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Archived News
3rd February 2004
Sibanda speech to European parliament
MDC policy launch banned
Tsvangirai launces RESTART program
Zimbabwe judge 'fast-tracks' Daily News bid
Chidyausiku says unable to grant MIC order
Consultant called for Mugabe's 'removal'
'Fed up by Menashe's antics'
Aid agencies fear Zimbabwe food crisis worsening
Tsvangirai was 'lured by a false promise'
Court to rule on Ben-Menashe document
Judge Majuru quits
Zimbabwe changes land law
Chiyangwa further remanded to April
EU set to renew Zimbabwe sanctions
Zimbabwe's fuel price tumbles
Numbers in need increase dramatically
Mugabe officials force senior judge to flee Zimbabwe
MDC battles to hold policy meeting
Zimbabwe police try to delay opposition manifesto
Daily News appeals joined
Independent reporters, editor appear in court
Zanu PF supporters go on rampage in Gutu
Cholera resurfaces in Binga
Zimbabwean villagers turn to harvesting ginger
Mugabe defends Zimbabwe's democracy
Mnangagwa probes Coltart list
Gono taken to task
Mpofu, RTG in fresh land row
Growing problem of child labour on farms
In Zim's fantasy world, nothing is as it seems
Plot to assassinate Chiyangwa alleged
Minister embroiled in loan scandal
New plan needed to tackle Zim's land issues
Chefs rake in millions from FSI land deals
Farm workers see no way out but Mozambique
Another judge flees
Moyo sells Jo'burg mansion
Zim facing power supply crisis
Investors besiege firm
Zimbabwe probe extended to include US and UK
Mugabe targets big Anglo sugar farm
MDC plan to 'restart' economy
Plot to rig Gutu poll
Against All Odds
Chiefs intimidate voters
Eskom denies cutting power to Zimbabwe
Food prices continue to rise
Tsvangirai law firm banned
Government steps up bid to push Bennet off farm
Suspected Nkala murderer denied medication: lawyers
A sham trial in Zimbabwe
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From SAPA, 27 January
Zimbabwe judge 'fast-tracks' Daily News bid
Zimbabwe's chief justice, Godfrey Chidyausiku, has "fast-tracked" an application by the state's media watchdog for the independent Daily News to be shut down until the courts hear a comprehensive appeal over the legality of official press controls, lawyers said. Gugulethu Moyo, legal adviser to Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe which owns the Daily News, said Chidyausiku, widely seen as a government supporter, had decided to hear an "urgent application" from the government-appointed Media and Information Commission in his chambers. The commission is asking Chidyausiku to bar the Daily News from publishing until the court hears the commission's appeal against a high court ruling in October that dissolved the commission on the grounds that it was "biased" and "improperly constituted." The high court ruling was a successful appeal against the commission's banning in September of the Daily News, the country's only critical daily voice and the largest circulation daily newspaper. The high court ordered that the commission be reconstituted and then issue the Daily News with a licence to publish.
However, the government filed an appeal against the court orders and went on to ignore three more court rulings to lift the ban on the newspaper, sending heavily armed police to occupy the newspaper's offices and its printing presses. Only on Wednesday last week did police comply with a third court ruling that directly ordered them and the media commission not to interfere with the newspaper. The commission immediately filed its latest application with the supreme court, while the information department in President Robert Mugabe's office filed another with the high court here. It took the commission's application four working days to be granted a hearing, Moyo said. "How many other matters have still not been heard by the supreme court, some of them that have been waiting for over two years?" asked Moyo. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change and civil rights organisations accuse the supreme court, dominated by pro-Mugabe judges, of dragging its feet in cases that could go against the government.
Chidyausiku's court has been sitting on appeals against MDC victories in parliamentary elections in 2000. It has also failed to hear critical constitutional cases, including appeals against the "Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act," the state's new press-gag laws, since shortly after they were passed in early 2002. "Here you have a situation where closing a newspaper is a matter of such importance that the government can rush to the supreme court and get a hearing as a matter of urgency," Moyo said. "I have never seen any case fast-tracked in the courts so quickly. It is incredible." The government's application to the high court was due to be heard on Wednesday or Thursday, said Moyo. "There is no need for the chief justice to hear this case in his court now. The supreme court is obliged to hear appeals or constitutional cases. This is neither. The supreme court should chuck it out if they want to do justice."
The Daily News has been a major thorn in Mugabe's side since it began publishing in March 1999, and won over a million readers with its outspoken criticism of the regime. The newspaper has been bombed twice, and had dozens of its staff, including editors, journalists and even vendors, arrested, tortured and harassed. The newspaper reported that charges of attempted murder had been dropped against the state-controlled television service's chief corespondent, Reuben Barwe, nicknamed "Zimbabwe's Lord Haw-Haw" after the infamous Nazi broadcaster during World War II. Barwe was charged for opening fire on a member of Mugabe's war veteran militia who attacked Barwe when the broadcaster tried to take over a former white-owned farm occupied by a group of veterans. The war veteran had decided he no longer wanted to press the case against Barwe, the Daily News reported.
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From The Daily News, 28 January
Chidyausiku says unable to grant MIC order
Staff Reporter
Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku was yesterday unable to grant an interdict sought by the Media and Information Commission (MIC) barring Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) from publishing its newspapers, saying a Supreme Court judge sitting in chambers had no jurisdiction to issue such an order. In addition to the barring of the two ANZ titles, the Daily News and the Daily News on Sunday, the MIC also wanted the appeals before the court consolidated into one case and an order directing the registrar of the court to expedite the hearing of the matter. The hearing of the MIC application continues today. Addressing MIC lawyer Johannes Tomana, Chief Justice Chidyausiku said: "You have the right to approach the courts to consolidate the appeals. They are fragmented. "I believe you are not really entitled to the interdict that you seek. It is so untidy to deal with these matters piecemeal. I am sure this is what has caused this confusion. That is why it is important to consolidate all the issues and the appeals be heard as one case."
ANZ legal adviser Gugulethu Moyo said that in today’s hearing lawyers for both the MIC and ANZ would make submissions as to when the consolidated case could be heard. Moyo said: "It was determined that the best way to proceed was to consolidate all the cases between the ANZ and the MIC in order to avoid further confusion. "What will happen if the matters are consolidated is that the appeals by the MIC against the Administrative Court decisions and the preliminary point on whether or not ANZ still has ‘dirty hands’ in the constitutional case will be heard all at once." ANZ challenged the constitutionality of some sections of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) in the Supreme Court. But on 11 September 2003, the Supreme Court, sitting as a constitutional court, ruled that it would not hear the matter because the ANZ had approached the court with "dirty hands" by not registering. Chief Justice Chidyausiku said the Supreme Court’s ruling on 11 September 2003 which ruled that the ANZ was operating outside the law still stood.
In his submissions, Tomana said his applications sought to clarify the position at law of the cases so that the rule of law was not jeopardised. "There is confusion in our media," Tomana said. "The principle of the rule of law demands that a law be applied without discrimination. The laws of this country, under Section 66 of AIPPA, state clearly that no mass media house can operate without being registered with MIC. The situation that obtained between the time the Supreme Court made the ruling that the ANZ was operating outside the law still stands. What has to happen is that that ruling has to be complied with until that law has been ruled unconstitutional. "From 11 September until 22 January there has been compliance but the violation of the Supreme Court ruling started on 22 January when the ANZ published against the ruling of the same." He said the ANZ should refrain from operating a mass media service and should comply with the country’s laws.
But Chief Justice Chidyausiku, who heard the matter in chambers, said a judge sitting in chambers could not issue the interdict sought by the MIC but had no problem with the appeal for the consolidation of the cases pending before the courts. "The judgment of this court has not yet been set aside by itself," he said. "After payment of registration fees to the MIC and the submission of the receipt to the Supreme Court registrar, the registrar responded saying the matter was not whether or not ANZ had complied. "The rightful thing that should have happened should have been to come back to court to have the decision made as to whether there was compliance," he said. He said the judgments of both the Administrative Court and the High Court had no effect of suspending the Supreme Court rulings. Chief Justice Chidyausiku said that it was the basis upon which the police acted when they moved into ANZ premises. Mordecai Mahlangu represented ANZ.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 28 January
Consultant called for Mugabe's 'removal'
Harare - Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told a court hearing his trial on Tuesday that a Canada-based political consultant had tried to convince him of the need to assassinate Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, but denied he had in any way agreed to such a plot. Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, is charged with plotting to assassinate Mugabe in a case that carries the death penalty if he is convicted. The charges hinge on a grainy and barely audible four-and-a-half-hour video, secretly recorded in 2001 at consultant Ari Ben Menashe's Montreal offices, in which Tsvangirai is accused of calling for Mugabe's "elimination." Under cross examination in his long running trial, Tsvangirai said Ben Menashe spoke of the elimination of Mugabe by "sinister" means that could cause the leader harm. "I was really upset. The meeting was getting so tense. Mr Ben Menashe was pushing this agenda. It was my feeling that there was a sinister meaning," Tsvangirai told Judge Paddington Garwe.
The early part of the meeting on December 4 in 2001 focused on Mugabe's exclusion from presidential elections in 2002 through a retirement deal or his possible defeat at the polls, Tsvangirai said. Ben Menashe had promised to lobby for international support for a new government. Tsvangirai said Ben Menashe then changed track, calling for the physical removal of Mugabe, and demanded his response. Cross examined by state attorney Bharat Patel, Tsvangirai said it was clear Ben Menashe was proposing the violent removal of Mugabe. Patel asked: "The sinister removal of President Mugabe was on the table. Did you think about it?" "Yes," replied Tsvangirai. But he said he did not think Mugabe's murder was an option to remove him from office. "I discussed the principle of Mugabe going, not the method," Tsvangirai said.
Tsvangirai was charged two weeks before he ran against Mugabe in 2002 presidential elections. Mugabe narrowly won re-election in the vote, which independent observers said was swayed by intimidation and vote rigging. Defence attorneys argue Tsvangirai, who is free on bail, was entrapped by Ben Menashe who already was working as a consultant for the Zimbabwe government when the secret video was recorded. Ben Menashe, who claims to be a former Israeli intelligence agent, was acquitted by a US federal jury in 1990 of illegally arranging a $36-million deal to sell US-made military cargo planes to Iran in exchange for the release of four American hostages. Israel denies he did intelligence work for the country but says he served briefly as a junior clerk in its civil service. Ben Menashe visited Zimbabwe last week to offer to sell the government oil from Azerbaijan, government officials confirmed. Zimbabwe is suffering acute fuel shortages.
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From News24 (SA), 28 January
'Fed up by Menashe's antics'
Harare - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, charged with treason, testified Tuesday that he walked out of a meeting with political consultant Ari Ben Menashe because he did not trust his motives. "It was clear Menashe had ulterior motives and we walked out (of the meeting). I was fed up by Menashe's antics," he told the Harare High Court. The state accuses Tsvangirai, who attended a meeting in Montreal in December 2001 with Ben Menashe, of requesting help to kill Mugabe ahead of 2002 presidential elections. Tsvangirai said that he had stated that the army would have to respect the outcome of the election. A grainy and partially audible black and white videotape has been produced in court as evidence of his last meeting with Ben Menashe. Tsvangirai earlier told the court that he and two party officials were duped into believing Ben Menashe was genuinely interested in promoting the MDC's image. Ben Menashe had promised Tsvangirai and two senior members of his party, Welshman Ncube and Renson Gasela, that he would help promote and lobby for international support for the MDC and raise funds for the opposition party. The MDC leader claims he was set up by Ben Menashe, who secretly video-recorded their last meeting in Montreal, to destroy his political career.
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From Reuters AlertNet, 27 January
Aid agencies fear Zimbabwe food crisis worsening
Harare - International aid agencies fear Zimbabwe’s food crisis, already afflicting half the population, could be worsening due to economic collapse and are urging the government to release food stocks to ease the severe shortages. The U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) and other relief agencies say they have indications that more Zimbabweans now need food aid than the 5.5 million people - 50 percent of the population - initially forecast by a U.N. study in mid-2003. "This figure may have increased if one considers the food price shocks that we have experienced since last year’s harvest," said Makena Walker, a senior WFP official in Harare, referring to Zimbabwe’s galloping inflation, now estimated at 600 percent. Walker said the price of a 50 kg (110 lb) bag of staple maize sold by the government-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB), which has a monopoly on maize and wheat trade, had risen to more than Z$8,500 from Z$580 a year ago. "Since GMB supplies are inadequate, many people have to source their maize from the parallel market, where prices are double those of the GMB," she told AlertNet. "It is therefore fair to assume that a large number of people who could feed themselves from GMB supplies last year can no longer afford to do so. The effects of inflation have been devastating to low and even middle-income earners in the past year."
Walker added that WFP food aid was only targeted at the most vulnerable households, including families without income, people suffering from terminal diseases such as HIV/AIDS or the elderly and disabled. "When one takes into effect the number of people rendered unemployed in the current economy, those who fall under the WFP category (of being helped) naturally increase," she said. Independent estimates put unemployment in the formal sector at more than 70 percent. Walker’s comments were echoed by NGOs, which are forecast to have distributed about 346,000 tonnes of international food aid to Zimbabweans, mostly in rural areas, between mid-2003 and Zimbabwe’s next harvest in April/May. The international food aid cost $197 million, and WFP officials say they have received between 80 and 85 percent of pledges. "The economic decline that Zimbabwe is experiencing has increased the vulnerability of the population," said Jean-Claude Mukadi, relief director of World Vision International. "The number of people in need of assistance is increasing, particularly in urban areas."
World Vision statistics project an increase in the number of people needing food aid in areas where it is distributing maize in the coming months before the harvest. In January, the agency fed a total of 824,000 people in Zimbabwe’s five provinces, but the figure is seen creeping up to more than one million in February. WFP statistics also see a sustained monthly increase in food aid beneficiaries as Zimbabwe enters what one official described as "the next critical three-month phase" when most locally grown food is expected to have dried up. "I would say that the work of humanitarian organizations has averted a human catastrophe in Zimbabwe and we are still not yet out of the danger," Mukadi said. Aid agencies declined to give their own estimates of how many Zimbabweans could now be threatened by starvation ahead of a report by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee, comprised of government and agency food experts. The report is due in coming weeks, while a new U.N. survey on Zimbabwe’s food aid is expected in the spring.
Zimbabwe, once a food exporter to its poorer neighbours, has been plunged into economic crisis by the controversial policies of President Robert Mugabe, not least his decision in 2000 to seize productive commercial farmland from minority whites. Commercial agriculture, Zimbabwe’s lifeblood, has ground to a halt as a result of Mugabe’s land reforms, which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and human rights groups say are aimed at buying political support in the face of popular opposition. Although no accurate official figures exist on the death toll from the food crisis that started more than two years ago on the back of a severe drought, churches in Zimbabwe’s second city of Bulawayo and the city council there have said that more than 100 people have died. In the face of concerns that hunger might be spreading, the WFP and NGOs are urging the government to urgently release an estimated 240,000 tonnes of maize stocks that government media say is being held by the GMB from last season’s harvest. "We have made a request to the government to release the food into the market," Kevin Farrell, WFP’s country director for Zimbabwe, told a news briefing in Johannesburg last week. A WFP official in Harare said it was the responsibility of the Zimbabwe government to feed its own people, "and so we expect the government to release this maize onto the market".
The government, which faces a general election next year, has not yet responded. But official sources say it intends to release the maize as soon as possible. "We have no intention of holding onto these stocks when people need food," one source told ClertNet, rejecting charges by critics that Mugabe plans to use the food as a weapon during the 2005 parliamentary elections. Opposition and human rights groups have in the past accused the government of giving or selling maize only to its supporters, charges the government has refuted. Zimbabwe’s Daily News, the country’s only privately owned daily, has also weighed into the food crisis saga. The paper had been banned in September 2003 for operating without a licensing, but resurfaced in late-January pending a court decision on its future. "Whatever the reason for the government delaying to release the maize, it is simply indefensible that innocent children, widows and HIV/AIDS patients continue to go hungry while government fat cats sit on such maize," the paper said in an editorial. But it is not all bad news for Zimbabwe’s starving. The WFP’s Walker said her agency, which last December halved maize rations to the hungry to 5 kg (11 lb) of maize per person a month because of concerns the food aid would run out before the next harvest, planned to restore the rations next month. "We will be restoring the rations because we have just received a pledge of 30,000 tonnes of corn from the U.S. government and because of another food pledge of Z$25 million ($31,000) made by the European Union," she said. "One could say that, once the pledged amounts of food arrive in the country next month, we should have adequate reserves to take us, at least, up to April/May. There is no doubt we need more food."
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From Reuters, 29 January
Tsvangirai was 'lured by a false promise'
By Cris Chinaka
Harare - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told his treason trial on Wednesday the state's key witness entrapped him after promising to arrange a meeting with American Secretary of State Colin Powell and other top officials. Tsvangirai, who leads the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has denied charges of plotting to kill President Robert Mugabe and stage a coup ahead of the southern African country's controversial 2002 elections. The state's case against Tsvangirai, who could face a death sentence if convicted, hinges mainly on a videotape of a meeting he held with Canadian-based political consultant Ari Ben-Menashe where prosecutors say Mugabe's "elimination" was discussed. Wrapping up his evidence on Wednesday after 10 days in the witness stand, Tsvangirai said he had hired Ben-Menashe as a political lobbyist and had gone to a meeting in Montreal after promises that it would be attended by top US officials. "Mr Menashe was suggesting a higher official to the level of Colin Powell," he said to a question of whether he was expecting one particular official. Tsvangirai said Ben-Menashe had promised to win him US political and financial support.
In his evidence at the beginning of the trial last year, Ben-Menashe - who has been called an unreliable witness by the defence - said there was a US official at the Montreal meeting, but Tsvangirai's lawyers say he was an impostor. Last week Tsvangirai said he was "trapped" into using the word "elimination" and he only meant it in the political sense, "after it had been explained to me that it means the president would not participate in the elections". On Wednesday, during cross-examination Tsvangirai maintained that there was no plan to assassinate Mugabe and the only thing he discussed were suggestions that Mugabe might accept a plan for him to retire months before the March 2002 polls.
Tsvangirai, a 51-year-old former trade unionist, and his MDC have emerged as the most potent challenge to Mugabe since independence from Britain in 1980. Tsvangirai says he won the March 2002 presidential elections but Mugabe was declared the victor despite claims of vote-rigging and electoral fraud lodged by both the MDC and a number of international observers. On Wednesday, Tsvangirai said he had "no grave dispute" with the sequence of the videotape of the Montreal meeting as the audible parts had helped him to recollect what transpired, but some gaps in the video and transcript had distorted the spirit of the discussions. Mugabe, 79, has called Tsvangirai a pawn of Western powers opposed to his policy of seizing white-owned farms to give to landless blacks. The case was postponed to February 11, when Tsvangirai's lawyers are expected to call witnesses for the defence.
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From The Daily News, 29 January
Court to rule on Ben-Menashe document
Court Reporter
The prosecution and defence attorneys in the treason trial of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, agreed yesterday to the admission as evidence of a document which contradicted the evidence of principal State witness Ari Ben-Menashe, according to the defence. But High Court judge president Justice Paddington Garwe said he would make a ruling on whether or not to accept the document when the court resumes on or shortly before 11 February, after a two-week adjournment. The court adjourned after Tsvangirai was discharged from the witness’ stand. According to South African advocate George Bizos, the document "contradicts the evidence of Mr Ben-Menashe when he said murder was called for in the first, second and third meetings with Mr Tsvangirai". Bizos said in the document, Menashe said he only became aware of the role he was going to play (in the alleged plot) after receiving his payment after all the meetings had been convened. The document is part of a lawsuit in Canada in which the MDC is seeking to recover money it paid Ben-Menashe and his firm Dickens and Madson for consultancy work the firm had undertaken to do on behalf of the MDC.
The prosecution took Tsvangirai to task over his reference to the elimination of President Robert Mugabe during at meeting at Dickens and Madson’s head office in Montreal, Canada. The opposition leader defended the use of the word "elimination" saying he did not have a sinister motive but was referring to a deal in which Dickens and Madson would source an exit package for Mugabe so that he would not seek re-election in the 2002 presidential poll. Tsvangirai said he tried to phone Ben-Menashe when he heard that Australian journalist Mark Davies was going to broadcast the secretly-recorded video of the Montreal meeting but Ben-Menashe switched off his telephone. He said, however, he did not sue for defamation and misrepresentation after the video was aired on an Australian television station. The video cassette forms the basis of the treason charges preferred against Tsvangirai by the State.
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From The Herald, 29 January
Judge Majuru quits
Herald Reporter
President of the Administrative Court Mr Michael Majuru has resigned, amid investigations into his conduct during the ANZ hearing in which the company sought to publish the Daily News and its sister Sunday paper without a licence. The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, confirmed yesterday that Mr Majuru resigned during the middle of this month. "He has resigned and he cited illness as the reason," said Cde Chinamasa. It is understood that Mr Majuru resigned from South Africa where the owner of the two newspapers, Mr Strive Masiyiwa, is living in self-imposed exile. The judge becomes the second high profile figure to resign from South Africa following the resignation of former industry minister, Mr Nkosana Moyo who skipped the country first before leaving office. He also joins several other judges who have resigned and migrated to Britain and Australia, among other western countries, after passing controversial judgments in cases involving political elections.
Mr Majuru was under investigation for improper conduct during the hearing of an appeal by Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe to resume publishing the Daily News and its sister paper, the Daily News on Sunday. He was forced to step down from hearing the case following revelations that he had disclosed to the public his intention to award ANZ the right to publish the two newspapers before delivering the judgment. Mr Majuru caused a furore among his legal peers and the public following reports that he allegedly boasted in public that he was going to grant the ANZ the right to publish its newspapers before the matter had been argued in court. The matter was postponed to another date where it was scheduled to be heard by another judge. Recusing himself from the case, Mr Majuru said the reports about his behaviour implied he had pre-determined the case. Mr Majuru is alleged to have told a friend of MIC lawyer Mr Johannes Tomana that he was going to rule in favour of the ANZ and allow it to resume publishing The Daily News and The Daily News on Sunday.
Police shut down the two ANZ titles in September last year after the Supreme Court ruled that the newspaper group was operating illegally because it was not registered. Mr Tomana said in an affidavit then that he was disturbed by Mr Majuru’s behaviour. He said a friend of his, who is also his client, told him that he had allegedly been told by Mr Majuru that he was going to rule against the MIC. Mr Tomana said his client also told him that Mr Majuru had allegedly indicated to him that only one assessor was in favour of the MIC and that he would proceed on the basis of the other assessor who was in agreement with him. Mr Tomana’s affidavit was supported by two members of the public who had allegedly been told by Mr Majuru that he would make a decision in favour of the ANZ. One of the affidavits was signed by a Marondera-based nurse who happened to be present when Mr Majuru was speaking. Legal experts said basing on the evidence provided, there was a prima facie case of unethical behaviour on the part of the judge.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 29 January
Zimbabwe changes land law
Harare - The parliament of Zimbabwe on Wednesday passed a controversial land law that will allow the government to take land more easily from white farmers, the state news agency Ziana reported. Parliament, which is dominated by lawmakers from President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF, passed an amendment to the Land Acquisition Act after intense debate. The new law allows the government to acquire white-owned farms after publishing a notice of intention in the Government Gazette, scrapping the old requirement that a preliminary notice of acquisition by the government should be served on the farm owner. The Government Gazette is a weekly publication sold by the government printers. The bill was adopted despite an adverse report from a special parliamentary legal committee. The committee had argued that some sections of the new law violated the constitution.
The government argues that the law is aimed at helping it to speedily implement land reforms by taking land from whites and giving it to landless blacks. The opposition had argued that acquiring land without taking the trouble to personally locate the landowners would prejudice absentee landlords. But Zanu PF MP and Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa Tuesday was emphatic that the new law was targeting landlords who had long migrated overseas and whom the government had failed to locate. "No white farmer in Zimbabwe was not aware of the land reform programme and that it was targeting their farms," Chinamasa was quoted as saying by the news agency. About 4 500 whites used to own a third of the country's land -- 70% of prime farmland -- before the government launched a fast-track land reform programme in 2000. Fewer than 400 white farmers now remain in farming in Zimbabwe and own just three percent of the country's land, according to a government audit of the land reform programme.
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From The Daily News, 29 January
Chiyangwa further remanded to April
Court reporter
Chinhoyi Member of Parliament and leading businessman Philip Chiyangwa, facing charges of obstructing the course of justice, contempt of court and perjury, was yesterday further remanded out of custody to 2 April when he appeared before Harare magistrate Tabaziva Sibanda. Chiyangwa, an advocate of black empowerment, is out on $5 million bail. Charges against Chiyangwa arose on 8 January this year when he was allegedly found in possession of five vehicles belonging to two directors of ENG Capital, who allegedly defrauded investors of $61 billion. The State alleges that on 31 December last year, police arrested Nyasha Watyoka and Gilbert Muponda for defrauding Century Holdings, First Mutual Asset Management Company and Elan Suisse of $61 billion. Information gathered from Watyoka and Muponda during investigations revealed that they bought luxury cars, buildings and foreign currency from the black market using investors’ money, the court heard. Of Watyoka and Muponda’s luxury cars, three were said to be in Chiyangwa’s possession. On 2 January this year, police visited Chiyangwa’s residence in Borrowdale and recovered three cars belonging to Watyoka and Muponda.
The State alleges that at the time of the visit, Chiyangwa denied any knowledge of the cars at his residence, but Watyoka and Muponda insisted that the former had the cars at his place. Instead, Chiyangwa told the investigating officers that the alleged cars were in the possession of Vivian Mwashita. Chiyangwa is also accused of openly threatening a police officer who was investigating the ENG case when he was called to testify during Watyoka and Muponda’s bail application on 8 January. The businessman is alleged to have threatened the police officer with unspecified action for allegedly implicating him in the ENG saga, thereby instilling fear in the police officer, the court heard. When he was told by the presiding magistrate to withdraw his threats, he refused to do so on two occasions. The State alleges that Chiyangwa lied under oath when he was giving evidence in court. The legislator allegedly told the court that when Muponda used Assistant Inspector Tongogara’s mobile phone to contact him, the former wanted Chiyangwa to bring him food whereas Muponda had in fact informed him that things were not well and that he had to make available to the police the outstanding cars. The State alleges that Chiyangwa deliberately misled the court.
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From The EU Observer, 27 January
EU set to renew Zimbabwe sanctions
By Andrew Beatty
Brussels - EU foreign ministers are poised to extend sanctions against Zimbabwe next month, the EU Observer has learned. Foreign ministers, due to meet in Brussels on 23 February will approve the renewal of the targeted sanctions on leaders of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party, diplomats have confirmed. The measures, which were put in place in 2002, restrict the travel of 72 government officials and people close to them, in retaliation for human rights abuses in the country. However the extension of sanctions last year was complicated by a French request that the Zimbabwean ruler, Robert Mugabe be allowed to visit Paris for a Franco-African summit. For almost a month Paris refused to renew the sanctions, calling for Mr Mugabe to be granted a waiver. The waiver was eventually granted, but only after causing a significant diplomatic disagreement between France and the UK. "We don't expect any of the hassle that we had last time around", one Commission official said.
Confirming that Paris will back the extension of sanctions this time round, a spokesman for the French foreign ministry told this news site, "We are in favour of the [Irish] presidency's proposal". The measures are expected to be extended for a period of one year. However no agreement has yet been reached on widening the scope of sanctions. "That is something that is being discussed in Paris and with partners", the French spokesman said. However one British official said that "certain people are working on whether the list is still up to date", adding also that "the focus of them is being discussed". The deputy leader of the Zimbabwean opposition Gibson Sibanda, on a visit to Brussels today (27 January), backed calls for the sanctions to be expanded. "The sanctions should be expanded to cover these people who are economic pillars of the regime", said Mr Sibanda adding, "the international community needs to put more pressure on [Mr] Mugabe to come to the negotiating table". Mr Sibanda however said that the sanctions should not be imposed without being accompanied by "a promise to lift them at a particular stage of negotiations". However the Zimbabwean Ambassador to Brussels, Gift Punungwe, rejected the sanctions saying they placed "a stranglehold" on the country's economy, also accusing outsiders of meddling in internal affairs. "Outside is where the agenda of the country is being determined", he said.
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From Business Day (SA), 29 January
Zimbabwe's fuel price tumbles
Bulawayo Correspondent
The price of petrol and diesel fell by an average 50% in Zimbabwe yesterday as fuel importers took advantage of the weakening US dollar against the Zimbabwean unit. Values of most hard currencies have been slipping against the Zimbabwe dollar since the central bank introduced the foreign currency auction system, under which importers and exporters buy and sell foreign currency at near market value rates. Under the new auction system, the greenback is currently trading at Z$3563 to the US dollar, enabling fuel companies to import the commodity cheaply from neighbouring countries. In Bulawayo yesterday, a litre of petrol sold for Z$2700 against an average of Z$5200 in December last year. The weaker US dollar has resulted in a glut of fuel in the country, further pressing prices down. Analysts expect it to stabilise at about Z$2500.
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From IRIN (UN), 28 January
Numbers in need increase dramatically
Johannesburg - The number of people forecast to be in need of food aid in Zimbabwe over the next few months has risen dramatically to 7.5 million, up from an earlier estimate of 5.5 million. Zimbabwe's population figure is 11.65 million. Aid officials told IRIN an as yet unreleased urban vulnerability assessment would indicate that the number of people in need of assistance in urban areas had increased sharply due to the country's economic decline. This follows the revision upwards last year of the number of rural people in need of food aid. In an appeal for donor assistance in April last year, the humanitarian community said 5.5 million people, of which 1.1 million were urban dwellers, would need food aid up to April this year. A United States embassy spokesman in Harare told IRIN that the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) recently revised its estimate of vulnerable rural Zimbabweans from 4.4 million to 5 million. "We understand that a recently concluded, but as yet unreleased, urban vulnerability assessment will conclude that 2.5 million urban Zimbabweans are now food insecure. These revised estimates are due principally to hyperinflation and the resulting unaffordability of basic food commodities," the spokesman said.
World Food Programme (WFP) spokeswoman Makena Walker told IRIN on Wednesday that an April 2003 figure of "1.1 million [people in need in urban areas] was only an estimate" at the time. She confirmed that an urban vulnerability assessment had recently been conducted by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee (ZIMVAC). "If you take into account the rapid economic decline, the fact that factories and industries have closed, that inflation is at 600 percent, then it's obvious that a lot more people have become food insecure - people who could possibly afford food the previous year no longer can afford to purchase food," she explained. This was evident from the rise in the prices of maize sold by the state's grain monopoly, the Grain Marketing Board (GMB). "The 50 kg bag of GMB maize sold at Z$580 last year - this year the prices for the same quantity vary from Z$8,500 to Z$40,000," said Walker. These prices varied from area to area and availability was a problem. "Supplies are not high and are very erratic. [Consequently], most people would have to rely on the parallel market [for their food purchases], so it's possible that the number of food insecure people is much higher than what was estimated almost a year ago," she concluded. The ZIMVAC is an inter-agency committee in which UN agencies, government and the Southern African Development Community participate. Their report will be released once the government has given its approval.
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From The Times (UK), 30 January
Mugabe officials force senior judge to flee Zimbabwe
By Jan Raath
A senior judge has fled Zimbabwe after being subjected to "severe harassment" by government officials for lifting a ban on The Daily News, the country’s only independent daily newspaper. Judge Michael Majuru, who was under investigation for alleged bias against the Government, fled to South Africa in November, colleagues said yesterday. "Michael came under enormous pressure," one lawyer and friend of the judge, who asked not to be named, said. "He was harassed constantly. Cabinet ministers and politicians came to his office to threaten him." This claim was denied by Patrick Chinamasa, the Justice Minister, who said that Mr Majuru, president of the administrative court, a branch of the High Court in Harare, had resigned because of ill-health. Judge Majuru is the seventh judge since 2001 to have given up the bench because of threats of violence for handing down judgments against the Government of President Mugabe. In October, Mr Majuru ruled that the state-run media commission, which issues the licences required by newspapers and journalists in Zimbabwe, was biased and "improperly constituted" because all its members were officials of the state-owned press. He ordered that the body be replaced with an impartial membership, effectively revoking the commission’s ban on The Daily News, the country’s only opposition newspaper. The Government ignored the orders and The Daily News brought another appeal against the ruling. Mr Majuru, who was due to consider it, was forced to stand down after the Herald, a state-controlled newspaper, alleged that he had boasted to a relative that he intended to rule against the Government. The allegation was denied by Mr Majuru.
"This Government gets rid of good judges by inventing allegations against them," a former colleague of Mr Majuru said. David Coltart, secretary for legal affairs at the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said that Mr Majuru was the latest "in a long series of competent judges who have been intimidated by the regime for doing their job properly". The Daily News subsequently won the protracted legal battle and reappeared last week. After Mr Majuru stood down, the case was taken over by Selo Nare. When he was about to deliver judgment last month, a letter purportedly signed by members of Mr Mugabe’s war veterans militia threatened him and his family with "serious suffering" if he ruled against the Government. Mr Nare defied the threats and backed The Daily News. In January last year, police arrested Benjamin Paradza, a High Court judge, after he ordered the release from custody of the MDC’s Mayor of Harare, detained for addressing a residents’ meeting. Last June allegations of a "racist" judgment against Fergus Blackie were dropped nine months after he was arrested, held in police cells, denied food and paraded in a pick-up truck. Mr Blackie had ordered that the Justice Minister be arrested for contempt of court. Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay was forced into early retirement in December 2000 after ruling party militants stormed the Supreme Court, chanting "kill the judges". Observers say that Mr Mugabe has all but destroyed one of the Commonwealth’s most respected judiciaries by replacing its best judges with political appointees.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 29 January
MDC battles to hold policy meeting
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was on Thursday frantically trying to get a court order to allow it to hold a meeting in the evening to launch a proposed rescue package for the beleaguered economy. "We are making an urgent application to the [High] Court so that the police are barred from preventing us to hold the launch," said MDC secretary for economic affairs and lawyer Tendai Biti. The meeting, at which the MDC's economic blueprint, dubbed Restart - which stands for Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery, Transformation - would be launched, has been denied police approval as required under the controversial Public Order and Security Act. Party spokesperson Paul Temba Nyathi said the police had withheld approval despite the application having been lodged a week ago, as required by law. "The police now claim that the application was left in the wrong office and thus was not processed," Nyathi said in a statement. A fresh application was lodged on Monday but "the police say that this is insufficient notice for them". Under the law a notice has to be made four days in advance of a planned meeting. "These are merely lies and excuses from a regime that seeks to prevent the people ... access to a comprehensive programme," said Nyathi.
The MDC accused the ruling Zanu PF party of preventing it from publishing policies that offer a solution to Zimbabwe's grave economic crisis. "Zanu-PF fears that this MDC programme will fully expose its own shortcomings," said Nyathi. "We condemn this clear anti-democratic act, which is yet another demonstration of the Zanu-PF government's contempt for freedom of speech. What sort of country are we living in when an opposition party that controls 12 major cities ... is denied the basic right of communicating policies to the people?" he asked. Zimbabwe's economy has been in a nose-dive in recent years with international support drying up, and rates of inflation and interest skyrocketing to record highs. The central bank recently introduced measures that have seen prices of certain basic commodities come back down and the country's currency firming against international currencies on the foreign exchange market. A two-and-half year food crisis has meanwhile seen the country seeking international humanitarian aid to feed millions of people faced with starvation.
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From The Financial Times (UK), 30 January
Zimbabwe police try to delay opposition manifesto
By Tony Hawkins in Harare
Zimbabwe police tried yesterday to delay the launch of an economic policy manifesto by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, by refusing permission for a public meeting. But the launch of the detailed economic programme, designed to demonstrate that the MDC offers a serious alternative government to that of President Robert Mugabe, went ahead after the opposition group obtained a court order overturning the police ban. Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC leader, said Zimbabwe's crisis was too deep-seated to allow a quick-fix solution. But he said Restart - an acronym for Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery and Transformation - was the best chance for a return to normality "within a bearable time-frame". Mr Tsvangirai said that almost 25 years after independence, Zimbabweans were as poor as they had been in 1970. Life expectancy was at its lowest for more than 40 years. The 70-page Restart document details measures to reverse this by creating millions of jobs in the formal and informal sectors, improving incomes, restoring relations with the international community, investing heavily in health, education and poverty reduction and encouraging local and foreign investment.
The policy has already been attacked by the state-owned media, which have claimed the MDC has no policy on land beyond returning confiscated areas to white owners. But economists say Restart will resonate well with the donor community and agencies such as the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, because it sticks closely to orthodox stabilisation policies and focuses on good governance, anti-corruption measures, institution building and poverty reduction. On the controversial land issue, Restart calls for comprehensive agrarian reform extending well beyond the large-scale commercial farms, formerly owned by some 6,000 white farmers, that have been the sole focus of recent government policy. The opposition says the 42 per cent of the country classified as communal land must also be the target of measures to raise productivity and incomes. It argues that while land reform is an important element of agrarian reform, it must be underpinned by support services in infrastructure, credit, marketing, hospitals and schools, plus farmer training and extension services. In contrast to the Mugabe government, which has no formal economic plan, the MDC sets out detailed targets for gross domestic product growth of more than 5 per cent annually after it takes office, supported by projections for inflation, savings, investment, employment, the balance of payments and foreign debt. One leading economist, who declined to be named, said the key difference between the government's stance and that of the opposition MDC was that the international community would support the MDC programme with aid and debt relief, neither of which is available to Mr Mugabe's administration.
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From News24 (SA), 29 January
Daily News appeals joined
Harare - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court has postponed to next month a case in which the government is challenging the operations of the country's popular independent daily the Daily News, a lawyer said Wednesday. The country's highest court will sit on February 18 to deal with two appeals against the Daily News, which was banned by authorities four months ago, but resumed publishing a week ago after a favourable High Court ruling. "The chief justice (Godfrey Chidyausiku) ordered by consent that the two appeals from the administrative court be consolidated and argued together on the 18th of February," Daily News lawyer Mordercai Mahlangu told reporters after a session in chambers with the head of the Supreme Court. The state which had wanted its appeals head urgently, last week filed for an urgent interdict order to stop the paper from continuing its operations. The Daily News hit the streets of Zimbabwe on Thursday last week, after the Harare High Court ordered police, who had forcibly closed it in September and occupied its premises, to leave the premises, allowing it to start running its presses again. The government claims that the paper is still operating illegally because it does not have a licence from the state-appointed media commission as required by the media law. Meanwhile, Mahlangu said the application for an order to shut down the paper again would be heard after the Daily News has filed supplementary arguments opposing the media commission's bid to close it again.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 29 January
Independent reporters, editor appear in court
Four journalists from a Zimbabwean independent weekly accused of defaming President Robert Mugabe for reporting that he "grabbed" a commercial plane for a holiday in Asia, appeared briefly in court on Thursday. "They appeared for their remand hearing and the four of them have been remanded until April 1," said their lawyer Lynda Cook. The Zimbabwe Independent editor Iden Wetherell, news editor Vincent Kahiya and reporters Dumisani Muleya and Itai Dzamara, were arrested early this month for alleging that Mugabe had commandeered an aircraft from national carrier Air Zimbabwe for a holiday in Asia. No date has been set for their trial. They have been ordered to return to court on April 1 for further remand. The criminal defamation charges against the newsmen arose from a story run in the Independent newspaper on January 9 saying Mugabe had taken a wide-bodied Boeing 767 aircraft from Air Zimbabwe for his annual vacation. There has been no official denial that the president chartered a plane for his trip to the Far East.
Zimbabwe's media has in recent years been going through turbulence, especially after the introduction of the tough new media law in March 2002, shortly after Mugabe was re-elected in polls decried as fraudulent by the opposition and many international observers. The country's most popular daily, the Daily News - a staunch critic of Mugabe's government - was shut down in September last year, when police raided and occupied its premises. Despite repeated attempts by the state to frustrate its bid to re-open through court orders, the paper resumed publishing a week ago and has continued putting out issues as it awaits the outcome of litigation before the country's courts. Human rights lawyers interpret recent developments in Zimbabwe's media industry as attempts to gag the press. Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) said the arrests of the Independent's journalists were a "deliberate and calculated attempt to muzzle the press" and would "compromise the independence and entrenched freedom of the press". "ZLHR criticises in the strongest of terms such blatant disregard of the independent press and demands that the press be left to freely perform its core function," said the lawyers in a statement issued shortly after the arrests of the journalists.
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From The Daily News, 30 January
Zanu PF supporters go on rampage in Gutu
Own Correspondent
Masvingo - Suspected Zanu PF supporters earlier this week went on the rampage and stoned buildings and set ablaze one hut near Chatsworth Rural Service Centre as violence flared up in Gutu North ahead of next week’s by-election. On Monday this week, suspected Zanu PF youths raided homes of suspected opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters at Chatsworth’s Makaure township and stoned buildings damaging window panes in the process. Golden Spider Web building at Chatsworth had its window panes extensively damaged. The building is owned by Vitus Hakutangwi, a well known MDC activist. The marauding youths then moved onto Thornhill farm, about eight kilometres south of Chatsworth, and torched David Changa’s hut. They accused him of belonging to the MDC. Changa told a Daily News crew that visited the area: "We managed to put out the fire using buckets of water. Fortunately our grandmother who normally slept in the hut was not in on the day in question. "We reported the matter to the police but since Monday they have not yet visited the scene of the incident." Our news crew was chased out of Thornhill Farm by militant mobs clad in Zanu PF party regalia. At Chatsworth Rural Service Centre the situation remained tense as people are now afraid of moving at night because of violence. Chatsworth, the second largest service centre in the constituency, is believed to be an MDC stronghold. Police in Chatsworth yesterday said they had received reports of political violence but said the situation was being exaggerated. Crispa Musoni of the MDC and Zanu PF’s retired air marshal Josiah Tungamirai will battle it out to fill the seat left vacant following the death of Vice President Simon Muzenda.
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From IRIN (UN), 29 January
Cholera resurfaces in Binga
Bulawayo - A fresh cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe's southern Binga district in Matabeleland North has claimed the lives of four people and hospitalised 16 others. The Acting Environmental Health Officer for Matabeleland North province, Notion Gombe, said the outbreak was detected after the death of a man who had visited his relatives near the boundary between Binga and Kariba districts in Mashonaland West province. He said the new flare-up could have resulted from the cross-boundary movement of people between Binga and Kariba, where the ministry of health has been battling the illness since late December 2003. Gombe attributed the reappearance of cholera to the absence of disease surveillance mechanisms, which he said should have been put in place soon after the successful fight against the last outbreak. In November last year a rash of cases claimed 17 lives in the same area. "While we now have sufficient mechanisms to curb the further spread of the disease, there is a need to point out that this recurrence is because we did not design a surveillance programme after controlling the previous outbreak," Gombe told IRIN. He confirmed that health officials had been redeployed to the district, and the ministry had sufficient anti-cholera fluids to control the spread of the disease. The government and NGOs are expected to intensify public awareness and education programmes in the local Tonga language. Zimbabwe's Health Minister, David Parirenyatwa, and Amos Midzi, the director of disease prevention and control, could not be reached.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 29 January
Zimbabwean villagers turn to harvesting ginger
Stanley Karombo
Harare - At dawn, Tsitsi Savanhu wakes up her teenage daughter so that they can prepare for the 25km journey to neighbouring Mozambique. Once there, they will dig up as much ginger as possible before rivals descend to challenge their claim to certain areas. Such is the daily life for many residents of Nyamaropa village, about 270km east of Zimbabwe’s capital Harare. Savanhu began crossing into Mozambique illegally after drought all but destroyed the crops she grew at home. Three months after the official start of Zimbabwe’s rainy season, downfalls in the country have been erratic leaving millions in need of food aid. But, ginger continues to grow abundantly in the forests of Mozambique. And despite the economic woes affecting Zimbabwe, the plant is in demand locally for its pleasant flavour and perceived healing qualities. Many believe that it is effective in treating constipation and minor abdominal pains.
To get to Mozambique, the Nyamaropa villagers risk their lives by crossing the crocodile-infested Kairezi River. In addition, there have been clashes with Mozambicans who are angered by what some view as the whole-scale looting of ginger roots. Maria Jane, an official based in Chimoio capital of the western Mozambican province of Manica says, "There is a very high influx of Zimbabweans crossing the border into Mozambique for ginger." "Although the tuber is found in abundance in the country and is far from being depleted, our major concern is environmental conservation. The looters dig for the tuber very carelessly, leaving a trail of permanent land degradation," she adds. Savanhu disagrees: "It is true that our neighbours may now be very worried about our increased presence into their country ... But, we always take measures not to destroy the plants and the environment".
The Governor of Manica, Soares Nhaca, has also expressed concern about the number of Zimbabweans entering Mozambique illegally. But, another Nyamaropa villager, Memory Kupe, says it simply wouldn’t be possible for her to give up harvesting and selling ginger. The plant has served as her economic lifeline for the past four years, since she lost her job on a farm. "I’m getting money for the upkeep of my family from selling the ginger tuber. On good months I can earn as much as 100 000 dollars. Although the money is not enough, it assists (us) to survive. When the villagers return home, they sell the ginger locally or at wholesale price to vendors from Harare and the southern city of Bulawayo. A 20kg bucket of ginger can fetch up to $10 (about 8 000 Zimbabwean dollars) and baskets packed with the roots are a common sight on buses which ply the road between Harare and the eastern border city of Mutare. However, a specialist in traditional medicines Richard Ngwenya says people who use ginger may have been misled about its healing properties, the other benefits of the plant notwithstanding. "There is so far no evidence of the tuber treating any ailments while in its raw form, although the majority of our people eat it like that," he said. "Ginger, like any other unprocessed herbs, should be taken with maximum caution to avoid overdoses that could result in serious consequences."
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 31 January
Mugabe defends Zimbabwe's democracy
Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday said the European Union should not target his government, arguing that his embattled country was more democratic than the majority of African nations, state media said. "We are a more democratic country than most African countries and there is really no case the European Union should hold against us," the government Ziana news agency quoted Mugabe as saying. Mugabe was speaking when he met outgoing French ambassador to Harare, Didier Ferrand, just weeks ahead of the proposed renewal of sanctions by the European Union. The EU in 2002 imposed travel restrictions on 72 of Zimbabwe's top government and ruling party officials, including Mugabe, accusing them of human rights abuses and electoral fraud after controversial elections that year which saw Mugabe return to power. Opposition parties and rights groups have said those polls were marred by violence, intimidation and fraud.
The 15-member EU is due to decide on February 18 on whether to maintain the sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe. Western diplomats here say the sanctions are likely to be renewed and even widened to include more of President Mugabe's aides. Zimbabwe's opposition leader in parliament and vice president of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Gibson Sibanda, on Wednesday urged the EU to extend the sanctions. Sibanda said during a visit to Paris that France and the EU needed to slap sanctions on Mugabe "in order to put an end to this desperate situation" in Zimbabwe. France last year came under fire from Britain, the EU and human rights activists, for inviting Mugabe to a two-day Franco-African summit after President Jacques Chirac obtained a waiver to the EU travel ban on the Zimbabwean leader. The French leader defended the invitation as a way to confront Mugabe face-to-face over human rights abuses and lawlessness in his famine-ridden southern African country.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 30 January
Mnangagwa probes Coltart list
Staff Writer
Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa has instituted an inquiry to establish a possible breach of privilege after MDC legal secretary David Coltart last week tabled a list of Zanu PF officials whom he said acquired farms in breach of the law. Coltart tabled the list during debate on the parliamentary legal committee report on the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill. Coltart argued that Zanu PF MPs could not debate the issue because they had a vested interest. Zanu PF chief whip Jorum Gumbo, justice minister Patrick Chinamasa and politburo member Didymus Mutasa disputed the information which they said was deliberately falsified with the intention of tarnishing the names of Zanu PF members. The parliamentary Order Paper of January 22 indicates that the Speaker has instituted an inquiry to see if Coltart's submission amounted to a breach of parliamentary privilege. "I therefore rule that there is a prima facie case of breach of privilege and that an inquiry is necessary to establish whether or not there has been breach of privilege and therefore contempt of parliament." The "list of some members of parliament reportedly having a pecuniary interest through allocations" (below) is published by Hansard, the record of parliamentary proceedings, of January 21:
Chapfika V: The Grove; Chauke E: Farm 784 Ngwindi Sugar Estate Chiredzi + Sikato 10 Masvingo; Chinamasa Patrick & Spouse: Subdivision 1 Nyamazura + Lot 1 of Mirror Rocklands Marondera +, Lawrence Dale 3 and part of Lawrence Dale 4 Headlands; Chindori-Chininga: Calgary Mazowe (1500ha taken fromA1); Chimutengwende: Brock Park Farm + Bemill Park; Chipanga S: First Everton then Crofton, Rusape; Chitango V: Showers 'B'; Chombo I: Allan Grange (300ha) + Oldham Chegutu; Dokore L: Barnwell; Dzinzi N: Dendere; Gasela E: Forest Extension 2; Gumbo J: Lot 21a Nuanetsi Ranch + Wolwehoek + 1299ha Mwenezi; Gumbo R: Fauna; Hungwe JD: Lot 21a Nuanetsi Ranch + Bryn Farm Chegutu; Kasukuwere S: Harmony Farm Mazoe 500ha + Pimento Farm + Bamboo Creek + Bretton Farm; Dr J Made: Causeway Farm + Tara Farm; Madzongwe E: Bourne + Coburn 13 Chegutu; Mahofa S: Zaka Scheme Plots Lothian at Gutu + Spring Farm + Lochinvar + Eyrie/Lauder/Wragley; Mangange C: Hippo Valley Settlement; Mangwende W: Rudolphia Farm Arcturus: Manyika Elliot: Duiker Flats + Subdivision of Caledon+ Matiza B Highlands; Midzi Amos: Magudu Ranch; Mohadi K and Mrs: Bothasrus + Bea Ranch, Beit Bridge; Moyo Prof J: Little Connemara 1 Inyanga + Patterson Mazoe + Lot 3a Dete Valley Lupane (through Eternity Trading); Mpofu O: Auchenburg Nyamandlovu +Umguza Block, Umguza (+ one purchased?) + Lot 40 of Dete Valley; Msika: Umguza Block (Nephew on Broadlands, Sister on Harmony); Muchena, Olivia: Eastwolds; Mudenge S: Chikore Farm Masvingo; Mugabe S: Remaining extent Mleme 1037ha + Longwood 924ha + Gowrie Farm Norton + Audley End + Zvim Golden Stairs?; Mutasa D: Beazil Grange + Lone Kop; Murerwa Dr H: Causeway Farm; Ncube A: Makhando Outspan; Nyoni S: Fountain Farm Insiza (was planned for youth training); Parirenyatwa Dr D: Rudolphia Farm Acturus; Sekeramayi S: Ulva Marondera (displacing 21 families); Shumba I: Moira Ranch Mateke.
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From The Financial Gazette, 29 January
Gono taken to task
Staff Reporter
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor, Dr Gideon Gono, who has set out to clean the country’s banking system, was last week reportedly taken to task at the Zanu PF parliamentary caucus where the ruling party’s chairman for Mashonaland East Province, Ray Kaukonde, is said to have challenged the central bank boss to declare his business interests. Kaukonde, a respected businessman-cum politician, took the caucus by surprise on Wednesday last week when he openly asked the astute banker, who last year took up the high pressure RBZ job which comes with a precarious tenure, to make his business interests public. They said the RBZ governor told the caucus that the laws of the land required him to disclose his interests to President Mugabe and the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Herbert Murerwa. He however, disclosed to the caucus that he operates a ranch, a flower project and farm. Impeccable sources who attended the ruling party’s parliamentary caucus told The Financial Gazette this week that questions over Gono’s business interests had been burning in the minds of most Zanu PF bigwigs, most of whom are known to have pushed the envelope too far as they fed on the deeply rooted political patronage system that thrives in Zimbabwe and might therefore not escape the crusade against corruption. A number of Zimbabwe’s celebrated entrepreneurs have been implicated in white-collar crimes unearthed following the implementation of the central bank’s new monetary policy. Some of the executives caught in the net are claiming victimisation, while others have scurried for protection from Zanu PF’s heavyweights.
The crackdown has resulted in the closure of ENG Capital Asset Management and its subsidiary, Century Discount House. Several prominent businessmen have been arrested in the crackdown, including Zanu PF chairman for Mashonaland West, Philip Chiyangwa. Gono, who has been straightening up errant banks since taking over the hot seat, declared at the caucus that his maiden monetary policy statement would be implemented without fear or favour. Kaukonde, the Member of Parliament of Mudzi, ducked questions asked by The Financial Gazette when contacted this week. "According to protocol, you must ask our leader of the house, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa. He was in charge of the proceedings," he said. Chinamasa, who could neither deny nor confirm part of the proceedings relating to Kaukonde and Gono, threatened disciplinary measures against "those leaking confidential information to the media," when contacted for comment this week. "What we discuss in caucus is confidential," said Chinamasa. "That information is privy to us and we are going to take disciplinary measures against those leaking confidential information to the press."
The new RBZ boss emerged from humble beginnings to land the top post in the financial services sector, where he has made a where he has made an immediate impact within his first few days. Gono worked at the Zimbabwe Development Bank before being seconded to the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe, which was exhibiting classic warning signs of collapse weighed down by a below-prudential-levels capital base, perennial losses and bad run on deposits among others. He turned it around to one of the leading banks commercial in the country. There were reports recently that daggers have been drawn against Gono because of the "pain" caused by his monetary policy. It is alleged that the central bank governor has received threats from anonymous people not happy with his crackdown on errant banks and corruption.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 30 January
Mpofu, RTG in fresh land row
Blessing Zulu/Godfrey Marawanyika
The stock exchange-listed Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG) is seeking government intervention to prevent senior Zanu PF officials from taking control of safari properties on which the company runs lodges. RTG shareholders, including Mauritius-based technical partners Ireland Blyth, have expressed alarm at disruption to tourism activities resulting from changes in land ownership in Hwange. These mostly concern a company called Touch the Wild in which RTG controls 60% and Ireland Blyth 40%. RTG has appealed to Special Affairs minister John Nkomo's office to intervene. Nkomo is heading the government's land implementation committee. RTG chairman Ibbo Mandaza last month wrote a letter to Special Affairs permanent secretary Willard Chiwewe seeking his intervention in dealing with the senior politicians who include Matabeleland North governor Obert Mpofu. "Following our recent telephone discussion on the above (Farms 39, 40 and 41 in the Sikumi valley, Dete, Hwange), this letter serves to seek clarification on the developments surrounding our tourist activities in the above properties," Mandaza wrote. Mandaza said Farm 40 has improvements in the form of a safari lodge known as Kanondo on state land leased by Zimsun and sub-leased to Touch the Wild, "now owned by a company controlled by Governor O Mpofu". A company controlled by Mpofu, Mandaza said, also owns Farm 41. "The new owners of farm 39, 40 and 41 have indicated that they wish to have the leases revised upwards in spite of the existence of leases which are only due to expire in 2008. The above developments have caused distress to our board, but especially to our foreign shareholders. Kindly advise what our rights are within the context of the land reform programme."
The foreign owners include Groupe Accor of France (35%) and Lafico of Libya (14%). Mandaza's letter said that Sikumi 2, which was initially owned by B de Fries, was designated in 2002 and "given to an indigenous company controlled by Hon Prof Jonathan Moyo who has agreed to maintain the existing terms and lease with TTW (Touch the Wild)". Documents to hand show that initially RTG wanted to be the direct lessee of this important piece of land with the government being the lessor. In May 2002 RTG applied to government to exempt Sikumi Lodge from a land acquisition order. Parks and Wildlife Management Authority chairman Buzwani Mothobi in a statement dated December 13 2003 on the land-use practice in the area said the growth of tourism in Hwange depended on Touch the Wild lodges. Up until 1999, the government wholly owned RTG. Government has since reduced its shareholding to 17%.
Chiwewe yesterday confirmed having received the letters but said he had tasked the Land Inspectorate to handle the matter. "I referred the matter to my inspectorate," Chiwewe said. "The person I have given the responsibility to handle the matter is Daniel Moyo, the national coordinator in Matabeleland North province," he said. "I am on leave up until mid February, so I do not know what has happened since." Chiwewe is the current head of the Presidential Land Resettlement Committee, which is expected to beef up Minister Nkomo's clean-up efforts. An official from the inspectorate confirmed that RTG's complaints had been forwarded to them, adding that a decision will soon be made on whether Moyo and Mpofu should vacate the areas and the land revert to government. "I can confirm that we got the letter of complaint from Chiwewe," said the official. "The investigations have been carried out and we did not like what we saw. A determination will be made soon," he said. The inspectorate is led by deputy police commissioner Godwin Matanga and assisted by Air Vice-Marshal Henry Muchena. Mpofu switched off his phone on three occasions yesterday when contacted by the Independent for comment.
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From IRIN (UN), 28 January
Growing problem of child labour on farms
Harare - When a lorry carrying farm workers crashed this month outside the capital, Harare, killing 22 people, a number of children were among the fortunate survivors. The tragedy came at the beginning of the new school year, when a rise in school fees had forced many former farm workers - among the poorest of the rural poor - to pull their children out of school. The children on the lorry, aged between 13 and 18, were seeking piecework on neighbouring farms to earn the money to continue with their schooling. Prior to Zimbabwe's land reform programme in 2000, an estimated 320,000 to 350,000 farm workers, often from neighbouring countries, were employed on commercial farms owned by about 4,500 white farmers. Their dependents numbered around 2 million - more than 20 percent of the national population. As a result of land reform, some 90 percent of commercial farms have been redistributed, the majority broken up and parcelled out to newly settled small-scale farmers.
The farm workers, many from neighbouring countries who had lived on the commercial estates for generations, were suddenly faced with an uncertain future. Not only did they lose their jobs, many also lost their entitlement to free housing, education, basic health services and subsidised food. Gertrude Hambira, secretary-general of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers' Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ), told IRIN that the new settlers were able to absorb only a fraction of the former farm workers they found living on the plantations. Many of those of Zimbabwean origin returned to their rural homes, others turned to gold panning or migrated to the towns. The rest were left with little option but to become squatters, surviving by offering their services to the neighbouring farms. The lives of the former farm workers remained precarious, said Hambira. They were barely able to make ends meet and provide sufficiently for their children, thus the high rate of child labour and school absenteeism. The prevalence of HIV/AIDS, which the UN Development Programme's Relief and Recovery Unit estimated at 43 percent on the farms, had led to many child-headed households and still less children in school.
Sending a child to school in the rural areas costs about US$110 a year for basics such as school uniforms and fees. But the salaries of farm workers currently range from US$10 to US$20, which must not only cover household expenditures, but also farming inputs like seeds and fertiliser. According to Peter Mazadzise, GAPWUZ national coordinator, some of the newly settled farmers pay their workers no more than US $5.50 a month. Many children are thus pulled out of school by parents who cannot cope. "When parents can't pay, they simply select a few of their children, whom they think can do well, and the rest assist them on the farm," explained Hambira. She added that even many of those in school had to provide some kind of labour to assist with covering education costs. Some areas, such as the tobacco and tea plantations, have an "Earn and Learn" school system where children study some of the time and work part-time to help raise the money for their fees.
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Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 27 January
In Zim's fantasy world, nothing is as it seems
Bill Saidi
As in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, nothing is ever as it appears on the surface in what one journalistic wag has nicknamed "Mugabeland". This is Zimbabwe, the politically and economically tattered Southern African country President Robert Mugabe has straddled like a Colossus since independence in 1980. This fantasy world is particularly poignant for journalists working for The Daily News and The Daily News on Sunday, the independent newspapers published by Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ). Their saga could be a summary of "The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party"- chapter seven of the famous children’s tale - in which the March Hare, the Hatter, and the Dormouse contradict Alice at every turn, correcting her with confusing arguments that have their own strange logic. In ANZ’s case, whenever the company celebrates what it believes to be a victory in the court case launched against it by the government last September, it turns out to be another humiliating Waterloo. The latest such incident occurred after the Harare High Court ordered the police to vacate ANZ’s printing premises in the Southerton industrial area of Harare. The police have occupied the building on and off since September.
The company’s lawyers interpreted the ruling to mean the essence of their application: resumption of publication until the Supreme Court rules on ANZ’ s application to be registered by the Media and Information Commission (MIC). But the government claimed the ruling did not entail resumption of printing - only the removal of the police. This was not the first time the government had outfoxed, not only ANZ, but the judiciary itself. A ruling by an Administrative Court judge last year, again declaring the company could resume printing, was shot down by a minister as "academic".Before that, there had been a bizarre twist in the case. Another Administrative Court judge had been forced to recuse himself from passing judgement because - or so it was claimed in the government paper, The Herald - he had told a passenger in his car that he intended ruling in favour of ANZ. The case was eventually decided in ANZ’s favour by another judge, who received a death threat from people claiming to be war veterans.
The Minister for Information and Publicity, Jonathan Moyo, has been in the thick of the set-to between the government and ANZ, whose original sin was not to register with the MIC, the lynchpin of the restrictive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. By some calculations, the Act is probably as restrictive of press freedom as any laws conjured up by the Nazis. Its description of a falsehood, for which a journalist can be jailed or fined heavily, is so imprecise one scribe joked that it could turn journalists into politicians or civil servants - both masters of gobbledegook, doublespeak and obfuscation. Moyo has been pilloried by the independent media as the ruling Zanu PF’s Goebbels, which ought to intrigue German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who is currently visiting South Africa. His talks with President Thabo Mbeki are expected to touch on Mbeki’s role as an honest broker between Mugabe and his political nemesis, Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The decision by the 52 Commonwealth members in Abuja last month to extend Zimbabwe’s suspension over Mugabe’s flawed re-election in 2002 must have grievously wounded Mbeki’s political ego. But to have expected his colleagues to endorse the imagined success of his "quiet diplomacy" suggested a naive, simplistic reading of their mood. Mugabe has done nothing to endear himself not only to the majority of his own people since the suspension, but to his peers in the Commonwealth. Could Mbeki have waved the banning of ANZ newspapers as a shining example of the alleged excellent good governance for which Mugabe ought to be rewarded? Clearly on instructions from on high, the police and the MIC are frustrating the implementation of every judgement made in favour of ANZ in its struggle to resume publication. In defying the rulings of the judges, the government seems to be implementing Mugabe’s threat made a few months ago. The president announced publicly that in future, if his government did not agree with a court judgement, it would ignore such a judgement. The rule of law in Mugabeland, it would seem, is now as problematical as logic is in Alice’s Wonderland.
Bill Saidi is editor of The Daily News on Sunday
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 1 February
Plot to assassinate Chiyangwa alleged
By Henry Makiwa
People close to Harare businessman and legislator Philip Chiyangwa claim there was an assassination plot on his life while he was in prison and a man was taken in by the police. This emerged after The Standard tried to interview the legislator, who is on remand, on his time at Harare Central Police Station where he was incarcerated for three weeks. A person, whom we cannot name because of the sensitivity of the issue, claimed that the day Chiyangwa came out of remand prison - on January 21 - a man who reportedly works at the High Court approached Chiyangwa's wife, Elizabeth, and told her that he had heard of a plot to assassinate the politician. The source told The Standard that Chiyangwa reported the issue to the police who "arrested" the man and promised him that they would investigate the claims thoroughly. However, when contacted to shed more light on the assassination claim, Police Spokesman Oliver Mandipaka, denied that they were investigating the issue and that anyone had been arrested. Chiyangwa yesterday said: "Shamwari taurawozve namalawyer angu (my friend please talk to my lawyers), I feel safer that way." Chiyangwa's lawyer Lloyd Mhishi of Dube, Manikai and Hwacha legal practitioners, declined to comment.
According to sources, Chiyangwa's fall from grace is part of an orchestrated plot to derail the claim to succeed President Robert Mugabe of one of the frontrunners, believed to be his "blue-eyed boy", Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa. The Standard understands that Chiyangwa, whose release was ordered by the Supreme Court after the State had refused to obey High Court orders to set him free, is one of the four key party figures who have fallen out of favour with Mugabe's old guard for openly supporting Mnangagwa. Chiyangwa is the chairman of Zanu PF's Mashonaland West province. The other three, who are also chairmen of other Zanu PF provinces are Labour Minister July Moyo (Midlands), Mark Madiro (Manicaland) and Daniel Shumba (Masvingo). The sources say Chiyangwa and Moyo's recent brushes with law enforcement agents over the collapsed ENG affair, were part of the plot to remove the chairmen sympathetic to Mnangagwa from their party posts as the succession debate hots up.
Moyo, a very close confidante of Mnangagwa, was two weeks ago questioned by police in connection with the way the National Social Security Authority might have invested funds in ENG. According to the sources, the quartet were believed to back Mnangagwa during the intense but secret jockeying for the presidential post that gripped Zanu PF ahead of its People's Conference held in Masvingo last December. "Chiyangwa, Madiro, Shumba and Moyo are being accused by certain powerful elements within Zanu PF of trying to oust Mugabe by supporting the aspirations of Mnangagwa," said a source. "Already these elements have begun purging Chiyangwa because they identified him as the weaker one owing to his vast wealth whose accountability, some say, is questionable," the source added. The sources alleged that the purge had been extended to draw in the likes of Moyo who was also interrogated by the police three weeks ago.
Although on the surface it might appear as if the government is undertaking an anti-graft campaign, said the source, the truth was "far much deeper than meets the eye". It is understood that some pro-Mugabe stalwarts, consisting mainly of the old guard including Vice President Joseph Msika, had been aggravated by the campaign of the so called "Young Turks" to openly talk about succession hence the Msika's outburst against the succession issue at the Masvingo conference. "Anyone who is talking about the succession issue when President Mugabe is still around is a bloody sell-out," fumed Msika in Masvingo last December. Attempts to contact Madiro, Shumba or Moyo, proved futile by the time of going to press last night, but Chiyangwa, still smarting from his stay in custody referred "all questions about anything" to his lawyers Dube, Manikai and Hwacha.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 1 February
Minister embroiled in loan scandal
Sunday Times Foreign Desk
Zimbabwe's Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister July Moyo has been accused of using cash from his own department as collateral for a Z1-billion loan for a company owned by two close associates. Moyo's ministry is said to have deposited the money into a First Bank account to secure a loan for Smoothnest Investments. Smoothnest is partly owned by National Social Security Authority (NSSA) chairman Edwin Manikai, who was appointed by Moyo to head up the NSSA public and private sector pension fund. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena has confirmed that Moyo was interrogated on January 16, after law enforcement agents received a tip-off document detailing the Z1-billion loan transaction. Moyo, Manikai and his partner Patrice Dhliwayo were reportedly grilled for hours by the police but the three strenuously denied accusations of wrong doing. In the end, Bvudzijena said police "had no interest" in the issue but would investigate further if new information was found. Those linked to the loan deal have dismissed the issue as a smear campaign connected to President Robert Mugabe's succession debate. First Bank confirmed that Smoothnest was their client, but refused to give further details.
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From Reuters, 31 January
New plan needed to tackle Zim's land issues
Victoria - Zimbabwe has to address the issue of redistributing land but needs to find an appropriate way to do this, the Commonwealth's secretary-general said. "There is no doubt that land needs to be redistributed, but the question is how," Don McKinnon told reporters late on Friday, at the end of a four-day visit to the Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles. Thousands of black Zimbabwean peasants have benefited from the redistribution of hundreds of white-owned farms, but critics accuse government ministers and ruling Zanu PF party officials of seizing the most productive land. Earlier in the week Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu PF party approved land law changes making it easier to seize white-owned farms. The move, made possible by the parliamentary majority wielded by President Robert Mugabe's party, overrode objections from a legal committee that the changes were unconstitutional. McKinnon said dialogue between the Harare government and opposition was crucial to resolving Zimbabwe's problems. "The fate of Zimbabwe depends entirely on its people. There has to be dialogue," he said.
Nigerian and South African leaders said earlier this month that Mugabe had agreed to formal talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) about Zimbabwe's crisis. However, the MDC said there had been no contact with Mugabe's government for eight months and called on the United Nations to appoint a mediator to persuade him to agree to talks. McKinnon said he hoped Zimbabwe would return to the Commonwealth after quitting the 54-nation body last month. "The Commonwealth's doors will always remain open and we continue to hope that progress in Zimbabwe will allow the country to come back into the Commonwealth family," he said. Zimbabwe pulled out of the Commonwealth after the group of mostly former British colonies renewed a suspension on the country imposed in 2002, when Mugabe was re-elected in a poll opposition and foreign observers said was rigged..
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 30 January
Chefs rake in millions from FSI land deals
Augustine Mukaro/Blessing Zulu
Prominent Zanu PF politicians are raking in millions in profits from illegally subleasing farms they were allocated for free under the land reform programme. Lease documents obtained by the Zimbabwe Independent last week show that Zanu PF bigwigs were last year paid around $50 million each by agro-processing firm FSI Agricom which rented the farms from the politicians. FSI in a statement to the Independent last week denied renting farms but confirmed business links with leading politicians in their outgrower scheme. "As far as we are concerned, Enos Chikowore and Chris Kuruneri are our out-growers and we support them in the same way that we support other farmers who have successfully qualified for our out-grower scheme," FSI said. Documents to hand show a number of prominent politicians as having agreements with FSI. The documents show that FSI was planning to move equipment from one property currently under dispute to what it described as "less controversial operations at Gombera (Chikowore), Paarl (Kangai), Stockfields (Matika), Binga (Malpas Investments), and Escortvale (Kuruneri) as well as our Chegutu operations".
Special Affairs minister and land implementation committee chairman John Nkomo three weeks ago said beneficiaries of the land reform programme could not lease farms to third parties as this was illegal. "Once acquired, the land becomes state land," Nkomo said. "A beneficiary is given a lease by the state, and there obviously are conditions attached to it. But no one is allowed to (sub) lease the land." According to the documents, top ruling-party functionaries who benefited from the controversial land reform programme and proceeded to rent their farms to FSI Agricom include Chinhoyi MP Philip Chiyangwa. In addition to the provision of seed and fertiliser FSI installed sophisticated irrigation equipment on the farms. They are currently in dispute with Chiyangwa over that equipment. Chiyangwa was allocated Old Citrus farm under the land reform programme.
Former war veterans chairman Patrick Nyaruwata and secretary-general Andy Mhlanga, who are sharing Bramfield farm in the Mazowe area, leased their land to FSI until this year when they decided to operate on their own. Contacted for comment, Nyaruwata confirmed that he had entered into an agreement with FSI but had since decided to go it alone. "FSI helped us grow soyabeans last year," Nyaruwata said. "In my case the arrangement was that FSI provided me with seeds and chemicals on condition that I would sell the produce to them. They would then deduct the cost of what they had provided and give me the proceeds. I have however since decided to go solo and I am happy with the progress so far." The documents show that Chiyangwa was paid $50 million in October 2002 before FSI could start operations on the farm. The documents show that the FSI signed five-year leases with the new landowners. "$50 million will be paid in year one upon signing of the agreement," the contracts say. "In year two and subsequent years payment will be based on profit-sharing between the landowner and the land-user after all the costs have been deducted. In the event that the produce is exported, the land owner will receive 5% of the gross income in foreign currency," the contract stipulates.
FSI Agricom officials said precise contractual agreements were tailor-made to suit individual requirements. They would not provide details citing confidentiality clauses in the contracts. "The confidential nature of our contractual relationships with beneficiaries prevents us from disclosing to third parties without prior approval of the concerned farmers," an official said. FSI has been operating 634 model A2 farms allocated to new farmers since the onset of the land reform programme in 2000. The properties were either allocated to farmers who could not work on them or required financial assistance to effectively utilise the land.
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From The Toronto Star (Canada), 1 February
Farm workers see no way out but Mozambique
Bruce Mutsvairo
Harare - Outside a sculptural building housing the Mozambican embassy, a small man with a telegenic smile and a pencil moustache uneasily watches the snaking lineup of Zimbabweans in search of travel visas. The embassy won't open at least until 8 a.m., but Themba Makosi joined the queue six hours earlier. Astoundingly, he wasn't the first in line. "Some people have slept here," he says. "The Mozambican visa is probably one of the most sought visas in Zimbabwe." The ambition flickering in Makosi's eyes speaks volumes about his resolve to leave the country. He is not alone. Emmanuel Mangwiro is a devout Presbyterian who has never needed divine intervention more than he does today as he takes his place in the queue. Determined to meet his date with destiny, he is set to lodge his third visa application in two months, following the rejection of previous submissions. "They told me I needed an invitation letter from someone in Mozambique," he says. "I don't have any relatives or friends living in Mozambique and that makes my case a bit more difficult."
Mangwiro, 39, is hoping a reference letter written by ex-boss Brendan Easton, a white farmer who taught him to grow and maintain orange plantations eight years ago, will do the talking for him. Ultimately, a little luck could well be on his side, since Easton is believed to be among hundreds of Zimbabwean white farmers who have purchased land in Mozambique's productive Manica province. "Someone told me he bought a farm in Manica and I hope to locate him once I am there," says Mangwiro, who hails from Lomagundi, 160 kilometres west of the capital. "We had a very good working relationship and I am sure he will be willing to re-engage my services." He and Makosi have precious little in common apart from their discontent. In a country where unemployment is now hovering around 80 per cent, both men hope a ticket to Mozambique will deliver them from a bleak future. Unlike Makosi, the chain-smoking Mangwiro intends to leave his family behind. He has been staying with his in-laws ever since self-styled "war veterans" - encouraged by President Robert Mugabe to take over white-owned farms - invaded Easton's land two years ago. "It's quite downgrading for me, because I have lived off my wife's parents for the last two years," Mangwiro explains. "I haven't had any kind of job since then and that's why I am quite happy to be leaving."
Zimbabwean white farmers have been flocking to Mozambique ever since the fast-track land-resettlement program was initiated by Mugabe's government in 2000. There have been widespread reports that the farmers are arranging work permits for their ex-employees, whose experience they dearly need. And says Cremildo Rundo, deputy head of agriculture and rural development in Manica province: "We see the Zimbabwean farmers as investors, not as refugees." Nearly half of Zimbabwe's estimated 400,000 farm workers have been deprived of their jobs and statistics released by the government show that only about 10 per cent of former farm workers are beneficiaries of the land-reform program. Recent research by the Southern African Development Community-affiliated Famine Early Warning Network noted that "even if the rainfall situation turns out to be good, the critical shortage of inputs would seriously affect Zimbabwe's 2003-04 agricultural season." The mounting foreign currency shortages continue to limit the availability of critical supplies of fuel, fertilizers and spare parts for the repair and maintenance of agricultural equipment. An official with the Washington-based Refugees International monitoring organization says a recent fact-finding mission to Zimbabwe found that "many former farm workers have been expelled from communities in which they have attempted to resettle. Those who have been lucky to be employed on resettled farms are paid less than $10 a month."
Neither has the road to recognition been uncomplicated for the beneficiaries of the reform exercise. George Seremwe is not a veteran of the bloody 1970s war of liberation, but through his government connections, he has managed to acquire more than 300 hectares of land that once belonged to a white farmer. Relishing the opportunity to concentrate on his new-found farming career, he quit his job with a Netherlands-based U.S. consultancy company. But now he's a worried man. "Last year," he says, "we brought some flowers to Amsterdam and we were told the doors were closed for Zimbabwean products. The reason behind the boycott is, of course, the land-reform exercise, which has angered many market owners in Europe and North America. The boycott is bad news to most of us because, in my case, I have parted ways with my bosses so that I can fully participate in the development of agriculture in this country. But how can you be a farmer without a market?"
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 1 February
Another judge flees
By our own Staff
High Court judge, Justice Sandra Mungwira, has fled to the UK amid reports that she was being pressurised by authorities to rule against the five members of the opposition MDC accused of murdering war veterans' leader Cain Nkala late 2002, The Standard has learnt. Mungwira was expected to rule on whether statements made by the five accused persons, all members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change were admissible as evidence last November. The five suspects accused of killing Nkala, a ruling Zanu PF party functionary and war veterans leader, are all members of the MDC. They are: Remember Moyo, Khethani Sibanda, Sazini Mpofu, Nicholas Masera, Army Zulu and the Member of Parliament for Magwegwe-Pumula, Fletcher Dulini-Ncube. Three of the accused, Moyo, Sibanda and Mpofu - who have been in remand prison for more than two years - claimed in court that they had been tortured to confess to the kidnapping and killing of Nkala who was the Bulawayo war veterans' chairman. A senior official of the AG's office confirmed that Mungwira was not in the country. "However, we are greatly concerned about the Nkala murder case because a lot of evidence had already been led," said the official. The Standard understands that the director of Public Prosecution has written to the High Court to raise concern about Mungwira's absence without official leave. Efforts to contact Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary affairs proved futile as his mobile phone was off yesterday.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 30 January
Moyo sells Jo'burg mansion
Dumisani Muleya
Iinformation minister Jonathan Moyo has sold his controversial R1,5 million luxury home in Johannesburg to prevent an auction which was due yesterday after he fell into arrears in his mortgage bond payments. André Croucamp, director of the legal firm Findlay & Niemeyer, which was handling the disposal, told the Zimbabwe Independent yesterday Moyo recently sold the house to prevent the sale. The sheriff of Lenasia North had been expected to conduct the auction. "The auction was cancelled because Moyo sold the house," Croucamp said. "It now means that we will get paid in due course." He had bought the house through a mortgage obtained from Nedcor bank, according to reports published in South Africa. The bank, however, recently placed an advert in the newspapers saying the house would go on the block on January 29 as Moyo had failed to meet his mortgage repayments. It was said Moyo had an outstanding balance of R1,2 million on his bond.
He also reportedly owed the Johannesburg council more than R115 000 in unpaid rates and service charges for the house located at 15 Engelwold Drive in the posh Saxonwold suburb. City of Johannesburg invoices reportedly showed that Talunoza Trust, under which the house was registered, owed R69 064,07 in unpaid rates, while R48 961,98 was owed for electricity and water. The total - R118 026,05 - was said to have been due on January 15. Talunoza Trust was named after Moyo's children. The house has seven bedrooms, a large modern kitchen, a double garage, Oregon pine floors and underfloor heating. Most of the home is hidden behind a high wall which has an electric fence at the top. But reports said the house - in what was described as a metaphor for the economic ruin in Zimbabwe - was allowed to become rundown. A blocked drain was said to have been spilling sewage into the front yard and the lawn had not been cut for months. Flowerbeds were said to be overgrown with weeds while the swimming pool contained green slime.
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From News24 (SA), 1 February
Zim facing power supply crisis
Harare - Zimbabwe's debt-stricken power supply utility faces a crisis as South African and Mozambican utilities demand up- front payment for supplies, the state press said on Sunday. Last week, Eskom switched off electricity to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) for two days because of non-payment. Meanwhile, Mozambique's Hydroelectrica Cahora Bassa had cut its supply to Zimbabwe by 40% since the end of last year, the state-controlled weekly Sunday Mail reported. Zesa's finances have gone from bad to worse since January 2000 when it failed to meet payments to neighbouring countries after hard currency earnings slumped with accelerating economic decline. Widespread blackouts, that would worsen the country's already devastated productive sectors, have been avoided only by President Robert Mugabe's appeals to President Thabo Mbeki and Mozambique's President Joaquim Chissano to intervene with their power utilities. Since then, Zesa has been able to keep going through soft credit deals agreed to by Eskom and HCB. The Sunday Mail reported that Zesa's annual contracts with Eskom and HCB ran out on December 31, and both were now demanding payment in advance. Zesa's total bill to African utilities and to international financial institutions now totals $410m, the Sunday Mail said. Eskom is apparently willing to renew its contract as a result of new tight fiscal and financial policies promised by recently appointed Zimbabwe central bank governor Gideon Gono. Zesa is a major casualty of Zimbabwe's economic crisis, marked by the fastest shrinking GDP in the world - 40% in four years - and the highest inflation, now at 60%, as well as famine for the third consecutive year in which 7.5 million Zimbabweans - about 60% of the population - are facing starvation.
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From The Daily News, 2 February
Investors besiege firm
Staff Reporter
Several investors are desperately battling to recover millions of dollars they invested with an asset management company whose officials seem to have abandoned their Harare premises, The Daily News has established. Investors told this newspaper that they had eagerly invested their money into Harare Import and Export, which placed advertisements in the Press indicating that it was offering an interest rate of 90 percent upon maturity of investments. The investments were supposed to mature after 30 days, with most investors expecting to receive |returns on their investments on 31 December 2003. The investors were being asked to invest a minimum of $1 million. For the past few days, the investors have been gathering at the Harare city centre offices of the asset management company. This reporter has observed at least 500 anxious investors, including members of the police and army, gathering for meetings in the past two days at the offices of Harare Import and Export, which also operates under the name Economy Finance. However, the firm’s offices are said to be empty of furniture, which, together with computers, is said to have been removed by the company director and his workers.
The investors have made a report to the police and the police’s fraud squad is said to be handling the issue. A docket with reference number 155/1/4 has been opened. However, it was not possible to obtain comment on the matter from the police, who referred all questions to Zimbabwe Republic Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena. He was, however, not reachable at his office nor on his mobile phone. "It is unfortunate that you cannot get a comment as Assistant Commissioner Bvudzijena is not available today," said another police spokesman, Oliver Mandipaka. During a meeting attended by this reporter, one of the investors told his colleagues that the asset management company had, according to records at the Registrar of Companies, been registered but dissolved in 1992 and no longer existed. The Daily News was not able to substantiate these reports on Friday. "More than a thousand people have been duped by this company. They lost their hard-earned cash by investing in this dubious asset management company," a man who said he had invested $10 million with the company told The Daily News during a meeting on Friday. "What makes us more worried is that the police are not willing to arrest (the company official), despite the evidence that we have that he is still residing in Harare." Another investor said: "We don’t know why the police are not arresting him when other people who have defrauded other investors have since been arrested."
On Friday, the asset management firm’s director (name provided) left letters at his company’s premises, advising the investors that he would refund their capital on 13 February. "We are not running away. We only closed this office because of pressure from the investors, who cannot understand our liquidity crisis which you all know is affecting other financial institutions," the letter reads in part. The letter bears a letterhead that indicates that Harare Import and Export is involved in importing and exporting fuel and minerals. The letter also contains a contact number for the company’s director, on which he was, however, not reachable. The crisis involving Harare Import and Export comes at a time when the central bank and the police have launched a crackdown on Zimbabwe’s financial services sector, with several executives being accused of fraud involving billions of dollars. Among those facing charges are the directors of ENG Capital, an asset management company that is now under provisional liquidation. Two of the firm’s executives were arrested after failing to pay more than $60 billion owed to investors. Also arrested was a director of Intersec Asset Management Company who is being held at Harare Remand Prison over $465 million.
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From IOL (SA), 1 February
Zimbabwe probe extended to include US and UK
Harare - Police investigations into one of the worst financial scandals to hit Zimbabwe have been extended to Britain and the United States with reports that $250 000 was deposited into an offshore account. The state-owned Herald paper said on Saturday that the money was deposited into an account with an unnamed US bank, as investigations into the ENG Capital asset management company continued, while police warned that the probe could widen. "We are moving to other countries (outside of Britain and the United States) but it is too early for us to give out the details," the paper quoted a senior police officer as saying.
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From Business Day (SA), 2 February
Mugabe targets big Anglo sugar farm
Mining giant Anglo American is set to become the largest South African-listed group to be hit by Zimbabwe's land-reform programme, as its only agricultural asset in the country, Hippo Valley sugar estates, has been earmarked for expropriation. Anglo American is one of the few remaining South African companies that still has large interests in Zimbabwe despite the precarious economic situation. Hippo Valley, the country's largest sugar company, is still listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Zimbabwe's land-reform policy, based on the expropriation of white-held farmland, has been widely criticised. President Thabo Mbeki's policy of quiet diplomacy towards Zimbabwe has had little visible effect as the country's economy is struggling with inflation of 598% and an estimated 70% unemployment rate. Another local sugar giant that may be at risk is Tongaat Hulett, which owns Triangle Sugar in Zimbabwe and until recently was getting about 15% of its earnings from there. Tongaat was reluctant to discuss the issue yesterday.
As new laws were passed last week making it easier for the Zimbabwe government to expropriate large plantations, Anglo spokeswoman Anne Dunn confirmed the company had been served with a formal letter designating Hippo Valley for expropriation. "Hippo Valley has been designated, but we have lodged formal objections and are in talks with the appropriate authorities about this," she said. Dunn said that in the context of its global resources group Hippo Valley was "not a major investment" although it still formed a sizeable chunk of the company's operations in Zimbabwe. "In the light of the current situation, we are also concerned about what would happen to our employees," she said. It seems that the Zimbabwe government is reneging on earlier promises. In 2000 the government listed Hippo Valley as one of the white-owned farms designated for seizure. Then it backed down saying it had made a mistake and the Anglo land would be removed from this list. But the issue is still sensitive, and Anglo would not discuss what effect this new move would have on the company's relationship with the Zimbabwean government.
Although Hippo Valley is its sole agricultural investment in Zimbabwe, Anglo still has other operations in the country, and it would clearly be loath to jeopardise its other operations, such as Zimbabwe Alloys. Last year Anglo's chairman in Zimbabwe, Godfrey Gomwe, said Hippo Valley had been supportive of evicted commercial farmers, noting that continuing problems over the land were "complex and distressing" for all involved. Amid SA's reluctance to interfere in Zimbabwe, this is further evidence that Zimbabwe's economic woes are having an adverse effect on South African business. Problems in the country's banking system last month caused South African banks with operations in Zimbabwe Nedcor, Absa and Standard Bank to express concern publicly. New Zimbabwe Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono is now managing to keep the banking crisis from bubbling over.
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From News24 (SA), 30 January
MDC plan to 'restart' economy
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) finally launched a proposed rescue package for the beleaguered economy on Thursday just minutes after a court granted it an 11th-hour approval to hold the meeting, which police had outlawed. Police had earlier denied the party approval as required under the country's controversial Public Order and Security Act. Party spokesperson Paul Temba Nyathi said the police had withheld approval despite the application's having been lodged a week ago, as required by law. Scores of police, some with dogs, were seen patrolling the grounds of the five-star Sheraton Hotel as several hundred opposition officials, supporters and diplomats made a last minute rush to the venue. The meeting went on uninterrupted with party president Morgan Tsvangirai officially launching the 70-page economic policy document. It aims to stabilise the macro-economy, recover levels of savings, investment and growth, focusing initially on governance, the humanitarian crisis, the HIV/Aids pandemic, job creation and resolving the land question.
Police had earlier said the MDC's first application was submitted to the wrong office, and therefore not processed. A fresh application was lodged on Monday for permission to hold the meeting to launch the MDC's economic blueprint but "the police say that this is insufficient notice for them," Nyathi said. Under the law a notice must be made four days in advance of a planned meeting. "These are merely lies and excuses from a regime that seeks to prevent the people... access to a comprehensive programme," said Nyathi. The MDC accused the ruling Zanu PF of preventing it from publishing policies that offer a solution to Zimbabwe's grave economic crisis. "Zanu PF fears that this MDC programme will fully expose its own shortcomings," Nyathi said. Launching the document, Tsvangirai blamed President Robert Mugabe's government for the "mess, decay and economic failure" the southern African country is experiencing. "Recent events clearly show that the rot is entrenched in a corrupt system of political patronage, nursed by a corrupt dictatorship that seeks to cling on power at the expense of the majority," said Tsvangirai. The MDC said its document, which took nine months to be put together by a team of experts and academics "offers a diagnosis and a prescription for long term recovery and growth". The central bank recently introduced measures that have seen prices of certain basic commodities come back down and the country's currency firming against international currencies on the foreign exchange market. The MDC's blueprint for change is dubbed 'RESTART' - which stands for Reconstruction, Stabilisation, Recovery, Transformation.
From ZWNEWS: If you would like to read RESTART, please let us know. It will be sent as Word and JPEG attachments to an email message - total size approximately 18 times the size of the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From The Daily News, 2 February
Plot to rig Gutu poll
Staff Reporter
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it has uncovered a well-executed plan to rig the Gutu North by-election in which it claims that about 7 000 registered voters in Harare constituencies have also been registered to vote in the two-day poll in Gutu North, which starts today. According to Remus Makuwaza, the MDC director of elections, the alleged rigging ploy was not restricted to Gutu North but was a traditional device by Zanu PF, through the Registrar-General’s (RG) Office, to manipulate the voters’ roll ahead of any by-election. Makuwaza said the RG’s Office had continuously refused to let his party have the consolidated voters’ rolls, after the inspection of the voters’ roll in all the past by-elections, and lately, the Gutu North poll. The MDC has previously pointed out the government’s vote-rigging mechanisms and named alleged ghost voters. The opposition party is also challenging President Robert Mugabe’s 2002 election victory, citing alleged electoral irregularities including manipulation of the voters’ roll.
Makuwaza said the RG’s Office deliberately interchanged names appearing on the voters’ roll and the addresses, causing thousands of voters to be turned away on the voting day because of conflicting personal details. "We have filed papers in the High Court against the Registrar General’s Office concerning the consolidated voters’ roll without success," Makuwaza said. "The Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) is a toothless electoral institution. The fact that the Registrar General’s Office has denied us our right to have the consolidated voters’ rolls in the past by-elections, including the Gutu North election, means they have a lot to hide that we don ’t know." Tobaiwa Mudede, the Registrar General, could not be reached for comment. His mobile phone continuously rang without any response. But Makuwaza said what happened towards any by-election was that the RG’s Office gave them the voters’ roll before the voters’ roll inspection exercise started but would refuse to give them a consolidated supplementary voters’ roll soon after the inspection because they feared the discovery of ghost voters. Thomas Bvuma, the ESC spokesman, yesterday said he was not in a position to comment because he was travelling. Nathan Shamuyarira, the Zanu PF spokesman, dismissed the claims as false and an invented allegation from reporters in the private media, particularly at The Daily News. "That’s not true that people have been illegally registered," Shamuyarira said. "The Daily News is just there to discredit all government efforts to prepare for good elections. The Registrar General has registered people and the people are ready to vote but you have created your own allegations. These allegations are yours and not the people’s."
In the case of Gutu North, Makuwaza said during their audit of the voters’ roll, about 7 000 names of people previously registered in Highfield, Budiriro, Glen View, Kuwadzana, Warren Park, Mbare, Mabvuku, Mbare East, Mbare West, Mufakose, St Mary’s, Glen Norah and Hatfield now appear on the Gutu North voters’ roll. Makuwaza said his party has failed to get an explanation from Mudede’s office on why such a large number of Harare residents have suddenly been registered in Gutu North. Crispa Musoni is representing the MDC while retired Air Marshal Josiah Tungamirai is standing for the ruling party in the by-election. The Gutu North seat fell vacant following the death of Vice-President Simon Muzenda in September last year. Meanwhile, our Masvingo bureau chief Energy Bara reports that more than 59 000 people are expected to cast their votes today in the Gutu North poll which has been marred by pre-election violence and intimidation. The situation remained tense in the whole constituency as both parties, ZANU PF and the MDC, made last-minute preparations to wind up their campaigns. Police maintained a heavy presence as they mounted roadblocks and searched motorists for dangerous weapons. Officers from the RG’s Office and election observers were being deployed to the 44 static polling stations scattered throughout the constituency.
The MDC has claimed the by-election campaign was marred by violence, intimidation and harassment of the electorate. Musoni, the MDC candidate, yesterday maintained that his party failed to hold a single rally as chiefs and headmen were allegedly blocking the party’s campaign. "A normal campaign was not possible as the ruling party had threatened to dismiss any chief who would have allowed me to campaign openly." However, the ruling party has dismissed the allegations of violence claiming that the opposition was exaggerating all the cases. Zanu PF provincial vice-chairman Tinos Rusere expressed his satisfaction with the poll run-up, alleging that no incident of violence had been reported. "The campaign period was very peaceful. It is only the opposition which is exaggerating cases of political violence," he said. Zanu PF wound up its campaign over the weekend with a rally in Zvavahera Village, the home area of the late Vice-President Muzenda. The rally was addressed by Vice-President Joseph Msika who urged people to vote for Zanu PF to, as he claimed, safeguard the gains of the liberation struggle. Despite assertions by the ruling party that the campaign period was peaceful, The Daily News has established that one hut belonging to an MDC activist was last week set ablaze at Thornhill Farm near Chatsworth. Scores of people were injured following clashes between the ruling party and MDC supporters at Chatsworth rural service centre.
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From ZWNEWS, 2 February
Against All Odds
If you happen to be in the area of 24 degrees west and 24 degrees north, a couple of hundred miles off the north-west tip of Africa, look out for a small white rowing boat. It will be instantly recognisable amongst the thirteen other boats dotted about the Atlantic Ocean - it has "Save Zimbabwe" emblazoned across its hull. The two rowers sat inside it are rowing the tiny vessel - about 7.5 metres long - across the ocean from the Canary Islands to Barbados, as part of the Ocean Rowing Society's Atlantic Regatta. The two, American Scott Wonenberg and Zimbabwean Brett Sparrow, are currently well positioned at the front of the western flank of the flotilla, having covered 835 km since they crossed the start line at San Sebastian on the island of La Gomera in the Canaries on 22 January - two days later than the rest of the fleet. They have 3905 km to go to the finish line at Port St Charles in Barbados. The boat - named Against All Odds - is one of seven double-crewed boats taking part in the event. There also six solo rowers, and one boat powered by four oarsmen. They face the possibility of 10m waves, but thankfully, there are no hurricanes currently forecast for the route. The progress of the boats can be monitored at www.oceanregatta.com.
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From The Daily News, 3 February
Chiefs intimidate voters
Staff Reporter
Gutu, Masvingo - Some traditional chiefs and headmen yesterday went around polling stations reminding their subjects to vote for ruling Zanu PF party candidate, Josiah Tungamirai, in the ongoing Gutu North parliamentary by-election, or risk being evicted from their homes. At some of the polling stations the traditional leaders, most of whom banned the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from campaigning in their areas during the run-up to the ballot, could be seen checking people against lists of names they had. As the traditional leaders leaned on their subjects to vote for Tungamirai, some suspected militants of the ruling party closed several schools in the constituency, in what the MDC said were desperate attempts by the ruling party to hang onto to the Gutu North seat left vacant by the late ZANU PF and state Vice-President Simon Muzenda. About 20 schools in the constituency were closed and teachers were ordered to report for work only on Thursday. Among the schools closed were Gutu Mupandawana Secondary School, Matizha primary and secondary schools, Nyamande Primary School and Mushayawanhu primary and secondary schools.
MDC vice-chairman for Masvingo province Shake Matake said: "We are worried about the presence of these traditional leaders in the polling stations because they are not mandated to be there by the law. "We suspect that their presence was to intimidate voters in order to vote for a certain party. However, we are confident that we are going to win the election." But his Zanu PF counterpart, Tinos Rusere, vehemently rejected suggestions that his party was manipulating traditional leaders to ensure that it was re-elected in Gutu North. Rusere said Zanu PF would win the seat because of the thorough groundwork it had done in the run-up to the ballot in which the MDC candidate Crispa Musoni is battling it out with Tungamirai. He said: "We have done our groundwork and to us, victory is certain. Our campaign was clean and thorough. The MDC always cry foul whenever there is an election but I think it is just a ploy to pre-empt the defeat that is staring them in the eye. It was a fair campaign."
But a Daily News crew covering the by-election yesterday witnessed some of the traditional leaders at Serima and Nyamande polling stations openly reminding voters to vote for the ruling party. Several voters told our news crew that some of the chiefs had been holding constant meetings with villagers to instruct them to vote for the Zanu PF candidate. A chief, who spoke on condition that he was not named, said he and his colleagues had been warned by Zanu PF officials and the local war veterans’ leadership that they would be stripped of their chieftainship and have their allowances withdrawn if the MDC won in their their areas of jurisdiction. "The party chefs and the war veterans warned us that we would be stripped of our titles and allowances if people in our areas voted for the opposition," said the chief. A villager from Ward 27, under Chief Serima, who identified himself as Edson Virimai, said: "We had several meetings with the chief before the election, at which we were advised to go and vote for Tungamirai on the polling day. The chief told us that if we didn’t vote for Zanu PF we would be evicted from our homesteads."
Comment could not be obtained from Election Supervisory Commission spokesman Thomas Bvuma as his phone was switched off. Of the more than 59 000 registered voters, only 14 276 had cast their vote by 2 pm yesterday. There were long queues at some polling stations in the morning but by 1 pm they had disappeared. Voting was peaceful as no incidents of violence had been reported by afternoon. In the northern part of the constituency, which is a Zanu PF stronghold, there were still some short queues in the afternoon. The area includes the Zanu PF strongholds of Bhasera, Mushayavanhu, Zvavahera and Deure.
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From Sapa, 2 February
Eskom denies cutting power to Zimbabwe
Power utility Eskom has denied that it cut electricity supplies last week to the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (Zesa) for non-payment. "At no point in the previous week did Eskom switch off power supply to Zesa, nor did we even consider switching off power supply to Zesa," Eskom said in a statement. The Zimbabwean state-controlled Sunday Mail was quoted as reporting that South African and Mozambican power utilities demanded up-front payment for supplies. It said Eskom switched off electricity to Zesa for two days for non-payment. Zesa has been importing electricity from Eskom since 1996. The account went into arrears in 1999 as a result of a shortage of foreign exchange reserves, the Eskom statement said. "The situation improved in 2001, when Zesa met its obligations to pay all current accounts on time. Furthermore, the Zimbabwean utility substantially reduced outstanding amounts in line with the account normalisation agreement with Eskom." Zesa met its obligations on current accounts for the better part of 2002, Eskom said. But, foreign exchange reserve shortages in September 2002 prompted Zesa to re-enter into dialogue with Eskom. A meeting was held last March, where a new repayment schedule was considered. "At this meeting, the Zesa delegation reaffirmed its commitment to servicing their debt to Eskom with the view to settling the outstanding account and arrears in the shortest possible time," Eskom said. "We remain confident that the outstanding account will be settled." Eskom spokesman Fani Zulu would not disclose the amount owed.
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From IRIN (UN), 2 February
Food prices continue to rise
Johannesburg - The price of a loaf of bread in Zimbabwe is expected to rise to Z$3,500 - the latest hike in the cost of basic food commodities - after an increase in the price of flour. The cost of flour increased last week because low levels of domestic wheat production have forced millers to turn to more expensive imports. Zimbabwe is expected to produce only 38 percent of its food requirements in the current growing season, according to the latest monthly report of the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET). It estimated that just over five million people in a rural population of 7.8 million would require food assistance until March 2004, before the next harvest in April. The situation in urban areas has worsened as well. The cost of the December 2003 low-income urban household monthly basket, monitored by the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe, rose five percentage points from the November total to about Z$678,000. The council noted that much of the increase was attributable to the non-food component of the basket, which grew by about 23 percent between November and December. The food component of the basket only increased by about four percentage points to Z$441,000.
During the nine months up to 31 December 2003, FEWSNET recorded a cereal deficit of approximately 174,000 metric tonnes, including maize, sorghum, rapoko, and millet. "Because of this deficit, both rural and urban households were likely to be forced to skip meals, eat smaller portions at every meal, and substitute cereals with vegetables or other foods. Some [people] even had to migrate out of formal urban settlements to squatter camps and rural areas where the cost of living is lower." "A lukewarm response to the appeal for food assistance is limiting the ability of the WFP [World Food Programme] and its partners to meet the needs of all food insecure households," said the report. By the end of December 2003, only 54 percent of the estimated 610,000 metric tonnes of emergency food aid required had been secured. The official Herald newspaper said on Friday the government had bought 70,000 tonnes of maize from South Africa to be distributed as relief. The Zimbabwe Standard reported on Sunday that those millers and bakers issued with import licences for wheat and flour were sourcing supplies from neighbouring countries such as Botswana, South Africa and Mozambique, while small bakers were paying $48 for a 50 kg bag of flour this week, up from $37.50 last week.
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From News24 (SA), 2 February
Tsvangirai law firm banned
Harare - The Law Society of Zimbabwe has barred 40 law firms - about one-seventh of the national total - from practising this year until they regularise their status, government media said on Monday. Among the firms listed as banned is the reputable practice Artherstone and Cook, which is instructing senior advocates representing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in his treason trial over an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. The firm also recently represented journalists from the Independent weekly facing defamation charges for alleging that Mugabe had commandeered an aircraft from national carrier Air Zimbabwe for a holiday in Asia. The state-owned Herald newspaper quoted the president of the Law Society, Joseph James, as saying: "The said firms and or individuals are ... not licensed to practise in 2004 and must close their firms immediately until they regularise their position to the satisfaction of the council." The umbrella group's office said that the 40 were among an estimated 270 law firms in the country.
All lawyers or law firms in private practice must be registered. The annual registration normally involves submission of an audit certificate on funds held in trust for clients. Some of the applications were rejected because they were deemed to be irregular and did not meet the stipulated requirements, the Herald said. Artherstone and Cook partner Linda Cook said that the inclusion of the firm's name "as far as we are aware" was "an honest mistake". She said like all other licensed firms "we were issued on the 7th of January (2004) with a letter saying we were duly licensed to practice law". She admitted there had been problems with the firm's accounts. "It's merely a question of bringing the accounts into order now. Every year we do that. We are not used to be on the list like that." Tsvangirai is due to return to court on February 11 when his hearing continues. He has denied plotting to "eliminate" Mugabe in the run-up to controversial elections in 2002 which returned the veteran leader to another term. The opposition and independent observers said the 2002 presidential election was blighted by sweeping fraud, violence and intimidation.
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From The Daily News, 3 February
Government steps up bid to push Bennet off farm
Staff Reporter
The government wants opposition legislator Roy Bennet to surrender his Charleswood Estate farm in Manicaland province despite an order by the High Court last year barring the State from seizing the property as part of its controversial and chaotic land reforms. In yet another example of the executive openly defying court rulings it views as an impediment to its policies, newly appointed Manicaland provincial governor Mike Nyambuya told The Daily News yesterday that Bennet should vacate Charleswood because the farm had been taken over by the State. "Charleswood (Estate) is now State land as Section 8 was issued to the farm which has since matured. Bennet is therefore continuing to reside at the farm in contravention of the land Acquisition Act," said Nyambuya. Nyambuya, a retired Zimbabwe army lieutenant-general who Bennet has accused of using army personnel to try and illegally push him from Charleswood, said he had no personal interest in the property but was merely carrying out a government task. He said: "This is a Ministry of Lands and Rural Resettlement process which was started well before I assumed the provincial governorship of Manicaland."
Bennet has survived previous attempts by suspected ruling Zanu PF party militants allegedly backed by some army and State secret service operatives to remove him from Charleswood. The High Court last year barred the government from taking over Bennet’s farm as the property was situated in an Export Processing Zone. Bennet said: "There is a valid court order that bars all these people being sent by Nyambuya from entering my farm. The High Court has barred the government from taking over the farm, so what is legal about the invasion. This is clearly a political matter." Bennet said Nyambuya was using his military background to fulfil a mandate given to the Manicaland provincial leadership by President Mugabe to remove him from the province using violence. Last year Mugabe challenged his lieutenants in Manicaland to ensure that Bennet and another farmer, only identified as De Klerk, were removed from the province. Mugabe accused the two of spearheading the MDC campaign in the province. "It is clear that Nyambuya is not only interested in my farm but that he also wants to take over my constituency and he has already started campaigning and he has enlisted the services of the army to unseat me," charged Bennet.
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From The Daily News, 2 February
Suspected Nkala murderer denied medication: lawyers
Lawyers representing Remember Moyo - one of six Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists accused of kidnapping and murdering Bulawayo war veterans' leader Cain Nkala - on Friday said their client was seriously ill but was being denied medication by officers at Harare Remand Prison. They said Moyo had been diagnosed with hepatitis, a liver infection, and had been quarantined to avoid spreading the disease to other prisoners. Harare lawyer Raymond Moyo and advocate Edith Mushore said they had attempted in the past week to secure medical attention for their client but had been unsuccessful. The lawyers said they had a doctor waiting on stand-by to examine Moyo, but efforts to see their client and facilitate his treatment had been frustrated by prison authorities. Moyo's lawyers were yesterday preparing to file a court application to compel the Zimbabwe Prison Services' authorities to treat him humanely as required by the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
Raymond Moyo said yesterday: "Remember Moyo is seriously ill. In fact, he has not been well since December last year. He is losing weight and is having difficulty eating. His health has deteriorated and he is in great pain. It's unbelievable that the prison authorities can afford to watch him suffer like that. I visited him early this month after being informed about his illness and found that he had not received any medication at all." Moyo said his client was having difficulty eating and had undergone tests for gastric ulcers after being seen by a prison doctor. "I went back to see him on 19 January and found that he still had not been given medicine and prison authorities said the medicine was not available," Moyo said. "I went back to ask for the doctor's prescription so we could look for the medicine and we were told the medicine had been bought but it later turned out that it was the wrong medicine. We asked for a copy of the prescription and we were told it could not be located." Mushore said the prison doctor had initially said Moyo was suffering from jaundice but later diagnosed hepatitis. "We have an independent doctor waiting to see him, but the people in the prisons department have been sending us up and down," she told The Daily News yesterday. "The prison doctor has directed us to see the officer-in-charge who has told us to see the doctor. Now we are trying to set up a meeting with both the prison doctor and the officer-in-charge. We have also been trying to get the prescription to buy him the medicine but all our efforts are being frustrated," Mushore said.
An official at the Zimbabwe Prison Services headquarters, who declined to be identified, yesterday said he was not aware that Remember Moyo had been denied access to medication. Responding to allegations that Moyo's lawyers were not allowed to facilitate a visit with an independent doctor, the official said: "We have our own qualified doctors who assess whether or not a prisoner needs to be seen by an expert doctor outside the prison". "We don't necessarily deny prisoners treatment by outside doctors when the prison doctors recommend so," the official added. Remember Moyo, MDC legislator Fletcher Dulini-Ncube, the party's director of security, Sonny Masera, Army Zulu, Khethani Augustine Sibanda and Sazini Mpofu are on trial in the High Court on charges of kidnapping Nkala in November 2001. They have denied the charges. Nkala was kidnapped from his Magwegwe West home in Bulawayo on 5 November 2001. His decomposing body was exhumed from a shallow grave on a farm near Solusi University on 13 November 2001.
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Comment from The New York Times, 2 February
A sham trial in Zimbabwe
Last week in Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai testified in court to save his life. The leader of Zimbabwe's democratic opposition, Tsvangirai is on trial for treason, a capital crime. His real crime is that he is a political opponent to President Robert Mugabe. He won 42 percent of the vote when he ran against him in 2002, in an election marked by fraud and government-sponsored violence. .Mugabe is using the courts to disable Tsvangirai and his party, the Movement for Democratic Change. Tsvangirai is accused of plotting to "eliminate" Mugabe, the evidence being a grainy, obviously doctored videotape of a 2001 meeting between Tsvangirai and Ari Ben-Menashe, a Montreal political operative the movement had hired as a lobbyist. The tape shows Ben-Menashe saying repeatedly that he could "eliminate' Mugabe. Tsvangirai then uses the word, but he has said in court that he meant eliminate Mugabe from the 2002 presidential competition. .Ben-Menashe admitted in court that before the meeting he received a $700,000 payment from Mugabe's government. Officials have also admitted they paid Ben-Menashe to videotape the session. In other words, the case looks like a setup.
But Zimbabwe's courts are subservient enough that Tsvangirai could be convicted. .If he is not, Tsvangirai has another indictment pending for treason, based on his leadership of a national strike last year. Of the 57 members of Parliament who are in the Movement for Democratic Change, about 50 have been charged with crimes. Mugabe knows he can keep his hold on power only through intimidation and abuse. .Zimbabweans are suffering record inflation and unemployment, and many are going hungry. International aid donors charge that the government withholds grain from areas that support the opposition. .In 1964, at the decapitation of South Africa's African National Congress leadership known as the Rivonia trial, Nelson Mandela was charged with sabotage. He was sentenced to life in prison and served 27 years, released only when the apartheid government needed a negotiating partner. His lawyer, George Bizos, today is lead counsel for Tsvangirai. The charges against him, like those against Mandela, are an indictment not of the prisoner but of the government that arrested him.
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