought, but we could buy food, but not now, and I do not know why." She said she knew nothing of the destruction of Zimbabwe's commercial agriculture. "We do not get news here. We are far from the commercial farms. Have they all gone?" A thin young man overheard the conversation, sidled up and whispered: "There is no food because of politics. You must know that. Industries which make food have closed down now that the farmers have gone. We can't talk politics because there has been violence here, but we do know why we have no food."
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From iafrica.com, 3 January
Zim opposition lawmaker arrested
A lawmaker from Zimbabwe's leading opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has been arrested by police for allegedly inciting public disorder, the police and the party announced on Friday. Abednico Bhebhe, member of parliament for Nkayi district in western Zimbabwe, was arrested on Thursday when he was found sticking up posters that read "Hoot enough is enough", according to MDC spokesperson Paul Nyathi. Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed the arrest and said the legislator would be charged under the security law. The section of the law under which he is being charged state that any person who publishes or communicates a statement with the intention of inciting or promoting public disorder or violence will have committed a punishable offence. "He was arrested putting up posters on security walls of private properties," Bvudzijena told AFP. At least 10 MDC MPs having been arrested in Zimbabwe in the past year, some of them more than once for various alleged offences. The opposition has complained that the government of President Robert Mugabe is unfairly targeting its legislators after the wave of arrests. "We condemn the blatant harassment of members of the opposition by the police," said Nyathi. "We are well aware that this is a grand plan, orchestrated and directed by Zanu PF, aimed at silencing any dissenting voices in the country, especially the voice of the opposition," Nyathi said in a statement. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai and two legislators face treason charges and are due to appear in court next month.
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From The Daily News, 2 January
Bennet acquitted of contravening Electoral Act
From Brian Mangwende
Roy Bennet, the Member of Parliament for Chimanimani, was two weeks ago acquitted of allegations of contravening a section of the Electoral Act. The opposition MDC MP was charged after he took pictures of ruling Zanu PF party activists distributing maize to voters near a polling station on the polling days of the rural district council elections held in September. Bennet was arrested together with two others and spent two days in police custody before being granted bail. Tapiwanashe Kujinga, Bennet’s lawyer, said a Chipinge magistrate acquitted his client. "We managed to convince the magistrate that Bennet has no case to answer," Kujinga said. Bennet was picked up about five kilometres from his farm in Chimanimani, together with his wife Heather and two friends. Heather was later released while the others were taken into police custody. Bennet hit the headlines when he defected from Zanu PF to join the MDC during the 2000 parliamentary election. He beat Munacho Mutezo, Zanu PF’s secretary for administration in Manicaland. He has since been an outspoken critic of President Mugabe’s rule. The MP has been harassed by the police who have searched his rented home in Ruwa on the outskirts of Harare and his Charleswood Estates in Chimanimani, ostensibly in search of arms of war and subversive material likely to undermine the government. The government has relentlessly tried to evict Bennet from his farm on several occasions, but he has constantly resisted, saying his property fell under the Export Processing Zone (EPZ). According to the law, any farm under the EPZ cannot be compulsorily acquired. In a new development, Edgar Nyagwaya, the district administrator in Chimanimani, said Bennet’s farm was re-gazetted last month. The MP said he has since been issued with another Section 5 order, a notice of the government’s intention to compulsorily acquire the property. But Bennet said he would fight tooth and nail through the courts to prevent the seizure of his property.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 3 January
Whitecliffe settlers to vote in Kuwadzana
Ndamu Sandu
In what analysts see as an attempt at electoral manipulation, the government will allow Whitecliffe settlers to vote in the forthcoming Kuwadzana by-election, the Zimbabwe Independent heard this week. The Kuwadzana seat fell vacant following the death in custody of Learnmore Jongwe under controversial circumstances in October. Authoritative sources said the settlers - who were supposed to have been evicted from the farm - have inspected the voters' roll and their names appear on the list. Inspection of the voters' roll started on November 30 and ended on Tuesday. Voting dates are yet to be announced. "We have checked our names and they are on the voters' roll," said one settler who only identified himself as Wilson for fear of reprisal by war veterans. The settler, who has assumed an influential post on the farm, said that Zanu PF officials had assured them that they would vote in the by-election. "Top officials told us that we are eligible to vote and that no-one would evict us from the farm," he said. It emerged this week that the settlers would vote under the guise that they are lodgers residing in Kuwadzana Extension. Inspection of the voters' roll was carried out in the same township. This paper has it on good authority that Zanu PF chefs, notably Information and Publicity secretary in the politburo, Nathan Shamuyarira, has been to the farm and assured settlers that no one would evict them. The settlers are allegedly launching terror campaigns in Kuwadzana in a bid to silence the opposition. The Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) which supervises elections, this week disputed the allegations. "The settlers are not part of Kuwadzana and there is no way they are going to vote in the by-election," said the commission's spokesman Thomas Bvuma. He said that 42 391 and 45 862 voters were registered to vote in the parliamentary and presidential elections respectively in Kuwadzana. "Of the registered voters, 20 701 and 23 440 cast their votes in the parliamentary and presidential elections, respectively," Bvuma said.
Whitecliffe settlers, whose number has swelled to over 10 000, were given an ultimatum by government to vacate or face eviction in June. The settlers, the majority of them war veterans and Zanu PF supporters who played an integral part in the controversial re-election of President Robert Mugabe, have vowed to stay put. They said that they were allocated stands by the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association under the Tongogara Park Housing Cooperative Scheme. Government argued that the occupation had prevented a property developer, Eddies Pfugari who had acquired the land, to service it. Settlers resisted eviction saying that the farm fell under Mashonaland West and not under the Harare municipality. Under pressure, government climbed down and allowed them to continue their stay on the farm. Recently the farm was in the news after settlers, who voted under Zvimba South in the presidential election, said that they now fall under the City of Harare. Efforts to get a comment from Shamuyarira were fruitless as he was said to be out of his office. An official at the party's headquarters could not be drawn into the issue. "Find out for yourself if this is true or false. Accusations like these will be there no matter there is fair play or not," said the official. MDC's information boss Paul Themba Nyathi was not available for comment. The MDC is fielding Nelson Chamisa as its candidate, while Kembton Chihuhute will represent the National Alliance for Good Governance. Zanu PF is yet to announce its candidate.
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From The Daily News, 2 January
Amani Trust shuts down
Staff Reporter
Threats by the government to deregister non-governmental organisations (NGOs) thought to support the opposition MDC have forced Amani Trust to close its offices to the public. The closure has left victims of the ruling Zanu PF party's terror campaign stranded as they have nowhere else to go for help. Amani Trust unsettled the government after it started investigating cases of torture and beatings in the rural areas where Zanu PF youths and so-called war veterans had set up torture bases. "They (Amani Trust) have stopped operating," said Jonah Gokova, an NGO official. "I spoke to Sharri Appel of their Bulawayo office and she confirmed they had shut down. The nature of Amani Trust's activities, which involved counselling victims of political violence, brought the organisation under the spotlight." Security guards manning the building where their offices in Harare are located said Amani Trust closed when the government alleged in Parliament that the Trust was not legally registered. A notice at the entrance to the offices reads: "Please be advised that our offices will be closed until further notice."
Last September, July Moyo, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare, alleged in Parliament the organisation was not properly registered under the Private Voluntary Organisations Act. The government has persecuted the Trust for helping victims of Zanu PF's terror campaign and of exposing human rights abuses in camps set up by so-called war veterans where women were allegedly gang-raped. The government has denied the allegations and alleged the Trust was a conduit for British funds channelled to the MDC. The police arrested Frances Lovemore, a director of the Trust, over a newspaper report quoting the organisation as saying the national youth service members had gang-raped young girls and women at a terror camp. Rudo Kwaramba, the chairperson of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations, said her executive committee would not comment on the matter.
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From BBC News, 4 January
Food riots in Zimbabwe
Thirty-four people have been arrested as police used tear-gas to break up a riot at a grain depot in Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo, state media reports. A report in the state-run Bulawayo Chronicle newspaper said those arrested had been protesting over what they said was the unfair distribution of food. The state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported that residents had accused grain board officials of corruptly supplying maize to unscrupulous millers, who then sold it on at exorbitant prices. Correspondents say that millions of people in Zimbabwe are threatened by famine as the result of the continuing drought and the disruption caused by government's seizure of white-owned farms. Maize meal, the national staple food, is supposed to be sold at controlled prices, but there have been reports that some millers are trying to evade the price controls. Police fired tear-gas at the crowds and charged them with batons to try to quell the violence, witnesses said.
The privately-run Daily News said that about 4,000 people had been queuing at the depot on Friday when the fighting began. The violence was said to be the most severe since food shortages began but no injuries were reported. Some witnesses said the rioting had started because supporters of President Mugabe's Zanu PF party were getting preferential treatment at the grain distribution centres. "We have had enough of this. We are starving while some people have plenty of maize," the Daily News quoted one demonstrator as saying. Correspondents have reported seeing state grain depots only selling maize to people holding party membership cards. They say Mr Mugabe is using food a weapon to ensure that he remains in power. Zimbabwe is in the grips of a massive economic crisis and about eight million people are thought be under threat of famine, with the problems not just restricted to rural areas. Opposition parties point the finger of blame at Mr Mugabe and his government, but for his part the president says the cause of the crisis is a combination of a drought and a Western imperialistic plot aimed at keeping power in the hands of Zimbabwe's whites.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 3 January
ACP states in bid to break Zim/EU stand-off
Mthulisi Mathuthu
The African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) states, who have been feeling the pinch in the fall-out between Zimbabwe and the European Union, are working at pressing President Mugabe to relax his offensive against Brussels. Anxious to restore normal ties, the ACP states are reportedly hoping to see Mugabe ahead of the EU/Africa summit scheduled for Lisbon in April and the next plenary session of the EU/ACP joint parliamentary assembly to be held in Congo-Brazzaville later the same month. The Zimbabwe Independent heard this week that ACP secretary-general Jean-Robert Goulongana of Benin and other officials were due in the country later this month for talks with Mugabe as part of an effort to break the stalemate between Zimbabwe and the EU. "Goulongana is a reformist and so is willing to see this resolved," a source said. "He will try to convince Mugabe not to send people barred from visiting Europe for these meetings in future." The source said Goulongana had realised that the EU was firm in its decision not to further entertain any of Mugabe's banned emissaries.
While it was not clear who would accompany Goulongana, sources told the Independent that ACP countries like Botswana, Senegal and Mozambique were worried that the continued stand-off between Harare and the EU would sabotage prospects of further aid. Sources said details of Goulongana's visit would be finalised "anytime after January 6". The Independent heard that Portugal and France have been mobilising ACP countries to support their idea of talks between Harare and the EU. Portugal is labouring to restore relations between Zimbabwe and the EU to save the summit to be held in Lisbon. France is also sensitive about the Francophone summit to be held in February. France is seen as having a soft spot for the Harare administration and may campaign among French-speaking African countries who are also members of the ACP to support Zimbabwe's attendance at the Lisbon summit. Portugal, which has interests in its former African colonies, is reportedly anxious to save the summit which African countries have threatened to boycott if Zimbabwe is barred for its failure to end political repression and human rights violations.
In November the ACP member states boycotted the EU/ACP joint parliamentary assembly in Brussels after the EU insisted on barring Mugabe's two ministers, Chris Kuruneri and Paul Mangwana, leading to the meeting being aborted. The ACP is reportedly favouring dispatching Goulongana as opposed to a fact-finding mission proposed by the European Socialists in the EU. Both the ACP states and Portugal are worried that Mugabe could refuse to allow a fact-finding mission into the country on the EU's terms, further spoiling relations and ultimately sabotaging the Lisbon summit. The European Socialists have already set terms demanding that Mugabe should relax his sanctions regime and allow banned British MEPs like Glenys Kinnock into the country as part of the mission to investigate the abuse of human rights in Zimbabwe. The EU slapped Mugabe and his associates with smart sanctions last year following failure to combat lawlessness in the run-up to the March presidential election. Since then, relations have continued to deteriorate with the EU accusing Mugabe of fomenting famine and steering terror campaigns in the hinterland to emasculate the opposition's support base.
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From The Independent on Sunday (UK), 5 January
Hain calls for English cricket to boycott Zimbabwe in favour of South Africa
By Andy McSmith and Basildon Peta
Peter Hain, the cabinet minister who rose to fame by campaigning against sporting links with South Africa, has urged international cricket authorities not to stage matches in Zimbabwe during this year's World Cup, in protest against the country's human rights record. But Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, stung by criticism from London and Canberra, and convinced that Britain wants to kill him, had to be dissuaded by his ministers from retaliating by banning English and Australian teams from Zimbabwe, The Independent on Sunday has learnt. This would probably have been greeted with relief by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as a way out of the impasse. Mr Mugabe's ministers allayed his fears that MI6 would infiltrate agents with the England team by promising a huge increase in security. At least three members of Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation would be assigned to each player and official from England and Australia, with orders to report on their movements and their meetings with local people. Measures including bugging hotel rooms and searching baggage were also discussed. But in an article for today's Independent on Sunday, Mr Hain argues that the ICC should move the six one-day matches to South Africa, one of the co-hosts of the tournament. If they go ahead in Zimbabwe, the England team should unilaterally refuse to play there, he says. "If other governments will not back our own Government's stand, then it is still important for English cricket to show some moral backbone," Mr Hain writes. "What about Zimbabwean youngsters unable to play because they haven't been fed?" Zimbabwe is likely to justify oppressive security measures by pointing to threats of demonstrations, an issue raised by Mr Hain, who asks: "What if ordinary Zimbabweans protest against the matches and are clubbed away mercilessly, maybe to death? If international cricket doesn't care about this, then what are its values?".
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From The Independent on Sunday (UK), 5 January
England should not play into the hands of Mugabe's odious regime
Hit Zimbabwe hard by transferring all its World Cup games to South Africa
Peter Hain
It's hard not to sympathise when England's cricket captain, Nasser Hussain, pleads for others to take moral decisions for him over staging some of the World Cup matches in Zimbabwe, though the idea that this crisis has come out of the blue is risible: everyone has known for months, from their television screens, of the violence and mayhem that the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, has wreaked on his people. But listening to the views of cricketers and their officials reminds me of the 1960-70 era. Then, they just wanted to play South African teams, regardless of the fact that blacks were denied by apartheid laws from doing so, that sport was a weapon of white South African tyranny, and that our sports boycotts of that era delivered what Nelson Mandela later confirmed was a mortal blow to apartheid. Although the cricketers' scheduled visit to Zimbabwe raises different issues from apartheid in sport because cricket there is multi-racial the common principle is that sports people cannot divorce themselves from life and the moral decisions of life. What made apartheid South Africa unique was that all sport from school to club to provincial to national level was organised on racist lines. From the bottom to the top of all sports, blacks and whites could not be members of the same team. Politics in the old South Africa infected the very organisation and spirit of sport as no other tyranny, whether communist or fascist, had done then, or has done since. At the time, other tyrannies from military regimes in Pakistan to fascist juntas in Latin America, Spain or Portugal, to Stalinism in Russia were abhorrent. But their nasty politics rarely, if ever, infected their sport. If South African-type boycotts and protests had been applied to every country deemed to have strayed from democracy and freedom, international sport would have ground to a halt.
Equally, let us be clear, sport has always been mixed up with politics. For example, in his rapprochement with China in 1971 President Nixon used "ping-pong diplomacy". In 1973 the French cancelled a sports tour to Australia after protests about French nuclear tests in the Pacific. And so on. Additionally, there were moments when to proceed with a prestigious sporting event was to endorse tyranny. That was true of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, which Hitler milked mercilessly. It was the case, too, with the Moscow Olympics in 1980 following the invasion of Afghanistan (which I argued unsuccessfully that time should be boycotted). As arrangements in Harare and Bulawayo have confirmed, Mugabe wants to exploit the cricket World Cup to project an image of normality: as if the civilised ambience of the village green its peaceful decency, its multi-racial tolerance applies in Zimbabwe today. But, of course, it doesn't. Zimbabweans who don't support Mugabe are deliberately deprived of food aid: in all, seven million people half the population are estimated to be starving. Opposition supporters are violently attacked and sometimes killed. Elections are rigged. The country is being devastated by a man interested in one thing only: his personal enrichment and absolute power. The shameless way he and his élite have destroyed the economy, driven away investment, pushed inflation up to 150 per cent, eliminated the rule of law and transformed an African success story into a crying failure is nothing short of criminal. When Mrs Mugabe helped herself to a farm recently she followed others in the ruling élite who had not only driven a white farmer off the land but 100 or more skilled black workers too. And even worse, these captured farms have become derelict: instead of being the "breadbasket" of southern Africa, Zimbabwe is now dependent upon imported food and aid.
I wonder whether Mugabe and his henchmen ever recall the spirit of the freedom struggle that they so bravely waged, with the active support of many in the West. It was both a struggle against white oppression and a fight for freedom, democracy and non-racialism: the very same values that they are so ruthlessly destroying today. It is important for British opinion to be absolutely consistent. Black tyranny is no better than white tyranny. It is tragic that Mugabe is no better than the leader of white Rhodesia, Ian Smith, who locked him up, and whose security services bred exactly the kind of terror inflicted on Morgan Tsvangirai and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change today. But consistency also requires acknowledging hypocrisy. What a comfort it is to see Conservative politicians and right-wing newspapers fearlessly leading the charge against Mugabe. But where were they in the fight against apartheid? They were backing sports tours to the hilt. They were fraternising with white South Africa's rulers and betraying Nelson Mandela and the rest of us involved in the anti-apartheid struggle. No wonder the black and brown cricketing nations have greeted the white attack on Mugabe with some sourness.
But they, too, have some questions of consistency to answer. I know Commonwealth leaders detest Mugabe's atrocities. I know African leaders are appalled by what he has done to Africa's name, and the way he has shaken international investor confidence. I know because they and their colleagues have told me so. But what are they actually doing about Mugabe? What are they doing to help oppressed Zimbabweans? As the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have made clear, an African solution is needed to this desperate problem one that would immediately attract support from donor countries such as ours. The truth is that this World Cup is not really about the anguish of English, or now Australian, cricketers. It is about the credibility of the International Cricket Council and the Commonwealth white, brown and black member countries all together. As the Zimbabwean opposition is pleading, the ICC should act to transfer every game to be played in that country to South Africa, which is a beacon of multi-racialism, tolerance and democracy, just as Zimbabwe is a beacon of the very opposite.
If Mugabe gets his way and the event proceeds, England should not go. But if their international sister organisations will not stand up for morality against oppression, if other governments will not back our own government's stand, then it is still important for English cricket to show some moral backbone. What about those Zimbabwean youngsters unable to play because they haven't been fed? What will the English team do if British sports journalists are blocked from covering not just the overs and the runs, but the context too? What will they do if ordinary Zimbabweans protest against the matches as they well might and are clubbed away mercilessly, maybe to death? The temperature on the streets in Zimbabwe is rising. Starvation and desperation is widespread. It could well erupt around the World Cup as people demand food and freedom. If international cricket doesn't care about this then what are its values? What does it really stand for except the right to bat on regardless? The odious Mugabe regime would gain an enormous propaganda victory if the World Cup went ahead. Which is why it shouldn't.
Peter Hain, Secretary of State for Wales, was minister for Africa, and before that a leading anti-apartheid campaigner
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From News24 (SA), 6 January
Aussie tourist killed in Zim
Harare - An Australian visitor has been stabbed to death at the Zimbabwean resort of Victoria Falls, an incident likely to further shake the country's ailing tourist industry. Australia's high Commissioner to Zimbabwe, Jonathan Brown, said the tourist's body was found on Saturday and the motive appeared to have been robbery. He could not reveal the man's name as his next-of-kin had not been notified. Diplomats from the mission would fly to Victoria Falls on Monday to consult local police, he said. Chief Superintendent Alexio Paradzai, a senior officer commanding police at Victoria Falls, said the tourist was repeatedly and fatally stabbed "as he stepped out of the Rain Forest", a fenced and closely guarded area with spectacular views of the two-kilometre wide waterfall. Paradzai said no arrests had yet been made. He said two cameras were found by the body. Residents said since the murder was discovered, police paramilitaries had been conducting an aggressive campaign to check identities in a search for vagrants, who are the prime suspects. In the past three years of political unrest linked to President Robert Mugabe's self-declared "civil war" against white farmers, Zimbabwe's tourist industry has suffered near-collapse, with bed occupancy rates at Victoria Falls, once a world centre for visitors, falling as low as four percent.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 6 January
Zimbabwe food riots 'caused by war veterans'
By Tim Butcher in Johannesburg
Robert Mugabe's shock troops, the so-called war veterans, were responsible for Zimbabwe's first food riots, it emerged yesterday. The news that the notoriously volatile veterans have engaged in anti-regime violence is a blow to Mr Mugabe, who has used them to lead state-sponsored terror attacks against white-owned farms. The campaign is blamed for reducing the country to starvation. A breach between the government and the thuggish "veterans" has been in the offing since their leader, Chenjerai "Hitler" Hunzvi, died of a suspected Aids-related condition 18 months ago. He was charged by the regime with ensuring that the groups behaved themselves. The riot in Bulawayo, the country's second city, began on Saturday when Jabulani Sibanda, the provincial chairman of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF whipped up his supporters to march on the Grain Marketing Board to complain at the way grain was being allocated only to chosen millers. Reports said Mr Sibanda has been angered that he was left out of the highly profitable food distribution loop by Mr Mugabe. Riot police used tear gas to disperse a crowd estimated to be 4,000 strong. Significantly, the demonstrators were not linked to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which has massive support in the city.
"What happened was a simple, spontaneous protest by the residents," Mr Sibanda was quoted as saying in the local state-run newspaper. "Maize is there but it is not reaching the intended consumers. It is being used by 'big fish' to spin money." Millers with the right political connections can turn an enormous profit on flour, which can now be sold for a price 12 times greater than this time last year. At a Zanu PF ruling party conference in December delegates, including Mr Sibanda, urged Mr Mugabe to ensure transparency in food distribution, accusing a handful of corrupt officials of making enormous profits. But popular anger is also growing as food becomes scarce. The Bulawayo riots gave graphic proof of just how bad the food situation in Zimbabwe has become in spite of regular denials by the Mugabe regime, which blames the international media for exaggerating the issue. "There is just no food here, nothing in the shops, nothing in the black market, nothing," a Bulawayo resident said yesterday. The number of people in Zimbabwe estimated to be suffering from food shortages is eight million out of a total population of 14 million.
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From The Sunday Independent (SA), 5 January
Mugabe's bizarre cricket threat blocked
By Basildon Peta and Caroline Hooper-Box
In a bizarre twist to the cricket World Cup row involving Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe's cabinet this week talked him out of forbidding the English and Australian cricket teams from entering Zimbabwe. But in return for backing down and to quell his security fears that the arrival of multitudes of British and Australian cricketers, officials and fans would provide cover for British MI6 agents to unleash its operatives to carry out a plan to kill him, elaborate security measures have been agreed. Authoritative Zimbabwe government sources said while debate raged on in England and Australia about whether the two countries' cricket teams should play in Zimbabwe, Mugabe himself also wanted the teams barred from his country. If Mugabe's view had carried it would have relieved those in England and Australia of a difficult decision amid mounting political pressure not to play in Harare and Bulawayo. The sources said Mugabe strongly believed that British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other "western detractors" were working with the opposition on a plot to kill him after their hopes that he would lose the March presidential election were dashed. Mugabe, who has already banned Blair, Don McKinnon, the Commonwealth secretary-general, and all British government officials from his country, had told his cabinet that he did not want the English or the Australian team in Zimbabwe. But, sources said, in a series of meetings before Mugabe went on leave on Friday, the view of virtually all his ministers prevailed that the players and officials must be admitted. The cabinet agreed the visitors would be subjected to stringent but surreptitious security measures, ranging from having their accommodation and telephone lines bugged to monitoring their movements. It is understood that Mugabe's spy agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation, will be deployed in this role. At least three agents will be assigned to each British and Australian cricketer or official. The plan is that they will track the visitors, and watch meetings with people in Zimbabwe, especially with opposition representatives.
Mugabe apparently also wanted the England and Australian teams to play their matches in Bulawayo, away from the Harare cricket grounds across the road from his official residence. Sources said his desire to keep the teams out of Harare had not been pursued with cricket authorities in Zimbabwe. Apart from the security fears, sources said, Mugabe also thought that prohibiting the cricket teams would be in retaliation for the sanctions imposed on him and his officials by the European Union, Australia, Britain and United States. But his ministers felt that hosting the World Cup matches would be a major diplomatic coup for Zimbabwe, particularly after Blair and John Howard, the Australian premier, had made public their views on the matter. Both have urged their countries' teams not to play in Zimbabwe. The hosting of the matches would also showcase Zimbabwe to the world as a normal country, the ministers argued. Reporters accredited to cover the matches would be ordered to focus on the cricket matches only. "The fact is that Mugabe would rather not have these people here... he doesn't care if they don't come," said one official. "He thinks that after humiliating Blair at the Earth summit and after the failure of the West to remove him from power, the focus is now on killing him. He thinks British intelligence are working full-time on that." In another development, Peter Hain, Britain's secretary for Wales, and a former minister who was a powerful force in the sports boycott of apartheid South Africa, has argued for English cricket to "show some moral backbone" by pulling out. "The odious Robert Mugabe regime would gain an enormous propaganda victory if the World Cup went ahead there," Hain said, "which is why it shouldn't." "Listening to the views of cricketers and their officials reminds me of the 1960-70 era. They just wanted to play South African teams, regardless of the fact that blacks were denied by apartheid laws from doing so, that sport was a weapon of white South African tyranny, and that our sports boycotts of that era delivered what Nelson Mandela later confirmed was a mortal blow to apartheid. Although the Zimbabwe cricket visit raises different issues from apartheid in sport - because cricket there is multiracial - the common principle is that sports people cannot divorce themselves from life and the moral decisions of life."
Ngconde Balfour, the minister of sport, this week urged all the countries participating in the World Cup to support the International Cricket Council's (ICC) decision to play the six scheduled matches in Zimbabwe. This position was "in line with government policy," said Graham Abrahams, a spokesperson for the minister. "We don't determine those matches. All we are saying is that we need to abide by the decision of the ICC on this. There are major implications if the decision is not to play in Zimbabwe, for relations between South Africa and the rest of Africa, Pakistan and so on. Thirty-eight days down the road [until the matches start] is late for any person to think of switching position. Nobody is calling for a sports boycott against Zimbabwe - they are quite content to play against Zimbabwe in South Africa." "As the Zimbabwe captain said, 'there are double standards against us'," Abrahams said. "Our experience visiting Zimbabwe is that the team is essentially white, but the spectators are black. So are we saying hundreds of thousands of kids are starving and oppressed, but that we are taking away the little entertainment as well?"
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 5 January
Beaten up for jeering at Mugabe
By our own staff
Soldiers of the Presidential Guard recently assaulted motorists awaiting petrol at a service station for allegedly uttering words at the president as his motorcade drove by. The soldiers who were part of Mugabe's motorcade are said to have returned to the scene a few minutes after the presidential entourage had passed and to have begun beating up people indiscriminately. Our reporter, who was innocently strolling along the corner of Leopold Takawira and Samora Machel Avenue, narrowly escaped the assault by fleeing after a face to face encounter with an army officer who accused him of being one of the commuter omnibus drivers who had jeered at Mugabe. As he fled, he heard the soldier shout menacingly: "You! Come over here. You are one of the mischievous Kombi drivers - We are going to teach you a lesson!" The motorists, and some unfortunate pedestrians who were walking past, were assaulted by the soldiers who were brandishing AK 47 riffles. It is now an offence to make any kind of gesture at Mugabe's motorcade. An attendant at the service station who refused to be named said: "Frustrated motorists waved at Mugabe's motorcade while it was passing by and hollered at him to intervene in the fuel crisis. It was a genuine plea to the leader by a troubled people. Barely 15 minutes later, an army jeep returned packed with soldiers armed to the teeth who closed up the roads and indiscriminately beat up people around the service station before arresting some of them and taking them to the central police station." Neither the police nor the army could be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, what should have been a day of merry making during the festive season, turned sour for Kuwadzana residents when they were beaten up by members of the Zimbabwe National Army. At around 10pm, about 18 soldiers stormed the The College night club in Kuwadzana 2, ordered the owners to switch off the disco, and close down business and then proceeded to the Vision Sports Bar. There, they beat up the patrons, ordered them to sleep on the floor on their stomachs and then proceeded to trample all over them, instructing them about whom to vote for in the forthcoming Kuwadzana by-election. One patron was ordered to sing the Chave Chimurenga song which accompanies the land reform adverts on both radio and television. When he failed to do it properly, he was thoroughly beaten up. From the Vision Sports Bar, they continued around the suburb, beating up people whom they passed. This was not the first time that soldiers have terrorised residents of this area. The latest incident is being viewed as another attempt by Zanu PF to intimidate the people into voting for the party at the expense of the opposition MDC in a parliamentary by-election whose dates are still to be announced. Most of those who were victims of the brutality, however, told The Standard that they would not be intimidated by these acts of brutality from the soldiers and would vote for whomever they wished. "We won't be intimidated. We will vote for the person we want," said one of the victims who refused to be identified for fear the soldiers would return for more violence ahead of the elections. The Movement For Democratic Change has already named Nelson Chamisa as its candidate for the Kuwadzana constituency. Zanu PF, though, is still to name its candidate.
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From The Daily News (Botswana), 6 January
Zim crisis: Windfall for North East
The Zimbabwe fuel crisis turned into a windfall for the fuel dealers in the North East District when Zimbabwean motorists crossed into Botswana to buy large quantities of petrol and diesel during the festive season. The Ramokgwebana Border post handled long queues of motorists who came not only to fill their vehicles but buy extra fuel in containers of 20 litres to take back home. The busiest fuel retailer was the Blue Bells Service Station a few metres from the border post. Blue Bells Service Station manager Gloria Ntoni told BOPA that she was happy with the way her business was benefiting from the Zimbabwe crisis. She said Zimbabwean motorists had been buying selling thousands of litres of petrol and diesel daily since the middle of December. One Zimbabwean businessman, Girry Marriott, said he had no choice but to buy 1 000 litres because there was no fuel in his country. He said Zimbabwean custom officials charge them Zim$600 per 20 litres of petrol.
Ntoni said they order about 46 000 litres of petrol and 23 000 litres of diesel from the Engen depot daily. The retail price for petrol and diesel is P2. 33 and P2. 15 per litre respectively. According to Ntoni, her service station handles up to 500 motorists daily and the influx of Zimbabwean motorists sometimes forced them to work longer hours. Another fuel retail dealer, Ndoni Mahube who sells petrol from Caltex tanks at her shop premises in Ramokgwebana said she was unable to meet the demand of motorists. Her supply is only 9 000 litres and sometimes they run out of supply in the middle of a high demand. She said most of the customers buy in large containers "and the business is very good but the only problem is the demand is too high". Motorists using unleaded petrol had to travel to Tshesebe as those near the border do not sell this type.
Some Batswana arriving from holidays in Zimbabwe said they were not allowed to buy large quantity of petrol in Zimbabwe because of the shortage. They also mentioned shortage of public transport, which had resulted in bus operators increasing their fares. One Zimbabwean, who stays in South Africa and was visiting relatives in Zimbabwe, Lucy Ndlovu described the situation in Zimbabwe as bad because of shortage of basic commodities like food and fuel. A senior customs officer at Ramokgwebana Phillip Maswe said the festive season was a very busy period for them because vehicular traffic increased as motorists crossed into Botswana to buy fuel. He said this worsened an already congested situation because the border was handling many travellers from either side of the border going to for holidays.
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Comment from ZWNEWS, 6 January
The New Year message Zimbabwe needs: Mugabe fools no-one
By Michael Hartnack
For the past three years Robert Mugabe's policies and their effects have been denounced again and again as "insane." Industry has been destroyed, millions of Zimbabweans forced to emigrate, and now the onset of famine is threatening some eight million lives. To Mugabe, feted by British governments during the first decade or so after independence in 1980 and now surviving courtesy of South African President Thabo Mbeki, the lambastings must all seem dreadfully unfair. But who was more deluded: Mugabe, or those who failed to realise there was never more than a promise, a distant hope, of the sort of fair tests of public opinion which happened in Zambia in 1991 and in Kenya last week when the long-ruling KANU party was thrown out, without violence and with a vote?
In 1980, the then Anglican Bishop of Mashonaland, Paul Burrough, was one of the few who warned that the installation of Mugabe was less than a diplomatic triumph. Zimbabweans had "accepted fraud rather than return to violence", he said. Since then, the nearest Zimbabwe got to democratic workings was in 1996 when a still independent judiciary upheld the right of an outspoken, independent former member of Parliament, Margaret Dongo, to her Harare South parliamentary seat. In other respects Zimbabwe was never substantially different from Swaziland, but with various stage-managed reinforcement rituals - bogus elections in place of Swaziland's Reed Dance and the First Fruits Ceremony. Does anyone ask why South African Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma fails to salute the Swazi royal family, as she recently did Mugabe's Zanu PF party as a "progressive force"?
And as long as there are suckers prepared to applaud the drivel Zanu PF Secretary for Administration Emmerson Mnangagwa gave Mbeki's African National Congress conference in Stellenbosch recently, attacking "the neo-liberal individualistic and predominantly capitalistic world view", the Zimbabwe regime will keep up the charade, no matter what the economic and human cost. It is significant Mnangagwa also bears the title Speaker of Parliament, using his powers to ensure Mugabe's rule is not seriously challenged from its benches by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Zimbabwe does not need what Mbeki calls "megaphone diplomacy". It simply needs the regime to have it made clear that the world, particularly Africa, is not fooled. The country advances into the New Year in frightful danger. Mugabe hangs on, his ambitious self-delusion reaching ever more gigantic proportions. The rational processes by which the workings of a state can normally be judged have been discredited and cast aside. All those who three years ago argued from clear economic fact "the situation cannot last another six months" have been proved wrong. Strikes, protests, petitions, have faltered in the face of individuals' daily struggle for survival.
The next phase may resemble what in currently happening in southern Malawi - where irrationality has spread to people who are incapable of articulating their misery, and denied democratic representatives who will do it for them. One man has been killed and three Catholic priests mobbed in a widening madness that vampires are sucking blood secretly from unconscious victims and giving it to aid agencies in exchange for food. Once a society gets to that state, it is too late to ask retired Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay to conduct an objective investigation and calm the public. The madhouse will have burst its doors. Mugabe was always the principal inmate. But also to blame are those, including past British governments and the ANC, who over long years claimed the madhouse was a temple of progressive modern democratic values.
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From BBC News, 6 January
Zimbabwe food riots spread
Four police officers have been injured in a dormitory town near Harare, when youths attacked people queuing for food on Sunday, police have said. In the second city of Bulawayo, there is tight security around the courthouse, where 39 people are appearing in connection with food riots on Friday, reports the French news agency, AFP. Up to six million people, half of the population, are suffering from food shortages according to aid agencies. Meanwhile, President Robert Mugabe has moved to tighten his control of the main cities, which are opposition strongholds, by announcing that he will appoint governors for both Harare and Bulawayo. Correspondents say that governors enjoy considerable power and they are likely to be used to sideline opposition mayors in both cities.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said that about 200 people were queuing up for mealie-meal, the scare staple food, when a group of youths attacked the police who were controlling the crowd. "In the process of controlling the crowd, some youths came and disrupted the queue resulting in four police officers being injured," Mr Bvudzijena told AFP. Opposition supporters have been prevented from receiving food aid and even from buying food in urban areas, says the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and donor agencies. But it is reported that activists from Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF party were behind the disturbances in both the town of Chitungwiza, 23km south of Harare, and Bulawayo. The privately owned Daily News reports that "Green Bombers", graduates of a government-run youth training scheme, were involved in the Chitungwiza riots. The police said they had not identified the culprits.
In Bulawayo, a group of "war veterans" was dispersed by riot police when they tried to protest outside the courthouse on Monday. State media have accused the "war veterans", who have been used to intimidate opposition supporters, of organising Friday's food riots. They were apparently unhappy at the unfair distribution of food. The state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation reported that residents had accused grain board officials of corruptly supplying maize to unscrupulous millers, who then sold it on at exorbitant prices. Zimbabwe's eight largely rural provinces already have governors, who also sit in parliament. Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo denied that the new governors would make the opposition mayors redundant and said they would coordinate development. Opposition parties point the finger of blame at Mr Mugabe and his government for the food shortages because of disruption caused by his controversial programme of land reform. The president says the cause of the crisis is a combination of a drought and a Western imperialistic plot aimed at keeping power in the hands of Zimbabwe's whites.
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From The Guardian (UK), 7 January
Mugabe loyalists to run opposition strongholds
Andrew Meldrum in Harare
Unelected governors will be installed to run two cities in Zimbabwe where anti-government protests have intensified in the past week, the government said yesterday. President Robert Mugabe was immediately accused of trying to usurp mayors from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo. The move was announced yesterday in the state-owned Herald newspaper, which quoted the local government minister, Ignatius Chombo. Mr Chombo denied that the new governors would take on the role of the mayors, but local observers disagreed. "The Mugabe government has already made it impossible for the two mayors to do their jobs properly and it is putting in place officials who will tell the mayors what to do," said John Makumbe, chairman of Transparency International Zimbabwe. "Mugabe and his party, Zanu PF, are control freaks and they are trying to take back any power or responsibility the opposition has won." Bulawayo and Harare have experienced food riots in the past week. People are unhappy with food shortages, inflation at 175% and unemployment at more than 60%. "The battle lines have been drawn," said Mr Makumbe, who is also a lecturer in political science at the University of Zimbabwe. However it was not clear when Mr Mugabe would appoint the new governors.
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From Ananova (UK), 6 January
'Honk against Mugabe' charges dropped
Prosecutors in Zimbabwe have dropped charges against two opposition leaders arrested for encouraging drivers to protest against Robert Mugabe by honking their horns. Movement for Democratic Change lawmaker Abednico Bhebhe and senior aide Ferdinand Dropper were arrested while putting up "Hoot, enough is enough" posters. Lawyer Nicholas Matonsi said prosecutors dropped the case when the pair were scheduled to appear in court in the western city of Bulawayo. Prosecutors reserved the right to summon the opposition leaders to court later, but Mr Matonsi said: "It is a way of conceding they don't have a case. I think it's the end of the matter." Bhebhe and Dropper were the first to start putting up the protest posters in Bulawayo. Police wanted the men to be charged under new security laws claiming their protest campaign could have endangered public safety by inciting violence and disorder. The charges carried a maximum sentence of five years in jail. In November, the government made it illegal to make offensive gestures at Mugabe's motorcade.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 7 January
Editor of Zimbabwe provincial newspaper jailed
The editor of a Zimbabwean provincial newspaper in the south of the country was arrested last week under the country's tough media laws, a regional media watchdog said on Monday. The Media Institute of Southern Africa (Misa) said in a statement that Norna Edwards, editor of the Mirror, a weekly paper published in the southern town of Masvingo, was arrested on Friday and released on Sunday. Edwards was arrested for a story that appeared in the paper on December 19, according to Misa. She will be charged for abusing journalistic privileges over a story on the arrest of four opposition activists for allegedly organising a work stoppage. "The paper chronicled the events surrounding the arrest of the four and their alleged ill-treatment by the police," said Misa. The section of the law under which Edwards is being charged states that if a journalist publishes falsehoods or fabricates information, this will be deemed abuse of journalistic privilege. The reporter who wrote the story, Kennedy Murwira, was reportedly still being hunted down by the police. At least a dozen journalists have been arrested since the new media law came into effect in March last year. Journalists in Zimbabwe will know this week if they are allowed to continue to practise their profession, when the government-appointed media commission is due to issue press permits.
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From The Guardian (UK), 7 January
Zimbabwe players oppose World Cup
Neil Manthorp in Cape Town
Four of Zimbabwe's most prominent cricketers are opposed to World Cup matches being played in their country and another five are too concerned about the consequences of venturing an opinion to comment. The Guardian asked Zimbabwe international players two questions: "Should 2003 World Cup matches be played in Zimbabwe?" and "Do you have any sympathy with the positions taken by the British and Australian governments on the issue?" Six matches in the tournament are scheduled to be played in Zimbabwe, including those of England and Australia against the hosts. The International Cricket Council has declared the country safe for players and officials but governments have asked their national cricket authorities to reconsider sending teams there in protest against Robert Mugabe's autocratic regime. "You've got more than six million people starving; there's no fuel - people were queuing at petrol stations on Christmas Day - and basic commodities have run out; half-a-million people are displaced," one player said. "It's a question of morality. I'm completely against World Cup games being played here." None of the respondents answered "no" to the second question. One replied: "I don't know what the governments have been saying," while only one ventured, "I'm just interested in my cricket." Five declined to comment on either question, even after being assured that the results of the survey would be published anonymously. Another said it was time for sport to take cognisance of the bigger picture. "I used to be one for keeping sport and politics separate but maybe it's time to take a stand," he said. "If the political side doesn't work -and it hasn't, with the government getting a slap on the wrist from the European Union - then sport should try and sort out the problems."
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