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Archived News
28th December 2004
Rural Zim runs out of food
Zimbabwe maize demand boost exports
New constituencies clear evidence Mugabe already rigging election: MDC
SADC push to lure MDC back into Harare poll
Harare's fate in SADC's hands
North Korea looms for the man dubbed Mugabe's Goebbels
Where is Chiyangwa?
Chiyangwa
Top Zanu PF official arrested for espionage
EU says Zimbabwe rights group ban harms democracy
More could die of malnutrition and disease in Zimbabwe's prisons
Million Zim kids head homes
Child rights affected by weak law implementation
Chiyangwa held in CIO probe
Chiyangwa strokes?
Purge at Chronicle over 'Tsholotsho Declaration'
Zim newspaper faces cash crisis
Groups to protest detention of illegal immigrants
Next harvest in Zimbabwe faces threat
Missing men appear in court
CIO gags relatives of arrested Zanu PF officials
Zimbabwe extends crackdown on dissent as election looms
Zimbabwe faces internal split
Government to takeover marketing of flowers
Chiyangwa alive - expected to appear in court today
Top Zim bankers arrested for fraud
Bleak Christmas for Zimbabwe
Daily News to re-open
Zim jazz pioneers still at it
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From News24 (SA), 21 December
Rural Zim runs out of food
Thabang Mokopanele
Johannesburg - A large proportion of Zimbabwean rural households have run out of their food stocks and, like most urban households, have become dependent on the market to cover their food requirements, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fews-Net) said on Tuesday. In its latest Zimbabwe food security update, Fews-Net said that increased poverty in both rural and urban areas, manifested by low income levels and limited income generating opportunities, continues to constrain households from buying sufficient staple cereals (maize, sorghum and millets) and their close substitutes (sugar, rice, wheat flour and bread) even though they are generally available in most markets throughout the country. The Grain Marketing Board's (GMB) monopoly in maize and wheat grain trade is forcing up prices in the informal grain market, the organisation warned. Fews-Net added that response to these needs would be limited, with a one-off distribution, which will cover only a small percent of the total household food gap. The organisation said that staple food prices are already too high for the majority of the poor and are increasing at very high rates. The annual food inflation for September 2004 was estimated by the Central Statistical Office (CSO) at 264.8%, according to Fews-Net. Fews-Net added that the cost of basic goods and services has increased over 200% between October 2003 and October 2004. Incomes have remained low and the marginal increases have never kept pace with the cost of the basic expenditure basket. The October 2004 minimum industrial wage of Z$437 500 (R440) could only cover about 28% of the October 2004 basic expenditure basket.
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwe government has given the World Food Programme (WFP) permission to undertake a one-off general free food distribution to clear WFP's stock, which remained when general free food distributions stopped following the April 2004 harvest. The food will be given to an extended list of beneficiaries of the public works programme, under which the government is providing food assistance to social welfare cases. The distribution, which is likely to take place in December, will be made up of 21 000 tons of cereals and 8 000 tons of pulses. Fews-Net warned that except for two northeastern provinces of Mashonaland East and Mashonaland Central, and a smaller part of Matebeleland South, the country received lower than expected rainfall by the end of the third week of November. Much of the rainfall for the current season came in the last ten days of October and around the middle of November. The period in between was characterised by dry and hot conditions that saw soil moisture quickly lost through evapotranspiration. This limited land preparation and planting and ultimately agricultural casual labour opportunities.
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From Business Report, 22 December
Zimbabwe maize demand boost exports
Johannesburg - South African maize exports rose to a five-week high last week on demand from Zimbabwe, even though the country has repeatedly said it reaped more maize than it needed this year. South Africa last week shipped 5 060 tons of white maize to Zimbabwe, 3 106 tons to Lesotho and 2 028 tons to Botswana, the biggest shipments since it exported 29 342 tons of maize in the week to November 12, the SA Grain Information Service said on its website yesterday. President Robert Mugabe's government in Zimbabwe rejected food aid this year and said Zimbabwe reaped a record 2.4 million tons of maize after it evicted most white commercial farmers from their properties and replaced them with black farmers. In the week before last Zimbabwe imported 6 530 tons of maize from South Africa. Last week South Africa imported 278 tons of white maize from Malawi and 32 688 tons of yellow maize from Argentina.
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From Zim Online (SA), 22 December
New constituencies clear evidence Mugabe already rigging election: MDC
Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party last night accused President Robert Mugabe of rigging next year's general election even before a single vote is cast by reducing voting constituencies in its strongholds. MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi said the decision by the government's Delimitation Commission to cut down constituencies in areas supporting the opposition party while adding three new ones in ruling Zanu PF party strongholds was part of a scheme to reduce his party's chances of winning the March 2005 ballot. "The rigging of the 2005 general election has begun . . . This (reduction of constituencies) is a cynical exercise by Zanu PF to try and weaken the opposition by reducing their chances of winning through deliberate shifting of boundaries," Nyathi's statement reads in part. The commission appointed by Mugabe in September to redraw the country's constituencies ahead of next year's poll earlier this week slashed two constituencies from Harare and Matabeleland South provinces, known bastions of the MDC. The commission, which is headed by High Court Judge George Chiweshe added three new constituencies to Zanu PF-supporting provinces of Manicaland, Mashonaland East and Mashonaland West.
The commission said that the largely urban MDC-supporting areas had lost constituencies because of migration of voters from the areas while the mostly rural Zanu PF strongholds had gained more new voters. "It beats all logic that Harare, a city whose population has increased by 500 000 people according to census figures that were released this year, is supposed to have lost 50 000 voters," Nyathi observed in his statement. He added: "Where on earth under modern civilisation do you see people migrating from an urban set-up environment to rural constituencies in such large proportions?" Citing the decision to reduce constituencies in MDC areas as evidence of the government's unwillingness to uphold Southern African Development Community (SADC) electoral guidelines, Nyathi called on regional leaders to pressure Mugabe and Zanu PF to abide with the regional standards for democratic polls.
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From Business Day (SA), 22 December
SADC push to lure MDC back into Harare poll
International Affairs Editor
In a move that could result in the main opposition party in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), dropping its boycott of next year's elections in the country, officials from the region are to meet with government officials in Harare to review the country's electoral laws. The aim of the meeting will be to ensure that the laws adhere to standards set by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on the running of elections. The meeting will come just months ahead of Zimbabwe's poll due in March next year. The MDC is to decide in coming weeks whether or not to boycott it. According to sources, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe gave the go-ahead for SADC talks on his country's pending electoral law reforms at a recent meeting in Pretoria with President Thabo Mbeki. The planned talks with Zimbabwean authorities were discussed yesterday in Pretoria at a meeting of SADC's "troika", which consists of the past, present, and future chairmen of the group's organ on politics, defence, and security. Also discussed at the meeting, which was chaired by SA's Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma (pictured left) and attended by Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota, Lesotho Foreign Minister Monyane Moleleki and Namibian Foreign Minister Marco Hausiku, were preparations to send SADC election observers to the country.
SADC's protocol on principles and guidelines governing democratic elections was passed earlier this year at a regional summit in Mauritius, and the group faces the challenge of ensuring Zimbabwe adheres to them. The MDC says that the country is in violation of most of the guidelines, mainly because changes over the past few years imposed restrictions on its ability to campaign and due to the intimidation of its supporters. Changes Mugabe may make as a result of the meeting with SADC may satisfy most SADC countries about Zimbabwe's adherence to fair election practices, but it may be insufficient to satisfy Europe and the US. Mugabe recently said that observers from the European Union (EU) and the Commonwealth would not be allowed into the country to observe the election. Officials from SADC member countries are due to meet in Lesotho next year to discuss budgeting and other arrangements for SADC's official election observer mission to Zimbabwe. A senior official said yesterday that SADC members would "gain comfort" about the March elections if the Zimbabwean electoral laws were compliant with SADC's principles and guidelines. Ministers also discussed how to fund SADC's regional peacekeeping training centre in Harare now that European funders had withdrawn their commitments because of "smart sanctions" against Zimbabwe. A member of a delegation at the meeting said that SADC had protested to the EU about its imposition of what it saw as collective punishment of the region with the withdrawal of funding because of a disagreement with one country.
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Comment from Business Day (SA), 22 December
Harare's fate in SADC's hands
Jonathan Katzenellenbogen
The main opposition party in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has said it will soon decide whether or not to contest the country's parliamentary elections, scheduled for March next year. A few months ago the party "suspended participation" in all elections on the grounds that it was impossible to hold free and fair elections in the current environment. Squeezed as the MDC is by the weight of oppressive legislation that effectively bars it from mounting a proper campaign and by widespread intimidation, a decision not to participate in the polls would seem to be a foregone conclusion. After all, some believe, participating in the election will show that the party has not learned the lessons from March 2002, when the majority of international observers said President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party stole the poll. With only three months before elections, there are no indications that the climate of political intimidation is about to evaporate. The Mugabe government has an armoury of laws it can use to prevent the opposition from holding rallies and campaigning. And the extensive use of the ruling party's militia is building fear among the voting population of being identified with the opposition party. The government has such tight control over the diminishing rural infrastructure that to vote for the opposition could have the effect of denying families food or medical attention.
Despite the dice being loaded against the MDC in the election, there are strong reasons the party should participate. The first is that by not participating, the party will not be represented in parliament to provide opposition to Zanu PF rule and to attempt to put a brake on the party's legislative excesses. Secondly, participating in the election keeps the MDC on the field of Zimbabwean politics. A boycott would mean that should it wish to launch another protest or a disobedience campaign, it would have an improved organisational base with which to do so. And thirdly, the MDC does not have any other options, apart from participating in the vote, to mobilise and gain supporters. Despite the advantages of participation, it would be foolhardy for the MDC to enter the campaign without publicly made guarantees from regional leaders that they are prepared to isolate Mugabe if the election is not free and fair. The MDC leadership and its members will enter an election campaign at considerable personal risk to themselves. They should not expect police protection from violent attack by Zanu PF aligned militias. They will also face the possibility of detention or imprisonment on arbitrary grounds.
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) now has a clear instrument with which it can hold Zimbabwe to account the principles and guidelines on elections agreed on at its summit in Mauritius this year. The MDC and civil society groups say Zimbabwe has already violated them, but the silence from the SADC holds. At yesterday's meeting of the "troika" of past, present and future foreign ministers who chair the SADC's Organ on Politics, Defence, and Security, the election was discussed . Early in the new year, the SADC will meet Zimbabwean officials to discuss reforms of their electoral laws . If the SADC wishes to send a forceful message on the matter, it has little time to do so. SA and most of the region are keen for the MDC to participate in the election. But it is asking a lot for the party to go into the election unprotected. The SADC can best provide this protection, but considering the past sycophancy of regional leaders towards Mugabe, private promises to the MDC are insufficient; these must be made publicly. Then there is the matter of whether the poll is free and fair. In 2002, in the face of massive thefts of ID cards necessary to cast a ballot and the late opening of polls that denied voters in mainly opposition areas the right to vote, the SADC and SA's official observer mission declared the poll free and fair. Clearly, the MDC also needs guarantees about whether the observer missions will uphold the SADC's guidelines. In short, the MDC's participation has to depend on whether or not the SADC will offer protection, now something it can do easily . The question has to be whether the SADC will seize this moment.
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Comment from The Cape Time (SA), 22 December
North Korea looms for the man dubbed Mugabe's Goebbels
A look at the career and prospects of the man dubbed "Mugabe's Goebbels" by his opponents.
Jonathan Moyo isn't taking calls. He wasn't at his office on Monday morning either. His permanent secretary, George Charamba, who contributed to vitriolic and sometimes incomprehensible newspaper columns written by Moyo, has quickly distanced himself from his disgraced boss. While Moyo was out doing whatever he is doing these days, Charamba was at a party at State House, according to his secretary, so he seems to have survived the purge that caught his boss. Moyo turned up for probably the last parliamentary session before elections on Monday afternoon, looking downhearted and isolated. It is generally agreed that Moyo's "crime" was to cross his boss. He organised an "unauthorised" meeting to oppose the appointment of Joyce Mujuru as a vice-president instead of his preferred candidate, Emmerson Mnangagwa, once tipped by the media and Moyo to be Mugabe's successor. Moyo rallied six provincial chairmen to his cause. And he did it without the Central Intelligence Organisation finding out and ratting on him to the presidency. Mugabe only discovered at the last minute that his own plan to prevent Mnangagwa becoming a vice-president was in jeopardy. And Moyo is enough of a power player to know that crossing Mugabe was a fatal error.
For the record, though, did he do wrong in terms of party rules? According to political analyst Brian Kagoro, Moyo did indeed transgress the Zanu PF constitution. "Any meeting of more than three people would be seen by Zanu PF as unauthorised, and Jonathan should have known that," Kagoro said. Where does this all leave the great opportunist who until five years ago was one of Mugabe's sharpest critics? Can he perform another somersault and land on his feet? On the face of it, one would think not. Moyo's political and financial prospects look bleak. What about becoming an ordinary MP? He put time and money into Tsholotsho, in Matabeleland, his home village and the constituency he hoped to win. By all accounts, life in Tsholotsho improved as a result of Moyo's ability to deliver largesse. So in a fair primary election, he could well be Zanu PF's candidate there next year. But Zanu PF could easily block that if it chose. It says it will not allow anyone to stand for it in the March parliamentary elections unless they have been a party member for at least five years. As a Johnny-come-lately, and presuming he joined the party when he began his public association with Zanu PF in late 1999, Moyo would be too new to qualify.
Mugabe can and does appoint unelected ministers, which is how Moyo got his present cabinet post in 2000. Mugabe has indicated he will in future only appoint ministers from the ranks of elected parliamentarians. But that may not be set in stone. Moyo may have been dropped from Zanu PF central committee and was therefore automatically excluded from the politburo, but he hasn't yet been sacked from the cabinet. With a general election only three months away that is largely irrelevant. But will Mugabe bring him back after the election? He ought because he owes Moyo, but ought means little to Mugabe and Zanu PF. He ought because Moyo sold Mugabe's chaotic land grab in the most important constituency, Africa, most of which sucked up his every word, not only about how it was correcting genuine historical injustices, but even that it was legal, constitutional and a roaring success. He arranged field visits for African visitors and selected journalists to carefully chosen farms. He entertained them lavishly at the most expensive and popular restaurant in Harare, and engaged them with the full blast of his considerable charm.
"Zanu PF owes him," says Kagoro. "He delivered the top prize, he got the hugely popular Daily News off the streets and crafted new media legislation, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act which delivered journalists to Harare Central Police Station in record numbers. He got every journalist not on a Zimbabwe passport out the country and changed the political lexicon to include the blame and fear mantras of 'Tony Blair' and 'sovereignty'." His cabinet colleagues, some of whom loathed him, nevertheless applauded his achievements. There is speculation, and so far that's all it is, that Mugabe will fob him off with an ambassadorship. The joke among his many enemies is that he will get North Korea. We in the media cannot be expected to feel much sympathy for his plight. But - digging deep for impartiality - the few foreign correspondents who have survived his purges will miss his occasionally perspicacious descriptions of ourselves in his columns. And it was cool, for a while, being the "running dogs of imperialism".
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From The Daily Mirror, 23 December
Where is Chiyangwa?
Constantine Chimakure, Chief Reporter
Businessman and Chinhoyi legislator Phillip Chiyangwa's whereabouts during the past eight days still remain a mystery, with Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi saying police will not probe his alleged disappearance until his family files a missing person report. Mohadi told The Daily Mirror yesterday that it would be improper to institute investi-gations when no one had reported that Chiyangwa was missing. "No report was made to the police about his alleged missing or disappearance. How can we investigate something not reported to us? It's news to me that Chiyangwa's whereabouts are unknown," Mohadi said. Chiyangwa was allegedly picked up by unidentified people on December 15 soon after he had tabled a portfolio committee report on the 2005 budget. Speculation is rife in political circles that Chiyangwa, an exponent of economic indigenisation, was in the custody of State security agents. His colleagues in Parliament and Mashonaland West constituency said they suspected that Chiyangwa had been arrested, although they could not say why.
He has not attended Parliament's last two sessions since the day of the alleged disappearance, and was also not present at the party's central committee meeting on Friday, at which a new Politburo was announced. Chiyangwa's wife has, however, denied that her husband has been arrested and accused people of spreading lies. "My husband was never arrested. Why are people spreading dangerous lies against him? If you call after 30 minutes you will talk to him," she said a day after the alleged disappearance. Efforts to call him after the 30 minutes were in vain, with this paper failing to get through on the phone. Yesterday Chiyangwa's wife asked this reporter to furnish her with his name and mobile number so that the legislator would contact him. However, by the time of going to Press, Chiyangwa had not called back. "My husband is in town. Leave your name and telephone number so that he can contact you. You must also continue to call him on his mobile phone." Since the legislator's alleged disappearance, calls to his two mobile phone numbers have gone unanswered. Chiyangwa has been known to answer his phones at any time, and his failure to answer them now has led to further speculation about his whereabouts. One of the mobile phones was answered by his secretary who identified herself as Choice and insisted that Chiyangwa was in a meeting.
Chiyangwa is Zanu PF provincial chairman for Mashonaland West and also a member of the party's central committee. His lawyer, Lloyd Mhishi of Dube, Manikai and Hwacha law firm, could not be reached for comment yesterday as his mobile phone was diverted to voice mail, but on Monday, he told The Daily Mirror that his client was safe. "My client is safe," said Mhishi. "I am in constant touch with him and that is all I can say at the moment." Police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka insisted that Chiyangwa was not in police custody. "Chiyangwa is not in our custody. I don't know where you are getting the information that we arrested him," Mandipaka said. Chiyangwa became the second high profile person in Harare whose whereabouts are not known, after Metropolitan Bank company secretary Tendai Matambanadzo was allegedly abducted by four unidentified men at his Chisipite home on December 13. Matambanadzo's lawyer, Selby Hwacha of Dube, Manikai and Hwacha law firm, issued a statement confirming that his client had disappeared, but added that he had unconfirmed information that he was in the custody of the State. Hwacha was not reachable for comment yesterday. A Matambanadzo family member yesterday said the banker's whereabouts were still unknown and the police were still investigating.
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From SW Radio Africa, 22 December
Chiyangwa
Flamboyant, very rich, often violent, Zanu PF MP Phillip Chiyangwa reported missing earlier this week has, according to reports, been in the company of the CIO. Chiyangwa is assisting with inquiries into subversive material. Information we received early this evening says the controversial and flamboyant parliamentarian, is being held by the Central Intelligence Organisation, the CIO. Our source in Zimbabwe said the state security agency is allegedly holding him in connection with some subversive material they found him with. It's suspected the MP was distributing some subversive material that contained sensitive information about the Zanu PF top hierarchy, particularly the Vice-President Joseph Msika. This is not the first time that Chiyangwa has done this. During the Masvingo Zanu PF people's congress in 2002 he distributed anti-Msika material demonising and plotting his downfall. And prior to the Tsholotsho meeting that has apparently claimed the scalps of several top Zanu PF officials, Chiyangwa was seen distributing and campaigning heavily against Joseph Msika and John Nkomo. The Chinhoyi MP was detained a few days after the congress by the dreaded spy organisation last week and his whereabouts have been a mystery since then. Police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka even denied to the state media that Chiyangwa was under the custody of the police. Police commissioner Augustine Chihuri told the Sunday Mail over the weekend that the beleaguered chairman of Zanu PF for Mashonaland West province was 'fine' but refused to disclose his location. The last time Chiyangwa crossed paths with Msika, he was detained for several weeks for charges ranging from threatening a state prosecutor to attempts of trying to defeat the course of justice.
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From Zim Online (SA), 23 December
Top Zanu PF official arrested for espionage
Harare - Ruling Zanu PF party chairman for Mashonaland West province and top businessman is being held by the state's secret service Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) on allegations he was spying for British and Israel intelligence. Intelligence officers speaking on condition that they were not named told Zim Online that top Zanu PF security official, Kevin Karidza, was also arrested last Sunday for allegedly helping Chiyangwa source strategic and security information about the ruling party and government. "He was taking advantage of his closeness to key people in the party such as the President (Robert Mugabe) to tap strategic information which he was selling to the British and Israelis," said one senior CIO officer. It could not be immediately established whether the British and Israeli agents who were allegedly working with Chiyangwa were mercenary spies or undercover agents of London and Tel Aviv. Efforts to get comment on the matter from the embassies of Israel and Britain in Harare were fruitless.
According to sources Chiyangwa, who is a relative of Mugabe and also Zanu PF's Member of Parliament for Chinhoyi constituency, suffered a mild stroke during an intense interrogation session at the CIO's infamous torture chambers at Goromonzi less than 80 kilometres east of Harare. After receiving treatment from government doctors at a secret location Chiyangwa was yesterday briefly brought to St. Giles Rehabilitation Clinic for special treatment. But the CIO agents maintained close guard on him preventing even his family and relatives to see him. He was quickly whisked away back to Goromonzi after his treatment. He has been kept at the dreaded jail since CIO operatives picked him up on Wednesday night last week. The sources alleged that Chiyangwa would use a cell phone fitted with a secret recorder to tap conversations with Mugabe and other key Zanu PF officials.
A top businessman known for frequently donating huge sums of money to Zanu PF, Chiyangwa comes from the same rural Zvimba home with Mugabe and insiders say he was a frequent visitor to the presidential homestead. He is also in good books with several key Zanu PF leaders, most notably parliamentary speaker and former Zanu PF secretary for administration, Emmerson Mnangagwa. Chiyangwa was allegedly being paid more than US$15 000 per month for supplying information to the British and Israeli spies who are said to have frequently visited Zimbabwe in the past year posing as tourists. Zim Online broke the news of Chiyangwa's arrest last Friday. At the time it had been indicated he was being questioned on charges of corruption and illegally siphoning foreign currency out of Zimbabwe. Mystery on the whereabouts of the Zanu PF politician deepened in the last few days after the police repeatedly denied that they were holding Chiyangwa.
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From SABC News, 22 December
EU says Zimbabwe rights group ban harms democracy
The European Union (EU) criticised today a new Zimbabwean law banning foreign funded rights groups, saying it undermined democracy in the country. Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party used its parliamentary majority to pass a law on December 9 obliging non-governmental organisations operating in Zimbabwe to register with a state-appointed body, and banning foreign funded rights groups. "The European Union expresses its concern on the adoption of the NGO bill which will...have severe consequences for the operations, even the existence of many local and foreign NGOs active in Zimbabwe," the Dutch EU presidency said in a statement. The bill "...will further reduce the democratic space in Zimbabwe...If the bill is implemented immediately, the EU's ability to provide assistance to Zimbabwe will be significantly affected." The government of Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, has accused some NGOs of working with Western countries to undermine his rule. On the same day it passed the NGO bill, parliament also passed electoral reforms the opposition said did not go far enough. Foreign critics have said Zanu(PF) rigged parliamentary elections in 2000 and the 2002 presidential poll, and accuse the government of widespread human rights abuses. The EU said the bill could limit the ability of NGOs to conduct governance work, and so raised new concerns over parliamentary elections due in March. It also regretted its likely impact on social, health and humanitarian programmes. The EU has imposed sanctions on Mugabe and his inner circle and accused the government of intimidating the opposition and muzzling the media.
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From Zim Online (SA), 23 December
More could die of malnutrition and disease in Zimbabwe's prisons
Harare - Malnutrition and disease in Zimbabwe's overcrowded prisons will worsen in the next 12 months because the government is unable to raise money for medical drugs and food for prisoners, according to a top Zimbabwe Prison Service (ZPS) official. Overcrowding in Zimbabwe's jails, now holding about 22 000 inmates, which is way above the designed carrying capacity of 16 000, will only help worsen matters, ZPS chief accountant, Rosemary Kanonge, told Parliament's portfolio committee on justice and legal affairs earlier this month. The committee, which was assessing whether allocations to the Ministry of Justice and the prisons department under the 2005 national budget are adequate, shall report its findings to Parliament when it resumes in February next year. "There is a statutory instrument that stipulates the basic requirements of prisoners for food and bedding provisions but in most cases, this was difficult to fulfill owing to inadequate resources," Kanonge told the committee. She said out of a bid of Z$212.4 billion for prisoners' food, bedding and uniforms for both inmates and prison officers the department had been allocated only $126 billion. And the department was given $10.6 billion for medical drugs for both prisoners and their guards, which she said was enough to purchase medicines for three months only. The department had asked the Finance Ministry for $236 billion for medicines for its hospitals. Unconfirmed reports say at least five prisoners die because of disease and starvation every month at Harare Remand prison, which is one of the country's most overcrowded jails. Infectious diseases such as tuberculosis have also wrecked havoc in Zimbabwe's jails because of a poor diet and overcrowding.
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From News24 (SA), 20 December
Million Zim kids head homes
Harare - Nearly a million children in Zimbabwe had lost one or both parents to Aids and HIV-related illnesses, said the United Nations Children's Fund on Monday. Girls as young as nine were caring for siblings or for ailing parents and relatives in Zimbabwe, Unicef said in its annual state of the world's children report. With an estimated 26% of the country's 12.5 million people infected with HIV, orphans were dropping out of school, often with malnutrition and were "more likely to be involved in hazardous forms of labour" including prostitution, said Festo Kavishe, Unicef's chief representative in Harare. The fund's report on Zimbabwe said the social and economic consequences of HIV/Aids were underscored by the decline in life expectancy from age 52 to 37 since 1990. In traditionally polygamous African societies, HIV is mostly spread by heterosexual contact as well as needles and blades contaminated with infected blood. Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis since independence, with soaring prices and record unemployment. Public health services have crumbled. Most of the estimated 2 000 people who die from Aids-related illnesses each week are unable to afford treatment and are usually sent home to die if they have been briefly in hospital. Zimbabwe has acute shortages of hard currency and essential imports, including medicines. The government estimates 26% of Zimbabwe's people are infected with HIV/Aids, but officials acknowledge the rate could be higher because of a stigma that leaves many conditions unreported as being HIV-related.
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From IRIN (UN), 22 December
Child rights affected by weak law implementation
Harare - Zimbabwe has over 20 laws relating to children's rights, but implementation is weak and many of the laws breached the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), according to a UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) report. The document, 'Children and Women's Rights in Zimbabwe, Theory and Practice', attributed the gap between theory and practice to administrative constraints, socioeconomic challenges and a lack of human and financial resources. Although Zimbabwe had comprehensive laws protecting children from violence, sexual and economic exploitation, the report noted, children remained disadvantaged. Victim-friendly courts were hampered by high staff turnover among court officials and police officers with child-related skills. Zimbabwe's Children's Protection and Adoption Act (CPAA) prohibits the exposure of children to hazardous and harmful conditions, and using them for begging purposes. However, because of abject poverty, the employment of children on farms and plantations, in street trading and as beggars was rife and often went on with the "knowledge, encouragement or instruction of the parents".
Regarding custody and inheritance issues, UNICEF said Zimbabwean laws were biased against non-marital children. This was in breach of several CRC clauses, such as those related to discrimination and the right of children with separated parents to have regular contact with both parents. The Guardianship of Minors Act denied the father of a non-marital child custody and access unless he had compelling reasons. Inheritance laws, applied in the absence of a will, automatically disinherits non-marital children but allows them to claim maintenance from the deceased's estate if his paternity is established. The Children's Fund noted, however, that establishing this relationship is often a difficult feat. The CRC provides for the compulsory registration of children at birth but Zimbabwe's Birth and Deaths Registration Act, while making birth registration mandatory within 42 days of birth, had no enforcement mechanisms, and many children thus remained unregistered. Transport costs were a further deterrent, as was the requirement for parents to be registered themselves.
A 2003 study in Mashonaland West province revealed that 25 percent of primary school pupils had no birth certificates, and neither did 75 percent of people in farming communities, 60 percent of parents and 70 percent of orphans. The report recommended that personnel from the Registrar General's Office be stationed at all hospitals to register children at birth. The CRC calls for free compulsory education and the country's Education Act complied with this provision but, again, there were no appropriate enforcement mechanisms. Increased poverty and the impact of the AIDS pandemic had also affected the school dropout rate. The report observed that compulsory primary education could only be realised if education was provided free of charge, as it had been in the 1980s when favourable economic conditions enabled the country to achieve near universal primary education. Zimbabwe has also complied with another CRC provision by providing financial assistance to needy parents under the Basic Education Assistance Module (BEAM), included in the Social Welfare Assistance Act. But the system was hampered by the cumbersome procedure for filing claims, the lack of social welfare officers to speed up the process at most district offices and government's increasing inability to support social services because of the continued deterioration in the economy.
While Zimbabwe's Public Health Act tried to comply with the CRC's stipulation that a child had the right to "the highest attainable standard of health", and had waived fees for the destitute at government hospitals, UNICEF said economic setbacks have left government institutions facing critical shortages of basic drugs, equipment and personnel. In accordance with the CRC's stipulations covering juvenile offenders, Zimbabwe had initiated the pre-trial diversion scheme under the CPAA where, with the support of a probation officer, offenders charged with petty crimes were diverted from the formal criminal justice system, their cases were heard in a closed court, and sentences were imposed along rehabilitative lines. In practice the initiative lacked resources and to date the closest practical option had been the community service programme, which had so far benefited over 50,000 offenders, some of them juveniles. Young offenders usually appeared in court for minor offences, often in the absence of probation officers. Only one prison, Khami Medium in Matabeleland, offering four years secondary education, was specifically designed for juvenile offenders but not all could be housed there. Consequently, most juvenile offenders were imprisoned with adults and often abused. The report called for greater support for the pre-trial diversion initiative in terms of training, infrastructure, human and material resources.
The UN agency urged that campaigns be undertaken to raise public awareness of the laws, with sustained training for practitioners and increased numbers of probation and social welfare officers. It recommended a comprehensive children's law with "a cohesive integrated all-embracing structure and system to bring together related laws, policies, procedures or protocols." It also called for more investment in child issues. "Laws cannot solve problems of hunger and malnutrition of children, abuse or neglect, problems of street children and begging or problems of health," the report commented. The labour and social welfare ministry have reportedly recently set up an advisory council to coordinate all child welfare issues in accordance with the CPAA, and advise the ministry on the formulation of appropriate policies and how best to apply them.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 23 December
Chiyangwa held in CIO probe
Dumisani Muleya
Zanu PF Mashonaland West provincial chairman Philip Chiyangwa and several other high-profile individuals whose whereabouts have been shrouded in mystery this week are said to be in the custody of state security agents who are investigating charges of espionage. Intelligence sources said yesterday that Chiyangwa, Zanu PF deputy security chief Kenny Karidza, ruling party external affairs director Itai Marchi, and a number of others were currently in detention on allegations of "spying for hostile governments". Zimbabwe's new ambassador to Mozambique and former Consul-General in South Africa Godfrey Dzvairo and Metropolitan Bank secretary Tendai Matambanadzo are also said to have been picked up in related investigations. However, speculation that Zanu PF Mashonaland East provincial chairman Ray Kaukonde was also under arrest proved untrue. "I was never arrested. What for? Maybe it's wishful thinking by some people," Kaukonde said amidst laughter. Those believed to be detained went missing last week. Chiyangwa's relatives and lawyers have said he is "fine" and "dealing with the situation". Chiyangwa's brother James 'Jimalo' said this week he was "all right". "Philip is okay. I was with him this (Tuesday) afternoon. I'm his brother and I know he's fine," James said. "If there was anything wrong, I would be the first to know and to run around. He is alive and well." Asked where actually Chiyangwa was, James said: "I wouldn't know where he is at the moment because he has several houses. Would you know where your brother is right now if I were to ask you?" Told yesterday Chiyangwa was still unreachable on his cellphone, James said: "He is a politician and it's not easy to find him." Chiyangwa's nephew Leo Mugabe, who is also President Robert Mugabe's nephew, said he did not know where his uncle was. "I don't know but we will ask during tomorrow's (yesterday's) provincial executive meeting what is really happening. Then I will be able to give you a precise answer." However, after yesterday's meeting Mugabe said nothing was disclosed about Chiyangwa's whereabouts.
Matambanadzo was abducted from his Chisipite home last week on Monday night and has been held incommunicado like the others, the Zimbabwe Independent has been told. Sources said the arrests followed the picking up by the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) of Karidza at Harare International Airport early last week after a stakeout. "They had been tailing him for sometime," a source said. "That led to his arrest and subsequent picking up of the other suspects." It is said Karidza, a music promoter whose bid to bring French-based rumba artist Kofi Olomide for a concert in Zimbabwe flopped last week due to his arrest, was under surveillance to ascertain if he was a double agent. "Karidza was arrested at the airport with classified documents containing information which has state security implications," the source said. The sources said the suspects have cracked under interrogation after being "softened up" to facilitate investigations and were now "cooperating". The sources said the suspects, including intelligence agents, were picked up by the CIO's Counter-Intelligence Unit. Counter-Intelligence then handed them over to the CIO's Security Branch which is now handling the matter. The security section deals with issues with state security implications. It includes the Close Security Unit and the Government Protection Security Inspectorate. The suspects were said to be in detention at different police stations around Harare. "After the CIO have finished their job the suspects will be handed over to the police's (CID) Law and Order section for initial court remand," a source said. "The matter is serious because it has treason implications and touches on some senior intelligence officers, ministers and top Zanu PF officials." Contacted for comment, State Security minister Nicholas Goche said: "I know nothing about that. Totally nothing." Home Affairs minister Kembo Mohadi also professed ignorance.
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From The Financial Gazette, 24 December
Chiyangwa strokes?
Njabulo Ncube
Philip Chiyangwa, the maverick business tycoon held by state security agents on suspicion of espionage, is unwell and reportedly suffered a stroke this week as it emerged that a Zimbabwean intelligence attache to Geneva was recently recalled and arrested on arrival as the murky plot thickened this week. Sources said the flashy Zanu PF Mashonaland West provincial chairman and Chinhoyi Member of Parliament, who was taken in on December 15, was on Wednesday brought to St Giles Rehabilitation Centre for specialist treatment after showing signs of a mild stroke. While it was difficult to verify the information given the shroud of secrecy surrounding the issue, deemed sensitive by security agents, The Financial Gazette is reliably informed that Chiyangwa spent a few hours being examined at the health institution. Suspected members of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) later drove him from St Giles, which specialises in spinal cord and stroke-related illnesses.
Chiyangwa; Godfrey Dzvairo, Zimbabwe's ambassador to Mozambique; Kenny Karidza, Zanu PF deputy security chief; and Tendai Matambanadzo, Metropolitan Bank secretary, were picked up at different times and dates by unknown people last week in what is shaping up to be an intriguing case. Sources said the high-profile Zimbabwean citizens were being interrogated by officers from the dreaded CIO at safe houses in different locations on suspicion that they were part of an intricate web of espionage. Espionage is generally considered to be a form of treason, which carries the death penalty in Zimbabwe. Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of Zimbabwe's main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, and the late Zanu Ndonga leader, Reverend Nbabaningi Sithole, were some of the high-profile figures to be charged with treason locally for allegedly plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe in a bid to seize power. Tsvangirai has since been acquitted of the charge although the government has appealed to the Supreme Court.
Matambanadzo, one of the longest serving officials at Metropolitan, was picked up by unknown people close to his residence last week and has not returned home since then. Karidza, the brains behind the failed musical show that was to feature the Democratic Republic of the Congo's France-based rhumba artist Koffi Olomide, was said to have been picked up at the Harare International Airport while allegedly trying to flee the country. He is said to have been in possession of some classified Zanu PF documents at the time. Although Chiyangwa's exact whereabouts were still sketchy yesterday, speculation is rife that the flamboyant businessman is being held in Goromonzi. It has been a tough year for the billionaire, who became one of the first top Zanu PF officials to have brushes with the law after he was dragged to the courts on allegations of threatening a police officer, perjury and defeating the course of justice in the ENG Capital Asset Management saga. Chiyangwa has since been exonerated of the charges.
While panicking officials at St Giles were tight-lipped about the legislator's brief admission and the state of his health yesterday, a source closely monitoring developments surrounding Chiyangwa said: "He is sick. We understand he had a mild stroke. We understand he is being grilled and bear in mind that Goromonzi is not a place for the light-hearted." Nicholas Goche, the Minister of State Security and Kembo Mohadi, the Minister of Home Affairs, professed ignorance over the whereabouts of Chiyangwa and the other high profile individuals who are reportedly missing. James Chiyangwa, the young brother to Phillip, was yesterday adamant that Chiyangwa was around and "100 percent fit." "People are lying. He is around and very fit. He is 100 percent fit. If he was sick, do you think I will talk nicely and laugh with you. Usanyeperwe, Phidza aribho (Don't be lied to, Philip is okay," said James Chiyangwa. The sources said the families of all the four men, whose exact locations are the subject of immense speculation, had been gagged by state security agents from revealing the circumstances surrounding the capture of their relatives. "That is why all the family representatives are professing ignorance. These people are facing serious allegations of the same magnitude as those faced by Tsvangirai," added another source.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 23 December
Purge at Chronicle over 'Tsholotsho Declaration'
Gift Phiri/Loughty Dube
Eight journalists at the Bulawayo-based Chronicle newspaper have been sent on indefinite forced leave as the purge on those involved in the "Tsholotsho Declaration" widens, the Zimbabwe Independent heard this week. The move comes after President Robert Mugabe's spokesman George Charamba summoned Chronicle editor Stephen Ndlovu to explain why the broadsheet used editorial space in an apparent bid to exonerate Information minister Jonathan Moyo from any blame in the Tsholotsho meeting. The meeting, described by Mugabe as "clandestine", allegedly sought to defy the party's decision to choose a woman vice-president. The Independent understands that Ndlovu, together with Zimpapers chairman Justin Mutasa, got a strong dressing down from Charamba in the fallout after the Tsholotsho Declaration. The controversial meeting also saw the suspension of six Zanu PF provincial chairmen who attended the meeting to draw-up plans to prevent Joyce Mujuru's nomination as Vice President in favour of Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa. Moyo has since been severely punished by the ruling party presidium for organising what has been described as a foiled palace coup.
The decision to send the journalists on forced leave comes despite recent attempts by management to embargo everyone from going on leave before next year's legislative polls due in March. The journalists sent on forced leave include the paper's deputy editor, Paul Mambo, assistant editor Tumeliso Makurane, and Sports Editor Lovemore Dube. The others are Bheki Ncube the editor of the vernacular Umthunywa newspaper and Edwin Dube, the Trends magazine editor, together with his assistant editor Limukani Ncube. Chief photographer Gift Chaita and Business Chronicle editor Alfonce Mbizwo complete the list of the journalists currently taking an involuntary rest. Ndlovu on Tuesday declined to comment on the move. "Just go to hell, go to hell," he yelled before switching off his cellphone.
Although the official line was that the journalists had accumulated a lot of leave days, sources at the paper questioned why the same process was not applied at the Sunday News, the Chronicle's Bulawayo based sister paper, or at other papers in the Zimpapers stable. "If all these senior journalists had accrued so many leave days then the same process should apply to the Sunday News since both papers are in the same stable," said a senior journalist at the paper who spoke to us on condition of anonymity. "We do not understand why all these editors should all go on leave at the same time." The Independent was told that the journalists are being targeted for not toeing the paper's line and for not supporting Moyo during the aborted Tsholotsho plot that has seen the minister fall from grace, while or others it appears to be personal differences with Ndlovu.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 23 December
Zim newspaper faces cash crisis
The Zimbabwe Independent said on Thursday it is facing a cash crisis after the government froze assets at the newspaper's bank, which has been a target of a report by the newspaper alleging financial mismanagement. The independent weekly exposed alleged financial mismanagement at CFX Bank on December 17. Within hours, the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank appointed a curator and froze all transactions. "CFX were our principal bankers and we were exposed immensely together with dozens of other companies who cannot meet statutory obligations, pay creditors or meet salary commitments," the newspaper said in an editorial. "Some say we should have ignored the story and reaped the dividends of silence. We should have closed our eyes to the fraud and thereby "saved" ourselves and many others. Obviously, we do not subscribe to this argument."
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From IRIN (UN), 23 December
Groups to protest detention of illegal immigrants
Johannesburg - Zimbabwean exile groups are planning to protest against the South African government's decision to suspend the deportation of illegal immigrants until 15 January 2005. Of the 1,500 illegal immigrants held at the Lindela repatriation centre outside Johannesburg, it is estimated that 900 are Zimbabweans. In an interview with IRIN, Gabriel Shumba, a human rights lawyer and head of the Pretoria-based Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, said the suspension of deportation represented refugee persecution and was a violation of South Africa's Refugee Act of 1998; his organisation would visit Lindela and press for meetings with the government. According to the Refugee Act, no immigrant can be held without trial for more than 30 days without the consent of a court, he said. Shumba pointed out that the last deportations took place on 10 December 2004 and the next would be on 15 January - 36 days later - and the South African government could be taken to court for violating the rights of immigrants, as spelt out in the Refugee Act.
The government's statement that the immigrants had handed themselves over to police in order to get free transport back home was an assumption which had no legal basis, he alleged. Daniel Molokela, coordinator of the Johannesburg-based Zimbabwe Democracy Project, agreed that the suspension of deportations was a violation of the immigrants' rights and amounted to a jail sentence. "It appears the South African government took an administrative decision, maybe based on indications that the immigrants actually made an effort to get themselves arrested in order to get free transport back home ... we have always condemned the ill-treatment of immigrants, most of whom are genuine asylum-seekers. The South Africa government must realise the political realities in the immigrants' countries of origin before making any judgments," said Molokela. Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe-Mapisa Nqakula announced the suspension of repatriations when she toured Lindela after a riot by immigrants who were allegedly demanding to be deported. "There will be no free rides home - you jumped the fence; you will have to suffer the consequences. I will decide who leaves Lindela," the minister was quoted as saying.
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From Associated Press, 23 December
Next harvest in Zimbabwe faces threat
By Angus Shaw
Harare - Farmers, many of them black Zimbabweans resettled on formerly white-owned properties, have so far plowed and prepared only one fourth of the land available for planting for next year's food harvests, the state media reported Thursday. Local Government Minister Ignatious Chombo, head of a panel state officials reviewing land preparations, said slightly less than 2.4 million acres out of an estimated 9.6 million acres have been tilled during current seasonal rains. He blamed the slow pace of preparation on sho rtages of fertilizer, other inputs, tractors and mechanical equipment and urged farmers to set up tillage cooperatives to utilize more manual labor and animal-drawn plows, the state Herald reported. The newspaper quoted Shadreck Mlambo, head of research and extension services in the agriculture ministry, saying tillage lagged far behind its targets for the time of year. "And time is fast running out," he said.The government has acknowledged that a fleet of state-owned tractors used to help impoverished farmers has been hit by continuous breakdowns and shortages of spare parts. Of 700 tractors deployed by one government agency, only 304 were still operating. Farmers have also suffered acute shortages of gasoline.
Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, was plunged into its worst political and economic crisis after President Robert Mugabe's government began seizing more than 5,000 of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to blacks and ruling party officials in 2000. The often-violent land reform program, combined with erratic rains, have crippled the nation's agriculture-based economy. Inflation is running at 149 percent, the highest in the world. The government argues redistribution of land was needed to correct colonial-era injustices in land ownership by the descendants of mostly British settlers. Government officials routinely insist the program has not affected food production and the country has grown a surplus this year. But United Nations estimates put the expected total harvest this year at around 1 million tons of grain, mostly the corn staple, that is about half the country's needs. Last year, nearly half of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people needed food aid. A U.N.-led assessment group estimates that as many as 5 million Zimbabweans will need help again before the next harvest begins in March.
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From The Daily Mirror, 25 December
Missing men appear in court
Daily Mirror reporter
Banker Tendai Matambanadzo, Zanu PF deputy security chief Kenny Karidza, Zimbabwe's ambassador to Mozambique Godfrey Dzvairo and Itai Marchi were yesterday finally dragged to court on undisclosed charges, amid tight security. The Press and relatives of the accused were barred from attending court proceedings. No reasons were given for barring the Press. Matambanadzo and Dzvairo's lawyer Selby Hwacha of Dube, Manikai and Hwacha law firm confirmed last night that his clients had appeared in court. The four were said to have been remanded in custody to December 29. "The matter has come and gone and we have not had an opportunity to meet our clients. Now that they are remanded in prison, I am hoping that I can get access to them. I don't know what happened to them. We had no one to speak to and nobody told us anything. We still don't know why they were arrested. We are completely surprised that they went to court. I am still in a quandary as to what happened," Hwacha said.
The four went missing about a fortnight ago, together with businessman and Mashonaland West Zanu PF provincial chairman Phillip Chiyangwa, amid reports that state security agents had apprehended them. Asked whether Chiyangwa too had appeared in court yesterday, his lawyer Lloyd Mhishi said: "As far as I am concerned Chiyangwa didn't go to court. In fact, I was not given instructions from Chiyangwa to handle the (purported) matter." Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi last night could neither confirm nor deny that the four had appeared in court saying he was on leave, while Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa was unreachable. However, when The Daily Mirror news crew arrived at the Harare Magistrates Courts yesterday security agents barred them from entering the court building saying they were under strict instructions not to allow anyone into the courthouse.
The security details confirmed that there were proceedings in Court 13, but could not say whether the case was that of Matambanadzo, Maridza, Dzvairo, Chiyangwa and Marchi. "Court 13 is currently sitting, but we are under instruction not to allow you in. In fact, you must not be here. Some of the accused persons' relatives were chased away," one of the security guards said. Some people who were milling outside the court building told The Daily Mirror that the accused persons came to the court in a convoy of unmarked vehicles that had heavily armed security details. A photographer with The Herald, the witnesses said, was punched by one of the more than 15 heavily armed security details, his camera confiscated and briefly detained. The Herald news crew, the witnesses added, was later summoned by some of the security agents and told that they were not supposed to cover the story in terms of a 1985 statutory instrument, that reportedly bars the publication of matters that compromise state security.
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From Zim Online (SA), 25 December
CIO gags relatives of arrested Zanu PF officials
Harare - State secret agents have threatened close relatives of Zanu PF provincial chairman, Philip Chiyangwa and other top party officials they are holding on espionage not to speak about their whereabouts or face unspecified but serious punishment. Intelligence officers speaking anonymously told Zim Online that Chiyangwa's wife and relatives of Zimbabwe's ambassador to Mozambique, Godfrey Dzvairo; Zanu PF deputy security chief, Kenny Karidza; the party's external affairs director, Itai Machi and bank executive, Tendai; Mantambanadzo had been ordered to remain silent. "Chiyangwa's wife, for instance, knows where her husband is and the fact that he suffered a mild stroke earlier this week but she is under strict instructions to watch what she tells the press," said one senior agent of the state's secret service Central Intelligence organization (CIO). Chiyangwa, who is a relative of President Robert Mugabe and is Zanu PF chairman for Mashonaland West Province was arrested last week on allegations he was supplying strategic information about the ruling party and government to British and Israeli spies. His arrest led to the arrest of the other Zanu PF officials. Since the arrest of the five party officials family members have maintained standard responses that they were away attending business meetings and not in prison. But according to intelligence sources Chiyangwa, who is believed to be the ringleader of the group, is being detained at the CIO's Goromonzi torture chambers less than 80 km east of Harare while the other ZANU PF officials are scattered at other secret locations of the CIO.
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From The New York Times, 24 December
Zimbabwe extends crackdown on dissent as election looms
By Michael Wines
Harare - A few yards from Raymond Majongwe's office, on the apron of a four-lane highway outside this capital city's downtown, a cherry red sedan sat recently beneath a clutch of trees, its engine off, the driver idle. The sedan has been there for weeks, Mr. Majongwe said. It will be there next week, too. Mr. Majongwe is the head of a rebel schoolteacher's union. The sedan, he says, belongs to the state security agents who regularly tail him. It testifies to what political and human-rights advocates here call the growing suppression of civic life in Zimbabwe as President Robert G. Mugabe girds for national elections that his government cannot afford to lose. Mr. Mugabe and the governing Zanu PF, came unexpectedly close to being swept from office in parliamentary and presidential elections in 2000 and 2002, and they have taken a series of measures designed to minimize the chances of another competitive ballot. During the 2002 election the government enacted laws sharply curbing freedoms of the press and public assembly, citing national security. Now, with new national elections looming in March, new laws and other measures promise to silence the remaining independent press and activist groups that have been vehicles for dissent.
In November alone, Zimbabwe's Parliament enacted legislation mandating a two-year prison term for practicing journalism without a license. A second law made it illegal to conduct voter education without government approval, requiring most election workers to register and clear electioneering materials with the state. A third law, passed in early December, effectively places non-governmental groups, churches and charities under state control, empowering the government to investigate their finances, to restrict their activities and, in many cases, to disband them at will. A fourth proposal would impose prison sentences of up to 20 years for "materially false" statements or writings that impugn the state. Earlier this year, the government installed equipment on Zimbabwe's Internet service providers to monitor and censor e-mail messages. In July, it tried to bar the one cellphone company outside state control from routing calls outside the country, saying unsupervised foreign telephone calls were a national security threat. The company, Econet Wireless, is controlled by a government critic whose opposition newspaper, The Daily News, was far and away the most popular publication in Zimbabwe. The government closed the newspaper in February. In October, it charged five of Econet's directors with illegal dealings in foreign currency.
Such actions, rights advocates here say, are but the latest moves in a long clampdown on Zimbabweans' freedoms that peaked around Mr. Mugabe's re-election in 2002 and then subsided, but is now regaining momentum. After that election, independent observers said that the balloting had been rigged, and that the opposition party would have won a fair election. Parliamentary documents show that spending on security police officers like the one posted outside Mr. Majongwe's office has run 60 percent over budget this year - and is projected to quadruple in 2005. While it is impossible to verify figures, human rights groups here also claim that the number of government informers and security police has grown sixfold in five years, to as many as one in 60 Zimbabweans. Similarly, the Solidarity Peace Trust, a group of clerics that monitors human rights in Zimbabwe, reported last month that 300,000 Zimbabweans - roughly one in 40 - have been beaten or tortured, thrown off their land or denied food since violence began to escalate in 2000. Another 300, the trust stated, have died in politically motivated killings. Like most of the government's domestic critics, these and most other Zimbabweans spoke only on promises of anonymity. The crackdown has silenced most democracy advocates and workers in foreign-based organizations, who now face prosecution or expulsion for publicly differing with the government.
Mr. Mugabe's government rejects charges that it seeks to suppress basic freedoms. Indeed, it charges that the United States' anti-terrorism law, the U.S.A. Patriot Act, is far more intrusive than its new laws, which it says are aimed not at legitimate critics but at enemies of the state. If Westerners scoff at that, the argument has resonated with neighbors like Zambia, which banned a pro-democracy civic group last month on grounds strikingly similar to those in Zimbabwe's new laws. To an occasional visitor here, the government's critics today are clearly more cautious - and sometimes fearful - than they were even a year ago. But the crackdown's true impact, the government's opponents say, is political. In the 2000 and 2002 elections, the press and civil-society groups were virtually the only conduits for the message of Zimbabwe's sole opposition party of note, the Movement for Democratic Change. "It's become practically impossible for civic organizations to assemble here," Lovemore Matombo, the president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, part of the coalition behind the Movement for Democratic Change, said in a recent interview here. Like other groups, Mr. Matombo said, the Congress, Zimbabwe's largest labor organization, cannot hold a meeting without first notifying the police. "Things are deteriorating," Mr. Matombo said. "By closing off the public space, it means they're creating more space for themselves. The government is saying, 'Let's do anything - whatever it takes to win in 2005.' " National security is the official rationale for these changes. Since Zimbabwe's economy collapsed early this decade, a victim of drought, corruption and the ill-planned seizures of thousands of white-owned farms, Mr. Mugabe has attributed the nation's woes to a Western plot to subvert black authority and reimpose colonial rule. As proof, he cites political sanctions that the United States and Europe have imposed on Zimbabwe to protest its human rights conduct.
That argument underpins the crackdown on the nation's most formidable independent forces, pro-democracy groups and the Movement for Democratic Change, both of which have broad Western support and, often, financing. The movement's leader and its past presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, has already been tried on treason charges, a two-year process in which he was painted as a tool of the C.I.A. before being acquitted in October. The government said this month that it planned to seek a retrial. New restrictions on nongovernmental groups enacted this month are aimed squarely at foreign supporters, barring any Zimbabwe organization that deals with human rights or governance issues from receiving foreign money or even enrolling members who live outside Zimbabwe. In one sense, this fortress-Zimbabwe strategy has been strikingly effective. According to a poll of 1,200 Zimbabweans published in August by South African and American researchers, the level of public trust in Mr. Mugabe's leadership has more than doubled since 1999, to 46 percent - even as the economy has fallen into ruin, between a third and a half of all citizens go hungry and anger over economic and living conditions is pervasive. Fear of the government led a small number of Zimbabweans to give Mr. Mugabe a good rating, the survey concluded, as did uncertainty that the opposition could run things any better. But the overriding explanation for Mr. Mugabe's high rating was the power of the government's propaganda and the absence of a free press to counter it. "Zimbabweans are in a position where they actually don't know what's going on," said one political expert here who insisted on anonymity. "They've shut out any competing views, and they're feeding people lies. They've shut things down absolutely brilliantly." But the flip side of that success, this analyst said, is that the nation's rulers must maintain that tight lid - or even tighten it further - to keep citizens' anger focused on outsiders and not themselves. And human rights organizations here say that other measures, including increasing surveillance and manipulation of the dwindling food supply, are now putting fresh pressure on Zimbabweans to toe the government's line.
Both the United Nations and other foreign specialists warned early this year that Zimbabwe's annual harvest of corn, the staple in almost every meal most Zimbabweans eat, would fall as much as 60 percent short of what was needed to feed the country. The principal reason, they said, was that inflation, recession and mismanagement had left the country desperately short of both seed stocks and inputs like fertilizer that were crucial to a good crop. In May, however, Mr. Mugabe declared that the harvest was in fact a record one, and ordered the World Food Program to cease most emergency deliveries of food. Recently, at the office of one foreign-based organization here, an official spread a map of Zimbabwe's 10 provinces on a table, a patchwork of green and yellow blotches. The green areas had adequate grain supplies; the yellow were deprived. Almost without exception, the yellow areas were either strongholds of the Movement for Democratic Change or areas where the ruling Zanu PF was guaranteed an easy victory. Most of the government's limited grain stock was being handed out in the electoral battlegrounds. "Starting in July, they began to pump food into the deficit areas where they expect a struggle in the elections next year," the official said. "Where there has been adequate grain throughout, it's a swing district."
Even there, however, corn supplies remained under tight control. Beginning in August, officials of the state Grain Marketing Board, which controls corn supplies, began refusing to sell grain in rural areas to families that did not have a Zanu PF card to prove their party loyalty. Families without cards were told to secure a letter from their village administrator, most of whom are Zanu PF loyalists. Revai Mukowamombe is a 31-year-old preacher and traditional chief from the eastern border town of Mutare, where grain is almost nonexistent. He said that local Zanu PF functionaries had banned members of the political opposition from a government program that lends farmers seed corn in exchange for a share of their next harvest. "People in my area are hungry," he said in a recent conversation. "They need food. And donors are being denied to the area. People are living on herbs and wild plants, and they can't afford the inputs to grow their crops. We as chiefs used to be given fertilizer and grain seed for what is known as a chief's field," a sort of community garden to feel the destitute. "But now we're not even getting those." Mr. Mukowamombe came to Harare in late November to complain about the use of food as a political weapon. Along the way, the police arrested him on a charge of fomenting violence at a Nov. 7 political rally in Mutare. He was chained to a bench for two days before being released, he said.
It was not his first brush with the law. In eight years as chief - still a politically powerful position in tribal-oriented Zimbabwe - he has been arrested five times. Nor was it his worst. Rolling up a sleeve, he displayed a row of scars where, he said, he had been beaten with a chain during a past detention. "People are being forced to support Zanu PF," Mr. Mukowamombe said. "People are afraid." "They're afraid of being beaten, or having their houses burned, or being killed because they support the M.D.C.," he said, referring to the opposition party. The argument against resisting, he said, is compelling. "When you live in a rural area, it's remote," he said. "You don't have a phone. You can't run away." Mr. Mukowamombe says he is resisting anyway, because he believes people should have the right to say what they think, and support whom they choose in March. "They say, 'I am coming for you. And you are going to disappear,' " he said. "And I tell them, 'If I die, you die. Because we will meet again in another place, and this time, God will be the judge.' "
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From cricinfo, 26 December
Zimbabwe faces internal split
The new board of the Mashonaland Cricket Association (MCA) has confirmed that it is ready to break ranks with Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC). The announcement came less than 24 hours after an emergency meeting of the MCA kicked out several senior officials who were suspected of blocking moves to take on ZC. "The clubs maintained their position that they believe the ZC to have been established unconstitutionally and as a result the clubs have called for a resolution that MCA do not recognise ZC," Cyprian Mandenge, the MCA's new chairman, said. "The MCA board will disassociate itself from the day to day running of the new ZC and with any competitions under the auspices of the body such as the national league and the Logan Cup." The special meeting had been preceded by several days of uncertainty, but once the meeting started it soon became clear that the overwhelming mood was one of anger with the old board. The feeling was that it was blocking attempts to confront ZC, and so strong was the opposition from the rank and file that the board resigned without asking for a vote. The news will be a bitter blow to ZC and Peter Chingoka, its chairman. Last week, Chingoka dismissed reports of a rebellion as little more than a smokescreen by a few individuals, but now it seems that it is far more than that. After a wretched 2004, Zimbabwe cricket needed peace and harmony in 2005. It seems, however, that the year will start with depressingly familiar headlines.
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From Zim Online (SA), 25 December
Government to takeover marketing of flowers
Harare - The government will from next year take over marketing of foreign currency-earning horticultural products, as it moves to tighten its grip on whatever little hard cash coming into the country. The state will early next year set up a new Horticultural Marketing Authority (HMA) that will have sole authority for the marketing of flowers and all other horticultural products. The government body will also administer marketing contracts for private horticulture firms. Ministry of Lands and Agriculture officials refused to shed more light on the plans by the government to establish the HMA, referring all questions on the matter to the ministry's permanent secretary, Ngoni Masoka, who could not be reached. But sources told Zim Online that plans to establish the marketing authority were at an advanced stage and added that it could start operations in the first quarter of the new-year. The move by government to take over the selling of horticultural products is the latest after it this year took over the marketing of platinum and asbestos - all hard cash earning products. The government also handles the marketing of gold. Economic analysts have warned that increased involvement by the state in the marketing of platinum and now horticultural products could scare away potential investors.
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From The Daily Mirror, 28 December
Chiyangwa alive - expected to appear in court today
Mirror Reporters
Ostentatious Harare businessman Phillip Chiyangwa, reportedly in the hands of state security agents for undisclosed crimes, is expected to appear in court today - a development that dispels recent rumours in the capital that the Zanu PF Mashonaland West provincial chairman could have died. Highly placed sources told The Daily Mirror that Chiyangwa - whose last public appearance was on December 15 when he presented a budget review report in Parliament - would be dragged to the courts today where charges against him would be preferred. The gaudy Chiyangwa, also chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Budget and International Trade, left Parliament before the august House adjourned, and disappeared into thin air. Ever since his disappearance, his family and lawyer Llyod Mhishi were either unprepared or uninformed about his whereabouts, sending tongues wagging that the showy businessman could indeed be in the hands of the State for a very serious crime. The outspoken Chiyangwa has been conspicuous by his absence in the political arena, giving credence to reports that he had disappeared. He has not been attending Parliament since December 15 and was not at the newly elected party's central committee meeting where he is an ex-officio member.
Speculation has been rife that Chiyangwa played a tacit role in the unsanctioned Tsholotsho meeting but later performed a double summersault in the eleventh hour, after realising the game plan and the environment had changed. The indaba, reportedly convened by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo alongside Zanu PF Midlands chairman July Moyo, was meant to change the party's presidium which could have seen Parliamentary Speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa, Thenjiwe Lesabe and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa assuming the presidency, while Moyo would have taken over as the party's secretary for administration. However, sources said, it was highly unlikely that Chiyangwa could have been arrested for the Tsholotsho allegations unless, as speculation has it that there could be something more sinister he is suspected of having done. If he appears in court as sources claim, this will quell rumours of death or insanity, which have been making the rounds in the capital over the past few days.
Although the police and his relatives have vehemently denied that Chiyangwa was arrested, speculation over his whereabouts was fuelled by a recent interview in which his lawyer was quoted as saying his client "was in control of the situation", without elaborating on the circumstances surrounding his client's whereabouts. His scheduled court appearance comes in the wake of last Friday's appearance of four other men who went missing about the same time - namely banker Tendai Matambanadzo, Zanu PF deputy security chief Kenny Karidza, Zimbabwe's ambassador to Mozambique Godfrey Dzvairo, and Itai Marchi. The four were reportedly remanded in custody to tomorrow in proceedings the Press and the suspects' relatives were barred. Asked about Chiyangwa's possible court appearance today, police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka expressed ignorance on the matter. "I do not know anything. Did you go to his home and see that he is truly not there?" asked Mandipaka. Mandipaka also professed ignorance on the court appearance of the other four men, alleging that he was unaware of their arrest. Harare lawyer Selby Hwacha, representing Dzvairo and Matambanadzo, told The Daily Mirror last week that no one had informed them that his clients had been arrested and what the charge was. He said he was surprised that they had appeared in court without legal representation - a legitimate expectation.
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From The Cape Argus (SA), 28 December
Top Zim bankers arrested for fraud
Zimbabwe authorities arrested two senior executives of a collapsed local bank and seven others were being sought for questioning over fraud allegations involving $20.5 million, the central bank said yesterday. CFX Bank, a former foreign exchange dealer-ship, was shut down by monetary authorities on December 18 after allegations of fraud and mismanagement triggered mass withdrawals from the bank's branches. All transactions and accounts at the bank were frozen for six months by an independent regulator. Thousands of depositors were left without cash over the holidays and hundreds of others faced losing their investments with the bank. The Reserve Bank said in a statement yesterday that investigators believed CFX executives produced false profit statements to conceal the theft of at least $20.5 million. "The law enforcement authorities are actively pursuing the case," the Reserve Bank said. CFX deputy chief executive Gary Shoko and financial director Onias Ndlovu were arrested on Sunday. Others being sought for questioning included executives of the computer department after forensic auditors restored erased computer data.
"A cartel of bank management existed in the institution, using its influence to conceal financial irregularities... and illegal and unethical deals," the Reserve Bank said. It warned efforts would be stepped up to "smoke out errant bankers" in Zimbabwe's troubled financial sector. Six other private banks have been shut down this year and put under the control of independent accounting experts. All the suspended banks are among a dozen local banks licensed by the government as part of efforts to break a banking monopoly traditionally held by the main foreign-owned international banks. None have reopened and many depositors are still waiting to claim their money. Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence with an inflation rate of 149% - the highest in the world - and soaring unemployment. Since 2000, the agriculture-based economy has been crippled by the often violent seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms. Shortages of petrol, food, hard currency and even local bank notes spurred speculation that gave finance houses a boom, but the boom collapsed when borrowers failed to repay speculative loans.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 25 December
Bleak Christmas for Zimbabwe
Top businesses stand to lose their investments in Zimbabwe's chaotic banking sector this Christmas after the closure of a seventh private bank for fraud and mismanagement. Thousands of ordinary depositors have been left with empty pocketbooks and firms trading with the bank can't pay salaries or annual bonuses for the holidays. As Zimbabwe's worst economic crisis bit deeper, riot police this week stood guard outside the CFX Bank, a former foreign exchange dealership, to stop desperate account holders storming its offices and banking halls. The ramifications of the closure by the state central bank of the seventh "unstable" private bank this year left investors reeling. Marjory Davies, a retired accountant and widow, said she had Z$400-million ($70 000) in savings and investments locked in the bank. "I can't get a cent out. I am devastated," she said, holding back tears. A property developer who sold an office building deposited a check for Z$2,6-billion ($470 000) a week before the December 18 closure while he made plans to reinvest the money. Small investor Henry Chauruka used a pension payout to buy stock whose value has slumped by 70%.
Daily living expenses are drawn from current accounts in the bank that have been frozen for six months, along with all other transactions. Creditors of the CFX Bank face months of waiting to learn whether they will get part or any of their money back. By then, inflation of 149% - the highest in the world - will have cut swaths out of it. In impoverished townships across Zimbabwe, however, the banking crisis meant little. Ben Mucheche, head of an association of bus owners, told state radio on Friday that Christmas transport services were severely curtailed by bus breakdowns and shortages of spare parts and fuel. Urban families who traditionally visit their rural villages were abandoning travel plans. Some waited in long lines for their buses for 10 hours, only to be turned away after a scramble to get aboard. On Friday, lines of cars snaked around gas stations, a regular sight in this troubled southern African nation. "If I don't get fuel, I won't be able to do anything" to enjoy the holidays, said Harare businessman Fungai Hwande. His was the 38th car in the line he joined before dawn.
The agriculture-based economy has crumbled since President Robert Mugabe's government began seizing thousands of white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans in 2000, leading to acute shortages of food, hard currency, gasoline, medicines and other imports. Outages of power and water utilities, blamed on breakdowns of ageing equipment and shortages of imported water purifying chemicals, occur daily. In the deepening economic crisis, unemployment has soared to 70% and an estimated 80% of the 12,5-million people are living below the standard poverty line. In its annual report this month, the United Nations Children's Fund said the death toll from Aids and HIV-related illnesses has left nearly a million orphans in Zimbabwe. It said life expectancy has dropped from age 52 to 37 since 1990 and girls as young as nine were caregivers for siblings and ailing relatives. Charity groups say "coping mechanisms" for impoverished families include cutting back on food --often to one meagre meal a day - selling household goods and personal belongings, street vending, begging and prostitution.
In a grimy bar in western Harare, Sherry Mpala (26) has a cellphone for sale. "How are we to survive? Times are hard and we are suffering," said the mother of two. She said she was abandoned by her husband when he travelled to neighbouring South Africa to look for work. She said she tried buying cheap goods in flea markets in Harare for resale at a profit in provincial towns where there are no cheap markets. Begging for "loans" from male acquaintances turned into prostitution. An older woman who gave her name only as "Tanya" said she solicited in tourist hotels where she demanded $100 from foreigners. But amid political violence and worldwide criticism of the country's human rights record tourism has dried up. Both women insisted they were aware of safe practices. Mpala said more women were plying bars and streets than were seen a few months ago. Some of her rivals were young girls fresh from poor villages in the countryside where crops have failed. "Hunger would kill my children before Aids kills me. Maybe we will all die of Aids in the end," she said.
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From The Financial Gazette, 24 December
Daily News to re-open
Felix Njini
The Daily News, the first newspaper to close under harsh media laws promulgated in 2002, could be given a new lease of life as the government makes frantic moves to regain legitimacy ahead of next year's parliamentary elections. The country will come under the spotlight before, during and after next year's polls after the Southern African Development Community (SADC) states, including Zimbabwe, adopted guidelines for holding democratic elections. The government has been accused of closing democratic space through repressive legislation through which no less than three newspapers have been forced to close and several civic groups outlawed. The SADC guidelines provide for independent electoral structures and equal access to the public media - factors which have seen observers casting aspersions on Zimbabwe's elections and questioning the legitimacy of the Zanu PF government.
Impeccable sources intimated that there were manoeuvres, actively supported by some Zanu PF heavyweights, to register the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ)'s defunct newspaper titles, hoping that their resurrection would boost the government's faltering profile. It is no coincidence, they said, that telecommunications mogul Strive Masiyiwa, who ranks high among the government's most-hated people, had moved to spin off his controlling stake in ANZ a few weeks before the Media and Information Commission's (MIC) December 31 2004 registration deadline. It has been established that the ANZ - whose two titles, The Daily News and the weekly Daily News on Sunday, closed doors in September 2003 after the courts ruled they were operating illegally - has launched a fresh bid to register in terms of the draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). The group, which started publishing The Daily News in 1999, and saw it grow to become the largest circulating daily newspaper, had refused to register with the state-appointed MIC, resulting in the retrenchment of nearly 160 workers, who are now battling to secure their retrenchment packages.
"Powerful Zanu PF politicians are pulling the strings behind the scenes, and as far as I am concerned it is a win-win situation in that the ruling party would be seen to be increasing democratic space, while the ANZ would not only resuscitates its operations, but make full use of its multi-billion-dollar printing press," said a source. "But in the process, it may also cost the ANZ the much vaunted independence, as the forces pushing for its registration may press for a more friendly and reconstituted board and management," the source added. Masiyiwa has confirmed selling his stake to a consortium linked to former Econet Wireless Holdings chairman Norman Nyazema, journalist Jethro Goko and former ANZ chief executive officer Muchadeyi Masunda. The sale is now awaiting the evaluation of the group's assets, particularly its printing press, a Solna Distributor D300. Masiyiwa, Econet Wireless Holdings Limited group chief executive has faced incessant retribution from government and some senior Zanu PF officials whom he successfully fought in a bitter war to secure a licence for the country's second mobile network.
Sources said Zanu PF officials, who firmly believe that the main opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) would be a walkover in the March 2005 parliamentary elections, are mostly interested in enhancing President Robert Mugabe's acceptability in the international community. President Mugabe has had to live with contested legitimacy following the 2000 parliamentary election as well as his own re-election in 2002. The re-opening of The Daily News- an unrelenting critic of the Zanu PF government- would provide the tonic to efforts being done to align Zimbabwe's electoral system to the Southern African Development Community (SADC) guidelines and principles governing democratic elections. Sam Sipepa Nkomo, ANZ chief executive officer, professed ignorance on the latest development. He said: "We already have an application launched a year ago, but it was rejected by the MIC." Tafataona Mahoso, the MIC chairman could not clarify whether his organisation had received the ANZ application. "Ask them, we do not make news out of applications. We do not discuss applications because we receive hundreds of them, and if we single them out for discussion, that is bias," Mahoso said. ANZ had refused to register under AIPPA and has been fighting running legal battles challenging the constitutionality of certain clauses of the Act. Sources said Masiyiwa's exit from ANZ was meant to restructure the board and shareholding structure to 'make it acceptable to government'.
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From AFP, 28 December
Zim jazz pioneers still at it
Susan Njanji
Neither age nor adversity have worn down the talent, creativity or determination of the Cool Crooners, the seasoned veterans who make up Zimbabwe's oldest township jazz group. Most members started playing jazz in the 1950s, and though now in their 70s, they can kick up their heels high during live shows while staging spectacular dances. Their voices are still strong and clear. "At times people are surprised to see old people like us singing," said Cool Crooner member Abel Sithole (70). The Cool Crooners originated in the black working class township of Makokoba in Zimbabwe's second largest city of Bulawayo, 459km southwest of the capital Harare. They call their music 'township jazz', because it emanated from the Makokoba township, Bulawayo's oldest ghetto. Their music is a fusion of American blues, western jazz blended with African rhythm and traditional vernacular chants born in one of the country's poorest suburbs. Sithole said their music is influenced by South African artists such as the Manhattan Brothers and Miriam Makeba. "Our music is based on marabi, which is what we grew up listening to," said Sithole, referring to a 1920s music style that arose in Johannesburg's slumyards blending Afro-American ragtime and blues.
The Crooners have survived in a country where music until recently was not considered a profession from which one could earn a decent living. People who turned to music instead of other professions were considered lazy, wayward or simply delinquents. Sithole said a strong passion for music has kept them going and in good shape as well. "I could have been playing music for much longer than 48 years but my father was against it," said Sithole, who has been playing jazz since 1956. "I think it is the determination to accomplish what was disturbed by the war of liberation which keeps me going," said Sithole. Sithole joined the guerrilla war and went for training to fight against British colonial rule in the 1960s. He was captured in 1969 and sentenced to death, later commuted to 18 years imprisonment. He served 10 years and was freed in a general amnesty at independence in 1980. On release from prison, he had the choice to join either the police or the army, but "I refused and carried on with my music". "I love music and it's what I know better," he said adding "and if it's standard jazz, I can sing anything. I can perform with any group even without practising," said Sithole.
The group originally started singing separately in the 1950s as two different formations, the Cool Four and the Golden Rhythm Crooners, and teamed up only in the 1990s to form the Cool Crooners. Although singing for decades, the Crooners were quite obscure until they were 'discovered' by French film maker Patrick Meunier a few years ago when he was doing a documentary in Bulawayo. The group, consisting of Lucky Tondhlana (65), Eric Juba (54), Timothy Sekane (72) and Sithole (70), has now been able to record two CDs - one of them this month in France. The exposure they have enjoyed recently has seen them playing not only in many more places in Zimbabwe, but also touring countries such as Canada, the United States, France, Switzerland, Tunisia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya.
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