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Archived News
11th May 2004
Zimbabwe media nightmare continues
Msika lashes out at Moyo
Zimbabwe closes 'racist' schools
Tsvangirai wants SA judges' report on 2002 poll
MDC looks for proof of election fraud
Mugabe's R175m fortress
Zimbabwe facing total split along racial lines
Bread prices up 50% in Zimbabwe
Staple foods increasingly inaccessible as prices rise
Zimbabwe school to fight forced closure
Power corrupts - absolutely
Court ruling on Charleswood
Mugabe to launch new paper in SA
Zimbabwe editor warns: Don't let govt control media
Zimbabwe 15 set to walk out for good
Heads arrested as Mugabe shuts schools
Violence in Makoni North
Farm eviction order ignored
No government intervention in bus rank violence
Without 'oomph and guts'
Reports of unnatural practices could help to sell Mugabe's paper
Government and ECB happy to pass buck on Zimbabwe
UN team ordered out of Zimbabwe
Zim private schools nationalised
The rise and fall of Zimbabwe's schools
Polls could be moved forward
Triangle next - Mnangagwa
Moz journos shun Moyo
Rebels agree middle-man to liaise with board
Gun-running that Zim wants to keep secret?
State targets 'racist' schools
Army/National Parks accused of poaching
President summons minister Mangwana
The Zimbabwe Bird now flies as a symbol of betrayed promise
Zimbabwe ejects UN crop survey team
Zim stops UN's famine assessment mission
Mudenge linked to farm invasion
Tough time for Nhema over hunting concessions
Politicians feel the pinch
Private schools reopen
Wheat scam unearthed - Ex-MP Irene Zindi implicated
Infighting tears at Zimbabwe's ruling party
South African police probe suspected fish smuggling
'We are everywhere' says shadowy pro-democracy group
ZCU ends hope of negotiation by dismissing rebels
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 4 May
Zimbabwe media nightmare continues
Harare
Zimbabwe's state-appointed media licencing body has threatened to cancel the licence of an independent weekly that it alleges has violated the country's tough media laws. The Media and Information Commission wrote to the Tribune newspaper on Monday - International Press Freedom Day - notifying it of its intention to suspend or cancel its operating permit. MIC chairperson Tafataona Mahoso said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, that the commission has noticed changes in the paper's trade name, form and frequency of publication. "You have a mandatory obligation to notify the commission of such substantial and material changes. "The commission has not been notified and in terms of [the law], you are hereby notified of the commission's intention to suspend or cancel ATN's [Africa Tribune Newspapers] registration certificate," the letter said. Mahoso gave the paper, which publishes on Fridays, seven days to give reasons why it should not be closed. The MIC also complained that it had not been notified of ownership changes at the paper, as required by a media law that came into effect two years ago. The paper is owned by ATN and one of the main shareholders is former journalist Kindness Paradza, a ruling Zanu-PF legislator who was last week suspended from the party. His suspension came after allegations in the state media that he had gone to Britain to seek funding for his paper. He also allegedly sought financial assistance from the owners of the Daily News, a strong critic of President Robert Mugabe's government that was closed down by the government last year. The Tribune was launched on June 1 2002, publishing a business edition on Thursday and a general news one on Friday. It has since merged the two into one weekly. Publisher Paradza, in a speech in Parliament in March, criticised the country's media laws. "These laws should be critically and soberly examined to check whether they do not restrict or prohibit local investment in the broadcasting services," said Paradza.
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From The Tribune, 29 April
Msika lashes out at Moyo
By Faith Zaba : Political Editor
The battle for control of Kondozi farm, a horticultural producer and a significant player in European markets, intensified this week with Vice President Joseph Msika reprimanding the Minister of Information and Publicity, Professor Jonathan Moyo for leading, together with other junior ministers, a clandestine campaign to take-over the lucrative farm using Arda as a guise. The fuming Msika, who is chairman of the Cabinet Committee on Rural Development, is said to have openly castigated Prof Moyo and told the junior minister to take his hands off Kondozi, which is run by a black businessman, Edwin Moyo. Kondozi farm in Manicaland, has an Export Processing Zone (EPZ) status, and was previously jointly owned by Edwin Moyo and the De Klerk family. The De Klerks have since left the farm and are opening a similar venture in neighbouring Mozambique. Authoritative sources at Munhumutapa Building, offices of the Presidency, told The Tribune that Msika was "very, very angry" at Moyo’s insubordination from earlier remarks published in the Monday edition of The Herald in which the minister sought to undermine the vice president. Msika, the sources said, took great exception to Prof Moyo’s remarks and reminded the minister that he was too junior to countermand his directive that the army, police and the ARDA personnel that had invaded Kondozi farm in Odzi, should vacate the farm immediately. A battalion of armed soldiers and riot police with water canons invaded Kondozi farm on Good Friday, chased away over 5 000 workers from their homes, looted food and took refrigerated produce worth over $2 billion unknown destinations in Manicaland. Farm workers who spoke to this newspaper said Arda workers had also taken all the vehicles belonging to the farm including some movable property.
Last week Chiefs from Marange communal lands, where Kondozi is located, irked by the destruction at the farm, travelled to Harare to meet President Mugabe but later saw Msika. The chiefs told the Vice President that the Member of Parliament for the area and Minister of Transport and Communications, Christopher Mushowe and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made wanted to take-over Kondozi using ARDA as a conduit. They told the Vice President that the two Ministers had lied to the President that the De Klerk family, former owners of the farm, were using Edwin Moyo as a front. However, Moyo owns 52 percent of Kondozi through Canvest Farming (Pvt) Ltd from loans amounting to about $30 billion obtained from Barclays Bank and African Banking Corpration (ABC). Since the departure of the De Klerks, Moyo had warehoused the remaining shares for employees and other locals, especially outgrowers. This position, according to sources, is being supported by Msika, who argued that ARDA as an institution (where Made used to be the head), had failed in all its agro-ventures countrywide.
Currently the state-run Arda has failed to utilise its farm near Kondozi and about 100 workers there have gone for months without wages, according to information with this newspaper. According to insiders at Munhumutapa, Msika is said to have told Prof. Moyo that their "trick" of trying to wrestle the farm away from Edwin Moyo using dubious means would not succeed. "Minister Moyo was told in no uncertain terms that he should lay his hands off Kondozi," said a source. "The Vice President also told Moyo that he should not interfere in land reform because he was not the responsible minister and also that he was not part of the Cabinet Committee on Rural Development," added the source. Msika told the privately-owned Standard newspaper after meeting Chief Marange’s delegation that the invading forces including Arda should vacate Kondozi to allow investigations into the matter by John Nkomo, the Minister responsible for Lands, Land Reform and Resetllement. "Until we find out whether proper channels were followed Arda should leave the property," Miska told the Standard adding that him and Nkomo were not aware that armed soldiers and policemen had aided Arda officials to invade the farm.
But using the government mouthpiece, Prof. Moyo declared through the Herald that there was no going back on Kondozi "come rain, come sunshine" and that Arda would occupy the farm. Sources, however, said Msika told minister Moyo that under the land reform policy, Government gives land to landless black people and not to institutions like Arda. According to sources, Made, Mushowe and Prof. Moyo, are alleged to have teamed up to take-over the lucrative export business at Kondozi under the guise of Arda. Msika, Nkomo and Minister Didymus Mutasa, the minister responsible for anti-corruption are expected to visit Kondozi this weekend to assess the damage caused by the invading forces. The 250ha farm produces baby corn, mange tout, sugar snaps, peas, gooseberries, fine beans and runner beans, which are all exported to European supermarkets in fresh form. Its annual turnover is estimated at US$15 million. Of the 5 000 strong workforce at Kondozi, about 1 000 live on the farm, while the remainder are transported daily from villages in Marange, Penhalonga, Osborne, Nyazura and Odzi.
Meanwhile, a delegation which will include Special Affairs Minister in the President’s Office responsible for the Anti-Corruption and Anti-Monopolies Programme Didymus Mutasa is expected to visit Kondozi farm soon to establish the correct position on the farm. Msika is also expected to join the team to the farm. Mutasa confirmed that he would soon be visiting Kondozi farm to find out the truth about the farm. He said he had also heard allegations by Made, Moyo and Mushowe that the major shareholder Edwin Moyo was a "convenient and shameless front" of white commercial farmers. Mutasa also heard allegations that Arda could be a front of the ministers. "We are going to find out what is happening. As leaders we ought to see and find out what is happening so that we can make well-informed decisions. I am going there as the minister responsible for anti-corruption to see if there is any corruption involved in the acquisition of the farm. "We want to go and establish the real truth. Msika is saying this issue must go to the Cabinet Committee on rural development, which must decide what should be done. I know that the statements are confusing people, hence the need to investigate the matter," Mutasa said. The acquisition came despite a provisional order by High Court Judge Justice Antonia Guvava against Arda and Minister Made against any interference at the farm.
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From BBC News, 4 May
Zimbabwe closes 'racist' schools
The authorities in Zimbabwe have closed down at least 45 private schools due to a dispute over school fees. Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere said the schools had been closed because they increased their fees without government approval. "They throw Africans out simply by hiking fees," Mr Chigwedere said on state television. "We are dealing with racist schools. They are all former white schools, all racist." Notices have been placed on school gates informing parents and pupils of the closures and police officers are blocking the entrance to some schools. The state-run Herald newspaper reported that 30,000 pupils would be affected and listed the closed schools. One of President Robert Mugabe's sons and children of many ministers and ruling party leaders are believed to be among those turned away. The education minister said the schools would not reopen until they had complied with government regulations allowing them to increase their fees by only 10% a year. Some schools have proposed raising fees by about 50% to counter the impact of the rampant inflation, currently running at 580%. Some of Zimbabwe's most prestigious schools are charging tuition fees of up to 30 million Zimbabwe dollars ($5,635) per year. Before independence in 1980, Zimbabwe's best schools were reserved for whites. But according to the South African news agency, Sapa, the majority of pupils at Zimbabwe's private schools are now black.
Although they are mainly from wealthier backgrounds, there are bursaries to allow poorer children to attend. "Things are bad enough here without being stopped from getting the best education for your child if you can afford it," one father told The Associated Press news agency as his daughter was turned away from school. In his independence day address on 18 April, President Mugabe also criticised the increase in fees for private schools. "Our principal goal of attaining education for all appears to be in real jeopardy with some schools charging as much as 10 million (Zimbabwe) dollars a term," the president said. "The government will soon come up with arrangements which will continue to make education accessible to each and every child regardless of his status or family background." But some observers say the government has allowed the country's education system to decline, after it was greatly expanded after independence. State-run schools in the country are reportedly in a critical condition - with many having classes of around 80 pupils. There is also said to be a shortage of teachers, textbooks, desks and classrooms. A recent survey by an International Monetary Fund research group, reported that school enrolment had declined by 60% in Zimbabwe last year because of fee hikes in both state and private schools.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 4 May
Tsvangirai wants SA judges' report on 2002 poll
Matthew Burbridge and Sapa
Johannesburg
The Democratic Alliance in South Africa on Tuesday said it will raise a number of questions in Parliament about an independent delegation, made up of two judges, dispatched by President Thabo Mbeki to observe Zimbabwe's 2002 elections. Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai is to turn to South African courts to force President Thabo Mbeki to hand over a report by two judges on Zimbabwe's disputed election, reported ThisDay newspaper on Tuesday. Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change has said it will help its challenge to the outcome of the poll. Tsvangirai challenged the 2002 election results and delegations from the Commonwealth and Norway reported that the poll was neither free nor fair. However, a South African election monitoring team said the poll was "credible and legitimate". Tsvangirai's legal team told the newspaper that the report by Dikgang Moseneke and Sisi Khampepe would help his case. Moseneke is a Constitutional Court judge and Khampepe works in the Transvaal division of the High Court.
ThisDay said that Tsvangirai's attorney, Matthew Walton, had sent a letter to Mbeki in March requesting copies of the reports. The paper said that Mojanku Gumbo, Mbeki's legal adviser, confirmed that the judges had been sent to Zimbabwe by Mbeki to assess "the period leading to the 2002 presidential election" and that their advice "was never meant for the general public". Walton told ThisDay that the reports were "powerful documents" because they had been written by "independent observers of high standing". DA chairperson Joe Seremane said the fact that Mbeki appointed a secret delegation suggests the president lacked faith in the other observer missions from South Africa. "The presidency's reluctance to make the report public suggests that the conclusions reached by the judges contradict South Africa's official position on the outcome of Zimbabwe's 2002 presidential elections," Seremane said. He dismissed the government's claim that the report could not be released as it was never meant for public consumption, and constituted correspondence between heads of state. "Public funds were in all likelihood used to fund this delegation, and because the presence of the judges raises questions about the government's oft-stated position on the elections, answers need to be provided," Seremane said.
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From SABC News, 5 May, 2004
MDC looks for proof of election fraud
Zimbabwe's main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic (MDC) Change, has more than 40 ongoing court applications, both in Botswana and South Africa, seeking documentation relating to the country's presidential elections in 2002. The MDC is contesting the election results in a Zimbabwe court. They are accusing Robert Mugabe, the country's president, of rigging the poll. Yesterday the MDC announced that it has decided not to go to court to force President Thabo Mbeki to hand over a report by two judges on Mugabe's disputed 2002 re-election. Peta Thornycroft, a correspondent in Zimbabwe, says the MDC will go ahead with other applications. Thornycroft says the MDC is specifically looking for analysis on the legal processes prior the elections: the changes in the Electoral Act in the lead up to the poll and the secret registration of voters that happened for up to three days before the elections. Matthew Walton, a Cape Town lawyer acting for the MDC, earlier said the party wanted the public to know the views of Dikgang Moseneke and Sisi Khampepe, the judges. They monitored the poll and reported to Mbeki. The MDC now says it respects the South African government's right to keep certain matters private.
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From The Star (SA), 4 May
Mugabe's R175m fortress
By Basildon Peta
Robert Mugabe has designated the area around the 25-bedroom mansion he is building a "protected area". The Zimbabwean president's action comes as he faces calls to disclose the source of foreign currency used for the imported materials being used on the multi-million project. The designation means access is severely restricted and anyone who strays into the area or is caught taking photographs might land in hot water. Police can now shoot and kill transgressors, as has been done at Mugabe's official residence, Zimbabwe House, in Harare. Several motorists have been shot and killed over the years for driving on the road between Zimbabwe House and State House after authorised hours. Mugabe's private mansion in the plush suburb of Borrowdale has been under construction for five years and is now expected to cost more than R175-million. Apart from the locally-sourced bricks, gravel and cement, everything at the property is said to have come from China and Europe. The house is being built mainly by Yugoslav company Energo Project, though some work has been subcontracted. The project also involves construction of two sizeable dams around the mansion and extensive landscaping work.
Once the house is complete, Mugabe is expected to order the closure of nearby access roads for his exclusive use. The president is facing calls to disclose where he has been getting the foreign currency to purchase the imported materials - particularly after the arrest of Finance Minister Christopher Kuruneri. He is in jail after having been accused of illegally exporting foreign currency to South Africa, where he is reportedly building a R30-million mansion in Cape Town. A spokesperson for the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International said it was "absolutely essential" for Mugabe to disclose where and how he had been getting foreign currency. If it turned out that he had been drawing foreign currency from the Reserve Bank, then he would be guilty of abusing his office. Zimbabwe is mired in its worst foreign currency crisis following the collapse of the tobacco farming sector, mainly due to Mugabe's indiscriminate land seizures. The Reserve Bank has imposed stringent rules to prioritise the use of scarce foreign currency to import fuel and electricity. Zimbabwe does not have money to buy food for its people, and foreign donors have entirely met this responsibility. No-one is allowed foreign currency for "luxury imports" and scores of manufacturing companies have folded due to lack of currency to meet essential imports. Apart from his job as president, Mugabe has no other income. An official in the Ministry of Local Government and Housing said that even if Mugabe had been president for 500 years, he could hardly have financed the construction of such a mansion with his salary of less than R210 000 a year.
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From The Times (UK), 5 May, 2004
Zimbabwe facing total split along racial lines
By Owen Slot, Chief Sports Reporter
Zimbabwean cricket moved a step closer to a complete split along lines of colour yesterday. In the morning, Heath Streak and three other rebel white cricketers were named in the squad for the first Test against Sri Lanka starting in Harare tomorrow, and, by the afternoon, they were busy declaring themselves unavailable for work. Their decision to strike became official in mid- afternoon at the deadline time given for the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) to respond to the 15 rebel players’ demand for an arbitration body to be used to settle the dispute. The ZCU instead replied with a letter from its lawyers in which it referred to arbitration and stated: "Our client does not see why it is necessary." The letter also threatened legal action against players who had contravened paragraph 4.1.13 of their contracts, "by making public statements without prior consent". The ZCU has asked for a response by noon today. It will therefore receive written confirmation that the two sides are as far apart in this dispute as ever. "We believe," one senior player said, "that they will now either fire us, which is probably what a lot of the guys are hoping for, or issue us with another legal document giving us another 21 days to sort ourselves out." Another 21 days would mean the ZCU having to pay them for a further month. But the players believe that they have played their last card and are now simply stuck in a waiting game until the ZCU board implodes. "We really feel that these ZCU guys are so thick-skinned that they will self-destruct," the player said. "We’ll just have to wait for that to happen. Maybe it will mean the ICC, or an international body, sorting it out. We’ll come back the moment that happens." In their favour is the fact that the Test series against Sri Lanka should provide further evidence of how disastrous the ZCU’s policy has been. The rebel players also say that they believe that there may soon be further defectors from the team playing for their country in their absence.
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From Business Day (SA), 5 May
Bread prices up 50% in Zimbabwe
Harare
The price of bread in economically ravaged Zimbabwe has rocketed by up to 50% due to a shortage of flour, state media said. Bread is now selling at most shops for between 2,800 and 3,000 Zimbabwe dollars per loaf, state radio said. Standard bread prices were previously set around 2,000 Zimbabwe dollars. "The wholesale price of bread is now 2,500 Zimbabwe dollars, while the retail price is pegged at 2,900 a loaf," Armitage Chikwavira, chairman of the Bakers' Association of Zimbabwe told the state-run Herald newspaper. The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said retailers were blaming the price hikes on the shortages of maize meal and wheat flour. Aid agencies estimate that Zimbabwe will this year face shortages of up to 800,000 tonnes of maize meal, a national staple. Some of the agencies blame the country's controversial land reform programme, which saw the seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to new black farmers, for cutting maize production. Annual inflation last month stood at 583.7%.
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From IRIN (UN), 5 May
Staple foods increasingly inaccessible as prices rise
Johannesburg
A 150 percent hike in the maize producer price as well as a 50 percent increase in bread prices, brought on by a shortage of flour, is going to make staple foods inaccessible for ordinary Zimbabweans, say NGOs. "Most Zimbabweans cannot afford mealie [maize] meal - which costs more than Z$20,000 for a 10 kg bag - when it is available in the retail outlets," said a representative of a food security monitoring agency. Annual inflation in Zimbabwe stood at 583.7 percent last month. For the past few years the country has been ravaged by food shortages and an average monthly food basket now costs at least Z$500,000. The average salary of a worker is about Z$80,000 a month. The government announced that the maize producer price for this year's marketing season would rise to Z$750,000 per mt, an increase of 150 percent from last year's price of Z$300,000 per mt, the official Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday. Zimbabwean Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Joseph Made said in a statement that the new price "will enhance maize producer viability, by ensuring that farmers get a positive return", which he expected would be at least 26 percent. Economist John Robertson commented that "the price of mealie meal sold in retail outlets will increase by as much" following the announcement. He pointed out that maize was "already being sold at as much as Z$1 million a tonne, and [the higher price] will have no affect in terms of encouraging growers". Minister Made said the Grain Marketing Board would continue to sell maize to millers at Z$400,000 per tonne in areas where food relief was being distributed by the government. The official media reported on Wednesday that the price of bread had gone up by 50 percent. A monitoring coordinator of an NGO observed: "Bread was being sold at Z$2,100 per loaf - it is now available in urban areas at prices ranging between Z$2,800 and $3,000 per loaf, while it is far more expensive in the rural areas." "There has been a shortage of maize in the market," Robertson added. "The situation might improve when the new crop hits the market."
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From AFP, 6 May
Zimbabwe school to fight forced closure
Harare
A top school in Zimbabwe was planning court action as most private schools in the southern African country remained closed Wednesday after the government ordered them to shut down for hiking tuition fees without its permission. "The majority of schools are still closed," an official with the Association of Independent Trust Schools, which represents the country's 46 private schools, told AFP. Around 30,000 children enrolled at private schools Tuesday either found their schools closed by order of the government, or were turned away by police on what was supposed to be the first day of the mid-year term. The state accused the schools of contravening the country's laws by hiking school fees without the authority of the government of President Robert Mugabe, which limits increases to 10% a year. The schools, which the government describes as elitist, are attended mainly by children of the country's middle classes, but also by the children of government and ruling party officials.
Private schools have cited escalating costs, mainly a result of inflation currently estimated at more than 580 percent, as the reason for raising fees. However, Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere has condemned the fee hikes as "racist". "We are dealing with racist schools. They are all former white schools - all racist," Chigwedere told state television Tuesday. "They throw Africans out simply by hiking fees." He said the schools, some of which had "trebled, quadrupled, quintupled" fees since September last year, would remain shut until the issue was resolved. The teachers and parents of one prominent primary school in Harare, Hartmann House, were Thursday due to go to court to try to overturn the government's "unlawful" closure of their school. According to court papers obtained by AFP, the Parents Teachers Association (PTA) is seeking a High Court order for the school to be reopened and the government's directive to be declared "null and void". Part of the application argues that Chigwedere's use of police to close the school was illegal. The official with the independent schools trust could not say whether other schools were considering legal action, but acknowledged "considerable activity on several fronts" aimed at reopening the schools.
The state-run Herald newspaper reported that some schools affected by the forced closures were slashing their fees to comply with government regulations, and would open later this week or early next week. Some schools are charging tuition fees up to 30 million Zimbabwe dollars per annum. The International Monetary Fund said in a report on the country's economy in March that many low-income parents could not afford school fees, and that school enrolment stood at 65% in 2003. The main labour movement, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), said it disapproved of the closures. "While the ZCTU condemns the exorbitant fees charged by these schools, there was no point for the Ministry of Education to punish students," the union's secretary general, Wellington Chibebe, said in a statement. "The ZCTU would like to urge the government to immediately open these schools and allow students (to) proceed with their work," he added.
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From The Financial Mail (SA), 30 April
Power corrupts - absolutely
By Tony Hawkins
Harare
Any doubts about a dramatic shift in power from Zimbabwe's finance ministry to its Reserve Bank have been laid to rest by two unrelated developments. In one, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono delivered a 108-page quarterly review of the economic situation - about three times as long as the past two annual budgets by the finance ministry - in which he covered the entire economy, including areas well outside the normal jurisdiction of a central bank. The second event was the weekend arrest of finance minister Chris Kuruneri on allegations of illegal externalisation of foreign currency. Unlike some other recent arrests, that of Kuruneri is not seen as part of the increasingly fierce struggle for power within the ruling Zanu PF party, but as part of the government's pre-election efforts to show that it is serious about tackling corruption. Though he holds the finance portfolio, Kuruneri is not a political heavyweight and, as such, has never attracted much attention in the Zanu PF ranks. However, the charges and counter-charges of corruption between the two main factions, slugging it out over who will succeed President Robert Mugabe, have played an integral role in thrusting him into the "limelight".
The appointment of a top-level committee to investigate the ruling party's companies and financial deals, along with accusations surrounding the financial affairs of the frontrunner to succeed Mugabe, parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, mean that the campaign against corruption has taken a decisively political turn and could be central to determining who will take over from Mugabe. The committee investigating the party's financial dealings is dominated by anti-Mnangagwa politicians, including the head of the rival faction, former army commander Solomon Mujuru. Much depends on how President Thabo Mbeki plays his hand. It is assumed that he will use Mugabe's visit to Pretoria this week to push for a resumption of talks between the government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, though Mugabe is unlikely to name the date of his retirement unless and until the succession has been decided. Mbeki will want to know too whether the reports of economic stabilisation in Zimbabwe that took up much of Gono's review imply a resumption of international assistance to Harare.
Following its Article IV mission to Harare in March, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) let it be known privately that there was no chance of a new lending programme until the political crisis was resolved. The IMF takes a very different view of Zimbabwe's economic prospects from Gono, forecasting that real GDP will fall a further 9,2% this year, while inflation will average over 600%. Gono has not made any GDP growth predictions but he is sticking to his forecast that inflation will fall below 200% by December. Last month inflation fell to 583%, from a peak of 622% in January. The monthly rate is now down to 5,9%, compared with an average monthly rate last year of 18%. This suggests progress is being made, but Standard Bank economist Robert Bunyi sees this as only temporary. He expects inflation to slow further before accelerating again in the second half of 2004, though it seems highly unlikely that the IMF's 640% annual inflation rate will be reached. Bunyi says the auction exchange rate, which reached its strongest point of Z$3 518 to the US dollar at the end of January, will continue to slide. By last weekend it had fallen to Z$4 700 and with Gono having announced a floor rate for exporters of Z$5 200, equivalent to a further 10% devaluation, analysts are sceptical of the governor's claim that the rate will be reviewed upwards in the final quarter of 2004.
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From SW Radio Africa, 5 May
Court ruling on Charleswood
On Tuesday a high court judge ruled in favour of MDC MP Roy Bennett in his bid to take back his farm in Chimanimani and continue operations. In legal terms the order was granted with consent, meaning the government agrees with it. This becomes the 6th ruling granting ownership of Charleswood Estate to Bennett, but the Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI), which has taken over operations since the illegal invasion last month, refuse to leave. Soldiers continue forcing the farm workers to engage in political activities for Zanu PF. The tragedy here is that the workers are being used to attend political rallies and are being paid less than a third of their original salaries under Bennett. Any workers suspected of supporting the opposition have been victimised. Two men were brutally assaulted and forced off the farm by soldiers yesterday, and are now homeless looking for food and shelter in Mutare. Tererai managed to speak to them about their plight this afternoon. The two farm workers that were assaulted by soldiers and forced to leave their homes on the farm Tuesday were in Mutare looking for food and shelter this afternoon. One of them described the brutal beating they received and the destruction of their property.
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From The Cape Times (SA), 6 May, 2004
Mugabe to launch new paper in SA
By Basildon Peta
Johannesburg
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Namibian President Sam Nujoma have joined hands to start a new regional newspaper called the New Sunday Times to "counter the threat from the global media to African values". But critics have called the project "stupid", and said the two leaders should rather devote their resources to feed the poor in their countries. The newspaper will be sold in all southern African countries and will start publishing on July 1, according to an announcement yesterday. But it seems the real aim of the new newspaper is to offer competition to South Africa's Sunday Times, which has been persistently demonised by the Mugabe government, as the "chief culprit" in publishing "anti-Zimbabwe stories". The new publishing project comes in the wake of a warning by Nujoma at the weekend to use the Namibian army to defend Zimbabwe militarily should it be attacked by "colonialists" bent on removing Mugabe from office. The New Sunday Times will be jointly published by the state-run Zimbabwe Newspapers Group (Zimpapers) and Namibia's New Era Publishing Corporation, a company wholly owned by Nujoma's government.
However, a senior Namibian journalist, who did not want to be named, described the project as "doomed from the start" because it lacks credibility. "The project is unsustainable," he said. "I don't see how readers and advertisers can sustain Mugabe and Nujoma's propaganda tool. In fact, at the risk of sounding disrespectful, I dismiss the project as wholly stupid. The two leaders are better advised to feed the poor in their countries instead of wasting their taxpayers money on this kind of project." Mugabe's chief spin doctor, Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, and his Namibian counterpart, Nangolo Mbumba, have already signed a memorandum of understanding for the two countries to jointly publish the regional newspaper. This memorandum was followed by another agreement signed in Harare on Tuesday by the chief executives of New Era Publications Corporation and Zimpapers. Assistant Editor of Zimbabwe's state run Herald newspaper, Moses Magadza, will edit the New Sunday Times from Windhoek. The New Era Publications publishes a bi-weekly newspaper in Namibia called New Era. The Herald said the New Sunday Times would carry news articles from Namibia, Zimbabwe and other southern African countries "written from an African perspective".
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From The Trinidad & Tobago Express, 5 May
Zimbabwe editor warns: Don't let govt control media
By Imran Ali
Nqobile Nyathi, editor of the Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday-both newspapers which have been shut down by the Zimbabwe government-cautioned that citizens and journalists in this country "should appreciate what they have". "There is so much passion and commitment from the (journalists) that I've met. They should try as much as possible to hold on to it (press freedom) because once it's gone, it's difficult to get back," she told the Express, after delivering the feature address at the Commonwealth Journalists Association's World Press Freedom Day Dinner Lecture. The event was held last Monday night at the Principal's Garden, UWI, St Augustine. In her address, Nyathi detailed a steady erosion of the democratic landscape, primarily through media and opposition control, in Zimbabwe by the country's president, Robert Mugabe. She told the Express that one of the first signs that press freedom is being stifled was when Government starts to talk about restrictions. "Suddenly people are saying: 'The media is not patriotic and not serving the nation's interest, and we need to have somebody looking over the media'. Although I appreciate that the media has to be ethical, I don't believe it is the media's duty to support the government. If the government is wrong, the media should be able to say (so)," she stated. At the same time, Nyathi made it clear that she did not support reckless reporting. She said it was important for the media to "police itself", and she supported the formulation of a code of ethics for the media. She said this code should be developed and administered by media associations, and not dictated by the government.
Following President's Mugabe's election in 2000, Nyathi said in her address, the government has created several pieces of legislation which place strict limits on the access to public information and just how much the media can report. One law - the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act of 2002 - forces all media, both local and foreign, to register with a government-appointed commission before being allowed to work in Zimbabwe. Those who work without accreditation can be jailed for up to two years, she said. It was this very piece of legislation which shut down her newspaper in September last year, when the Supreme Court of the country ruled that the publishing company had not properly registered with the media commission and had been operating illegally. The Broadcasting Services Act and the Public Order and Security Act place limitations on the press and curtail freedom of movement and association. These laws also give the police and army "extensive powers" of arrest and detention, she stated. "(The law) prohibits the publication of statements deemed offensive to President Robert Mugabe," Nyathi said, adding that she had been jailed for this crime last year because a cartoon in the Daily News had been deemed insulting to the President.
The editor said that independent journalists and opposition party supporters alike have been routinely targeted over the past five years in a government-led campaign of violence and persecution. She said that during the run-up to elections, certain rural areas in Zimbabwe are barred off and are off-limits to the independent media and opposition parties. Nyathi called on the international community to take note of the victimisation of the media in Zimbabwe. She said that the government, by having a stranglehold on the country's access to information, has been destroying democracy in Zimbabwe, and if this is allowed to go unchecked, it is unlikely that there will be free and fair elections in the country. Three journalists were also honoured by the CJA and the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago. Commonwealth correspondent Derek Ingram was bestowed the CJA Lifetime Achievement Award, while Allister Hughes was given the Caribbean Press Freedom Distinction Award. Former media owner and publisher Patrick Chookolingo was awarded (posthumously) the MATT Lifetime Achievement Award. Keith Shepherd, Editor of the TnT Mirror, received it on Choko's behalf.
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From The Guardian (UK), 5 May
Zimbabwe 15 set to walk out for good
ZCU refuse to offer binding arbitration
Telford Vice in Cape Town
Zimbabwean cricket will reach meltdown this morning when 15 rebel players and their lawyer draft a letter rejecting the board's offer of mediation and renewing their boycott. This time they will walk out for good. "This will hopefully be our final letter," one of the rebels said. "We'll probably be set free in about 14 days when they fire us." The Zimbabwe Cricket Union will be forced to pick Test sides from the willing but hopelessly inexperienced young players who crashed and burned to a 5-0 one-day series defeat against Sri Lanka. An immediate consequence of the rebels' letter today will be the removal of four of their number from the squad of Zimbabwe named for the first Test against Sri Lanka, which starts in Harare tomorrow. The former captain Heath Streak, spearhead of the attack for several years, will not play; nor will Ray Price, Sean Ervine and Trevor Gripper. The rebels' condition for scrapping the boycott they suspended on Friday was binding arbitration rather than the toothless mediation the ZCU proposed yesterday. "We're adamant that we've in effect had three weeks of mediation, and we believe arbitration is the only route," a player said. He made plain the group's anger at what they see as the board's refusal to take them or their grievances seriously. "We laughed at their letter," he said. "Our guys are really pissed off with the way the union continues to reject everything we ask for. "We've heard stories that they don't really want us anyway. Let them go that route, and we'll see how they suffer. "We believe we are trying to save cricket, and we're 100% keen to play. But they just keep rejecting our issues." The players claim Streak was unlawfully removed as captain and that board officials have acted improperly. The rebels also want to see "politicians" removed as selectors.
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From The Telegraph (UK), 7 May, 2004
Heads arrested as Mugabe shuts schools
Harare
Zimbabwe renewed its offensive against "racist" private schools yesterday by arresting headmasters and members of governing bodies, who are accused of raising fees without permission. Teachers and others in the private sector went into hiding as the government warned a delegation of concerned parents: "We will do to you what we did to the white farmers, and we will take over your schools." Lawyers acting for the private schools said yesterday they were still not sure how many people had been arrested. "They will destroy the schools, but we will not go down without a fight," said Richard Moyo-Majwabu, representing the Association of Trust Schools. The campaign began on Tuesday when police barred entry to most private schools when they tried to re-open after Easter holidays. The schools then went to the high court in Bulawayo with an urgent application. Mr Moyo-Majwabu said the case was postponed until this afternoon "presumably so the papers can be served on the minister of education and the police. We will show the court that there is nothing in the education act allowing schools to be closed for raising fees. What they have done is illegal."
Late yesterday, in the Harare high court, lawyers acting for Hartmann House, primary school for St George's College, won a concession from the minister that it could reopen immediately. Yesterday police around the country were hunting headmasters and members of governing bodies involved in deciding fees. The first to be arrested was Jon Calderwood, rector of Zimbabwe's best known private boarding school, Peterhouse, about 50 miles south east of Harare. According to colleagues, shortly after police took him from his home in the school grounds on Wednesday night, two board members - Simon Hammond and Chris Seager - went to the local police station in Marondera to look for him and were also arrested. Jill Martin, 60, head of Lendy Park, a small private primary school also in Marondera, was arrested with her husband, Dr Kevin Martin, chairman of her board. He was later released, as he is the town's only anaesthetist and was due at an operation. He had to report to police later yesterday and was expecting to be detained.
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From SW Radio Africa, 6 May
Violence in Makoni North
Several people were abducted and beaten, by Zany PF supporters for attending a rally addressed by MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai at Chendambuya Growth Point in Makoni North constituency this past Sunday. The thugs went door to door hunting down people believed to be opponents. Five were abducted and severely assaulted whilst another woman was indecently assaulted. MDC Manicaland spokesman, Pishai Muchauraya says a report was made to Headlands Police and they refused to act, saying they had instructions not to investigate complaints made by MDC supporters.
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From Business Day (SA), 7 May, 2004
Farm eviction order ignored
No action from Zimbabwean officials against occupiers of opposition MP's property
Business Day Correspondent
Zanu PF activists and Zimbabwe Defence Force members have defied with impunity a high court ruling to vacate the farm of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP Roy Bennett's estate in Chimanimani. Justice Antonio Guvava ruled in favour of Bennett's bid to evict the military group that took over his land, and to stop interfering with operations on the property. But no action has been taken against them. The order was granted "with consent", meaning the government agreed with it. The ruling was the sixth granting ownership of Charleswood Estate to Bennett. This time round, retired soldier and newly appointed Manicaland provincial governor Michael Nyambuya, Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi, Commissioner of Police Augustine Chihuri, Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi, as well as the commander of the Zimbabwe National Army, Constantine Chigwenya, were cited as co-respondents in the case. The head of Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI), Col Tshinga Dube, whose company is running Charlesworth, said yesterday his organisation had not been instructed to cease farming operations on the land by the defence force.
ZDI manages farms "acquired" by the defence force, with an agreement on some tobacco-producing farms to use the revenue generated from tobacco production to establish lines of credit with which to purchase military equipment for the force. Dube said: "We are just managing the farm for our client, the defence force. When we take over a farm to manage, we approach the existing workers on the farm and offer them continued employment at the same wages as the farmer was paying them. Some agreed to stay on and we continue with these workers on this basis. We have not been instructed to leave the property. You should speak to the defence ministry." However, according to a report filed by SW Radio based in London, soldiers were continuing to force farm workers to engage in political activities for Zanu PF. The workers were being used to attend political rallies and were being paid less than a third of their original salaries under Bennett. Workers suspected of supporting the opposition have been victimised Dube was recently involved with the "sting" operation in Harare that resulted in the arrest of 70 suspected mercenaries, some of whom are South African, accused of plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. The group faces extradition to Equatorial Guinea and possible execution.
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From Mmegi (Botswana), 7 May
No government intervention in bus rank violence
Donny Dithato, Staff Writer
No high level government-to-government meeting is anticipated between Botswana and Zimbabwe following the violent clashes between citizens of the two countries at the Gaborone bus rank this week. Zimbabwean High Commissioner to Botswana Phelekezela Mphoko told Mmegi in an interview yesterday that the position of his government is that the violent clashes were typical of "a fight between family members or children from the same household". He said that as a result, he finds no reason for high level talks between the two governments. Many people believe the violence was caused by pent up frustrations from both sides with Batswana fed up with the influx of Zimbabweans whom they accuse of taking away their jobs and putting pressure on public services. Batswana also feel that Zimbabweans have significantly contributed to escalating levels of crime in the country like armed robberies, muggings and rape. Batswana think that a growing number of Zimbabweans are active in increasing prostitution, fraud and have become a public nuisance for loitering, scavenging, begging and sleeping in public places. Many Batswana believe the Botswana government is equally responsible for the Zimbabwean problem because of lax immigration rules and regulations.
The temptation of many Batswana to exploit Zimbabwean cheap labour has seen massive relaxation of immigration and labour regulation where farm and domestic workers as well as petty artisans have been given a free reign. Many employers in the construction, service and other industries prefer Zimbabweans to Batswana with impunity. These Zimbabweans in turn have a propensity to increase the influx of illegal immigrants by calling their relatives and friends to come and join them in Botswana. Meanwhile new Police Commissioner Edwin Batshu has raised concerns after recent developments, which seem to suggest a growing tension between Batswana and Zimbabwean nationals. He says some of these developments have resulted in serious public disturbances, damage to property, and serious injuries to people and loss of life.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 6 May
Without 'oomph and guts'
Wilson Johwa
Bulawayo - Even within its own ranks, Zimbabwe's ruling party has shown it is intolerant of ambitions hinting at expansion of the country’s tiny independent press. It counts for very little that the government already controls all broadcast media, and that reporters who work for privately owned publications live in fear of arrest and harassment. Last week a Zanu PF MP was suspended from the party for allegedly courting the publishers of the country's only independent daily newspaper, which was forcibly closed by the government seven months ago. Very popular with readers, The Daily News was a thorn in the side of President Robert Mugabe's government, which accused it of being an opposition mouthpiece. The journalist-turned-legislator - Kindness Paradza - is accused of seeking British funds in a bid to acquire a controlling stake in a weekly newspaper that he helped set up almost two years ago. Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbawe, has had opprobrium heaped on it by Mugabe, who views it as having spearheaded Zimbabwe's international isolation. The country has been uncomfortably pinned in the spotlight since the start of 2000, when the seizure of white-owned farms by so-called war veterans gained international attention. Reports of political violence, two problematic elections and widespread food shortages have done little to remove Zimbabwe from the headlines. Paradza is also being held to account for speaking out against repressive media laws in his maiden speech to Parliament last month. The MP's suspension, says Abel Mutsakani of the Independent Journalists’ Association of Zimbabwe, confirms what is now well known. "It's more of the same, what we've seen in the last 12 months, where the government wants to control the media - even sacrificing one of their own." As the international community marked World Press Freedom Day, the fuss surrounding Paradza's business plans has again focused attention on how the media, like other institutions in Zimbabwe, have been emasculated and politicised by the government.
The vice-president of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, Njabulo Ncube, says media freedom in the Southern African country has been eroded to an even greater extent than was previously the case. Three pieces of legislation, especially that compelling both journalists and media houses to register under a state-appointed commission, have made it difficult for independent voices to be heard. "Aippa [the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act] directly resulted in the closure of The Daily News, throwing into the streets over 200 media workers," observes Ncube. However, a journalism lecturer at the National University of Science and Technology, Ronit Loewenstern, believes reporters have only themselves to blame for the dearth of press freedom in the country. She says that in South Africa, journalists working in the 1980s disregarded race and colour to stand up to media repression during the apartheid era. But, she adds, by the time her journalism students are in the second year of a four-year course, many have lost hope and elect to pursue a career in another sector of the communication industry: "There is no oomph and guts in the media fraternity in Zimbabwe." The results of a 2003 global survey released last month by a Washington-based media watchdog, Freedom House, point to a different reality. The survey lumps Zimbabwe with Eritrea and Equatorial Guinea, concluding that reporting conditions in all three states remain dire. It says authoritarian governments there use legal pressure, imprisonment and other forms of harassment to severely curtail the ability of independent outlets to report freely. In a development guaranteed to raise the ire of Zanu PF officials, it now appears that the information void created by the closure of The Daily News is being filled by foreign broadcasts. One of them is Voice of America's (VOA) Studio Seven programme, specifically aimed at Zimbabweans. Broadcasting in Zimbabwe's three national languages, the hour-long shows were launched last year. Last weekend Studio Seven extended its week-day news programmes to Saturday and Sunday.
With parliamentary elections 10 months away, however, the government is readying for a fight. Information Minister Jonathan Moyo - last year's recipient of the Golden Raspberry award for enemies of press freedom - has labeled Studio Seven "subversive" and has threatened its correspondents with unspecified dire consequences. He has also criticised neighbouring Botswana for hosting a VOA transmitter. Although they create opportunities for journalists, such foreign-based stations are no substitute for a solid and diverse media in Zimbabwe itself. Ncube says as a result of the present narrow media landscape, reporters' ability to bargain for better salaries has also been severely undercut. "We're now in a cul-de-sac," he observes. "We simply accept whatever employers offer us." This situation, he says, has given rise to "brown envelope journalism" where reporters approach business people and personalities for funding, to give them publicity. In this scenario, female journalists appear particularly vulnerable to abuse, Ncube adds. The plight of The Daily News's former employees further illustrates the lack of job opportunities. In a statement on April 30 the workers detailed the financial hardship they have endured, despite an undertaking made by the publisher to continue paying their salaries for up to two years. And, there is little prospect of the media losing its shackles soon. The only beacon of hope is talk that another independent daily newspaper has been registered and will be launched before the end of the year.
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Comment from The Cape Times (SA), 7 May, 2004
Reports of unnatural practices could help to sell Mugabe's paper
By John Scott
Quite by accident, I was lucky enough to be shown a mock-up of the New Sunday Times (NST), the regional paper to be published jointly by Robert Mugabe and Sam Nujoma from July 1. It is to show these two southern African presidents in their true light to counter colonial propaganda in South African newspapers. There will be at least one picture of Mugabe and Nujoma on every page, including the death notices page to console the bereaved in their loss and to ask for their vote in the next election. But there's absolutely no truth in the rumour that Mugabe wanted to suggest they might be next in the grave if they didn't vote for him. The front-page lead will always feature the presidents' latest achievements, such as Mugabe's beating up the unpatriotic opposition and Nujoma's terrifying foreign investors. International news will form a double spread with a weekly gay-bashing page, whose reports and pictures from all over the world will give details of unnatural practices. It is expected that this page will be a major selling point. Unfortunately the paper will contain no economic section, because Zimbabwe no longer has an economy. There will, however, be arts pages, though ballet is banned. As a joint editorial spokesperson for both Mugabe and Nujoma explained, it is one of the main causes of unnatural practices.
The leader page is the NST's showpiece. The leading article will always pinpoint the brilliance of whatever action Mugabe or Nujoma takes, and highlight the profundity of their every statement. The lives of each president will be serialised in the first 1 035 editions of the paper. This will take readers well into 2007. The one constant will be the same person featured for an indefinite period as the Mampara of the Week - the editor of the Sunday Times, for not recognising Mugabe's greatness. All weather reports in the NST will have to be officially authorised by the respective presidents, with jail for forecasters who get it wrong. And the answers in the crosswords must all be anagrams of Mugabe and Nujoma. For instance: Is Mugabe a Lancashire lad? Answer: "E' ba gum." And: Sam Nujoma may be your father, in Afrikaans. Answer: "Jou ma s' man." The property pages will be full of pictures of Mugabe and Nujoma standing on the construction sites of their suburban palaces, to raise the aspirations of their people who might not otherwise have thought of buying upmarket. An innovation is the classification of ministerial shopping in South Africa as a back-page sport. I still think, though, that they should engage the services of my old friend Hannes Smith, editor of the Windhoek Observer. Let him scatter a few of his naked beauties throughout the pages of the NST, and even people not prepared to spend their money on propaganda might buy it.
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From The Times (UK), 7 May, 2004
Government and ECB happy to pass buck on Zimbabwe
By Owen Slot, Chief Sports Reporter
Over the course of a 47-minute meeting in Whitehall yesterday, the Government and the ECB agreed that neither one nor the other was remotely to blame for the mess that they are in over the England team’s proposed tour to Zimbabwe this winter. If the finger is to be pointed in all this, they appeared to decide that the villain of the piece should best be Robert Mugabe. The President of Zimbabwe does, of course, serve pretty well as a catch-all get-out clause. However, the Zimbabwean flag of convenience serves only as a thin veil to disguise the fact that all parties, 15 months after the cricket World Cup fiasco, are once again in a cavernous hole they unearthed for themselves. Both the UK Government and the ECB made it mighty clear that they had no idea of how to find a way out. However, a remaining hope that is sustaining the 15 white rebel cricketers who are being frozen out of the game in Zimbabwe is that Fica, the international players’ association, may find a way of engineering a satisfactory solution. The England players have so far kept their powder dry, yet, by way of their own association, the Professional Cricketers’ Association (PCA), they are to fire off their own severe disapproval of the handling of the issue in a statement next month. Fica itself may also deliver a similar statement, which is likely to be aimed largely at the ICC.
More immediately, Richard Bevan, the PCA chief executive, is to fly to Dubai next week for a meeting with Tim May, the Fica head, and other Fica representatives and Zimbabwe is top of the agenda. "Fica has massive concerns on this and we have a role to play," Bevan said yesterday. "We see the ICC being extremely conscientious about the spirit of cricket on the field; off the field, we have yet to see that. The associations of Fica do not want to see Zimbabwean cricket dissolve." There is, however, a limit to Fica’s powers. It holds no legal sway over the ICC. Its ambition instead will be to manoeuvre the ICC from its position of comfort on the fence. As Fica attempts to engineer a solution to this problem, the domestic powers in England continue to fester in it. The news from Whitehall yesterday was minimal. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, and Tessa Jowell, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, found themselves standing by the exact position taken by Tony Blair in the House of Commons the previous day. The ECB, Jowell said, is caught "between a rock and a hard place". The hard place is Zimbabwe, the rock is the savage penalties that are being threatened by the ICC if they do not go there. But while the Government expressed extreme sympathy for this position, as Blair had declared, it was not about to come to the rescue. "Sport in this country is not run by politicians," Jowell said, "nor should it be."
It was the ECB’s far-fetched hope that the Government would strengthen its stance on the tour, from a position of disapproval to one where it outrightly banned it. Straw, however, firmly ruled that out. "Parliament would have to make it a criminal offence for morally upright cricketers to leave these shores to play cricket abroad," he said. "I’m not going to make criminals out of decent cricketers." All of which leaves the England cricket team where they started, caught in mid-air between Heathrow and Harare. The ECB, Jowell said, "now has a tough decision to make. Whatever the decision, they are not the architects of this dilemma. Robert Mugabe is." However, while Mugabe can be held responsible for much, it should be remembered it was not he who signed an agreement in Harare, less than a month after the end of the cricket World Cup, agreeing to a reciprocal touring arrangement between Zimbabwe and England. This was a point put to David Morgan, the ECB chairman, the very man who did put his name to it. Morgan’s explanation yesterday was that "the tour was already in existence in the schedule long before March last year". He did not explain, however, why he did nothing to rewrite the schedule before money, lawyers and politics once again came into the picture. Morgan also indicated a complete ethical turnaround by the ECB on Zimbabwe. "We do not believe it is incumbent on us to take a moral stand," he said. Which is some distance from the ECB’s position earlier in the year when it produced a paper announcing that the opposite was the case. The ECB is, as Straw said yesterday, "in an unenviable position". Having gone there willingly, however, it is looking hard but cannot see the way out.
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From VOA News, 7 May
UN team ordered out of Zimbabwe
Harare
The Zimbabwe government has ordered a United Nations crop assessment team to leave the country three days after it went into the fields to calculate the annual food harvest. The government gave the UN no specific reason for its decision. Neither UN nor Zimbabwe government officials qualified to speak on food supply would say why. But, President Robert Mugabe's government this week asked the UN team conducting an annual crop assessment to stop and leave the country. The team of assessors, made up of three experts from the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization, had been invited to come. Brian Kagoro, co-chairman of pressure group, the Crisis Coalition, said Friday the likely reason is that the government appears to want to, in his words, "perpetuate the myth" that Zimbabwe had enough grain for next year, and that its land reform program is working. But he warned a potential humanitarian catastrophe lay ahead, as most of the arable land seized from white commercial farmers over the last four years is now fallow.
For more than two years, Zimbabwe, once a food exporter, has been unable to produce enough food and relied on Western donors to feed as many as five million people. The Zimbabwe government told a regional food security organization last month it will not ask for food aid this year because it has enough domestically produced grain on hand and will import any deficit. The government has made no such statement directly to the United Nations or donor governments. Sources within the donor community said the UN crop assessment team had not seen enough to be able to make any accurate predictions about food availability before the next harvest in 2005. But private sector food experts and Western donors estimate the government, in the worst-case scenario, will have to import up to 900-thousand tons of grain before the next harvest. The Zimbabwe government's food aid distribution system has been widely criticized as being politicized. Human rights organizations and opposition supporters have accused the government of providing food only to supporters of the ruling Zanu PF party. Meanwhile, the World Food Program is scaling down its operations in Zimbabwe, and its officials say they are not certain whether they will be back in the fall, when the country is expected to experience food shortages, or whether they are leaving for good.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 7 May
Zim private schools nationalised
Harare
Confusion reigned on Friday as President Robert Mugabe's government vowed to "nationalise" private schools that had raised fees above state-stipulated charges, while the country's high court declared the regime's closure of 46 of the schools was illegal. Private school officials confirmed that at least nine school heads and governors had been arrested since Wednesday, although most had been released. A high court on Thursday declared that the closure of the 46 schools by Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere was "null and void," but Friday morning armed police were still stationed outside most of the private schools affected, staff said, but were allowing children into only Hartmann House, the Catholic junior school that had applied for the court order. A report in the state-controlled daily Herald newspaper said education authorities had been given permission to reopen, but it could not be confirmed. Lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said the order by judge Susan Mavangira was made with the agreement of state lawyers. "The judge said that the minister's order was null and void. It means that it doesn't apply just to Hartmann house, but in the case of all the schools that were closed."
As schools opened for the new term on Tuesday, the government announced that it had banned 46 schools with about 33 000 pupils from starting lessons because they had not received official approval to raise their fees above 10% a year. Armed police were stationed outside school gates to bar teachers and pupils from entering. Zimbabwe is in the midst of an economic crisis with inflation running at a regular 600%, the highest in the world, and private schools say they cannot continue running unless they raise their fees in line with soaring costs. Zimbabwe's most exclusive boarding school, the Anglican church-run Peterhouse in the town of Marondera 75km east of Harare, raised its fees to Z$9,9-million ($1 850) a term. A letter issued by the Association of Trust Schools which represents all the country's about 65 private schools, said that at a meeting with Chidwedere on Wednesday, he declared that all schools that did not cut their fees to the state-set levels would be "nationalised" on Friday. It said he denounced the schools as "racist" and said they were trying to keep out poor blacks.
He demanded that they raised the ratio of black pupils to 60%, but the state-controlled daily Herald quoted school officials as saying that they had advised him that they were already well beyond that, and that the black-dominated parent bodies had overwhelmingly agreed to the fee hikes. Members of a delegation from a private school parents organisation who met Chigwedere on Tuesday said he had warned them, "You can go to court but we will ignore the courts." He also reportedly said that "we are doing to the private schools what we are doing to the farms," a reference to the lawless, violent seizure of nearly all the country's white-owned farm land since 2000. Mugabe last month attacked private schools for charging fees that were "a burden" to poor children. Schools were now being ordered by the education ministry to sign an undertaking they would keep their fees at the official limits, or be kept closed. Education experts say that the state school system is collapsing under an almost total lack of government support, with teachers demoralised, overworked and poorly paid, and classrooms dilapidated.
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From BBC News, 7 May
The rise and fall of Zimbabwe's schools
By Joseph Winter
The enforced closure this week of some 45 private schools illustrates just how far Zimbabwe's education system has declined in recent years. Following independence in 1980, the government of former teacher Robert Mugabe was widely praised for expanding education to the black majority, who had been kept out of the best schools. By the 1990s, Zimbabwe had the highest literacy rates in Africa and it remains high at 89% of the adult population. But the economic crisis, compounded by the HIV/Aids pandemic, means that school enrolment has fallen to 59%. "I am very worried by the drop-out rate," the head of Zimbabwe's teaching unions Peter Mabande told BBC News Online. The private schools - previously reserved for whites - were shut down by the government after raising fees by up to 500%. The law says that increases of more than 10% must be approved by the education ministry, while annual inflation is currently more than 580%. The schools say the ministry has been slow to approve their requests to raise fees and that if they don't raise fees in line with inflation, the best teachers will leave and standards will fall. Opposition MP and chairman of the Petra independent schools trust David Coltart says that the latest fee increases were backed by the parents, who want the best for their children. "There is no justification for bringing private schools down to the absolutely chaotic situation prevailing in public schools," he told the BBC Network Africa programme.
State-run schools have also been feeling the pinch and last year raised their own fees by between 200 and 2000%. Although fees in state schools are sometimes nominal - $250 (5 US cents) a term - when the cost of books and uniforms is added, many of Zimbabwe's poorest families can no longer afford education. Unemployment has rocketed in recent years with the closure of factories and other business and more than half of the population needs food aid. The streets of the main cities are now full of children whose parents have been killed by Aids and who are struggling to find enough food to eat and so can't even think about going to school. Officially, those unable to afford school fees will be given grants but the schools themselves are short of money and so many children fall through the net. In order to cope with the financial shortages, schools in overcrowded urban areas operate "hot-seating". One group of children goes to school in the morning and another group in the afternoon. In rural areas, there are not enough school buildings and some children learn with only the shade of a tree to protect them from the searing sun.
The government accuses the private schools of being racist and of trying to keep blacks out by raising fees so high that only whites can afford them. But the schools strongly deny this and say that most schools have a black majority. Before many whites left after being demonised by the government, they were just 80,000 out of a population of 12 million. So operating an all-white school would not be a viable proposition. In Zimbabwe, politics is everything and as his position has come under increasing threat in recent years, Mr Mugabe has taken to blaming his problems on the white community and their alleged backers in the UK. "We believe they are motivated not by a desire to keep school fees down but by a desire to undermine the urban middle class, which traditionally supports the opposition," Mr Coltart said. The school fee policy is also an example of Mr Mugabe's general approach to economics. As inflation has risen and risen, his government has not sought to curb spending or encourage exports, as most economists would suggest, he has imposed price controls. The prices of basic goods such as bread and sugar have been set by the government. Last year, bakers were taken to court after doubling the price of bread. They said the official price was below the cost of production. So if the government let private schools get away with breaking the law on fee increases, it would be setting a precedent for all the other business trying to survive in a country where cynics say it would be cheaper to use small denomination banknotes than buy toilet paper.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 7 May
Polls could be moved forward
Itai Dzamara
President Robert Mugabe could bring forward the parliamentary election to October this year after the Zanu PF politburo recently concluded the party was ready to beat the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Officials from the Registrar General (RG)'s office have already been deployed around the country for an intensive voter registration exercise. Sources from the RG's office said this week registrar-general, Tobaiwa Mudede, had announced that the voter registration exercise had to be completed by the end of July because "elections could be held any time from then". Constitutional law expert, Lovemore Madhuku, said this week that Mugabe was allowed by the constitution to bring the general election forward to this year. "Under the constitution it is possible. All he has to do is dissolve parliament," said Madhuku. "Under Section 63 of the constitution Mugabe can dissolve parliament at any time and order an election within four months. The rest of the proceedings will be governed by the electoral system and again he has the power to manipulate it. His only concern would be political challenges and not legal issues."
Zanu PF's political commissar, Elliot Manyika, said the party was confident of victory any time and would welcome an early election. "Our recent victories obviously give us confidence and we are ready for the general election any time," said Manyika. "We will be happy to have the general election brought forward." Zanu PF sources said recent politburo discussions attributed the March Zengeza by-election victory to the "momentum currently enjoyed by the ruling party, which will secure it Lupane as well". The Lupane by-election will be held next weekend and the ruling party has already deployed a "high-powered team" to campaign in the constituency. Government sources said Mugabe had indicated that the Delimitation Commission should start preparing for the general election next month and complete the exercise in three months. The ruling party is on the prowl using an anti-corruption blitz to remedy its image ahead of the crucial general election. Mugabe himself has said "the MDC is ready for burial" and that the ruling party should leave no stone unturned in its quest for victory. The MDC shocked Zanu PF in 2000, barely a year after its formation, by winning almost half of the contested seats.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 7 May
Triangle next - Mnangagwa
Staff writers
Government has, through the Agricultural Rural Development Authority (Arda), set its sights on the highly productive Triangle Sugar Estates as it moves to expropriate virtually all private farmland, the Zimbabwe Independent heard this week. This became clear after Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa last weekend announced government plans to acquire Triangle Sugar Estates in Chiredzi. Mnangagwa made the revelation when he addressed about 8 000 employees at a Workers Day rally organised by the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions in Gibbo Stadium on Saturday in the agricultural town. Our reporter who attended the rally said Mnangagwa was constantly heckled and jeered by the crowd - mainly plantation workers - who disapproved of government's intention to take over the estate. The Independent understands that Triangle Ltd and Hippo Valley Estates have been designated for compulsory acquisition. Anglo American Corporation and Tongaat Hullet, who own the two estates, have lodged objections with John Nkomo, the Minister of Special Affairs responsible for Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement. "We have engaged the land committee there to find ways of resolving this issue amicably," an Anglo American spokeswoman told the Independent from Johannesburg, on condition of anonymity. "You should understand that Triangle and Hippo Valley are large industrial developments. As for the workers' reaction, you may attribute that to a host of welfare programmes we introduced recently, including the provision of free ARVs (antiretroviral drugs)," she said.
Mnangagwa brushed aside the workers' muted protests, telling them government had put in place legislation to acquire the huge estate. "This (the land seizures) has started and it is going to continue," said Mnangagwa amid jeers from shocked employees of the two estates. The government has already repealed the Hippo Valley Act to enable it to acquire Hippo Valley Estate, also in the southeast Lowveld. The acquisition of the properties threatens the local sugar industry built around the estates, which have very advanced irrigation systems in the very hot low-rainfall region. Last month government forcibly ejected the owners of Kondozi Farm in Odzi, Manicaland from their farm and installed Arda to run the horticultural concern. Prior to the Arda invasion, Kondozi Farm earned about US$15 million annually in horticultural exports. Arda and the Zimbabwe National Army have also moved into Charleswood Estate in Chimanimani, legally owned by MDC MP for the area, Roy Bennett. The Independent has also established that Arda will soon be taking over Surrey Estate in Bromley, along the Harare-Marondera highway. The farm is registered as Le Sur Dale Farms (Pvt) Ltd. The estate runs arguably the country's biggest abattoir, Surrey Abattoir, which government wants to take over. Arda is also moving into Foyle Farm, which has state-of-the-art dairy production facilities and irrigation equipment in the Mazowe area. In stark contrast to the efficiently run firms it is acquiring, Arda's debt runs into billions of dollars due to inefficiency and poor capitalisation.
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From News24 (SA), 7 May
Moz journos shun Moyo
Maputo
Mozambican journalists on Friday aborted a news conference by Zimbabwe's Information Minister Jonathan Moyo to show their solidarity with their Zimbabwean colleagues, who they said were being hounded by the state. Waving banners and chanting slogans against Moyo and President Robert Mugabe, the journalists told Moyo "What have you come to do here?" and "Stop harassing our colleagues in your country and you will talk to us." Several attempts to calm the angry reporters were fruitless and Moyo in the end could not address the news conference at the end of a three-day visit. A banner held up by a journalist read: "A snake can bite everywhere." Salomao Moiane, editor of the independent newspaper Zambeze, told AFP "the protests are legitimate." The editor, who did not take part in protests, said however "It makes no sense for Moyo to pretend he is friendly to the press after all they have done in Zimbabwe." Under Zimbabwe's tough media laws journalists and their employers need to be licensed by a state-appointed commission, while the communication of false information carries a fine or maximum five-year prison term under security laws. Zimbabwe had the worst record in terms of media freedom among 10 southern African nations last year, according to a recent report by the Windhoek-based Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). It has already kicked out foreign reporters working for international news media organisations and has forcibly closed the Daily News, a popular private newspaper that was highly critical of Mugabe.
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From cricinfo, 7 May
Rebels agree middle-man to liaise with board
Wisden Cricinfo staff
A ray of hope has emerged in the ongoing dispute between the Zimbabwe Cricket Union and the 15 disaffected players. Wisden Cricinfo understands that some of the rebels met with Much Masunda, a prominent businessman, earlier today and agreed that they will allow him to meet with the board, in the hope that the move will lead to mediation. No dates have been set, but everyone involved knows that there is a need to resolve the standoff as soon as possible. Masunda should be acceptable to the ZCU, as he was its original choice as a possible mediator. The deadline imposed by the ZCU - return to work or be fired - expired today, and although both sides have publicly been quiet, there is little doubt that behind-the-scenes attempts to find a resolution have continued. Other details have emerged regarding the well-publicised confrontation between Stephen Mangongo and Ozias Bvute during the final one-dayer at the Harare Sports Club last week. What is not in doubt was that the two men had a heated exchange most sources agree that it got physical over the number of black players in the Test side. But Wisden Cricinfo has been told that during the row Mangongo, the chief of the selection panel, turned on Bvute and asked why he appointed him as a selector if he was not allowed to select. Bvute replied that he was there to support black interests, and Mangongo apparently snapped: "I am here to serve the interests of cricket." Although Mangongo is not overly popular with the rebel players, this exchange underlines the rift within the ZCU between those with cricket's interests at heart, and those who appear determined to purge the sport of anyone they perceive as opposing the Zanu-PF government, whatever the cost. Mangongo is thought to be one of the selectors the rebels want removed on account of his lack of a cricket-playing background. There can be little doubt that Bvute is another whose behaviour has alienated many, as has Max Ebrahim, another hard-liner.
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From The Star (SA), 8 May, 2004
Gun-running that Zim wants to keep secret?
By Brendan Seery
Putting 70 alleged mercenaries on trial in Zimbabwe could have been potentially embarrassing for the government. It would have revealed that a Zimbabwean parastatal company has been deeply involved in gun-running across Africa. The alleged mercenaries, arrested in March, are to be extradited to Equatorial Guinea to stand trial for plotting the overthrow of the government there. The Harare authorities announced the extradition last week, not long after receiving legal documents from lawyers representing the arrested men outlining their defence to various minor charges laid against them in Zimbabwe. A court case would have revealed that the parastatal Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI) has been working for the past few years with a number of white South Africans in joint ventures to ship arms around the continent. The South African arms brokers, operating with offshore companies, registered in places like the Bahamas, were able to guarantee delivery of weapons "within 24 hours of payment being received, to anywhere in Africa," according to a source in Pretoria. Once payment had been received, an aircraft would be dispatched from South Africa to Harare. It would load the weapons from military facilities at Harare airport and would then fly on to its final African destination, said the source.
The source is a friend of businessman Nick du Toit, the man arrested in March as the alleged mastermind behind the Equatorial Guinea coup plot. Among his many business interests, Du Toit and a partner ran an arms broking business which relied upon ZDI's ability to fill orders quickly. The rapid response of this arms channel saw Du Toit and his partner doing "very well indeed" out of the weapons business, said the source. "But he was just a broker - there was no way he would have got involved in a coup. He had too many business interests in EG and he would have risked too much." Du Toit was arrested in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, 24 hours after the Harare authorities seized a Boeing 727 aircraft and its 70 passengers and flight crew on March 8. According to the Zimbabweans, the men were trying to collect a shipment of weapons in Harare and use them to overthrow the government in Equatorial Guinea. Those arrested have denied the allegations, claiming they were collecting the weapons for an operation to protect a mine in the lawless eastern areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The Pretoria source produced the invoice from ZDI to Nick du Toit's Bahamas-registered company, Military Technical Services, from February this year. The invoice confirmed the purchase of weapons with a total value of $1-million (R6,86-million). The invoice was signed by Group Captain GH Mutize, the marketing manager of ZDI. The organisation's directors are a veritable Who's Who of the Zimbabwean military: General Vitalis Zvinavashe (former chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Force, now retired), Lieutenant-General CG Chiwenga (his successor) and Air Marshal Perence Shiri (chief of the air force of Zimbabwe and one-time commander of the notorious North-Korean-trained Fifth Brigade). The weapons supplied to Nick Du Toit's customers could have come from three sources: The Zimbabwe National Army armouries; from weaponry captured by Zimbabwean troops in their involvement in the DRC or could be have been bought new. Whatever the origin of the weapons, the revelation of the ZDI weapons deals will certainly raise eyebrows among African Union states, as well as further afield in countries concerned at arms proliferation.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 9 May, 2004
State targets 'racist' schools
Zimbabwe government arrests principals for 'raising fees without permission'
Sunday Times Foreign Desk
Zimbabwe's beleaguered private schools are expected to open tomorrow - with little idea of how they will survive - after a bizarre offensive against them by President Robert Mugabe. Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere unexpectedly ordered 46 private schools not to open after the Easter break on Tuesday, accusing them of hiking fees to "racist" levels to exclude black pupils. Police were posted at the schools to enforce his decree. On Thursday at least three headmasters were arrested for "raising fees without permission". The first to be arrested was Jon Calderwood, rector of Zimbabwe's private boarding school, Peterhouse, about 80km southeast of Harare. The principals were bundled into police trucks in full view of their pupils. Lendy Park Primary School headmistress Jill Martin was arrested with her husband, Dr Kevin Martin, chairman of the school's board. He was later released, as he is the town's only anaesthetist and was needed for an operation. Teachers went into hiding as the government threatened a delegation of concerned parents that schools would be nationalised.
Beatrice Mtetwa, is a human rights lawyer on the board of Harare's leading Catholic school, St George's College, where President Robert Mugabe's son Robert is a pupil. She said: "A committee of eight concerned parents went to see the minister [of education]. They reported back that he said he will do to the schools what was done to white farmers, and that ultimately the government will take these schools over as Zanu PF controls the courts." Despite his claims of racism, two schools owned by former army commander, and now senior Zanu PF official, General Vitalis Zvinavashe were also closed. Up to 90% of children at private schools are black and their parents are government ministers, members of parliament, industrialists and other professionals. On Thursday, Chigwedere resorted to semantics to explain government action. "The government did not close down the schools, we only objected to them opening before revising their fees downwards," he said, declaring the crisis over as schools had agreed to cut fees. The targeted schools are now faced with the impossible task of trying to survive without a realistic fee hike, while inflation soars above 600%. If the schools follow what the minister wants, they will have to borrow from banks and or mortgage their buildings," said a lawyer who sits on the boards of two private schools.
The school heads were released on police bail on Thursday and on Friday police had started to move out of schools. A teacher at Peterhouse said: "How can they bring more than six police officers to arrest an unarmed headmaster? They humiliated him and made him look like a criminal in front of school kids." At least 30 000 pupils had been turned away by policemen when they arrived at school gates on Tuesday. Hardest hit were students from neighbouring countries, who had to be booked into hotels, while others stayed with friends. One parent complained that she had driven her son from Bulawayo to Harare, 440km away, to start school and had to drive back on Tuesday to pick him up. "Now I have to go back to Harare to drop my son. Does the minister know the cost of his decision?" she asked. In a country where inflation has reached 600%, the government insisted that schools could only raise fees this term by a maximum of 10%. The majority of private schools were proposing to double their fees for the new term to up to R12 000 a term. School heads on Friday said the parents had agreed to pay the fees.
Chigwedere accused black parents, who sent pupils to private schools, as being "mentally colonised". "These are parents who have been mentally colonised who believe that the former white schools are better," he said. Chigwedere said government schools were producing much better results than the expensive private schools. Most of the expensive private schools offer exams from international boards such as the universities of London and Cambridge. Crisis Coalition, a body of civic groups, on Friday slammed the government action against private schools. "While the concerns of the minister are legitimate, the Crisis Coalition is disturbed by the brutal handling of the issue," it said. "The ministry waited until the opening of schools to make its intentions known. In addition, police were posted at school gates and instructed to turn away the children. This was traumatic for children and senseless victimisation of pupils who have very little say in the matter. By resorting to using the police force, the minister is indicating that there is little or no room for amicable negotiation and dialogue." In Bulawayo, the Association of Trust Schools filed an application seeking a reversal of the ministerial order to close schools. On Thursday the Harare High Court ordered Hartmann House Preparatory School to reopen, after parents and the school board sued the minister. The schools are expected to open tomorrow, but their long-term future remains uncertain.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 8 May
Army/National Parks accused of poaching
Munyaradzi Wasosa
The Zimbabwe National Army and the department of National Parks and Wildlife Management have been accused of involvement in poaching activities that have decimated Zimbabwe's wildlife in the country's conservancies, the Zimbabwe Independent has been told. In an interview, Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF) chairman Johnny Rodrigues, accused the Ministry of Environment and Tourism of failing to curb "state poaching". "It's a fact that the army, which was called in by (Minister Francis) Nhema to fight poaching, is now heavily involved in the illegal activity," he said. Rodrigues said the army was involved mainly in the Kariba/Chirara game area. "ZCTF spoke to eyewitnesses in Kariba who saw soldiers airlifting antelope carcasses," he said. "Recently we uncovered 200 snares in one day in the area." Meanwhile, Rodrigues said poachers were also targeting the black rhino which is protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites). "Since December 2003, poachers in the Sinamatela Intensified Protection Zone have killed four black rhino, while two others have been killed in the Save Conservancy," he said. Rodrigues said the conservancy was under threat from poachers. "Save has 60% of wild animals left, but the threat of poachers in the area cannot be over-emphasised," he said.
Rodrigues said Whitro Ranch in Mwenezi, compulsorily acquired by the government, has no animals left. "It had around 1 000 wild animals including elands, zebras and impalas, prior to land invasions," ZCTF said. "Due to poaching, the ranch only had 240 animals left by April last year, now there are no animals there." ZCTF also said Kleinbegin Ranch, which is part of the Bubi River Valley Conservancy, has lost 95% of its wildlife to poachers in the past three years. The anti-poaching organisation, which was formed in 2001, clashed with the government in 2002 over corruption involving government officials. "When we formed ZCTF, it was with the intention of assisting National Parks to minimise poaching before it was too late," Rodrigues said. "With the government actually encouraging the slaughter (of wild animals), it is impossible to fight something of this magnitude." Environment minister, Francis Nhema, refuted ZCTF's accusations saying the department of National Parks was responsible for anti-poaching activities. "It's difficult to comment on behalf of the army," he said. "Most of the staff that does the anti-poaching is ours." He said his ministry was "happy with the army's collaboration". He instead accused the ZCTF of falsifying figures. "They (ZCTF) are running away from the truth by giving percentages," he said. "Their figures worry me a lot." Efforts to speak to army spokesman Colonel Ben Ncube were fruitless. He was said to be attending a seminar in Bulawayo.
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From The Sunday Mirror, 9 May, 2004
President summons minister Mangwana
...as Kadoma terror campaign allegations emerge
Mirror Reporter
Paul Mangwana, the Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare and Zanu PF’s member of parliament for Kadoma East was on Friday summoned by President Robert Mugabe following allegations that he had formed a terror team in his constituency, the Sunday Mirror has been told. The Daily Mirror, our sister paper, wrote a story in which the Kadoma District Coordinating Committee (DCC) and the Zanu PF member of parliament for Kadoma Central, Ishmael Mutema alleged that Mangwana set up the militia dubbed the ‘Task Force’ that targeted his perceived opponents ahead of the 2005 parliamentary elections. A source said Mangwana, immediately after being summoned for the hearing that was set for yesterday, telephoned some people in the constituency whom he regarded as his allies to inform them of the development. Understandably, President Mugabe had also been furnished with the complaints over the alleged terror campaign, and was reportedly incensed by the divisive potential of such an act. Sources say he was mostly disturbed by the fact that the complaints were coming from war veterans, a crucial component in Zanu PF election campaigns. It could not be established, however, whether the meeting took place or not and Mangwana could not be reached for his response following the revelation. Efforts to get an official comment from government were also fruitless.
Observers say the unravelling developments regarding Mangwana’s position in Mashonaland West, where he is the deputy legal affairs secretary, are deeply mired in ethnic biases. Mangwana, who became member of parliament for Kadoma East in the 2000 general elections, is ostensibly resented in the constituency because he is an ‘outsider’. Mashonaland West is fundamentally home of the Zezuru, a Shona sub-ethnic group, while Mangwana is originally from Masvingo, a province dominated by the Karanga, another Shona sub-ethnic establishment. He was a practising lawyer in urban Kadoma, where he managed to weave political recognition for himself, culminating in him running in rural Kadoma East. Said one member of the Kadoma DCC recently: "How could the party (Zanu PF) take someone from as far as Kadoma town and impose him in a constituency which he hardly knows anything about? "Does that mean we have run short of our own sons and daughters, people who participated in the armed struggle here and know all our sacred places?" This demonstrated resentment of Mangwana by the people of Kadoma East, who are well-known for their suspicion of outsiders, has also spilled into the larger domain, the province, where his fortunes seem to be on the dim.
Mangwana tried to run for several top provincial provisions but lost dismally, before being ‘handed down’ his current humble position as a token of respect by the party’s leadership in the province. The ethnic dimension, sources say, was also demonstrated in 2000 when Mangwana was announced as a full minister during a reshuffle made by President Mugabe. He was however dropped hardly 24 hours after the announcement, and relegated to the position of deputy minister. The government said the announcement had been made on the basis of a typographical error, but sources say he was dropped following intense lobbying by Zanu PF Politburo members from Mashonaland West. Their argument, it was reported, was that President Mugabe should not consider him as part of the cabinet allocation for the province since he did not come from there. The late first Vice President, Simon Muzenda, who also came from Masvingo, had reportedly recommended him for the position.
Kadoma central MP and Zanu PF Kadoma DCC member, Ishmael Mutema, in an undated intra-party correspondence marked "Top Secret" and copied to two Zanu PF politburo members from the province, Enos Chikowore and Nathan Shamuyarira, said he had been informed that Mangwana had formed a militia dubbed "Task Force" which went about harassing his perceived opponents. He further charged that the "Task Force" was formed to harass other members of the party who are aspiring to contest in March 2005 general elections, adding that a vehicle had specifically been allocated to the team to carry out the alleged terror campaign. Mutema mentioned as Mangwana’s commanders several people, identified as Madzikanda, Gonya, Chingwa and Wushe, adding that torture rooms had been set up in Kadoma East to beat up Mangwana’s perceived enemies. Mangwana refused to comment on the allegations that were made by the Kadoma DCC, which he reportedly wanted out.
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Comment from The Sunday Times (SA), 9 May, 2004
The Zimbabwe Bird now flies as a symbol of betrayed promise
As Robert Mugabe imposes increasing hardship on his people, Chenjerai Hove laments the loss of hope that has come about in just 24 years
April 18 1980, midnight, the Prince of Wales has the British flag lowered so he can take it to his motherland. A new flag is hoisted. The Zimbabwe Bird flies again in a land where it has long not been allowed to and we feel the ancestors singing and dancing with us as we recompose the songs of our destiny:
Zimbabwe, nyika yamadzibaba Zimbabwe, nyika yeZimbabwe (Zimbabwe, the land of our fathers Zimbabwe, the land of Zimbabwe)
We sing and feel like dancing our clothes to tatters, in celebration, in joy. A celebration for the arrival of our new dignity. The colonists and the rebel whites had trodden where even our angels feared to tread but now self-respect is back in our hands, never to be taken away by anyone. We could sweep our own house with our own broom and we could write our own history, even in our own blood. What a celebration, in all those colours which tell us that black and white are now merged in their dreams of the land, in our gold and our trees, in our minerals, our joys and sorrows, our smiles and our tears. Prime Minister Robert Mugabe makes the speech launching our flag - and the dreams which go with it. The flag flaps in the wind, like a long-lost child - the prodigal son of African politics has been born. We all smile with an innermost feeling hidden in our hearts for decades. Twenty four years later, the flag drips with tears. Only 24 years. What happened to make us cry so soon? Others cry after 50 years, 100 years, 200. What made us cry so soon?
The 1979 Lancaster House constitution was bad for the people. It gave Zimbabweans a flag without the economic power to enjoy freedom. Mugabe forgot, in the glare of power, to have that document translated into local languages for local and national debate. He forgot to inform the people how bad the compromise document was. The constitution did say a few things about the land. There was recognition that the war of liberation was not about installing a black person in State House. It was about getting the land back to its rightful owners. But on the day flags were exchanged, there was no mention of the land. The soil sank under the weight of political and diplomatic niceties. Those who fought for our country were always called vana vevhu, children of the soil. After the exchange of flags, they were forgotten and buried. It became a social and political aberration to be associated with those who had fought the war. They became the class of the uncouth, the undisciplined who had no education and could not speak enough English to be compared with the eloquent Mugabe.
It was only 17 years later that the so-called ex-combatants forced themselves onto the political stage, "so-called ex-combatants" because most of them are so young that they could have fought the war only from their mothers' bellies. They were compensated mercenary-style without it having been planned for in the national budget, leading to the printing of vast amounts of paper money and the collapse of the Zimbabwean dollar. Another betrayal and useless efforts to rectify a problem which had been in the political intensive care for too long. Now the people are shocked how Mugabe forces youths into his personal militia, which rape mothers in front of their children. The same youths are given guns to shoot at whoever they think is a political opponent of Mugabe. Sadly, they wield the same flag that gave us our dignity and self-respect, imposing a heavy silence on a people who should be able to shout if their rights are trampled on.
Zimbabwe is now a country virtually run by the secret service, the dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation. They are the ears and eyes of the president and are quick to tell their victims that they are "from the president's office". The secret service has been unleashed on the people, in all places and professions. Their task is to infiltrate organisations and break them apart. They go with the package of death threats and disappearance of opponents and critics of Mugabe's political party and agenda. The secret service is in pubs, churches, trade union organisations, students' movements, in hospitals, every where. When Zimbabweans go out for a drink or a meal, they check carefully who is sitting next to them. If it is men in suits and dark glasses, they try to move further away. Betrayal upon betrayal. The land betrayal, the human rights betrayal, the corruption which is now rife. All those put the Mugabe government in confrontation with the people, hence the vast amounts of taxpayers' money spent on running a massive secret service network.
Zimbabwe lives under a new language regime. First there was the battle for the term "patriotism", now it is against anyone who is so "blasphemous" as to criticise Mugabe. The president has, all of a sudden, been transformed into a religion, a demi-god. The propaganda machine is in overdrive and the only daily newspaper which reported events as they really occurred has been banned. Now, when the people protest, they are met with stronger force than Mugabe's predecessor, Ian Smith, used to employ against them. As my ageing mother puts it: " Vaita sei chazvo vana ava ? [What has gone wrong with these children?]" The flag still flaps on, but no political leader seems to remember the dreams and aspirations that flag gave Zimbabweans at midnight on April 18 1980. All one needs to do is go back to school and re-read George Orwell's Animal Farm to understand the broken promises and lies which suppress Zimbabweans today.
Hove is an award-winning novelist and poet from Zimbabwe
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From The Guardian (UK), 10 May 2004
Zimbabwe ejects UN crop survey team
Patrick Smith and Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
The Zimbabwean government ordered a United Nations crop assessment team to leave the country over the weekend, days after it went into the fields to begin to calculate the annual food harvest. The order effectively blocks UN and EU preparations to provide food aid reckoned to be needed for more than 5 million people later in the year. The cancellation is believed to have been ordered because President Robert Mugabe's government did not want the UN team to gather figures showing that harvests would fall far short of the country's food requirements. The agriculture minister Joseph Made said the UN team was in the country without his approval. But the Guardian has seen a letter dated March 30 from Mr Made's ministry inviting UN World Food Programme officials to estimate the country's food aid needs. Independent agricultural experts warn that another year of serious food shortages looms as a result of the precipitous drop in production caused by the government's land seizures. An impending "famine" is how Zimbabwe's food situation is described by the German-based Friedrich Ebert foundation, which conducted an extensive crop survey in March.
The government, however, estimates Zimbabwe will produce a bumper harvest of 1.7m tonnes of maize this year. UN officials dismiss the government's estimate as "impossible" and "a fantasy". "The government does not want to admit that its land grab has been a disaster and that Zimbabwe can no longer produce enough food to feed itself," said political scientist John Makumbe, the chairman of the Zimbabwe branch of Transparency International. Opposition politicians charge that the government intends to use the food shortages to its political advantage in the parliamentary elections scheduled for next March. They say that the government plans to buy votes with food and will starve areas where there is strong opposition. The elections will take place at the height of Zimbabwe's "lean season" when the rural population is between harvests and short of food. Agricultural experts in Zimbabwe confirm that despite good rains this year the maize crop will not be nearly enough to feed the country's 12 million people. They say much of the land seized from white commercial farmers over the past four years is lying fallow. A further problem has been the government's failure to provide adequate seed and fertiliser to small-scale black farmers. As a result Zimbabwe will need to import as much as 900,000 tonnes of grain, and an estimated 5 million people will need food aid.
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From Sapa-DPA, 10 May 2004
Zim stops UN's famine assessment mission
Harare
A United Nations mission in Zimbabwe to assess the country's food production levels has been called off by President Robert Mugabe's government, UN officials said on Sunday. Kevin Farrell, chief representative of the World Food Programme (WFP), the UN's famine relief arm, confirmed reports that three teams, made up of two WFP agronomists and one from the Food and Agriculture Organisation, and locally-based UN experts, had been ordered back to Harare in the past week after only four days in the field. "All we know is what we have been told verbally," he said. "We still have to be officially told that this has happened and hopefully we will get some better clarification why." UN officials said the three assessment teams were in different famine-stricken areas of the country when one of the government officials received a call on his cellphone, telling him to order the UN personnel to withdraw. The UN |
