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Archived News
14th December 2004
Zim war vets defy Zanu PF
Harare regime scores 'universally low' approval rating
Tourists continue to shun Zimbabwe
Risky sex and the law - incompatible bedfellows?
Civic groups want UN-led human rights probe in Zimbabwe
Only Mbeki can restore sanity to Zimbabwe
Shamu to take over from Jonathan Moyo
Things fall apart for Moyo
War veterans' boss vows to defy Mugabe
Zim farmers head to Nigeria
Consulting the ancestors to bring political peace
Down a familiar path into the heart of darkness
Moyo plotted Mugabe's ouster
It's war in Zimbabwe
Shamu
Bullied legal system key to Mugabe's power
Bennett wastes away in Mutoko Prison
Zimbabwe cricket again in turmoil
Int'l lawyers slam Mugabe
Protesters besiege Zimbabwe's embassy
Refugees escape to a hell of our making
Why Harry's new girl has left her English rivals seething
How girlfriend's father shot to success
'White capitalists' and Zanu PF
I am not one of them: Bredenkamp
Mbeki urged to change stance on Mugabe
Zanu PF delegates accused of stealing hotel linen
Cricket crisis
Zanu PF to seize remaining white-owned land
MDC issues report on abuse
Axe Moyo: war vets
Pre-election spending hides big discrepancies
Three cricket officials suspended for extortion
Chinotimba fired?
Politiburo announcement expected on Friday
Mugabe's dilemma
Government trains more militias
Zimbabwe targets groups' foreign funding
Thousands still in need of food aid in Zimbabwe
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From News 24 (SA), 7 December
Zim war vets defy Zanu PF
Harare - The Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWA) has defied the ruling Zanu PF party by saying that dismissed chairperson Jabulani Sibanda is still their leader. President Robert Mugabe suspended Sibanda from the ruling Zanu PF after he attended a controversial and unauthorised meeting in Tsholotsho district in the western province of Matabeleland. Also suspended from the party were six party provincial chairpersons, while information minister Jonathan Moyo, who allegedly called the meeting, has been reprimanded and faces further censure. The meeting signalled the worst fissure in Zanu PF in almost 25 years of power. Still, ZNLWVA secretary-general Alex Mudavanhu said on Monday that his organisation and Zanu PF were "separate entities". "Our structure is still intact," he said. "It remains intact until a congress is held with the required quorum. That is when a new executive can be elected." No comment was available from Zanu PF on the surprise announcement.
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From The Star (SA), 8 December
Harare regime scores 'universally low' approval rating
SA opinion shows variation across race groups, and a surprising number who simply don't know
A new survey has found a high degree of uncertainty among South Africans concerning the Zimbabwe issue. The study, conducted by Research Surveys and released yesterday, canvassed 2 000 adults from the seven major metropolitan areas in interviews in their homes. Only 11% of them felt Robert Mugabe was doing a good job as president of Zimbabwe, compared with 59% who felt Mbeki was doing a good job in South Africa. Although there was some variation in the figure across race groups, Mugabe's approval rating was "universally low". Fourteen percent of black Africans felt Mugabe was doing a good job (especially males at 18%), 8% of coloureds thought so, 8% of whites and 4% of Indians. Only 11% felt Zimbabwe had a positive future with Mugabe in power, with this highest among black Africans at 15% and particularly low among white men at 2%. Seven out of ten disagreed that Mugabe was doing a good job and that Zimbabwe had a positive future under him. A surprisingly high number of people were not sure - one in five in both cases.
Fifty-eight percent felt that current policies in Zimbabwe ignored basic human rights. However, while only 13% disagreed with this view, 30% did not know, with differences among population groups high. Seventy-two percent of whites felt that current policies in Zimbabwe ignored basic human rights, 67% of coloureds, 64% of Indians and 53% of blacks. When asked about South Africa's role in Zimbabwe, there was ambivalence. On the question: "Should SA be doing more to intervene in policies in Zimbabwe", 41% said "Yes" (whites 51%, blacks and coloureds 39% and Indians 33%). Forty percent said "No," and 19% "Don't know." On the question: "Should SA impose sanctions on Zimbabwe?", 37% said "Yes" (whites 49%, coloureds 47%, Indians 43% and blacks 31%). Thirty percent said "No" and 29% said "Don't know." The high proportion of "don't knows" suggested a fair degree of uncertainty over the issue of Zimbabwe.
On the Iraq question, only 15% of metropolitan adults felt that America was right to invade Iraq, while 59% disagreed and a quarter were not sure. Whites at 30% (and especially males at 37%) were the most likely to feel America's course of action was correct; 21% of coloureds, 18 % of Indians and only 9% of blacks felt this way. People aged 50 and older were also more militant in this regard, with 19% agreeing. On Israel and the Palestinian question, 26% agreed that South Africa should impose sanctions against Israel, with 36% disagreeing and a "massive" 38% saying "Don't know". Men were more likely to agree, especially black men at 32%. People aged 50 and older were less likely to agree (19%), while those under the age of 24 were more likely to agree at 29%. On Mbeki's role in foreign affairs, 68% of people agreed that the president spent too much time out of the country (coloureds 79%, Indians 75%, whites 73% and blacks 65%). Fifteen percent disagreed and 17% said "Don't know." Asked if Mbeki devoted too much time to Africa and too little to South Africa, 62% agreed (coloureds and Indians 75%, whites 70% and blacks 57%). Nineteen percent disagreed and 19% said "Don't know."
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From Zim Online (SA), 8 December
Tourists continue to shun Zimbabwe
Harare - International tourists continued to shun Zimbabwe because of the country's negative image with 29 percent less arrivals between January and September this year compared to the same period last year, according to the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority. In its latest report released this week, the ZTA said efforts by the government to shift focus from traditional markets in the West to China and the Far East did not pay off with 1 271 904 people visiting Zimbabwe in the first nine months of the year compared to 1 793 128 visitors between January and September 2003. The ZTA is a quasi-government institution and is regarded as the voice of the country's ailing tourism sector. The authority said: "Causes of the decline (include) continued negative publicity (and the) lack of resources to counter negative publicity in source markets." A drop in the number of major airlines landing at Harare international airport as well as the impact of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the United States were also cited as some of the reasons for the decline. Only British Airways and South African Airways still land at Harare international airport after more than a dozen international airlines that used to land there stopped owing to fuel shortages gripping Zimbabwe for the last four years.
Tourism was the country's fastest growing economic sector four years ago but is crumbling - just like everything else in Zimbabwe - as visitors shun the country because of lawlessness, political violence and its poor human rights record. The ZTA said major source markets that experienced decline over the period under review include the United Kingdom and Ireland which recorded a 33 percent drop from 47 667 visitors in 2003 to 31 710 in 2004. Visitors from Germany dropped by 64 percent from 8 087 during the first nine months of the year compared to the same period last year. There were 2 916 visitors from Switzerland between January to September 2004 compared to 7 906 arrivals from Zurich during the same period last year. Australian visitors plummeted by 38 percent from 23 478 to 14 437 and South Africa had a 33 percent decline from 713 866 visitors last year to 369 066.
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From IPS, 7 December
Risky sex and the law - incompatible bedfellows?
Wilson Johwa
Bulawayo - For teenagers in the eastern Zimbabwean town of Mutare, a popular disc jockey who goes by the name of Kaiboni has long epitomized the glamorous life. But now, his future is anything but enviable. The 30-year-old could spend several years in prison for statutory rape and willful transmission of HIV. He is accused of having sex with a 15- year-old on several occasions, and consciously infecting her with the AIDS virus. Kaiboni denies the charges, claiming he was unaware of his HIV status at the time. But in evidence given against him, a physician testified that the disc jockey had been told he was HIV-positive in 1999, after he took an AIDS test. Citizens of Mutare have been mesmerized by the trial since it got underway several months ago. But for AIDS activists, the court proceedings amount to more than compelling human drama. They also focus attention on the effectiveness of a law that bans HIV-positive persons from knowingly engaging in sexual behaviour that might lead to their partners becoming infected.
In 1998, Zimbabwe criminalized the willful transmission of HIV, defined as the failure to disclose one's status or to take precautions for preventing the transmission of AIDS, (about a quarter of the country's 12 million people are infected with the HI-virus). "The offence can also be committed within marriage," says Professor Julie Stewart of the University of Zimbabwe's law faculty. Few cases of willful transmission have come to light, however. Those that did receive attention were mostly discovered in the course of investigations of non-consensual sex where magistrates are allowed to request that the victim be tested for HIV. Most people, it seems, are unaware that they have legal recourse when their partner knowingly puts them at risk of contracting AIDS - or simply disinclined to take legal action. Organisations that represent HIV-positive people are often opposed to criminalization of sexual conduct that carries the risk of HIV transmission. They argue that these people do not necessarily intend to endanger the lives of those they have sex with û and that their actions may stem from fear, denial or ignorance.
"Willful transmission is not a regular occurrence and its fear is often propounded by society in order to demonise people with AIDS, or to increase the fear of people with the HI-virus," says Marlise Richter, a researcher with the AIDS Law project at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies. The centre forms part of the University of the Witwatersrand, which is based in South Africa's commercial hub û Johannesburg. In a report entitled 'Criminal Law, Public Health and HIV Transmission', the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) also weighed in against using criminal law to deal with HIV transmission. UNAIDS says criminalization may create a false sense of security among people who are not infected. It also argues that since HIV transmission frequently occurs when people do not know they are infected, a criminal prohibition would be largely irrelevant. Sophie Dilmitis, head of the Harare-based Choose Life Trust, says criminalisation further serves to deepen the prejudices surrounding AIDS. ôIt adds to people's fears of being tested and adds to the stigma linked to being HIV-positive," she notes.
Also, what of instances where Zimbabweans suspect they have AIDS - even if they haven't been tested yet? Do the country's laws open the way for prosecution of these individuals, in the event that they do pass on HIV? "This raises the question of whether a suspicion - however strong - that you are HIV-positive or have AIDS would suffice (in court)," says Stewart. "The answer is probably no." But even though many "gray" areas loom when countries legislate against willful transmission of HIV, several states in Southern Africa have pressed ahead with such laws. The region is considered the epicentre of the global AIDS pandemic: another country in Southern Africa, Swaziland, currently has the world's highest HIV prevalence rate (38.8 percent). South Africa, which has more HIV-positive persons than any other country (5.3 million) is an exception to this legal trend - although things could change. "At the moment, South African law makers are regrettably considering whether an HIV-specific crime should be added to the Sexual Offences bill," says Richter.
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From Zim Online (SA), 8 December
Civic groups want UN-led human rights probe in Zimbabwe
Harare - African human rights and civic society groups have urged the African Commission on Human and People's Rights to pressure Harare to accept a special rapporteur from the commission and from United Nations secretary general, Koffi Annan, to probe abuse of human rights defenders in Zimbabwe. In a submission at the commission's 36th session, which ended in Dakar yesterday, the groups also asked the continental human rights watchdog to mobilise African pressure on President Robert Mugabe to restore judicial independence in Zimbabwe. They said the commission should also call for an inquiry into the harassment and intimidation of lawyers and other human rights defenders allegedly by government and ruling Zanu PF supporters. The groups said: "The NGO forum resolves to recommend the commission to recommend to the government of Zimbabwe to invite the special rapporteur on the African Commission on Human Rights Defenders and the special representative of the United Nations secretary general on human rights defenders to visit Zimbabwe and assess the situation of human rights defenders in Zimbabwe." It is up to the commission to accept the request by the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and forward it to African Union's next heads of government summit in February 2005. Mugabe and his government have waged a vicious campaign against independent judges which saw nearly all members of the old and respected bench headed by former Chief Justice, Anthony Gubbay, forced to step down. The government has on several occasions also arrested human rights activists for exposing human rights violations while Zimbabwe's biggest daily paper, the Daily News, was shut down after continuously highlighting political violence and human rights abuses by state security agents and government supporters.
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From The Financial Times (UK), 7 December
Only Mbeki can restore sanity to Zimbabwe
By Robert Rotberg
Zimbabwe is in deep, seemingly irreversible decay. How to reverse that plunge from prosperity and growth to stagnation and starvation ought to be of paramount concern to African, European and US policymakers. After the immediate crises in Darfur and Cote d'Ivoire, Zimbabwe's impending failure will inflict the most damage on Africa. The country is suffering from four years of economic decline, with gross domestic product per capita down about 40 per cent from 2000. Banks are failing. Inflation continues at more than 300 per cent. The leadership is wildly corrupt. Hospitals have become morgues, for lack of supplies or physicians. The spread of HIV/Aids is rampant, and life expectancies have fallen from an average 55 years to 35 years. Schools are stymied by severe shortages of teachers and textbooks. Unemployment is about 80 per cent; emigration is essential for many professionals and the exodus to Botswana, South Africa and even Britain is unremitting. Basic foodstuffs and other commodities, especially petrol and diesel, are expensive and scarce.
President Robert Mugabe's government is in a perfect position to use food as a political weapon. Zimbabwe's staple maize supplies are in profound deficit following this year's terrible harvest - in turn caused by the eviction of nearly all commercial farmers from their land and a shortage of capital. In one eastern district, the ruling Zanu PF party confiscated all the grain in the local stores and now distributes it only to those who purchase party registration cards. That pattern will continue until the parliamentary election scheduled for March. Only a change of regime, from Mr Mugabe's dictatorship to something much less repressive and more democratic, will permit Zimbabweans to begin reconstructing what was Africa's most balanced, vigorous economy and restore opportunity to what was Africa's strongest and best educated professional class (on a per capita basis). Otherwise, the longer Mr Mugabe - like Alexander Lukashenko in Belarus and the late Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire - rules, the harder it will become to prevent Zimbabwe from following Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia into chaos and squalor.
Last week's open rift between Mr Mugabe and some of his erstwhile associates in malgovernance testified to the president's continued tyranny and an escalating battle over the spoils of despotism. The events of the recent Zanu PF annual party congress and the controversy over the England cricket team's tour imply no new enlightenment or democratic tendencies within the party or its leadership. Several years ago, George W. Bush and Tony Blair both tried to chasten Mr Mugabe directly, and also to apply pressure to Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa and regional king-pin, to bring Mr Mugabe to heel. But in the shadow of Iraq, Washington and London are preoccupied. And so is the United Nations. Mr Mbeki seems more concerned about further mayhem in Cote d'Ivoire. Nevertheless, he managed for the first time last month to receive Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change. That possibly augurs a relaxation of South Africa's hitherto strong embrace of Mr Mugabe. Mr Mbeki has long claimed an influence over Zimbabwe's leader and conceivably he has relied too much on promises that Mr Mugabe would cease brutalising his own country, particularly the opposition.
But except for Mr Tsvangirai's recent acquittal on an old charge of treason (a new one is pending and the acquittal is being appealed), which could only have been accomplished with a nod from Mr Mugabe, there are no signs of change. Zimbabwe's captive parliament continues to approve legislation preventing the opposition from campaigning, holding meetings, accessing state-controlled media, receiving contributions and even checking voter rolls. Despite a Southern African Development Community directive to the contrary, the March election promises to be as uncompetitive as the 2002 presidential election and the 2000 parliamentary elections, which were likewise rigged. Short of a successful MDC-led rebellion, which would have the support of urban and many rural Zimbabweans and could lead to massive bloodshed if Mr Mugabe's police and military retaliate, only Mr Mbeki can restore peace and sanity to Zimbabwe. Only he can encourage or compel the 81-year old Mr Mugabe to exit, and save Zimbabwe. Mr Mbeki could provide safe passage to Namibia, where Mr Mugabe has a farm, or offer him safe haven in South Africa. Such an exodus by Mr Mugabe before the March poll would almost certainly lead to an MDC victory and a peaceful transition. Otherwise, the MDC threatens to boycott the election, giving Mr Mugabe and his cronies another five years in which to continue looting and destruction of their country. That would be tragic for all Zimbabweans. It would also weaken all of southern Africa and damage the credibility of the new African Union and Mr Mbeki's much hyped New Partnership for Africa's Development. Who needs another failed state in Africa?
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 9 December
Shamu to take over from Jonathan Moyo
Webster Shamu, the Minister of Policy Implementation in the President's Office, is heavily tipped to become the next Minister of Information and Publicity, authoritative sources in the government told The Daily News Online. Shamu is believed to be favourite to succeed the incumbent minister, Jonathan Moyo, who has fallen out of favour with President Robert Mugabe after he was accused of being the mastermind of a plot to block the nomination of Joyce Mujuru as Vice-President. Six provincial chairpersons have since been suspended from Zanu PF for attending the secret meeting in Tsholotsho, which was allegedly chaired by Moyo. The Politburo is still to decide on Moyo's fate, but alarm bells have already begun to ring after his nomination into the Zanu PF central committee was blocked by Mugabe, giving credence to speculation that it was only a matter of time before he was removed from Cabinet. "Shamu is most likely to take over that portfolio. Moyo is already out and some of the officials in the department of information have already been seconded to Shamu's ministry. That guy (Moyo) is definitely out," the Zanu PF insider said.
Others said to be facing the sack include Energy Minister July Moyo, who was part of the six suspended provincial chairpersons, and Masvingo governor Josaya Hungwe. Hungwe is accused of having swayed the Masvingo provincial executive into voting for Mnangagwa ahead of presidential favourite, Mujuru. The affable Shamu, a war veteran and journalist by profession, was the former editor of The People's Voice, the official mouthpiece of Zanu PF, before he was appointed Minister of Policy Implementation last year. If he is appointed minister, expectations will be high for him to turn the department into a people-oriented outfit which protects fundamental freedoms such as the freedom of expression. He will also be expected by journalists in the independent media to overhaul the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which Moyo has used to ban independent newspapers such as The Daily News, The Daily News on Sunday and The Tribune. Shamu could not be reached for comment on the latest developments.
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From The Daily Mirror, 9 December
Things fall apart for Moyo
Mirror Reporters
The Minister of State for Information and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo, ejected from the ruling party's central committee last week, will now have to start afresh as it emerged yesterday that he is unlikely to be appointed into a new look Politburo expected to be announced soon. Moyo's name was deleted as a central committee nominee by the Presidency he allegedly attempted to undermine by "clandestinely" inviting senior members of the party, including provincial governors and party provincial chairpersons, to a "high-powered meeting" in Tsholotsho a few days before Zanu PF's National People's Congress. Highly placed sources within the ruling party said the only person who could throw Moyo a lifeline was the man who thrust him into the high echelons of the party, President Mugabe who, however, has reprimanded him for hosting the Tsholotsho meeting. What irked the Presidency, the source said, was that after having been caught with his pants down, Moyo wrote a letter exonerating himself from the alleged coup attempt to remove the founding fathers of the party and copied it to The Chronicle for publication, before the Presidency had a chance to respond.
His target audience still remained a mystery, the source said, as it was an internal matter. "He thinks the presidium is comprised of fools," the source said. "Good luck, to the person or people he was targeting when he abused his control over the newspaper. It's unfortunate, but he will have to start afresh and regain the support of the party. He will have to go back to the grassroots and start afresh if he is a genuine party cadre and not a plant." Contacted for comment on whether Moyo had written a letter to the Presidency exonerating himself, party national chairman John Nkomo said: "Moyo's letter is a nonevent." Moyo, known to step on the toes of all and sundry, including the ruling party's presidency and the media, has been accused of propagating hate-speech in the media. However, his political flirtation with the ruling party is now waning, with sources in Zanu PF saying that the party's top leadership had decided that Moyo, like everybody else, should rekindle his faltering political career from the grassroots.
"Moyo cannot be appointed into the Politburo. All members of the Politburo will come from the central committee and this effectively means the minister has to start from the grassroots if he is aspiring for a position of influence in the party. When we talk of the grassroots, we mean the cell," said another highly placed source. His exclusion from the central committee, the sources said, was punishment for the associate professor for allegedly organising an unsanctioned meeting in Tsholotsho, Matabeleland North, last month to plot to scuttle the nomination of Vice-President Joyce Mujuru and block the re-nomination of Vice-President Joseph Msika and national chairman John Nkomo into the party presidium. Moyo was allegedly backing Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa and women's league boss Thenjiwe Lesabe as the party's two vice-presidents and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa as national chairman. Six Zanu PF provincial chairpersons who also attended the meeting that came up with the alleged "Tsholotsho Declaration" have since been suspended from the party for six months. Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) leader Jabulani Sibanda, who took part in the meeting, was slapped with a four-year suspension.
The sources said Moyo worsened his case when he leaked a report he had written to Zanu PF's Politburo explaining his involvement in the Tsholotsho meeting to The Chronicle, a state-controlled newspaper based in Bulawayo. The Zanu PF leadership, the sources added, questioned Moyo on why he had leaked the report if it was meant for the Politburo and accused him of attempting to mislead the party. "He publicised his report in The Chronicle. It was the Presidency that struck him off the central committee list and it is likely that he will be barred from contesting in the party's primary parliamentary elections," the source added. Chronicle editor Stephen Ndlovu has since been censured by the Secretary for Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet, George Charamba, for publishing the "leaked" document. Moyo, who has since fallen out with President Mugabe as his spin-doctor, is eyeing Tsholotsho constituency. "Even if he wins the primaries, he still has to go for vetting and that is where it is key," the source said. Efforts to get comment from Moyo, a critic of the private media, proved fruitless last night.
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From Zim Online (SA), 9 December
War veterans' boss vows to defy Mugabe
Harare - Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) chairman Jabulani Sibanda has vowed to resist pressure by President Robert Mugabe to give up leadership of the association as rumblings continue over Mugabe's succession. Sibanda and six other top officials of the ruling Zanu PF party were two weeks ago suspended from the party for backing parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa to the post of Zanu PF and state vice- president ahead of Joyce Mujuru, who was preferred by Mugabe. The vice-presidency is seen as the key stepping stone to Mugabe's job given that the Zimbabwean leader and his other vice-president, Joseph Msika, 81, are set to retire at the same time in about three years. Suspending Sibanda from Zanu PF for four years, Mugabe publicly indicated he also wanted him dismissed as chairman of war veterans - who are a powerful voice within Zanu PF that could still have a say in who takes over from him. Sibanda told ZimOnline yesterday: "I am still the chairman of ZNLWA. To us war veterans, there is no problem with my suspension from Zanu PF."
Analysts say if Sibanda holds on to his position as war veterans leader and can ensure the former fighters continue backing Mnangagwa, then the parliamentary speaker is left with enough muscle to try and wrestle the presidency from Mujuru in future when Mugabe retires. Not as well organised as they once were under the late Chenjerai Hunzvi, war veterans however remain powerful in Zanu PF. They have ensured the party stays in power by running a campaign of violence against the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party particularly in remote rural areas where the former fighters have banned the opposition party. The war veterans led the government's chaotic land reform programme which remains its main vote-catcher ahead of next year's general election. Although the veterans backed down from openly opposing Mugabe over his imposition of Mujuru as vice-president, they have however in the past successfully stood up to him on key issues. Banking on support from war veterans against Mugabe, Sibanda said: "It is up to the constituency of war veterans (and not Mugabe) that voted for me to call a congress to decide my fate as chairman of the association." But Zanu PF deputy commissar Sikhanyiso Ndlovu insisted Sibanda should give up his position as indicated by Mugabe. He said: "The war veterans' association is a creation of Zanu PF. Sibanda is suspended from both organisations (ZNLWA and Zanu PF)."
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From News24 (SA), 8 December
Zim farmers head to Nigeria
Lagos - Zimbabwean farmers fleeing President Robert Mugabe's controversial programme of land reform will this month formally take over farmland allocated to them in central Nigeria, an official said on Wednesday. Tajudeen Kareem, spokesperson for the state of Kwara, said that 15 Zimbabweans who visited the region earlier this year and struck property leasing deals were expected back with the next few weeks. "We are currently doing a survey of their plots of land. We expect them back before the end of the year and once we have finished the survey, we will hand their farmland over to them," Kareem said from Ilorin, the state capital. The Kwara State government has allocated 1 000ha of farmland to each of the "pioneer farmers", he said. The Zimbabweans will carry out "irrigation farming and not conventional farming. This allows them to begin their farming anytime they are ready," he added. In July, a spokesperson for the farmers, Alan Jack, told AFP that they had each reached a deal with the government to take separate 25-year leases on thousand-hectare parcels of fertile land. "We are very excited about Nigeria and about being granted a pioneer status. The people are very friendly," he said. "Nigeria is very good for farming, compared to Zimbabwe where land is forcefully taken from the whites and given to the blacks. I am a victim of President Mugabe's policy," he said. The 15 will farm maize, rice, cassava, dairy cattle, poultry and vegetables. Thousands of white Zimbabweans, the descendants of colonial-era European settlers, have been driven from their farms since 2000 when Mugabe instituted a policy of seizing and redistributing prime agricultural land to poor black people. Nigerian leaders have promised that their new guests will be able to make a good living and that the development that their large-scale farms will bring to rural Nigeria's peasant economy will help the population as a whole.
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From IRIN (UN), 8 December
Consulting the ancestors to bring political peace
Bulawayo - Traditional leaders and civil society in Zimbabwe have united in a call for calm and restraint as fears mount over a possible surge in violence ahead of parliamentary elections in March 2005. Political violence has been a feature of Zimbabwean elections since independence in 1980. It however reached a new level in the polls of 2000 and 2002, when President Robert Mugabe and the ruling Zanu PF faced their first real challenge in the form of Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In its latest report, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum noted that tension and political violence has continued to rise ahead of next year's parliamentary election. As the threat of renewed clashes looms between MDC and Zanu PF supporters, local leaders in the Nkayi district of Matabeleland North province have begun consulting ancestral spirits in the Njelele mountains south of Bulawayo. In 2000 Nkayi, an MDC stronghold, witnessed some of the worst violence in the run-up to the parliamentary polls. Three MDC officials and an opposition supporter disappeared. The supporter was later found beaten to death, and three bodies were found burned beyond recognition. Youth affiliated with Zanu PF and 'war veterans' were allegedly involved in the terror campaign.
Renowned traditionalist Luca Msindo Mpofu, who has spearheaded the call for calm, told IRIN that traditional leaders were now turning to ancestral spirits for assistance. "A lot of people have died at the height of politically motivated violence in the past few years, and the same is likely to happen next year unless civil society and political leaders join hands and enforce peace and tranquillity. As traditional leaders, we have seen fit to consult the [spirits of] Njelele and plead with our ancestors to ensure there is peace and harmony during and after the elections," Mpofu said. Njelele is a shrine where traditional leaders from southern Zimbabwe have sought divine intervention during natural disasters, such as drought or famine. It is believed that ancestral forces have resided there since the arrival of the Ndebele people in the country in the early 1800s. "We believe our ancestors will intervene, and hope the ugly scenes that were witnessed in 2000 will not return to haunt the masses," said Mpofu. The move has also received the backing of the clergy. "There is definitely a heightened sense of concern over the upcoming election, especially since previous ones had, in some parts, turned violent. But the church will appeal over the Christmas and New Year period for people to exercise restraint and consideration," Bishop Trevor Manhanga, president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, said. The Anglican Bishop, Sebastian Bakare, who heads the Protestant Zimbabwe Council of Churches, Bishop Patrick Mutume of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference, and Manhanga have been attempting to hold talks with the two main political parties since last year to resolve the political crisis.
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Comment from Business Day (SA), 9 December
Down a familiar path into the heart of darkness
Rhoda Kadalie
Anyone interested in understanding why most postcolonial African countries struggle with institutionalising and consolidating democracy, should read Mahmood Mamdani's When Victims Become Killers, Robert Guest's The Shackled Continent and Michela Wrong's In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz. These books sum up what happens when ruling parties stay in power forever. The leitmotif in all of them is that a career in politics is the quickest road to wealth, a tendency endorsed by Smuts Ngonyama's recent utterances. To want to be wealthy is not necessarily wrong, but the tendency for politicians to become numb to the poverty and suffering around us seems to be part of the package. In the past 50 years politicians in southern Africa have in their utterances shown an astonishingly callous indifference to the plight of the poor, the ill and dying and towards their political opponents. And this heartlessness starts with seemingly innocent comments.
In the UDI era of the 1960s Rhodesian leader Ian Smith incarcerated a white critic of his regime, Judith Todd. When Todd went on a hunger strike she was drugged and force-fed. When questioned on this, Smith said he was "unaware" of the hunger strike, and told an interviewer that: "If Miss Todd does not wish to eat the food given her, that doesn't worry me a good deal." A decade later, National Party justice minister Jimmy Kruger, deliberately misinformed by security police that the charismatic Steve Biko had died as a result of a hunger strike, told the Transvaal congress of the National Party in Pretoria that: "I am not pleased, nor am I sorry. It leaves me cold." The insouciant cruelty of Kruger's remark incensed even the usually supportive Afrikaans press, and the English liberal press justifiably flayed him. What, then, is one to make of the silence of our newspapers on a remark that left me dumbfounded and convinced that it had been printed in error?
I refer to an interview in the Sunday Times ( September 19) with Mojanku Gumbi, legal adviser to President Thabo Mbeki. In the article, Burning the midnight oil, she is quoted as saying: "On AIDS and Zimbabwe I have never lain awake at night on either issue." Shocked, I bought the following week's issue convinced I was going to read her angry rebuttal and a humble apology by the newspaper for misquoting her. There was neither. Having just commemorated World AIDS Day and been shocked by government's lame roll-out of antiretroviral medicines across the country, I find Gumbi's remarks reverberate around me as I witness people suffering, despairing and dying, without hope of ever receiving medical care or help. Gumbi's remarks resonated with the monstrous statements of Smith and Kruger, even though I know Gumbi is not like them. Perhaps my surprise was based on naïvety. After all, the only two issues raised by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his Nelson Mandela address to which Mbeki declined to respond were HIV/AIDS and Zimbabwe.
Furthermore, we know that the African National Congress (ANC) has repeatedly stymied attempts in Commonwealth and United Nations forums not only to apply sanctions against Robert Mugabe's brutal and corrupt regime, but even to criticise it. It is also a matter of record that Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has said Zanu PF is a "progressive" regime, which she considers beyond criticism. She also supported plans by Mugabe to have all journalists registered, something that would have nullified what little press freedom remains in Zimbabwe. On the AIDS question, may we assume that Gumbi's declared indifference to the plight of AIDS sufferers and those orphaned by the disease is clearly and similarly manifest in the ANC's squandering of immense amounts of taxpayers' money to defend court cases launched by the Treatment Action Campaign and other civicminded organisations?
Do politicians like Gumbi find the widespread starvation in Zimbabwe and the increasing number of AIDS orphans the next best thing to Mogadon for ensuring untroubled sleep? Does the contemplation of the estimated 20000 Ndebele victims of Mugabe's Korean-trained Fifth Brigade's Gukurahundi campaign in the early '80s and all the subsequent abuses provide a soporific that is superior to the traditional hot toddy? Do the women in government find the fact that Mugabe, through his state-supported Green Bomber youth movement, has made rape a ubiquitous political tool, in the tradition of Slobodan Milosevic's murderous troops in Bosnia, a matter that does not concern them? Gumbi's words may well come back to haunt her. All it will take is one angry and charismatic HIV-positive person - a Steve Biko with AIDS - to prove the folly of Jacob Zuma's crass assumption that the ANC will rule, "until Jesus comes".
Kadalie is a human rights activist based in Cape Town
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 9 December
Moyo plotted Mugabe's ouster
Harare - Information and Publicity Minister in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Jonathan Moyo and the six suspended ruling Zanu PF provincial chairmen wanted to remove President Robert Mugabe as first secretary and leader of the party, highly placed sources in the party said on Wednesday. They told Daily News Online that Moyo and the chairmen wanted to spring a surprise for Mugabe at the Zanu PF congress by proposing that he steps down for a young and energetic leader. "The Tsholotsho meeting was not about blocking Cde Mujuru's candidature to the vice-presidency but it was about something big. These guys actually wanted to topple our president and that is why they were suspended," said one senior Zanu PF official. He said Mugabe was so incensed at the fact that some people who had purported to support him so much were planning to kick him out of office. "The President supported Mujuru and what it means is if Moyo and his cronies had succeeded in going against him they could also vote him out," said the official.
The Zanu PF supreme body, the politburo suspended six chairmen shortly before the congress over a meeting they held in Moyo's home area to block Joyce Mujuru's ascendancy to the post of vice-president and to discuss the party's status after Mugabe's departure. The six suspended chairmen are July Moyo for Midlands province, Mike Madiro, Manicaland; Themba Ncube, Bulawayo; Daniel Shumba, Masvingo; Llyod Siyoka, Matabeleland South and Jacob Mudenda, Matabeleland North. Asked why Moyo was not suspended, the official said Moyo could not be suspended because he had never been a member of Zanu PF. "How do you suspend someone who does not belong to the party? He has never been one of us and we have finished with him. He will not take part in any of our business," said the official. The official could however not say why the party and Mugabe had sneaked Moyo into the party when his credentials had appeared dubious from the start. Zanu PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira could not be reached for comment.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 10 December
It's war in Zimbabwe
Godwin Gandu
The new Zanu PF leadership has thrown down the gauntlet to the Zimbabwean War Veterans' Association and warned them not to "behave like renegades or anarchists". The assertion that they will brook no challenge to their authority comes two days after the war veterans pledged to stand by their suspended leader, Jabulani Sibanda, in open defiance of President Robert Mugabe's appeal for unity at the Zanu PF congress last week. Sibanda and six provincial chairpersons were suspended after attending a meeting in the Tsholotsho district in the Matabeleland province to drum up support for Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa's failed bid for one of the Zanu PF vice-presidential berths. Zanu PF deputy secretary for the commissariat Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told the Mail and Guardian: "War veterans are products of the military wing of the party in power. Genuine war veterans would respect the directives of their party leadership." In equally combative mood, Sibanda hit back: "There are people within the top echelons of the party who would want to use the war veterans as their tools. They want to give orders on how we should think, what we should do and what we should say and we are saying its wrong."
A war of words has also erupted over the legal status of party structures. Two weeks ago Mugabe told party leaders in Bulawayo that he would revamp the War Veterans' Association, whom he accused of "running a parallel agenda". But Sibanda is emphatic: "We are a separate entity." This is not the first time the war veterans have publicly taken on Mugabe, who is the association' s patron. In a show of bravado in August 1997 war veterans booed Mugabe during the Heroes Day commemoration at the national shrine. They demanded gratuities and compensation for their participation in the liberation war. War veterans' leader at the time, Chenjerai Hunzvi, led members in a charge on Mugabe's state house residence, forcing him to back down and release over Z$2 billion to their cause. The unbudgeted expenditure precipitated a decline in the Zimbabwean currency. Analysts predict that the discontent in the party will escalate in the run-up to the Primaries - where Zanu-PF will elect their candidates for next year's elections - that are expected to be held soon.
Party insiders who commented on condition of anonymity told the Mail & Guardian that delegates whose chairpersons were suspended were not happy with the way the nomination process for the Zanu PF top leadership was conducted. "Provinces were bullied into voting for [Joyce] Mujuru; it was guided democracy." University of Zimbabwe academic Brian Raftopolous said: "It's a difficult period for the party; it was shaken by the succession issue. Mugabe might have to inject politicians from the disgruntled provinces, particularly Midlands and Masvingo, into his Cabinet as a policy of appeasement." One Cabinet member who could make way in such a strategy is Minister of Information Jonathan Moyo, who has been fingered as the chief mover behind the Tsholotsho gathering that cost the provincial leaders their jobs. Moyo's political future was this week still in the balance. Last week Mugabe lashed out at his former spin doctor, describing his constituency as representing "bad" and "evil". He has been removed from the party's Central Committee and is no longer eligible to stand on the party ticket in his Tsholotsho constituency.
But party insiders are still wary of Moyo: "He still has the potential to plot against our president." They point out that even though he has taken a knock from the fallout around the succession battle he has not shown any remorse for hosting the controversial meeting. "All the chairpersons, including [Justice Minister] Chinamasa, apologised, but Moyo still wants to sound intelligent and deny any wrongdoing. "He leaked confidential Politburo [the party's administrative organ] minutes to the Sunday News editor in a bid to exonerate himself." Sources said Mugabe dispatched his press secretary, George Charamba, to reprimand the editor. Moyo's fate will be discussed by the Zanu-PF Politburo next week.
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From SW Radio Africa, 9 December
Shamu
With Jonathan Moyo being sidelined, Webster Shamu is now being tipped as the man most likely to become the next Minister of Information and Publicity. Currently he's the Minister of Policy Implementation in the President's Office and was once the former editor of The People's Voice, the official mouthpiece of Zanu PF. According to one report a Zanu PF insider is alleged to have said: "Shamu is most likely to take over the information portfolio. Moyo is already out and some of the officials in the department of information have already been seconded to Shamu's ministry. That guy (Moyo) is definitely out." Would Shamu be a better Information Minister for Zimbabwe? It doesn't look likely. In the last election this MP for Chegutu defeated his challenger Mr. Matibe, but only after orchestrating an extremely violent campaign. Zanu PF mobs imposed no-go areas and were responsible for numerous assaults. Mr Matibe's wife and mother were both accosted by gangs and threatened with death and mutilation, as were the families of many opposition candidates. Webster Shamu is also a man who is on the gravy train. He's making a fortune after being given a hunting concession and there are many questions being asked about the illegal activities involved in various hunting scams. Shamu's business partner in this venture is Charles Davy, whose daughter Chelsy is currently dating Britain's Prince Harry.
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From The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 December
Bullied legal system key to Mugabe's power
By Michael Pelly
Robert Mugabe has held on to power by driving judges from office, corrupting others and subverting the entire legal system, an international committee of barristers says. Supporters of the Zimbabwean Government have been granted land at nominal rents and promoted above more senior colleagues, while sensitive political cases are handled by Mugabe sympathisers. Some magistrates and prosecutors "face not only psychological and physical intimidation and threats of violence, but actual violence and attacks on their family and property", the International Council of Advocates and Barristers said. The judicial system "has become profoundly compromised over the past four years", the council said in its report - The State of Justice in Zimbabwe. "It has ceased to be independent and impartial. The legal culture has been subverted for political ends There are lawyers and judges who have been able to maintain their integrity and independence, but they have often been under great pressure."
Even the Attorney-General, Bharat Patel - whose role is more akin to a Director of Public Prosecutions in Australia - conceded politics was a factor in the appointment of judges. A visit to Mr Patel's office convinced the council he was "under immense pressure from his political masters". The council team, which visited Harare in April, included representatives from England and Wales, Ireland, South Africa and Glenn Martin, SC, the president of the Queensland Bar Association. It said the interference began after the Government published a list of 1471 white-owned farms in 1997. Two years later, the Administrative Court declared the notices invalid and in 2000 the Supreme Court ruled the Government had failed to follow the correct procedures for acquisition. In the past three years four Supreme Court judges have been replaced following withering criticism from the government. In March 2001, the former deputy Justice Minister, Godfrey Chidyausiku, was appointed Chief Justice - a month after accusing the then chief justice, Anthony Gubbay, of "bias in favour of white farmers". Six months later he was listed as the owner of 895 hectares of farmland in Mazoe. Two of the other appointees have been given more than 1800 hectares.
The council also recorded the arrest of two judges, one of whom found the Justice Minister guilty of contempt in his last case before retirement. Last year, a serving High Court judge was arrested in chambers after handing down a series of anti-Government decisions. The charges in both cases were later withdrawn. At the lower end of the justice system, magistrates have also been under attack. In August 2002, one was dragged out of his courtroom by Zanu PF supporters after he granted bail to two officials from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Another was stabbed. There are now 59 vacancies for magistrates' posts and a backlog of more than 60,000 cases. The council found the judiciary was attacked "to frustrate the proper workings of democracy and to hold on to power. It seems clear they would not have held on to power otherwise."
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 10 December
Bennett wastes away in Mutoko Prison
Itai Dzamara
Slightly darker in complexion, looking tired and clearly having lost weight, the figure of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP for Chimanimani Roy Bennett is out of place among the other prisoners at Mutoko Prison. Not only is he the only white man, he still has a bigger frame compared to the other inmates. The majority of them were jailed for offences such as dealing in mbanje, gold panning, cattle rustling and rape. Another common offence in Mutoko and Mudzi districts is brewing the illicit kachasu. A small complex with typically dilapidated buildings less than a kilometre south west of Mutoko growth point is Mutoko Prison, where Bennett is trying to adjust to harsh living conditions. This is different territory from Chimanimani where he was involved in daily battles with the army and Zanu PF supporters who eventually took over his Charleswood Estate in defiance of eight court orders.
The Zimbabwe Independent visited the prison last week and had a glimpse of the opposition legislator's new lifestyle in the north-eastern part of the country. Bennett talks to the other prisoners and could be seen smiling and even laughing during a conversation with some fellow inmates. But he is not the robust figure that the people in Chimanimani had come to know as "Pachedu" (together as one). He now has a shaven head and dons thick khaki prison garb like all the other inmates. He is allowed only fortnightly family visits for ten minutes at a time. "Bennett can only be seen by his wife and two other guys, who must be his brothers," a prison warder said upon inquiry. "Part of the conditions is also that the wife and brothers can only see him once every two weeks. They cannot bring food. He will only be allowed to take food from them at Christmas." Heather Bennett told Sky TV News yesterday that conditions at the prison were "horrendous".
It is the planting season and Mutoko Prison has plots in the adjacent farm. The prison mainly grows maize to cater for staff and prisoners' consumption whilst the surplus is sold. This season, the workforce includes Bennett as his jail term has a component of hard labour. Under the command of peevish prison warders, the prisoners wake up at dawn to start the day's toil in the fields. Breakfast is a cup of black tea, a plain slice of bread or alternatively a plate of porridge. Late in the afternoon, lunch is served. The menu is a few grains of beans swimming in a brown pool of liquid to accompany a fist-size morsel of sadza. The alternative is kapenta in saline water. Either of the two dishes is served for supper before the prisoners retire to sleep, which in itself is a battle under the cover of dirty blankets infested with lice. There are 38 to a cell. The effects of this diet and quality of hygiene can be seen on the weary bodies of the prisoners.
A debate in parliament on the issue of stock theft on May 18 started it all for Bennett. Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa accused Bennett's ancestors of being "thieves and murderers" to justify government's seizure of his Charleswood Estate. He said Bennett would never be allowed to set foot on his property again. An incensed Bennett charged at Chinamasa and floored him. Anti-Corruption and Monopolies Minister Didymus Mutasa joinedthe scuffle in support of Chinamasa but also landed on the floor. "I kicked him hard," Mutasa later said. Bennett was found guilty by the special privileges committee. It recommended that he be sentenced to one-year imprisonment. Zanu PF's majority in parliament carried the day and the House adopted the recommendation. Bennett's apologies later in the House were ignored. He promised to return and complete the journey to freedom together with others as he headed for Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison where hard-core criminals are detained. The journey had not ended for Bennett as he was transferred to the remote Mutoko Prison in Mashonaland East. In Chimanimani, jostling for Bennett's seat ahead of next year's election has intensified among Zanu PF candidates who hope to win by default as Bennett may be ineligible to contest.
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From cricinfo, 9 December
Zimbabwe cricket again in turmoil
Steven Price
Zimbabwe cricket's latest bombshell exploded today when the Mashonaland Cricket Association announced that it was not recognising Zimbabwe Cricket, the reincarnation of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union. The province has also withdrawn its teams from domestic competitions, including the Logan Cup, Zimbabwe's first-class tournament. The MCA's actions came after months of brewing discontent over the costly relaunch of Zimbabwean cricket. Sources say the national body failed to obtain the permission of its clubs and provincial associations before spending Z$600 million (about £60,000) on the design of a new logo for the organisation and the name change. One reason the board acted unilaterally might be because the logo was allegedly designed by the wife of Peter Chingoka, ZC's chairman. Chingoka himself is reported to have negotiated a deal in which he is to be paid Z$60 million (£6000) as a consultant to the board he already heads, although this has not been confirmed.
Ozias Bvute, meanwhile, is apparently on the verge of being appointed as ZC's managing director, a post he currently fills in an acting capacity. As MD, Bvute will reportedly earn Z$75 million (£7500) a month. As a comparison, Brendan Taylor, one of Zimbabwe's less experienced players, is thought to earn Z$3.5 million (£350) a month. Bvute, a ZC director, was at the centre of the storm that broke in April when Heath Streak lost the Zimbabwe captaincy after questioning the behaviour of certain powerful figures in the ZCU. The MCA's chairman, Tavengwa Mukhlani, who is also a member of the Zimbabwe Cricket board, was forced to step down after 19 of the province's 20 clubs called for his head. The clubs blamed him for not doing anything to prevent the rebranding. "Under the constitution the change of name should have been debated at all levels, club and provincial, and the provincial chairmen should have been able to meet so as to ratify it," the clubs said. "This did not happen". An MCA official said there had already been an official backlash following the decision. "People have been threatened. They tell us we are fighting the paymaster."
The MCA accurately described itself as "the largest stakeholder in the ZCU" in Thursday's release, and its contention that the changes have "taken them completely by surprise" will alarm many. "The manner in which ZCU directors have changed the name and logo demonstrates indifference and even contempt for the provincial cricket associations which are stakeholders in Zimbabwean cricket and ultimately give the union its existence," the MCA said. The provincial body clearly believed the money had been wasted: "The MCA are unable to countenance the large sums of money spent by the ZCU on their name and logo change and on the launch of the new ZC image. This comes hard on the heels of persistent refusals and delays by the ZCU to approve applications by clubs within the MCA for funding assistance, the reason given by the ZCU for declining is that it is suffering financial constraints. The same reasons have been given for the poor welfare of first-class players where players' and umpires' allowances have been drastically reduced and players are being made to sleep in brothels and lodges."
The whiff of corruption surrounding the affair was strong enough for the MCA to lose all faith in ZC's ability and suitability to lead and control cricket in Zimbabwe. "Because the MCA believes ZC to have been established unconstitutionally and ultra vires, it wishes to call for an immediate resolution of the position, pending which the MCA cannot recognise the new ZC. It therefore follows that the MCA will disassociate itself with the day-to-day running of the new ZC and with any competitions operated under the auspices of that body, such as the National League, the Faithwear competition and the Logan Cup. "The manner in which the ZCU board has operated in this instance calls into question their commitment to their stakeholders, the provinces, and has resulted in the MCA losing confidence in the ability of the board to lead cricket in Zimbabwe. "The MCA therefore wishes to move a vote of no-confidence in the board of directors of ZC. If upheld, the board would need to be dissolved and the associations would then convene to appoint an interim board of directors operating with limited powers until such a time as fresh elections could be held in terms of the ZCU constitution."
The MCA also took aim at the section of the ZCU constitution that effectively allows directors of the board to keep their seats whatever the wishes of provinces they are meant to serve. "The MCA also believes that clause 18 of the present ZCU constitution is unlawful and must be removed with immediate effect," the statement continued. "This clause has taken away cricket from its stakeholders [provinces] and we need to get it back. We need a democratically elected board which is accountable to its stakeholders." Zimbabwe Cricket issued a strongly worded press release denying the allegations. Part of it read: "An MCA board meeting was held yesterday (8 December 2004) and the majority voted against the statement that was released today. It must be stated that the individuals who addressed today's news conference were acting outside their mandate, and one has to question their motive. We are suspicious that some of the individuals who called this conference have reacted in this way to cloud the issues in an attempt to deflect the serious allegations of misconduct which have been brought to our attention." The statement continued: "Certain information came to our notice during the course of last week, which is partly consistent with a report that appeared in one of the newspapers. Investigations are underway and, on the basis of information received to date, consideration is being given on whether or not to suspend some of the individuals in terms of the country's labour laws."
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From News24 (SA), 10 December
Int'l lawyers slam Mugabe
Johannesburg - The International Bar Association marked International Human Rights Day with a stinging attack on Friday on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, saying he should be held accountable for his reign of terror. Mark Ellis, the IBA executive director, said there was well-documented and staggering evidence that Mugabe's government has committed murder, torture, rape, abduction and enslavement. Officials at the Zimbabwe presidency and communications ministry were not available to comment. The attack on Mugabe's regime was contained in a six-page IBA supplement on the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe published Friday in South Africa's weekly Mail and Guardian and Zimbabwe's weekend Independent newspapers. Zimbabwe's only independent daily was shut down by the government in defiance of court orders. "Zimbabwe's descent into this unimaginable chaos is the result of the perverse policies of its president, Robert Mugabe," Ellis said in the supplement's lead article. "His systematic oppression of an increasingly impoverished people and his government's widespread policy of subverting the press, the rule of law and human rights are a desperate and brutal attempt to retain political power at all costs."
Ellis said other inhumane acts by Mugabe's government include the systematic policy of denying food aid to anyone who is not a member of his ruling Zanu PF party. He said Mugabe should be held accountable by the International Criminal Court. Even though Zimbabwe has not ratified the creation of the court, he said a post-Mugabe government could request an investigation and indictment. "If Mugabe can manipulate and evade domestic and regional justice, he should not be able to elude international justice," wrote Ellis. He said an investigation by the court would counter what he called the "woeful response to Mugabe's crimes" by many African nations. He singled out the policy of the African Group at the United Nations, led by South Africa, to block resolutions deploring Zimbabwe's human rights record. "Those who have been victimised by Mugabe deserve better," he wrote.
Richard Goldstone, a retired South African Constitutional Court Justice and UN special prosecutor for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, said that unfortunately Western criticism of state-sponsored violence and torture are seen as an anti-African campaign. "I am disappointed that there hasn't been more action and louder voices in Africa condemning the situations in Zimbabwe," Goldstone said in an interview for the supplement. Beatrice Mtetwa, a Zimbabwean human rights lawyer, and Kevin Laue, the former chair of Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights, said they expect state-sponsored violence to escalate as the country nears parliamentary elections in March. Laue said the independence of the press and judiciary has all but been destroyed and the peaceful activities of the opposition party violently curtailed. "The result has been an endless stream of torture victims, destined to become a flood as the election draws nearer," he wrote. Mtetwa said the failure by the state and the courts to deal decisively with human rights in past elections does not bode well for free and fair elections in the future. "Only immediate and massive outside pressure, particularly from African countries, can halt the country's downward spiral into more bloodshed," said Laue.
From ZWNEWS: If you would like to read the IBA document, please let us know. It will be sent as a Word attachment to an email message, approximately twice the size of the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From Zim Online (SA), 11 December
Protesters besiege Zimbabwe's embassy
Pretoria - About 100 Zimbabwean and South African nationals yesterday protested at the Zimbabwean embassy in Pretoria against human rights violations by President Robert Mugabe and his government. The demonstration was part of protests at Zimbabwe's embassies in southern Africa organised by human rights activists in the region to mark the International Human Rights Day and to highlight growing human rights abuses by the Harare government. More and bigger protests are planned at Zimbabwean embassies next February, human rights activists told ZimOnline. In Pretoria, the peaceful demonstration nearly turned nasty when angry protesters, bitter that ambassador Simon Khaya Moyo refused to come out and receive their petition, tried to pull down the gate at the main entrance into the embassy. "I am however excited at the fact that we were able to come here and send a message to the Zimbabwean government. We were able to show solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe. I think that was one of the achievements," said Dube. An official with Amnesty International's South African office, which was co-ordinating the protests, Joseph Dube said they had sent the petition to Mugabe by courier. "I am however excited at the fact that we were able to come here and send a message to the Zimbabwean government. We were able to show solidarity with the people Zimbabwe," Dube said. According to reports from Zambia, Botswana and Mozambique, there were also protests at Harare's embassies there.
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From The Star (SA), 11 December
Refugees escape to a hell of our making
Too often the survivors of war, rape, brutal beating and all the other infamies our hard-as-nails continent can throw at them discover that in the 'land of opportunity' their time of persecution is not over
By Michael Schmidt
The grievous torture scars twisting up the desiccated leg muscles of the young Zimbabwean man who told me of his sufferings as a refugee in South Africa reminded me of another compatriot forced to flee his country because he had fallen foul of a group of Zanu- F bigwigs. Smartly dressed and articulate, but desperate, he had come to me - a total stranger - for help. He had worked as a magazine writer in Zimbabwe and was totally uninterested in politics. But, despite his mild personal manner and the breezy and uncritical content of his publication, fear of thuggery had reduced him to a nervous wreck of a refugee, pleading his case before a total stranger. Politics in the proper sense of the word had not deprived him of home, profession and country. No, his dispute with the ruling party had arisen because his father's employer, a state corporation, had evicted the family from their home after his father suffered a mental breakdown. Objecting politely, but publicly, to this inhumane eviction led to his being hounded out of the country. But his travails were far from over. In South Africa, after obtaining his asylum-seeker's permit, he discovered that the country was anything but a land of opportunity. With unemployment hovering near 40%, he soon wore his shoes bald in the fruitless search for a job, made bread money selling cheap trinkets and slept wherever he could find shelter. But bigger threats lurked in the long shadows of Hillbrow: faceless Zanu PF agents prowled the Zimbabwean refugee communities, sniffing out suspected political dissidents, like wolves assigned to a particularly prominent sheep kraal. As a journalist who had dared to speak his mind on a housing dispute, the young man in front of me was singled out for sudden, and repeated, attacks by suspected agents, sometimes working in cahoots with corrupt South African police members in uniform.
The thugs - for they never robbed him - would calmly stroll into a refugee shelter, identify him and give him a thrashing, in full view of anyone present, without a word being said, and then leave as silently as they had come. This combination of physical and psychological terror naturally took its toll on the young man's self-confidence. A friend and I gave him a plausible false name and nationality, and a ticket to a safer place where Zanu PF agents were unlikely to lurk and where other friends were willing to help him. But on the very night of his departure I received a frantic SMS from him: "I'm at Park Station. I've been attacked again and am bleeding all over. Please help me." I called back. No reply. Try as I might, I was unable to trace him and never heard from him again. I don't know if he bled to death where he stood, or whether some kind soul took him to hospital. I fervently hope he has safely gone to ground somewhere and is managing to rebuild his dislocated and bruised life. But, despite the presumed bloody end of a bright young talent, he was still numbered among the "lucky" few: according to a study by the Solidarity Peace Trust, released last month, fewer than 20 out of more than 5 000 Zimbabweans who have applied for political asylum in South Africa to date have been granted that status. The vast majority languish in a twilight world of what the Wits Law Clinic's refugee unit alleges is corruption of jaw-dropping proportions by Home Affairs refugee officers and the extortionist "interpreters" who fiendishly fleece refugees of their last few rands. Processing asylum-seeker applications within the statutory 180 days appears to be only for the favoured few and those who are able to cross palms with silver. The remainder of the more than 84 000 asylum-seekers in South Africa are kept in limbo, all the better to feed off them, forced to walk a treadmill of bribery for as long as eight years.
Then we have all heard the tales of heartbreak, of cops illegally applying arbitrary and racist skin-colour decisions to ship refugees off to the notorious Lindela detention camp on the West Rand, the latest example to grab headlines being that of a young South African woman who sobbed in terror at the threat of being deported to Zimbabwe, a country to which she had no links, "because she was too dark". We have all read the accounts of refugee communities of so-called Amakwerekwere attacked by xenophobic South Africans pumped up with an ugly and distorted sense of national pride. What this means in practice is that tens of thousands of refugees who have escaped the most atrocious conditions this tough-as-nails continent can serve up - war, famine, torture and genocide - more often than not walk barefoot for hundreds of kilometres, their only belongings the clothes on their backs, to reach the supposed sanctuary of South Africa. Once here they find themselves beaten and robbed again, this time by the very official guardians of this country's proud traditions. The refugee unit tells of one Congolese man, in training for the priesthood, who saw his own father and the village elders forced into a mass grave and shot. Shanghaied by his father's killers to slave as a human ammunition mule, he survived route marches through the jungle only to be thrown into a dungeon in Kinshasa as a suspected spy after a daring escape. As the unit's director, Abeda Bhamjee, says, only the tough make it as far as South Africa, only to be broken on the wheel, like this man, by indifferent, greedy and amoral police and refugee officers. This week, another in a long string of refugees drags her battered body to the unit's door. Denied an asylum-seeker document by refugee officers demanding a bribe as high as R700 for a piece of paper that is, according to an international human-rights convention, supposed to be issued free, she comes with an allegation of having been mugged by police. Without papers, or another extortionate fee of R1 500 - this time demanded by the hospital - she cannot now get medical treatment for her wounds. The unit says scores of unaccompanied minors found have been found abandoned at Lindela camp.
Meanwhile a refugee officer is chanced upon at work, dripping with "nearly R20 000 in gold jewellery", trying on shoes and eating vetkoek with an unlicensed "interpreter", as a storeroom overflows with asylum applications and pitiful asylum-seekers defecate where they stand in the alley outside, so fearful are they of losing their place in the queue. Quizzed about this, the officer complains that her workload is "unacceptable": her busy workday has consisted of filling in eight brief asylum application forms. The ugly underbelly of "quiet diplomacy" on the Zimbabwean crisis or similar overly polite engagement is only part of the problem. Human Rights Watch says that, while the 1998 Refugees Act has established an acceptable mechanism for processing asylum-seekers, its implementation is sadly deficient. More important, the 2002 Immigration Act is "widely recognised" as being in violation of international human rights law by permitting the forced repatriation of refugees. The South African government uses this licence to deport some 5 000 refugees a month. Given our overweening pride in South Africa's constitutional democracy, and the sanctuary offered by other African nations when so many of our compatriots fled abroad to escape the murderous ravages of apartheid, it is deeply shaming that we do not reciprocate with open arms and welcome these tenacious survivors as our own.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 1 December
Why Harry's new girl has left her English rivals seething
By Sam Leith
A good few years have passed since the wobbly latex men on Spitting Image released a record whose chorus, to universal playground acclamation, ran: "I've never met a nice South African!" We've all now met a nice South African or two. And Prince Harry, we learn, has met a very nice southern African: sturdy, sun-tanned, Zimbabwe-born Chelsy Davy, 19, who is being described as his "first true love". Their relationship, according to reports, has been going on for eight months, and Harry is said to have spent the last fortnight of his polo-playing trip to Argentina living with her in a remote lodge, or, as the same reports have it, a love-nest, 55 miles from Buenos Aires. Every day, he woke up and it was a Chelsy morning. Harry's brother, too, found love in the Dark Continent, with Jessica "Jecca" Craig, the Kenyan safari park heiress he fell for on his own gap year. There are some - mostly wispy English girls with transparent skin and a crush on the younger prince - who regard Chelsy with suspicion. "She can't even spell her own name!" sneer these nasty Anabels. "She looks like Jade Goody off Big Brother!" they shriek, the sound rebounding from their giant front teeth down their chinless necks. "She's awfully stout in the legs," they murmur with their horrid Wycombe Abbey bulimia breath. "She Is Brought To You In Association With Robert Mugabe," the odd, more clued-up one offers, referring to questions over the nature of her safari tycoon father's links with the Zimbabwean regime. Well, phooey to the lot.
Royal romance, under the eyes of the world and the expectation of producing an heir, has never been a walk in the park. But for this generation of royals it is more difficult than ever. Anywhere Wills and Harry show their faces in this country, the sky grows black with telephoto lenses. Every mobile phone - whether it contains a camera, or is being scanned by the enterprising representative of a tabloid - is a potential betrayer. Butlers and bodyguards can be bought. Fewer places are private; fewer people can be expected to keep confidences. The social world in which previous young royals were expected to fish for girlfriends was once populated by a relatively closed circle of aristocrats. Its meeting places were private houses and the events of the Season. "Society" now co-mingles moneyed posh with moneyed famous, bringing Scarlett Johanssen, the American actress, face to face with traditional toff wasters such as Lord Freddie Windsor. It meets at showbiz parties; it courts the paps at Bouji's. Is it any wonder that both young princes have found abroad more or less their only chance of conducting a relationship in relative private? Is it any wonder, either, that they find the daughters of southern African ranch-owners attractive? Indulge me in a grotesque and unfounded generalisation or two. Consider the nut-brown skin . the sun-bleached hair . the sun-bleached dispositions .
Imagine them, as a type, like Aussie girls only with more money, and lions instead of wallabies. Like Argentinian polo-bunnies - only without the latent criminality and carrying a lower likelihood of running into my sinisterly spivvy colleague Charlie Methven at a party. They say "howsut?" and "izzut?" rather than "how do you do?" and "raahlly?". If the bakkie breaks down in the bush, they won't lounge around inspecting their nails and sighing while you struggle with the axle-clamps. They will leap out and blerrie well help fix it, man, no you don't do it like thet, no look hyeh, give it to me - and then crack open a frosty tin of Castle to celebrate as they drive off, with you feeling pleasurably meek in the passenger seat. These girls are can-do rather than neurotic. For an outdoorsy English prince, they offer all the virtues of the English horsey toff gel, but lacking the aroma of jodhpurs and wet dog. They come unencumbered with class baggage. Nor do they stand on ceremony. The Sun reports that Miss Davy and the young prince enjoyed their inaugural "romp" in the lavatory cubicle of a nightclub. Add to all this the frisson of recolonisation. There's a splendidly smutty John Donne poem that equates colonial and sexual conquest. Academics have been interested in the idea ever since but only English royals get to try it out. The first great shock to the public came when the Prince of Wales married a commoner. Wouldn't it be an occasion of national rejoicing if one of his sons ended up marrying a common foreigner?
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 11 December
How girlfriend's father shot to success
By David Blair in Jphannesburg
Thousands of Zimbabwe's white landowners might have been swept away by land seizures, but Charles Davy, the father of Prince Harry's girlfriend Chelsy, is among a handful still going. His company, HHK safaris, controls five lucrative hunting concessions with 15 camps for wealthy visitors. Concessions and hunting licences are awarded at the discretion of President Robert Mugabe's regime. The business has helped Mr Davy to become extremely rich. For a 24-day safari killing lions, elephants, leopards and buffalos, he charges £660 a day. There is a trophy fee of £5,200 for every bagged elephant and £2,300 for every lion. Internal flights from airports to safari camps cost extra. The return journey from Victoria Falls to Lemco safari area costs £2,200 for an eight-seat plane. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has claimed that HHK has links to the Mugabe regime. The Herald, the official newspaper, has reported that Webster Shamu, an MP from the ruling Zanu PF party and minister in the president's office, has represented HHK at hunting conventions. But Mr Davy's brother, Vincent, a director of HHK, said: "He [Mr Shamu] certainly has not had involvement with HHK. The Herald gets lots of things wrong."
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From The Sunday Mirror, 12 December
'White capitalists' and Zanu PF
Staff Writers
The questions arise: where did the money that made the Tsholotsho Declaration possible come from? Who received money and what was the money for? Speaking in Matebelenad North last month, President Mugabe exploded: "There are mischievous individuals misleading people by using money from white capitalists. Their names will be revealed before the forthcoming congress. Their actions are meant to sideline the old leadership of the party through clandestine ways, divisive ways and cunning methods to sway you. Don't be divided, don't be purchased, we are not for purchase!" The identity of the mysterious but powerful "white capitalists" remains locked up in a crucible of speculation and allegations with no tangible and visible links tying any particular individual or group of individuals to the Tsholotsho Declaration. Apart from John Bredenkamp, there is another "white capitalist", Billy Rautenbach, who has been speculatively linked to Zanu PF in the past. But both men profess to have no influence in Zimbabwean politics, although both their names have surfaced in past 'dubious' dealings involving the Zimbabwean eco-political and industrial-military superstructure and Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa and unnamed senior army personnel.
Bredenkamp has long since distanced himself from Mnangagwa and the other allegations. "Those are the kind of allegations that float around without any substance," said Costa Pafitis, Bredenkamp's consultant- cum- spokesperson. "You (The Sunday Mirror) had a lot of that culled from the wire in your profile but if John did anything illegal why was he not brought to book? Surely anything he has done must have been done above aboard. Your profile mentioned the proposal to bring in fuel into the country at the time of the fuel crisis but alleged that we had inflated prices. The truth of the matter is that we put in a tender and we were the cheapest. John actually put up a personal guarantee of US$ 12million to come to the aide of government which was having foreign currency problems at the time," added Pafitis. At the height of the accusations, Rautenbach denied the allegations, telling the foreign press: "I started mining in the Congo about a year before the war started. So all of a sudden, the war is there because of me. It's unbelievable."
Rautenbach, who also has substantial economic muscle in not only Zimbabwe, but in a number of African countries. He has been dogged by more, albeit largely unsubstantiated, controversy over the years notwithstanding an alleged involvement in the murder of Yong Koo Kwon, general manager of Daewoo and was reportedly on the list of the top 20 criminals in South Africa before he fled back to Zimbabwe after assets of his worth R60 million were seized on fraud charges. Again Rautenbach denied the charges believing that he had a raw deal: "As one of the officials told me: 'At the wrong time, at the wrong place.' Although his name cropped up alongside Rautenbach 's, Bredenkamp denies any links with him. "I have never met Billy. I knew his father. I am 65 and Billy is 42," said Bredenkamp. Sources who know Billy Rautenbach attest to his overriding zeal to make money and when Bradenkamp was asked if this did not put him in the same league with the man he claims to have never met he said, "Of course I love making money, but I believe you have to do it with some decorum, some dignity."
Rautenbach's cobalt and copper mining ventures through Ridge Pointe in the DRC started after 1997 visit to Laurent Kabila (allegedly facilitated by a top Zimbabwean politician- name supplied). After managing to secure mining concessions he rose to become the Chief Executive of Gecamines - a state-owned mining company. Rautenbach was subsequently unceremoniously booted out of the country after some contractual disagreements. Investigations have revealed that Rautenbach's entry into the lucrative DRC mining deals was engineered from Zimbabwe although Bredenkamp had initially been involved and put in all the initial financing but was allegedly ousted after a two- hour high profile meeting in the top echelons of Zimbabwean politics in which he was asked to give up his mining stake in the DRC failure of which would lead to dire consequences. Billy denied the charges that he had muscled his way into the Congo or that he had bribed officials and said at the time: "I started mining in the Congo about a year before the war started. So all of a sudden, the war is there because of me. It's unbelievable.The perception is . that you just go around bribing people and you get whatever you want. It's not like that." Yet the whole DRC saga is clouded in mystery and a lot of perception rather than fact. Although it could not be substantiated and no tangible documents could be found, it is alleged that two high ranking Zimbabwean politicians (names supplied) are receiving monthly cutbacks of US30 000,00 each while a high ranking DRC minister is receiving US$20 000, 00.
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From The Sunday Mirror, 12 December
I am not one of them: Bredenkamp
Staff Writers
World ranking business tycoon John Bredenkamp has reiterated in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Mirror that he had no hand in the Tsholotsho debacle and that he had no ties with Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa. The infamous incident now dubbed the Tsholotsho Declaration has been labelled a coup attempt meant to scuttle the then vice-presidency hopes of Joyce Mujuru while elevating Mnangagwa to one of the two VP posts, roping in Thenjiwe Lesabe to the old Zapu PF VP interest while Patrick Chinamasa would have come in as the party's national chairman and the alleged architect of the whole affair, Jonathan Moyo becoming the secretary for administration. The November 18 meeting saw elements from Harare being flown to Tsholotsho in a chartered aircraft allegedly hired by the Ministry of Information. The whole plot was allegedly funded to the tune of Z$7 billion. But as it emerged that the meeting was illegal, questions arose how a ministry could have hired the plane and where did all the money come from? President Mugabe brought up the spectre of shadowy white capitalists working in cahoots with political prostitutes in Zanu PF, while Bredenkamp emerged as the initial usual suspect.
"I can understand how my name was dragged into the whole thing. I think it's a question of perception. But I am really apolitical and I don't want to have to fight with anybody. I belong to group of people who are a in minority situation and have come out in public many times saying hey guys, stay out of politics. Stay out of it, we can't influence it. That has been my position for a long time. But I guess what happened was when this whole thing happened people asked who are Mnangagwa's friends? Who has that kind of money to do this? And quite naturally the first name to come up is mine." Bredenkamp however pointed out that he had not had any direct dealings with Mnangagwa for 15 months until he was invited to the wedding of the Speaker's daughter in October this year, which was being held at Borrowdale Brooke Golf Course, which is owned by one of his business interests. "I agonised - do I go or don't I go and was finally counselled to go by colleagues for the simple reason that it was being held at my golf course and the president would be there. It would have been impolite not to go knowing that the president was going to be there- so I went."
Whether Bredenkamp agonised over his attendance there or not is besides the point, for it would seem that as events unfolded in November, the fact that he had been there probably helped to bolster the perception that he was allied to Mnangagwa leading to the allegation that he was behind the lucrative sponsorship of the botched Tsholotsho junket. $7 billion is said to have been floating around in Tsholotsho. "It's peanuts. What is it, US$82 0000, 00 or so? It could have been quite easy for someone else to bring in that kind of money and it is virtually untraceable," said Bredenkamp, adding to the aura of mystery surrounding the Tsholotsho declaration. Since his personal plane has been placed out of the whole puzzle, he offered some advice. "It is my understanding that the aircraft in question was a hired, twin- engine propeller driven aeroplane," he said. But who paid for it? The Department of Information has since said it paid over $9 million dollars to Central Air Transport Services (CATS) to charter the flight. A CATS representative said the company was not part of any conspiracy theory and this was the first time they had dealt with Professor Moyo.
"We have nothing to do with Bredenkamp but we were expecting a flood of people to come asking questions." He said the five-seater Beachcraft Baron took off with Professor Moyo and Justice Minister and failed Zanu PF national chairman aspirant Patrick Chinamasa after the Information Ministry had requested their services. It remained unclear how and why Professor Moyo secured clearance so quickly when air traffic regulations require flight plans to be submitted at least 48 hours before take-off. Squadron Leader Chipere, mentioned in an internal communiqué instructing that a payment be made out to CATS, refused to comment saying he had nothing to do with the Tsholotsho Declaration. The role of the military in the whole 'project' remains murky though information gathered indicates that emergency flight applications are cleared at the Harare International Airport with the assistance of the Airforce. A source, however, said that facilitating emergency clearances was one of the ways the military made some of its money.
Another point that has been questioned is why the Department of Information released funds for an unsanctioned meeting. It was also not established where the delegates attending the Tsholotsho Declaration were accommodated and who paid for this. About a fortnight ago, sources alleged that police seized about $500 million at a roadblock along the Harare-Bulawayo road. Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena said, "That was just a rumour. I heard about it too but when I reffered the matter to Tsholotsho police, they revealed that nothing of the sort had happened." The web of intrigue surrounding the Tsholotsho Declaration is far from having been fully unravelled, leading one observer to say, "I think we are about to see either the unravelling of one of the most intricate plots in post-independent Zimbabwe or a cover-up of magnificent proportions."
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 12 December
Mbeki urged to change stance on Mugabe
Brendan Boyle
A leading African expert on monitoring and evaluation has urged President Thabo Mbeki to make his silent diplomacy in Zimbabwe more transparent. Sulley Gariba, the Ghanaian president of the International Development Evaluation Association, said the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad) and the African Union were unlikely to win international support for the diplomacy headed on their behalf by Mbeki, until the world had a better idea of what they were doing. "Nobody knows what kind of engagement Nepad and the AU have with Zimbabwe - it is not transparent enough," he said in an interview on the sidelines of a four-day conference of the African Evaluation Association in Cape Town. Mbeki and the AU have consistently rejected Western calls for more public pressure on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to halt human rights violations and create conditions for free elections. Mbeki has refused to give details of his interaction with Mugabe. The ANC sent a strong message of support to Zanu PF's annual congress last week. Gariba said a better explanation of Africa's strategy on Zimbabwe might not win international approval, but could win an understanding of the strategy. Andrew Donaldson reports that in London this week, Stephen Irwin QC, chairman of the Bar of England and Wales, criticised Mbeki for his perceived indifference towards, if not tacit approval of, conditions in Zimbabwe. "How can Mbeki be silent about this? Why can't he follow the example of Archbishop [Desmond] Tutu?" Irwin was speaking at the launch of a hard-hitting international law report this week which found that Zimbabwe's judges and courts had been "profoundly compromised" by Mugabe and Zanu PF's rule.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 12 December
Zanu PF delegates accused of stealing hotel linen
By our own staff
Zanu PF delegates, among them members of the central committee who attended last week's congress reportedly stole some bed linen and towels from hotels they were staying, The Standard can reveal. According to impeccable sources, members of the central committee were booked at the Cresta Jameson while chiefs stayed at the Cresta Lodge. Zanu PF employees were booked at the Cresta Oasis. Sources said the hotels' managements were reluctant to report the thefts to police for fear of ruffling the feathers of the Zanu PF leaders. Others were afraid of losing business from the ruling party known to be a big spender. "In any case, even if we report the theft, we doubt if police would make serious investigations because the police commissioner himself has said he is a Zanu PF member," said a source. The sources said it was easy to identify the thieves. "We know which rooms were raided and we know which delegates were booked into those rooms so it would not be difficult to identify the culprits," she said.
Also annoyed by the behaviour of some of the delegates were grounds men at the Harare Sheraton and Harare International Conference Centre, the venue of the congress. During the course of the congress, more than 9 000 delegates were being served food from tents pitched on the hotel grounds. However, some of the delegates used trees and flower bushes on the hotel grounds to relieve themselves. Although makeshift toilets were provided, they soon became dirty because of the heavy rains, which fell, forcing the delegates to resort to the bushes on the grounds. Four women, in the full glare of male delegates, were seen relieving themselves behind some flower bushes at one point. "These people were just messing up the whole place by urinating all over the place," said one of the groundsmen. Senior hotel managers were however said to be over the moon with the level of business generated by the congress. "With tourist arrivals reduced to a trickle, the business generated by congress was unprecedented," said one hotelier.
In complete contrast, poorer delegates from rural districts were complaining about the state of accommodation they were allocated. "We have to be moved from Danhiko Centre, (a school for disabled people on the outskirts of Harare). The place is dirty, human waste is lying around. I wonder how this school is being run," fumed Emma Guvava, a delegate from the Midlands Province, as she sought the attention of the administration team. The place is stinking and the food is bad. This is not good," she went on. According to her, male delegates accommodated at Danhiko, whose patron is Mugabe's comfort-loving wife, Grace, had resorted to sleeping outside as the dormitories were in a sorry state. And standing by her side was John Sithole from rural Matabeleland South province who claimed mosquitoes feasted on him and his fellow delegates at the nearby Harare Polytechnic where they were housed. "There are no windows and the beds are urine-stained. I cannot leave my home to come and be housed in such conditions," he fumed. Other delegates were tucked in far away places such as Rusununguko School in Bromley.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 12 December
Cricket crisis
By Lloyd Mutungamiri
Association hit by staff exodus - SRC probes cricket body
Zimbabwe Cricket is reported to have blown close to $1 billion in two months, in restructuring its marketing department in an exercise that has seen the purchase of new office equipment and refurbishment of offices, Standard Sport has learnt. In addition, the cricket body is said to have recruited six marketing managers and a division secretary without the posts having been advertised. This has raised eyebrows amid allegations of unfair labour practices. It has also been alleged some vehicles meant for the use of contracted players have been diverted elsewhere, with reports ZC are mulling withdrawing cars from some players on trumped-up charges of misuse and indiscipline. The association has also been hit by five high-profile resignations in the past eight weeks, with Duncan Frost, who was in charge of operations, former board director Mike Moyo, former academy administration manager Kisch Gokal, his secretary Anthea Reeler, former administration manager Ian Robinson, all having quit in a huff. Robinson is said to be holding on to ZC property after contesting the way he was forced out and is said to have handed his case to his lawyers, which could not be confirmed up to yesterday.
In addition, ZC is said to be in financial difficulties despite spending close to $600 million in its recent controversial re-branding and on staggering salaries and perks for its top executives. In addition, morale among staff at head office is said to have hit rock bottom due to some alleged bullying tactics by a named top executive, which - according to insiders- could see more disgruntled staff abandoning the crisis-ridden organisation, once the epitome of sound sports administration in the country. ZC spokesman Lovemore Banda, confirmed ZC had recruited the new marketing managers, and also confirmed the departure of Frost. He professed ignorance on the other resignations. "There has been some recruitment of staff for the commercial division. Duncan Frost has left but I will have to check on the others. As for the players being denied cars, I would have to go and look at each and every player's contract to see whether he is entitled to a vehicle or not," Banda said.
Meanwhile, Standard Sport can reveal the Sports and Recreation Commission (SRC) recently commissioned an independent committee to investigate and compile a report on the goings-on in local cricket. Veteran sports administrator and former SRC chairman, David Mutambara, headed the five-member committee. On Friday, Mutambara confirmed they had been tasked by the SRC to do a case study of problems afflicting local cricket. "It was a five-member committee that I headed and it took quite some time to compile the report. We have since completed our investigations and we presented our findings to the SRC two weeks ago." Mutambara would not reveal their findings but sources told StandardSport it is a damning report that paints a gloomy picture of the state of affairs in domestic cricket. SRC Director General Elias Musengeya could not be reached for comment. He was said to be on leave until January. Patience Kabanda, who was said to be acting in his place, would not field questions from Standard Sport.
In a related development, the crisis in Zimbabwean cricket, in which some clubs in the Mashonaland Cricket Association have given a vote-of-no-confidence in Zimbabwe Cricket over the mother-body's alleged free-spending, has taken an ugly turn with MCA General Manager Givemore Makoni being accosted by suspected hired thugs at Harare Sports Club, who were in the company of ZC's Human Resources Manager Wilfred Mukondiwa on Friday. According to Makoni - who has apparently fallen out with ZC in recent weeks over his alleged sympathising with the revolting MCA clubs - the men were demanding keys to the ZC car assigned to him and keys to the MCA offices. Mukondiwa was not immediately available for comment. "When they came, the men claimed they were police officers and demanded keys to the office and my car. When I refused, they became violent and that is when I decided to check if they were real police officers. I was then told they were ZC security men, yet there is no such thing at Zimbabwe Cricket. Things have become so frightening, we now fear for our lives," said Makoni, who was in the company of another under-fire MCA board member Cyprian Mandenge.
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From Zim Online (SA), 13 December
Zanu PF to seize remaining white-owned land
Harare - Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party has resolved to seize all land from the few white farmers still remaining in the country, according to a confidential report of the party's key central committee leaked to Zim Online. The central committee is Zanu PF's highest decision-making body outside congress and its report, which was adopted by the party's congress last week, forms the party's working plan, guiding its actions and policies in government. Noting "successes" already scored under the government's chaotic and often violent land reforms, the central committee resolved that "all whites that were left with farms must vacate those farms including the (Roy) Bennetts." Bennett is a white Member of Parliament for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. He is in jail after Zanu PF legislators used their majority in Parliament to imprison him for 12 months for shoving Justice Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, during debate last May. The central committee resolution, which party insiders said was certain to be implemented in coming months, will see about 500 white farmers still holding on to farms lose their properties to the state.
According to the 2004 annual report of the Commercial Farmers Union that represents white farmers, out of the 4 500 white farmers in Zimbabwe four years ago, only 500 were still fully or partially farming. The central committee resolution however contradicts claims by Mugabe and his government that they have completed land reforms and there will be no more land seizures in Zimbabwe. At least nine white farmers were murdered and thousands of their black farm workers injured by marauding Zanu PF militants who invaded and seized white-owned farms in the last four years. Mugabe and his government refused to act against the farm invaders saying the farm seizures were genuine demonstrations against land hunger. Food production fell by 60 percent because of disruptions caused in the agricultural sector by the farm invasions and Zimbabwe has escaped starvation in the last three years only because donors chipped in with food. The economy has also been in a painful freefall for the last four years.
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From News24 (SA), 13 December
MDC issues report on abuse
Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition party issued on Saturday a catalogue of alleged human rights abuses it said were perpetrated against its members in 2004 by ruling party supporters and state agents. In a detailed report covering January to December, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claimed the alleged abuses included arbitrary arrests, abductions, rape, disruption of political meetings and destruction of property. "The report is an indictment of the activities of the current government and underlines how political oppression in Zimbabwe remains a pervasive force," MDC spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi said in a statement accompanying the report. Seven opposition lawmakers, 53 party officials and hundreds of activists had been subjected to arrest, intimidation, beatings and torture, Nyathi added. The catalogue included references to the firebombing of an MDC official's house in the southern Zimbabwe town of Zvishavane in January. In another reported incident a suspected opposition supporter in Shamva, northern Zimbabwe was assaulted and later died of his injuries.
In February three women opposition supporters were allegedly abducted by ruling party supporters from an opposition lawmaker's farm in eastern Zimbabwe. One was raped and the others sexually abused, the party claimed. The MDC has claimed to be at the receiving end of state-sponsored violence and intimidation since 2000 when the fledgling party took nearly half the contested seats in general elections against Mugabe's Zanu PF. However the government has dismissed the MDC's claims of victimisation, saying the party is bent on tarnishing the government's reputation to justify international intervention and regime change in the southern African country. Zimbabwe is due to hold another general election in March next year. In a state of the nation address this week Mugabe expressed his government's "determination that this impending poll should not be marred by incidents of violence from whatever quarter." And the government's top lawyer, acting attorney general Bharat Patel was quoted on Saturday by state radio as saying the issue of human rights should not be used by strong nations against weaker ones. "Human rights are prone to abuse by people who wield power for ulterior political and economic objectives," the radio quoted Patel as saying. On Friday, the US government condemned a new law passed this week that outlaws foreign human rights groups from working in Zimbabwe and forbids foreign funding to local groups doing similar work.
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From The Daily Mirror, 10 December
Axe Moyo: war vets
Constantine Chimakure Chief Reporter
A splinter group of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA), led by Andrew Ndlovu and his secretary general Endy Mhlanga, wants President Robert Mugabe to axe Information Minister Jonathan Moyo from Zanu PF. Apart from Moyo, the Mhlanga group said it had also asked Mugabe to fire "every party leader" who attended the infamous Tsholotsho meeting at the behest of the minister. The meeting was allegedly convened to stage a coup against the Zanu PF leadership led by President Mugabe. The meeting also allegedly plotted to sideline from the party's central committee some of Zanu PF's revolutionary cadres, such as former Home Affairs Minister Dumiso Dabengwa, deputy political commissar Sikhanyiso Ndlovu and Minister of State for Policy Implementation Webster Shamu, among others. Dabengwa, Ndlovu and Shamu were retained into the central committee through a Presidential nomination during the party's people's Congress that ended last Sunday.As a result of the Tsholotsho meeting, Moyo has since lost his central committee seat after the presidium vetoed his nomination by Zanu PF Matabeleland North Province.
"We told President Mugabe during last week's congress that Moyo and all those who attended the Tsholotsho meeting must be expelled from the party, no matter their positions," Mhlanga told The Daily Mirror yesterday soon after addressing a press conference in the capital. Mhlanga said apart from meeting President Mugabe, they were still lobbying him to seriously consider their request. "We are urging our patron (President Mugabe), who is the only one who promoted Moyo and has got the powers to deal with him, to do like wise. Furthermore, we are saying it must not only be Moyo, but all others who might be holding high offices who attended the Tsholotsho meeting to plot a coup," Mhlanga added. The war veterans' leader said the Tsholotsho meeting had exposed Moyo and his colleagues' true colours. "The rebels were of the opinion that if you cannot beat them (Zanu PF), join them and destroy them from within. The rebels are the real agents of imperialism," Mhlanga claimed. Asked what the war veterans would do if President Mugabe did not heed their call, Mhlanga said: "He has been listening to us. He has never ignored the war veterans before. We are simply saying to him: how can we continue to share the same meal with people bent on destroying the party?"
Moyo's political career is waning, amid reports that President Mugabe will drop him from the party's Politburo where he is deputy secretary for information and publicity. Zanu PF has since suspended its of its provincial chairmen over the Tsholotsho debacle for six months, while ZNLWVA chairman Jabulani Sibanda was slapped with a four-year suspension.Observers said there was indeed incontrovertible evidence that the six provincial chairpersons committed a serious offence in terms of the party's statutes. In political terms, the observers argued, the chairpersons violated provisions of the party's code of conduct pertaining to clear dereliction of duty as instructed by superior structures of Zanu PF, and for bringing the good name of the party into disrepute through divisionist machinations. "The Tsholotsho meeting that was attended also by the suspended six provincial chairpersons is an open manifestation of a structured conspiracy to undermine the authority of both the party and government," one observer said. "It has both political and security undertones. While the party will address the political aspects, it is hoped that the appropriate government structures will resolutely attend to the security issues."
The observer added: "For example, on what basis were the 'conspirators' promising fellow collaborators senior positions within the hierarchy of the party and the government, when it is patently known that such authority to appoint rests with the President? Why was the President 'missing' in their political permutations? It is not far-fetched to consider these actions as a precursor to a palace coup. This issue and its various connotations need to be addressed expeditiously." The suspension of Sibanda led Ndlovu, Mhlanga and other war veterans into passing a vote of no-confidence in him and his vice-chairman, Joseph Chinotimba. Chinotimba and Sibanda have since declared the move unconstitutional and are adamant that they are still at the helm of the association. But Mhlanga yesterday insisted that their action to boot out Sibanda's leadership was constitutional and that there was no going back. "The association is a social welfare organisation controlled by the Ministry of Defence and how do you reconcile a situation where Sibanda and Chinotimba are now fighting the ruling party and continue to expect government to support them? We are just an interim leadership of the association and all this is above board," he said. Sibanda, in an interview with The Daily Mirror, said: "All we understand is that Mhlanga is moving around saying he has been sent by the President to take over the leadership of the association. If the President sent him, we want to know in what capacity." He added: "Whatever Mhlanga is doing is totally in contravention of the principles and constitution of the association. So far nothing has changed regarding the association's leadership". Sibanda said unlike other people, he respected the association's constitution and the rule of law and had total disrespect for those who circumvented the supreme law to suit their needs.
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From The Financial Mail (SA), 3 December
Pre-election spending hides big discrepancies
By own correspondent
Failures, losses and different assumptions out of the picture
There is little for business to either cheer or complain about in acting finance minister Herbert Murerwa's patently political 2005 budget. With Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections just four months away (March 2005), Murerwa pulled out all the stops, pumping Z$5 trillion (US$90m) into consumer spending, but raising the tax threshold to Z$12m (R12 600) a year. Despite this largesse, no meaningful tax hikes were needed to maintain an unchanged budget deficit of 5% of GDP (Z$4,5 trillion). So business is expected to believe that the economy is so strong that it can afford to slash taxes and treble public spending simultaneously. There has to be a catch somewhere and, in fact, there are two. One is the exclusion of known expenditures such as the estimated Z$2 trillion (8,5% of GDP) to recapitalise failed banks, and the omission of payments to parastatals to cover losses of at least Z$750bn. In recent weeks, the state-owned Grain Marketing Board has reported losses of around Z$300bn and the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority another Z$190bn. If these are added to the budget, then the budget deficit rises to 7,5% of GDP from Murerwa's 5%.
But more important is the basis of the finance ministry's calculatio |
