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Archived News
30th November 2004
Zimbabwe bans seven newspapers and BBC from cricket tour
A country gripped by fear
Mugabe abandons last freedoms
It's back to the drawing board for Mnangagwa
35 soldiers desert Mugabe's special guard
Zanu PF faces split
Mujuru: watch out for Zanu PF tokenism
MDC leaders battle Mugabe's bills
Zimbabwe tour nears collapse
ICC stumped by Mugabe's stunts
War camps and the battle plans
Defiant Cosatu tired of being ANC's 'quiet lapdog'
NGOs get 6-month reprieve
England prepare for flight to Harare with political baggage
New demand might put tour back in doubt
Mugabe blasts Moyo
Old guard still wields the power
Also in Zimbabwe yesterday.
A country where the Big Man rules
Dispute over money casts new shadow over tour
'Obesity tourism' is Mugabe's answer to feeding Zimbabwe
Protest at deportation of Zimbabwe asylum seekers
Zimbabwean children sell their bodies to put food on the table
Moyo's sand castle crumbles
Tensions mount between ANC, Cosatu
Business must raise its head above the parapet
Government lifts ban on food aid distribution
Prison torment of the Zimbabwe farm hero
MP's imprisonment racially motivated, say churches
Mugabe plans laws to silence critics
Zim ups power with new law
Getting shirty
Mugabe purges Zanu PF rebels
NGO de-registration stalls aid for 90,000 kids
Zimbabwe's school crisis
UZ students forced to attend youth militia training
ANC-Cosatu rift widens over 'personal attacks' on Vavi
S. Africa's Tutu bites back in presidential spat
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From The Guardian (UK), 24 November
Zimbabwe bans seven newspapers and BBC from cricket tour
Paul Kelso in Johannesburg
England's ill-starred cricket tour of Zimbabwe was mired in fresh controversy last night after Robert Mugabe's government banned nine media organisations including the BBC from covering the five scheduled matches, due to begin on Friday. Journalists from numerous organisations, including the Guardian, first sought accreditation to cover the tour eight weeks ago, but until yesterday neither the Zimbabwe government, Zimbabwe Cricket nor the England and Wales Cricket Board had been able to give an indication of whether their applications had been successful. Last night Zimbabwe Cricket informed the Sun, Times, Daily Mirror, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Sunday Times and News of the World, as well as representatives of BBC radio and television news, that they had been refused accreditation. The Guardian, Independent, Daily Express, Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, agencies Reuters and the Press Association, GQ magazine, ITN and two photographers from the Getty Images agency are understood to have been granted accreditation, and should be allowed to enter the country this evening when the England squad arrive.
David Morgan, chairman of the ECB, said he did not believe the ban on journalists constituted grounds to cancel the tour and he would attempt to reverse the decision when he arrives in Zimbabwe today. In the face of widespread opposition to the tour going ahead, the ECB has maintained that it would face multi-million pound penalties from the International Cricket Council if the tour were cancelled on anything other than grounds of safety and security, or a clear instruction from the government not to travel. "We are very disappointed by the news, but we will be working with Peter Chingoka, chairman of Zimbabwe Cricket, to have the decision reversed," Mr Morgan said as he prepared to board a flight to Harare. Michael Vaughan, the England captain, condemned the decision. "I think it is totally wrong and I am flabbergasted by the decision. Whatever you think of the media, they have a huge role to play in giving exposure to the game." Mr Chingoka said the matter was out of his hands. "I have no say in accreditation - government officials handle that. I have just passed on my information to the ECB and my dealings are with them."
Ehsan Mani, the ICC president, said the journalists should not blame Zimbabwe Cricket and that difficulties should have been anticipated. "All countries recognised that the media regulations of the Zimbabwean government are different to those imposed in other cricketing countries," said Mr Mani. "[They] accepted the undertaking of Zimbabwe Cricket that it would do everything possible to assist cricket journalists seeking accreditation." Robert Thomson, editor of the Times, said: "It is clear that Mr Mugabe does not like objective reporting. If there were not anything to hide in Zimbabwe, the government would allow in the Times of London." A spokesman for the Foreign Office said: "The UK has long been an advocate of media freedom in Zimbabwe and that applies equally to sports journalism. Our representatives in Harare will be making representations to the Zimbabwe authorities to try and resolve this situation." Richard Bevan of the Professional Cricketers Association said the bar on journalists brought cricket into disrepute. Zimbabwe does not knowingly admit British journalists and this tour was always going to test the regime's commit ment to supporting its cricket union. The BBC has been banned from operating in Zimbabwe for several years, and Mr Mugabe has described the Daily Telegraph as an agent of MI5. Two journalists attempting to cover Australia's tour of Zimbabwe for the Telegraph and the Guardian were refused accreditation and deported earlier this year. Andrew Meldrum, the Guardian's Zimbabwe correspondent, was expelled in May 2003 after his coverage of abuses by the regime.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 24 November
A country gripped by fear
Harare - If England arrive at 7 o'clock tonight at Harare International Airport they will be stepping into a gloomy, fearful Zimbabwe where most people neither know nor care that they are here. The buzz and cheer that preceded their arrival on earlier tours is missing. Few cricket fans are going to turn up to watch the one-day games in Harare and Bulawayo. Protesters have either left Zimbabwe or cannot afford the bus ride to the grounds. Most of those still in the country live in the poverty of the ghettos and will be doing what 90 per cent of Zimbabweans do every day - scavenging to find enough food for their families. At Harare Sports Club a grim task for England will begin on Friday. Against their will, but fulfilling International Cricket Council orders, they will face a young Zimbabwe side. Zimbabwe captain Tatenda Taibu, 21, not only has talent and determination but also the top job in the only solvent sport in the country. He and his colleagues must perform to protect Zimbabwe's Test status ahead of India's tour next year when money from television rights will flood the game with foreign currency. Professional cricket is rich pickings in Zimbabwe, even now, when the game is at its lowest ebb in 50 years.
Harare Sports Club is across the road from the back entrance to President Robert Mugabe's official residence. Locals know not to walk outside the club. Mugabe's guards, pacing up and down clutching automatic weapons, are bad tempered. They arrested a woman last week saying that she failed to stop her car in time as Mugabe's motorcade sped towards his residence. A soldier drew blood when he slapped her in front of her weeping children and she was taken to a police station where her husband had to pay a small fine. Roads near the ground and hotels for visiting journalists and cricketers will be overrun by members of the Central Intelligence Organisation and uniformed policemen. Locals can spot them a mile off, lounging on sofas, loitering at reception and watching entrances to the club and hotel lobbies. There will be roadblocks around the city on Friday morning looking for any potential protester, perhaps wearing an old T-shirt from the World Cup last year. Even then, with deepening repression and political demonstrations banned, there was excitement when the games started. A few dozen people had bought tickets and were enthralled when the new heroes, Zimbabwe cricketers Andy Flower and Henry Olonga, wore black to grieve the "death of democracy". Scores were arrested, some were beaten.
Harare is clean by African standards, its rush hour traffic and pedestrians are orderly, but as the city empties after 5pm, thousands queue quietly for hours to take dilapidated commuter buses to the townships far from the best hotels and the cricket ground. "I'll see a couple of friends in the English team and some from the Zimbabwe side after the game in Bulawayo, but I don't feel like going to watch," said former captain Heath Streak yesterday, still sad that his Zimbabwe career ended last April when he was sacked. Former Zimbabwe captain Alistair Campbell arranged a cricket training session for disadvantaged children to coincide with England's arrival to raise money for the rural school where he teaches. The school, about 35 miles north of Harare, has been seized by the government for "resettlement" but it still functions, watched over by Mugabe's supporters who call themselves "war veterans". The government-controlled Sunday Mail speculated that the 30 foreign journalists seeking permission to cover the tour had more than cricket on their agenda. It wrote: "This training session has been kept a closely guarded secret, a situation that has raised eyebrows amid reports that this may be a ploy to provoke war veterans around that farming area so that whatever will happen will be used as the basis for writing negative stories on Zimbabwe."
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 24 November
Mugabe abandons last freedoms
President Robert Mugabe's regime drove some of the most repressive laws in Zimbabwe's history through parliament last night, hours before the arrival of the English cricket team on its controversial tour of the country. Critics say that one law will cripple human rights groups and allow the regime's abuses to pass unrecorded. Another law will ensure that Mr Mugabe's allies run the parliamentary elections due in March. The regime announced that parliament would sit all night, ensuring that the Non-Governmental Organisations Bill and the Electoral Commission Bill will be available for Mr Mugabe to sign into law today. Both will be ready to come into effect a few hours before the scheduled arrival of the English team in the capital, Harare, tonight. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which has called on the England authorities to boycott Zimbabwe, believes that Mr Mugabe's new laws will remove the country's last vestiges of democratic freedom. Once they come into effect, all charities will be forced to register with a council appointed by the regime. Any deemed to be concerned with "governance issues" will be banned from receiving foreign funding.
The regime has already named 20 organisations, including every human rights group, as targets for this measure. Innocent Gonese, the MDC's chief whip, pointed out that all these groups are entirely dependent on outside funding. Mr Gonese added: "What they are trying to do is effectively prevent non-governmental organisations from reporting on their bad human rights record. Abuses of human rights will go unrecorded.'' The Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum recorded 37 political murders and 18,000 other abuses, ranging from assault and torture to abduction and rape, before polls in 2000. It blamed supporters of Mr Mugabe's Zanu PF Party for more than 90 per cent of all offences. Deprived of foreign funding, they will be unable to do the same for the next elections. The regime accuses human rights group of conspiring with the British Government to overthrow Mr Mugabe. The Herald, an official daily newspaper, yesterday accused them of "destabilising the country and meddling in its internal affairs under the guise of promoting and championing human rights".
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 23 November
It's back to the drawing board for Mnangagwa
Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Zanu PF secretary for administration who only last week expressed his interest to become vice President at the party's forthcoming Congress, is now out of the race after he lost the nomination to Water Resources Minister, Joyce Mujuru. Analysts yesterday said Mnangagwa, the Speaker of Parliament and pre-Congress favourite for the post, will have to go back to the drawing back after only four provinces nominated him, with the rest opting for Mujuru. National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman, Lovemore Madhuku, says while it is difficult to predict with finality what happens in Zanu PF, it appeared Mnangagwa would have to bide his time. "The man has lost the game for now. He has to go back to the drawing board but even then, it appears he is trailing behind his arch-rival John Nkomo in the battle to succeed Mugabe. Mnangagwa was nominated by only four provinces for vice President and Nkomo by six provinces for the post of national chairman. There are long odds Nkomo has more support in the provinces than the Honourable Speaker," Madhuku said.
Zanu PF insiders said before his interview in a local weekly recently, Mnangagwa had used his clout and "money" to win over support in the provinces and he was assured of support in at least seven provinces. "His undoing was President Mugabe's statement that he (Mugabe) was in support of a woman candidate for Vice-President. Even those provinces that had hitherto promised him support were swayed by the President's utterances. In other words, Mnangagwa privately believes Mugabe tampered with the nomination process through his utterances and forced various provinces to opt for Mujuru," said a Zanu PF insider. The Zanu PF insider said Mnangagwa's plight was further worsened by Mugabe's statements in Bulawayo, where he issued a stern warning to party cadres who used money to buy votes ahead of next week 's Congress. "There are crooks in the party who want to get posts at whatever cost. The names will be revealed because they have been using money from white capitalists, some of them who even have links to Britain," Mugabe told his Bulawayo audience.
Insiders say Mugabe's statements were guided by a report from the Central intelligence Organisation linking Mnangawa to "dirty money" and vote buying in the provinces. "Mnangagwa has been accused of dealing in blood diamonds in the Congo and he was mentioned in a United Nations report over those allegations but an even dirtier report was handed over to the President last week alleging vote-buying in the Provinces to sway votes in his favour ahead of the Congress," the Zanu PF insider said. "What is still a surprise, however, is how Chinamasa, a blue-eyed boy of Mnangagwa managed to get nominations from four provinces for the post of national chairman. There was a lot of under-hand dealings and trade-offs by the provinces but the greatest loser in the whole process was the Honourable Speaker," another analyst said. It remains to be seen what happens next, but those familiar with the blood and thunder politics of Zanu PF say it is still too early to rule out Mnangagwa.
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From Zim Online (SA), 24 November
35 soldiers desert Mugabe's special guard
Harare - Thirty-five of President Robert Mugabe's special guard troops have deserted abroad because of worsening economic hardships in Zimbabwe, Zim Online has learnt. The servicemen and women of the Presidential Guard, a crack battalion of the Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA), left their jobs without official leave this month. Some of the deserters are still in hiding inside the country but most have already fled to South Africa, Britain and other countries to join their compatriots living there on menial but better rewarding jobs. Military police and state secret service agents have launched a manhunt for the deserters still in the country who if arrested will be court-martialled and face long terms in the army's notorious detention barracks. A notice at the army's Inkomo barracks just outside Harare, listing the names of the 35 deserters reads: "Arrest on sight. All the persons mentioned must be arrested at once and shall be charged for absconding from duty." Both Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi and army spokesman, Ben Ncube, were said to be too busy to take questions on the matter yesterday.
A deserter, who is still in hiding in Zimbabwe, said: "I will never go back to the presidential guard. We are not treated as human beings, we are paid peanuts and our commanders beat us willy-nilly. There is nowhere to report these abuses." And a former army corporal now working at a London factory, said: "It's hard to survive in Zimbabwe with the salaries we were receiving. I had to flee to Great Britain because senior army officers visited my parents when I deserted. The salaries were pathetic." The ZNA has been hit by a spate of desertions since the beginning of this year as mostly lower ranking troops, struggling like every Zimbabwean to survive a grinding economic crisis gripping the country opt to go abroad to seek better opportunities. To curb desertion, army authorities are understood to be considering seizing passports from all soldiers, releasing them only at the end of their contract or when they are going on authorised trips abroad. The government has also instructed immigration officers to report all serving members of the army travelling out of Zimbabwe. At least 20 soldiers have been arrested at Harare international airport since March this year while attempting to leave the country.
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From The Financial Gazette, 25 November
Zanu PF faces split
Nelson Banya, Njabulo Ncube and Felix Njini
A serious rift has emerged in Zanu PF following the nomination of Joyce Mujuru as the party's vice-president and second secretary at the weekend ahead of Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has long been touted as President Robert Mugabe's heir apparent. Impeccable party sources said following this development, which touched off internal political battling, a section of the ruling party which backed the Zanu PF secretary for administration is agitating for a splinter political group, citing a largely expected purge hinted at by President Mugabe in the aftermath of the controversy-ridden nomination process. They said only the spurned Mnangagwa himself, who has refused to actively support the idea to break off from Zanu PF like former secretary general Edgar Tekere sensationally did with his Zimbabwe Unity Movement in 1989, stood in the way of the plans mooted by his disgruntled lieutenants that include Cabinet ministers who are also non-constituency Members of Parliament. President Mugabe, who under the current Constitution can choose up to 30 non-constituency members, appointed them to Parliament.
Prior to the current discord that has accentuated the internal disputes in the ruling party, President Mugabe had diligently kept the Zanu PF pieces together since the 1987 unity accord with PF Zapu, but his outburst on Monday and his support for a woman candidate has agitated Mnangagwa's camp. President Mugabe, apparently miffed at reports that John Bredenkamp, a controversial international investor rated the United Kingdom's 33rd richest citizen last year, had thrown his weight behind Mnangagwa's campaign in the run-up to Sunday's nominations, was this week in a fighting mood, accusing unnamed party leaders of being divisive. This sources indicated that matters were going to get even dirtier before the Zanu PF congress, which starts next week in the capital. Bredenkamp, who reportedly holds Zimbabwean and Dutch passports, has in the past been linked with the Zanu PF government and was implicated in a United Nations report on the illegal exploitation of natural resources in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The sources said President Mugabe was told of what has come to be known in intelligence circles as the Tsholotsho Declaration - Mnangagwa's endorsement by the key Matabeleland provinces- as well as an alleged $7 billion Bredenkamp largesse to the Mnangagwa campaign. The super-rich tycoon is also reported to have laid out his private jet to Mnangagwa's cause, charges which have been vehemently refuted by Zanu PF insiders aligned to the embattled Speaker of Parliament. While they admitted having used Bredenkamp' s private jet, they instead claimed that they had hired the plane for a mid-week rally in Tsholotsho. President Mugabe said over the weekend that some ruling party supremos eyeing top posts at the December congress were supping with "white capitalists", in apparent veiled reference to party officials who flew to the rally held in Tsholotsho last Thursday aboard the Bredenkamp jet. The rally, attended by ministers Jonathan Moyo and Patrick Chinamasa, among others, was also supposed to be attended by Mnangagwa as guest of honour. The two ministers are said to belong to the Speaker's faction. Mnangagwa however failed to attend the rally because of an emergency Zanu PF politburo meeting convened that day. "Apparently, the President received intelligence to the effect that a jet belonging to John Bredenkamp was used to go to Tsholotsho, and that a ridiculous figure of $7 billion was received from him to buy support from provincial executives ahead of the nominations on Sunday. That, of course, is flawed intelligence driven by people with ulterior motives," he said, adding that the jet had been hired from Bredenkamp.
As tempers continue to run high in the ruling party, it has emerged that, starting tomorrow when President Mugabe descends on Bulawayo, whose Zanu PF provincial leadership defied a politburo directive to nominate a female vice-president, a full-scale purge - which could also claim the scalp of Mnangagwa, among others - would be executed. Results in the Bulawayo and Matabeleland South nominations have been nullified on the grounds that the former province did not heed a politburo directive to nominate a female candidate for the vice-presidency and that a suspended provincial chairman, Lloyd Siyoka, had presided over proceedings at the latter. Both provinces nominated Mnangagwa for the vice-presidency and, in Bulawayo, stalwarts Dumiso Dabengwa and Sikhanyiso Ndlovu failed to secure central committee nominations, to President Mugabe's further angst. Matabeleland North governor Obert Mpofu failed in his bid for a central committee seat. Sources said President Mugabe, who brewed a shocker by openly casting his lot with Mujuru at the expense of Mnangagwa - a trusted lieutenant for decades - has a task on his hands to manage the intricate tribal balance that has always been central to ZANU PF politics, at a time when the emergence of a Zezuru triumvirate in the party's presidium has triggered deep disenchantment.
Like President Mugabe and Mujuru, the other vice-president, Joseph Msika, is a Zezuru who rose to the position by virtue of being the most senior ex-Zapu official after the death of former vice-president Joshua Nkomo. Party sources said President Mugabe, who promised to "expose" some ZANU PF leaders bent on dividing the party, was enraged by voting patterns in provinces such as Bulawayo that showed support for Mnangagwa, in open defiance of not only the politburo edict, but also the President's wish as announced in one of his familiar impromptu addresses at Harare International Airport on Saturday after a trip to Tanzania. The sources said Rugare Gumbo, who lost the Midlands central committee nomination to Joram Gumbo, was being positioned to ultimately become the ruling party's most senior politician in the province.
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Comment from The Daily News Online Edition, 24 November
Mujuru: watch out for Zanu PF tokenism
In the world of affirmative action - gender, sexual orientation, race, colour, creed or height - there is bound to be an element of tokenism. This is the practice of choosing someone for a position, not because they are the best person for the job, but because they belong to the right class to enhance the image of the organisation as a sensitive institution where such matters are concerned. Joyce Mujuru may eventually become one of the two republican vice-presidents, on the strength of her endorsement as Zanu PF's second vice-president. But she and everyone else concerned with gender balance ought not to be under any illusions: she is there more to serve Zanu PF's image problems than for anything else. Mujuru, is the wife of the former Zanla second-in-command and former commander of the national army, Solomon Mujuru, a Zanu PF stalwart. In many ways she is what some might call "one of the boys". She has served the party faithfully, both as a party activist and as a government minister.
She is no raging feminist. At various times in her career, she was entrusted with the onerous task of heading a ministry dedicated to women's affairs. Many gender activists hoped at the time she would champion their cause. She didn't, skirting that dangerous zone with the standard excuse that men needed women as much as women needed men. Mujuru is a team player and has never caused any waves in the party, except for the wrong reason: insulting the late Joshua Nkomo publicly by describing him as "senile" over the granting of a licence to Econet Wireless. If she was rebuked for that remarkable lapse in party protocol, not many can remember the occasion or her exact words. The fact that Nkomo triumphed, in the end, is neither here nor there. What is probably of political significance is that Joyce Mujuru showed she had impeccably enduring political credentials. If there are any women out there who sincerely believe that Mujuru will campaign vigorously for a Zanu PF or government shift in gender matters, then we urge them to read the small print. Zanu PF is a male chauvinist party, apart from being one of the many parties in Africa which pay only lip service to democracy and the practice of multiparty politics. Joyce Mujuru's elevation is a victory for Zanu PF women, not for the women of Zimbabwe. There is a difference, as there is in tokenism and the genuine practice of affirmative action.
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From Reuters, 24 November
MDC leaders battle Mugabe's bills
By Cris Chinaka
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition has mounted a last-ditch effort to block controversial new bills banning foreign funding of rights groups and introducing electoral reforms which it says still favour the ruling party. Political analysts say the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has virtually no chance of scuttling the bills, with President Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party determined to use its nearly two-thirds majority in parliament to ram home laws meant to consolidate its 24-year-old hold on power. The MDC has nevertheless pulled out all the stops to try to derail the new laws, using a marathon parliamentary debate that lasted 14 hours into Wednesday seeking amendments to water down their more controversial provisions. In an attack led by MDC legal secretary David Coltart, MDC MPs said the two bills - tabled several months ago and expected to win approval within the next two weeks - had further damaged the reputation of Mugabe's government. The government has been in the spotlight since Mugabe's re-election in a 2002 poll the MDC and some key Western observers say was rigged, and Zanu-PF's equally controversial victory in parliamentary elections four years ago.
During a debate on proposed electoral reforms, Coltart said the government would never win international legitimacy if it continued to run elections - including next March's parliamentary poll - with rules designed in its favour. "This government is set on establishing a partisan electoral commission for its own use but I don't think anybody will be deceived about what this is," Coltart said. "The thing that gives any government legitimacy is a free and fair election and a free and fair election can only be run by a truly independent commission," he added. The Zanu-PF majority rejected MDC proposals that an independent electoral body proposed by the government be appointed solely by an inclusive parliamentary committee without being vetted by the president. The ruling party also rejected calls to drop a bill banning non-governmental organisations concentrating on human rights and governance issues from taking foreign funding - a step which could shut many of them down. The government says the NGO bill is meant to remove unwarranted interference in Zimbabwe's domestic affairs. "We are a country under sanctions. We are a country subject to a lot of interference from foreign powers and we cannot have a laws legitimising interference in our domestic affairs," Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa said. Chinamasa also said there were enough safeguards in the law to ensure the electoral commission was not biased.
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From The Guardian (UK), 25 November
Zimbabwe tour nears collapse
Paul Kelso in Johannesburg
England's tour to Zimbabwe was on the brink of cancellation last night after David Morgan, the chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, instructed Michael Vaughan's team not to board a flight to Harare an hour before it was scheduled to leave Johannesburg. The decision in effect ends England's prospects of playing cricket in Zimbabwe while Robert Mugabe remains president, and comes as a direct result of the England players' opposition to the tour. It is also an indication that the International Cricket Council is at last losing patience with the authorities in Harare. Anxiety about the tour, which was due to begin tomorrow, has been rising among the players since Tuesday evening, when the Zimbabwe government announced that 13 of the 36 British journalists who had applied to cover the tour had been refused accreditation on political grounds. Vaughan's squad only agreed to fulfil the five scheduled one-day fixtures in Harare and Bulawayo after Mr Morgan convinced them that the penalties for withdrawal could bankrupt the English game. The ban on nine media organisations, including the BBC, served both to increase the anxiety among squad members and give them the excuse they needed to push for cancellation.
As was the case 21 months ago when England withdrew from a World Cup fixture in Harare at 24 hours' notice, cricket's administrators have been unable to persuade English players that Mr Mugabe's Zimbabwe is an appropriate place to play the game. The official position last night was that the tour will proceed, and as baggage handlers rushed to remove the squad's luggage from the plane - all 78 pieces - the players were booked into a hotel near the airport, where they will await a final decision on the tour. Mr Morgan remained in Harare to continue his attempts to have the media ban overturned, but given the intransigence of the regime on the one hand and the players on the other, the reality is that his chances of resurrecting the tour are slim to non-existent. The ECB is seeking clarification from the ICC as to whether, under the terms of the Future Tours Programme that underpins the international calendar, the decision to bar journalists constitutes grounds for cancellation. The indications last night were that while the media bar may not be sufficient, the ECB is unlikely to be harshly penalised.
The Zimbabwe government yesterday confirmed that the barred media organisations had been chosen because they were considered "political", while those that were to be admitted, including the Guardian, were not. "Bona fide media organisations in the UK have been cleared, those that are political have not," said George Charamba, secretary for the Zimbabwean information ministry. "This is a game of cricket, not politics. Those that want to bowl us out of politics will have to do so in the political arena." The British government yesterday obliged when the Foreign Office minister Denis MacShane summoned the Zimbabwean chargé d'affaires "to express our deep concern that the government of Zimbabwe has denied access to British journalists covering the tour". As the players arrived yesterday at Jan Smuts Airport from Namibia, where they had played two warm-up matches, questions about whether they would be flying to Harare were met with a weary shrug of the shoulders. The long faces of the 14-man squad spoke of the depth of unease, however - opposition that became plain at an hour-long meeting in the first-class lounge with their union representative, Richard Bevan, of the Professional Cricketers' Association, and coach Duncan Fletcher.
Their opposition was plain, and relief came when Mr Morgan called from Harare to tell them that they should not travel. Mr Bevan stressed that Mr Morgan had made the final decision. It is clear, however, that the chairman would have been unlikely to win a showdown. "To be frank we were discussing issues that we have been discussing for days when a call came in from David Morgan, so obviously David Morgan has had some discussion with various authorities, maybe the International Cricket Council, and David Morgan has made the decision," Mr Bevan said. "The player's feelings are no different than they always have been. A political statement has been made by the Zimbabwe government regarding media accreditation and we have a number of concerns. Our concerns have been in place for 18 months. They are moral, political, contractual. But the ECB are in control of the situation, they're the employers, and that's where we are: we're not getting on the plane." Mr Morgan's decision to instruct the players to stay in South Africa while he continued to lobby in Harare indicates that the ICC's indulgence of Zimbabwe may be at an end, as he is uncomfortable with taking bold decisions without the tacit approval of his international peers.
In the build-up to this tour Mr Morgan had stressed that the ICC would levy swingeing penalties on England for undermining the game's international calendar. He effectively staked his reputation on ensuring the tour took place, assuring his ICC colleagues that there would be no repeat of the World Cup shambles. That fiasco led the ICC to change its regulations despite the opposition of the ECB, making it an offence punishable by suspension from world cricket for a governing body to withdraw from an overseas tour except in specific circumstances. Only safety and security or a clear government instruction are "acceptable grounds for non-compliance" without penalty, neither of which, according to the ECB's lawyers, applied to Zimbabwe. Yesterday, however, the ICC president, Eshan Mani, indicated there was sympathy for the ECB's position. "I'm very concerned and very disappointed. We are trying very hard to have this decision reversed," he said. "There would be a huge amount of sympathy after the way this matter has been handled by the government of Zimbabwe."
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From The Times (UK), 25 November
ICC stumped by Mugabe's stunts
By Owen Slot, Chief Sports Reporter
The finer details of how Zimbabwe Cricket has once again outflanked the ICC were carefully put in place in two meetings of the ICC executive board during the summer. The first was in London in June. There, on the agenda, was this very issue: media protocol. And the main reason it was on the agenda was because sports journalists had been denied access to Zimbabwe during recent cricket tours. So it is not as if no one had seen this coming. In London, it was agreed that a set of standards for the sports media should be put in place and that press accreditation should be guaranteed. Maxhood Ebrahim, the Zimbabwe representative at the meeting, one of the two most pro-Zanu PF hardliners in Zimbawe Cricket, then asked for an exception to be made for Zimbabwe. His point was that because of the Zimbabwe Government's strict immigration controls, accreditation only followed the issue of a visa and this was a situation Zimbabwe Cricket was powerless to alter.
The rest of the executive were understanding to Ebrahim but made two requests. The first was that Zimbabwe Cricket should do its utmost to put an effective system in place. The second was more concrete, a request that, before tours, foreign journalists should have accreditation requests accepted or, in the worst-case scenario, rejected 30 days in advance. This issue was followed up when the executive next convened, in Monaco in September. Ebrahim was asked if his diplomacy had softened the situation and, more particularly, whether the 30-day window was in place. He replied that nothing had been done because Zimbabwe Cricket had looked at how its system worked and decided that no changes were required. At that stage, the executive conceded ground. They took Ebrahim at his word and moved on to the next item on the agenda. And so Zimbabwe retained carte blanche. And so, a day before the first England-Zimbabwe one-day international in Harare, Zimbabwe Cricket has again forced the ECB and the England players into the invidious position where they are forced to choose their own path unilaterally. David Morgan, the ECB chairman, has said that it is "embarrassing".
"How can he say it's embarrassing now," Stuart Carlisle, a former Zimbabwe captain and one of the 15 rebels recently cast adrift by Zimbabwe Cricket, said, "when it's been going on for 18 months?" One of those for whom this chapter still retained an element of surprise was Fidelis Mashu, the Zimbabwean shadow sports minister, who told The Times: "Because Robert Mugabe is the patron of Zimbabwe cricket, I expected him to welcome everyone here as a sign of international credibility. But, according to him, everything that comes from Britain is evil and to be abhorred. He can do anything he wants and he will take action to stop anything he suspects might undermine his authority." Appearance and reality are poles apart in Zimbabwean sport. In Athens in August, Zimbabwe enjoyed its greatest individual Olympic success thanks to the (white) swimmer, Kirsty Coventry. Her two gold, and silver and bronze medals were hailed by Mugabe as a product of the Zimbabwean sporting system (she had been training abroad for two years), and instead of returning to the United States as planned, she was rushed back to Harare for photographs with Mugabe and for all to admire. In Athens, however, her image had been carefully controlled by Lovemore Banda, the same Zimbabwean press chief who works for Zimbabwe Cricket, who, unknown to Coventry, turned away a number of interview requests from media who might have taken an anti-Mugabe line.
The spin here is so blatant that the former ZCU has just invested a large amount sum of money in an image makeover. It dropped the "U", renamed itself Zimbabwe Cricket, and, complete with a new logo, hey presto, all its former sins are forgotten. Yet the manner in which the Zimbabwe Cricket has bent the ICC to its own will in this issue is reminiscent of another situation only nine weeks ago. That was when the ICC called an inquiry to investigate claims made by Carlisle and the 14 other rebels that Zimbabwe Cricket espoused a racially motivated selection policy. At the inquiry, Ebrahim and Ozias Bvute (the other leading Zimbabwe Cricket hardliner) insisted on sitting in to hear the players give their evidence and they refused to leave despite the request of the two judges. Thus intimidated, the players buckled, failed to give their full evidence and lost their case. Again, Zimbabwe Cricket had not been compliant with the ICC's requests, and again, the ICC sat back and did nothing. Zimbabwe victories are all too rare in cricket. On the political stage, however, they seem to be world champions.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 26 November
War camps and the battle plans
Dumisani Muleya
The ruling Zanu PF's leadership nomination process ahead of next week's congress has run its dramatic course and produced an outcome which has changed the plot of President Robert Mugabe's heated succession race. The selection of Mugabe, Joseph Msika, Joyce Mujuru and John Nkomo to occupy the party's top four elected positions came against a background of vicious wrangling among the party's political gladiators grouped in two camps. Zanu PF insiders say the groups, one led by the party secretary for administration Emmerson Mnangagwa and the other by politburo big shot, Retired General Solomon Mujuru, were locked in a power struggle to secure nomination of their candidates. The political combat was characterised by behind-the-scenes manoeuvres, backbiting and sometimes open bickering. The sources say the infighting manifested itself in the form of tussles over land, clashes in the media, at meetings and in parliament. The squabbling left Zanu PF deeply divided into warring political factions. Although membership of the camps overlapped, there were movers and shakers on both sides. Mnangagwa's group - coalesced around the so-called South-South Coalition which encompassed Midlands, Matabeleland, Masvingo and Manicaland - included Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs Patrick Chinamasa, information and publicity deputy secretary Jonathan Moyo, and senior party members such as July Moyo and Shuvai Mahofa. Insiders say the camp's masterplan had an ethnic arrangement from the current Zanu PF Unity Accord structure. It placed Mugabe on top to represent Zezurus, Women's League chairperson Thenjiwe Lesabe to represent Ndebeles, Mnangagwa Karangas and Chinamasa Manyikas. Lesabe was understood to have been dragged in.
Masvingo governor Josiah Hungwe, Agriculture minister Joseph Made, Transport minister Chris Mushowe and his deputy Andrew Langa, Foreign Affairs deputy minister Abednico Ncube and Minister of State in the Vice-President's Office Flora Bhuka were part of this camp. Zanu PF MPs Jorum Gumbo, Pearson Mbalekwa and Kindness Paradza, among many others, were also in the group. War veterans chairman Jabulani Sibanda, his deputy Joseph Chinotimba, and Bulawayo war veterans chairman Themba Ncube were included. Former Matabeleland North provincial medical director Dr Ruth Labode, who is close to Jonathan Moyo, was also linked to the group. The camp managed to draw into its fold six Zanu PF provincial executive council chairmen: Themba Ncube (Bulawayo), Jacob Mudenda (Matabeleland North), Mike Madiro (Manicaland), Lloyd Siyoka (Matabeleland South) and Daniel Shumba (Masvingo). However, Mudenda's and Madiro's provinces defected to the Mujuru camp at the eleventh hour to deliver the final blow against Mnangagwa who eventually lost to Joyce Mujuru in the race for the vice-president's post left vacant after the death of Simon Muzenda last year. General Mujuru's grouping comprised a number of political heavyweights such as Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi, politburo bigwigs Dumiso Dabengwa and Josiah Tungamirai, State Security minister Nicholas Goche, party commissar Elliot Manyika and nearly all other provincial governors. It also had sympathisers in the form of Msika, Nkomo, Home Affairs minister Kembo Mohadi, Zanu PF deputy national commissar Sikhanyiso Ndlovu and virtually all other former PF Zapu stalwarts. Zanu PF spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira was also seen as generally associated with it. The group commanded the support of Zanu PF chairmen in Mashonaland East (Ray Kaukonde), Mashonaland Central (Chen Chimutengwende), Mashonaland West (Philip Chiyangwa) and Harare (Amos Midzi) although Chiyangwa was seen as a Mnangagwa backer.
Mugabe remained neutral and above the fray as the cliques wrestled for power. His intervention only came after the politburo decided last Thursday at an emergency meeting that one of the two vice-presidents would have to be a woman. He only intervened decisively on the side of women who supported Joyce Mujuru a day before the nominations. Mugabe took a firm stand this week in a bid to suppress rising dissent and factionalism stemming from the process. In a thinly-veiled attack on senior party officials, Mugabe threatened to deal with sulking top members involved in acts of destabilisation. He said he would deal with "divisive elements" in the upper ranks of his deeply split party. He also said he would crackdown on "greedy" officials, "crooks" and "cunning knaves" bribing voters and those who wanted to "grab bread from other people's mouths". Both camps used a variety of means, including "donations" and alignment with the media, to win votes. Donations in cash and kind seem to have angered Mugabe this week who accused his officials of using money, including some sourced from "white imperialists" with British connections, to bribe voters. Mnangagwa's camp last Thursday descended on Dinyane Secondary School in Tsholotsho, Matabeleland North, for a prize-giving ceremony, which sources said was a strategic meeting. Mnangagwa was supposed to be the guest of honour. Moyo was also supposed to attend. However, Mnangagwa and Moyo failed to attend due to the emergency politburo meeting in Harare. Chinamasa was despatched to officiate. He urged people in Tsholotsho to vote for Moyo in the forthcoming Zanu PF primary elections.
Six Zanu PF chairmen, ministers, deputy ministers, MPs, a governor, war veterans and party functionaries attended the ceremony where there was a cascade of donations. Mnangagwa led by example when he donated, in absentia, $10 million to buy computers for the computer laboratory, Langa donated $5 million, Shumba gave two computers to the school, while Abedinigo Ncube and Hungwe donated 100 bags of cement each for the construction of a classroom block. Labode donated shelving material and Bulawayo businessman Delma Lupepe donated $5 million. Mudenda donated a water pump and Bhuka a television set. Some made pledges. Mnangagwa's camp two weeks ago organised a similar prize-giving ceremony at Ntalale Secondary School in Gwanda where Siyoka declared his executive would not support Mujuru. He got suspended for it after members of the Mujuru camp in the province reacted angrily. That reaction, coupled with a botched interview with a local weekly which angered a lot of people, apparently triggered a chain of events which led to Mnangagwa's downfall.
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From The Star (SA), 26 November
Defiant Cosatu tired of being ANC's 'quiet lapdog'
By Moshoeshoe Monare
Cosatu is tired of being used as the ANC's election machinery and intends defying the government by blockading the Zimbabwean borders and sending another fact-finding team to Harare. This was stated in Johannesburg yesterday by Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi. In what sounded like a threat to the tripartite alliance, Vavi said it was about time to break the 10-year cycle of a frustrating relationship with the ANC. "The cycle is that we in the alliance get very close six months before the elections; we campaign very vigorously together. At that time, the mood changes (becomes comradely) ... But then, after the elections, six months down the line, the reality of how and what each of us expect from the alliance begins to haunt us," Vavi said. The fragility of the alliance was discussed at length at Cosatu's two-day central executive committee meeting that ended on Wednesday. Vavi said there were ANC leaders who believed the role of Cosatu and other alliance partners was to mobilise for elections, help draft the manifesto, support government programmes and sing ministers' praises. "That cycle has to be broken ... the alliance can't be reduced to an elections machinery. We have been doing that in the past 10 years ...We can't be managed in between the elections and with an attempt to silence us from making political observations," Vavi said. The spat will dominate the alliance summit, likely to be held next year, which has been postponed several times due to what Vavi described as a lack of commitment by the leaders. "The question that arises is where are the other leaders of the alliance when, seven months down the line, (we don't) have a summit?"
Vavi said one of the examples of how the ANC-led government was ignoring Cosatu was on the Zimbabwe issue: "How could a strategic partner of the government not know what (the government) is doing in Zimbabwe?" Vavi said the acid test for President Thabo Mbeki's quiet diplomacy would be next year's Zimbabwean poll: "Will (quiet diplomacy) deliver free and fair elections that are in line with the SADC protocol?" Cosatu still believes its 13-member fact-finding mission, which was booted out of Harare this month, was justified. Vavi and the union's president, Willie Madisha, plan to return to Harare in January. The ANC, the government and the ANC Youth League lashed out at Cosatu's fact-finding team, and Vavi said the attack was meant to silence Cosatu. "The message was very clear to Cosatu: 'Keep quiet, move out of politics, be a quiet lapdog ... We will refuse to do that," he said. Vavi said Cosatu would mobilise Southern African unions in the next few weeks to march to Zimbabwean high commissions in their respective countries and blockade their borders with Zimbabwe. ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe and spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama were not available for comment.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 26 November
NGOs get 6-month reprieve
Godfrey Marawanyika
The government has given Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) a six-month grace period to regularise their operations once the controversial NGOs Bill is passed by parliament. The latest development comes amid claims in the NGO sector that government has targeted 15 organisations for closure. The NGOs reportedly on government's hit list include the Zimbabwe Civil Education Trust, Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Combined Harare Residents Association, Crisis in Zimbabwe, Humanistic Institute of Development Co-operation with Developing Countries, National Constitutional Assembly, Media Institute of Southern Africa, Zimbabwe Liberators Platform, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, Amani Trust, Zimbabwe NGO Human Rights Forum, Bulawayo Agenda and Women of Zimbabwe Arise. Government has however dismissed the allegations that its Bill on the registration, regulation and funding of NGOs is target-specific. Public Service and Social Welfare minister Paul Mangwana said although the Bill was silent on the period NGOs should take to align their operations with the law, those that were operating legally would be given time to adjust to the new legislation. "Organisations that were already legally operating under the Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Act or as registered trusts have got six months to regularise their operations. That list (of 15 NGOs targeted) is not true because that is just speculation," he said. "We are not targeting anybody. If those organisations by their virtue deal with human rights organisations, they fall under this category but they are not targeted at all," Mangwana said.
The proposed legislation will repeal the PVO Act and seeks to make it illegal for NGOs involved in issues of governance, such as voter education, to receive foreign funding. The Bill will also outlaw the registration of foreign NGOs whose "sole or principal objects involve or include issues of governance". The proposed law will have a huge bearing on the ability of affected NGOs to operate since most of them are foreign-funded, analysts complain. This includes the critical area of food distribution. Director of the National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (Nango) Jonah Mudehwe said he was aware the government was targeting particular institutions but would not name them. "The minister has been very open that there are some NGOs which are targeted, particularly those involved in issues of governance and human rights. Unfortunately I cannot say anything on that particular list," Mudehwe said. On Wednesday, legislators referred the NGOs Bill to the Parliamentary Legal Committee for assessment after MDC MPs objected to some of its causes.
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From The Times (UK), 26 November
England prepare for flight to Harare with political baggage
From Richard Hobson, One-day Cricket Correspondent, in Johannesburg
England are to fly to Zimbabwe this morning after the players agreed last night to put aside their concerns and fulfil the one-day series. Their decision followed talks lasting more than an hour with John Carr, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) director of cricket operations, who had flown from Harare to convince them to travel. The ECB had been taken by surprise in the morning when the Zimbabwe Government reversed its decision to ban nine news organisations, including The Times, from entering the country to cover the five matches. This meant that it could no longer pull out of the trip without the possibility of a fine and suspension. David Morgan, the ECB chairman, confirmed at around 1pm that the tour would proceed, but Duncan Fletcher, the coach, has asked for the first game, due to take place today, not to be rescheduled. Zimbabwe Cricket has requested that it should now be played tomorrow, but England will be reluctant to take the field less than 24 hours after their arrival. Players had become increasingly nervous and unhappy after the political decision taken by the Mugabe regime on Tuesday to deny access to some of the press. They asked to stay in Johannesburg on Wednesday night before Morgan instructed them to stay put and they anticipated flying home either last night or this evening, with the Zimbabwe Government seemingly entrenched.
When Andrew Walpole, the press officer with the squad, announced that the party had been booked on to flights leaving Johannesburg at 10.30 this morning, Carr was still to arrive at the Emperor Hotel, a couple of miles from the airport, to address their worries. He arrived at around 3.30pm and immediately began speaking to team management before the meeting with players at around 5pm. The squad broke up looking drawn and wandered around the hotel lobby clutching a piece of ECB-headed notepaper. Their refusal to comment prompted speculation that they might have refused to travel. The notepaper, however, turned out to be nothing more than the dress code for today's flight. Richard Bevan, chief executive of the Professional Cricketers' Association, was also at the meeting and it was not until 8pm that he and Carr jointly addressed a press conference. Ultimately, it seemed that the events of the previous two days had never happened as they repeated the mantra that the ECB had no option but to agree to the series. Concerns centred on the safety and security of the press as well as the players, and the possibility of demonstrations at the matches. Carr and Bevan left the meeting of players on three occasions to make check calls with the security team who will accompany the squad in Zimbabwe, the British Ambassador and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London.
Bevan said: "It is naive to say that sport and politics do not mix, but you are able to draw a line in the sand and say you should not cross that particular line. Certainly to use players as political pawns is unacceptable. "The players have sent a powerful message to the Zimbabwe Government and world supporters of cricket by refusing to accept that initial position." Public opinion remains strongly against the trip and Morgan probably missed an opportunity to withdraw on Wednesday evening when there was no indication that Zimbabwe's Ministry of Information and Publicity would climb down. At that point the ICC was sympathetic to the possibility that England would pull out. Carr claimed that the ECB had taken the groundswell of opposition back home into account in deciding to travel. "Goodwill of the British public has to be a factor," he said. "The British public might have got bored with the issue over the past few months but ultimately they have to understand what is at risk." Morgan, Bevan and Carr will travel with the players for the duration of the trip, with Bevan saying that any breaches of the assurances provided on his recent visit to assess safety and security would be taken "extremely seriously". However, Carr admitted that no 100 per cent guarantee could be given despite verbal assurances from Zimbabwe.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 25 November
New demand might put tour back in doubt
By Mihir Bose
England's tour of Zimbabwe could be back in the melting pot when the 13 cricket journalists originally denied a visa fly in with the team this morning. At Harare airport they may be asked to sign a document saying they will not report anything other than cricket and last night The Daily Telegraph made it clear that their cricket correspondent, Derek Pringle, who was one of the banned group, would not sign any such document. Other media organisations are expected to take a similar stance and this could put the tour back in jeopardy. Yesterday David Morgan, chairman of the England and Wales Cricket Board, who has been in Harare tirelessly trying to get the ban lifted, said: "A Telegraph feature writer with no association with cricket would not have got accreditation and I could not have complained. "What is clear is that the journalists are either cricket or general sport journalists and they have to abide by the laws of the country."
Morgan also explained that yesterday, before the Zimbabwean government changed their mind, the ECB had to clarify the status of certain BBC journalists and get late accreditation for three Sky Sports journalists. It was only after this that Morgan received word, at 10am London time yesterday, that the ban had been lifted. He then telephoned the news to John Carr, ECB cricket director, who was about to board a plane to Johannesburg to meet the England players. Morgan revealed to me how yesterday morning he faced a "deafening silence" from the Zimbabwean authorities. For nearly three hours Morgan fretted before getting the first encouraging phone call from Peter Chingoka, the president of Zimbabwe Cricket. The Daily Telegraph can reveal that this came about as a result of pressure applied by the International Cricket Council on the ZCU. Morgan also believes pressure from the Foreign Office was crucial. The ICC pointed out that, should England pull out, no financial penalties would be imposed on them, and Zimbabwe's future as an international cricket country could be in doubt.
After this crisis broke on Monday afternoon two intense series of meetings and phone calls took place, one in Harare, the other in London. In Harare, Morgan met a series of people, including Zimbabwean government officials. It was over lunch on Tuesday at the Harare cricket ground, where England will play, that Morgan received a call to go immediately to the British High Commission. In London, British Foreign Office minister Dr Dennis McShane called in the Zimbabwean acting High Commissioner and told him the journalists must be allowed in. The Foreign Office also instructed British diplomats to do everything they could to put pressure on Zimbabwean government officials to let in the journalists. Meanwhile, from London, Ehsan Mani, president of the ICC, was speaking on the telephone with other Test-playing countries. In recent years there has not been much sympathy for England over Zimbabwe but now the consensus view, even from the Asian countries, was that England should not face any financial penalty.
Morgan himself spoke to a few countries and, confident he could escape any financial penalty, he told the England cricketers to stay in Johannesburg on Wednesday night. "I took the decision to keep the players in South Africa to increase the leverage on the Zimbabwean government," Morgan said. "Without the accreditation of the 13 banned journalists, or a high proportion of them, and satisfactory explanations for not allowing them in, the tour would not go ahead." On Wednesday night it seemed the Zimbabwean government attitude was stiffening. But after a meeting between Chingoka and a high level minister close to Robert Mugabe, the ban was described as an administrative cock-up.
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From The Daily Mirror, 27 November
Mugabe blasts Moyo
Six provincial chairmen to be disciplined
From Pamenus Tuso in Bulawayo
President Robert Mugabe yesterday vowed to deal severely with Minister of Professor Jonathan Moyo, and six provincial chairpersons who attended a function Moyo organised in Tsholotsho about a fortnight ago, allegedly to scuttle the nomination of Water Resources and Infrastructural Development Minister Joyce Mujuru as one of Zanu PF's two vice presidents. Speaking at a "no holds barred" meeting at Elangeni Government Training Centre in Bulawayo to iron out differences in the party in Matabeleland, an irate Mugabe said he did not have kind words for Moyo, Minister of State for Information and Publicity in his office, and the six provincial chairpersons who attended the meeting. "Six provincial chairpersons, including the organisers are guilty of holding an unsanctioned party meeting. The name Tsholotsho has become good and evil. At first we thought the professor was getting the resources, wherever they come from, to improve the area, but what is now frightening us now is this thrust to defy the party."
Three of the troubled provincial chairpersons - Jacob Mudenda (Matabeleland North), Themba Ncube (Bulawayo) and suspended Matabeleland South's Lloyd Siyoka - had a torrid time answering the President, who asked them one by one why they had attended Moyo's function. "Were you invited in your personal capacities or as party chairpersons? This was an illegal meeting which we as a party did not sanction," said Mugabe. When asked who had invited him, Mudenda said he had been invited by the professor, to which Mugabe sought clarification: "Which professor? We have so many professors in the country." An unsettled Mudenda replied that he was referring to Moyo. Provincial leaders from Masvingo, Midlands and Manicaland and at least one provincial governor from outside the province (name given) also attended the Tsholotsho function, to which the Speaker of Parliament, Emmerson Mnangagwa had also been invited but failed to attend. The six were allegedly backing Mnangagwa and women's league boss Thenjiwe Lesabe for the two vice-presidents' posts, and Patrick Chinamasa for the position party national chairman. Despite the alleged machinations, Mujuru was nominated to vice-president.
Mugabe asked Mnangagwa whether he was behind the plot against Mujuru. "I was only invited by the professor to officiate in Tsholotsho. What surprised me is that the man has been lambasting me in the press, but all of a sudden he decided to invite me," Mnangagwa said. Mnangagwa alleged that Moyo had hired a plane to take a delegation including Chinamasa, himself and Transport and Communications Minister Chris Mushohwe to Tsholotsho. However, Mushohwe had failed to travel and gave Mnangagwa $10 million to donate to Inyane School, Tsholotsho. However, following the calling of an emergency Politburo meeting, Mnangagwa had failed to travel. "I received a call from the President saying that there was an urgent meeting I was supposed to attend," he said. The meeting was to discuss, among other things, that people were demanding a secret ballot for the nomination for the Presidency; women representation; and that they did not want the provincial executives to vote. "I phoned the professor and told him that 'you are also wanted at the meeting'." However, Moyo was already on his way to Tsholotsho.
Earlier in the morning, rival party factions had traded insults as they waited for Mugabe to arrive at the Joshua Mqabuko Nkomo International Airport. One faction sympathised with former Zipra intelligence chief and former Cabinet minister Dumiso Dabengwa and the other by Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association leader (ZNLWVA), Jabulani Sibanda. The Dabengwa camp, which was apparently in charge of proceedings at the airport, broke into song and dance as soon at Mugabe's plane touched down, denouncing the Sibanda faction and supporting Mujuru's nomination to the vice presidency. Prior to holding the party meeting, the President capped 648 graduates at the National University of Science and Technology.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 26 November
Old guard still wields the power
Godwin Gandu and Netsai Mlilo
The Zanu PF old guard has awoken from its slumber ahead of the party's crucial congress in Harare next week and achieved what many world leaders, including President Thabo Mbeki, have been unable to do: summons President Robert Mugabe and get him to act on their advice. Surrounded by trusted former liberation war fighters - General Solomon Mujuru, former PF Zapu stalwarts and party vice-presidents Joseph Msika and John Nkomo - Mugabe relented and endorsed their candidate for the one vacant vice-presidential post. This has seen Joyce Mujuru, of the Women's League, take pole position as Mugabe's likely successor. The old guard is determined to wrest authority from "the Mafikizolos", the term used to describe the Young Turks led by Information Minister Jonathan Moyo and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa. The older generation fears that they are destroying Zanu PF's legacy as a successful post-colonial government and leading the party into a cul de sac. Mugabe, who has been in power since independence in 1980, indicated earlier this year that he will depart the political stage in 2008, sparking intense jostling within Zanu PF for leadership of the party that will create a launching pad for ascendancy to the position of president. The succession battle is turning out to be a fight for the heart and soul of Zanu PF and has consolidated into two camps: Speaker of Parliament and Zanu PF secretary for administration Emmerson Mnangagwa - for long believed to be Mugabe's anointed successor - and Women's League candidate Joyce Mujuru, the wife of one of Mugabe's closest confidants. It was General Mujuru who vouched for the president among soldiers in the camps who knew little about him when he was released from a Rhodesian jail in 1975. The general also introduced Mugabe to African statesman Julius Nyerere, who had close ties with Joshua Nkomo and his PF Zapu.
The Mujuru camp has the support of the security and intelligence structures. They've also roped in Mashonaland central powerbrokers, Intelligence Minister Nicholas Goche and Minister without Portfolio Elliot Manyika, as well as party heavyweights information chief Nathan Shamuyarira and Enos Chikowore. President Mugabe's Zezuru rank and file clique and the Women's and Youth Leagues are also in their fold. The Mujuru camp despises the Young Turks who have thrown their weight behind Mnangagwa on the promise of landing the party chair and secretary for administration posts respectively.The old guard wants to cement the Zanu/Zapu merger and has nominated John Nkomo to retain the party chair. This strikes a conciliatory tone with the Ndebele tribe who suffered 30 000 deaths during the Matabeleland strife in the 1980s - atrocities repeatedly linked to Mnangagwa. Until last week Mnangagwa was a sure bet, having garnered the support of six of the 10 regions. Political analyst John Makumbe said Mugabe was angered by "allegations that some European Union countries - including Britain, who imposed sanctions on Mugabe and 94 of his lieutenants - recently had contact with Mnangagwa as his heir apparent". An agitated Mugabe at the weekend warned: "There are politicians who used money to sway party members to vote for them last weekend when provincial structures nominated . the presidium." Mugabe said the money, estimated at R11-million, came from imperialists, "white capitalists". This severely dented Mnangagwa' s ambitions. The succession battle has also provided Mugabe with a way out of this dilemma. "He approached it from a gender perspective to neutralise ethnic tensions in the party," said academic Brian Raftopolous. "As always, Mugabe is playing to the regional gallery. This has been his strategy for years." Analysts have for long said that Zimbabwe's road out of its current political crisis lies in contesting power within Zanu-PF.
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) spokesperson Paul Themba Nyathi is of the view that "The old guard, for all its intolerance, has a history of co-existing with opposition parties. Unlike the Young Turks who want to redesign the political landscape in accordance with their own vision and image, the old Zanu/Zapu guard talked and came to a negotiated agreement after a protracted, bitter war. They also negotiated at Lancaster House, an experience the Young Turks don't have." The MDC's veiled endorsement of the old guard is likely to please Mbeki, who has not made much headway with his quiet diplomacy approach. Makumbe believes "Mbeki's approach will find favour with the old guard with whom he shares a struggle history. The Mafikizolos must have made him very nervous with their radical and disruptive nature." Zanu PF insiders say a Cabinet reshuffle is on the cards after the elections in March in which the intellectual wing aligned to Mnangagwa - Moyo, Chinamasa, Foreign Minister Stan Mudenge and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made - could get the chop. But Makumbe has warned that Mnangagwa must not be viewed as down but not out. "He is going to fight. This might be the beginning of internal power struggles and eliminations characterised by stage-managed accidents and poisonings. These guys are ruthless and it's open season now." The in-fighting will culminate at the congress in December where Mugabe will be elected unopposed as president. It 's been a frenetic week for Zanu PF. On Mugabe's orders, Parliament remained in session until 3.15am on Wednesday for the second reading of a Bill to outlaw all foreign-funded human rights organisations and give the government the power to shut down any other NGO.
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From The Guardian (UK), 27 November
Also in Zimbabwe yesterday.
Andrew Meldrum
The jailed opposition member of parliament Roy Bennett, below, was moved from Harare's central prison to cells in the remote area of Mutoko, according to his wife, prompting renewed protests that he is being unfairly imprisoned and singled out for degrading treatment. Fluent in Shona and with an earthy sense of humour, the burly Bennett is one of the most popular MPs in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). But he is particularly detested by Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party because he is a white man who won a virtually all-black constituency. Bennett has suffered a great deal at the hands of the government: his farm has been seized, he has been assaulted and his wife held captive, mistreated and later suffered a miscarriage. Bennett was imprisoned at the end of October after he was found guilty of assaulting the justice minister Patrick Chinamasa during a debate in parliament. Bennett had reacted with fury and pushed Chinamasa to the ground after being taunted by him about his farm and his parents called "murderers and thieves".
The parliament, with an almost two-thirds majority held by Mugabe's party, sentenced Bennett to 12 months in prison with hard labour; usually a fine is levied in assault cases where there is no serious injury. Bennett's lawyers are appealing against the sentence, but he remains in prison. Last week his lawyers found him in an overcrowded, filthy cell wearing a soiled uniform that exposed his genitals and buttocks. Yesterday Bennett's plight became even worse when he was moved to the cells at the Mutoko police station, known as a centre for Mugabe's most violent supporters. In April 2000 several white farmers were dragged from the station by armed supporters of Mugabe; one was killed and the others beaten unconscious. After Bennett was taken to prison, Zanu PF MPs shouted "You are next!" at the two other white members of parliament for the opposition, David Coltart and Trudy Stevenson. The human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa and Bennett's wife are appealing against his incarceration while trying to block the sale of 120 tons of coffee seized from Bennett's farm, despite court orders stating it was his property.
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From The Guardian (UK), 27 November
A country where the Big Man rules
Paul Kelso in Harare
Michael Vaughan and his squad did not have to wait long for a reminder of why they hesitated so long before travelling to Zimbabwe yesterday. Just around the corner from Miekles, their five-star downtown hotel, on a wall on Robert Mugabe Avenue, someone has scrawled "England go home, shame on England." And "England go back". The opportunistic graffiti could hardly have been missed by the players as they departed for practice at the Harare Sports Ground, venue for the first match tomorrow. On the streets around Miekles the cricketers' arrival has been noted by those who might benefit from the travelling circus, and any visitor emerging from the hotel quickly receives offers to change currency on the black market. Robert sculpts small ebony animals and sells them on the street. He also tries to trade currency, and offers Z$8,500 for US $1, which he will sell on for Z$10,000 - the official rate is around Z$6,000 - and explains that the cricketers are welcome. "We were very angry when the cricketers did not come here for the World Cup, and we are happy that they are here now. Sport has a message of peace and harmony, not about politics. There is a problem though that if all the money goes to the hotels and then to the banks, it will be used by the government, not for the people. What we really need is not cricket, but change."
In the members bar of the Harare Sports Club they gave up on change long ago, and the all-white clientele while away the afternoons in drink and conversation. The club, across the road from the high walls of Mr Mugabe's residence, was established in 1897 thanks to a cheque for £50 signed by Cecil Rhodes that still hangs on the clubhouse wall. It remains a refuge for those far happier to wallow in the distant past than deal with the present. "The people tense about this are the press and the politicians, for the rest of us life has to go on," says Brian, vodka and Coke in hand as he watched the England players warm up on the outfield. We wondered whether the tour was going to happen, but in the end it is because the president wants it to. It's the same with everything. If he wants it to, it will happen." The saloon bar analysis was echoed by a diplomatic source. "I don't really know why the decision on accreditation was reversed, but you have to assume it was because the big man is in favour," they said. The decision of the English team to continue with their tour to Zimbabwe followed the lifting of the bar that the Mugabe government had imposed on some British reporters entering the country. Yesterday's Zimbabwe Independent newspaper claimed that Jonathan Moyo, the government's information minister responsible for the bans, had been overruled by Nathan Shamuyarira, his counterpart within Zanu PF, the ruling party. Mr Shamuyarira's intervention came the paper claimed because "Zimbabwe needs the series to communicate an impression of normalcy". In the government-controlled Herald, the British media were reported to be "tripping over each other" to come into the country. "We are quite aware that in this huge media core there are a number of elements on a covert mission using cricket as a cover," cautioned a security source. "We are definitely on the lookout."
While the tour preoccupies players, press and politicians, not everyone in Harare is cricket-obsessed. In a country with rampant inflation and high unemployment, there are more pressing concerns than bat and ball. "I'm not sure anyone really worries about whether the cricketers came here or not," said Roy, who works in the tourism industry. "It is all about politics anyway, not sport." "Inflation is the main problem here," he says, hauling a three-inch-thick wad of notes, his daily spending money, from his pocket. "I bought my van for Z$68,000 a few years ago. This morning I had a puncture repaired and it cost my Z$70,000. It's good in one way that the team are here, because they will bring in millions and millions of dollars for the hotels and the restaurants, but most people won't be able to afford to buy a ticket to watch them." There was at least one man in Harare last night willing to view the tour in isolation. Speaking for the first time since the squad arrived, ECB chairman David Morgan insisted that politics and morality were no grounds for cancellation of the tour, and said the tour was the only way to achieve closure for English cricket. "Within the international cricket community, were we not to fulfil this tour, Zimbabwe would have been nothing short of a painful running sore. I firmly believe that if we are to achieve closure on the Zimbabwe affair, then we need to play cricket in Zimbabwe."
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From The Times (UK), 27 November
Dispute over money casts new shadow over tour
From Richard Hobson, One-Day Cricket Correspondent in Harare
As a weary England squad finally arrived in Zimbabwe almost 48 hours behind schedule, two cricket boards were becoming embroiled in yet another dispute. It is no surprise that money again lies at the heart of the matter, with Zimbabwe Cricket seeking compensation from the ECB after the one-day series was reduced from five to four matches. In a rearranged itinerary, England will play in Harare tomorrow and on Wednesday before flying to Bulawayo for back-to-back fixtures next weekend. The match scheduled to take place yesterday has been dropped because Duncan Fletcher, the England coach, and David Morgan, the chairman of the ECB, refused to countenance squeezing it in early next week. Zimbabwe Cricket believes that England are thereby responsible for a loss of income from areas including television rights, advertising and ticket sales. Even though the claim is thought to amount to less than £100,000, Morgan insists that no payment will be made as the fault lies with Zimbabwe. He dismissed a request from Peter Chingoka, the Zimbabwe Cricket chairman, to play today. "That would have meant five one-day internationals in eight days," Morgan said. "Four games in eight days is in itself a fairly heavy schedule and Duncan not surprisingly did not want to play more than that. "Zimbabwe Cricket have indicated that they will suffer a significant financial penalty as a result, but we have made it clear that we do not believe that the ECB is liable. It is a consequence of the delay in accrediting part of the British media." Chingoka said that he was "disappointed" with the response, while Lovemore Banda, the Zimbabwe Cricket media and communications manager, said: "Zimbabwe Cricket would like to keep (the matter) between ourselves and our counterparts from England."
The change in itinerary means the squad will spend seven nights in Harare and only three in Bulawayo, where the likelihood of demonstrations against Robert Mugabe's Government is considered to be greater. Practice facilities are also better in the capital and the Harare Sports Club ground looked a picture when England trained yesterday before the game there tomorrow. So far, the only conspicuous evidence of opposition to the tour has been some graffiti scrawled in red capital letters on a wall in Robert Mugabe Road, opposite the team hotel. It read: "England go home" and "Shame on England". There were no protesters when the party arrived at the airport or when the team bus was escorted to the hotel. Morgan is taking no chances, however. The number of backroom people with the squad now exceeds the number of players 15 to 14. As well as the eight coaches, management and medical staff who were in Namibia for the warm-ups, there are three ECB officials, Richard Bevan from the Professional Cricketers' Association, two security officers from a company based in South Africa and a local liaison man.
"(The fact that) we are here assisting the management of the tour is evidence that we regard this as a different and special trip," Morgan said at a press conference in which he offered perhaps his most defiant and forceful defence yet of the decision to play in Zimbabwe. He hopes that fulfilling the matches - even four instead of five - will "bring closure" to an issue that has become big enough to be known as the Zimbabwe Affair. "Within the international cricket community, if we were not to make this tour it would have been nothing short of a painful running sore," Morgan said. Attitudes towards the chairman have touched both extremes. Jonathan Agnew, the BBC Cricket Correspondent, suggested that after keeping the tour alive his diplomatic skills might be well employed in solving the Iraq situation. Others, who think that England should not be here, have called for his resignation. Morgan denied that he could have curtailed the trip on Wednesday after Ehsan Mani, the ICC president, said that member countries would be sympathetic towards a withdrawal. "The support of world cricket was completely conditional on making our very best efforts to obtain accreditation for the media concerned," he said. This is the background against which England are about to undertake one of the least appealing matches in more than a century of international cricket. Ian Bell and Kevin Pietersen could make one-day debuts at this level and Simon Jones will join them if he is preferred to Alex Wharf. But whatever the extent of an anticipated victory it will be no cause for celebration.
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From The Sunday Times (UK), 28 November
'Obesity tourism' is Mugabe's answer to feeding Zimbabwe
Christina Lamb, Mazowe Valley, Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe has come up with a bizarre proposal to solve the food crisis threatening half its population with starvation. It wants to bring in obese tourists from overseas so that they can shed pounds doing manual labour on land seized from white farmers. The so-called Obesity Tourism Strategy was reported last week in The Herald, a government organ whose contents are approved by President Robert Mugabe's powerful information minister, Jonathan Moyo. Pointing out that more than 1.2 billion people worldwide are officially deemed to be overweight, the article exhorted Zimbabweans to "tap this potential". "Tourists can provide labour for farms in the hope of shedding weight while enjoying the tourism experience," it said, adding that Americans spent $6 billion a year on "useless" dieting aids. "Tour organisers may promote this programme internationally and bring in tourists, while agriculturalists can employ the tourists as free farm labour. The tourists can then top it all by flaunting their slim bodies on a sun-downer cruise on the Zambezi or surveying the majestic Great Zimbabwe ruins."
The notion that oversized, overpaid Americans could be enticed into paying to spend their holidays working free for those who seized the country's commercial farms illustrates how far the Mugabe regime has descended into a fantasy world. This is a government that boasts of bumper harvests when 5.5m of its people need food aid; that negotiates to buy Russian MiG fighter jets when the country is bankrupt; that shows constantly smiling dancing Zimbabweans on state television (known locally as the "Bums and Drums" channel) when two-thirds of the working population has fled. It was the regime's paranoia about letting anyone see what was really happening that prompted last week's attempt to ban some British cricket correspondents from entering the country to cover the England team's controversial tour. This report is the result of travelling undercover for 10 days, meeting people secretly. Had we been caught, we could have faced two years in jail under draconian new media laws. Almost everyone interviewed refused to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals; this is a place where people really do disappear in the night. Some of those we met were subsequently visited by secret police.
It did not take long to see what was going on. Mazowe Valley is less than an hour from the capital and a drive through the area revealed the shocking destruction that Mugabe has wreaked on this sad but beautiful country. It used to be described as the bread basket of southern Africa, with neat fields of maize and soya growing in rich red soil and farmers notching up world records for yields. Rows of giant greenhouses sheltered roses that earned important foreign exchange, as did fields of miniature vegetables to sell in British supermarkets. In 10 years of visiting Zimbabwe, I have often been through Mazowe and its model farmland. Today it is a series of fallow fields, overgrown with grass, weeds and thorny scrub, as if some deadly scourge had swept through the valley. There are orchards of dead citrus trees, greenhouse frames stripped of their plastic roofs and the broken, twisted poles of what were once floodlights and irrigation systems. Security fences have gone. Trees have been chopped for firewood. Even the telephone wires have been looted. Gone, too, are the panga- waving "war veterans" who manned almost every entrance two years ago. Most of the war vets and settlers who were bussed in to take over the farms have been moved out so that party bigwigs can move into the houses.
The valley's closeness to the capital makes it particularly desirable and a list of the farms' new inhabitants reads like a roll call of the Zanu-PF hierarchy. Among them are Grace Mugabe, the president's wife; her brother Reward Marufu; Joseph Msika, the vice-president; Moyo; Solomon Mujuru, the powerful former army commander whose wife has just been nominated for vice-president; the governor of Mashonaland Central; the minister for state security; the police chief and various army commanders. Other beneficiaries of the controversial land programme include the Anglican bishop of Harare and 15 high court judges. "The programme was not about land reform at all - it's about the political survival of Zanu PF," said John Worsley-Worsick of Justice for Agriculture (Jag) which represents commercial farmers. "Part of the programme was to make more and more people complicit. In every sector of society, people were bought off." With parliamentary elections due in March, the programme has been accelerated. Of 4,500 white farmers, only 300 remain on farms. More than 600,000 farm workers and their families have lost their livelihood. "There will be no farmers left by the elections," said Worsley-Worsick, whose office walls are covered with land eviction notices.
A rose farmer whose wife pleaded that he not be identified gave a running commentary as we drove. "This was Foyle farm, the biggest dairy farm in the country, now Grace Mugabe's. This was Wally Barton's farm - beautiful farm, maize, soya beans, nothing grown the last three years since he went to Canada. This was Norman Kinnaird - he held the world record for cotton. This was Old Man Bailey - he had a ballroom upstairs, now Jonathan Moyo's. "That was the top cattle chap Angus Black - his old man walked into the dam after their farm was seized. And that was our old family farm - in 50 years we never missed a season." What we should see at this time of year are fields of maize about 1ft high and tractors fertilising the land. But nobody has planted. The few settlers left have been provided with no seed or equipment. Cultivation is restricted to a few subsistence plots, an odd sight on huge farms that averaged 2,500 acres. On one we watched two men leading a pair of donkeys pulling a plough round and round in small circles. According to Jag figures, food production has dropped by as much as 90% since the farm seizures began in 2000.
At the silos of the Grain Marketing Board in Concession, a few years ago one would have seen long lines of trucks delivering maize from the surrounding farms. Instead there was just one truck of wheat and a line of women showing party cards to get food. An official admitted that the only maize available had been imported from South Africa. "The long-term objective is the creation of an elitist Shona group which will control everything," said Worsley-Worsick, referring to Mugabe's tribe. "There will be no middle class and everyone left will be subsistence farmers totally dependent on the rulers. If it first means starving half the people in the country, they are quite happy to do that." At one farm a local party official called Clever, with large glasses and an uncanny resemblance to Mugabe, was overseeing the reaping of a small field of wheat in pouring rain. Asking if we knew how he could dry the wheat, he said: "We made a mistake. We can't run these farms. We need the white farmers to come back." He told us that the previous week there had been a party meeting at Heyshott school in Mazowe at which Mugabe had expressed horror at the state of the farms. Some rose farmers have received letters from the governor of the Central Bank asking if they would consider returning, although understandably most would be extremely wary.
Any idea of backtracking by the government seems to be contradicted by the establishment of new land courts to "fast-track" farm seizures. The courts will be presided over by political appointees and will give farmers only five working days to prepare a defence. More than 2,000 of the farmers driven off have already moved overseas. About half have started new lives in Australia, New Zealand and Britain; and half have gone to neighbouring countries such as Zambia and Mozambique. A big exodus is expected next month at the end of the school year. Attacking the schools is the easiest way for Mugabe to get the whites - and middle-class blacks - to leave the country. Earlier this year he shut down private schools, accusing them of overcharging. Some closed; others now survive by asking parents for donations. A biology teacher at Peterhouse boarding school explained: "It costs us Z$10m (£900) a term to educate and look after a child. We are only allowed to ask Z$3m so the rest is donation. But not everyone is donating."
Although Mugabe has made clear his determination to expel all whites, many are equally determined to stay. On a sprawling estate with two swimming pools, a sauna, Jacuzzi, tree house and motorcross bikes for his children, one former farmer calls a servant for a cold beer and asks: "Who would give up all this for some pokey house and rainy weather in the UK?" Those farmers who have stayed are doing what Zimbabweans call "finding a way". I met former farmers bottling mineral water, felling trees, selling cigarettes to Angola and manufacturing cooking oil. A large contingent has gone to Iraq to work as security consultants. They are said to be "reliving their Rhodie days", a reference to Zimbabwe's liberation struggle against which most fought. Some have decided to hang on until after the elections in the hope that once he has secured victory for his party, Mugabe will ask the farmers back. But the daily outpouring of hate-speak on the radio has led to a noticeable increase in attacks on whites. "This country has been going through ethnic cleansing, albeit subtle," said David Coltart, legal affairs spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), after his elderly white neighbour was beaten up last week. "We know from Bosnia and Rwanda that hate speech ultimately works."
Yet it would be a mistake to see what Mugabe is doing in simple black-white terms. He seems to want the whole middle class to leave and the signs are that he is succeeding. In all, up to 70% of Zimbabwe's workforce - some 3.4m people - has fled to escape the political oppression and collapsing economy, according to research by an independent South African church group. "An estimated 25% to 30% of the entire Zimbabwean population has left the nation," reported the South African-based Solidarity Peace Trust last week. "Out of 5m potentially productive adults, 3.4m are outside Zimbabwe." It is the hard currency that Zimbabwean teachers, engineers, accountants, doctors and nurses abroad are sending home that enables their relatives to survive. The monthly state pension is Z$25,000 - about £1.70, less than the cost of a postage stamp to the UK. Anyone who tries to expose what is going on is quickly silenced. The independent Daily News was closed. Last week parliament passed legislation on non-governmental organisations, outlawing foreign funding and work on human rights or civic education.
Optimism that the MDC would achieve change has faded. Most people believe that Mugabe will remain president as he has stated until his term ends in 2008, by which time he will be 84. Opponents are left clinging to the hope that the ruling party will implode. Last week Mugabe had to call for unity after some unusually public party infighting in the run-up to this week's annual congress. The wrangling began after Mugabe directed provincial bosses to nominate Joyce Mujuru as vice-president instead of Emerson Mnangagwa, the parliamentary speaker, who had been regarded as his heir-apparent. Mugabe was said by the local Daily Mirror to be "chewing nails" as he warned he would expose those "bent on destroying Zanu PF from within" as "mischievous individuals misleading people by using money from western capitalists". Just how many people Mugabe has woven into his evil web becomes clear with a visit to Borrowdale Brooke, a lush golf estate in Harare's affluent northern suburbs.
Amid the watered lawns on which white herons strut, Comrade Bob's favoured cronies have built themselves palaces. The army chief's three-storey white tower on the hill has a drive tiled in diamond shapes - a reminder of the wealth that Zimbabwe has plundered from the mines of Congo. At the back, on a guarded road, is Mugabe's own new house made of white Italian marble with a blue pagoda-style roof. In the estate's new supermarket one can buy anything from Cuban cigars and Norwegian cod to Johnnie Walker blue label whisky at £150 a bottle - equivalent to a teacher's annual salary. Mugabe & Co sustain this lifestyle partly by bringing illicit gains back into the country for fear they will be frozen overseas, but mostly through asset-stripping. From the country's railways (just sold to the Chinese) to the red Draylon armchairs along the Mutare road - clearly purloined from a farm - the whole country seems to be for sale. Mugabe has now turned his attention to the country's mines, particularly Zimplat, a platinum mine being developed by a South African consortium including Anglo American, the mining group. It is expected to become the world's biggest source of platinum and Mugabe has demanded that the government stake is raised from 15% to 55%, causing the project to be put on hold. And just as the war vets were used to seize the farms, so groups have already moved on to the mines.
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From The Scotsman, 27 November
Protest at deportation of Zimbabwe asylum seekers
By Nicola Boden, PA
Protesters gathered at Gatwick Airport tonight to demonstrate against the deportation of Zimbabwean asylum seekers who came to Britain to escape President Mugabe's brutal regime. Members of the Zimbabwean Association, a support group for asylum seekers from the country, planned to disrupt the six o'clock flight to Malawi. They claim two activists who were tortured and another woman who Mugabe's men tried to force into his youth militia were being deported wrongly. Sarah Harland, a member of the association, said she was worried they will be returned to Zimbabwe. "We are very concerned for them," she said. Crispin Kulingi, a torture victim and known activist against Mugabe's regime, was apparently being flown out from the airport. Mr Kulingi came to the UK on a Malawian passport after attacks by Mugabe's men put him in a coma and he had to spent months in hospital and a wheelchair, Mrs Harland said. She said the activist, who had been staying at Harmondsworth Detention Centre, was clearly not Malawian but that the Home Office were deporting him anyway.
A young woman Mrs Harland said had escaped from Zimbabwe after police tried to force her to join Mugabe's militia, and a second less well-known activist, were also meant to be on the flight. Katrina Phillips, also of the association, said Mr Kulingi would face major problems if he was returned to Zimbabwe. "He is well known and if he is being returned, he is going to have grave difficulties." The Home Office lifted a temparary ban on returning asylum seekers to the country 10 days ago. Mrs Phillips said this was hard to understand and that the situation surrounding England's cricket tour there proved the country was not safe. She said: "We find it extremely difficult to understand why the Home Office, at the end of last week, decided Zimbabwe was a safe country to return asylum seekers to when the cricket situation was going on. "This week it became very clear that it is not a free or safe country, and not a country that allows any opinion other than that of the Government." Mrs Harland said they planned to leaflet passengers on the flight and ask the cabin crew and pilot to resist the removal of the asylum seekers. Ten protesters were expected. "We are also going to launch a campaign about this because it is quite ridiculous ... particularly when it is considered dangerous just to play cricket there." she added.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 28 November
Zimbabwean children sell their bodies to put food on the table
As Mugabe tries to keep the eyes of the world solely on cricket, Neil Connery, in Bulawayo, reports on a darker side of life in the country Linguile finishes applying her lipstick and adjusts her skimpy top. Every night she goes through the same ritual before heading on to the streets of Bulawayo. She is 15 years old, and says that she has no choice but to work as a child prostitute. "I was driven to desperation to do this. I have to get money for food - there's no other way," she said. "My mother died and my father ran away. I have two younger sisters to look after. There's nobody else now. I do this so I can put food on the table and pay the rent. If I didn't do this, I don't know where we'd be." Linguile starts work at about 7pm, hanging around clubs and hotels in the city centre looking for clients. "I work for 12 hours, seven days a week," she said. "If I'm lucky I might make 90,000 Zimbabwean dollars [£6] a night, but it's getting harder because more and more young girls are doing the same. They have to, just to survive these days." Although Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, is determined that reporters with England's touring cricketers - who are due to play two matches in Bulawayo this week - should write only about sport, Linguile has a message for the players. "I think they should come and see what is really happening here," she said. "I'd like to tell them about girls like me because we really have to do this." Food shortages in Bulawayo have claimed the lives of more than 160 people in the past year, according to Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, the city's mayor and a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Although the government announced a "record harvest" in May and ordered the World Food Programme to stop distributing aid, a Zimbabwe parliamentary committee gave warning this month that the country would run out of food before April.
Mr Mugabe's seizures of white-owned farms have led to the collapse of a once-thriving agricultural economy. Zimbabwe used to be able to export food to drought-stricken neighbours in southern Africa. Now, the plight of its people is worsened by the spread of Aids - at least one in three of Zimbabwe's population is HIV positive. Despite the terrible risks, Linguile and hundreds of other girls who sell their bodies are prepared to have unprotected sex to make more money. "I know it's dangerous but I've done it twice without a condom because I was so desperate," she said. "The others do it as well and it's what many of the men ask for. If I said no they'd only go and give their money to someone else." Often, however, it is not money that customers hand over in exchange for sex. Zimbabwe's economy is falling apart and hard cash is scarce. Inflation is running at over 200 per cent. The child prostitutes have devised a new system of payment to beat the cash shortage. "Sometimes I just get them to give me groceries. That way, it means me and my sisters have something to eat." Linguile is both scared and angry about her plight. "I've dropped out of school now and my education is finished. I'm angry I have to do this. If I was at school, in one year I'd get my O levels, and who knows, maybe A levels after that. If I'd stayed, maybe I'd get a decent job. But that's all gone now. "I'm scared of doing this. Some of the men can be very rough. But we'd starve if I didn't do it." Moses Ndlovu, an opposition MP, said that Linguile's story showed how desperate life in Zimbabwe had become. "The evidence is out there on the streets when you see them scouting for clients. These are 12-, 13-year-olds wearing skimpy clothes exposing themselves so that clients are more attracted to them. "The shocking part is that they are prepared to put their lives in danger by offering unprotected sex. This tells you how cheap life in Zimbabwe has become."
Neil Connery is the ITV News Africa Correspondent
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 28 November
Moyo's sand castle crumbles
From Savious Kwinika
Bulawayo - President Mugabe on Friday openly said he would "deal" with Jonathan Moyo, the Minister of State for Information and Publicity, setting the stage for what Zanu PF insiders say could be the beginning of the end for this 'famous' turncoat of the Zimbabwean politics. For the first time in his four years as Mugabe's information czar, Moyo was singled out at a stormy meeting held at Elangeni Training Centre in Bulawayo on Friday. Mugabe's ire at this mafikizolo was touched off by news of a secret meeting between Moyo and the six provincial chairpersons, which came up with a "Tsholotsho Declaration", a document Mugabe said was secret to the party's top echelons. "As I speak right now, these chairpersons are guilty. They were not acting alone but were invited, so we shall take drastic measures against them all. We shall determine the form of punishment. When Moyo came he worked hard towards improving people's lives, helped develop some schools in the constituency, and we all liked that. What is frightening now is the meeting of six Zanu PF provincial chairpersons he allegedly convened without the mandate of the people," Mugabe said. The six Zanu PF provincial chairpersons are from Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and South, Masvingo, Manicaland and Midlands.
A livid Mugabe, who was out to quash dissent in Matabeleland where provincial leaders defied a Politburo directive to nominate a woman for the post of Vice President, was told Moyo had plotted the secret meeting held in Tsholotsho a fortnight ago. Mugabe was told Moyo hired a helicopter that took the participants to Tsholotsho just before the nominations for the ruling party's top leadership. The ruling party officials who attended Moyo's meeting distanced themselves from planning the meeting and heaped the blame squarely on his shoulders. Themba Ncube, the chairman of the Zanu PF Bulawayo Province said: "I was just an invited guest. Moyo convened the meeting and I did not know about the agenda." Lloyd Siyoka, the suspended Zanu PF chairman for Matabeleland South, said: "It was Moyo's function and as invited guests we just wanted him to see we were not letting him down." Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Speaker of Parliament, who was challenged by Mugabe to defend allegations that he was aware of he secret meeting admitted that he was invited by Moyo but said he did not attend. Mnangagwa said he only heard that the junior minister had hired a plane for the six chairpersons and others to Bulawayo en route to Tsholotsho.
Matabeleland North Governor, Obert Mpofu, told Mugabe that because of Moyo's actions, civil servants in his province were no longer reporting to him but to Tsholotsho, implying they were now reporting to Moyo. "This Minister of Information and Publicity in the President's office and cabinet is abusing his ministry and powers. Television, newspapers and radio stations are always full of Tsholotsho news. If I may be allowed to ask, what's there in Tsholotsho?" asked Mpofu, amid applause from the delegates. Zanu PF spokesperson, Nathan Shamuyarira, refused to say why Mugabe was unhappy with the outcome of elections in Matabeleland, which saw heavyweights Dumiso Dabengwa, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu and Mpofu not being elected. "There were some anomalies," was all he said. Zanu PF provincial chairman for Manicaland, Mike Madiro, who was invited to Tsholotsho, refused to comment yesterday. Meanwhile, Vice President Joseph Msika is unhappy that Mugabe overturned the decision to suspend war veteran leader Jabulani Sibanda from the party. Two months ago, Msika said he had warned Mugabe about Moyo and Sibanda, explaining: ".these two boys are like misguided missiles .These boys behave like renegades. President Mugabe must be wary." After the Friday meeting, Msika said:" I did not agree with the president's decision but for the sake of unity, yes. To Jabulani, Mntanami, asikuzondi, sizonda izenzo zakho.(We don't hate you, we hate your deeds)." Sibanda said he was waiting for the review of his suspension.
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From Business Day (SA), 29 November
Tensions mount between ANC, Cosatu
Tension between the African National Congress (ANC) and its alliance partner, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu), deepened yesterday with ANC chief spokesman Smuts Ngonyama describing Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi as "impetuous and reckless" and a child in the alliance. Ngonyama was responding to claims from Vavi, published in the media yesterday , that there were ANC leaders who were trying to force the labour union federation out of the tripartite alliance it shares with the ANC and the South African Communist Party. Vavi was not specific about who the ANC leaders were, but the union has taken a lot of flak from its alliance partners lately, because of its stance on black economic empowerment and its ill-fated trip to Zimbabwe that ended up in its members being deported. President Thabo Mbeki has ridiculed the decision by Cosatu to undertake the trip. Ngonyama's attack also comes on the back of Cosatu siding with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in his row with Mbeki and lingering resentment over the ANC's response to Cosatu's summary deportation from Zimbabwe recently. Tutu decried a culture of intolerance and "sycophancy" within the ANC and government, and lashed out at "unthinking, uncritical kow-towing", which he said was "fatal" for democracy.
Ngonyama reserved his vitriol for Vavi. He said yesterday the Cosatu leader's statements about the state of the alliance were "highly toxic" and "uncalled for" when there were structures in the alliance to address partners' concerns. He was speaking to reporters at the funeral of Joyce Kgoali, late chairwoman of the National Council of Provinces. Cosatu will reportedly release a document this week that will side with Tutu in the row with Mbeki, particularly on issues such as Zimbabwe and HIV/Aids, and will also focus on the attempts to force it out of the alliance. Ngonyama's statement came after an ANC national executive committee meeting that was expected to repudiate Tutu, but instead received a detailed foreign policy and conflict-resolution report from Mbeki. Mbeki, who visited five countries in the past 20 days, reported to the party on continuing talks with Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, among others. Gbagbo's wife, Simone Gbagbo, was at the funeral of Kgoali, leading to speculation that Gbagbo was in SA for further talks. On Zimbabwe, one of the issues on which Tutu took him to task, sources say Mbeki expressed optimism that all the constitutional changes required to ensure next year's parliamentary elections were free and fair would be in place before voting began.
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Comment from The Financial Mail (SA), 19 November
Business must raise its head above the parapet
There is but one ethical position to support in Cosatu's face-off with government over the labour congress's venture into Zimbabwe. Cosatu is right. The significance of its stance does more than highlight Robert Mugabe's abuse of the rights of ordinary Zimbabweans; the critical outcry against it also says a great deal about the state of health of our own democracy. After all, the gravest threat to any democracy is frequently not government action; it is, rather, inaction by other players in a nation state, from civil society to business to labour. Our government, with many others, suffers from the illusion that its policies are inherently correct, equitable and justified - so it must govern unchallenged until the next election. The only defence against this encroachment is open, direct and sometimes confrontational engagement. This necessitates critics having the courage to raise their heads above the parapet. Cosatu and the Treatment Action Campaign are among the few that have fought for their democratic space. The biggest disappointment has been business. Thus far, SA business has acted with no clear or coherent strategy. In 1996, Prof Peter Berger, director of Boston's Institute for the Study of Economic Culture, noted: "Business has often failed to understand its changing relationship with the forces unleashed by and within a democratising social order. It has been slow to define its social and political interests and is defensive, reactive and inept in promoting them." Business's failure to speak out is symptomatic of a fear of calling government to account. This must change, for which Berger argued that a clear perception of common business interests is essential; and for that, particularly if business wants to influence the architecture of government policy, it must organise collectively and act strategically. It should consider Cosatu's vigorous position, get its act together, and play its role in our free-market democracy. Anything else is cowardice.
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From Zim Online (SA), 29 November
Government lifts ban on food aid distribution
Harare - The Zimbabwe government has rescinded a ban on the World Food Programme (WFP) from distributing food aid in the country. Labour and Social Welfare Minister Paul Mangwana said at the weekend that the government will allow the WFP to distribute 60 000 tonnes of food aid, left over from its assistance programme last year. The decision to allow the distribution of the food aid is a major climb-down by the government which had always insisted that the country had produced enough to feed itself under its controversial and often violent land reform programme. Earlier this year, President Robert Mugabe told food aid groups to take their assistance elsewhere as the country expected to harvest 2.4 million tonnes of grain, enough to feed itself. However, a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Lands and Agriculture tasked to investigate the country's food situation in the wake of conflicting reports on the issue, admitted recently that there would be a massive grain shortfall, with an estimated 2.5 million people still requiring food aid this year. Grain Marketing Board chairman Samuel Muvuti told the committee in September that the board had only received 280 000 tonnes from farmers, three months after the end of the harvests, which is way below the country's food needs. Zimbabwe needs at least 1.8 million tonnes of grain to see it through to the next harvest. Mangwana however insisted that the parliamentary committee's findings were illogical as the country has enough maize to see it through to the next harvest. The government, which has been accused of using food as an election bait, has also been importing food to boost its reserves ahead of a crucial parliamentary election next March. The government denies using food for political benefit.
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From The Sunday Times (UK), 28 November
Prison torment of the Zimbabwe farm hero
Christina Lamb, Harare
When the England cricket team take to the pitch today at Harare cricket club, one Zimbabwean who definitely will not be watching is Heather Bennett. Her husband Roy, 47, a white MP and hero to thousands of black Zimbabweans, recently began a year's hard labour in Harare's notorious Central jail, just a few miles from the club. His crime: pushing Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister, who had insulted his family. "Roy was appalled last year when the England cricket team were due to come, asking |
