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Archived News
10th February 2004
Letter from the ZIC to Mark Davis
"The Battle for Zimbabwe" book launch in Sydney on the 17th February
Zimbabwe democratic leader left for dead
ZANU PF on rampage in Chipinge
Lupane MP Mpala Passes Away
MDC condemns police brutal attack of NCA demonstrators
No deal between MDC and Zanu PF
Worker killed at Charleswood
MDC boss casts doubt on Mbeki's poll pledge
SA journos get more stick
ANZ journalists will not be accredited: Mahoso
Mugabe retains combative ministers in reshuffle
Cabinet reshuffled
Black workers fight Mugabe land thugs
Chiefs removed from Gutu polling stations
EU diplomats temporarily barred from Zimbabwe polling booth: observers
MDC says voting rigged in Zanu PF stronghold
Police ban launch of MDC policy
IATA suspends Air Zimbabwe over debt
Telecomms restrictions null and void: judge
Mugabe seizes S African-owned company
Zimbabwe police arrest 100 to stop protest
By-election win for Mugabe's Zanu PF
Zim opposition MP dies after alleged torture
Econet survives 'bizarre Zimbabwe govt attack
Supreme Court to hear MIC application
With health system in tatters, Zimbabwe stands defenceless
Supreme Court rejects appeal against media law
Zimbabwe's only independent daily shuts
Zim demonstrators freed
Overcrowding leads to prison crisis
Moz trader shot at Zim border
Airzim secures outstanding IATA debt
Market awaits Mugabe exit
Chidyausiku upholds AIPPA
...Sandura disagrees
Chiyangwa faces fresh charges
Zim man in asylum ordeal
Bid to block Gweru Restart launch fails
Talk about talks
No word on Zimbabwe crisis
Death knell for Zimbabwe press
Chiyangwa not facing fresh charges: Moyo
Firmer Zimbabwe dollar seen undermining exporters
The plight of ex-commercial farm workers
Chiyangwa wants Herald editors charged with criminal defamation
Zimbabwe's troubled daily in court
Zimbabwe parties keen to talk
America wants SA to take activist role in Zim
A commonplace event
"Mission Impossible" as Gono heads for IMF
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From ZWNEWS, 10 February
Worker killed at Charleswood
Shemi Chimbarara, a farm worker at Charleswood Estate, the farm owned by opposition MP Roy Bennet, was murdered on Sunday by soldiers, the MDC said in a statement released yesterday. The opposition party said that at 7:00 pm on Sunday evening a group of 20 Zanu PF supporters arrived at the home of Amos Makaza, a security guard at the farm. Led by Chamunorwa Muusha, Charles Chigamba and an ex-police officer notorious in the area known as Nasho, the group began stoning Makaza's house, breaking the window panes. Other workers on Charleswood came to Makaza's aid and the Zanu PF supporters left, only to return later accompanied by soldiers who fired shots. Makaza's house and car were then set on fire. The Zanu PF supporters and soldiers then went to the workers' houses where Chimbarara was shot and killed. Another worker, John Kaitano, was shot in the leg and is recovering in hospital in Mutare. There has been escalating violence at Charleswood in recent weeks, in what is seen as yet another determined effort by the provincial authorities to remove Bennet from his farm and from Manicaland.
Last Friday, one teenage girl was raped, and two others were sexually molested. The three - Viola Ngwenya (18), Spiwe Chivhuro (15) and Melody (22) - were abducted by a group led by Muusha. They were taken to a war veteran's house where they were detained for the night. The girls say that Viola was raped twice by Muusha, watched by others in his group. The other two girls say they were abused by Nasho, and two other men, Kareyi and Mabumba. Another MDC MP from the area, Mathias Mlambo of Chipinge North, was forced to flee into the hills on Sunday night after being attacked by youth militia. Mlambo had been addressing a rally at Bingwa business centre in his constituency when a group of militia arrived in trucks belonging to ARDA, the DDF and Zesa, and began attacking the crowd.. Mlambo's vehicle was saved by his driver, who fled under a hail of stones thrown by the militia in the presence of police officers. The police had earlier tried to stop the rally, saying it had not been approved, even though permission to hold the meeting had been granted in writing. Mlambo returned from his overnight stay in the hills the next morning suffering from hyporthermia.
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From Business Day (SA), 10 February
MDC boss casts doubt on Mbeki's poll pledge
President again appears isolated in his optimism over Zimbabwe deal
Harare - Confusion has again engulfed assertions by President Thabo Mbeki on progress towards ending Zimbabwe's political crisis, with a senior opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader denying it has agreed to an early election. Mbeki said on television on Sunday that the MDC and Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF had agreed to bring the next election forward to March next year. His comments follow a recent insistence, also disputed by the parties involved, that Zimbabwe's protagonists were about to start formal negotiations to end the crisis. MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube said yesterday that while Mbeki's call for urgent dialogue between Zanu PF and the MDC was commendable, it was not true that the two parties had struck a deal on the issue of the election. "First, the timing of the parliamentary election has never been in dispute. What has always been the issue of dispute is the stolen presidential election of March 2002. The date of the parliamentary election has no bearing on the dispute," Ncube said. "Second, the only contact between the MDC and Zanu PF has been on talks about talks and not any substantial issues. Accordingly, it cannot be possibly true that there can be any agreement between the MDC and Zanu PF to bring forward the parliamentary election."
Ncube's comments carry weight as Mbeki has often made it clear he has much more regard for the MDC secretary-general than party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Mbeki was quoted as saying that Zimbabwe's main political parties had agreed on a draft agenda for formal talks to resolve the country's deep political and economic crisis. However, Ncube said Mbeki's call for interparty dialogue was encouraging. "We do nevertheless agree with President Mbeki on the urgent need for a process of formal dialogue to take place," he said. Charles Snyder, US acting assistant secretary of state for Africa, said after being briefed by senior South African foreign affairs officials that "the jury is still out" on whether Mbeki's "quiet diplomacy" on Zimbabwe would eventually pay off. The confusion over Mbeki's comments coincided with an illtempered parliamentary briefing by Foreign Minister Nkosazana DlaminiZuma, in Cape Town yesterday. After initially restricting questions to Mbeki's state of the nation address, Dlamini-Zuma denied that court rulings in Zimbabwe supporting media registration meant the government would control the media. When told it meant critical voices could be silenced, she said: "I am not here to question the constitutional court decisions of other countries. I am sure you would accept this if it happened in Britain."
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From News24 (SA), 10 February
SA journos get more stick
Jan-Jan Joubert
Cape Town - Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has, like her education colleague Kader Asmal, blasted South Africa's journalists. She lashed out during an informal session for journalists at those who questioned Zimbabwe's controversial new media laws. "Why so many questions on Zimbabwe? Would there have been any problem over this legislation if it had been another place? It is not about control over the media, but I am not here to explain their policy. If it had occurred in Britain, and the British Constitutional Court said the legislation was in order, you (the South African media) would have accepted it, just like you accept everything from there." Dlamini-Zuma added that South Africa had no plans to discuss the legislation with president Robert Mugabe's government. She said the legislation in terms of which journalists must be accredited by the Zimbabwean government before they can do their work, met constitutional requirements - according to the highest Zimbabwean Court. "We accept it. Should we not accept it? What is really the issue? Has any journalist been refused registration? Have reasons been given for that?" she asked. Dlamini-Zuma did not refer once in her summary of the government's foreign affairs policy of the past decade to Zimbabwe. She rather concentrated on other issues, such as the African Union. Asked about the latest information on the political negotiations in Zimbabwe, she replied: "I am not Zimbabwe's minister of foreign affairs. Mister Stan Mudenge is. Perhaps you should phone him sometimes," she said, referring the media back to a media conference in December when President Robert Mugabe indicated his party was having informal meetings with the opposition. "The Zimbabwean constitution is under discussion and leaders from both groups are involved. Formal negotiations will follow and the media will be informed when that happen." Dlamini-Zuma once again defended South-Africa's policy on Haiti and indicated that the debts of African countries, which borrowed money during the apartheid era from South Africa, would probably be waived.
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From The Herald, 10 February
ANZ journalists will not be accredited: Mahoso
Herald Reporter
Applications for accreditation by Daily News journalists would not be accepted under the banner of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe because the company is not registered, the Media and Information Commission said yesterday. In an interview, MIC chairman Dr Tafataona Mahoso said the suggestion by ANZ, publishers of The Daily News and Daily News on Sunday, that it was entitled to publish was misplaced. "As far as we are concerned The Daily News is not registered," said Dr Mahoso. Dr Mahoso confirmed that application forms by The Daily News reporters were submitted to the commission last week. He said the journalists were not banished from practising but their registration would only be accepted on condition that they find another employer or editors willing to buy their stories on a freelance basis. "We don’t banish the journalists because they were at The Daily News," Dr Mahoso said. He was reacting to suggestions by ANZ acting chief executive Mr Brian Mutsau that the newspaper group was not stopped from publishing. Mr Mutsau told The Herald last Friday that according to the Administrative Court judgment of October 24 last year, ANZ was entitled to publish. He said this after The Daily News stopped publishing following the resolution by its reporters not to work until they got accreditation from the MIC. Dr Mahoso said if the ANZ was registered, there was no need for the newspaper group to file a petition at the Supreme Court asking whether it had complied with the law. "If they were registered they would not have gone to the Supreme Court. It means there is doubt about their status," he said. "I don’t believe Mutsau believes his paper is properly registered." Journalists at The Daily News last week resolved not to work until they got accreditation from the MIC after the Supreme Court ruled that it was a criminal offence for journalists to practise without accreditation from the regulatory body. Ruling on a constitutional challenge by the IJAZ against compulsory registration of journalists under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, the Supreme Court upheld that it was constitutional for the Government to make it compulsory for all journalists to get accreditation from the MIC. Last year The Daily News refused to register with MIC and challenged the Act in court arguing that it was unconstitutional.
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From SABC News, 10 February
Mugabe retains combative ministers in reshuffle
Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, yesterday dropped a couple of political associates from his government in a cabinet reshuffle, but retained a group of combative ministers spearheading some controversial policies. Government critics accuse Mugabe of plunging one of Africa's potentially richest countries into political and economic crisis through policies that include the seizure of hundreds of white-owned farms for landless blacks. In a long-awaited reshuffle announced on state radio Mugabe axed Edward Chindori-Chininga, the mines minister, and replaced Herbert Murerwa, the finance minister, with Chris Kuruneri, the deputy. However, the Zimbabwean leader retained his ministerial team - which he called "the war cabinet" a year ago - largely intact, including the combative trio of Joseph Made, the agriculture minister, Jonathan Moyo, the information minister, and Patrick Chinamasa the justice minister. Made has led the government farm seizures, but in the reshuffle Mugabe appointed John Nkomo, the veteran politician, as special affairs minister in charge of lands, land reform and resettlement. Moyo has spearheaded Mugabe's propaganda campaign and a crackdown on the private media while critics accuse Chinamasa of purging the judiciary of those regarded as government opponents. In a reshuffle coinciding with a government drive against corruption in the public and private sector, Mugabe appointed Didymus Mutasa, the former parliament speaker, as special minister in charge of anti-corruption and anti-monopolies programme. Mugabe has vowed to act firmly against rising corruption, which political analysts say has fuelled anger against his rule in the face of a deep economic crisis many critics blame on government mismanagement. Political analysts say Mugabe may have decided to crack down on corruption, within his party and elsewhere, to boost his ruling Zanu PF party's chances in a parliamentary election next year. Mugabe, Zimbabwe's sole ruler since the southern African country gained independence from Britain in 1980, says land seizures aim to correct colonial imbalances, which left 70% of the best farmland in the hands of minority whites. Aid agencies say farming disruption caused by the seizures is partly to blame for food shortages that have left about five million people in need of food aid over the last three years. However, Mugabe, who turns 80 on February 21, says the food shortages are due to drought, and he accuses Western and domestic opponents opposed to his land seizures of sabotaging Zimbabwe's economy.
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From The Herald, 10 February
Cabinet reshuffled
Herald Reporter
President Mugabe has reshuffled Cabinet, resulting in new changes in various ministries and Government departments, with one minister losing his job. The President has also appointed new governors for Harare and Bulawayo. Former Cabinet minister and Makoni North legislator Cde Didymus Mutasa bounces back as Minister of Special Affairs in the President’s Office in charge of the Anti-Corruption and Anti-Monopolies Programme. Cde John Nkomo retains his post as Minister of Special Affairs responsible for Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement. Former Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Cde Chris Kuruneri becomes Minister of Finance while Marondera West MP retired Brigadier Ambrose Mutinhiri takes over from Cde Elliot Manyika as Minister of Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation. Cde Manyika becomes Minister Without Portfolio. Cde Herbert Murerwa returns to his former post as Minister of Higher and Tertiary Education, which was left vacant after the death of Cde Swithun Mombeshora. Cde July Moyo is the new Minister of Energy and Power Development. Cde Moyo takes over from Cde Amos Midzi who has been appointed Minister of Mines and Mining Development, taking over from Cde Edward Chindori-Chininga who is no longer a Cabinet minister. Cde Paul Mangwana was appointed Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. Cde Chris Mushowe was promoted to Minister of Transport and Communications. He was previously deputy to Cde Witness Mangwende who has been appointed governor for Harare Province. Current Zimbabwe ambassador to Zambia, Cde Cain Mathema, was appointed governor for Bulawayo.
Two new Ministers of State have been appointed. These are Cde Webster Shamu, who was appointed Minister of State for Policy Implementation and Cde Josiah Tungamirai, who is the Minister of State for Indigenisation and Empowerment. Three deputy Ministers have also been appointed. These are Cde David Chapfika (Finance), Cde Shadreck Chipanga (Home Affairs), and Cde Andrew Langa (Transport and Communications). There were no changes in the ministries of Defence (Cde Sydney Sekeramayi), Foreign Affairs (Cde Stan Mudenge), Home Affairs (Cde Kembo Mohadi), Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs (Cde Patrick Chinamasa), renamed Agriculture and Rural Resettlement (Cde Joseph Made), Education, Sport and Culture (Cde Aeneas Chigwedere), Industry and International Trade (Cde Samuel Mumbengegwi), Health and Child Welfare (Cde David Parirenyatwa), Local Government, Public Works and National Housing (Cde Ignatius Chombo), Environment and Tourism (Cde Francis Nhema), the renamed Water Resources and Infrastructural Development (Cde Joyce Mujuru), and Small and Medium Enterprises (Cde Sithembiso Nyoni).
Cde Nicholas Goche (State Security), Professor Jonathan Moyo (Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet), Cde Olivia Muchena (Science and Technology), Cde Flora Bhuka (Vice President’s Office), have all retained their posts as Ministers of State. Messrs Abednico Ncube (Foreign Affairs), Isaiah Shumba (Education, Sport and Culture), Shuvai Mahofa (Youth Development, Gender and Employment Creation), Reuben Marumahoko (Energy and Power Development), Kenneth Mutiwekuziva (Small and Medium Enterprises Development) and Chief Fortune Charumbira (Local Government, Public Works and National Housing) have also retained their posts. Also retaining their posts were provincial governors Cdes Ephraim Masawi (Mashonaland Central), Nelson Samkange (Mashonaland West), David Karimanzira (Mashonaland East), Angeline Masuku (Matabeleland South), Obert Mpofu (Matabeleland North), Josiah Hungwe (Masvingo), Mike Nyambuya (Manicaland) and Cephas Msipa (Midlands).
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From The Daily Telegraph, 10 February
Black workers fight Mugabe land thugs
Zimbabwe's farm seizures have met their first resistance at a firm supplying British supermarkets
Odzi - Thousands of Zimbabweans who grow vegetables for British supermarkets are fighting attempts by a cabinet minister to confiscate the land they work on. The rebellion by 6,000 black workers is the first in nearly four years of state-sponsored terror on the country's white-owned farms. Kondozi's 1,500 profitable acres provide huge quantities of runner beans, mange tout and red peppers for stores including Safeway, Sainsbury's and Tesco. But the minister for agriculture, Joseph Made, wants the business for himself. A few weeks ago, he arrived at the farm with colleagues and ordered out the workers and the white owners. A fortnight later, scores of ruling Zanu PF party loyalists were sent in but around 200 women workers fought back with broken tiles, stones and broken bricks. Shots were fired, apparently by pro-government thugs, but they were forced to flee. Mr Made was not available for comment. Many of the workers are themselves farm invaders who have arrived during the past four years. The owners, the de Klerk family, reached an accommodation and taught them to cultivate crops as registered "outgrowers". With the de Klerks running the export business, Kondozi has since prospered and expanded while murderous raids on Zimbabwe's largely white commercial farming sector continued elsewhere. One worker, who led the first squatters on to white farms four years ago and was a teenage guerrilla during the Rhodesian war, pointed to the horizon where the government's Agricultural Rural Development Authority, ARDA, owns more than 50,000 acres. "Look there, nothing is growing on ARDA land. They couldn't even pay their workers at Christmas." For his own safety, he cannot be named. "We needed land reform. OK? OK, you hear? But now it is gone too far by politicians. We don't want Joseph Made or the local MP to come here."
Chris Mushowe, the local MP and deputy transport minister, has seized one of the homesteads on the estate, after Jacobus de Klerk and his family were beaten up, barricaded for four days inside their house and finally violently evicted. Nothing of value grows on his land. The workers are now travelling widely in buses and trucks telling people to warn their chief that President Robert Mugabe and his cronies should "go away and let us work". Patricia Macharaga, 38, a mother of four, was part of a bean-picking team."We are going to see the chief," she said as they prepared to leave. "If the government takes this place, they will keep only 400 workers. We will have nothing. I have a job, a house, school for the children, food. I can't lose it." The de Klerk family share common ancestors with South Africa's last white president, F W de Klerk. The eldest son, Piet, whom Mr Mugabe has publicly threatened, has fled to Harare. The major shareholder in the de Klerks' vegetable export business for the past eight years is a black entrepreneur, Edwin Moyo, who has been labelled a "sell-out" by Mr Mugabe's clique. "They are just greedy, bloody greedy," Mr Moyo said of those seeking the remainder of Kondozi, which includes acres of pack sheds, store rooms, equipment and more than 120 tractors, refrigerated trucks and buses. Britain's major supermarkets made clear yesterday they would not buy produce from any farm that had been illegally seized in Zimbabwe, or anywhere else. Neither Safeway, Sainsbury's nor Tesco had been told of attempts to seize Kondozi but their spokesmen said they would not take its produce if there was an illegal change of ownership. Sainsbury's said it never bought goods from illegally seized farms. A spokesman for Tesco said: "If such a seizure were to happen we would switch sourcing to other places either in Zimbabwe or elsewhere."
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From The Daily News, 4 February
Chiefs removed from Gutu polling stations
Staff Reporter
Masvingo - Twenty-six thousand people had voted in the Gutu North parliamentary by-election by yesterday afternoon, but most polling stations were quiet as fewer people cast ballots on the second day of polling. There are 59 000 registered voters in the constituency, where Retired Air Marshal Josiah Tungamirai of the ruling Zanu PF is squaring off against Crispa Musoni of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to fill a seat left vacant by the death of Vice-President Simon Muzenda last September. Police maintained a heavy presence and removed all traditional leaders who had camped outside polling stations, allegedly on the instructions of the ruling party. When The Daily News visited Matizha polling station, police officers were in the process of removing chiefs and suspected Zanu PF supporters camped outside the station. No incidents of violence were reported yesterday.
At Mushayavanhu polling station, only a few elderly people could be seen waiting to cast their vote. The MDC Masvingo vice-provincial chairman, Shack y Makate, said despite reports of chiefs and headmen instructing their subjects to vote for the ruling party, polling was peaceful throughout the constituency. He said: "The situation is calm. We are happy that the police have removed traditional leaders." Reginald Matchaba-Hove, head of the Zimbabwe Election Support Support Network (ZESN), said traditional leaders had no role in the running of elections. "Equally worrying is the role of village heads in the election," said Matchaba-Hove in a statement yesterday. "At Gutu mission, ZESN supervisors had to advise the police to stop four headman from recording names of of voters. "At Matizha Primary School, Chief Serima wanted to organise people in queues by their villages, but the presiding officer stopped him. He also stopped the MDC from holding a meeting near the station. "The professionalism exhibited by the presiding officer is commendable." Results of the by-election are expected today.
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From EU Business, 3 February
EU diplomats temporarily barred from Zimbabwe polling booth: observers
European diplomats were temporarily denied entry to some polling stations in Zimbabwe during a parliamentary by-election to fill a seat left vacant after the death of its vice president Simon Muzenda, an EU official and a local election observer group said Tuesday. "EU diplomats were denied entry into some polling stations despite a letter from the constituency registrar saying they were allowed access," the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) chairman Reginald Matchaba-Hove told AFP. "This is as a result of lack of information between electoral bodies," Matchaba-Hove added. But EU officials in Harare later said the diplomats were allowed in after waiting for an hour at polling stations. "The problem of accessing some of the polling stations was a temporary setback where they had to wait for an hour before they were allowed in," said an offcial, who asked not to be named. The two-day by-elections in the centre-east constituency of Gutu North began on Monday. The poll is being contested by retired air marshal Josiah Tungamirai of the ruling Zanu PF party of President Robert Mugabe and Crispen Musona from the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Mugabe's arch-rival Morgan Tsvangirai.
Some 59,390 people are eligible to vote in the Gutu by-election, but only 17,104 had voted by the end of polling on Monday, according to the state-owned Herald. The paper said 1,451 people were turned away for either not possessing proper identity documents or because their names were missing from the voters' roll. The MDC has alleged electoral fraud, saying the ruling party had included about 7,000 people from other constituencies on the Gutu North voters' roll. In response to opposition allegations, registrar-general and government chief coordinator of elections Tobaiwa Mudede told AFP: "We cannot comment while the by-election is still in progress." The MDC holds 54 of the 150 seats in parliament. ZESN is a network of 38 non-governmental organisations which teamed up on the eve of the 2000 parliamentary elections. It focuses on voter education, election observation and monitoring, media monitoring and publicity and research and advocacy. 'We urge all Zimbabweans to emulate the peaceful conduct of (local) elections in view of the 2005 general elections," the ZESN said in a statement. Zimbabweans will go to the polls next year for five-yearly parliamentary elections.
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From IOL (SA), 3 February
MDC says voting rigged in Zanu PF stronghold
Harare - State radio said voter turnout was heavy in a parliamentary by-election in southern Zimbabwe where the opposition said balloting was marred by intimidation and vote rigging. The two-day poll ends on Tuesday in the ruling party stronghold of Gutu 240km south of Harare to fill the seat left vacant by the death of vice-president Simon Muzenda last September. State radio said 22 000 voters, about 37 percent of those registered in the district, cast their ballots on the first day. The heavy turnout was expected to favour the ruling party. However, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change said it was protesting irregularities in the voting. The opposition said at almost all the 55 polling stations tribal leaders loyal to the ruling party scrutinised voters and wrote down their names in what it called "a deliberate attempt to intimidate them." Opposition spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said teachers across the district, known as sympathetic to the opposition, were prevented from voting. Voters lists were tampered with and an opposition activist, Monica Mambanje, was seized and taken away in a truck from one polling station on Monday, he said. "We cannot accept the result of an election whose result is blatantly determined through intimidation and systematic rigging," Nyathi said. Police spokesperson Dimax Musonza there were no reports of violence during voting. Police have denied opposition allegations of intimidation by ruling party militants. Businessman Crispen Musoni is running for the opposition against Josiah Tungamirai, a retired military officer.
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From Business Day (SA), 4 February
Police ban launch of MDC policy
Harare Correspondent
Zimbabwean police have again banned the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from spreading the word on its proposed economic rescue plan, this time in the Midlands city of Gweru tomorrow. MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi said his party had been told by the officer commanding Gweru urban station a chief superintendent known only by the surname of Mbewe that the party was prohibited from unveiling its economic recovery plan because of a lack of adequate manpower to provide security. President Robert Mugabe's regime had banned the launch of the MDC economic policy Restart (Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery and Transformation) in Gweru tomorrow, Nyathi said. The MDC launched its revival policy in Harare last week, but not without a trip to the Harare High Court to have a ban on its meeting overturned. The court issued an eleventh hour rescue, which allowed that meeting to take place. The MDC said it would once again file a high court application seeking to overturn the unlawful ban on the unveiling of the plan. The MDC plans to unveil its Revival plan in Bulawayo on Friday. It was "a big shame" for the government that the MDC had to go to court every time it sought to outline its policies, Nyathi said. "It is a clear admission that Zanu PF is no match to the MDC programme, and now Mugabe through his partisan police force seeks to deny the people of Zimbabwe access to the economic blueprint." Nyathi said it was ironic for a government that often claimed the MDC had no policies to scramble to stop his party from launching its economic recovery plan. "Zimbabweans are no doubt wondering why Zanu PF seeks to stop the people knowing the contents of that programme." Meanwhile in Harare, state radio said voter turnout was heavy in a parliamentary by-election in southern Zimbabwe where the opposition said balloting was marred by intimidation and vote rigging. The two-day poll ended yesterday in the ruling party's stronghold of Gutu, 240km south of Harare to fill the seat left vacant by the death of former vice-president Simon Muzenda in September last year.
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From The Herald, 4 February
IATA suspends Air Zimbabwe over debt
Herald Reporter
The national airline, Air Zimbabwe, has been suspended by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) over a US$1,3 million debt. The suspension means the airline can no longer book its passengers on other airlines plying routes that it does not service. The IATA Clearing House is the internationally-recognised method through which airlines settle bills owed to each other. Air Zimbabwe said in a statement yesterday the debt owed to IATA stood at US$1,9 million as at January 27, but was yesterday reduced to US$1,3 million after a payment of US$600 000. The debt was already in arrears by 17 days. "Arising from this delay in payment, the IATA Clearing House invoked the right to suspend the airline from the clearing house with effect from the 2nd of February 2004," the airline said in a statement. "Concerted efforts to pay the remaining balance in the shortest possible time so as to regain membership of the clearing house are at an advanced stage." The airline blamed the shortage of foreign currency for failing to service the debt. It said it still remained an active member of IATA despite being suspended from the clearing house. "Over the past 12 months, Air Zimbabwe has been facing problems procuring foreign currency to meet its foreign currency denominated commitments," the airline said. "The airline expresses sincere apologies to inconveniences that this temporary suspension may occasion."
The airline advised passengers holding its tickets for travel to destinations it does not fly and intending to fly within the next seven days to contact its nearest sales offices. A turnaround strategy, the airline said, had been instituted for repositioning to meet challenges. The strategy was beginning to realise some positive impact. "The turnaround strategy will see Air Zimbabwe transforming itself into a commercially viable entity," the airline said. A parliamentary committee last year called for the amendment of the Air Zimbabwe Act to ensure the airline was granted an option to totally privatise. The Minister of Finance and Economic Development Dr Herbert Murerwa said in his budget statement last year the national airline should charge economic fares on all routes. This would ensure its viability, which is critical for its operations, the promotion of tourism and national pride. The Government was also looking for a strategic partner for the airline. Air Zimbabwe lost its competitive edge in the last few years and was battling to pay creditors who have to be paid in foreign currency. The airline has been battling against operational problems that have seen it losing a number of key personnel within the last few months.
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From The Daily News, 4 February
Telecomms restrictions null and void: judge
Staff Reporter
The High Court yesterday declared null and void provisions of the Postal and Telecommunications (International Telecommunications Services) Regulations, which sought to bar private telecommunications firms from operating international telecommunications services. The statutory instrument, which was gazetted last week, stipulated that public mobile phone network operator Tel One would, with effect from 31 January 2004, provide access to all international telecommunications services and provide interconnection capacity for all other public licensed telecommunications operators, including voice-over internet protocol. Econet, through its lawyers Kantor and Immerman, filed an urgent court application challenging the regulations, saying they were tantamount to reinstating the government’s monopoly over the telecommunications industry, which was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998. The company cited the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, the Minister of Transport and Communications and the government-controlled Tel One as the first, second and third respondents respectively.
Justice Yunus Omerjee yesterday pointed out that the regulations would effectively amend Econet’s licence, which gives the firm the right to control and operate a limited facility for the transmission and receipt of international cellular traffic originating and terminating in Econet’s network. He ordered that "the provisions of the Postal and Telecommunications (International Telecommunications Services) Regulations S.I. 18/04 are hereby declared null, void and of no effect to the applicant (Econet) in so far and to the extent that they purport to amend the applicant’s licence". Justice Omerjee added: "Counsel for all respondents were of the view that . . . the order to be given should be final in nature and not an interim or provisional order." He said the costs of the matter should be paid by the Ministry of Transport and Communications, which "on the concession by counsel caused the promulgation of the statutory instrument".
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From The Guardian, 3 February
Mugabe seizes S African-owned company
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Zimbabwe's land seizures have escalated with the government's confiscation of the country's largest sugar producer, Hippo Valley. The vast estate in the southeastern corner of the country annually produces 236,000 tonnes of sugar, estimated to be worth £41m. Hippo Valley covers nearly 70,000 hectares (170,000 acres) and employs 6,000 full-time workers and 4,000 seasonal workers. With the Triangle sugar estate it produces all of Zimbabwe's sugar and exports large amounts to neighbouring countries. Industrial plantations producing sugar, coffee, tea and timber had been exempt from President Robert Mugabe's seizures of white-owned farms, but an amendment to last month's land acquisition act relaxed requirements to allow the government to confiscate the huge developments. Mr Mugabe's government designated Hippo Valley for acquisition. South Africa's mining giant, Anglo-American Corporation, has the controlling share of Hippo Valley. "Hippo Valley estates have been designated and legal objections have been lodged with appropriate authorities," said a spokeswoman for Anglo-American in Johannesburg. "Hippo management is in discussion with the local lands committee officials."
A Zimbabwean economist who declined to be named said: "This deals a huge blow to the private ownership of these agri-businesses, not just in Zimbabwe but in all of Africa. This is more than the seizure of a farm, it is the seizure of a large industrial development." The South African president, Thabo Mbeki, now faces either standing up for the property rights of Anglo-American, South Africa's largest corporation, or remaining silent on Mr Mugabe's land seizures. "The success of President Mbeki's New Partnership for Africa's Development rests upon a predictable investment climate," said Iden Wetherell, the editor of the Zimbabwe Independent. "The arbitrary confiscation of productive sugar estates, the product of years and years of investment and hard work, completely sabotages that initiative and Mbeki should be the first to say so." Zimbabwe's sugar industry has developed since 1964, and Hippo Valley represents a vast investment to make the country self-sufficient in sugar. Its complex network of irrigation canals and the huge refinery plant are some of the biggest of their kind in Africa. There is speculation as to what the government intends to do with the estate. One business analyst said: "If the government is going to hand it over to the state's agricultural and rural development authority, then we know it will be a disaster. Everything it has taken over has failed."
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From Reuters AlertNet, 4 February
Zimbabwe police arrest 100 to stop protest
Harare - Zimbabwe police arrested more than 100 people on Wednesday during a crackdown on an anti-government protest, witnesses said. The leader of the protest, an outspoken critic of President Robert Mugabe, said he was assaulted and severely injured while leading the demonstration, which was illegal under Zimbabwe law. Zimbabwe's tough security laws bar political and civic organisations from holding meetings or demonstrations without police permission, but critics say the law is being used to suppress opposition against Mugabe's government in the face of a deep political and economic crisis. Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of political pressure group National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), said police had detained 116 people near a square in central Harare where the NCA was to hold a demonstration to press its demands for constitutional reforms. Madhuku said the NCA had no police permit for the demonstration.
Police spokesmen were not immediately available for comment, but witnesses at the scene said they saw police move in on the protesters and load a number of them into security vans. Madhuku said riot police had beat him with batons, kicked him all over his body, bundled him into a truck and later dumped him on the outskirts of Harare. "I suffered head and back injuries. I have lacerations all over my body, and they only dumped me after I had a gash in the head and was bleeding," he said. His injuries could not be independently confirmed. Madhuku said about 20 other people were assaulted, and one man had also suffered severe head and body injuries. Zimbabwe police can detain people for up to 48 hours before bringing them to court. Mugabe, Zimbabwe's ruler since the southern African country gained independence from Britain in 1980, denies he has ruined one of Africa's most promising economies with his controversial political and economic policies. The 79-year-old leader says Zimbabwe's economic crisis is a result of sabotage by Western and local opponents seeking to overthrow him mainly for seizing white-owned farms for black resettlement.
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From IOL (SA), 5 February
By-election win for Mugabe's Zanu PF
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF has retained the parliamentary constituency seat held by former vice president Simon Muzenda who died last year, state radio reported Wednesday. Retired air marshal Josiah Tungamirai of Zanu PF polled 20 699 votes against 7 291 for Crispa Musoni of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the two-day by-election which the opposition claimed was rigged. The MDC had alleged electoral fraud, saying the ruling party had included about 7 000 people from other constituencies on the Gutu North voters' roll. Some 59 390 people were eligible to vote in the Gutu by-election, but fewer than 30 000 had voted by the end of polling on Tuesday. The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), a coalition of 38 independent civic groupings, observed the polling and said voting was conducted in peace. It expressed concern, however, over vote-buying after a Zanu PF official was seen distributing the staple maize grain on the first day of polling, an "action which is tantamount to vote-buying". It also observed that a group of European Union and Norwegian diplomats were "temporarily delayed entry into a polling station". "Equally worrying", ZESN said, was the role of village heads who were seen taking down names of voters as they entered the poling stations. The MDC now holds 53 of the 150 seats in parliament, following the death on Tuesday of lawmaker David Mpala from alleged torture wounds.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 4 February
Zim opposition MP dies after alleged torture
Harare - A member of parliament from Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, David Mpala, has died from apparent torture wounds, his party announced on Wednesday. MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said the lawmaker from the western Lupane constituency died on Tuesday, aged 48, at a hospital in his home area. "A retired member of the police, Mpala's health deteriorated over the past year after being tortured and stabbed by Zanu PF supporters," said Nyathi in a statement. Nyathi alleged that, while campaigning for the Lupane parliamentary seat in April 2000, Mpala was abducted and severely beaten by a group of about 40 ruling Zanu PF supporters. In January 2002 he was abducted by another group of 20 alleged Zanu PF supporters from a shopping centre in Lupane and dragged to a bush where he was brutally assaulted and stabbed in the chest, back and stomach. "He never fully recovered from these injuries and his health deteriorated until his sad death yesterday," said Nyathi. "We mourn this hero of the struggle for peace and justice in Zimbabwe. His death will inspire us to fight harder to fulfil his dreams, as we know that the darkest hour comes before dawn," he said.
His death brings the number of MDC legislators who have died since the 2000 parliamentary elections to five. Some have died of natural illnesses, while one died of suspected poisoning while in police custody awaiting trial for the murder of his wife. Two other legislators have since resigned: Mike Auret on medical grounds and Tafadzwa Musekiwa who sought political asylum in Britain saying he feared for his life. Of the by-elections held so far, the MDC has won some and lost others, leaving it with 53 out of the 150 seats in parliament. The run-up to both the 2000 parliamentary elections and the 2002 presidential election were characterised by violence. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is legally challenging the presidential election victory by President Robert Mugabe, citing intimidation, violence and uneven electoral field.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 5 February
Econet survives 'bizarre Zimbabwe govt attack
Harare - Strive Masiyiwa, the founder of one of Africa's top communications operators, Econet, on Tuesday survived a bizarre attack by President Robert Mugabe's government to try to shut down his profitable Zimbabwean operation on the grounds that it was "subversive". At 6.46pm last Friday, when most staff at the corporation's headquarters in Harare had gone home, a fax machine there received a letter from the state-run telecommunications regulator announcing that Econet was to "cease to operate" at midnight, according to court documents obtained on Wednesday. In just more than five hours, said the fax, new regulations would force Econet, Zimbabwe's only independent mobile telephone operator with assets of Z$334-billion, to switch off its station that connects its 160 000 international business subscribers to the rest of the world through Intelsat, the United States-based satellite system. Rapid recourse to the courts stayed the unannounced blow. On Tuesday Judge Younis Omerjee, after an urgent hearing in his chambers, ruled that Jonathan Moyo, Mugabe's propaganda chief wearing his current hat of acting Minister of Transport and Communications, had ignored the legislation governing the telecommunications industry. He declared Moyo's regulations "null and void and of no effect".
It was the latest addition to the notorious record of the man who in the past four years has closed down all private radio stations; outlawed independent television; banned the Daily News, the country's only independent daily newspaper; ringed the country's independent media with some of the most repressive press laws in the world; ordered the arrest of journalists; and issued a relentless stream of invective against anyone who criticises him or his boss. Moyo's target, however, is no pushover. Masiyiwa had a three-year legal battle with the government that finally got him a licence for Econet to operate mobile telephones in Zimbabwe, and he went on to several other African countries to make the company one of the continent's most used mobile phone systems. When he first applied for a licence, he said, three top ruling-party bosses demanded a bribe of $750 000 and majority shares in the company. He told them to get lost. He began to attract the government's renewed attention in late 2002 when he bought the dominant shareholding in Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, which owns the Daily News. A warning sounded on Christmas Eve when the state press, directly under Moyo's control, claimed moves were under way to withdraw Econet's licence after an "investigation" indicated the company was using allegedly illegal foreign currency "to finance subversive activities to undermine the ruling Zanu [PF] government".
The regulations meant to close Econet last Friday night also made Tel One, the state-owned telephone operator, the sole legal provider of international telecommunications services. Econet receives an average 1,5-million minutes of international telephone calls a month, said Douglas Mboweni, chief executive officer of Econet (Zimbabwe), 70% of them from South Africa. Its current licence runs to 2012. In an affidavit to court he admitted that the fax "raised alarm", but he said he "did not seriously believe the government could do this". Moyo, he said, "cannot possible have thought out the very serious implications from the precipitate actions being taken". Tel One had no capacity to take over Econet's international traffic, he said. "As we speak, Tel One subscribers cannot call overseas cellphone numbers," he said. "Chaos would result. Subscribers ... will simply wake up to no service." The situation appears little different from 1995 when the Supreme Court abolished the state-owned telephone service's monopoly because it was so bad that it violated the right of freedom of speech. Econet's lawyers this week charged that the government was trying to "nationalise" Econet's property. Moyo's own lawyers agreed that there had been "no compliance" with telecommunications laws, Omerjee said. "The chronology of events since early 2000 demonstrated that the second respondent [Moyo] has always harboured a desire to close down the applicant's [Econet's] operations," said Mboweni. "The world, including most African countries, have moved away from monopolistic policies and they are adopting the ... system that gives consumers maximum access," he said. "There is no reason Zimbabwe should be dragged back to the dark ages."
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From The Daily News, 5 February
Supreme Court to hear MIC application
Staff Reporter
The Supreme Court will today hear an urgent application by the Media and Information Commission (MIC) which wants Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) to stop publishing pending finalisation of the appeals on 18 February. ANZ is the publisher of The Daily News and The Daily News On Sunday. The judgment that will be made today will determine the fate of the two papers, as it might result in them stopping publication until the case has been finalised. Gugulethu Moyo, the ANZ legal adviser, yesterday said she had been notified by the company lawyers Gill, Godlonton and Gerrans that the Supreme Court had set the hearing for today. "It is not clear whether or not the judgment will be passed after the hearing," said Moyo. On Tuesday, Mordecai Mahlangu, representing ANZ, said he had indicated to the Supreme Court that he wanted to make some arguments in the court before judgment on the interdict case is finalised. The MIC argues that ANZ should stop publishing until a consolidated appeal of judgments made last year by the Administrative Court and the High Court allowing ANZ to publish. The Supreme Court set 18 February as the date for the hearing of the consolidated appeal. Today’s hearing date was set a day after MIC’s lawyers Muzangaza, Mandaza and Tomana had asked the Supreme Court to make a ruling on the matter. In yesterday’s issue of The Herald, the MIC ‘s lawyers, Muzangaza, Mandaza and Tomana said the Supreme Court should have delivered judgment on the matter either on Monday or Tuesday this week.
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From The New York Times, 5 February
With health system in tatters, Zimbabwe stands defenceless
By Michael Wines
Binga - Three days after getting word that cholera was again killing villagers outside this district capital, Binga's political and medical leaders gathered at the town's disheveled hospital to take stock of their arsenal against a potential epidemic. It did not take long. They had no intravenous solution for rehydrating patients, a principal weapon against cholera. Water purification chemicals were in short supply. The generator was broken. Of the tents needed to isolate cholera cases, one was missing its tie-down ropes, the other was "in tatters," one man said. The doctors needed large amounts of salt, sugar, bleach, soap and candles; none were on hand. Of 330 gallons of gasoline sought, 44 were available - not that it mattered, as two of three cars were in the shop. The truck was, too. The needs might be even greater, as might the outbreak's toll - two reported deaths, seven more illnesses. But no one knew for sure: the two-way radio carried by the first doctors who drove to the scene was not working, either. Nor was the radio in the village's medical clinic.
Only a decade ago, Zimbabwe's public health system was, with South Africa's, head and shoulders above those of most of the 40-odd other nations of sub-Saharan Africa. But in a weeklong trip through eastern and central Zimbabwe, both to cities and to remote towns like Binga, it was apparent that health care - like the rest of Zimbabwe's economic and social fabric - is dissolving. Three years of economic free fall and inflation, now averaging 620 percent a year, have left Zimbabwe desperately short of even basic drugs and medical equipment, pushing a once robust network of hospitals and hundreds of rural clinics close to ruin. Experts say the decay portends potentially far more serious problems - outbreaks of diseases like cholera and anthrax that spread when preventive measures are poor, and deadly childhood epidemics like measles, which exist only when public health defenses are down. Zimbabwe's government does not discuss details of its public health problems, and Western journalists, derided as tools of the nation's critics, are officially barred from reporting here. With rare exceptions, local medical experts and others interviewed for this article spoke only on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, either against them or their organizations.
Nevertheless, the national medical association stated publicly in January that 4 in 10 doctors had already left Harare, and 6 in 10 had left Bulawayo, usually for Britain, Australia or neighboring African states like Botswana. By one United Nations-financed study, fewer than 900 doctors remain in a nation of 11.6 million people - one doctor for every 13,500 people. "Basically, the health care system is collapsing on itself right now," said one Harare medical professional with long experience in several parts of Zimbabwe. "There's an exodus of health care professionals from this country. And most of the rural health structures have been left under the supervision of nurses' aides who have nothing to treat patients with." The human toll of such breakdowns is difficult to measure precisely, but the anecdotal evidence is chilling. Nurses at Harare's Parirenyatwa public hospital, the city's biggest, say that since November there have been no H.I.V. test kits - in a nation where one in four people is H.I.V.-positive. Two physicians said in separate interviews recently that in the space of six months last year, half of Harare's kidney-dialysis patients died, all because the government did not spend its scarce foreign currency to buy catheters for blood-cleansing equipment. In Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second largest city, a shortage of sutures and other equipment has closed operating rooms and forced obstetricians to curtail Caesarean-section births. Some women have died in labor as a result, said one medical professional who often works in Bulawayo.
The public health system that remains here, experts say, persists on the astonishing dedication of those health workers who have stayed. Despite President Robert G. Mugabe's withering attacks on what he calls the racist West, it also depends even more on the kindness of Western strangers- many of them relentless critics of his authoritarian government. Foreign aid, largely from global charities and the United States, Britain and Europe, has saved Zimbabwe from running entirely out of drugs and medical supplies. Days ago, the European Union pledged $30 million in aid to buy medicine and equipment for clinics. Only in December, the United States made a last-minute donation that enabled the government to buy the chemicals that keep the municipal drinking water used by more than two million people in Harare and Bulawayo pathogen-free. Zimbabwe, of course, is hardly alone in its misery. Public health in much of this region is abysmal, and some other African nations - neighboring Zambia and nearby Malawi, to cite two - face even worse problems. What distinguishes Zimbabwe, however, is the depth and rapidity of its fall from the top rank of healthy nations to near basket case. Take infant mortality, one key indicator of public health: between 1999 and 2002, Malawi's rate dipped by about five percent while South Africa's held essentially steady. Zimbabwe's jumped at least 15 percent, and is believed to have risen further last year. That is no isolated trend. Overall mortality rates, as well as childbirth-related deaths, also worsened over the decade in Zimbabwe in comparison with its neighbors.
Yet no one outside Zimbabwe's government knows with certainty how deeply the crisis in public health runs here. Mr. Mugabe's government, increasingly wary of bad publicity, has stymied the public release of United Nations assessments of major social indicators. The network of clinics and doctors has frayed so badly that experts suspect the data once routinely dispatched to statisticians are no longer reliable. On a personal level, the evidence of decay in health care is overwhelming. A recent stroll through the Parirenyatwa public hospital in Harare showed that staff shortages had shuttered whole corridors. At a second major hospital, Harare Central, the laundry has stopped working. In the pediatric wards, blood work-ups are no longer performed in-house because of equipment and staffing problems. Refrigerators in the overstuffed morgue, where corpses can remain for up to six months, are not working. In an interview in late January, a Harare resident who gave his name only as Thomas told how his father-in-law was rushed to a city hospital in November with high blood pressure and breathing problems, only to discover there were no doctors to see him. Shortly after Christmas, a stroke left him paralyzed on one side. "We took him to Suburban Hospital," a private institution, Thomas said. "They wanted 900,000 Zimbabwe dollars as a deposit for admission" - about $300, a sum laughably beyond average people here. "So we took him to a clinic, and they wrote a prescription and said to bring him to the clinic every day for an injection." Thomas paid 250,000 Zimbabwe dollars for medicine, needles and syringes, and ferried his paralyzed father-in-law to the clinic daily for a 10,000-dollar-a-day injection. Within days, he was dead.
But Zimbabwe's crisis is most painfully apparent not in the cities, but in rural areas. There, doctors and patients alike say many of the hundreds of local government clinics now have no working radios, refrigerators or trained medical workers, and often few medicines beyond basic antibiotics and a pain reliever. One person told of seeing a broken leg set solely with the help of acetaminophen, commonly known as Tylenol. In a remote corner of eastern Zimbabwe, an official of one private charitable clinic said in a recent interview that none of the four closest government clinics currently employed either a doctor or nurse. The charity's case loads have more than doubled in the last year, she said. "They come here for malaria pills," she said, referring to a standard preventive tablet in high-risk malarial areas like Zimbabwe. "We tell them that they should check at the clinics. And they say, `Uh-uh; we know you have it here.' " Zimbabwe's economic crisis has made gasoline so costly that vaccines and other drugs can no longer be reliably ferried to faraway villages. "Zimbabwe used to run its own immunization program. In fact, it was the only country in sub-Saharan Africa which could buy all its own vaccines," one global aid official said in a recent interview. "But by 2000, it couldn't afford it." So Zimbabwe's immunization programs, once exemplary, now provide coverage below 70 percent for some major childhood diseases. Indeed, the official of the charitable clinic said it was expanding its own free immunization program to head off an expected flood of sick children from areas where government immunization programs have stalled.
Some of the same shortcomings were evident in the Binga district, the northwestern region that was the scene of cholera outbreaks in January and late last year. Binga, hard against vast, man-made Lake Kariba, has always been a region of impoverished peasants, with poor services and sanitation, so cholera was not unexpected. The area affected this time, around the remote village of Lunga, is said to have almost no latrines and little access to treated water. Yet when the disease first struck late last year here and in neighboring Mashonaland West, medical experts said in January, district health clinics had neither the qualified staff nor the radio communications to identify cholera and spread the alarm. Chris McIvor, the mission head in the region for the charity Save the Children, said in a telephone interview in late January that Zimbabwean health workers responded heroically to last year's three-month outbreak, which sickened 900 people and eventually killed 40 before being brought under control in December. "Having said that, there's no doubt that there is a shortage of facilities, supplies, fuel, adequate numbers of staff and adequate drugs," he said. "And we're very concerned that in the current environment, further outbreaks of cholera - not just in Binga, but in other places - could be much more serious. "With the state of health services currently," he said, "I think that the response in 1990 would have been speedier than it is now."
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From IRIN (UN), 5 February
Supreme Court rejects appeal against media law
Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal to scrap sections of a controversial media law, which journalists say gives too much power to authorities and infringes on their right to freedom of expression. The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) noted in statement that while the Supreme Court conceded that the constitution guaranteed freedom of expression, the court upheld sections of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which prevents reporters from working without accreditation. "We are disappointed to say the least. We do not object to accreditation for administrative purposes, but are concerned that the minister [of information] and MIC [the government-appointed Media and Information Commission] are given quasi-judicial powers to decide who works as a journalist," MISA-Zimbabwe information officer, Rashweat Mukundu, told IRIN. The act introduced a system for licensing the media and journalists through the MIC, whose board is appointed by the minister of state for information. The registration of media houses and journalists operating in Zimbabwe is mandatory, but is also at the discretion of the commission and, ultimately, the minister.
Mukundu added that AIPPA had been selectively applied against the privately owned media. "There is sufficient evidence that most journalists working for the private media have, at some point, experienced some form of harassment. We maintain that there are enough remedies in Zimbabwe's common law for those offended by the media, and that AIPPA should be repealed," Mukundu said. President Robert Mugabe's government enacted the law in June 2002 amid severe criticism from local and international press groups. Media workers in Zimbabwe claim the law was introduced to help silence criticism of the ruling party. In September 2003, the MIC banned the Daily News, the country's only private daily newspaper, by refusing to grant it a licence. Mukunde noted that although "scores" of journalists had been arrested and detained under the law, the government had yet to win a single prosecution. In a related development, Zimbabwe's Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku on Thursday postponed a ruling on an urgent government application to ban the Daily News, but did not announce a new date for a hearing, Agence France Presse reported. "He (the judge) has reserved judgment. He did not grant an order at all," Daily News lawyer Mordecai Mahlangu told journalists. The MIC made an urgent application two weeks ago to again stop the Daily News from publishing after it resumed operations on 22 January.
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From Associated Press, 5 February
Zimbabwe's only independent daily shuts
By Angus Shaw, Associated Press writer
Harare - Journalists at Zimbabwe's only independent daily newspaper left their offices Thursday after the Supreme Court ruled it was a crime to work without a government license. The Daily News, a platform for dissent against the rule of President Robert Mugabe, was refused a license in December. It will not appear Friday, the owners said. "We are not printing tonight," said Brian Mutsau, a spokesman for the owners, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe. Production was halted on Friday's edition after a meeting of executives and staff at the paper's Harare headquarters. The closure came even though police had not moved to shut the paper after the nation's highest court earlier Thursday threw out a constitutional challenge to the government's sweeping media laws. The law makes it illegal to work as a journalist or operate a media organization without official accreditation from the state Media and Information Commission. Breaking the law can lead to two years in jail without right to appeal.
Mutsau said the paper's journalists were planning to reapply for accreditation in line with the ruling. "Then we will see how it turns out," he said. Without regular sales and advertising revenues, the embattled paper was not expected to survive a new lengthy closure The Daily News reopened Jan. 22 after long legal battle to remove police from its offices and printing factory. The government banned the paper in September and police blockaded its premises after the commission refused to license it. Opposition leaders, trade unionists and independent journalists have been targeted in the crack down and Mugabe has been accused of packing the courts with sympathetic judges. Thursday's court ruling put journalists under the direct control of the government with penalties of a fine and imprisonment for infringements of laws enforced by the Information Ministry and the state-appointed media commission, said attorney Sternford Moyo, representing the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe. The Supreme Court rejected the association's contention that the government's media laws violated constitutional rights of free expression, he said.
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From News24 (SA), 5 February
Zim demonstrators freed
Harare - More than 100 pro-democracy demonstrators in Zimbabwe were released on Thursday, a day after being detained and allegedly beaten up by police who broke up a protest outside parliament, their lawyer said. The 112 demonstrators, who were freed after each paid a fine of $10 000 (about R20), belong to the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a civic group seeking constitutional reforms in the southern African country. "We have paid deposit fines on their behalf to buy their freedom, not that they are necessarily guilty," NCA lawyer Alec Muchadehama told reporters. "The police invoked a section of the Miscellaneous Offences Act in which it says we provoked the breach of peace," he said. "We paid under protest because we wanted to ameliorate the suffering of innocent people who could have endured hardships at the hands of police. None of the demonstrators conducted themselves in a way which could breach peace."
The police on Wednesday denied making any arrests but admitted to forcibly breaking up the protest, which was meant to put pressure on the government to accept a proposed new constitution the group has drafted. NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku, who claimed he was beaten up by police when they arrested him, said he was later dumped along a road on the outskirts of the capital. He used his mobile phone to call for help and was treated and discharged at a private clinic. NCA lawyer Muchadehama said the majority of the arrested people complained that they were beaten with sticks and said many had emerged from police cells with swollen heads, backs and hands, adding that some had difficulty in walking. Madhuku, who said he sustained back and head injuries, complained of difficulty in hearing. "We will do another demonstration earlier than intended and we will be holding more demonstrations after every two weeks," he said. Zimbabwe is still using a constitution drawn up at Lancaster House in Britain in 1979, a year before independence.
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From IRIN (UN), 5 February
Overcrowding leads to prison crisis
Bulawayo - Zimbabwe's prisons are full to the hatches with petty criminals and remand prisoners as a result of a slow judicial system that is failing to cope with the backlog of criminal cases. An exodus of magistrates from the Justice Department over low pay, poor working conditions and alleged political interference has worsened the situation. In June last year alone, 10 magistrates resigned at a time when some inmates were "spending up to four years awaiting trial", according to chief magistrate Samuel Kudya. "We have a backlog of up to 60,000 cases countrywide and there are close to 60 vacant magisterial posts. The capital, Harare, has a backlog of 3,200 criminal cases, while pending civil cases stand at 12,000," he said. "We slept fitting into each other like spoons," a former prisoner who refused to be named told IRIN. "Once you have taken a sleeping position you cannot turn and change sides the entire night due to overcrowding. Alternatively, prisoners take turns to sleep." Overcrowding in the country's prisons has resulted in an inevitable rise in infectious diseases such as TB, and AIDS-related deaths. The sheer number of deaths, especially among inmates in the 20 to 29 year age group, have spurred the prison authorities to introduce a daily five-minute programme on national radio appealing for relatives to collect the bodies of the deceased.
Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa says his ministry plans to construct seven more prisons. "Our prisons are overcrowded, making it difficult to maintain basic health standards," he has admitted. Zimbabwe's 47 prisons are designed to hold 16,600 prisoners but they have currently overshot that figure by more than 8,000, according to justice ministry officials. Officially, each prisoner is entitled to four blankets, but owing to the overwhelming number of inmates, each prisoner is typically allocated just one. Prison services officials say critical food shortages have forced the prison authorities to feed inmates maize porridge seasoned with salt for breakfast, and boiled cabbage for lunch and supper. A presidential pardon at the beginning of last year, which enabled 5,900 inmates to walk out of prison countrywide, appears to have done little to ease the congestion. Faced with the pressures of overcrowding, some prison officers have reportedly responded with brutality. "The pressure has dehumanised them," the former prisoner said. A recent report presented to the justice ministry by a parliamentary committee revealed complaints among prisoners of severe beatings by prison guards. Four prison officers were arrested in June last year for beating a prisoner to death over a foiled escape bid.
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From News24 (SA), 5 February
Moz trader shot at Zim border
Maputo - Zimbabwean border guards have killed a Mozambican trader and have been beating up others returning from shopping sprees in the neighbouring crisis-hit state, a government official said on state television late Wednesday. Inacio Muchanga, administrator of the Changara district of the central Tete province, said: "Zimbabwean soldiers have constantly assaulted our countrymen and violently beat them to steal their purchases, and on December 17 a man ended up dying after being shot by the Zimbabweans." Muchanga deplored the alleged incidents but called on the local population to stay calm. "We regret what is happening to our people knowing that many Zimbabweans, some entering the country illegally, have been roaming freely on our territory," he said. This is the second time since the economic and political crisis hit Zimbabwe that Maputo has accused Zimbabwean border guards of molesting its citizens. Mozambican traders flock to Zimbabwe where they can buy things at very cheap rates, despite sky-high inflation, owing to the huge disparity in the official and black market rates for the dollar and the South African rand. Sales of locally-produced sugar in Mozambique have dropped drastically due to illegal imports from Zimbabwe.
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From The Herald, 6 February
Airzim secures outstanding IATA debt
Herald Reporter
Air Zimbabwe has secured the US$1,3 million which it owed to the International Air Transport Association, raising hopes of the lifting of its suspension from the IATA Clearing House. The airline, which was suspended from the clearing house over the US$1,3 million had sought the assistance of the Government on Tuesday in the hope of raising the money. Air Zimbabwe said in a statement that arrangements were already being made to remit the money to the IATA Clearing House as a matter of priority. "The airline has always maintained that its suspension was a short-lived and temporary event," read the statement. The airline said it was currently strengthening its turnaround programme with a sustained arrangement to manage its long-term and recurrent creditors and to ensure the profitability of its business. "We assure our passengers of the continued operation of the national airline well into the future," Air Zimbabwe said. The suspension from IATA Clearing House had made it impossible for the airline to book its passengers on other airlines plying routes that it does not service. The IATA Clearing House is an internationally-recognised entity through which airlines settle their bills owed to each other.
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From The Financial Mail (SA), 30 January
Market awaits Mugabe exit
Tony Hawkins
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's 80th birthday is just weeks away, so it is hardly surprising that his health should be the target of a media feeding frenzy. The official line from information secretary George Charamba is that the Zimbabwean president is "as fit as none of his detractors can ever hope to be", and those who have seen him recently say he certainly looks remarkably spry for a 79-year-old. But because his retirement, for whatever reason, is the most likely mechanism for resolving the Zimbabwe crisis, media speculation over his health and movements will increase, no matter how vehement the official insistence that all is well at State House. Such speculation is fuelled too by repeated statements by presidents Thabo Mbeki of SA and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria that talks between the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) are already under way. Both sides have again denied this, though contacts between MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube and legal affairs minister Patrick Chinamasa are due to resume soon, with the aim of agreeing on an agenda for talks. These will cover two broad areas: a new constitution and transitional arrangements to create an appropriate environment within which fresh elections would be held early in 2005.
Agreement on a constitution will be the easier to achieve. Zanu's ability to win elections depends on control of the security forces, the media and the electoral and vote-counting processes. It will not agree to a dilution of such control. That it is going back to the courts this week to try to re-impose an indefinite ban on the independent Daily News demonstrates just how determined the government is to control the media. Dissenting voices must be silenced, especially now that the government has launched an unprecedented campaign to show that the economy is on the mend. No claim is too fanciful for the state media, including the assertion that the marginal reduction in the inflation rate in December was attributable to the new monetary policy unveiled in mid month by Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono. In fact, the inflation numbers were collected just days after Gono took office and before he published his policies. The real reason for the inflation slowdown was the sudden downturn in consumer spending in the final quarter of 2003. Consumer resistance to inflation, which averaged 365% last year, is increasingly apparent. With non discretionary spending - school fees, medical costs, municipal rates - up 500% in the past few months alone, consumer spending patterns have had to change. Anyone selling non food and nonessential products is feeling the pressure.
Other official media claims include that gold production, which has halved since 1998, is increasing dramatically; agriculture is set to recover with a bumper crop season and the new monetary policy has succeeded in driving speculators out of the markets. There is not much reason for such optimism. Speculators are alive and well - just look at the gyrations in the money and equity markets. After collapsing 60% between August and mid-January, equities rose 67% in a week, and then ran out of steam. As for bumper crops, plantings are way down on previous years and the rains have been no more than patchy. Aid agencies predict food imports of at least 1 Mt of grain in 2004 - imports that will be far more costly than last year due to the drought in SA. It is far too early to say if Gono's monetary policies are working. In one week, he was forced to pump Z$800bn-Z$1 trillion into the money market to keep seven troubled banks afloat. Since then, he has been draining that liquidity out of the system, by forcing the strong banks to take up compulsory Reserve Bank bills that pay interest of just 10%. In two weeks, money market rates have fluctuated wildly from more than 800% for short-term money to less than 30%.
There are also claims that the foreign currency market has stabilised. When the currency auction was launched on January 12, the Zimbabwe dollar traded at Z$4 196/US$1 - a devaluation of about 80% from the official rate of Z$824, but a marked appreciation from the December parallel (black market) rate of around Z$6 000. Since then, in very thin, but increasing turnover, the currency has recouped about 18% to Z$3 563/US$1. But auction volumes, currently less than a third of the amount needed, are tiny relative to the country's US$2bn/year import bill. Already exporters are complaining. The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries is calling for a floor rate to the auction of Z$5 800. On purchasing power parity terms, the real exchange rate today is less than half its level of a year ago. All of this leads economists to predict that GDP will fall another 10% in 2004 and that recovery depends not on monetary policy, but on a political solution that will re-open the doors to capital inflows.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 6 February
Chidyausiku upholds AIPPA
Vincent Kahiya
In a clear endorsement of the government's Media and Information Commission, the Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the regulatory body was constitutional and laws prohibiting journalists from practising without accreditation were legitimate. The ruling is likely to have a chilling effect on the practice of journalism in Zimbabwe and provides the government with the weapon it needs to deal with dissent in the independent press. At the same time the Supreme Court reserved judgement in an application by the MIC filed on Tuesday to stop the ANZ from publishing its two titles pending finalisation of the appeals on February 18. Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku's ruling yesterday in the case brought by the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe (Ijaz) was assented by Justices Misheck Cheda, Vernanda Ziyambi and Luke Malaba. But Justice Wilson Sandura produced a dissenting judgement upholding freedom of expression.
In response to a November 2002 application by Ijaz challenging the constitutionality of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the powers of the MIC, headed by Tafataona Mahoso, Chidyausiku ruled that it was constitutional for journalists to be registered with the MIC as stated by Section 79 of the Act. He ruled that Section 83 which prohibits journalists from practising without accreditation was also constitutional as were the powers vested in the MIC under Section 85. In a joint statement yesterday Ijaz, the Media Institute of Southern Africa, and the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe said the sections upheld by the court posed a serious threat to the work of journalists and infringed on their rights to freedom of expression and that of the media. "These sections compel all journalists to be accredited by MIC and make it a criminal offence to practise journalism without accreditation," the groups said. "While there is nothing wrong with accreditation for administrative purposes, we are concerned however that the MIC and the Minister of Information are accorded quasi-judicial powers to decide who works as a journalist or not. In other words the MIC and the minister have arbitrary powers to decide who may or may not practise as a journalist."
The court however struck down Section 80 (1), (a), (b) and (c) of the Act which was deemed to criminalise the abuse of journalistic privilege. "Criminalising the abuse of a privilege is patently oppressive," the judgement said. Parts of the section have already been struck down in an earlier ruling by the same court and it was also amended by parliament last year. But it is the upholding of Sections 79, 83 and 85 that is likely to leave an indelible mark on the media considering allegations of partiality by the MIC when dealing with independent media organisations. In his ruling Chidyausiku contended that Section 20 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe guarantees freedom of expression but does not guarantee freedom of the press. "I see nothing in the language of the Section 20 (1) that suggests that the legislature intended to confer on an individual a constitutional entitlement to work as a journalist," said Chidyausiku. The Supreme Court said that the "practice of journalism is different from other liberal professions such as law and medicine" which are regulated by statute. "It is correct that the practice of journalism involves the exercise of freedom of expression, the receiving and imparting of information," said Chidyausiku. "This distinction in my view does not place the practice of journalism beyond the control of statutory regulation." He said the fact that the press was important did not place it above the law.
Sternford Moyo of Scanlen & Holderness, representing Ijaz, had contended that the licensing of journalists was unconstitutional as this did not fall within exceptions to freedom of expression like providing for public order. But Chidyausiku differed. "I find myself in agreement with the proposition that a law providing for the licensing of media falls under the exception of the law providing for law and order," he said. The Chief Justice also rejected Moyo's claim that Section 79 conferred too much power on the Information minister in the licensing of journalists. "I am unable to accept this submission for a number of reasons," said Chidyausiku. "A proper reading of the section reveals that that section confers on the commission and not the minister certain powers. If the suggestion is that the commission is sufficiently not independent of the minister or is controlled by the government, the argument is misconceived," he said. On Section 83 which outlaws practising without a licence, Chidyausiku ruled that the section was constitutional. "Section 83 prohibits an individual from practising as a journalist unless he or she is accredited as a journalist. The issues raised here are identical to those raised in respect of the challenge to Section 79. What I said in regard to Section 79 applies with equal force to Section 83. In my view, Section 83 is constitutional," he said.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 6 February
...Sandura disagrees
Dumisani Muleya
Zimbabwe's most experienced Supreme Court judge, Justice Wilson Sandura, has distanced himself from Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku over the issue of compulsory accreditation and punishment of journalists under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). In a powerful dissenting judgement which followed Chidyausiku's ruling yesterday that it was constitutional for journalists to be forced to accredit with the Media and Information Commission (MIC), which is chaired by Tafataona Mahoso, Sandura said compelling journalists to register was clearly ultra vires the constitution. Sandura said mandatory accreditation was unconstitutional because it violated Section 20 of the constitution. The section, which is in sync with constitutional developments in tested democracies, gives journalists, as well as other citizens, freedom of expression that includes the liberty to "hold opinions, receive and impart ideas and information without interference" unless where state restrictions are reasonably justifiable in a democratic society.
Since accreditation of journalists by the MIC under Section 79 of AIPPA was subject to approval by Information minister Jonathan Moyo and permanent secretary George Charamba, Sandura said this effectively meant that it was a restrictive measure and not a mere routine. "The accreditation is not, therefore, a mere formality. If it were, why would it need the minister's approval?" Sandura asked. Chidyausiku said Section 20 of the constitution, that guarantees freedom of expression, did not protect freedom of the press. However, Sandura said: "It is pertinent to note that there is no rational basis for distinguishing the practice of journalism from the exercise of the right of freedom of expression because the two are intertwined." Sandura, a Supreme Court judge of several years standing, said the task before the court should have been to consider whether or not the "restrictive provisions of Section 79 are reasonably justifiable in a democratic society" and "sufficiently important to justify limiting a fundamental right".
He said Moyo claimed the idea of accreditation's main objectives was to ensure accountability and easy access to events by journalists. As the issue of access to events applied only to voluntary accreditation, Sandura said compulsory registration was therefore the issue. "Regrettably, the first respondent (Moyo) does not say how the requirement that a journalist be accredited, before exercising his rights as a journalist, would achieve the intended objective (accountability)," Sandura said. "Nevertheless, I am satisfied that the legislative objective given is not sufficiently important to justify limiting freedom of expression." Quoting another judgement, Sandura said freedom of expression could not be limited on flimsy grounds because it was "a cornerstone upon which the very existence of a democratic society rests". Sandura said the AIPPA provision that Moyo claimed was aimed at making journalists accountable was unnecessary because "provisions of common law and criminal law make the journalist accountable for his actions". He also said the provision which empowers MIC to penalise journalists for violating AIPPA in general was flawed because it suggested punishment of journalists for contravening sections of the law that are in themselves actually unconstitutional. While Sandura agreed with Chidyausiku that "criminalising the abuse of a privilege (as AIPPA did) is patently oppressive", he also ruled that provisions of Section 80 that deal with "falsifying or fabricating information, and publishing falsehoods" were also unconstitutional "simply because the publication of false statements is protected by Section 20 of the constitution".
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From The Herald, 7 February
Chiyangwa faces fresh charges
Herald Reporters
Police yesterday quizzed Chinhoyi Member of Parliament Philip Chiyangwa in connection with the alleged mishandling of $36 million meant for public works programmes in the Mashonaland West provincial capital. Police held Chiyangwa for about four hours when he arrived at the Harare Central Police Station where he reports as part of his bail conditions on charges of perjury, attempt to defeat the course of justice and contempt of court. "I had just gone there for my routine reporting. There is no case," Chiyangwa said yesterday. However, his lawyer Mr Lloyd Mhishi of Dube, Manikai, Hwacha and Partners said the outspoken businessman and politician had been questioned about another case. "I cannot comment on investigations and the best people to ask would be the police," said Mr Mhishi, who joined Chiyangwa at the police station yesterday morning. The Herald understands that Chiyangwa received some $36 million, part of an allocation of $60 million from the Government meant for public works programmes in Chinhoyi. He is understood to have made a request for that money saying it was needed for political business. It is reliably understood that a senior Government official in the provincial administration in the town instructed Chinhoyi municipality to release the money to Chiyangwa. Upon receiving the money, the businessman is alleged to have made out a cheque of $12 million to a senior council official (name supplied) and a cheque to another youth leader in Mashonaland West. Police from Harare last week went to Chinhoyi where they quizzed some council officials in connection with the missing funds. Chiyangwa was on January 20 released from remand prison after Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku ruled that there was no basis for the State to continue appealing for his incarceration over the charges of perjury, contempt of contempt and attempt to defeat the course of justice that he is facing. He is out on $5 million bail granted by High Court judge Justice Tedius Karwi. The charges stem from allegations that the flamboyant businessman threatened a police officer with unspecified action for allegedly implicating him in the ENG saga. The State is also alleging that Cde Chiyangwa lied under oath when he gave evidence in court about cars belonging to ENG.
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From The Star, 6 February
Zim man in asylum ordeal
By Estelle Ellis, Peter Fabricius and Basildon Peta
For almost six months, Michari Moyo has been a man with no country. Political violence has driven him out of Zimbabwe, the land of his birth. His own passport barred him from Britain, where he has family. A fraudulently obtained South African passport he used to get to London landed him in the Lindela repatriation centre on the West Rand. He doesn't want to go back to Zimbabwe. He was deported from Britain, and South Africa doesn't want him either. His case has confirmed a suspicion long harboured that Zimbabwean refugees flee to London using South African passports. Diplomats say they fear that if the problem increases, Britain might introduce visas for South Africans. However, the London High Court has ordered the Home Office (ministry of the interior) to do all it can to return Moyo to Britain, and last night he was on a flight back to London. Maxwell Zimuto, an information officer for Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said the Zvishavane district, from which Moyo hails, has been one of the areas worst affected by political violence. He said MDC councillor Simon Dick had only this week fled his ward after his house was burnt down by Zanu PF supporters. "I can tell you that we have seen some of the most horrific episodes of political violence here," said Zimuto, describing Zvishavane and surrounding areas as the "home of the green bombers" - members of President Robert Mugabe's youth militia.
Last year, Moyo says, the political climate in Zimbabwe forced him to flee his country. On August 26 he arrived at Heathrow Airport using a South African passport, as he could not enter with his Zimbabwe passport because he did not have a visa. He immediately claimed asylum but, as his travel documents said he was South African, he remained there in limbo for four months until British immigration officials sent him back to South Africa under escort. Moyo was handed over to the South African authorities and charged with having unlawfully obtained a passport. He was held at the Kempton Park police station for four days before being transferred to the Lindela repatriation centre, where he was until last night, awaiting removal to Zimbabwe. Hours before repatriation, his family, who were already in London, brought an urgent court application to force the Home Office to help him. A judge agreed.
Nick Sheppard, spokesperson for the British high commission in Pretoria, explained that there was a general moratorium in place in Britain against deporting illegal immigrants from Zimbabwe. The blanket order stipulated they should be allowed to stay in Britain until they had had the opportunity to apply for asylum. But, he said, Moyo had arrived in Britain on a South African passport under a different name - Molepe. When British immigration authorities contacted South African authorities to check this, they confirmed that Molepe had been issued a passport properly and was therefore a South African. "On that basis, he was returned to South Africa, since we do not grant political asylum to South Africans," Sheppard said. It was discovered only later that his passport should not have been issued because he was Zimbabwean. Official sources said he probably got it by paying a corrupt Home Affairs official R4 000 - the going rate. Official sources said the British court order to send Moyo back to Britain could open the door to many more Zimbabweans. They said that every night "a good few" Zimbabweans with false South African travel documents were embarking on flights from Johannesburg to London. The British government charges airlines £2 000 (about R24 000) for every passenger they bring in who is not supposed to be in the UK, so it is not in their interests to let these people through, an official said.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 6 February
Bid to block Gweru Restart launch fails
Blessing Zulu
A bid by police to block the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from launching its economic recovery plan in Gweru yesterday failed when the High Court ruled that it could proceed. High Court judge Rita Makarau gave the MDC the go ahead to launch its economic blueprint, known as Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery and Transformation (Restart). This is the second time that the government has tried to block the MDC from launching its flagship economic programme. Last Thursday when Restart was launched in Harare, the MDC had to seek a High Court interdict to prevent the police from blocking it. MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said the party had informed the police in advance of their meeting. But Chief Superintendent E Mbewe, the officer commanding Gweru Urban, replied that the launch could not go ahead as the police were "committed elsewhere during the period". Nyathi castigated the government for its action. "It is a big shame on the regime that the MDC has to go to court every time it seeks to outline its policies," Nyathi said. "Zanu PF started showing these signs of panic last week, running negative stories about the MDC economic policy. Zimbabweans will no doubt be wondering why Zanu PF seeks to stop the people knowing the contents of that programme," Nyathi said.
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From The Economist (UK), 5 February
Talk about talks
Could Zimbabwe's government and opposition negotiate in earnest?
After months of stalling, Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe is said, at least by South Africa's ever-credulous president, Thabo Mbeki, to be willing to start formal talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) he has spent the last three years trying to bludgeon into irrelevance. If true, and if Mr Mugabe were serious, such talks would have to lead to rigorously monitored elections that would very likely see the defeat of the ruling Zanu PF party and disgrace for Mr Mugabe and his friends. So there is still much scepticism about Mr Mugabe's willingness to risk his own political demise. But if Mr Mbeki is to be believed, talks should start this month, in private, between Welshman Ncube, the MDC's secretary-general, and Patrick Chinamasa, Mr Mugabe's justice minister. If things go well, they would lay the ground rules and set an agenda. The pair had talks, off and on, between May and October last year, but they got nowhere, with Zanu PF wanting to discuss land issues and the MDC wanting to concentrate on arranging an election - and on stopping the vote-rigging, intimidation and torture that have made a mockery of recent polls.
So there is not much reason to think they will get further this time. The trial of the MDC's head, Morgan Tsvangirai, on charges of treason, resumes on February 11th - hardly a token of reconciliation. According to a leading diplomat in Harare, the capital, Mugabe is still just "playing cat and mouse with Mbeki" in the hope of fending off further international pressure. But things may be changing, most of all within Zanu PF. An internal party battle to succeed Mr Mugabe, who turns 80 on February 21st and has twice recently visited South Africa, probably for medical treatment, is intensifying. The group of ministers closest to him still rejects talks. They want to go on clobbering the opposition and to hold an early general election that is due anyway by the middle of next year. These hard men think that the thumping Zanu PF majority likely under the current brutal conditions would let parliament make whatever constitutional changes it might choose. Mr Mugabe would then name a successor and step down next year, paying no attention to the MDC. Either Emmerson Mnangagwa, the parliament's speaker, who is a former long-time security-service head, or Vitalis Zvinavashe, a former army chief, would probably take over. Zanu PF has been taking soundings at the UN to see if a suitably easy-going team might monitor the elections in the hope that it might be predisposed to give Mr Mugabe's heirs a clean bill of health.
The hardliners point to minor improvements of late. They say, for instance, that inflation in December was down - to just under 600% a year - and that the shops have been fuller since the currency was devalued. They also note a recent crackdown on corrupt businessmen, including some who were close to Mr Mugabe. And they point out that the Daily News, the country's only independent daily paper, is back on sale, four months after it was banned. But another, at present weaker, group within Zanu PF does want to talk to the opposition and would consider sharing power for a transitional period in the hope that, when elections are held, people might still vote for a cleaned-up version of Zanu PF, perhaps with a former finance minister, Simba Makoni, at its head. This group is more conscious of Zimbabwe's economic demise and the spectre of hunger, as well as fears of cholera and anthrax, now stalking the land. A joint report by the World Food Programme (WFP) and the government, which lies unpublished because of government objections to some of its statistics, says that two-thirds of Zimbabwe's 12m people, including 2.5m people in towns, are now either on the brink of famine or are "food insecure": not yet starving but unsure whether they will eat a meal a day.
This more conciliatory lot knows that Zimbabweans' plight could worsen fast without more foreign aid, rescheduled debts and restored ties with the IMF. Some even fear that the United States could squeeze Mr Mugabe, to the detriment of his citizens, by stopping contributions to the WFP, which with international charities now provides nearly three-quarters of Zimbabwe's grain, until the government explains how its own stocks will be distributed. The WFP provides nearly half of all Zimbabwe's food and gets nearly half of its supply from the Americans. Meanwhile, outside pressure remains strong enough to annoy Mr Mugabe without bringing him down. Zimbabwe is suspended from the Commonwealth. And the European Union has lengthened its blacklist of top Zimbabweans who cannot enter the Union from around 60 to 89 people, including (for the first time) the registrar-general of elections. But only if the MDC is given a fair chance of taking over is the country likely to recover properly. And that is still a long way off.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 8 February
No word on Zimbabwe crisis
Sunday Times Foreign Desk
Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change claims President Thabo Mbeki's failure to mention Zimbabwe in his State of the Nation address showed he was "getting weary" of the long-running crisis in South Africa's northern neighbour. MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube, who is leading the opposition team in informal talks with President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF, said Mbeki was most probably despairing of the situation. "I think Mbeki did not say anything on Zimbabwe because there is nothing positive to report," Ncube said. "He should be getting tired of being optimistic when there is nothing changing - except for the worse - on the ground." Ncube said Mbeki perhaps decided to avoid the Zimbabwe crisis in his address because the only prominent political issue in Zimbabwe at this stage was Zanu PF infighting. "There is nothing really progressive taking place," Ncube said. "All there is, is Zanu PF's preoccupation with internal squabbles over its succession crisis. But if Mbeki could succeed in persuading Zanu PF to come to the negotiating table, it would not take long - maybe two months - of serious dialogue to resolve this crisis." Ncube said Mbeki's promise that there would be a solution to the Zimbabwe crisis by June this year was still possible, but only if Mugabe was prevailed on soon to engage in serious dialogue.
The head of Zanu PF's delegation to talks with the MDC, Patrick Chinamasa, tried to avoid commenting on Mbeki's decision to omit the Zimbabwe issue from his address. "I'm on leave and I need to appraise what has been going on," Chinamasa said. "But did [Mbeki] really have to say anything about Zimbabwe?" Mbeki recently announced that Mugabe had agreed to formal talks with the MDC. Zanu PF and MDC officials say Mugabe is likely to announce the resumption of dialogue that broke down in May 2002 when he returns from leave some time this month. Mbeki has consistently tried to skate over the Zimbabwe crisis in his State of the Nation addresses, although he has on many occasions promised to deal with the issue. In his State of the Nation address last year, Mbeki's only reference to Zimbabwe was: "We will also continue to work with the people of Zimbabwe as they seek solutions to the problems afflicting their country. We hope that sooner rather than later these solutions will be found through dialogue among the leaders of this neighbouring country."
Mbeki's evasion of the Zimbabwe crisis came as repression in that country worsened. Last week Mugabe's government tried in vain to block the MDC from unveiling its proposed economic rescue plan. Justice Rita Makarau issued an order allowing the MDC to go ahead with its launch of the plan in the Midlands city of Gweru, about 260km southwest of Harare, after police tried to stop the meeting. Two weeks ago the Zimbabwe High Court foiled police plans to ban a similar MDC event. Attacks against civil society are also intensifying. On Wednesday, riot police brutally assaulted National Constitutional Assembly chairman Lovemore Madhuku and other members of his group. Madhuku was beaten in a busy area and left for dead, profusely bleeding. He was subsequently admitted to a Harare clinic and treated for serious head injuries and bruises. About 116 National Constitutional Assembly activists were arrested and detained after demonstrating for reform. All were released on Thursday after paying fines of $Z10 000 each on charges of conduct likely to cause a breach of peace.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 8 February
Death knell for Zimbabwe press
Court ruling makes life difficult for independent media groups
Sunday Times Foreign Desk
Zimbabwean media organisations reacted with outrage this weekend to a controversial court ruling that threatens to wipe out the country's independent press. The judgment makes criminals out of journalists who have not been approved by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo. Media groups said Thursday's judgment, would "chill to the marrow" Zimbabwe's embattled independent reporters. Sternford Moyo, a veteran attorney who represented journalists in the case, said: "What the court is effectively saying is that the practice of journalism without accreditation is a criminal offence." The Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the government was within its constitutional rights to make it mandatory for journalists to obtain accreditation from a media commission set up after President Robert Mugabe was re-elected in 2002. On Friday the popular independent newspaper, the Daily News, failed to publish as a result of the ruling. The paper, which has long taken a tough stance against Mugabe' s government, was conspicuously missing from newsstands with expectant vendors wondering why it had not been delivered.
Analysts said Zimbabwe's private media now faced a real risk of extinction. The Zimbabwe branch of the Media Institute of Southern Africa, the Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe and the Independent Journalists' Association of Zimbabwe, which had together challenged the constitutionality of the media law, said they received the ruling with "dismay and disappointment". They warned that the judgment would have "dangerous consequences", as it legitimised the restriction of independent journalists who bore the brunt of media repression. "Despite the ruling, we insist the sections of the law in question pose a serious threat to the work of journalists and infringe on their rights to freedom of expression," the groups said in a joint statement. Neither the Daily News nor many of its journalists had opted to register with the commission, arguing that mandatory accreditation was unconstitutional. This week's ruling is the latest in a string of draconian moves against the newspaper. It was forcibly shut down last September after the Supreme Court ruled it was operating illegally because it was not registered with the media commission. The paper's lawyers immediately began shuttling between the country's courts, battling to get authorisation for the paper to reopen, and won their case last month, with the paper reappearing on newsstands on January 22. Friday's voluntary halt in publishing came as the paper was also anxiously awaiting the outcome of an application by the media commission to ban it. That case will be heard on February 18.
Also condemning the media restrictions were the Media Defence Fund and the Media Lawyers Network, which said: "We note with grave concern that this ruling casts a very dark day for press freedom in Zimbabwe." The New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists said the ruling was "shocking". "This is a heavy blow to press freedom in Zimbabwe and sends a chilling message to the country's independent journalists," said committee executive director Ann Cooper. Brian Mutsau, the acting head of Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, which owns the Daily News, said he did not know what the fate of the Daily News and its Sunday edition would be: "I don't know when we will resume operations. We will take each step as it comes." To add to the newspaper group's woes, Daily News journalists were understood to be refusing to work partly as result of the ruling, saying they faced arrest for working. "There are two issues at stake. Firstly, we are saying we can't work without accreditation because we will be arrested and, secondly, we want our salaries to be increased," a senior Daily News journalist said. Daily News journalists say that with inflation running at 600% their salaries are now way below market levels. Their salaries were last reviewed when their papers were initially closed in September last year.
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From The Sunday Mail, 8 February
Chiyangwa not facing fresh charges: Moyo
Sunday Mail Reporter
The Minister of State for Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Professor Jonathan Moyo, has said Chinhoyi MP Cde Philip Chiyangwa is not facing fresh charges of mishandling public funds. In a statement issued yesterday Prof Moyo said: "Yesterday’s front page Herald article quoting unnamed police sources alleging that Cde Chiyangwa faces fresh charges of mishandling public funds is not just false but it is based on a falsehood bordering on either sponsored or calculated mischief disguised to cause and spread political confusion in the vain hope of derailing Government’s determined, focused and unwavering war against corruption and economic sabotage that has been taking place in the financial sector. The use of the media to peddle political confusion will not be tolerated and those behind it will |
