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Archived News
22nd June 2004
Zimbabwean leaders won't meet with UN
Is Grace bobbing around in CT?
Zimbabwe turns on the charm for Chinese tourists
Kofi Annan’s son faces probe in UN oil scandal
President linked to airport deal
Mugabe's man accuses 'lying' UN
Zim denies snubbing UN official
Zanu PF probe: storm in a tea cup
Zim troops for DRC again?
Mugabe junior blocks Bok practice
By Jo-Anne Smetherham, Stephen Nell and Tony Weaver
Aids has hit my family, says Mugabe
Moyo’s influence ruffles feathers
Women arrested, activist shot
Zimbabwe slams 'treacherous' UN
The great Boer conspiracy
What Africa wants
Zimbabwe cricket chief resigns
Delegates in security sweep
Banning of Zim newspaper was 'unlawful'
Council paves Mugabe's Way
Zimbabwe's migrants just want to feed their families
Three youth camps closed
Bizos, Ummeli omkhulu
Zimbabwe asylum network exposed
MDC disrupts bankers' meeting
Zanu PF chef blasts Mugabe over food
Chihuri ordered to enforce eviction
The petty war for Bob's job
Alleged asylum fraud linked to Mugabe regime
Mugabe critics boosted by new archbishop
Service remembers Zimbabwe torture victims
Huge wheat deficits feared
The best of times and the worst, for two tourist towns
China denies reports of fighter jet sales to Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe police arrest 78 women at rally
Now Mugabe cracks the whip on trade unions
Zim newspaper in court
Buffalo kills five in Binga
Grains of untruth
War fears as DRC rushes in troops
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From Associated Press (AP), 15 June
Zimbabwean leaders won't meet with UN
Harare - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special envoy for humanitarian needs in southern Africa called off a visit to Zimbabwe on Tuesday after he was told neither President Robert Mugabe nor any of his top officials were available to see him. The UN World Food Program was feeding nearly 6 million people - almost half Zimbabwe's population - at the height of last year's lean season. It is currently feeding about 650,000 a month. The cancelled visit underscores a deepening rift between the United Nations and Zimbabwe, which says it no longer needs emergency food aid. The government said Mugabe and other key representatives had "prior commitments" and could not meet with James Morris, who is also executive director of the World Food Program, UN officials said. Government officials did not immediately comment. The trip was aimed at assessing the needs of countries affected by the "triple threat of food insecurity, weakened capacity for governance and AIDS," WFP said in a statement. United Nations crop forecasts estimate Zimbabwe will produce only half its food needs this year, despite the government's insistence that there will be a bumper harvest. Zimbabwe was once a regional breadbasket. But the often-violent seizure of thousands of white-owned farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans, combined with erratic rains, have crippled the nation's agriculture-based economy. Opposition leaders accuse the government of lying about corn production and secretly importing food to use as a political weapon in the run-up to key parliamentary elections next year. The state Grain Marketing Board has acknowledged receiving some food imports, but insists they are the remnants of contracts entered into last year.
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From News24 (SA), 15 June
Is Grace bobbing around in CT?
Johan Rheeder
Cape Town - The Mother City is abuzz with rumours that the Zimbabwean first lady - famous for her international shopping sprees - is staying in one of the top hotels. Rumour has it that Grace Mugabe is in Cape Town on a private visit and is staying in the presidential suite of the Arabella Sheraton Hotel - at a cost of about R22 000 a night. The Zimbabwean embassy in Johannesburg refused to speak to Die Burger when asked on Tuesday if the rumour was true. An irate embassy official said the first lady's visit "doesn't concern anybody". According to the official, only Zimbabwean ambassador Simon Moyo could comment. But, Moyo is said to be on holiday and only back in the office on Friday. An English daily reports that Moyo confirmed that Grace Mugabe was in South Africa on holiday. Sheraton staff apparently have confirmed that Grace Mugabe has a room on the 16th floor. The presidential suite is said to be located on this floor. Only heads of state and VIPs rent this suite, which has various luxury amenities. Martina Bart of the Arabella Sheraton dismissed speculation on Tuesday as "rubbish". She said the rumours were untrue and nobody had seen Mrs Mugabe. "In any case, we're not allowed to divulge such confidential information." The possibility exists, however, that Mrs Mugabe booked the suite under a pseudonym. She is well-known for her expensive tastes and recently raised eyebrows when she apparently spent R100 000 on hotels and shopping on a recent trip to Johannesburg. Her extravagance also recently came under fire because of the economic crisis in Zimbabwe. According to independent statistics, the Zimbabwe unemployment figure is estimated at 70%.
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From AFP, 16 June
Zimbabwe turns on the charm for Chinese tourists
Harare - Zimbabwe has launched a campaign to attract tourists from China and other Asian countries, planning promotional tours in Asia and training courses in language and even Chinese cooking here. Zimbabwe's tourism industry, once a major source of hard currency earnings, is shrinking as travellers from Australia and Europe, in particular from former colonial ruler Britain, are staying away from the southern African country. As part of the shift to the East, Tourism Minister Francis Nhema travelled to China at the weekend to sign an agreement with Beijing granting Zimbabwe approved destination status which the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) says should "open the floodgates for Chinese visitors." "China is recognised to be growing very fast both in terms of it generating tourist traffic and in terms of its being a destination," said ZTA spokesman Givemore Chidzidzi. "There is a realisation that it is a vast country with a huge population. Tourism there is well structured, they travel in groups, they don't just travel anywhere, they travel to those destinations that have been approved," he said.
Promotional shows are due to take place later this year in China, Hong Kong and Malaysia, among other Asian countries and tourism attaches have been appointed to embassies in the region. Zimbabwe is also introducing language training programmes so that it can welcome the influx of Chinese visitors with Mandarin speakers. "There is no way you can satisfy your customer if you cannot speak their language," Chidzidzi said. "These people don't speak English and we don't expect them to speak English, but they still want to come here. Now it's for us to satisfy our customer. We are working on ways to make sure that our industry, and our frontline staff in general, are ready for that," he told AFP. Training in Chinese cuisine is also on the cards. In addition, to improve access to Zimbabwe, the country's national airline is exploring the possibility of introducing direct flights to selected Asian destinations.
Zimbabwe boasts one of the world's most spectacular natural wonders, Victoria Falls, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as big game reserves. But tourists have been staying away from Zimbabwe since an economic and political crisis unleashed in 2000 with controversial elections and the land reform program in which white farms were seized and given to landless blacks. The government blames the slump on negative reporting by international media, tarnishing Zimbabwe's image as an appealing destination. Annual earnings from the tourism industry dropped from 144.6 million US dollars in 1995 to 44.1 million dollars last year. according to official figures. Private industry official say income from tourism fell from 700 million dollars in 1999 to 71 million dollars in 2003. At its peak, tourism -- notably the falls and the game reserves -- brought in about 12.5 percent of Zimbabwe's gross domestic product (GDP) and employed 4.5 percent of the labour force. Asia last year was the biggest growth market for tourists, with 40 percent more foreign travellers coming to Zimbabwe than in 2003, mostly from China, India and Japan. Nearly 41,000 Asian tourists visited Zimbabwe last year, up from 29,075 in 2002. A special tourism police unit has also been set up to increase the safety of tourists at all destinations.
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From The Sunday Times (UK), 13 June
Kofi Annan’s son faces probe in UN oil scandal
Robert Winnett
The son of the United Nations secretary-general is to be investigated over his alleged role in a company that negotiated to sell millions of barrels of Iraqi oil under the discredited UN oil-for-food scheme. Kojo Annan faces questions about a conflict of interest as the oil scheme was ultimately the responsibility of his father Kofi, who heads the UN. Financial investigators for the Iraqi government are to look into apparent links between Kojo and a company that negotiated a contract to sell Iraqi oil as part of its wider probe into deals struck during Saddam Hussein’s regime. The UN oil-for-food programme - which allowed Saddam to trade controlled amounts of oil to buy food and other essential supplies - is alleged to have been corruptly administered by the former Iraqi leader and the UN. The allegations centre on an Iraqi oil deal worth $60m (about £33m) that was lined up by Hani Yamani, the son of Sheikh Yamani, the former Saudi oil minister. The business relationship between Hani Yamani and Kojo Annan represents the coming together of two of the world’s most influential families. In his mid-twenties, Annan became a director of Yamani’s main company, Air Harbour Technologies (AHT). Documents seen by The Sunday Times show that Yamani agreed to sell 1m barrels of Iraqi oil - through another of his companies Hazy Investments — to a Moroccan company, Samir, in September 2001. He was given a further option to sell another 1m barrels.
A source close to the transaction said: "This was a major coup for Yamani at the time as it was critical to his main business as funds from the Hazy deal were planned for AHT. Kojo was a director of AHT." Yamani is alleged to have said Kojo was important to the Hazy deal. Kojo, however, says he had no knowledge of Yamani’s oil negotiations. He firmly states, through London lawyers, that he ceased being a director of AHT in July 2001, two months before the oil deal was signed. His lawyers say they have seen a letter of resignation that proves his leaving date, but Kojo Annan has refused to release it to The Sunday Times. Although the Hazy contract for the Kirkuk oil was agreed, Yamani now says the deal never went ahead. Speaking from his home in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, he said: "We didn’t have an allocation from the Iraqis, we were selling the oil on behalf of someone else. I never actually traded a barrel of Iraqi oil." The investigators will now have to establish when Annan resigned and may seek evidence from other senior executives of AHT. In late 2000, the majority of the AHT board resigned after several projects failed to materialise, but Annan’s directorship was renewed in January 2001. Annan insists he only ever received two director’s payments. He also points out that when he was last accused of using his father’s name in an oil-for-food contract he was cleared.
After leaving university in 1994, Annan worked for Cotecna, a company that specialised in inspecting and verifying oil shipments. He became a Cotecna consultant through the Sutton Group, a company he set up in Nigeria. In 1998 the UN began tendering a multimillion pound contract to "inspect" its oil-for-food programme. This involved monitoring shipments of food and medicine being imported into Iraq, and checking oil tankers as they left port. Annan stopped acting as a consultant for Cotecna six weeks before it won the UN contract. An internal UN investigation found Annan had no knowledge or involvement in the Cotecna bid. A spokesman for the company said: "Kojo Annan’s activities concerned exclusively Cotecna’s activities in Nigeria and Ghana, and he was not involved in any of Cotecna’s operations involving the United Nations or Iraq." Annan joined AHT in 1999, two years after his father was elected UN secretary-general. The company was set up to build airports and hotels and is wholly owned by Yamani. The company has close links to Hazy Investments which, records indicate, signs contracts and pays employees and consultants on AHT’s behalf. Both companies were ultimately based in the same office in Nicosia, Cyprus. Annan was approached to join the board of AHT at a time when Yamani was hoping to increase the company’s profile by hiring well-known figures, such as a former president of Costa Rica and Maurice Strong, a senior UN official and special envoy to Kofi Annan. One source close to AHT said: "Hani Yamani liked to surround himself with the great and the good. Kojo was a very passive executive and I always thought he basically lent his name to the firm. The Annan name obviously has a certain presence when you are putting together deals in Africa."
One of the company’s biggest projects was the building of a new airport in Harare, Zimbabwe. It attracted controversy over allegations that the company had won the contract through its association with Leo Mugabe, Robert Mugabe’ s nephew. During 2001, AHT was in trouble and Yamani allegedly stopped paying a number of key staff. It was against this background that the oil deal was negotiated. The Sunday Times has seen a contract drawn up between Hazy and Samir, a Moroccan company owned by prominent Saudis, for the sale of oil from Kirkuk in Iraq in September 2001. At the time, Iraq’s oil exports were strictly controlled by the oil-for-food programme. It is claimed Saddam handed out vouchers giving allocations of oil at discounted rates in return for favours, including political support outside Iraq and the supply of goods not permitted by UN sanctions. A spokesman for Kofi Annan declined to comment on Kojo’s relationship with Yamani. However, he said: "The secretary-general has categorically stated that neither he nor his son had any connection with the awarding of a contract to Cotecna."
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From The Daily News, 28 November 2000
President linked to airport deal
President Mugabe has been linked to the payment of unauthorised commissions during the construction of Harare's new international airport. As the project nears completion, a serious rift has emerged between Air Harbour Technologies (AHT), the main contractor, and local representatives and government officials. The airport project has become a tale of cronyism that has involved the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan's son, Kojo, Mugabe's nephew, Leo Mugabe, and Yamani, the son of a famous and powerful former Saudi Oil Minister, Sheikh Ahmed Yamani. It now emerges that Hani Yamani, the owner of AHT, has named President Mugabe and the Speaker of Parliament, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as being among Zimbabwean top officials he alleges to have paid a total of US$3 million ($165 million) to ensure that his company won the $5 billion tender to design and build the new airport. The names of the President's nephew, Leo Mugabe, two former Transport Ministers Simon Khaya Moyo and Enos Chikowore, Higher Education Minister Herbert Murerwa, as well as the Dean of the Diplomatic Corps in Harare, Ali Halimeh, Ambassador of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) appear on the list of people to whom payments were allegedly made by Yamani's representatives in Harare in circumstances which he now challenges. Murerwa was at the time Minister of Finance.
Yamani alleges that his representatives in the country, Heena Joshi and Tony Kates, claimed they also made disbursements to the former Editor of The Herald now chairman of Zimbabwe Newspapers (Zimpapers), Tommy Sithole, Obert Matshalaga, the Director of Domestic and International Finance in the Ministry of Finance, Dr Sam Marume, Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Transport, and Amos Marawa, former Director of the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (CAAZ). A number of junior-ranking civil servants are alleged to have also benefited. It is alleged that a total of US$190 000 was paid to Leo Mugabe, while Murerwa, Chikowore and Khaya Moyo received US$24 803, US$171 456 and US$106 832, respectively. Yamani alleges that Joshi and Kates claim that Ambassador Halimeh had received US$10 000, with Sithole receiving US$21 000 and Matshalaga being paid the least amount of all, only US$1 250. Yamani said: "Ambassador Halimeh has been demanding much more money from me over the past two years, over and above the large sums that he has been receiving. This is extremely sad for me because I genuinely like him and I will continue to care for him and his family in his serious illness." The PLO ambassador said: "I know Yamani. He is a friend of mine. I know the gentleman very well, but I know nothing about the payment." If the story was published he had a way of dealing with the people, Halimeh said, throwing diplomatic caution to the wind. Yesterday Heena Joshi denied she ever paid the named people anything. "I resigned from the company after I realised that Hani Yamani was conducting himself outside the boundaries of ethical business practice." Leo Mugabe said: "I have nothing to do with AHT. All I did was to introduce one of the company's representative to influential people in the country and that was six years ago. That is an old story. The problem is that you don't like President Mugabe and end up painting us with the same brush. I am a capable businessman who has a right to receive commissions, but on this one I did not get anything."
Meanwhile Marawa denied ever receiving any money, saying: "I have not been paid by anybody even if I am listed in those documents. At the time when I was at CAAZ, we did not recommend that company. I have not received money from them." When contacted for comment, Matshalaga also denied he had received any payment. "I don't know what to say," he said. "I can only say my name was possibly added on the list because I was one of the people opposed to the project. If I was supposed to receive any payment, then where is my money? I never received any money. It's always the small fish who suffer. Small fish also need protection. I was one of the people strongly opposed to this project. Unfortunately, I cannot confirm or dismiss anything." Sithole, the Zimpapers chairman, who is abroad, refused to comment when he was contacted yesterday. He asked The Daily News to call him on Thursday when he returns. Mnangagwa and Murerwa are also out of the country, while Chikowore and Khaya Moyo could not be reached for comment last night. Yamani explains the full details of the alleged payments in a letter he wrote to President Mugabe a year ago. He complains that he lost US$3 million - or $165 million in local currency - through paying Zimbabweans. Zanu PF's trading company, Zidco (Pvt) Ltd, was named as the official agent for AHT in the country. Yamani states in his letter to Mugabe that his Cyprus-based company paid a total US$20 000 (Z$1 100 000) through Zidco for the construction of the President's residence in Zvimba. The house was allegedly built by Yugoslavs who were paid by AHT. Yamani says a total of US$1 200 000 (Z$66 000 000) was paid directly to Zidco through the personal bank account of Jayant Joshi on the instructions of Mnangagwa. Jayant Chunilal Joshi and his brother, Manharlal Chunibal Joshi, are, along with Mnangagwa, directors of Zidco. It is alleged that a total of US$50 000 (Z$ 2 750 000) was donated by Yamani to Zanu PF through Jayant Joshi's account. Heena is the daughter of Jayant Joshi. The Joshis, the key players in Zidco, together with Mnangagwa, retain strong personal links with the Mugabes. Heena Joshi is a close friend of the President's wife, Grace. She sits on the board of the First Lady's charitable organisation, the Children's Rehabilitation Trust.
In the letter to Mugabe, which is dated 15 July 1999, Yamani, alleges that there was a "dirty conspiracy" that had been actively seeking to destroy his relationship with President Mugabe and his family in order to hide certain financial transactions. Describing Mugabe as a father, Yamani enclosed in the letter to the President the list of officials to whom payments were allegedly made. "It is crucial for me that you know all the facts, and that my reputation with you and your family is restored," Yamani appeals to Mugabe. "You are more able than I am to determine the good sheep from the bad ones in your flock and I have no choice but to come to you in the present circumstances for help and protection." Yamani alleges that Kates, Heena and Saleh Miri, AHT's former architect, who designed the new terminal, acted together and "committed many administrative and financial irregularities". Most intriguing in the letter is Mnangagwa's alleged role in organising and handling, through Zidco, funds for Mugabe's residence, and the payment of sums of money out to Halimeh "to cover his living and medical expenses". Mnangagwa in his personal capacity was allegedly paid Z$2 331 505. Yamani says he intended to go into a joint venture with the First Lady to construct a $15 million hotel. Yamani says he had asked Heena Joshi to locate an appropriate piece of land near the airport for the hotel. "We intended to lend the money to the First Lady who would buy the land and we would build the hotel using our own equity and project financing," he says. Yamani says sub-standard work was uncovered on the airport project and the contractor was forced to correct it against heavy criticism from Kates and "his allies in government and the representative of the contractor" who said redoing the job would delay the project. "It seems we were hurting their personal financial interests," says Yamani.
Yamani says to Mugabe: "Normally, we would take Heena to court for mismanagement and fraud and we can stop her this way, but this is impossible in our present case as it would hurt Zimbabwe and your family. Heena Joshi knows these facts and she is using them to her own benefit. We are now told that the funds which were intended to pay the Yugoslav contractor for your residence, with the contribution of my company at a total one million United States dollars up to the end of the airport project, were never disbursed." He said his company had already lost US$3 million on the airport contract and it stood to lose much more after two of his architects were "officially kicked out of the country". "Most important to me is my relationship with you and the First Lady, which is worth more to me than money and fame," Yamani says in his letter. "I respect you and I am honoured by your trust in me. I am a victim of plotters who derive all their power from you, but who deal for their personal ambitious agenda." Yamani says his last meeting with Mugabe was in July 1998 and the First Lady in September 1998 in Paris. He says attempts to come to Zimbabwe and accompany the President on a tour of the new airport had been blocked by Heena Joshi. "I was also supposed to go to Dubai in late 1998 to assist the First Lady on her visit, but I was told by Heena Joshi that the visit was cancelled by the First Lady herself. It is an honour for me to meet with Your Excellency and the First Lady, especially since I need to discuss problems on the airport project and I now realise that the Joshis did not want such a meeting to occur."
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From The Press Association, 16 June
Mugabe's man accuses 'lying' UN
President Robert Mugabe’s government accused UN officials of "spreading lies" about Zimbabwe today, deepening a rift between the country and the world body. Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge said he had summoned the UN World Food Programme representative to his office yesterday to explain a report compiled by one of its officials that outlined increasing crime and lawlessness in the troubled southern African nation. "There is a persistent trend of malicious intent on the part of some UN staffers in Zimbabwe who are deliberately demonising this country and its leadership through lies and misinformation," Mudenge said in the capital, Harare. "It is unfortunate the United Nations in Harare continues to tolerate people who tarnish the name of Zimbabwe. This is unacceptable to the government." The report warning of a sharp rise in violent crime including street robbery, rapes and vehicle hijacking was compiled by Zimbabwean WFP official Denis Mpanda, whom Mudenge said was "probably drunk." "He just sits down, his hangover gets to him, and he puts it out," Mudenge said. He also complained about an official at the UN Development Programme who previously described Zimbabwe as "a no-go country," where policing was ineffective and the lives of UN personnel were in danger. Mudenge accused UN officials sympathetic to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change of using their positions to promote a political agenda with "evil intent" against the country. Mudenge’s comments came after UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s special envoy for humanitarian needs in southern Africa cancelled a planned trip to Zimbabwe, saying neither Mugabe nor his top officials were available to meet him.
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From News24 (SA), 16 June
Zim denies snubbing UN official
Harare - Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge denied on Wednesday that Zimbabwe was snubbing a top UN official on a food assessment mission who was scheduled to meet with government ministers this week. Mudenge told a press conference that the government could not meet with James Morris, the special UN envoy for humanitarian needs and head of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), on Tuesday because it was holding its weekly cabinet meeting. "We were in cabinet the whole day. If Morris had come he would have met nobody," said Mudenge. Morris, who is the agency's executive director, is on a five-nation tour of the region to assess food security. He travelled to Malawi on Tuesday after the Zimbabwe leg of the trip was scrapped. Aid agencies estimate that around five million Zimbabweans will require emergency food aid this year, but the Zimbabwe government has said it will not appeal for food aid because it expects a bumper harvest. A crop and food assessment mission comprising UN and government officials was cancelled last month when the government recalled its field officers. Press reports here speculated that the Zimbabwean government was deliberately avoiding Morris, who has been to Zimbabwe at least twice in the last three years at the height of chronic food shortages. "You all read big things into small things," said Mudenge, adding that the government planned to reschedule the meeting with Morris at a later date.
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From The Financial Gazette, 17 June
Zanu PF probe: storm in a tea cup
Hama Saburi
Zanu PF heavyweights, who thought they had Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa on the ropes, could be sorely disappointed as the twisty investigations into the ruling party’s investments have failed to come up with anything that constitutes a crime. Impeccable ruling party sources yesterday revealed that the investigations, which to all intents and purposes were aimed at Mnangagwa as the immediate past finance chief for the party, had failed to find anything that could stick against the Speaker. As finance chief, Mnangagwa, seen as a shrewd political schemer, was key to Zanu PF’s complex and secretive investments. Political vultures behind the intensifying war of attrition within Zanu PF’s latest succession battles, had started circling amid heightened speculation that Mnangagwa was President Robert Mugabe’s chosen successor. Although President Mugabe is on record as saying that he would not handpick a successor, the speculation about Mnangagwa has not yet been publicly denied.
The latest revelations comes as it also emerged this week that the five-member probe team, whose impartiality has since been questioned, had successfully asked for more time to complete the investigations, which should have been wrapped up by May 31. Highly placed sources said despite the loads of evidence gathered by the probe team since the beginning of April, there is nothing specific to nail individuals to secretive operations of a swathe of Zanu PF companies that fell victim to President Mugabe’s anti-graft crusade. They said without testimonies from Zanu PF directors, who fled the country at the inception of the investigations, there is a missing link to make the jigsaw puzzle complete. Jayant Joshi, his brother Manharlal and Dipak Pandya skipped the country and sought refuge in the United Kingdom, where they have denied any wrong doing through their lawyers. It is alleged that the trio was accompanied to the Harare International Airport by an unnamed Zanu PF heavyweight, giving credence to suspicions that some ruling party heavyweights could have covered their tracks.
Mnangagwa is said to have appeared three times before the committee chaired by Zanu PF secretary for finance David Karimanzira. As the former finance chief, he wielded a lot of influence in the party’s affairs. "The evidence that is there is very weak. It’s like saying so and so had a meeting, without the details of the discussions," said well placed Zanu PF source. Karimanzira, who could not be reached for comment yesterday as he was said to be attending a seminar in Mutare, had been slated to present the committee’s findings before the Politburo this month, but the issue was deferred as the team was still to complete the probe. The other members of the committee comprise Matabeleland North Governor and Resident Minister Obert Mpofu, former Finance Minister Simba Makoni, retired army general Solomon Mujuru and the Zanu PF deputy secretary for Transport and Welfare Thoko Mathuthu.
As the investigations continue, observers within the ruling party fear that Zanu PF could suffer self-inflicted divisions. The investigations have run into countless pitfalls as Karimanzira and some of the high-ranking Zanu PF officials sit on the boards of the companies under investigation. For example, Mnangagwa and Karimanzira sit on the Treger Holdings board, which is facing allegations of externalising $39 billion in foreign currency. Police had tried to charge 13 directors of Tregers with externalising foreign currency, but backtracked. Police have since decided to prosecute the corporate entity and not its directors. Zanu PF has built a multi-billion dollar empire out of two investment vehicles — M & S Syndicate, which was set up before independence in 1980 and ZIDCO Holdings, whose board comprise Jayant Joshi, his brother Manharlal and Defence Minister Sidney Sekeramyi. The two investment vehicles, whose operations have been highly secretive even to some of the top members of the ruling party, acquired significant stakes in companies quoted on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange such as First Banking Corporation and the Southern African Reinsurance. Other Zanu PF companies include Ottawa, Catercraft and Zidlee Enterprises.
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From The Financial Gazette, 17 June
Zim troops for DRC again?
Staff Reporter
Just less than two years after suffering heavy losses and casualties in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe looks set to revive its military adventure should findings of a regional emissary to the war-ravaged country recommend regional intervention. Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge told journalists in Harare yesterday that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) troika comprising Lesotho, Mozambique and South Africa had agreed to send a team to the DRC on a fact-finding mission. The team would discuss the way forward with the Congolese government and neighbouring countries. SADC would then evaluate whether there would be need for military intervention to restore peace in the mineral-rich country. "The mission would then advise on the strategies for SADC support to the DRC," Mudenge said. Kinshasa, the DRC capital, was last week rocked by gunfire following a night of fighting between Congolese troops and rebel fighters led by Major Eric Lenge, who reportedly seized control of the government’s radio station. SADC ministers have condemned attempts to topple a sitting government.
But can Zimbabwe, a country that has never benefited from its military interventions, afford another expensive military adventure in view of the country’s collapsing economy? In 1998, Zimbabwe sent about a third of its then 11 000 soldiers to the DRC to assist the late president Laurent Kabila, who was under attack from rebel fighters assisted by neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda. To date no official statistics of the death toll have been released. Joseph Kurebwa, a local political analyst, said while it is difficult to quantify the price of peace, the last experience in the DRC contributed to the current economic mess. "There has to be a cost benefit analysis. But, under the current scenario, I do not think that Zimbabwe will utilise as many resources as before given the fact that this time round other SADC countries would be involved as well as the United Nations. Also the fact that it’s only one rebel leader who is causing nuisance there means not many resources may have to be used," he said. Mudenge said SADC would not tolerate unconstitutional change of governments, hence the undertaking to safeguard the security and political stability of the region. Alois Masepe, another political commentator, said Zimbabwe has to play a part in regional initiatives. He said: "SADC countries now have to look into resolving the DRC problem once and for all." Estimates indicate that about 3.3 million people have been killed in the DRC since the DRC civil war broke out.
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From News24 (SA), 16 June
Mugabe junior blocks Bok practice
Cape Town - Springbok coach Jake White suffered yet another public relations nightmare when hundreds of fans were barred from attending the "open" Bok practice at Bishops on Wednesday. The reason: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's son was being enrolled at the time. Among those turned away at the gate by Bishops' Noel Greeff was Springbok selector Pieter Jooste and former Bok Cobus Burger, who played against the World XV in 1989. Those cars with Bishops' stickers on their windscreens were allowed in - much to the chagrin of those on the outside, looking in. White said: "I was phoned this morning (Wednesday) and told that Grace Mugabe was coming to the school to enrol her son. I left it in their hands to handle. I just think it was a miscommunication." The reason, according to Greeff, was that White had apparently told him the training session was closed to all media and public. "Jake told me this morning - that the session was closed - and he said it to the supervisor of the guards," said Greeff afterwards. But the group of people at the front gate grew increasingly angry each time a car was allowed through. "They are Bishops boys. They are entitled," explained Greeff. It seems Greeff was using the Bok practice as a smokescreen to keep journalists at bay, while the unsuspecting public was merely caught up in the act. Even when Bok media liaison, Rayaan Adriaanse, approached Greeff to tell him White had given the go-ahead to open the gates, Greeff refused to budge.
Eventually, after about half an hour of waiting, the matter was cleared up by a school official and people were allowed into the ground. By this stage, though, the damage had been done with about 100 people turned away, most of them young fans. Bok manager Arthob Petersen was shocked when told that hoards of young Bok supporters had been turned away. "What are you telling me?" he asked with a disbelievingly. He said: "We are appreciative of the support of the public, so for what reason would we close a session after initially saying it was open. "We were told there was some celebrity who was coming to register her child and the request from the school was to keep the media away for a period. This was not deliberate from our side. We didn't know at all that this had been arranged." One irate man turned away in disgust. "I can't afford the R250 for a ticket to the Test on Saturday," he said, "so I brought my child to watch today and this happens. It's a complete disgrace. I can't believe it. We were all told it was open." The Springboks clash with Ireland in the eagerly awaited second Test at Newlands on Saturday. From The Cape Times (SA), 17 June
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Mugabe's son not at Bishops - principal
By Jo-Anne Smetherham, Stephen Nell and Tony Weaver
Was the youngest son of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace, enrolled yesterday at top Cape Town school, Bishops? Springbok rugby coach Jake White, thought he was. And so did others, many of whom contacted the Cape Times in outrage. But Grant Nupen, headmaster of the upmarket private school, more formally known as the Diocesan College, said: "Grace Mugabe has not been in touch with me." Early yesterday, a rumour was "spreading like wildfire" through the Bishops' parent body that the Mugabes had indeed enrolled their son at Bishops. Yesterday national selector Peter Jooste, rugby writers and scores of fans who came to watch the Springboks train, were prevented by security guards from entering Bishops. Bishops' "risk manager" No‘l Greeff said he had been given explicit instructions by White that it was a closed training session. Only cars with "Bishops stickers" would be allowed into the ground. White, however, denied this. "I spoke to somebody from Bishops on the phone this morning. I said it was an open session and they said they had a problem with that as Grace Mugabe was coming to enroll her son at the school." But last night, headmaster Nupen flatly denied Mugabe's son had been enrolled. "Grace Mugabe has not been in touch with me or the headmaster of the preparatory school. I can't respond because I don't know where Jake White got this information from. He didn't get it from me. If Grace Mugabe had tried to enrol her son, he would have known about it he said, unless she had spoken to a "minor school official", in the late hours of Tuesday. If Mrs Mugabe had applied, we would treat it in the strictest confidence in the same way that we handle all other applications." He said there were waiting lists at the school, and the length depended on the class. Pupils from outside the country would be placed on the waiting list and would need to acquire a study permit and that took time, Nupen said.
Rugby writers stood bemused at the Bishops gate for over half an hour while Greeff stubbornly stood his ground, even dismissing an appeal by Springbok media manager Rayaan Adriaanse to allow journalists entry. Springbok manager Arthob Petersen was stunned when he heard people had been turned away. "What are you telling me? Our position is clear. We are open, accessible and have a very cordial relationship with the media and people we serve. For what reason under the sun would we close the door in their faces?" he asked. "We were mindful of a request from the school that because there would be a VIP on the grounds there would not be access for a certain period. However, that was no longer the case when we arrived here." Asked afterwards why his "closed" session was open to Bishops boys when a number of other youngsters were turned away, Greeff said: "They are entitled. They are Bishops boys." If Mugabe has enrolled his son at Bishops, it would be highly ironic, given that last month he closed most private schools in Zimbabwe after first having ordered them to slash their fees. The private schools were permitted to increase their fees by 10% although the country's inflation rate was 600% at the time. The closures meant that 30 000 pupils could not attend school on the first day of term. It was reported days later that six school principals were arrested for allegedly violating education regulations, although their schools had already been closed. These principals were from among the most prominent private schools in Zimbabwe. Other principals are reported to have gone into hiding. A Zimbabwe High Court judge declared the decision to close the private schools to be null and void in a judgment made in a case brought by parents and teachers at Hartman House Preparatory School.
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From The Guardian (UK), 17 June
Aids has hit my family, says Mugabe
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria and Rory Carroll in Johannesburg
The Zimbabwean president, Robert Mugabe, admitted for the first time yesterday that members of his family had been affected by HIV/Aids. Mr Mugabe told a conference on Aids that unnamed members of his family had become ill from the disease. Describing HIV/Aids as "one of the greatest challenges facing our nation", he said that most people had been affected "and that includes the extended family of the president himself". The admission came after years of official neglect of a virus that has infected almost a quarter of adults in Zimbabwe, one of the highest prevalence rates in the world. In 2003 1.8 million Zimbabweans were infected and a recent survey found that 51% of prisoners were HIV-positive. As many as 3,000 people in Zimbabwe die of Aids-related illnesses each week, a toll largely blamed for a drop in life expectancy to 36 years. Figures released this week showed that 135,000 people died of Aids last year.
Mr Mugabe was speaking at the country's first Aids conference, which was designed to enable officials, health workers and community groups to draw up a strategy to fight the disease. His revelation put him in the company of Nelson Mandela, South Africa's former president, who broke a taboo by speaking publicly of losing relatives to the disease. Other former presidents have gone further by specifying that they lost not just members of their extended family, which in Africa can be large, but close relatives. Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda said his son had died of Aids and Malawi's Bakili Muluzi his brother. Mr Mugabe may have noted that those admissions earned plaudits at home and abroad for helping to fight the stigma of a disease which affects an estimated 30 million Africans. Yesterday Mr Mugabe also asked the private sector for help. "There is no doubt that HIV and Aids is one of the greatest challenges facing our nation. The disease does not respect status, it does not respect colour ... It is a war that belongs to all of us," he said. "We appeal for the greater participation of the private sector. I believe there is scope for [the] government and the pharmaceutical companies to work together so as to bring the prices of the drugs down and enable more of our people to benefit."
The UN, a co-sponsor of the event, said economic hardships had led people, particularly women, to take sexual risks. "The fact that it has taken us this long just to hold a conference shows how much the government has neglected the suffering caused by Aids," said one delegate, a doctor. Only about 5% of the population has come forward for testing, reflecting a continent-wide reluctance to know one's HIV status. In a rare display of unity last month, nine government and opposition MPs went for voluntary counselling and testing, prompting critics to ask when the president would make a high-profile gesture of his own. The government denies accusations it has lacked the political will to deal effectively with the crisis, first reported in Zimbabwe 18 years ago. It established the National Aids Council, but the organisation has been plagued by corruption scandals. Critics say it only funds groups controlled by Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF party.
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From The Financial Gazette, 17 June
Moyo’s influence ruffles feathers
Zimbabwean's impression of the mercurial Information Minister Jonathan Moyo is, like everything in life, influenced by their vision of the man who switched academics for politics in 1999. It is that of a man who gives credence to claims that politics is fluid - anything can happen. It is that of an academic who learnt fast how to switch from being the conscience of the people and a rabid critic of the authorities to being one of them. But beyond that, very few who claim to have known his convictions seem to know what to make of the unpredictable man’s intentions. Against all odds, his robust way of doing things seems to have forced Zanu PF to break with tradition. Juniors now stand up to so-called party seniors without fear of being reprimanded - a significant rupture with the past to those who know Zanu PF and how it works. Or by accepting the strength of Moyo’s influence, does Zanu PF, which has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980 and known to frown at anything that might prise apart its fragile unity, all of a sudden believe that for unity, the existence of a threat is essential?
Given the previously subtle but now open deeply divisive political battling in Zanu PF, the psychological crises it has left on the ruling party’s old guard which has a lot to ponder and Moyo’s political power and influence which has grown beyond that ever enjoyed by President Mugabe’s liberation war colleagues who held the same portfolio prior to Moyo - there are genuine and pertinent questions over whether the all powerful professor has become the de facto prime minister of the country. Others wonder whether it is because Moyo’s ministerial responsibilities are much greater than those of other seemingly hapless awe-struck ministers? Only President Mugabe, who appointed the former University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer, can answer that question. These are the questions being bandied around given that previously untouchable key members of the faction-ridden Zanu PF have become objects of bitter covert and overt attacks from the Department of Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet headed by Moyo. The attacks have been over policy differences and other issues of vital national interest, clearly indicating that the Zanu PF high echelon is no longer singing from the same song sheet over critical issues.
The objects of these attacks so far have been Zanu PF strongman, the tough-talking Vice President Joseph Msika, widely seen as the angry man of the ruling party’s politics who was publicly humbled over the Kondozi saga by Moyo, considered a Johnny-come-lately in the ruling party. Next was Nathan Shamuyarira who came in for some flak over the Sky News crew visit to Zimbabwe to which Moyo was opposed. Shamuyarira is a former holder of Moyo’s portfolio and confidante of President Mugabe and is currently writing a book on the Zimbabwean leader. The latest victim was Zanu PF national chairman John Nkomo, who was attacked for the confusion and chaos characterising over the farm allocation debacle. Nkomo, formerly of the now defunct Zapu led by late vice-president Joshua Nkomo, is believed to have become the party’s national chairman, beating Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa, after intense lobbying and provincial campaigning by Eddison Zvobgo who was hoping to use Nkomo to achieve his presidential ambitions.
The three, Msika, Nkomo and Shamuyarira, who have had a taste of Moyo’s vitriol, are therefore considered very powerful and influential in Zanu PF, which brings into question where Moyo derives his clout to challenge them. The strange happenings in Zanu PF indicate that the three’s influence, power and political relevance is just but for now, political observers said this week. They will not be much of a factor in the new political dispensation when President Mugabe, who is seeing out his last term of office, leaves in 2008. This seems to have been accepted within the ruling party which explains why Moyo "has been allowed to get away with whatever he has been doing". They said President Mugabe was trying to groom dependable and reliable young people before he leaves office. Moyo, whose "only constituency as non-constituent Member of Parliament was President Mugabe" had unquestionable loyalty to the President on whom his political future was dependent. Others were, however, sceptical, maintaining that the politically shrewd President Mugabe was giving his erstwhile political foes enough rope to hang themselves.
But political analyst and constitutional law expert Lovemore Madhuku said there should not be any question as to where the politically provocative Moyo derived his confidence and power from. "Moyo has no other power apart from the power that comes from Mugabe," said Madhuku, who is also the chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly, an organisation fighting for a new constitution. "His power base is Mugabe. He (Moyo) knows that he can be fired any time so whatever he does has to be in line with what Mugabe wants. He can only be doing what he is doing with the blessings of the President, otherwise he would have been kicked out by now. It would be very difficult to shield Mugabe from Moyo. He (Mugabe) knows Moyo’s every move." President Mugabe appointed Moyo Minister of State for Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet in 2000 before thrusting him into Parliament as a non-constituency legislator and later into the party’s highest decision-making body, the Politburo.
Another political analyst and publisher of The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Mirror, Ibbo Mandaza, had this to say of Moyo’s actions: "Those who brought him into the party recognise him as a factor. He came in 2000 and the same year he was elevated into the Politburo. That can’t be ignored. It means those who brought him have faith in him. But all that is happening is all part of the power struggle." Moyo is believed to have been interested in two constituencies, Lupane and Tsholotsho, but the Lupane seat has already been contested for in a by-election won by Zanu PF. He has now set his eyes on Tsholotsho. Political analyst Heneri Dzinotyiwei said: "Moyo’s actions signal that there is havoc in the party. As an individual, he may have the abilities, but his energies need to be synchronised with the others. But the fact that he has not been reprimanded or brought before a hearing means that they (Zanu PF’s high echelons) do not see a problem. Clearly he has been working out of sync with others."
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From SW Radio Africa, 17 June
Women arrested, activist shot
Four activists from Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) who were arrested and detained overnight by the police in Bulawayo have been released without charge. The four, Magodonga Mahlangu, Patricia Khanye, Siphiwe Maseko and Emily Mpofu were arrested together with forty other WOZA women during a meeting at Machobane community Hall in the Western suburbs of the city Wednesday. The other forty were released Wednesday but the remaining four were charged with contravening section 24 of the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). National co-ordinator of WOZA, Jenni Williams said the four appeared in court this afternoon and were released after the state prosecutor conceded that they lacked evidence to convict the activists. The police in the Rhodesville suburb of Harare have been accused of shooting an MDC activist who was relaxing at home in the garden with some friends last Saturday afternoon. Ringson Mutandagai opened the gate for 2 policemen who had knocked. Without provocation, one of the policeman, a constable Mufurutsa, allegedly pulled out his gun and shot the 51 year-old MDC ward member and activist in the abdomen. Shocked witnesses in the garden phoned an ambulance and report that the police continued talking to their friends about personal matters on their mobile phones while the victim lay there bleeding. The police version is of course very different. They allege that the victim attempted to escape while in police custody for an unspecified incident. The other policemen who were present are not even mentioned in the report. Ringson Mutandagai is now at Parirenyatwa hospital recovering from a very serious operation on his stomach.
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From BBC News, 17 June
Zimbabwe slams 'treacherous' UN
Zimbabwe has launched a scathing attack on United Nations security officers based in the capital, Harare. They are "deliberately demonising this country and its leadership through a campaign of lies and misinformation," said Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge. A World Food Programme official told the BBC that a standard internal security document had been mistakenly published on the internet. Relations between Zimbabwe and the WFP have become strained in recent months. Mr Mudenge said that a UN security officer had told a conference that Zimbabwe was a "no-go country," where the police arrest people for no reason. "If this is true, then why are we still receiving requests for the services of our policemen from the UN and some of its agencies," Mr Mudenge asked. The officer, a Zimbabwean national, had also said that the country was divided between rural and urban areas, with the opposition "in control" in urban areas. In recent elections, urban areas have overwhelmingly voted for the opposition, while rural areas have voted for the ruling Zanu PF. Mr Mudenge said that another officer had posted "lies" on the internet, which were so treacherous that he would have been deported if he were not from Zimbabwe, reports the state-run Herald. WFP spokeswoman Julie Stewart told BBC News Online that the "issue had been clarified with the Zimbabwe government." Another aid official called the row "a storm in a tea-cup". Last month, a WFP team was blocked from assessing crops in Zimbabwe. The government says that the food shortages of recent years are now over due to bumper harvests. Some donors are sceptical, believing that the government wants to control food aid and only distribute it to its supporters ahead of elections next year. Others say the government does not want to admit that its policy of redistributing white-owned land has led to food shortages. WFP head James Morris was due in Harare this week but his visit was postponed because ministers were "too busy". Ms Stewart said that WFP was currently targeting food aid at 650,000 people, mainly orphans and those with HIV/ Aids. This was down from 4.4m people in March but the WFP does not have predictions for food needs later this year.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 17 June
The great Boer conspiracy
Krisjan Lemmer
When the National Party government was in power in South Africa it had a tendency to, as the saying goes, "see a red under every bed". So Lemmer is quite amused to note that those who support the decidedly paranoid nutter up north are now tending to see a Boer under every bed instead. Zimbabwe’s increasingly slavish state-owned media suffered a setback recently when one of its editors failed to secure recognition of the government-aligned Zimbabwe Association of Editors as the authentic voice of Zim media at a meeting of the Southern African Editors Forum in Windhoek. Explaining the rebuff to his readers, Bulawayo Chronicle editor Stephen Ndlovu, who chairs the boot-lickers’ body, claimed the exclusion of his association was initiated by "United States-bound editor of Beeld Henry Jeffreys, a South African, at the behest of Zimbabwe Independent editor Iden Wetherell. The two have strong Boer links, said sources." The report continued: "Sources said Wetherell was in direct communication with Jeffreys who promised him that he would ensure that Zimbabwe would be thrown out." Wetherell, who is the very Anglo-Saxon chair of the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum, which represents papers in the independent media, received news of his "strong Boer links" with surprise. And Jeffreys, who is black, must have been equally surprised to hear of his. Wetherell and Jeffreys have neither met nor communicated. Which makes news of their conspiracy all the more intriguing.
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From The Guardian (UK), 16 June
What Africa wants
Survey shows half of those questioned believe world is going in wrong direction
Richard Dowden
A third of Africans feel worse off this year than last and half feel the world is going in the wrong direction, according to a survey of nearly 8,000 Africans to be published today. The survey shows that Africans feel their countries are not run by the will of the people, have more trust in their churches and religious leaders, but hold their governments accountable for solving their most important national problems. They are in favour of globalisation but think rich countries get more from it than they do. They like what America is doing in the world but do not trust rich countries in trade negotiations and worry most about Aids, jobs and poverty. In all, 37% of those surveyed by Globescan, a global public opinion research organisation, think life has got worse in the past year while only 24% think it is getting better. Even the richest and best educated groups are polarised, with just 32% believing life is improving, while nearly half of the poorest group feel it is getting worse. The survey reinforces the impression of a continent struggling with crime, war, corruption, economic malaise and the scourge of Aids. Almost 30 million of the 635 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have HIV/Aids. The per capita income for the region is $575 (£315) a year, with half the population on less than a dollar a day. And yet attitudes are not universally gloomy. In South Africa 60% of respondents said the country was going in the right direction. The only two countries that do think their governments reflect the people's will are Ghanaians (65%) and Kenyans (73%).
Overall Africans expect their governments to sort out problems such as Aids but 36% have not much little or no trust in their national governments. The sentiments are gloomiest in Nigeria and Zimbabwe. In Nigeria three-quarters of the people believe the country is going in the wrong direction. Only 3% of people think life is getting better in Zimbabwe, a country whose economy has contracted by more than a third in the past five years. Corruption also causes serious concern in a continent that regularly contributes leading contenders for the Transparency International Corruption Index. Two-thirds of South Africans and four out of five Zimbabweans think their countries are more corrupt than a year ago. Only a sixth of Zimbabweans and Nigerians believe they can get access to honest government. Kenyans, however, think their new government is making things better: 84% think there is less corruption. The survey was conducted in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Egypt, although the Egyptian government does not allow questions on corruption or democracy. More than 90% of those surveyed see Aids and the spread of diseases as serious problems for them and their families. The message on Aids seems to be getting through. Men and women, rich and poor, well-educated or not, everyone agrees that it is a serious problem. When asked to prioritise their problems Zimbabweans and Tanzanians put Aids at the top. But in west Africa where the disease is spreading but has not yet killed substantial numbers of people, it is given a far lower priority. West Africans are more worried about jobs and poverty. In Egypt they worry about the cost of living, most of all and in South Africa, where more than 2.5m crimes were committed last year, the crime rate is seen as more important than Aids.
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From AFP, 18 June
Zimbabwe cricket chief resigns
Harare - Zimbabwe Cricket Union (ZCU) chief executive Vincent Hogg has resigned. Hogg has notified ZCU chairman Peter Chingoka and the 12-man board of directors of his decision and will quit his functions after the ZCU annual meeting scheduled for August 8. Confirming his resignation, Hogg was not immediately prepared to give his reasons for quitting, adding: "A ZCU statement will be issued shortly." His resignation relates to intense pressure caused by a sequence of destructive events following the strike of 15 contracted players which began some ten weeks ago after captain Heath Streak was sacked by the board of directors for objecting to the make-up and policy of the national selectors. Hogg was head-hunted in February 2002 as a replacement for David Ellman-Brown, a former lawyer and ZCU chairman. He was an international standard fast bowler with Rhodesia, who in the late 1960's and the 1970's played in the South African Currie Cup before building up a high level experience in the Harare world of financial management. Hogg's task with the ZCU was to oversee the development and smooth running of cricket in Zimbabwe as it moved into its second decade as a Test nation and as a full member of the International Cricket Council. He had control of a staff exceeding 250 and a multi-million dollar budget. However, the sacking of Streak, which led to an increasingly hostile stand-off between the union and the striking white players, the inevitable racial overtones, the consequent loss of Test cricket and his increasingly untenable position as the man in the middle of the row, have undoubtedly been the main contributory causes of his decision to quit. It was Hogg who, at Streak's request, passed on to the directors at a formal meeting the former captain's objections to certain national selectors, which triggered the crisis. And last April the young and raw replacement Zimbabwe side was struck out for a record low 35 runs in international cricket by touring Sri Lanka. Hogg will not now be attending the ICC executive meeting with Chingoka on June 30 which will either ratify a six months moratorium on Test cricket for Zimbabwe agreed last week in Dubai, or"order a suspension.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 19 June
Delegates in security sweep
Gift Phiri
Signs of what appear to be growing concerns about President Robert Mugabe's security were dramatically illustrated on Wednesday when more than 700 delegates attending a three-day national HIV/Aids conference at the Sheraton Hotel were subjected to intrusive body searches before the arrival of Mugabe and his wife Grace. Mugabe officially opened the conference which ended yesterday. Visiting South African Health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Angolan deputy Health minister, José Van-Dunem, were among those searched. Cabinet ministers, members of the diplomatic corps, heads of international organisations, invited guests and delegates were thoroughly frisked by state security personnel in an unprecedented security sweep. Some 200 law-enforcement agents were deployed to the conference venue on Wednesday, in addition to special support and response teams. Chemical and biological sensors were strategically positioned at all entrances to the Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) where Mugabe delivered his keynote address. The sensors were complemented by detection equipment, including radiation pagers on the belts of some law enforcement officers. The CIO is understood to have provided intelligence support while Zimbabwe National Army bomb disposal teams, including sniffer dogs, were part of the security set up. It was not possible to obtain comment from the CIO and the army. Police spokesperson, Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka, said: "Sorry, I cannot say anything about that." Delegates who spoke to the Zimbabwe Independent complained of the unprecedented security at an Aids conference. "It's as if there was some terror threat from somewhere yet it was just a head of state supposed to address an Aids conference," said a member of the organising committee who declined to be named. The Independent was told that last week all agencies with an operational role in security participated in an hour-by-hour run-through of the event. According to a security official, all vehicles leading to the conference were swept for explosives. Sources in the ruling party confirmed heightened security fears surrounding Mugabe adding that they were now subjected to searches before entering cabinet meetings.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 18 June
Banning of Zim newspaper was 'unlawful'
Harare - The publisher of a banned Zimbabwean newspaper said on Friday that he will go to court next week to challenge the closure of his weekly. Kindness Paradza, publisher of the outspoken Tribune newspaper, said the Harare High Court will on Monday hear his challenge to the year-long closure of the paper annownced on June 10 by a state-appointed media commission. "What they did is unjustified and unlawful. It was overzealous," said Paradza. The official Media and Information Commission (MIC), which registers all newspapers and journalists in the country, announced it was suspending the paper's licence because its owners had failed to notify it of a change in ownership. Paradza had recently bought the company that published two newspapers, a business and a weekend paper, and then combined them into a single newspaper - The Tribune. Under Zimbabwe's strict press laws the state-appointed MIC has to be notified of such changes. Last year the popular Daily News, a harsh critic of the government, was closed down for violating the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, a law brought in shortly after President Robert Mugabe's controversial re-election in 2002. In a statement issued this week, the MIC said the Tribune's licence was also cancelled because of questions over the shares issued by the newspaper. The government has accused Paradza, who is also a ruling party lawmaker, of undermining party policies by seeking financial backing for the paper from former colonial power Britain.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 18 June
Council paves Mugabe's Way
Staff Writer
The Harare City Council has embarked on a multi-billion-dollar project to widen two roads which form a link to President Robert Mugabe's mansion in Helensvale. Major civil works have already started to widen Carrick Creagh and Borrowdale Brook roads which link the mansion to Crowhill Road. It is understood the project has not been discussed in council. Councillors who spoke to the Zimbabwe Independent were surprised that there was such a project taking place. "I am hearing this for this first time," said suspended Ward 32 councillor Last Maengehama. "I do not remember coming across that project." Suspended Ward 17 councillor Chris Mushonga, who was a member of the executive committee, said council had no capital project on its books as government had not given it borrowing powers. Councillor for the area Xavier Vengesayi last Wednesday said the decision to construct the road was not the product of a council resolution. "I think funding could have come from government through the Road Fund," he said. Town clerk Nomutsa Chideya referred all questions to the Ministry of Transport and Communications before switching off his cellphone. Council PR manager Leslie Gwindi did not respond to written questions sent to his office last week.
Engineers this week said the road could cost anything from $1,5 billion to $3 billion depending on the finish, the amount needed to repair private driveways affected by the construction work and relocating water pipes and underground cables. Construction of a tarmac road costs at least $80 000 per square metre. Council has been struggling to raise money for water treatment chemicals and to repair damaged equipment. The precarious position at Town House has resulted in more than half of the city going without water in some periods. The road works, covering a five-kilometre stretch, begin at the intersection of Crowhill and Carrick Creagh and then turn left into Borrowdale Brook Road where the mansion is located. The works appear to end at the intersection on Borrowdale Brook Road and Daimpre Road, about 150 metres from Mugabe's gate. The Independent visited the area last Wednesday where council earthmoving equipment and compacters were at work. Council has subcontracted earthmoving to a private company with blue trucks. Mugabe's oriental-style mansion has been under construction for over five years. It recently saw controversy when Mugabe said in an interview with Sky News that Malaysia had donated timber used in the construction. The opposition in the Malaysian parliament has called for a probe into the donation. The area around Mugabe's home was recently gazetted as a security zone.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 19 June
Zimbabwe's migrants just want to feed their families
Jerome Cartillier
Johannesburg - Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans who have left their economically-ravaged homeland for neighbouring countries, either legally or illegally, are not seeking refugee status but only a means to earn a livelihood. The migration is voluminous and hard to ascertain, but according to official figures in Harare, more than three million Zimbabweans live overseas. Meanwhile, every day illegal Zimbabwean immigrants are expelled from neighbouring South Africa, Botswana or Mozambique where they had gone to seek a chance to feed themselves and their families. Many return only to be re-expelled. Zimbabwe, led by President Robert Mugabe since its 1980 independence from Britain, is facing the worst crisis in its history. It has in recent years been in the throes of political, economic and social instability with sky-high inflation, recurring food shortages and an unemployment rate of nearly 70%. South Africa, Zimbabwe's southern neighbour and the economic powerhouse of the continent, has, since the end of apartheid in 1994, attracted immigrants in hordes, including people from its northern neighbour. Last year, 55 000 Zimbabweans living illegally in South Africa were expelled to their country. "Those people who claim asylum among all the Zimbabweans that come into the country are a small minority. Most of the people say they have come to make some money to go back to feed their family," said Melita Sunjic from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The refugee status is also hard to obtain. Until September last year, only nine Zimbabweans had been granted refugee status. There have been a total of about 1 500 applications seeking asylum and these are being examined. Similarly in Mozambique the number of Zimbabweans with refugee status is next to nothing.
According to some observers, the low numbers of those seeking asylum or refugee status could be linked to the perception that many of the neighbouring countries would be unwilling to grant Zimbabweans refugee status as it might be construed as their disapproval of Mugabe's authoritarian regime. "The South African government has been unwilling to consider [Zimbabwe] as presenting the conditions that would warrant refugee status being granted to its nationals," Graeme Gotz and Loren Landau said in a study published on Thursday"on "Forced Migrants in the New Johannesburg." "Nationals from Zimbabwe have, therefore, almost always been regarded as economic migrants and ineligible for asylum, even when they have been victims of systematic rape, torture and economic deprivation," they said. The economic migrations have sparked tensions in countries such as impoverished and sparsely-populated Botswana, where according to estimates some 125 000 Zimbabweans have been arriving every month to escape economic problems at home. They have been blamed by authorities for an upswing in crime. Zimbabwe in May condemned the "barbaric" use of corporal punishment by Botswana against Zimbabweans caught on the wrong side of the law following reports that Zimbabweans are harassed, flogged or attacked. But Harare, knowing that it can do little to stem the tide of nationals leaving the country, has tried to put the situation to its advantage, overtly asking "economic migrants" to send money to their families through the official channel. Zimbabwe sorely lacks foreign currency reserves and there is a huge gap between the official and black market exchange rates.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 18 June
Three youth camps closed
Shakeman Mugari
Government has shut down three of the country's six national youth training camps due to acute food shortages, the Zimbabwe Independent heard this week. The three camps, Kamativi in Matabeleland North, Vumba in Manicaland and Mushagashi in Masvingo, closed last month due to poor food supplies. The Independent was told this week that the camps were closed because government had run out of money for food, uniforms and other basics. Government is also unable to pay the support staff employed at the camps. The camps reportedly gobble millions of dollars in the upkeep of recruits and salaries for the trainers. Kamativi is one of the country's biggest camps set up to drill the youths in various martial skills and Zanu PF ideology. Youth director in the Ministry of Youth Development, Itai Muguza, confirmed on Wednesday the closure of the three camps but denied that this had anything to do with food shortages. "Those are allegations made by jealous people who don't want to see us succeed," said Muguza. "Those camps were closed for renovations, otherwise there was enough food. There was no shortage," he said. The Independent however under-stands the closures followed a damning report by the Parliamentary Portfolio Commit-tee on Youth and Gender and Employment Creation produced after a tour of the camps. The committee slammed the living conditions and poor sanitary facilities at the camps.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 17 June
Bizos, Ummeli omkhulu
George Bizos is wending his way through street peddlers and lunchtime pedestrians when heads start to turn on the crowded downtown sidewalk. Quickly come shouts of "Umeli Omkhulu" - the Big Lawyer. The gawkers aren't referring to Bizos' limited height, or the thick torso of the Greek-born attorney. Nelson Mandela may be the international face of South Africa's transformation from oppressive white rule to a multiracial democracy, but 75-year-old Bizos is honoured as an important combatant in the struggle to topple apartheid. "We've never met, but I want to shake your hand," a young man tells him. "When others were sitting pretty, you stood up for justice." For four decades, Bizos was involved in almost every legal aspect of the anti-apartheid movement, representing an honour roll of its leaders - Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and many others, along with the families of slain activists such as Steve Biko and Chris Hani. At a time when opposing apartheid meant harassment or even death, his court challenges against torture and assassinations by state security officers helped publicise government abuses. He was known for relentless questioning of police and military officers that could reduce hardened killers to stammering and even sobbing in the witness chair.
Once apartheid ended and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) probed apartheid-era crimes and considered amnesty applications, Bizos provided much-needed legitimacy by opposing a blanket amnesty and challenging claims from known security force killers. "No South African lawyer did more to challenge the abuse of power by the security forces under apartheid," Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson of South Africa's new Constitutional Court wrote in 1998. Bizos also helped draft the movement's major historical documents, including the Freedom Charter of 1955 that established principles for a future non-racial society and South Africa's post-apartheid constitution a decade ago. The fight against apartheid was won, but the graying Bizos hasn't slowed down. He still tackles tough cases, such as representing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in neighboring Zimbabwe against treason charges widely perceived as an attempt by the black-led government to quash its foes. Asked if the Tsvangirai case differed from the anti-apartheid fight, Bizos says: "It was substantially similar, except that in Zimbabwe, the judiciary is under such tremendous stress that in its way, it is much worse than it ever was in South Africa." That doesn't dim his resolve. "For as long as people ask us to do these cases, or we're asked by their loved ones to take the cases when they are incommunicado, we will not stop," Bizos says.
His influence on South African history was extensive. Even Mandela's most famous speech, delivered 40 years ago in a Pretoria courtroom where he and other anti-apartheid leaders faced an expected death sentence, bore the Bizos touch. "I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities," Mandela told the hushed court. "It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." Bizos persuaded Mandela to insert the three words "if needs be" before declaring his willingness to face execution. "I said, 'Nelson, you may be accused of seeking martyrdom,"' Bizos recalls. "'You don't want to die. You want to live and see this accomplished.'" Mandela did live, serving 27 years in prison to become South Africa's first black president and a revered statesman. To another defendant in the trial, Bizos was a logical choice to represent the activists of the then-banned African National Congress. "We had to get lawyers who were reliable, who were, if I may call it, our men," says Ahmed Kathrada, a close associate of Mandela. Bizos was definitely an ANC man, but through words rather than deeds. He never joined the party or played an obvious political role, focusing his efforts on the legal aspects of fighting apartheid. That helped prevent his arrest, or worse, during the decades he represented victims of the increasingly oppressive white government. He was harassed, denied citizenship for 31 years and followed around town, but he acknowledges now he "got off lightly". "They were convinced that I was part of the underground movement, but I was very careful that there would be no evidence," he says. Still, Bizos visibly challenged the power structure, once illegally sharing law chambers with black lawyer Duma Nokwe, an ANC secretary-general who later died in exile. The government chose not to interfere, and the office became a meeting place for ANC leaders.
Seeds of activism sprouted early for Bizos, when his father was ousted as mayor of his Greek village of Vasilitsi, near Kalamata, in the fascist tide that swept Europe in the 1930s. In 1941, his father helped New Zealand soldiers escape by boat from German-occupied territory, an act punishable by death. Then 13, Bizos refused to stay behind with his mother and siblings. "I threatened I would swim behind the boat if he didn't take me. I thought it would be great adventure," Bizos says. They ended up in Egypt, where his father was held in a refugee camp and Bizos went to a Greek orphanage, and then on to South Africa. In 1948, at age 19, he entered the University of the Witwatersrand, meeting Mandela and other students. He already had a reputation as a liberal activist when he became a lawyer in 1954. Glasses perched on the end of his nose, the soft-spoken Bizos has an unpretentious air. His attire is modest - a dark, pinstripe suit jacket, dark trousers, blue and white striped shirt and blue pattern tie, frayed along the edge. His watch has a worn brown leather strap. He's considered the archetypal South African political lawyer, the influence for Marlon Brando's Oscar-nominated portrayal of a shrewd, sarcastic attorney battling a stacked legal system in the film version of Andre Brink's "A Dry White Season". Asked about that, Bizos' responds: "My wife says that I'm more handsome and speak more clearly than Brando."
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From BBC News, 20 June
Zimbabwe asylum network exposed
An illegal network has channelled hundreds of members of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party into Britain, a BBC investigation has found. Birmingham-based Zimbabwean Community UK is thought to have given fake documents to party members and coached them on how to falsely claim asylum. Undercover reporters for Radio 5 Live were sold a Home Office letter granting asylum and a national insurance number. The Home Office has said it will be investigating the BBC's evidence. Zimbabwean Community UK was created last year with an initial £5,000 grant of lottery money. Its director Albert Matapo claimed to have smuggled in the adult children of several members of Zimbabwe's cabinet by saying they were members of the opposition MDC party. The organisation's ledger book showed Mr Matapo had processed more than 1,000 clients. The news comes amid evidence that increasing numbers of prominent Zanu PF members are coming to Britain to escape the deteriorating situation in their homeland. Members of President Robert Mugabe's government and senior members of Zanu PF are banned from entering the European Union. Three months ago, the bankers responsible for the Zanu PF's finances relocated to this country, the investigation found. Zimbabwe is grappling with an economy in tatters and severe food shortages, which led to fears of famine in 2003. Aid agencies and critics partly blamed the shortages on a controversial land reform programme; the government blamed a long-running drought. Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth after President Robert Mugabe's re-election in 2002, in a poll considered seriously flawed by the opposition and foreign observers. In March this year, the US State Department released its annual human-rights report which condemned Zimbabwe for using "torture by various methods" against those politically opposed to Mugabe's regime.
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From News24 (SA), 19 June
MDC disrupts bankers' meeting
Midrand - Chaos erupted at a meeting called by Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank governor in South Africa on Saturday when opposition supporters shouted him down and pelted the stage with missiles, prompting police to call in reinforcements. Gideon Gono was to address a meeting of Zimbabweans living in South Africa to explain a new plan for expatriates to send home much-needed foreign currency, but was heckled off stage by about 200 supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Called the "Homelink", the plan is mooted as a way for Zimbabweans living abroad to send home money to relatives through government channels, bringing foreign currency back into the southern African country, whkch is hit by spiralling inflation and huge foreign debts. Gono, who is spearheading a bid to revive Zimbabwe's crises-ridden economy, did not get a chance to speak after taking the podium at Gallagher Estate in Midrand, north of Johannesburg. The MDC supporters, many of them wearing T-shirts scrawled with the slogan "Mugabe must go", rushed the stage as Gono started to speak, waving placards and shouting: "Go home, go home." "We don't support this scheme at all," MDC district chairperson Jabulani Mkwanazi said before the meeting. "Why give money when we have no input into what is happening in the country?" he asked.
Earlier this month a Zimbabwean court turned down a petition by the MDC to have the 2002 presidential elections - which saw long-time President Robert Mugabe return to power - declared null and void. The election results were largely condemned by Western observer groups for violence and vote-rigging. "Please, you have made your point. Now please sit down," Gono told the rowdy crowd, who pelted the stage with Homelink caps, T-shirts and even salt shakers grabbed from meeting room tables. The half dozen police officers present called in reinforcements after they failed to control the crowd, who jeered Gono as he left after a short discussion with Zimbabwe's high commissioner to South Africa, Simon Khaya-Moyo. "This is a rent-a-crowd. This meeting is non-political and these hooligans (the MDC) are making it political," Khaya-Moyo said. "Most people here just wanted to come and listen to what it is all about," he said. The MDC supporters were eventually escorted off the premises by about 30 police. No arrests were made, according to a senior officer, who asked not to be named. Gono's visit to South Africa followed top-level meetings last week with International Monetary Fund officials in Washington, as well as expatriates in London and other British cities, to ask them to send money through government channels. The visits were marked by protests from exiled Zimbabweans who accused Gono of raising cash to prop up Mugabe's "collapsing" regime, local media reports said this week.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 20 June
Zanu PF chef blasts Mugabe over food
From Savious Kwinika
Chikombedzi - Zanu PF Central Committee member, Titus Mukhungulushi Chauke, has described recent claims by President Robert Mugabe and government officials that Zimbabwe had enough food to last until the next harvest as "irresponsible and utter rubbish". The veteran politician from the minority Shangaan tribe said such utterances by Zanu PF chiefs were "illogical" as they chase away international food donor agencies, leaving Zimbabweans suffering. "This is utter rubbish. People, hundreds of thousands of people in Chiredzi, Chivi, Mwenezi and some pockets in Zaka districts are still buying food simply because they did not realise a bumper harvest," said Chauke. "It don't want to sound as if I am fighting my leaders in the Press but that statement, from whoever said it, was unfortunate as it suggests some gross irresponsibility as well as sounding like politicking," said the outspoken politician. Mugabe recently said Zimbabwe does not need food aid and told international donor agencies to give their food aid to more needy countries. Chauke said although some villagers in the perennially drought-stricken regions of Masvingo, Matabeleland provinces had realised reasonable yields, the harvests were not enough to last until the next season. He said thousands of villagers in Chiredzi South - particularly the elderly and children under the age of five - still needed food aid. A visit by The Standard to Chikombedzi, Mwenezi, Lupane and some parts of Matabeleland North province revealed that thousands of families were still in need of food assistance. Only last month - 38 people including children under the age of five died in Bulawayo - Zimbabwe's second largest city, due to food scarcity, according city council documents. Statistics also indicate that 65 people, among them children under the age of five, died in Bulawayo between September and December 2003, because of lack of food. Early this year the World Food Programme (WFP), a major food aid donor to Zimbabwe, was prohibited from conducting a food assessment exercise by the government. However, The Standard last week met with CIO operatives travelling with the WFP personnel, who were assessing the food situation in the Matabeleland North region. It emerged that the spy agents have forced themselves into the WFP food assessment programme in an effort to censor information regarding the real situation on the ground.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 18 June
Chihuri ordered to enforce eviction
Munyaradzi Wasosa
The High Court has ordered Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri to enforce an earlier High Court ruling to evict Zanu PF militia who are illegally occupying offices of the opposition MDC in Chimanimani. High Court judge Justice Yunus Omerjee issued the order on Tuesday following the filing of an application by Birgit and Shane Kidd, the owners of the building that houses the MDC district offices, to have the invaders removed. Cited as respondents are New Ziana chairman Munacho Mutezo, Chihuri and a Misheck Beta who is said to be leading the invaders. Mutezo has been actively campaigning to represent Zanu PF in Chimanimani in next year's parliamentary election. About a month ago, militant ruling party supporters attacked and occupied the MDC offices in response to an incident in parliament involving local MP Roy Bennett. Omerjee instructed Chihuri to evict the invaders in the event that they ignore the order to vacate the premises immediately. "Respondents and all persons acting in concert with them shall restore forthwith possession or occupation of applicants' (the Kidds) building in Chimanimani village, failing which the 17th respondent (Chihuri) is hereby ordered to evict them and restore possession to applicants," Omerjee said. Omerjee also ordered Mutezo and 15 other respondents not to harass, assault or threaten the Kidds and to meet the costs of the High Court application.
In a High Court affidavit Birgit Kidd, a Finnish citizen, said she was abducted and assaulted on Monday allegedly by Zanu PF supporters. "On May 28, respondents and Zanu PF supporters numbering about 2 000 forced their way to our house chanting slogans against me and my husband as well as denouncing Bennett," Birgit Kidd (60) said. "The group said they did not want us in Chimanimani anymore because our building houses the offices of the MDC." Kidd added that the mob said it was exacting revenge for Bennett's alleged attack on Patrick Chinamasa and Didymas Mutasa in parliament. idd said she was then force-marched to their building, which was extensively damaged. In an interview yesterday, Kidd said she was going to the occupied MDC offices with her husband when war veterans and Zanu PF youths launched a fresh attack on Monday. "Men claiming to be war veterans and Zanu PF youths claiming to be working on instructions from Joseph Mwale, a CIO operative, attacked us,'' Kidd said. "Three people beat me up with sticks and 'smashed' my head with a rock, while six people attacked my husband." Kidd claimed that she sustained a dislocated shoulder and has 16 head stitches. MDC Manicaland provincial information secretary Pishai Muchauraya confirmed the attack claiming soldiers illegally camped at Bennett's Charleswood farm spearheaded it.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 20 June
The petty war for Bob's job
The trading of insults among leading political figures in Zimbabwe belies the serious battle for the presidency, writes Bonny Schoonakker
The following outburst may sound petulant but its pique reveals something of the intellectual quality of the in-fighting among contenders to succeed Robert Mugabe, 80, as president of Zimbabwe. "I have widely consulted with many real men of higher offices," said Ugandan David Nyekorach-Matsanga, following an ill-fated stint in Harare as a personal spin doctor to the president, "and I have been advised not to react impulsively to the statements of gay rants." Students of Harare's palace intrigues interpret this as meaning that Mugabe himself ("real men of higher offices") has advised his hagiographer not to take too personally defamatory remarks made by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, dubbed the "Rasputin of Zimbabwe" in the local press. Nyekorach-Matsanga - who fell from favour after arranging Mugabe's damaging interview with Britain's Sky TV last month - was furious after the Herald news paper highlighted the fact that he was a former PR consultant to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), the Ugandan insurgents notorious for abducting, raping, murdering and conscripting schoolchildren. "If Moyo has any material left in his ugly gay face he should know that [the LRA] was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in 2003, four years after my quitting," he wrote in a statement sent to the Herald but never published by it. "I am convinced from what I have gathered within Zanu PF that Moyo is heading a traitor [sic] clique of ambitious and overzealous individuals who want to put a total blackout on Zimbabwe from the international world in order to acquire power."
Nyekorach-Matsanga (author of a book entitled Why I Support Mugabe ) was outed as an LRA tout by Herald columnist "Nathaniel Manheru" (officially Pikirai Deketeke, the newspaper's editor, as he testified in court on Monday, but widely believed to be Moyo himself). "Manheru" chose to embarrass London-based Nyekorach-Matsanga in vengeance for using his connections at Sky TV, which made Mugabe look old, tired and ill-informed about his own country, someone long overdue for retirement. After the interview, Moyo went into action against those responsible, using his usual weapons of defamation and insult. But instead of gratitude for his devotion to Mugabe, he was rewarded with public allegations of homosexuality as Zimbabwe's newspapers this week circulated Nyekorach-Matsanga's response - with the approval of "real men of higher offices". Gay or not, Moyo should count himself lucky to have got off lightly in the backstabbing and in-fighting among the candidates for Comrade Bob's job. Other pretenders and their allies, including businessmen who have used their cash to dabble in politics, have paid more severe penalties.
Foremost among these is businessman Mutumwa Mawere. Acting on information received from Zimbabwe, SA police may have done the enemies of Zanu PF politburo member Emmerson Mnangagwa, the front-runner for Mugabe's job, a favour by arresting Mawere, a director of 22 companies in South Africa, last month. He was released on R50 000 bail after a weekend in a Randburg, Johannesburg police cell. This arrest is seen as the work of a group of power-brokers centred on retired General Solomon Mujuru, several of whom have ambitions to take over from Mugabe. According to Harare-based political commentators, this group includes Sydney Sekeramayi, Dumiso Dabengwa, retired Air Marshal Josiah Tungamirai and General Constantine Chiwenga, the current head of the Zimbabwe Defence Force. Mnangagwa is a member of the Zanu PF politburo and Speaker of Parliament and is regarded as a tough man worthy of the nickname "Ngwenya" (Crocodile) within Zanu PF's inner circles. But more importantly, as the Financial Gazette reported on Thursday, Mnangagwa "is key to Zanu PF's complex and secretive investments". As such, he would be held accountable for any wrongdoing by Mawere, whose companies, according to the news paper, were mostly financed with Zanu PF money.
However, a five-member committee investigating Mnangagwa's role in Mawere's SA operations had "failed to come up with anything that constitutes a crime", the Financial Gazette reported. Significantly, this committee included Mujuru, considered to be Zanu PF's kingmaker because of the loyalty he retains in the armed forces. Among the Mujuru clique's preferred successors is Zanu PF chairman John Nkomo. Within the party, he comes second to Vice-President Joseph Msika, whose presidential aspirations were made more realistic by the death last year of his co-Vice-President, Simon Muzenda. Nkomo, however, has similar chances of succession as Mnangagwa, the two front-runners as things stand now. Others who have landed in jail or been arrested for doing no less than their colleagues in the Zimbabwean elite have done for decades include Jane Mutasa, a businesswoman held for forex fraud, among other charges. If she is found guilty of dealing on the parallel market she should be joined in jail by Gideon Gono, now the governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. He did parallel-market deals when he was chief executive of Jewel Bank, Zimbabwe's second-largest commercial bank. He too could face arrest but for the fact that he gave himself amnesty soon after taking the helm at the Reserve Bank. Others whose arrest on corruption charges could be politically motivated include James Makamba, the chairman of the cellphone network Telecel Zimbabwe. If anything, Makamba's rumoured friendship with first lady Grace Mugabe has deepened his troubles rather than alleviated them.
James Mushori, the fugitive director of the failed NMB Bank, also has powerful political connections, but his flight to London in March has exposed the limit s of the influence wielded by his uncle, General Mujuru. The tricky nature of being a presidential candidate is further illustrated by the fate of Eddison Zvobgo, who for years was considered the heir apparent. Ill-health, however, has reduced his chances, along with the ethnically influenced marginalisation of his constituency in the Masvingo area. Simon Khaya Moyo, now Zimbabwe's ambassador to South Africa, was also once a presidential candidate "because of his brilliance as a minister" and his connection to late Vice-President Joshua Nkomo. Khaya Moyo was to Nkomo what Mnangagwa is to Mugabe - a close lieutenant, but since Nkomo's death in 1999 his star has waned, according to a political commentator in Harare. The ethnic connection can also be decisive. Another political commentator in Harare (a journalist who once served Zanla during the liberation war), regards Sydney Sekeramayi, a Swedish-trained doctor, as having the best chance to succeed Mugabe because he is a Zezuru, as is Mugabe. The Zezuru are the most influential of the four ethnic groups - along with the Karanga, Manyika and Korekore - that make up the loosely defined Shona nation, in turn the overwhelming majority in Zimbabwe. The distinctions are not rigid, with members of one group accepted as members of another, particularly Mujuru, who was born to the Korekore (one of the least influential of the Shona nations) but is now considered a member of the Zezuru. At least partly due to his Zezuru background, Sekeramayi has held some of the most important positions in Zimbabwe's power structures since independence, including serving as head of the Central Intelligence Organisation when he was Minister of State Security.
John Nkomo, who comes from Zimbabwe's Ndebele minority, which makes up only 15% of the population, however, exposes the limitations of ethnic politics. His political ascendancy, as the second most senior politician in Zimbabwe, has introduced a new phrase, "an Ndebele Shona", a variation of a term now often used in state media to describe those who have been assimilated into the Zanu PF hierarchy from Zapu/Ndebele backgrounds. Among them is the loudest of Mugabe's loyalists, Jonathan Moyo, who began to find himself isolated in battles before this week's one. Early signs of damage to his cause became apparent after his run-in with Vice-President Msika last month. Msika opposed the acquisition of a highly productive horticultural farm in Manicaland province to which Agricultural Minister Joseph Made had taken a liking. Moyo, however, managed to prevail in his belief that the farm would be taken over by a parastatal, "come sunshine or rain". This led to a warning from Msika that "little immoral boys" - probably another public reference to Moyo's alleged homosexuality - should best be careful about their political ambitions. The spat over the farm spilt over into The Voice, the Zanu PF party publication, with John Nkomo accusing someone fitting Moyo's description of "indiscipline and insubordination".
Instead of taking the hint, the Herald gave war veteran leader Joseph Chinotimba space in which to accuse Nkomo of obstructing the redistribution of confiscated farmland. Merely inky words on newsprint, the spat nevertheless drew the kingmaker into the fray. Though unable to help his absconding nephew, Mujuru stands between the post-Mugabe presidency and the ambitions of any successor, thanks to the loyalty he retains among the country's military elite. At a politburo meeting this month, Mujuru warned "undisciplined cadres" that respecting one's elders was the party way. Moyo should have felt isolated then, particularly as Mugabe issued a statement soon afterwards saying that MPs who were "unprocedur ally nominated" would not be allowed to contest next year's general election. But this week there he was again, the indefatigable Jonathan Moyo, taking up cudgels on behalf of Mugabe in the fallout over the Sky TV interview. Perhaps Moyo knows that the old man knows that he was right, after all, about the Ugandan's silly proposal to appear on Sky TV.
With additional reporting and insight from the Sunday Times Foreign Desk and Torevei Charumbira in Harare
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 21 June
Alleged asylum fraud linked to Mugabe regime
By Chris Boffey and David Blair
Police and immigration officers are investigating an organisation, set up with National Lottery money to help immigrants, after claims that it forged documents and provided false life histories for 1,000 Zimbabwean asylum seekers. Detectives have also been given information allegedly showing that Albert Matapo and his wife Grace, the founders of the Zimbabwean Community in the UK (ZCUK), have provided National Insurance numbers and fake passports to help immigrants get jobs. Last night Mr Matapo rejected the claims and said he was considering taking legal action against his accusers. ZCUK, which was set up in Birmingham last year after receiving a £5,000 lottery award to help immigrants, allegedly charges £1,000 a time to coach asylum seekers. Among those who have used the service are relatives of senior members of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party. Details given to officials show how a Zimbabwean posing as an asylum seeker approached ZCUK asking for help. He was allegedly told how, for £1,000, a false passport would be provided and there would be coaching on how to dupe immigration officers "by lying to the white man" by claiming to be persecuted because of membership of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
Mr Matapo allegedly told the undercover investigator, who was working for BBC Radio Five Live, that he would "be able to live here [in Britain] for donkey's years". Mr Matapo came to Britain two years ago and was granted asylum after claiming his life would be in danger from the government if he returned to Zimbabwe. The reality, claims the BBC, is that he fled after conning would-be immigrants out of their savings while running a travel agency in Harare. He admits to helping relatives of four government ministers close to President Robert Mugabe, who has called Britain a "vicious, racist and vengeful" country, run by "Mr Blair's imperialist, neo-colonialist government". Among those who have abandoned Zimbabwe is Stalin Mau Mau, once a Zanu PF parliamentary candidate, and the leader of a gang accused of forcing white farmers off their land. He says he entered Britain legally, but his status is now being investigated by the Home Office, as are his businesses, which include a supermarket in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Mr Mau Mau, a former boxing promoter, stood for Harare East in the elections four years ago and was heavily defeated. Like most Zanu PF candidates, he roused his supporters at campaign rallies with one consistent chant: "Down with the whites!"
Official figures issued by the Reserve Bank in Harare suggest that 3.4 million people - about one quarter of Zimbabwe's population - have fled Mr Mugabe's rule. About 1.1 million Zimbabweans live in Britain, according to an official estimate from the Harare regime. Another 1.2 million have fled to South Africa, while 100,000 have taken refuge in Australia. A further million or so are scattered throughout the world. Few other modern dictators have forced so much of their populations to flee. Among recent comparisons are Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Afghanistan under the Taliban, where both countries lost about a quarter of their people to an exodus of refugees and economic migrants. Last night Mr Matapo said he was considering legal action after rejecting the BBC's claims. "Whatever the BBC is saying is absolutely false," he said. "Most of our people here - what they come for is traditional help. We offer traditional assistance. I cannot just let this go. I am telling them to come along and prove beyond reasonable doubt. If I am guilty, I must go to jail. Whatever they are saying is not correct. I am prepared to challenge this in court." The BBC claimed that it had documentary proof and hours of secretly recorded conversations with Mr Matapo.
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From The Tablet (UK), 19 June
Mugabe critics boosted by new archbishop
James Roberts
In a signal that he wants the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe to take a firmer line with the country’s dictator, Robert Mugabe, the Pope this week appointed a member of the Ndebele people as Archbishop of Harare. The appointment means that the country’s two leading Catholic bishops are linked to the Matabeleland provinces which Mugabe has done most to alienate. Catholics in Zimbabwe are hoping that the new Archbishop of Harare, Robert Ndlovu, will be able to take a more critical stance than his predecessor, Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa, who died from cancer in April 2003 at the age of 71. But with the rule of law shredded and the economy in ruins, Archbishop Ndlovu will need to tread carefully in order not to provoke further violence and intimidation. The appointment means that the Church in Zimbabwe is likely to avoid the sort of embarrassing approval which Archbishop Chakaipa, who was linked to Mugabe by ethnic ties, lavished on the President. Chakaipa’s reluctance to speak out against Mugabe meant that the dictator was able to play him off against Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, who has been a fearless critic of the regime.
At Chakaipa’s Requiem Mass held at the Harare Sports Centre, Mugabe said that Chakaipa had "unambiguously" supported the programme of land seizures from white farmers. Mugabe went on to attack Archbishop Ncube "for siding with the enemy … with the farmers and the British". The Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference later clarified that Chakaipa had wanted ordinary people to have access to more land but did not approve of the violence. Archbishop Ncube this week welcomed the appointment of Ndlovu, who is currently Bishop of Hwange and a fellow member of the Ndebele people who have suffered the brunt of Mugabe’s repression. "Personally, I think for the good of the Church he is the ideal man," the Archbishop, speaking from his home in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, told The Tablet. "He is deeply spiritual, a very integrated personality, very prudent, very mature, very transparent," Archbishop Ncube said. "He is sensitive to the feelings of others, and a very efficient administrator." The fact that Ndlovu was so evidently a man "out to serve" would help defuse any resistance to his appointment on the part of those unhappy that a bishop from Matabeleland is filling such a senior post in the Church. "He will uplift the people," Ncube said.
Almost alone among the bishops, Ncube has been a fearless critic of Robert Mugabe, accusing him of remaining a prisoner of his own "egocentricity and megalomania". But Archbishop Ncube said this was not the kind of talk people could expect from Ndlovu. "I am an emotional person. He is more seasoned. He will not make headlines." As Bishop of Hwange, Ndlovu has been a determined defender of his people while being careful to avoid direct confrontation with the Government. After a feeding programme for 35,000 people run by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace came under attack by a gang of war veterans in May 2002, Bishop Ndlovu halted the programme out of concern for the workers’ safety. Two months later, the programme resumed, but this time run by the Catholic Development Commission. The bishop had worked behind the scenes to transfer the running of the programme to the CDC which, like the CCJP, was part of the Zimbabwe Bishops’ Conference but, because of its lower political profile, was an organisation the Government could be persuaded to accept. The Zimbabwean Church often has to walk such tightropes. But too many clergy reach too easy an accommodation with the Government, according to Archbishop Ncube. He said many senior individual clergy "put their mouth where the bread is buttered" but not Ndlovu.
The new Archbishop of Harare was born in Lupane district in 1955 and was ordained a priest in August 1983. This was the time, three years after independence, when Mugabe’s Gukurahunde campaign to pacify Matabeleland was at its height. Lupane saw some of the worst atrocities of that campaign. Concerned at challenges to his rule from the region associated with the 20 per cent Ndebele minority in the country, Mugabe paid North Korea to train a private army known as the Fifth Brigade, which for two years terrorised the region. An estimated 20,000 people were murdered, with villagers of all ages being publicly tortured and killed as a warning to others who were forced to watch the atrocities or participate in them not to harbour so-called dissidents. Ndlovu became Bishop of Hwange in May 1999. His Matabeleland diocese is home to the country’s largest and best known national park but is also one of the poorest regions in the country. Mike Auret, former director of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, described Ndlovu as "certainly the only man who could possibly take the position". He said the new archbishop is "a learned man, a quiet and modest person who will follow his predecessor in the ‘non-involvement in politics’ stance".
Fr Nigel Johnson, a Jesuit priest in the Bulawayo archdiocese, said the fact that the state-controlled media had not reported the appointment of Ndlovu suggested the Government was not happy, and that Rome might therefore have "got it right and appointed the best man for the job". "Some people question whether it is good to have a Ndebele speaker appointed to a Shona-speaking diocese," Johnson said, "but the vast majority of the laity and clergy do not have tribalistic axes to grind. They will welcome a bishop who is dedicated to the service of his flock and I have no doubt that Bishop Ndlovu will be just that." Ndlovu’s Harare flock - there are 380,000 Catholics in a capital city population of 4.7 million - is currently in need of all the support it can get. The price of a 10kg bag of the staple maize meal doubled this week from Z$10,000 to Z$20,000. It is an act that in other places would cause riots in the streets, but Mugabe has driven the country into a listless depression, Archbishop Ncube said. "People would rather starve than protest. All their avenues have been closed off by the Government. Ninety-five per cent have given up and say ‘Leave it to God’. They mean wait till [Mugabe] is out of the way." In the meantime, Ndlovu and the other bishops will need to be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves.
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From SAPA, 21 June
Service remembers Zimbabwe torture victims
A prayer service for victims of torture in Zimbabwe is to held in Bulawayo and the United Kingdom simultaneously on June 26, Amnesty International said in a statement received in Johannesburg on Sunday. The service would take place at St Mary's Cathedral in Bulawayo and St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, in London. Both services would focus on the plight of youth and children. Zimbabweans tortured by their government would be among the speakers. "We ask all denominations throughout Zimbabwe and the world, to pray for Zimbabwe and for all those other nations throughout the world which suffer similar oppression," the statement said. Other organisation that were involved in organising the service were the Zimbabwe Association and the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum. The service in London woul |
