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Archived News
31st August 2004
Businessman James Makamba out of jail
Mark Thatcher arrested over African coup plot
US seeks 'coalition' to force Zimbabwe regime change
Voter registration continues contrary to agreed SADC electoral standards
Mugabe abandoned Zvobgo, say relatives
National youth service trainees recruited for food distribution
NGOs
Zimbabwe opposition to boycott polls
Harare councillors resign en masse
Zanu PF youths strip headman of status
Fraudsters clean up by 'laundering' Zim money
Propaganda chief Moyo to lose his jobs?
Red carpet for Zim pool star
Eddison Zvobgo
High Court judge quizzed by secret service agents
Court acquits Chiyangwa
Govt monitors diplomatic funds
Mutasa implicated in terror campaign
With ARVs beyond reach, rural folk resort to herbs
Zimbabwe court finds Briton guilty of trying to buy coup arms
Zanu PF faction sought to block Zvobgo's hero status
Six Zim farmers arrested
Catholic bishops slam Zimbabwe NGO bill
UK ready to spend R500m on Zimbabwe land issue
Innovative bush camps help Aids orphans
Fight for the higher office
How new Africa made fools of the white mischief-makers
A humble African cleric fiercely protects his flock
Churches in bid to persuade Mugabe to drop NGO bill
War vets leader turns heat on ministers
Zvobgo Jnr to take over
Mercenaries tortured in Zimbabwe prison
Only 9 cattle at show
Probe leaders' wealth - Shamu
Police on alert to crush NCA protests
Concern over new law extends beyond Zimbabwe's borders
Du Toit may be pardoned in return for 'co-operation'
State seeks to impound suspected mercenaries' plane
Zimbabwean illegal immigrants denied treatment in SA
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From Zim Online (SA), 25 August
Businessman James Makamba out of jail
Harare - High Court Judge Lawrence Kamocha yesterday ordered businessman and top ruling Zanu PF official James Makamba freed from jail after quashing five charges of externalising foreign currency against him. The businessman, who is still to be sentenced on six other charges of illegally dealing in foreign currency that he has already pleaded guilty to, was out of jail by last night. Makamba (51), who has been in jail for seven months, was arrested for allegedly externalising several millions of pounds and about US$ 1 million, and illegally buying properties abroad in contravention of foreign exchange regulations. However, the state's case gradually collapsed, with prosecutors unable to produce evidence to sustain their allegations. Eventually Makamba was convicted on his own plea on six charges of illegally selling US$130 000 to his mobile phone company, Telecel. Top government and Zanu PF officials as well as Makamba's relatives and friends had privately indicated that although Makamba was guilty of some of the charges he was facing, his ordeal in jail was because of suspicions by President Robert Mugabe that the businessman had been having an affair with his wife Grace. According to the officials, operatives from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), who are seconded to guard Grace, had told Mugabe about the "unusually frequent and suspicious meetings" between her and Makamba at private places. They claimed that Makamba had also done "himself great harm" by sending flowers and presents to Grace Mugabe through intermediaries. Some of the flowers were reportedly received on behalf of the First Lady by the CIO security men. Grace is said to have explained her meetings with Makamba as business. It could not be established by late last night whether the state planned to appeal against Kamocha's ruling.
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From The Times (UK), 25 August
Mark Thatcher arrested over African coup plot
By Times Online and Agencies
Sir Mark Thatcher has been arrested by South African police over allegations he was involved in a planned coup in Equatorial Guinea. The son of Baroness Thatcher was arrested at his Cape Town home by detectives. Police are currently searching the property and Sir Mark is still at home. He will appear in a Cape Town court later today, which will decide on bail. A police spokesman, Makahosini Nkosi, told said: "We are investigating charges of contravening the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act. This is in relation to the possible funding and logistical assistance in relation to the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea." Sipho Ngwema, spokesman for the FBI-style Scorpions anti-fraud unit which carried out the South African raid, said: "We have evidence that he financed the coup in Equatorial Guniea." He confirmed to the BBC that Sir Mark has denied any involvement in the plot. The trial of 17 men, including seven South Africans, six Armenians and four Equatorial Guineans accused of plotting the coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guinea opened this week. The men were arrested early March for conspiring to topple longtime leader Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
The Equatorial Guinea arrests took place two days after Zimbabwean authorities detained 70 suspected mercenaries at Harare airport after a tip-off from the South African government. The Equatorial Guinea men, led by a South African, Nick du Toit, were allegedly an advance group responsible for the preparations of the coup d'etat before the arrival of the 70 suspected soldiers of fortune who took off from South Africa and stopped in Harare to pick up weapons. The trial of the Zimbabwe group is in its final stages. The government in Harare has refused to extradite the 70 men to Equatorial Guinea. Mr Du Toit told a court in Equatorial Guinea yesterday that he had been in charge of logistics for an attempted putsch and had accepted the job at the request of Simon Mann, a former SAS man and the founder of the mercenary firm Executive Outcomes. Local media have said that Sir Mark is close to Mr Mann, who is alleged to be the leader of the Zimbabwean group and has pleaded guilty to attempting to possess dangerous weapons. He rejected a second charge of purchasing weapons, saying the deal never went through and denies the coup plot charges.
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From The Independent (UK), 25 August
US seeks 'coalition' to force Zimbabwe regime change
By Basildon Peta
The United States has called for the building of a "coalition of the willing" to push for regime change to end the crisis in Zimbabwe. The new American ambassador to South Africa, Jendayi Frazer, said quiet diplomacy pursued by South Africa and other African countries in its dealings with the Zimbabwe president needed a review because there was no evidence it was working. She said her country would be willing to be part of a coalition if invited. The US could not act on its own, "put the boot on the ground" and give President Robert Mugabe 48 hours to go as requested by beleaguered Zimbaweans but the US would be willing to work in a coalition with other countries to return Zimbabwe to democracy. Ms Frazer, in a meeting with journalists in Johannesburg yesterday, said: "There is clearly a crisis in Zimbabwe and everyone needs to state that fact. The economy is in a free fall. There is a continuing repressive environment. There needs to be a return to democracy." She said the US believed that South Africa could play a positive role in returning Zimbabwe to democracy and that it had the means to do so. "It [South Africa] has the most leverage probably of any other country in the sub-region and should therefore take a leadership role," said Ms Frazer, a protege of President George Bush's national security adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Ms Frazer's expression of a more aggressive US line towards the Mugabe regime came the day before the British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, arrives in South Africa for series of bilateral meetings with the Mbeki government during which he intends to raise the question of Zimbabwe. The International Parliamentary Union (IPU) released a report yesterday accusing the regime of doing nothing to stop its violent youth militias from persecuting and torturing parliamentarians of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The report was released after the IPU's three-month mission to Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe has approved new legislation that will ban foreign non-governmental organisations working in the human rights field in Zimbabwe and the banning of foreign funding to Zimbabwean NGOs. Churches have warned the proposed law would hinder their efforts to feed hungry Zimbabweans. Ms Frazer said it was particularly important to have Zimbabwe returned to democracy because the New Partnership for Africa Development talked about Africa's responsibility for democratic governance across the continent. "The African Union (AU) and South Africa had already accepted the responsibility to promote democracy and they should do so specifically in the case of Zimbabwe," she said.
She noted that repression in Zimbabwe had worsened and was making it impossible for the opposition to operate ahead of elections next year. "So we have got to re-look at the approach, that South Africa is taking in terms of quiet diplomacy ... It's not evident that it's working at this point. We have always talked about building coalitions of the willing and I, for one, believe that the coalitions of the willing are going to be the new force in global affairs ..." Instead of quiet diplomacy, Ms Frazer suggested an open admission by regional countries that there is a crisis in Zimbabwe. That was an important first step followed by pressure to force Mr Mugabe to return the country to democracy. The anti-Western bashing that was carried out by SADC leaders at their summit in Mauritius last week would not help change President Mugabe, she said. The Tanzanian President, Benjamin Mkapa, had lashed out at the West saying it cannot lecture democracy to African countries which it oppressed through a policy of colonialism in the first place.
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From Zim Online (SA), 25 August
Voter registration continues contrary to agreed SADC electoral standards
Harare - Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede has continued registering voters in pro-ruling Zanu PF party areas almost two months after officially closing down the exercise. Investigations by ZimOnline revealed that officials from Mudede's department have, since July, quietly scoured the three Mashonaland provinces, moving from door to door registering new voters for next year's crucial parliamentary election. Mudede announced in June that he had closed voter registration carried out since March 2004. The three provinces of Mashonaland East, Central and West are perceived as strongholds of President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party. Mudede, himself a known Zanu PF supporter, refused to take questions on the matter when contacted. "Voter registration is always an ongoing process, especially before an election. The issue of it being done in some places whilst not being done in others has always come from the opposition and I have nothing to do with that," he said.
It could not immediately be established how many new voters Mudede has registered since officially pronouncing the process closed. But a senior official at Mudede's office, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation, said: "By the time we will be through we will have registered several tens of thousands of new voters. Our instruction is to get as many people as possible in Mashonaland to register as voters." In the March-to-June registration drive, which was publicised and carried out all over the country, Mudede also concentrated his officials in Mashonaland where Zanu PF has traditionally enjoyed most support. Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi accused Mudede of non-transparency in his handling of voter registration. This, he said, breached the norms and standards for elections agreed to by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) just two weeks ago. "The recently adopted SADC principles on electoral standards make it clear that the voter registration process has to be transparent. But we continue receiving reports that Mudede is conducting the process in some areas whilst leaving out others. This time we will not accept such daylight robbery," Nyathi said.
SADC leaders, meeting in Mauritius earlier this month for their annual summit, agreed on electoral norms which include setting up independent commissions to run elections, ensuring transparency in electoral processes, and upholding the rule of law as well as human and individual rights in the run-up to and the actual conduct of elections. South African president Thabo Mbeki told the press after the summit that the agreed electoral charter was based on the SADC Treaty and that any member state who violated the treaty could face expulsion from the regional bloc. President Mugabe has announced his intention to make changes to Zimbabwe's undemocratic electoral laws in line with SADC requirements. But human rights groups and the opposition say the proposed reforms are cosmetic only. They point out that the new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to be set up will lack independence as its chairman will be appointed by the president. Mudede's voters roll has been cited as one of the biggest hurdles to truly democratic elections because of its immense inaccuracies. For example the voters' register to be used in the March 2005 general election is said to still contain more than 2.4 million ghost voters, about half of the total five to six million registered voters in the country.
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 25 August
Mugabe abandoned Zvobgo, say relatives
The Politburo of the ruling Zanu PF has declared that veteran nationalist Eddison Zvobgo, who died over the weekend be buried at the National Heroes Acre. President Robert Mugabe delivered a moving condolence message on Monday when he visited the late nationalist's home in Harare to pay his last respects. However, some relatives of the late legal expert said that Mugabe had not forgiven the late firebrand politician for publicly criticising some of his policies and challenging his continued rule. The relatives said yesterday that Zvobgo had become isolated from Mugabe because of the critical comments he made about government policies. The relationship between the two former wartime allies worsened when Zvobgo openly declared his presidential ambitions, sources said. Mugabe, the sources said, also believed that Zvobgo was behind the call made in parliament by Dzikamai Mavhaire calling on him to step down. Mavhaire and Zvobgo were close allies.
"Mugabe's feelings towards Zvobgo were a mixture of fear and hatred. He feared that Zvobgo was scheming against him and he never forgave him for that. The President did not even visit Zvobgo during all his illness, even when it became clear that Zvobgo's sickness was worsening. But Zvobgo was not surprised because he knew Mugabe's feelings towards him. Mugabe is the kind of person who doesn't forgive or forget easily," said a senior ruling party official who did not want to be named. Zvobgo, a Harvard-trained lawyer and founder member of Zanu PF died on Sunday in Harare after a long illness. Mugabe and Zvobgo were close allies during and after Zimbabwe's liberation war. Zvobgo played a prominent role during the liberation struggle and was a crucial player at the Lancaster House constitutional talks in London in 1979. After independence, he masterminded the executive presidency that Mugabe enjoys now. But the two erstwhile allies later fell out of favour after Zvobgo became increasingly critical of Mugabe's rule. This resulted in Mugabe dropping Zvobgo from his cabinet and the politburo, Zanu PF's supreme policy implementation organ.
At the time of his death, Zvobgo was facing a party disciplinary hearing for allegedly campaigning for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and de-campaigning Mugabe ahead of the 2002 presidential elections. Zvobgo openly criticised the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) as draconian. The laws, which have been used to close down newspapers and ban opposition meetings during the last three years, have formed the backbone of Mugabe's grip on power. It was not possible to get a comment from the President's office yesterday. But sources said Mugabe's hatred of Zvobgo was also underlined by the 80-year-old leader's failure to attend the burial of Zvobgo's wife, Julia in February. Julia was the third heroine after Sally Mugabe and Joanna Nkomo to be buried at the national shrine. Mugabe failed to attend the burial claiming that he was suffering from minor chest pains. Yet he had attended his birthday bash only a day before Julia Zvobgo's burial. "Some of us knew that the real reason he did not attend the burial was because he had fallen out of favour with Zvobgo and the hatred extended to the wife, even in death. He has attended all burials at Heroes Acre if he is in the country but Amai Zvobgo's became an exception," said the ruling party official.
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From Zim Online (SA), 25 August
National youth service trainees recruited for food distribution
Harare - The Grain Marketing Board has begun what looks like a concerted effort to recruit trainees of the government's controversial national youth service programme, ZimOnline has established. The state-owned GMB is the only company permitted by law to trade in staple foods such as maize and wheat. The grain utility also distributes food to the needy on behalf of the government in times of shortages. With Harare insisting it has sufficient supplies and does not require assistance from foreign agencies this year, the GMB will be solely in charge of food aid distribution across Zimbabwe. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, under whose portfolio the GMB falls, could not be reached for comment. Youth Development Minister, retired army brigadier Ambrose Mutinhiri, confirmed the recruitment: "The national youth training certificate is one of those respectable qualifications employers consider, although it is not government policy to make it compulsory." Churches, human rights groups, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party and outside observers like the International Parliamentary Union have accused the national youth service trainees of systematically harassing and terrorizing the government's political opponents.
Officials at the GMB's branches across the country, who did not want to be named for fear of victimization, said they had been instructed "from the top" to ensure all job seekers presented their national service certificate first before they could be hired. An official at the GMB's depot in Chegutu town (about 100 km west of Harare) said, "Yes we were instructed from the top to recruit a certain percentage from National service every time we recruit personnel." Close to 60 youths were recruited so far this month, 31 of them on Monday last week alone. Another 20 youths were employed last week by the GMB's depot at Norton, 40 km west of Harare. The GMB officials could not say what duties the youths were hired to perform. But they said they expected them to help run the government company's food distribution exercise across the country. The Zimbabwe government has in the past been accused of denying food to MDC supporters as punishment for backing the opposition party. Harare denies the charges.
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Comment from The Daily Dispatch (SA), 25 August
NGOs
The great counterweight to government is not the media - whatever journalists would like to think - but the whole of civil society, which includes a very wide range of non-government organisations, trades unions, institutes, professional associations and similar groupings. Examples from the apartheid era abound - Defence and Aid secured funding for lawyers in hundreds of political trials and saved people from spending many more years in jail; the meticulous annual reports of the South African Institute for Race Relations fuelled all discussions about the real impacts of apartheid on the lives of people and the economy; the Black Sash helped millions with advice on how to survive under apartheid, and even how to survive in detention. There were the Legal Resources Centres, Lawyers for Human Rights, Fosatu then Cosatu and the unions themselves, the End Conscription Campaign, the Environment and Development Agency, Sached, the National Land Committee and Border Rural Committee, Operation Hunger, Idasa, Kagiso, the South African Council of Churches and many others linked to churches and occupational groups. The Anti-Apartheid Movement became an enormously powerful lobby abroad.
The total contribution of NGOs to change in South Africa is probably impossible to calculate - in terms of creating awareness, boosting morale, and giving real and direct assistance and support, be it advice, training or food. Few would regard them all as subversive or destructive. The "new" South Africa has spurred new NGOs: the Treatment Action Campaign has focused on the government's limp response to the HIV-Aids pandemic; the Business Trust has funded and driven key initiatives in security, justice and tourism; the Centre for Development and Enterprise and the Centre for Policy Studies play continuing roles in policy research and discussion. Under apartheid, NGOs obtained much of their funding from abroad, with the ubiquitous "German churches" playing a prominent part. Some of it came from foreign governments and political foundations. Since 1994, however, NGOs have struggled to stay afloat and not all have succeeded. One group of 23 prominent NGOs has come up with the ingenious idea of marketing themselves as potential partners in black economic empowerment.
Unable to ban all of them, the Nationalist government took to issuing orders against individual members and then tried to institute all sorts of controls, under the guise of protecting the donors. In spite of the funding legislation, the NGOs continued to erode the system and build alternatives. Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe might or might not know the story of South Africa's NGOs. He has certainly recognised the threat posed by his own and so his ruling group has created a piece of legislation much tighter than South Africa ever had, and much more clearly directed to destroying any threat civil society might pose to Zanu PF's help-yourself rule. In the case of Zimbabwe, food aid and political support are critical to the survival of hundreds of thousands of people - and to any hopes which might remain of holding fair elections there. Banning Zimbabwe's NGOs is another step in Robert Mugabe's long walk to dictatorship, for which race and history are the shabbiest coverings.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 26 August
Zimbabwe opposition to boycott polls
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change yesterday "suspended" participation in all future elections at national and local government level. Its national executive said that taking part in elections was "a waste of time and resources" until President Robert Mugabe's government implemented "real" electoral reforms. The MDC, which said that Mr Mugabe's government stole his 2002 re-election and his ruling Zanu PF party's 2000 parliamentary victory, had been expected to contest a general election set for March. "The MDC will not participate in elections until the political space has been opened up and a legal, institutional and administrative framework for elections has been established that harnesses acceptable levels of transparency and fairness," Paul Themba Nyathi, the party's spokesman, told a news conference. Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC leader, is on trial on two separate counts of treason, which he denies. The MDC's boycott followed Mr Mugabe's announcement last month of electoral reforms including one-day voting and counting of ballots at separate centres rather than one central location. Mr Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has been accused by critics of a harsh political crackdown as the country spins into economic crisis partly due to government seizure of white-owned farms to give to landless blacks.
The MDC said it was deeply concerned "at the government's unrelenting assault on democratic rights of the people" and wanted electoral reforms, including a repeal of tough security and media laws. The party also decided to pull all of its elected representatives out of Harare city council, the most important of several cities under its control, saying that the elected municipal government could not function in the face of political interference from the state. The MDC will continue with its general political activity, and said it would increase pressure on the government to reform electoral laws in line with protocols adopted at a summit of the Southern African Development Community in Mauritius last week. Mr Nyathi said: "It's not a question of timing, it's a question of political will. The government has all the instruments of state to do the right thing, which is to respond to the Mauritian declaration. They should begin now to respond." The MDC fought its first election in 2000 when it was only nine months old and won 57, or nearly half elected seats, despite violence and allegations of a fraudulent voters' roll. It lost the presidential poll in 2002, giving Mr Mugabe six more years in power. Western observers and the Commonwealth said the election was neither free nor fair. It has also lost five by-elections in which no independent observers were allowed, and violence and electoral fraud were commonplace, according to the MDC. "It's one thing to be beaten up or killed for taking part in elections, but it's another to have the election rigged as well," an MDC MP said.
From ZWNEWS: If you would like to read the SADC Electoral guidelines, please let us know. They will be sent as a Word attachment, approximately the same size as the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 26 August
Harare councillors resign en masse
The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) has called for a rates boycott following the mass resignation by Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) councillors yesterday. CHRA chairman, Mike Davis told Daily News Online that residents must stop paying rates and press for fresh council elections and the reinstatement of the suspended executive mayor, Elias Mudzuri. "We applaud the decision by the councillors and this will show that events at Town House are not democratic. We know that the city will continue to be dominated by Zanu PF people, James Kurasha, Witness Mangwende and Ignatius Chombo. That's is why we are calling for a rates boycott," said Davis. Harare city councillors resigned en masse yesterday morning citing constant political interference in their duties. They said they were dismayed that government Interference had prevented the elected Harare Council from carrying out its functions. Last Maengahama, the spokesman of the councillors said it had become meaningless to hold on to their jobs. "The elected representatives of residents were no longer being listened to. Councillors were just being suspended and even those that were not being suspended had no powers," said Maengahama. He said the city of Harare was now being run by Governor Witness Mangwende with the "assistance of Makwavarara who no longer has a mandate to be in office." He said the government was taking residents for granted by not respecting the residents' representatives.
The councillors' resignation leaves the city with only five councillors namely, Hubert Manhungo of Zanu PF, acting Mayor Sekesai Makwavarara, Tapfumaneyi Jaja, George Vlahakis and Grandmore Hakata who all defected from the MDC. There were 46 councillors in 2002, 45 from the MDC and one from the ruling party. But the number was reduced to 25 after the government dismissed some of the councillors for insubordination. Elected mayor Elias Mudzuri was also suspended by the government last year. MDC spokesman Paul Themba-Nyathi said his party welcomed the mass resignation of the councillors. "As a result of this unrelenting political interference with their activities, and the government's demonstrable contempt for their roles as democratically elected representatives of the people, the remaining MDC councillors in the city have this morning decided to resign en masse," he said. The government has since the election of the councillors in March 2002 been firing and suspending MDC councillors for allegedly disobeying its authority. The Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe has accused local government, public works and national housing minister Ignatius Chombo of sabotaging urban councils through interference. Most urban councils are run by the MDC.
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 25 August
Zanu PF youths strip headman of status
Domboshava - Rowdy Zanu PF militants last week confiscated headman Elias Murape's badge of honour and other regalia, stripping him of his status, after accusing him of supporting the opposition Movement For Democratic Change (MDC). The youths, numbering about 20, last week visited Headman Murape's homestead in Domboshava Communal Lands, about 36 kilometres north-east of Harare, and accused him of supporting the opposition MDC. They had been riled by headman Murape's presence at a well-attended rally which was addressed by the leader of the opposition MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai. According to eye-witnesses from the village, the headman is said to have told Tsvangirai that he was now living in fear after the youths had threatened him with death. He said his support for the opposition had created problems for himself and his subjects who were now being monitored by the ruling party militias in the area.
The youths accused Murape of selling out and not supporting the controversial land reform programme. They alleged that the headman was illegally allocating land to MDC supporters from the urban areas so as to boost the party's support base in rural areas in preparation for the forthcoming parliamentary elections next year. They then demanded the headman's badge and told him that he had been stripped of his powers as the local headman. They also ordered him not to collect his monthly allowance of $500 000 which the government is giving to all headmen in Zimbabwe's 57 districts. Fearing for his life, Murape handed over the badge and the regalia to the youths, who later forwarded it to the District Administrator' s office for Goromonzi. Officials at the District Administrator's Office confirmed that they had received the headman's badge and regalia from the Zanu PF youths. The incident comes a few days after President Mugabe signed a regional charter on free and fair elections.
The charter is based on 10 guidelines that include political tolerance, freedom of association, full participation of citizens, impartiality of electoral institutions, independence of the judiciary, voter education and equal opportunity for all political parties to access the public media. The charter states that SADC states holding elections should ensure the scrupulous implementation of the principles and take precautions to prevent fraud or rigging, provide security for all parties and ensure transparency and integrity of the entire election process. The MDC has of late been making forays into Zimbabwe's rural areas where the ruling party commands a majority. The visit to Domboshava by Tsvangirai is one of such strategies by the opposition.
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From The Star (SA), 26 August
Fraudsters clean up by 'laundering' Zim money
By Lee Rondganger
Fraudsters are successfully using Zimbabwean coins to defraud South African laundromat and amusement game owners of thousands of rands. The coins are similar in width and dimension to South African coins and because of these similarities, fraudsters are using them successfully in coin-operated machines. A Zimbabwean 1c coin is similar to SA's R1, a Zim 20c is similar to SA's R2 and Zim 50c to SA's R5. This has infuriated laundromat and coin-operated machine owners, who say that they are losing huge amounts of money every year. "I have more Zimbabwean coins than they have in Zimbabwe," said an irate John de Canha, owner of Johnny Casino, which makes and supplies video games and pool tables to shops. "This is a nationwide problem and the industry is losing hundreds of thousands of rands because of it," De Canha said. "We can find between 100 and 300 Zimbabwean coins in a machine every month." De Canha said that he had to hire people to watch his machines in an effort to stop the fraud. "I am forced to do this because it will cost us a hell of a lot of money to change all the slots on the machines," he said.
Walter Sakaekpu, who owns the Rand East Games shop in Yeoville, said he lost thousands of rands a year. "It is very difficult to watch everyone who plays pool in my shop because I am also running a take-aways. I am losing a lot of money and there is nothing I can do about it. I have been begging the guys who supply the tables to me to do something, but they say it will cost a lot of money to change the slots," he said. Thomas Sithole, manager of the Hillbrow Amusement Centre, has had to take drastic action to avoid being defrauded. "I do not allow anyone to put coins into the pool tables. I employ somebody to help me and together we 'flush' the machines. "Before I started doing this, I was losing so much money. I have more than 10 tables in the shop and if I lose R300 on every table every month, that is a lot of money," he said. A laundromat owner in Benoni on the East Rand, who does not want to be identified, said people using his washing machines with Zimbabwean coins "pay nothing" for a wash. "A wash costs R8 while for someone using Zimbabwean coins it will cost 80 Zimbabwean cents - which makes it less than one SA cent for a wash. It is ridiculous," he said, adding that the Reserve Bank should protect the country's economy from "invader coins". Aboobaker Ishmael, general manager of Currency and Protection Services at the Reserve Bank, said: "There is nothing we can do about it. We cannot stop money coming into the country and it is up to the vending-machine operators to ensure that their machines do not accept the coins."
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From Zim Online (SA), 26 August
Propaganda chief Moyo to lose his jobs?
Harare - A top level Zanu PF committee is considering asking President Robert Mugabe to dismiss his propaganda chief, Jonathan Moyo, party sources told ZimOnline. The committee comprising state and party vice-president Joseph Msika, party chairman John Nkomo and information secretary Nathan Shamuyarira, was set up earlier this month to probe Moyo's conduct in government and in the party. Msika refused to discuss the issue when contacted for comment, only saying: "There will be procedures to be followed over that matter and at appropriate stages measures will be implemented." According to the sources, Msika and his colleagues have already met twice to deliberate on Moyo's fate and would soon be submitting a recommendation that Moyo be dismissed as government Information Minister and as Zanu PF's deputy information secretary. One top Zanu PF official, who did not want to be named, said: "Moyo's issue was handled at cabinet level where it was agreed that the guy has caused a lot of problems. The committee is clear on its mandate, which is to achieve results before the (Zanu PF) congress in December, and I think it is likely to recommend that Moyo be stripped of his position both in the party and in government. He has especially been using his hold on the state media to attack senior officials and cause chaos and mayhem." Moyo was handpicked by Mugabe as member of parliament under a clause in the constitution allowing the president to nominate 30 people into the 150-member house. He is widely criticised for effectively using his position as Minister of Information to compensate for his lack of a personal power base within Zanu PF.
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From AFP, 26 August
Red carpet for Zim pool star
Harare International Airport, Zimbabwe - Around 2 000 ecstatic Zimbabweans rolled out a red carpet welcome to swimmer Kirsty Coventry, the country's first-ever triple Olympic medal winner. Coventry won gold, silver and bronze in swimming at the Olympics in Athens, and has been hailed at home as a heroine and inspiration to this southern African nation's 12 million people. Hundreds of people waved flags or held placards, one of which read: "Welcome home our princess of sport". "This is awesome!" the 20-year old Coventry said to the crowd through a public address system after her arrival home from Greece. "I want to thank you all so much for your support." The turn out of fans, mostly black Zimbabweans, temporarily dispelled racial overtones inherent in Zimbabwe today, where whites get a bad press in the state media for their perceived support of opponents to president Robert Mugabe's government.
Shortly after her arrival, Coventry addressed a press conference flanked by the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Olympic Committee, Paul Chingoka, and education minister Aeneas Chigwedere, who said the young white woman was an ambassador of the country and would be given a diplomatic passport. "I am here to welcome back home one of the greatest ambassadors of Zimbabwe," said Chigwedere. He said the swimmer would meet the 80-year-old head of state at a reception at his official residence in Harare later on Wednesday. Coventry, who wore her three medals, said she was proud to have represented her country at the Olympic Games. She said there were still more goals to achieve, and she was looking ahead to 2008. "My race strategies I need to improve on, so I can go faster; I have the medals, but I don't have the world records yet," she said. "Hopefully in the next couple of years to come that'll be my goal, to get much faster, and compete against the best people in the sport, stay humble and keep loving the sport."
Coventry won a gold medal for the women's 200m backstroke, a silver for 100m backstroke and the 200m individual medley bronze medal. Her victories have pushed swimming to the forefront of national attention here after it had long been considered an elitist, and mainly white, sport. Among the many people who were at the airport to welcome her home were children from Coventry's former preparatory school dressed in their red school blazers. "I just wanted to get a glimpse of her, she really made us proud," said one man outside the airport terminal as he hoisted his twin daughters alternately on to his shoulders to see above the crowds that pressed around the young swimmer. Coventry, who leaves the country again Saturday for the United States, where she is studying at Auburn University, Atlanta, left the airport in a top-of-the-range Mercedes Benz provided for her use while in the country.
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From The Times (UK), 26 August
Eddison Zvobgo
Zimbabwean expert in jurisprudence who was a long-term ally, then a rival, of President Mugabe
The death of Eddison Zvobgo, a Harvard-trained doctor of laws who was one of the key figures in Zimbabwean politics, has created a major power vacuum at a time of deep crisis in what was once the British colony of (Southern) Rhodesia. For 20 years Zvobgo survived all attempts by his former ally, President Robert Mugabe, to replace him with a figure Mugabe found more amenable as the ruling Zanu PF party's strongman among the Karanga section of Zimbabwe's majority Shona language group. Coming from the south eastern Masvingo region, the Karanga have dominated the police and security forces since colonial times. Mugabe comes from the Zezuru section of the Shona, located in the north. Mutual suspicions date back centuries. As Minister of Parliamentary and Constitutional Affairs in 1987 Zvobgo was architect of Mugabe's "imperial presidency" - whose features many felt he had designed in the belief he might himself soon take over as executive head of state.
At the time of his death Zvobgo remained an MP for the party he and Mugabe helped to found in 1964, when it split from the late Joshua Nkomo's Zapu (Zimbabwe African People's Union) under the Rev Ndabaningi Sithole. Due to his chronic illness, which required treatment in South Africa, the party last year shelved disciplinary action against him for failing to campaign for Mugabe at the March 2002 presidential election. He had censured Mugabe's "fast track" redistribution of 5,000 white-owned farms to black Zimbabweans, amendment of the constitution despite defeat in a referendum, and enactment of draconian security laws. As chairman of a parliamen tary committee on upcoming legislation, he described the 2002 Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill, curbing press freedom, as "the most determined assault on our constitutional liberties since 1980 independence" but voted for the Bill when it passed into law. It has since been used to suppress independent newspapers and ban outspoken journalists from working.
Eddison Jonas Mudadirwa Zvobgo was the son of a Dutch Reformed Church minister who broke with white missionaries to found his own denomination. Zvobgo said he took it upon himself as a boy to be the family representative in African nationalist politics, undergoing several years detention without trial for militant activities between 1961 and 1971 when he was released and went into exile. After leaving school he had trained as a teacher then took law degrees at Roma University, Lesotho, and at Harvard. He served in the portfolios of Local Government, Justice, and Constitutional Affairs in successive governments after the 1980 triumph of Zanu PF in British- sponsored elections. As ruling party chairman in Masvingo province he was implicated in the 1984 disappearance of the opposition activists Shangwa Mangwengwe and James Magura, last seen being taken away from a house in Masvingo in a Land Rover belonging to the Zanu PF. Their mutilated bodies were later found in a river bed, but local police treated their murder as "death from natural causes". The province became a no-go area for opposition until recent inroads made by Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) with whom Zvobgo conducted informal talks but declined to identify himself.
Zvobgo defied Mugabe's austere Marxist-Leninist "leadership code" to build up a major business empire in his home area, including hotels and shops. Many commentators attributed his reluctance to break finally with Mugabe to fear that his wife and four children would be left destitute. In 1986, fist fights broke out at a Zanu PF women's conference when Mugabe imposed his Ghanaian first wife, Sally, as leader of the influential women's league in place of Zvobgo's wife, Julia, who had been overwhelmingly elected. At Julia Zvobgo's state funeral earlier this year Mugabe for the first time delegated delivery of the eulogy to his vice-president, Joseph Msika. This was interpreted as a mark of the tensions between the two families. A close associate of Zvobgo, the prominent MP Dzikamai Mavaire, was expelled for telling legislators: "The president must go", and Zvobgo's serious injury in a vehicle crash aroused passions despite his assurances that it was an accident. Zvobgo announced he would stand as presidential candidate in 2002 if the ageing head of state volunteered not to do so. With the death of Zvobgo, Mugabe is expected to make renewed efforts to install parliamentary speaker Emmerson Manangagwa or recently retired air force commander, Air Marshal Josiah Tungamirai, as "kingmaker" of the Karanga.
Eddison Zvobgo, politician, was born on October 2, 1935. He died on August 22, 2004, aged 68
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From Zim Online (SA), 27 August
High Court judge quizzed by secret service agents
Harare - Agents from the government's Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) are understood to have threatened the judge who freed businessman and ruling Zanu PF party official James Makamba from jail earlier this week. The case of Makamba has received particular attention from the public in Zimbabwe because it is alleged that he had been having an affair with President Robert Mugabe's wife Grace. Court officials, who do not want to be named, told ZimOnline that the CIO agents visited High Court Judge Lawrence Kamocha in his chambers after he had delivered his judgment quashing five charges of illegally exporting foreign currency against Makamba and ordering him released. The CIO operatives are said to have quizzed Kamocha about his reasons for freeing Makamba. Makamba, who has pleaded guilty to another six charges of illegally selling foreign currency, had spent seven months in jail before his release last Tuesday. He is still to be sentenced on these charges. Top government and Zanu PF officials as well as Makamba's relatives and friends had privately indicated that although Makamba may have been guilty of some of the alleged offences, his prolonged ordeal in jail was primarily due to his suspected relationship with the President's wife.
A court official told ZimOnline the CIO agents accused Judge Kamocha of not protecting the interests of the government by releasing Makamba. "The guys visited him in his chambers ten minutes after the judgment was delivered. They quizzed him on why he had freed Makamba. I understand they are still calling him and threatening him. But we all think that the ruling was very judicial. But that's why he is in trouble anyway." The CIO has in the past been accused of harassing judges for delivering judgments not favorable to the government. According to the official, Kamocha's clerk, John Matekesa, was also briefly questioned by the operatives. It was not possible to get comment from either Kamocha or his clerk on the alleged threats. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, when contacted for comment, said: "I am not aware of that. The judge has not made any report to me about any harassment. But I don't envisage anyone threatening a judge over a judgment.. That cannot happen in Zimbabwe because judges are free and independent to make judgments without fear." The officials said Kamocha briefly appeared at court yesterday, but only to collect some personal files from his office. He left after a few minutes and he was not driving his official Mercedes Benz car. On Wednesday, a day after freeing Makamba, Kamocha reportedly did not turn up at court although he had been scheduled to hear two matters in his chambers and also to deliver judgment on another matter. Fellow Judge Tedius Karwi had to step in to deliver the judgment which had already been written by Kamocha.
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From The Daily Mirror, 27 August
Court acquits Chiyangwa
Fortune Mbele and Takunda Maodza
Phillip Chiyangwa, the boisterous business mogul and politician, was yesterday cleared of attempting to defeat the course justice, contempt of court and perjury by the magistrate's court after the State failed to build a case against him. Granting Chiyangwa liberty, magistrate Judith Tsamba said the State failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the Chinhoyi legislator had committed a crime. Ruling on the charge of attempting to defeat the course of justice, Tsamba said Chiyangwa had surrendered the ENG Asset Management vehicles in compliance with the police' s order and as such had committed no offence. "If the police asked the accused to surrender the vehicles and he surrendered them, the information that the police got about other vehicles cannot be linked to Chiyangwa," ruled Tsamba. Tsamba said that if Chiyangwa knew about the other vehicles, the onus was on the State to prove that the act of omission amounts to obstruction of justice. She said contrary to the State's claims that Chiyangwa refused to withdraw his threat on an investigating police officer, Peter Magwenzi while testifying in court, it should be considered that he made the threat whilst he was angry, a fact which was not disputed by the State during trial.
Tsamba, who was ruling on the contempt of court charge, further cleared Chiyangwa of perjury saying the State relied on the evidence of one witness-an investigating officer known as Tongogara. In his evidence, Tongogara claimed that he overheard a telephone conversation between Chiyangwa and Gilbert Muponda, in which the former ENG boss was ordering him to hand over another vehicle to the police. "The State has failed to prove a prima facie case against the accused and all charges are withdrawn after plea, accordingly the accused is found not guilty on all the three counts," ruled Tsamba. The State was alleging that Chiyangwa attempted to defeat the course of justice when he allegedly tried to hide some of the cars belonging to the directors of the now defunct ENG Asset Management, Nyasha Watyoka and Gilbert Muponda. Muponda and Watyoka were arrested by police on December 31 last year for allegedly defrauding investors which included Century Holdings, First Mutual Asset Management among others, of a staggering $61 billion. Prosecutor Chrispen Machingura alleged that information gathered by the police during the course of investigations revealed that the youthful directors had bought buildings and luxury vehicles using investor funds.
The State said that Muponda and Watyoka indicated that some of the properties were in Chiyangwa's possession. On January 2 this year, police visited Chiyangwa's house, number 11 Crowhill Road, Borrowdale, and recovered a BMW Z4 vehicle grey in colour and registration number 837-109A from his son. When the police visited Chiyangwa's house, the State further argued, he denied knowledge of a Mercedes Benz Kompressor grey in colour and a green BMW. However, when they re-interrogated Muponda and Watyoka on the whereabouts of the vehicle, they allegedly indicated that Chiyangwa had the two vehicles. On January 12 this year, acting on a tip off, police recovered a Kompressor Mercedes Benz grey in colour and a green BMW X5 at number 11 Plew Crescent Cotsworld, where one of Chiyangwa's acquaintances resides. Arguments ensued over the fact that Chiyangwa had not disclosed the two vehicles to the police although he had been earlier on warned to declare and surrender all properties belonging to ENG. Machingura said Chiyangwa refused to withdraw the threat against Magwenzi when he was asked to do so by Mishrod Guvamombe, the magistrate who was presiding over the case. Chiyangwa through his counsel Advocate Chris Anderson said the vehicles namely a Mercedes Benz Kompressor and BMW X5, were in his custody pursuant to a mandate to negotiate with ENG creditors and the need to secure its assets against creditors who wished to seize them unlawfully. "The accused will deny that prior to January 12, 2004 he was asked about the whereabouts of the two vehicles or that he made any statement to the police misdirecting them as to their whereabouts," argued Anderson. He said Chiyangwa co- operated with the police during investigations by providing the keys to vehicles that were recovered from him including some share certificates belonging to ENG.
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From The Financial Gazette, 26 August
Govt monitors diplomatic funds
Njabulo Ncube and Thomas Madondoro
The increasingly paranoid Zanu PF government is now monitoring cash flows to embassies to identify diplomatic missions suspected of bankrolling the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and other civic organisations it perceives to be dabbling in politics. The stalking of foreign missions, some of which house international development agencies that in the past have channelled funds towards civic organisations, comes amid concern from the Harare authorities over the prevalence of what Zanu PF labelled dirty monies in an internal report presented at the party's national conference back in 2002. The document identified non-governmental organisations (NGOs), selected private media, private companies, trade unions, banks, trusts, foundations, development agencies and drought relief organisations as "Trojan horses through which the dirty monies were being channelled".
The government has, in the past couple of years, executed a war of attrition against the private media and trade unions. It has recently turned its attention on NGOs. Harare is in the middle of a diplomatic tiff with Abuja over allegations that Nigeria had made a $200 million donation to the MDC. With the huge legal bills for court challenges that the MDC has incurred since 2000, ruling party officials said its coffers should have long dried up, but this has not been the case, according to intelligence sources. The Daily News and its sister paper The Daily News on Sunday were closed last September after failing to comply with the country's new stringent media laws. Critics say the shutdown of the newspapers, followed by the de-registration of The Tribune this year, was part of Zanu PF's long-term strategy to close democratic space by permanently dealing with its perceived enemies, among them banks, businesses and NGOs thought to be sympathetic to the MDC. They said the government viewed the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe's two publications as representing the voice of the MDC and other dissenting voices.
The Zanu PF secretary for external affairs, Didymus Mutasa, confirmed that the government was wary of embassies and other foreign donor organisations working in the country. Mutasa said the government would not hesitate to cut ties with those embassies involved in opposition politics with an agenda to effect regime change in Zimbabwe. He said the government was closely monitoring the operations of some embassies, which he did not name. "Our intelligence arms are taking care of the situation on the ground. It was exposed that some embassies are working with the opposition. The funds are now being routed through various means. We are keeping our eyes open," said Mutasa. He said those embassies reported to be working with the MDC and civic organisations would be exposed, adding that the government was keeping track of the source of the funds already in the coffers of the opposition. "Embassies must remember that they are here because we want to strengthen our friendship. Isu hatiende kwavo tichinoita zvisina kunaka. (We do not go to their countries to meddle). It is better for the Americans to concentrate on regime change in their country, which is the worst, than to come here and talk about regime change," he charged.
MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi vehemently denied that the main opposition party drew funds from overseas via embassies in Harare. "It is totally false that we are getting funds from embassies or through the embassies. These are statements and strategies coming from people that are frightened of the grassroots support that we have garnered so far through our interactions with traditional leaders, including the chiefs," said Nyathi. "No money is being given to us by foreigners. This is fact and Zanu PF knows it. No embassy is willing to be seen violating its terms of operation in Zimbabwe. We get our money from our local supporters and from the Political Parties Finance Act," he said. He, however, could not disclose how much the party got under the Political Parties Finance Act this year. The manoeuvres by the government to monitor the embassies come against the backcloth of proposals to control the operations of non-governmental organisations by enacting a stringent NGO law that would ban foreign human rights organisations as well as restrict many local charities. Local groups would also be banned from receiving funds from abroad to finance work in such fields. President Robert Mugabe has repeatedly accused NGOs of meddling in politics.
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 27 August
Mutasa implicated in terror campaign
Nearly 70 people were injured and at least 26 Zanu PF members were arrested in violent disturbances in Makoni North and East last weekend. The violence, instigated by Zanu PF supporters loyal to Didymus Mutasa, the party's Member of Parliament for Makoni North and Shadreck Chipanga, the MP for Makoni East, was against fellow Zanu PF supporters believed to be backing two other senior party officials in the same constituencies in primary elections slated for October. According to sources in the police and at the Rusape Magistrates Court, those injured include Viola Chitura, the former Zanu PF district coordinator for Makoni and retired Major James Kaunye, the aspirant MP for Makoni North and the wife of Nathaniel Mhiripiri, the aspirant MP for Makoni East. Authoritative Zanu PF officials and war veterans in Makoni District said Mutasa and Chipanga drove to the homes of Mhiripiri and Kaunye on Thursday noon and advised the two men to withdraw themselves from the election campaign or face unspecified "disciplinary measures". "On that Thursday, Mutasa and Chipanga gathered Zanu PF militants from the "Chinyavada" terror group," the official said. "Later in the day, the two ministers assigned Everisto Bosha and Albert Nyakuedzwa to take the militants to Mayo and start disciplining Kaunye's supporters. Mutasa and Chipanga went to Mayo in their own cars with more Zanu PF militants to launch their violent campaign. People were beaten up. Most were injured and were admitted at Rusape General Hospital." The official said Mutasa participated in the beatings of Kaunye's supporters, threatening them with immediate expulsion if they continued backing the war veterans' leader.
It is alleged the terror spread to Chiendambuya Business Centre where Mutasa called traditional leaders and some Zanu PF supporters in the area and told them that they risked being expelled from Makoni District if they continued rallying behind Kaunye. "Cde Mutasa said he was set to become Zanu PF's vice president behind Cde Emmerson Mnangagwa at the party's December congress," the official said. "While he spoke, the other people in Bosha's and Nyakuedzwa's cars went into the villages and rounded up suspected Kaunye's friends and brought them to the shopping centre where they were thoroughly beaten up before everyone." The violence moved to Headlands where Mutasa and Chipanga allegedly led their crew to Headlands Hotel where Kaunye's supporters were gathered to map a way forward in the wake of repeated threats by Mutasa. They beat them up and made death threats. However, the officials said the police at Headlands intervened and fought running battles with Mutasa's supporters before they managed to overcome them, leading to the subsequent arrest of 26 members of the terror group.
Policemen told The Daily News Online yesterday that they now feared for their lives and jobs after Mutasa ordered them to release the suspects without sending them to court. A police officer who asked not to be named said: "When the police arrested the group in Headlands, other Zanu PF militants went to Mabvazuva residential area and Vengere Township and flushed out all people suspected to be supporting Mhiripiri and Kaunye. "The police intervened but had to escape to the police station after they came under attack. The Zanu PF supporters came and demonstrated outside the police station. "They actually beat up Inspector Tomukai, the officer-in-charge for Crime and confiscated his car keys. Minister Mutasa took the keys with him." On Tuesday, the 26-man terror gang appeared before Rusape magistrate Mark Dzira to answer to charges of public violence, malicious injury to property and grievous bodily harm. According to court officials who refused to be named, Mutasa, Chipanga and Mike Madiro, the Zanu PF chairman for Manicaland sat out during the court proceedings which began at about 3pm until about 9pm. Dzira granted them $300 000 bail each and Mutasa paid the total of $7,8 million. The court officials said all the 26 bail receipts bear the signature of Mutasa, who is also the Minister of Anti-Corruption and Anti-Monopolies in President Robert Mugabe's "War Cabinet". They will appear again in court in a fortnight at Rusape magistrates court before Dzira.
Police sources said Cabinet Ministers Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Joseph Made, the Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Chipanga and Mutasa brought food and warm clothing to the arrested Zanu PF supporters while in police custody. Among those charged and subsequently appeared in court are Maxwell Chinzambwa, a war veteran, Gilbert Zowa, the Chiendambuya councillor for Ward 5 in Makoni Rural District Council, a war veteran, Nyakuedzwa, the chairman for the MRDC and the provincial manager for the Grain Marketing Board, Happiness Mafuratidze, Mutasa's niece, Bosha, the owner of Chovhakaira Bookshop in Rusape. The District Criminal Investigations Officer for Rusape District Police, Superintendent Mildred Muza confirmed the violent clashes but insisted the police were able to arrest the culprits. "The attempts by some people to control the police force were resisted and will continue to be resisted," she said. "We arrested the 26 suspects and despite their resistance, we sent them to court. We will not be intimidated. Suspects would be treated the same no matter who backs them or what positions they hold in society."
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From IRIN (UN), 25 August
With ARVs beyond reach, rural folk resort to herbs
Bulawayo - Moketsi Nleya, a subsistence farmer in rural Madlambuzi, western Zimbabwe, painfully retrieves a bunch of thin brown roots from under his pillow, which he breaks into tiny fragments and chews, followed by a cupful of an analgesic herbal concoction that also acts as a sedative. Nleya, 55, is among a growing number of HIV/AIDS patients in rural Zimbabwe who have to resort to traditional medicine because they have no direct access to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy. "Ours is a delicate and desperate case. Some people tell us that our condition could improve only if we could get antiretroviral drugs. The pain is unbearable, but when you take some of these herbs you do get a decent sleep, at least for a night," Nleya said. His scrawny body showed the signs of fast-deteriorating health. Some of Madlambuzi's residents said the Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association (ZINATHA), a body representing traditional healers and herbalists, encouraged them to seek herbal therapy while waiting for the government's announcement on rolling out ARVs in rural areas.
ZINATHA has called for the acceptance of traditional medicines at health institutions and is lobbying government to allow its members to work with doctors and nurses to tackle the AIDS pandemic. Dr Gordon Chavhunduka, president of ZINATHA, told IRIN that in the fight against the virus, all medical practitioners should work together for the benefit of the patient. "We have been lobbying the government for the past two decades to incorporate traditional healers' knowledge and practice into the country's health delivery system, without much success. It has always been the norm and custom among African communities to use traditional medicine in whatever circumstances, and indeed, people infected with HIV/AIDS are among those who use them," Chavhunduka said. Official figures indicate that AIDS-related illnesses claim more than 2,500 lives every week. Faced with empty coffers, a fast-crumbling health delivery system, isolation from the international community and shortages of foreign currency to buy drugs, Zimbabwe is grappling with the epidemic that has reduced life expectancy to 35 years. The population of children orphaned by AIDS is estimated to be hovering at above one million.
Last month the Geneva-based Global Fund turned down Zimbabwe's request for US $218 million of assistance, the bulk of which was meant to support ARV rollout programmes in both rural and urban areas. Estimates indicate that while almost 25 percent of Zimbabwe's 11 million population are HIV-positive, only 5,000 are on ARVs. The government set aside about Zim $15 billion (US $2.6 million) for the purchase of ARVs at the beginning of the year, but critics said the amount was completely inadequate. Because of the desperate situation unfolding in rural areas, some NGOs have stepped in with medical assistance: Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) intends rolling out ARVs to rural people in Matabeleland in the southwest of the country. "At the moment we are setting up an HIV/AIDS project in rural Tsholotsho. Basically, our intention is to start running opportunistic infection clinics, together with the staff from the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare. When that has been done, we will then provide ARVs just to those in need," said MSF spokesperson, Monique Van de Kar.
ARVs would initially be available at the Tsholotsho hospital, with three other health centers in the Matabeleland North province - Sipepa, Mkhunzi and Pumula - following suit. "AIDS has had a devastating effect on most parts of Africa and, in some instances, rural people have been the hardest hit. People in rural areas have difficulty traveling to urban centers for ARVs and this is the main reason why we have chosen this rural area," Van de Kar added. MSF is already working with Mpilo Hospital in Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo in Matabeleland North to administer ARVs to patients. According to a government health specialist based in Matabeleland, the plight of people infected with the disease was further compounded by the shortage of simple suppressants that could play a major role in reducing some opportunistic infections. "It is so painful to see people flocking to hospitals for treatment every day, only to be turned away because there are no drugs - [not even] simple painkillers ... The situation is so desperate," said Ostine Dube, a nurse at a government hospital in the province.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 28 August
Zimbabwe court finds Briton guilty of trying to buy coup arms
The former Special Air Service officer Simon Mann was found guilty by a Zimbabwe magistrate yesterday of attempting illegally to buy weapons to be used to stage a coup in oil-rich Equatorial Guineau. He will be sentenced on Sept 10. His co-accused, 66 men he recruited for the operation, were acquitted of weapons charges under Zimbabwe's tough security laws. Mann was expressionless when the magistrate, Mishrod Guvamombe, read out the verdict in a shed that served as a makeshift court in the maximum security Chikurubi prison on the outskirts of Harare. "The action by the accused amounts at the most to attempting to purchase firearms. The accused is found guilty," said Mr Guvamombe. Mann was accused by the Zimbabwe government of being the leader of a plot to overthrow the regime of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema of Equatorial Guinea. In mitigation, his lawyer, Jonathan Samkange, said yesterday that Mann had been "extremely co-operative". He said: "He has not wasted the court's time, And yet he has been treated worse than a condemned prisoner, and was deprived of all privileges allowed to prisoners on remand. He is a family man, a married man, with five children and another due in September."
Mr Samkange said that the old Etonian had not been allowed to receive regular food from outside prison, and had been forced to wear prison clothes. He was arrested with 69 other alleged mercenaries on March 7 at Harare International Airport. They were detained when a Boeing 727 that flew in from South Africa stopped off to refuel and collect a £100,000 consignment of weapons, including anti-tank mortars and rocket launchers. The accused all said they were on their way to guard a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. State prosecutors have asked for a 10-year jail sentence for Mann. The court acquitted 66 other suspected mercenaries of weapons charges, but they, and the three-man air crew, have still to face sentence for relatively minor offences of contravening immigration and firearms laws. Two other men who were arrested with Mann at the airport where they awaited the aircraft's arrival - the South Africans Harry Carlse and Jacobus Horn - found they faced no charges as they were part of the main group acquitted yesterday and had entered Zimbabwe legally.
Their South African lawyer, Alwyn Griebenow, said yesterday he had the two men's warrant of liberation. "I am going to the prison to get them now, and they will be on the first plane out of here on Saturday," Mr Griebenow said. They are expected to face questioning by the police after they land in South Africa, in connection with the alleged coup attempt. About 20 relatives of the men began clapping when the magistrate delivered his verdict. "The manner in which they were recruited arouses some suspicion, however the suspicion alone is not enough," Mr Guvamombe said. "The state failed to discharge its onus by proving the accused persons guilty beyond reasonable doubt." The prosecution has asked for jail terms of between one year to 18 months for violations of immigration regulations that 67 of the men, including the three-member crew, are facing.
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From Zim Online (SA), 28 August
Zanu PF faction sought to block Zvobgo's hero status
Harare - Rivals of the late Zanu PF founder member, Eddison Zvobgo, unsuccessfully tried to dissuade the party's politburo from conferring national hero status on him. Zvobgo, a stalwart of Zanu PF who on many occasions publicly differed with President Robert Mugabe on policy, died last Sunday. He will be buried at the country's National Hero's Acre tomorrow (Sunday). Mugabe told mourners that Zanu PF had unanimously decided to declare Zvobgo a hero. Party sources said a rival faction from Zvobgo's home province of Masvingo, led by governor Josiah Hungwe, strongly opposed the decision. Hungwe and his faction are said to have told the politburo not to honour Zvobgo because he had on several occasions disagreed with Mugabe. They also accused Zvobgo of refusing to campaign for Mugabe during the controversial 2002 presidential election. One of the sources told ZimOnline: "They compiled a dossier of what they said were Zvobgo's misdeeds but by the time their dossier had reached all senior Zanu PF members the politburo had already made a decision (to make Zvobgo hero)". The politburo is Zanu PF's highest decision making body. Hungwe refused to comment, only saying: "The politburo has already ruled on that one". Zvobgo's long-time friend Dzikamai Mavhaire, who is also a member of Zanu PF's central committee, confirmed there had been attempts to prevent the politburo from honouring the late politician. "They tried to campaign against the decision but it was too late. Of course they were basing their arguments on allegations that Dr Zvobgo had refused to campaign for Mugabe." A Harvard law graduate, Zvobgo spoke against violence and chaos in the government's land reforms and criticised the harsh press laws passed by the government as being unconstitutional.
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From News24 (SA), 27 August
Six Zim farmers arrested
Harare - Zimbabwe police have arrested six white commercial farmers in the northern tobacco-growing district of Karoi, about 260km north of Harare. Police said the farmers had defied government orders to leave their farms with immediate effect. "Most of these farmers own more than one farm and they have been asked to surrender the other farms and keep only one," said a police statement. Meanwhile, the country's Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU), which represents most white farmers, said it did not know if its members had been arrested. "All I know is that one of them, Jan Kageler, was barricaded into his home twice last week by war veterans," said CFU regional director Ben Kaschula. "He has an expired order to leave his farm, but now has permission to farm 250ha and surrender the rest," Kaschula added. The CFU said attacks against the few remaining white farmers in the district had been co-ordinated by one self-styled war veteran, despite orders from senior government officials to allow the farmers to continue farming. Efforts by Sapa to contact the arrested farmers and their families were fruitless.
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From SABC News, 27 August
Catholic bishops slam Zimbabwe NGO bill
Poor people in Zimbabwe will suffer should the country enact the non-governmental organisation (NGO) bill, the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC) warned today. Father Mathibela Sebothoma said the social development work by many Zimbabwean faith-based organisations supported by international charities was threatened by the "repressive nature" of the bill. According to the SACBC the proposed law would effectively ban NGOs as no foreign funding would be allowed. It also proposed that all organisations be registered with the government, "failing which, personnel may be arrested and tried. The provisions of the bill are contradictory to the values of international solidarity, the primacy of the poor, and the common good that are universally promoted by the church," said Sebothoma. He said the bill delivered a blow to the ailing social development initiatives in health care, education, food relief, and human rights promotion that had been undertaken by Zimbabwe's civil society organisations.
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From Business Day (SA), 27 August
UK ready to spend R500m on Zimbabwe land issue
Parliamentary Editor
Cape Town - About R500m was still on the table to fund land reform in Zimbabwe if a political settlement was found in that country, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday. Straw rejected any suggestion that Britain had reneged on the undertakings that were made at Lancaster House, when the independence of Zimbabwe was negotiated. He said Britain stood by the Lancaster House view that land reform was at the heart of the problem in Zimbabwe. Straw said that he had been involved in negotiations three years ago in Abuja, when it was agreed to undertake a land reform programme in Zimbabwe within the rule of law. Britain had made £45m available for this. He also attempted to lay to rest another of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's favourite attacks, that Britain supported the official opposition in Zimbabwe, the Movement for Democratic Change. "We do not support any political parties in Zimbabwe," Straw said. Straw said that in addition to conflicts in Africa, there were some areas where there was "cold war" between the government and the governed. "Zimbabwe is not the only country in Africa where a repressive government is pursuing policies which are damaging its people. But it is a place where the damage is particularly severe. More than 7-million Zimbabweans, more than half the total population, are now dependent on food aid, while the government denies the need for international assistance," Straw said.
The region had suffered as a result, from economic costs such as deferred investment, and social costs when Zimbabweans migrating to neighbouring countries imposed additional strains on them. "There needs to be an environment for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe which fully reflects the new SADC (Southern African Development Community) principles and guidelines for democratic elections, so I warmly welcome SA's sustained efforts to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe. It remains important that you and the rest of Africa stay engaged to help the people of Zimbabwe return their country to health," Straw said. Attempts to get comment from the Zimbabwe high commission in Pretoria and the office of Information Minister Jonathan Moyo in Harare proved fruitless. A secretary said Moyo could not be reached until today. In Harare, a Zimbabwe magistrate is expected to hand down verdicts today when the trial resumes of 70 suspected mercenaries held on charges of plotting a coup in Equatorial Guinea. The men, among them Briton Simon Mann, are accused of being at the heart of a conspiracy that allegedly includes Mark Thatcher, son of former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher. Mark Thatcher, a friend and neighbour of Mann's, was arrested at his Cape Town home on Wednesday and charged under SA 's Foreign Military Assistance Act, which bars mercenary activity, for allegedly bankrolling the coup plot. He denied the charges and was released on bail.
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From IRIN (UN), 25 August
Innovative bush camps help Aids orphans
Johannesburg - NGOs dealing with children orphaned by HIV/AIDS have tended to concentrate on material support, neglecting their emotional and psychosocial needs. But a developmental organisation in the southern region of Zimbabwe is filling that gap by using bush camps to teach orphans how to cope with their trauma. Masiye Camp has been organising bush camps in the Matopos national park, 65km south of Bulawayo, since 1998. Teaching life skills through bush camps is an African tradition that is still alive in some societies, but the practice has been remodelled to address the new stress HIV/AIDS has placed on communities. The 2004 UNAIDS global report on the epidemic has estimated that there are about 980,000 AIDS orphans in Zimbabwe. But these figures fail to reveal the psychological effect on the young people who have nursed and lost their parents under traumatic circumstances, without receiving any psychological support from their relatives or communities. In most cases, the fight for survival does not even give these children time to mourn their loss. "Many children we have worked with show psychosomatic disturbances, depression, very low self-esteem, disturbed social behaviour, hopelessness and low levels of life skills due to parental death," Riego, one of the camp's counsellors, told PlusNews. "This might result in stunted development of emotional intelligence and life skills." Every school holiday, Masiye offers eight-day camps for 80 children in four categories: under fives, six- to 11-year-olds, 12- to 16-year-olds and children who head households. The day is filled with outdoor activities and talks on issues affecting children and youth, counsellor-directed education and skills-development. Participants can choose between play activities - including arts and crafts, canoeing and challenge courses - as well as team-building exercises, such as tug-of-war and treasure hunts. According to the camp organisers, the skills children are taught can be used in their daily lives. Canoeing, for example, is not seen as a recreational sport but an exercise in experiencing limits, dangers, rules and teamwork.
Arts, craft and music courses are aimed at giving children resources to start income-generating projects after they return home. Children who head households are also taught teenage parenting as well as household and business management. There are 10 youth leaders at the camp, who are trained by psychologists and counsellors. In extreme cases, the youth leaders require the support of a child psychologist, as the children's mental problems can sometimes lead to aggressive behaviour, drug taking, smoking and stealing. The camp holiday would most likely be the first time someone was available and willing to listen to the children's stories, Riego commented. "Most of these children suffer tremendous trauma and psychosomatic disturbances due to unresolved emotions. In the camp, they gain trust and learn that they are not alone in their situation," explained a Masiye Camp official who asked not to be named. Allowing the children to grieve is one of the most important aspects of the camp holiday. "In their day-to-day lives, these children don't get the opportunity to speak about their problems. Most children do not go through a proper bereavement phase - they don't talk about their loss, and many act as if their parents were still alive," the official noted. Youth leaders regard it as their biggest achievement when the participants gradually open up and admit to their feelings during the camp. But when the camp is over, reality sets in again. The lack of community support and their heavy daily responsibilities often leave the children feeling even more depressed. The lack of follow-up services and continuous support has been a weak point in the Masiye programme, the youth leaders acknowledged. "The camp must not be a stand-alone programme. We need to link psychosocial support with community care programmes. At the moment, the community doesn't comprehend the need for psychosocial support and children's rights," the official said.
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From The Mail & Guardian (UK), 26 August
Fight for the higher office
Godwin Gandu
Life after President Robert Mugabe is a thought that has been avoided for more than two decades, but the old man will not be seeking re-election in 2008. Meanwhile, three camps have emerged within Zanu PF in the run-up to the party's congress in December where Mugabe's successor will be decided. Zanu PF heavyweights are building alliances that have drawn in the police, army and war veterans. The intellectual wing - the "young turks" - includes Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and has led a "propaganda war on unrepentant Western countries". The group has seen support from National Security Minister Nicholas Goche, Minister without Portfolio Elliot Manyika, Mashonaland West leader Philip Chiyangwa and Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri. The group does not have a leader but Moyo's profile as the public face of the anti-colonial onslaught has upped his appeal with the party rank and file. He has also been spending money at grassroots level. The only other persons with strong grassroots support are Goche and Manyika.
Another area of leverage has been Moyo's control over the public media, allowing the group a powerful tool to influence political discourse. Coupled to this, Goche's hold over intelligence means they are privy to the happenings in Mugabe's innermost circle. Chiyangwa, a recent convert to the young turks camp, has been in and out of prison on charges of contempt of court and obstruction of justice, but Moyo's press has come to his defence, allowing him to fight the Mashonaland West corner for the group. Made was stripped of the land reform portfolio in the last Cabinet reshuffle, but is a close friend of Moyo's and continues to receive positive press. Although the young turks repeatedly opposed the extension of Chihuri's tenure, he has endeared himself to them through his heavy-handed approach to journalists. Moyo's tendency to rubbish party stalwarts in the media is, however, seen as reckless and as creating enemies within the party that could cost his camp dearly.
The second camp - consisting of die-hard comrades who fought the liberation war from Mgagao in Tanzania to Zambia and Mozambique - is regarded as the real Zanu PF wing and is well respected by Mugabe. Its members have their tentacles running into the heart and soul of the party and can direct events within the army and intelligence as well as appeal to the party's old guard. The camp has no leader and operates through consensus between Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi, retired army supremo General Solomon Mujuru, Intelligence Chief Happyton Bonyongwe, retired prisons chief Major General Paradzayi Zimondi, army commander Constantine Chiwenga, Higher Education Minister Herbert Murerwa, retired youth and gender minister Brigadier Ambrose Mutinhiri, Harare Governor Witness Mangwende and, the little known but effective, Zanu PF Mashonaland East provincial chairperson Ray Kaukonde. This group, largely of the Zezuru Shona tribe, has the respect of senior leadership in Zanu PF's Ndebele Matebeleland provinces, such as Land Reform Minister John Nkomo, Vice President Joseph Msika and former intelligence boss Dumiso Dabengwa.
It successfully countered Emmerson Mnangagwa's 2000 bid for the post of chairperson and helped install Nkomo by consulting with the late Zanu PF Masvingo province political godfather Eddison Zvobgo. This camp continues to have links with the Zvobgo faction. A leading light in this camp is Mugabe confidante Sekeramayi. The group, though lacking the charisma of the young turks, is known to have decided the political fate of an individual over a braai or glass of whisky. They are not as rooted in key districts such as West and Central Mashonaland, Midlands and Manicaland, but command respect among influential players in these provinces. The young turks are well aware that any ill-spirited campaign against this group would be suicidal.
The third camp has a leader in Parliament Speaker Mnangagwa, who hails from the Midlands province. Three months ago he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Midlands State University, amid speculation that it had been engineered by Zanu PF leaders to revive his political aspirations. That Mnangagwa is unpopular stands uncontested largely because of his role in the Matabeleland massacres in the early Eighties. The United Nations has implicated him in Democratic Republic of Congo mineral deals and he is being probed on charges of corruption and financial irregularities in Zanu PF companies and gold dealings on mines in his Midlands province. The public media has been serialising the Zanu PF probe into the affairs of its companies, headed by Mnangagwa. His fortunes also took a knock with the death of his spiritual father, former vice president Simon Muzenda. Prominent businessmen, including Chiyangwa now with the young turks, have also deserted him. Mnangagwa can, however, rely on the support of the war veterans led by Jabulani Sibanda. And he could be thrown a lifeline by Mugabe, who allegedly preferres him as the succession candidate. Analysts say Mugabe, shrewd as he is, could cut a deal for Mnangagwa with provincial leaders. As the three camps battle it out, other influential leaders have seemingly stayed out of the fray. These include former finance minister Simba Makoni and Zanu PF national chairperson John Nkomo. The Zanu PF Congress in four months time will be anything but boring.
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From The Independent (UK), 29 August
How new Africa made fools of the white mischief-makers
The days when white mercenaries could walk into small African countries and take them over appear to be gone. The coup plot against Equatorial Guinea, with its cast of old Etonians, adventurers and shady money men, failed because of its leaders' incompetence - and because of a new spirit of co-operation among Africans.
"Things have changed in Africa over the past few years," said a friend of Simon Mann, the old Etonian now awaiting sentence in Zimbabwe for attempting to buy arms illegally. "The days are gone when you could recruit a bunch of moustaches, load up some ammunition and take over a country - especially if you are a white man." Mr Mann says the weapons were for a mine security operation in the Democratic Republic of Congo; the Zimbabweans and others say they were for a coup in the oil-rich state of Equatorial Guinea. But the truth of his friend's words are evident as the 51-year-old former SAS officer sits in Chikurubi prison near Harare, facing a heavy sentence at his next hearing on 10 September. In Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, Nick du Toit, Mr Mann's associate, is on trial for his life. And under house arrest behind heavy iron gates in Constantia, one of Cape Town's smartest suburbs, Sir Mark Thatcher is contemplating his future. The indulged son of Baroness Thatcher got out of several scrapes when his mother was Prime Minister, but there is nothing she can do to extricate him from his most serious trouble yet. The businessman, also 51, has been charged under South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act with involvement in financing the coup plot, and faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted. Although he is unlikely to be extradited to Equatorial Guinea - no extradition treaty exists between the two countries, and South Africa, like Britain, refuses to send suspects to states that retain the death penalty - legal officers from there may be allowed to question him in Cape Town. According to legal statements by Mr Mann and Mr du Toit, a force of mercenaries recruited in South Africa were to fly to Zimbabwe, pick up arms and ammunition and fly on to Equatorial Guinea. In return for $1.8m (£1m) and lucrative contracts, they would help to depose President Teodoro Obiang Nguema and replace him with Severo Moto, an exiled opposition politician based in Madrid. If he was not killed in the operation, President Obiang was to have been flown to Spain.
But how could the politics of a small, sweaty African microstate have entangled such a varied cast of characters? These include not only Lady Thatcher's son but some of her closest former aides, such as Lord Archer, whose friend, the Lebanese-born, British-based oil trader Ely Calil, is named by Mr Mann as the chief sponsor of the coup. (Both Lord Archer and Mr Calil have denied any prior knowledge or involvement.) Add in ex-special forces operatives from Britain and South Africa, not to mention two African dictators - President Obiang and Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe - and the story begins to resemble a Frederick Forsyth thriller, a post-modernist Dogs of War in which the "natives" actually win. And that, an Independent on Sunday investigation shows, is the point. Not only does the affair resurrect the era when white mercenaries attempted to overturn regimes across Africa, it brings back half-forgotten figures from the 1980s in Britain, when a class of deal-makers and influence-peddlers operated in the shadow of the seemingly unconquerable Iron Lady, seeking to turn her grip on the British electorate to profit. When his mother took power Mark Thatcher was 26, with an undistinguished career at school and in business. There was little reason to expect that 25 years later he would be worth an estimated £60m, with mansions in Cape Town and Texas and a network of business contacts around the world. Like others, Sir Mark (who inherited a baronetcy when his father, Sir Denis, died last year) did well out of his connection to one of the most internationally admired British Prime Ministers of recent times. But the questions and controversies arising from his use of the Thatcher name drove him first to the United States and then to South Africa. There he made friends with Simon Mann - who owns a luxury homestead in Hout Bay, another up-market Cape Town enclave - Nick du Toit and other former military men using their expertise to make money out of Africa's chronic instability. Mr Mann appears to be the only person who really knows where all the pieces of this jigsaw fit, who was really behind the coup plot and who is on the mythical "wonga list" of investors. But the whole affair would never have acquired such international notoriety if it were not for the letter he smuggled out of prison.
"Please!" read the intercepted note to his advisers. "It is essential that we get properly organised." It urges them to make maximum efforts to contact "Smelly" - taken to refer to Mr Calil - and "Scratcher", a nickname for Sir Mark. It also names David Hart, presumed to be the same businessman who helped Lady Thatcher break the 1984-85 miners' strike. Mann writes: "What will get us out is MAJOR CLOUT ... once we get into a real trial scenario we are f****d." On a page torn from a magazine, Mr Mann tells his team to chase up expected "project funds" from investors including "Scratcher" who has the figure "200" in brackets. This has been interpreted as meaning that Sir Mark had promised a sum of $200,000, but gives no indication that it was intended for any illegal activity, and indeed implies that no money was ever actually handed over. Among the four people to whom the note was addressed are Nigel Morgan, like Mr Mann a former Guards officer, and James Kershaw, a 24-year-old who has worked for both men. Mr Kershaw, who is said to have handled money transfers for Mr Mann's company, Logo, is expected to testify against Sir Mark, according to the Scorpions, the elite anti-corruption unit that arrested him on Wednesday. His evidence may be crucial: despite voluminous paperwork connected with the coup attempt, there have been no reports of any document that carries Sir Mark's name. But whatever their past friendship, "Scratcher" must be ruing the day he ever met Simon Mann. The former secret soldier is a throwback to the days of empire, a British public schoolboy adventurer prepared to interfere in the Byzantine politics of third world countries. "He is very English, a romantic, tremendously good company," said the film director Paul Greengrass. In his first and only role as a professional actor, Mr Mann played the part of Colonel Derek Wilford, commander of the paratroopers in Londonderry in Greengrass's gritty television reconstruction of Bloody Sunday.
After Eton and Sandhurst, the 19-year-old Mr Mann joined the Scots Guards in 1972, but his daredevil instincts soon drew him to the SAS. A troop commander in 22 SAS, specialising in intelligence and counter-terrorism, he served in Cyprus, Germany, Norway, Canada, central America and Northern Ireland before leaving the Army in 1985. Although he began by selling supposedly hack-proof computer software, like many SAS veterans he also operated in the security business, reportedly providing bodyguards to wealthy Arabs to protect their Scottish estates from poachers. He remained part of 23 SAS, the Territorial Army section, and briefly returned to the colours on the staff of General Sir Peter de la Billiere during the first Gulf War in 1991. Security consulting in the Gulf area followed, but his connection with Africa predominated. He was hired by Eben Barlow, a South African, to help run Executive Outcomes, the first of the many private military companies now operating around the globe. Both men rapidly became rich, most notably from a series of security deals in Angola, where Executive Outcomes not only protected oil and diamond fields, but trained Angolan troops and fought Unita rebels. The company also helped the Sierra Leone government fight off rebels in the mid-1990s. All this gained Mr Mann not only a mansion in Cape Town but Inchmery, a 20-acre riverside estate in Hampshire that once belonged to the Rothschilds. Until recently it was rented out to Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of the Pearson group, owners of the Financial Times. Mr Mann, now a dual citizen of Britain and South Africa, bought the estate through a company registered in the offshore tax haven of Guernsey. But why should a man past 50, who had earned enough to live in style without ever working again, have become involved in such a hair-raising caper as the Equatorial Guinea plot appears to have been? According to his friends, it was the drug of adventure. One said he had been warned by the British as well as the South African authorities that he should "hang up his boots", but the ex-SAS man seems to have ignored the advice.
What is perhaps most surprising about the attempted coup is its incompetence. A planeload of obvious mercenaries leaves South Africa, no longer a country which encourages such activity, then lands in Zimbabwe. If the receiving officials were supposed to have been bribed, it had not been done effectively, but in any case the Zimbabweans appeared to have been warned in advance. It took little time after that to arrest the alleged advance guard in Equatorial Guinea, where Mr du Toit is on trial with seven other South Africans, six Armenians and four local citizens. But the greatest folly was the lack of security. Mr Mann's 66 fellow defendants in Zimbabwe, including the 64 men who were travelling on South African passports when their plane was seized, were acquitted on the arms charge, with the magistrate accepting their plea that they did not know where they were going. It would seem, however, that half of South Africa did. Rumours of the impending coup attempt were circulating in Cape Town, Johannesburg and London well in advance. The paper trail linked to the plot was so extensive that some observers at first believed that they had been faked to make a case. But Mr Mann, it seems, wanted contracts signed for every part of this dubious scheme. Mr du Toit was even required to sign a company-to-company contract to perform his part of the coup. Why the former SAS officer might have wanted such a document is a mystery: it could hardly have been produced in court in the event of a dispute.
That the plot fell apart so damagingly is hardly surprising, given how wide knowledge of it went in Britain as well as South Africa. "What Simon Mann appears not to have realised is that there is much greater co-ordination among African countries, including intelligence co-operation, to put a stop to coups," said one source. "Nigeria, the regional power, stepped in recently to reverse a coup in Sao Tomé, and was ready to do the same in Equatorial Guinea. The fact that the operation was penetrated by South African intelligence prevented a lot of bloodshed." Britain, as well as South Africa, has changed, but Mr Mann and his friends seemed equally oblivious to that. Gone are the days when operators such as Sir James Goldsmith and John Aspinall, both now dead, sought to convince a Conservative government that Britain's interests as well as their own would be served by backing such Africans as Angola's Jonas Savimbi, also deceased, and South Africa's Mangosuthu Buthelezi. The two African leaders were promoted as the Christian, anti-Communist alternative to the likes of Nelson Mandela, whom Lady Thatcher once described as a terrorist. But the Conservatives are no longer in power, and Mr Mandela has been welcomed here on a state visit as president of a free, democratic South Africa - facts which appear to have been overlooked by the heedless coup plotters. The hapless Nick du Toit, a former South African special officer and member of Executive Outcomes, stands to come off worst. He confessed to his role within a day of arrest in Malabo, and has continued to help identify other plotters since. Despite President Obiang's claim that he is not seeking the death penalty, the prosecutor in the Malabo court has called for the execution of those found guilty. The verdicts are expected by the end of this week. Unless Zimbabwe goes back on its decision not to extradite him to Equatorial Guinea, Mr Mann will fare better, even if he receives the maximum sentence of 10 years. He could well be extradited back to South Africa to face further charges, but some believe that with his rich and influential friends, he could receive a discreet pardon in a year or two, once the dust has settled. He could even be in line for a healthy cheque from Hollywood. As for Mark Thatcher, he is fighting back. His circle is claiming that much disinformation has been spread to implicate him and distract attention from the real culprits. But his past is troubled, and the proceedings against him are likely to be protracted and messy. Clearing his name could require every ounce of his much-touted influence.
The making of Mark
Sir Mark Thatcher never seemed to have anything going for him but his name and his mother's uncritical love. He is famously charmless and not noted for his academic prowess. He left Harrow School with three O-levels, and left his first job, at the City firm Touche Ross, after failing his accountancy exams three times. But when it comes to exploiting the opportunities afforded by the Thatcher surname, he has graduated cum laude. Mark and his twin sister, Carol, with whom relations are frosty, were 26 when Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979. Various failed ventures lay behind him, including an attempt to break into motor racing, but it was not until he went missing on a rally in the Sahara in 1982, causing his mother much public anguish, that his activities came to public attention. Two years later, it was reported that he had gained a commission on a £300m deal won by the Cementation construction company after Lady Thatcher had recommended it to the Sultan of Oman. It was a factor in his departure for the US, and he has not lived in Britain since. In Dallas, Mark met his wife Diane, from a super-rich Texas family, but controversy continued to dog him. He was accused of exploiting his mother's name to gain a £12m commission on the giant al-Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia, and hit legal troubles in the US, including a charge, later dropped, of alleged underpayment of taxes. In 1995, Sir Mark moved to Cape Town with his family, although Diane and the two children are reported to spend lengthy periods in Texas, where they are now to attend school. Apart from a money-lending scheme to local policemen which collapsed amid rancour, his business activities in South Africa have attracted little attention - until now. But he will always have the Thatcher name, with its lustre enhanced on the death of his father last year by an inherited title. Once again, the family has helped.
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From The New York Times, 28 August
A humble African cleric fiercely protects his flock
By Sharon LaFraniere
Bulawayo - Muttering softly, a man in a priest's collar, baggy sweater and pants two inches too short for his legs puttered distractedly about the office of Pius Ncube, the Roman Catholic archbishop of Bulawayo, one recent Saturday, getting things in order for the archbishop's next meeting. He swept papers off one corner of a cluttered desk to create writing space. He searched the dust-covered bookshelves for the archbishop's résumé. He fixed a stubborn electrical outlet. He answered the telephone when the receptionist failed to pick it up. He was so completely the image of a preoccupied assistant that nearly 10 minutes passed before it finally dawned upon a visitor that the man was no assistant at all, but the archbishop himself. That drew a small smile. Archbishop Ncube is accustomed to being underestimated. For years, Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, treated the archbishop as beneath his notice, even when he called him a liar, a cheat and a despot willing to starve his own people to stay in power. Mr. Mugabe left it to aides to pityingly characterize the clergyman as "quite unwell" or "mad."
But that was before this winter, when the archbishop began an all-out assault on Mr. Mugabe beyond Zimbabwe's borders. In March, he began soliciting foreign donations to a legal defense fund for Zimbabweans who allege human rights abuses, collecting about $130,000 so far. In July, he held a news conference in London to argue that Mr. Mugabe is terrorizing his citizens and reducing them to paupers while the world looks the other way. Now the gloves are off. In May, Mr. Mugabe called the archbishop "an unholy man," another Desmond Tutu, whom he dismissed as "an angry, evil and embittered little bishop." Last week, Mr. Mugabe accused Archbishop Ncube of "satanic" betrayal of Zimbabwe, suggesting he had invited its former colonial power, Britain, to invade. That is the nice version. In the state-controlled press, Archbishop Ncube said, he is vilified as gay, a rapist and H.I.V.-positive. His admirers also compare him to Desmond Tutu. But they mean it as high praise. The retired Anglican archbishop, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for challenging South Africa's apartheid regime, remains to many the model of a clergyman as a moral leader.
Like Archbishop Tutu, said Ray Motsi, the Baptist pastor in Bulawayo, "Pius is a beacon of light. He is a very brave person, very single-minded. He has been able to discern the moment and understand what is the most important role he can play." Not all clergymen are so supportive. Many churches in Zimbabwe have been torn apart under Mr. Mugabe, divided among those who back him, fear him, openly oppose him or simply do not want to hear about politics in a house of prayer. The Roman Catholic Church, the biggest of Zimbabwe's Christian denominations, is no exception. For years it was split between Archbishop Ncube of Bulawayo and Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa of Harare, a friend of Mr. Mugabe. After Archbishop Chakaipa died last year, Pope John Paul II replaced him with a bishop much closer to Archbishop Ncube. Church insiders tend to read that as a sign that the hierarchy in Rome thinks the archbishop of Bulawayo is on the right path. But some Catholic bishops, priests and nuns in Zimbabwe do not share that view. "They think I am speaking too much, that I am too aggressive, not diplomatic," Archbishop Ncube said, perched behind a simple wooden desk cluttered with files. "I say I can not be diplomatic when there is so much suffering. I have to talk straight. "We must defend the people who are suffering. Who else will defend them? There is no opposition."
Pius Ncube was born in 1946 in a cattle-loading town about an hour south of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second-largest city. His parents were peasants who raised sheep, goats and cattle. Catholic schools, Archbishop Ncube has said, taught him to put faith first. He entered a Zimbabwean seminary at age 21. When his country won independence from Britain in 1980 and Mr. Mugabe came to power, he was studying for his master's degree in theology in Rome. But he was back home three years later when the new government went after rebels from Archbishop Ncube's own ethnic minority, the Ndebele, in southeastern Zimbabwe, then a stronghold for a rival political party. Ndebele leaders say thousands of innocent villagers were murdered. That drew Archbishop Ncube, then a parish priest, firmly into the human rights arena. He helped Bulawayo's former archbishop take statements from witnesses who alleged atrocities but never managed to persuade Zimbabwe's council of bishops to endorse the 1997 account by a Catholic commission. He has now gone far beyond compiling reports to sit on a shelf. From his archbishop's platform, he is perhaps the president's most vocal and powerful critic - influential enough to make Mr. Mugabe insinuate that only his priestly robes protect him from the treatment he deserves.
The archbishop accuses Mr. Mugabe's party, Zanu PF, of torturing, beating, imprisoning and murdering members of the opposition. He insists that the government has forced the United Nations to scale back a feeding program so it can use government stocks to reward supporters and punish dissidents."They burn homes," he said. "They kill people. They torture people with electricity. They intimidate people to make them feel afraid." In a meeting last year, he said, he and other Catholic bishops put the case directly to Mr. Mugabe, who attended Catholic school and was married in the church. "We told him to control this. It hasn't stopped," the archbishop said. "We cannot change this man." Nor is there any hope, he said, that the 80-year-old president will risk his party's dominance by allowing fair parliamentary elections next year. With the opposition now thoroughly checked, he said, mass protests are also highly unlikely. The archbishop's solution is more international pressure from the United Nations and from African countries - a position endorsed last week at a regional conference of Catholic bishops. But although the 53-state African Union last month condemned human rights abuses in Zimbabwe, so far African leaders have shied away from imposing sanctions, saying that would only hurt Zimbabwe's poor." All they do is back each other up and drink tea," the archbishop told one interviewer last month.
It was a typically blunt remark, delivered between pauses and sighs. Eloquence and charisma are not in the archbishop's repertoire. His sermons "are all over the place," said Nigel Johnson, a Jesuit priest in Bulawayo and one of his admirers. "What he has got," Father Johnson said, "is a passion for the people of his diocese." Thus when the ever-vigilant police pick up a dissident on a trumped-up charge, Father Johnson and others say, the archbishop makes sure his family is informed and has enough food. He quietly offers St. Mary's Cathedral, a 101-year-old landmark, as a sanctuary for human rights activists hard-pressed to gather anywhere else. He said he ignored the government intelligence officers who sit in on all of the church services, and who last year warned him that criticism of the government was not allowed. When an emissary from the government last year offered him a farm, he said, he sent her packing. He answers not to Mr. Mugabe, he said, but to the book on his desk. One recent Saturday, he flipped it open until he found Luke 4:18. "Free the oppressed," he said. "This is our calling."
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From Zim Online (SA), 30 August
Churches in bid to persuade Mugabe to drop NGO bill
Bulawayo - The Catholic Church in Zimbabwe plans to meet President Robert Mugabe and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa to persuade them to drop a proposed new law that will severely restrict non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as well as churches from carrying out human rights work. Archbishop Pius Ncube told a meeting of NGOs and other denominations last Saturday that a delegation comprising two Catholic bishops will soon approach Mugabe and Chinamasa's offices to try and set up the meetings. Ncube said leaders from other churches in Zimbabwe are also going to be invited to the proposed meetings which could be arranged within the next two weeks. The church leaders will also approach other government departments that work with NGOs and churches to oppose the bill. Observers say the clergymen face a mammoth task in persuading the government to drop the proposed new legislation. Yesterday, Mugabe told mourners attending the burial of late Zanu PF politician, Eddison Zvobgo, that his government was going to toughen its stance on NGOs. He accused them of being used by Britain and the USA against his government. The bill introduces compulsory state registration for NGOs active in the field of human rights and governance. In addition, the proposed new law will bar NGOs from receiving foreign funding. From the 1970s, when churches, especially the Catholic church, supported Mugabe and his guerilla army fighting for independence, religious groups have continued to play an important role in human rights work. The Catholic Church's Justice and Peace Commission is one of Zimbabwe's biggest and most respected human rights watchdogs. Christians Together for Justice and Peace hosted the Bulawayo meeting. Its Secretary general Reverend Graham Shaw told ZimOnline: "It (the NGO Bill) fails to recognise that part of our work and mission is to respond - in practical and material terms - to human needs. That is where the conflict is bound to arise."
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 30 August
War vets leader turns heat on ministers
A senior war veterans'leader has accused senior Zanu PF officials and Cabinet ministers of using criminal methods to retain their parliamentary seats ahead of next year's legislative polls. Jabulani Sibanda, the national chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) said war veterans felt betrayed and exposed in the face of calculated terror campaigns against them by senior Zanu PF politicians. His comments come in the wake of an orgy of violence perpetrated against war veterans and Zanu PF supporters by a terror group led by Anti-Corruption and Anti-Monopolies Minister and Makoni North Member of Parliament Didymus Mutasa and Shadreck Chipanga, the Makoni East MP. Chipanga is a former director general of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and also the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs. The war veterans chairma |
