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Archived News
7th January 2004
Zimbabwe claims recovery of seized land from loyalists who took too much
Todd loses passport fight
Govt threatens to prosecute schools that hike fees
Stand up to brutal Mugabe, say South African bishops
Banks face collapse as crisis mounts
Trouble looms for bankers
Zimbabwe farms 'left unsettled'
Nation reaps benefit from Zimbabwean farmers
Mugabe aide admits land grab failed
President's office probes Gov. Mpofu
Made in Xmas farm invasion
USAID donates sorghum worth $12 million to WFP
Zimbabwean central bank to take measures to solve banking crisis
Chiwenga threatens doctors with detention
ENG bosses seek Zanu PF protection
Suspect held in murder case
Activist after Mugabe
Sorghum could be key to food security
ZNA recruits flee training
Zimbabwe gloom grows as shops refuse cheques
Land to be reallocated to "serious and committed" farmers
Petrol bombing, assault
Private doctor fees in Zimbabwe skyrocket
Mbeki's smoke and mirrors
Zimbabwe lays fraud charges amid financial turmoil
Zim depositors panic at crackdown on banks
Zimbabwe's new monetary policy causes turmoil in banking sector
Crisis for Zimbabwe banking as cash runs out
Zim docs to return to work
Battling it out in Zim
Flails and insults await Mugabe refugees
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From The Guardian (UK), 2 January
Flails and insults await Mugabe refugees
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
South Africa's immigration staff are accused of brutality and blocking asylum for all but a handful of Zimbabweans
More than two million Zimbabweans have flooded into South Africa over the past nine years to escape the repression and torture of Robert Mugabe's vilified regime, but only 11 have been granted political asylum, the Guardian has discovered. And in the first nine months of this year the South African authorities arrested and deported 41,000 Zimbabweans and sent them back across the border. The total was more than all those repatriated between 1994 and 2002. The startling figures reflect the growing humanitarian crisis facing Zimbabwean immigrants, and South Africa's dilemma over how to deal with them. Many Zimbabweans claim South Africa's reluctance to give them legal status has been compounded by the brutal treatment often meted out to those who try to make a legitimate claim. One man described how staff at a refugee centre demand bribes from queuing Zimbabweans, and routinely whip and hit those seeking asylum. When the Guardian put these allegations to the director general of South Africa's home affairs department, Barry Gilder, he promised an investigation. "There is no policy that I am aware of to discourage Zimbabweans from getting asylum here," said Mr Gilder.
The influx of millions of Zimbabweans has overwhelmed South Africa, which has a population of 45 million, and created a substantial underclass of illegal immigrants who live a precarious existence - with no legal status they are not entitled to help from the South African government or from overseas. The South African government claims that only 1,471 people have formally applied for political asylum since 1994; it also conceded that only 11 had been granted refugee status. However, Zimbabwean immigrants insist the reason why the numbers are so low is because immigration officials make it extremely difficult to apply. One immigrant, Tafadzwa Chimombe (not his real name, to protect his family in Zimbabwe), said: "I've been to the refugee office six times but still not succeeded in getting the form needed to apply for asylum. They say they will deal with Zimbabweans once a week, on Tuesdays, but when we go there the guards hit people and use whips on us and order us away. It makes us ashamed to be Zimbabweans here in South Africa."
The South African government was actively preventing Zimbabweans from getting political asylum, Mr Chimombe said, because the South African president, Thabo Mbeki, supported the Mugabe regime. "But we gave South Africans refuge in Zimbabwe during apartheid - why won't they help us now?" Mr Chimombe has scars from the electric shock torture and beatings he received in Zimbabwe. A former captain in the Zimbabwe army, he was accused of sympathising with the opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change, and subjected to days of torture at army barracks in Harare. "My lips, tongue and testicles were swollen from the electric shocks, I couldn't even walk," the 32-year-old said. Once he had recovered from the torture, he fled to South Africa. "I am just trying to get papers so I am legal here. I cannot go back to Zimbabwe." Although he has professional qualifications, he cannot get work without a permit; he was offered the application form if he paid a bribe of 500 rand (£50). And, while Zimbabweans were being forced to wait years for asylum approval, refugees from other African countries were getting their applications considered within six weeks, he said.
Several other Zimbabwean refugees described how they were tortured in Zimbabwe and then faced difficulties in South Africa. The treatment of Zimbabweans at the South African government's centre for political refugees, in the Braamfontein area of Johannesburg, was recently highlighted in a television documentary broadcast on South Africa's independent e-tv. A security guard was shown shouting: "Get away you Zimbabweans, we don't want you here." The guard then flailed at the refugees with a rawhide sjambok, a short whip that symbolised the brutal ways of apartheid. "They beat us and whip us," said Pascal Moyo (his name has also been changed). "It is terrible to be a refugee here in South Africa but it is even worse to go back. We must scramble and live by our wits." To survive, Moyo collects glass and plastic bottles from rubbish cans and sells them to recycling centres. (For women, prostitution can turn out to be the only way to survive).
The international organisations do not assist people classified as "economic refugees" so neither the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees nor the International Committee of the Red Cross can help the Zimbabweans. Every week, hundreds of Zimbabweans are arrested and held at Lindela camp, before being deported by train. Rather than go back to further torture and persecution, many risk their lives by jumping from the carriages. Others just turn around and go back to South Africa, braving the crocodile-infested Limpopo river or finding ways to cross the barbed wire fence separating the countries. "It's the infamous revolving door," said Mr Gilder. "No sooner do we deport them than they come back in." He admitted South Africa's entire home affairs department was struggling with inadequate budgets, lengthy queues and corruption, and added: "We have a legal responsibility, both by our own laws and international conventions, to offer asylum if there is a well-founded fear of persecution in the home country." According to Elinor Sisulu, the South African representative of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, the burgeoning numbers of Zimbabweans from across the border demonstrates that their nation's problems are having a negative impact on the entire southern African region. "It's a problem of huge magnitude. Zimbabweans come here and go underground. These people are not being treated like refugees, they are being treated like criminals. They call them economic refugees. At this point, I think everyone should be treated like a political refugee."
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From VOA News, 1 January
Zimbabwe claims recovery of seized land from loyalists who took too much
Harare - The Zimbabwe government has said it has recovered more 200,000 hectares of formerly white-owned land from ruling party loyalists who have taken more than one farm. Minister of Special Affairs in President Robert Mugabe's office John Nkomo, who also is responsible for managing land ownership, said the amount of land recovered from the ruling party loyalists is changing all the time. He said he would not know for some time how much land had been finally recovered from those who grabbed more than they are allowed, but that it would be redistributed to people who applied for land, but had so far not received any. The few white commercial farmers left on their properties said Thursday they can see no evidence that Cabinet ministers, judges, bank managers, senior army personnel and other leaders, have abandoned any of the farms they took. Mac Crawford, who heads an association of ranchers in the southern Matabeleland province, said "most of them do not live on the land, and are careful to cover up what they have taken."
When President Mugabe sent loyalists to evict white farmers in February 2000, he told Zimbabweans the future agricultural policy would be "one man, one farm." But over Christmas, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, Deputy Transport Minister Chris Mushowe, and a senior civil servant, Joseph Mutowenyika, went onto a farm in eastern Zimbabwe and told the white owners that they must leave the land immediately. They acted against a recent court order prohibiting the confiscation of the farm. The majority shareholder in the farm, Edwin Moyo, said the three officials were claiming the land for themselves, even though each of them already has at least one farm. The farm, now Zimbabwe's largest exporter of vegetables, employs 6,000 people. Mr. Made was not available for comment Thursday. The government's land distribution program has had a disastrous effect on Zimbabwe's agricultural production. Once a food exporter, Zimbabwe now depends on the World Food Program to feed five million people, or nearly half the population.
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From News24 (SA), 31 December
Todd loses passport fight
Harare, Zimbabwe - Veteran human rights activist Judith Todd accused President Robert Mugabe's government on Wednesday of stripping the rights of foreign descendants, saying she had lost a long battle with authorities to obtain a Zimbabwe passport. Todd, the Zimbabwe-born daughter of a former prime minister under British rule once jailed for campaigning against colonialism, has clashed repeatedly with Mugabe's government over its human rights and democracy record. In 2002, Todd won a prolonged court battle for a one-year temporary passport to attend a memorial service for her father, Garfield Todd, in London. But Zimbabwean officials have refused to renew the passport, arguing she is a citizen of New Zealand, where her father was born. Recent citizenship laws require Zimbabweans holding a second nationality to formally renounce it.
But Todd says she never took up New Zealand citizenship, and officials there told her they could not help her renounce a nationality she did not have. Having exhausted legal avenues in Zimbabwe, Todd said she was now reluctantly claiming New Zealand citizenship so she could obtain a passport to travel for business and political purposes. About two million Zimbabweans, mostly descendants of migrants from neighbouring countries, are in a similar situation, she said. She accused authorities of being "intent on wiping out the citizenship and voting rights of any Zimbabwean of whatever colour or background thought to be against the ruling party." Mugabe has accused white Zimbabweans and "totemless aliens" of being at the core of opposition to his 23-year rule.
Zimbabwe faces its worst political and economic crisis since independence in 1980. Political violence has claimed at least 200 lives and driven thousands from their homes in the past three years. Mugabe's government has clamped down on dissent, arresting opposition leaders and shutting down the country's only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, of which Todd is a shareholder. "Frankly, I am worried not only about my own well being, but about every person who is living in this country," Todd said. "I think the next year will probably see an unleashing of viciousness that we haven't yet experienced." Garfield Todd, the former prime minister of Southern Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was then known, led a reformist government from 1953 to 1958. He and his daughter were outspoken supporters of Zimbabwe's independence, and both were detained under the reactionary rule of Ian Smith.
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From IRIN (UN), 31 December
Govt threatens to prosecute schools that hike fees
Bulawayo - The Zimbabwe government has threatened to prosecute and de-register all schools that implement fee increases for 2004 without its approval. Most schools last month notified parents and guardians that they would be increasing tuition fees by between 200 percent and 2,000 percent when the new terms begins in January. Under the Education Act schools must apply for permission to adjust fees, a stipulation which the schools have defied, arguing their new fee structures were based on the need to provide quality education in an environment where the official inflation rate is over 600 percent. "The Ministry of Education, Sport and Culture understands ... the need for schools to increase fees in the light of inflation in the last 12 months. However the ministry is concerned about the rate at which the fees and levies have been hiked and the failure by schools to observe the simple procedures they should follow [in doing so]," a statement said. "Zimbabwe subscribes to the principle of education as a basic human right. To that extent it should be accessible and affordable to all ... Schools cannot raise fees and levies [without consultation], schools that continue to flout these regulations must be warned that they risk prosecution or de-registration," the statement warned.
Defending the increases, schools have cited the ever-increasing costs of education material and general supplies for their pupils. "This is a simple economic issue. The government does not want the quality of education to drop but it wants it to be provided from poor facilities in a poor environment. That is shooting oneself in the foot," said the principal of a Bulawayo private school who refused to be named. "Schools buy everything from where everybody else buys, and I wonder why we are not expected to be affected by the same inflation that affects government and everybody," he added. Even middle-class parents struggle to make ends meet in Zimbabwe. The government and humanitarian agencies have warned that the fees hike will lead to a drop in school enrolment, especially of girls, damaging Zimbabwe's impressive strides towards gender parity in education.
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From The Church Times (UK), 2 January
Stand up to brutal Mugabe, say South African bishops
By Pat Ashworth
Church leaders in Johannesburg have called on the South African government to condemn the ongoing violation of human rights in Zimbabwe. They also urge Christians to stand up and protest as they did over apartheid. It is the strongest statement yet from the Churches in the region, accused in the past of failing to stand in solidarity with their neighbours. "To remain silent any longer renders us complicit in the brutality being visited by Zimbabwean authorities on their own citizens," say the leaders, who include the Bishop of Johannesburg, the Rt Revd Brian Germond, and the Bishop of Christ the King, the Rt Revd Peter Lee. They describe graphic witness accounts of torture methods as a "disgraceful record of physical abuse"; highlight the politicisation of humanitarian aid; condemn the "systematic manipulation of young people" into becoming killing machines for Zanu PF, and declare themselves "confused by the constant call for moral regeneration within our own country, by leaders who appear to defend or overlook moral corruption in neighbouring states". They "reject with contempt" attempts to dismiss criticism as stemming from ignorance or racism. Mr Mugabe was also condemned this week by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition for his withdrawal of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth.
In Harare, cathedral parishioners are continuing their campaign to bring the Mugabe apologist the Rt Revd Nolbert Kunonga to trial on 38 charges that include incitement to murder. The Diocesan Chancellor, Robert Stumbles, reacted swiftly to a proposal by the Archbishop of Central Africa, Dr Bernard Malango, that Bishop Kunonga should arrange a visit to Harare by the Archbishop’s Provincial Secretary to assess the facts of the case and to meet individuals at the cathedral. Mr Stumbles submitted to the Registrar, Christopher Seddon, in a letter on 15 December, that it was unheard of for a judge in any court of law to seek facts in advance of the court case from witnesses who would subsequently appear before him, or to order a defendant to arrange such a visit. "What the Archbishop has arranged (as happened in March) is for the Bishop, who is the defendant, to have the chance to select who the Provincial Secretary is to see. It also affords a potent opportunity for the Bishop of Harare and/or the Provincial Secretary to endeavour to exert persuasive influence over some of the witnesses who have laid charges against the Bishop," said Mr Stumbles.
Dr Malango defended his actions in an email indicating to "all of you there in Zimbabwe" that he was not backing Bishop Kunonga, "nor do I intend to do so. When the charges came to my attention, I did not hesitate but to confirm that the case be brought before the Provincial Court as requested. I am aware and mindful that when a case has been filed to court nobody should interfere with the evidence." The accusation that he was delaying the hearing was "not fair and is painful", said the Archbishop, who has postponed the Provincial Secretary’s visit. "A date for the hearing should be set and all parties notified." Cathedral parishioners have rejected the working paper on amendments to the canons which was presented to the diocesan synod in September. They have proposed detailed amendments, seeing it as an attempt to vest all powers in Bishop Kunonga.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 2 January
Banks face collapse as crisis mounts
Staff Writers
Fears of a collapse in the multi-billion dollar financial services sector mounted yesterday with reports that a number of locally-owned banks and asset management companies are battling for survival as Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono cracks down on institutions engaged in shady dealings. High-level sources said banks and asset management firms -some of which are used as conduits for money-laundering activities and speculative investments - are struggling to cope with new regulations ushered in by Gono's recent monetary policy statement. "Most of the locally-owned banks are facing a serious liquidity crisis and bank managers have been holding emergency meetings, including on Christmas day, since the monetary policy statement was announced to find ways of surviving in the new environment," a source said. "Gono's threat that the curtain will soon come down on the era of the proliferation of weak, poorly-managed financial institutions dependent on cheap and unlimited central bank credit was real."
Sources said most banks that have low liquidity levels, in an environment of hyperinflation (620%), were left exposed and scurrying for financial cover after Gono demanded urgent recapitalisation to take into account rising inflation, which has eroded the institutions' shaky capital positions, and market risk. Gono said in his monetary policy statement on December 18 that banks would beginning this month be expected to adhere to the New Capital Accord, also known as Basel II, which seeks to align regulatory capital requirements with economic principles of risk management. New capital level requirements and allocation of outlay for market risk will be issued this month and strict compliance will be expected by September 30. "A good number of the banks are most unlikely to respond positively to the new rigorous measures or meet new requirements on capital levels," a source said. "Banks are now panicking. They are selling their properties and foreign currency reserves to improve their liquidity and raise their capital levels."
Several banks are understood to have off-loaded the United States dollar onto the market in the past few days, which is why the parallel market exchange rate for the greenback has gone down. The US dollar has dramatically crashed from US$1:$6 000 to US$1:$4 500 in the past couple of days. Sources said some bank managers who had taken advantage of cheap funds available before interest rates skyrocketed are now selling their properties, including cattle on their farms, to meet their financial obligations. Some financial institutions reported to be already in serious trouble include Trust Bank and ENG Capital. ENG directors were said to be on the run as a result of problems engulfing their financial services concern. The firm is understood to be facing a liquidity crunch of between $70 billion and $80 billion. Creditors are said to have pounced on ENG, seizing the firm's property with one leading bank grabbing vehicles and shares which the company holds at a local commercial bank. ENG is failing to meet financial obligations to investors and creditors.
Trust, recently defrauded of $7 billion, is understood to be facing a major liquidity crisis. There were reports the RBZ had given the bank an $80 billion lifeline on condition that the central bank would oversee the disposal of some of its assets to finance the shortfall, which runs into billions. Trust has confirmed it has been affected by the prevailing general liquidity crisis in the market but denied speculation that it was under curatorship, saying "the bank's operations and liquidity position can be independently verified with the relevant regulatory authorities". Asset management companies, some of which are being used to siphon depositors' funds, are also in trouble and pose a serious threat to the stability and soundness of the financial system. Some asset management firms plunged into crisis by using investors' money to buy fixed assets that cannot be readily converted into cash when the investors' funds reach maturity, leaving them unable to meet their financial obligations. Some of the investors' money was siphoned to buy luxurious vehicles for directors and senior managers. Gono has said he was aware of the shady operations of asset management firms, which were supposed to re-register with effect from yesterday. "The underground nature of some asset management companies is evidenced by the fact they do not even have physical addresses or working contact phone numbers," Gono recently said, "which makes it all the more difficult to gather information about them."
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 3 January
Trouble looms for bankers
Ngoni Chanakira
Bank chiefs are seeking an urgent meeting with Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono to thrash out issues raised in his new Monetary Policy Statement released last month. The move comes as the RBZ's supervision and surveillance division, working in collaboration with the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), has stepped up its investigations into the money-spinning financial sector. The "detectives" have been tasked to find out exactly who owns what at the banks, including personal assets and how they came to accumulate the properties. The system was done in Kenya resulting in cases of fraud being unearthed in that country. Several banks, especially those whose headquarters are located on Harare's Samora Machel Avenue, have had their premises visited and essential details noted by the investigators. Insiders said luxury vehicles found in the basements of some reputable banks would be accounted for and duty paid for when the exercise is over. The Minister of State for Science and Technology Olivia Muchena speaking at a breakfast meeting to discuss Gono's policy statement probably let the cat out of the bag when she said the financial system was "totally scandalous and should not be allowed to continue operating like this". Muchena criticised Kingdom Financial Holdings Ltd (Kingdom) for its decision to hike minimum personal savings accounts for customers from $25 000 to $250 000 with immediate effect. She said this was extreme arrogance and would not be allowed to happen in Zimbabwe. "We watch the world going by in leaps and bounds while we are busy laundering money and not being engaged in technological improvement," she told business executives gathered in Harare last month. Insiders told Business Digest that while the bankers were "generally satisfied" with the governor's new monetary statement they felt some issues needed political rather than economic treatment.
The bankers are also worried that the poor political relations between Zimbabwe and the international community are severely affecting their ability to access credit lines thus worsening the country's economic malaise. "However, the tone of Gono's statement seems to be saying we (bankers) are all just corrupt and are taking advantage of our customers," one banker said. "This is unfair and we would like to air our concerns and help the governor do his very difficult work." Panic buttons were struck soon after Gono presented his monetary statement in which he threatened to come down hard on wayward banks that he accused of becoming more of commodity brokers than financial institutions. "Where persistent and serious managerial deficiencies are detected, the bank concerned will be directed to restructure their top management and treasury operations, and if the situation persists, the Reserve Bank will insist on the restructuring of their board as a condition for accessing the liquidity support facility," Gono said. The RBZ's supervisory and surveillance division, which has beefed up its investigations unit, is currently investigating market information that some banks were buying luxury vehicles, properties, fridges, and even bricks to resell later at exorbitant prices using their asset management companies. Gono, in his statement, said the mushrooming of "numerous unregulated" financial entities such as asset management companies posed a great risk to sound corporate governance practices within the financial sector and the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. Trust Banking Corporation Ltd (Trust) this week said the prevailing liquidity crisis in the market and the recent attempted $7,7 billion fraud at its bank had led to speculation about its liquidity position and that it had been placed under curatorship. The bank said this was "unfounded market speculation" which was "incorrect and malicious". It said its books were in order and it had informed stakeholders that forged documents had been used to try and swindle the bank of funds, which were transferred into bank accounts held with other financial institutions. So far $5,5 billion has been recovered from the scam.
An RBZ source said the supervision of the banking system encompassed on and offsite operations of banking institutions, including building societies, discount and finance houses. He said the RBZ had also intensified its monitoring and compliance efforts to ensure adherence to exchange control regulations and restore confidence in the financial sector. Zimbabwe's financial sector has been reaping billion-dollar profits despite the economic slowdown in all other sectors. A survey by Transparency International Zimbabwe released in November concluded that 62% of Zimbabweans perceived that there is rampant corruption within the banking sector with "most bank employees involved in illegal transactions involving foreign currency". In its 2003 Article IV Consultation with Zimbabwe on June 6, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) underscored the importance of an early and decisive tightening of monetary policy to contain inflation and establish policy credibility. IMF directors noted that strengthening banking supervision and determination in dealing with problem institutions would be prerequisites for the successful introduction of the planned deposit protection scheme. In September, speaking at the funeral wake of the late Vice President Simon Muzenda, President Robert Mugabe gave the business community in general and bankers in particular, a tongue-lashing, accusing them of concentrating on profiteering while the economy was going through a bad patch. Mugabe said his government would deal severely and specifically with "corrupt bankers". In December, less than two weeks before Gono's Monetary Policy Statement, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development Herbert Murerwa in his year 2004 National Budget Statement repeated the threat, saying banks would now be held responsible for any "wrongdoing or abuse of the country's financial system". Insiders, however, contend that the only way Gono will be able to deal effectively with the financial institutions is when the RBZ Act is changed. "Otherwise his hands are tied," economic commentator Eric Bloch has said. "All this pepped up talk by Gono won't do anything to solve the economic problems as long as the RBZ Act remains the same."
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From BBC News, 2 January
Zimbabwe farms 'left unsettled'
By Grant Ferrett, BBC Africa Editor
A senior government minister in Zimbabwe has acknowledged problems with its land redistribution programme. Special affairs minister John Nkomo told the BBC that in some areas 60% of the land allocated to black, small-scale farmers had not been taken up. Thousands of white-owned farms have been seized by the government and given to black farmers. About five million Zimbabweans need food aid because of huge shortages, partly blamed on the land policy. Land redistribution is the policy on which President Robert Mugabe and his government have staked their reputations over the past three years. It has dominated their political agenda and been the centrepiece of two election campaigns. But the hastily implemented scheme, referred to by the government as fast-track land reform, has been beset by serious problems. The land seizures were marked by violence and repeated court defeats for the authorities. Now, the ruling party chairman and special affairs minister has told the BBC that even when farms have been acquired, many of the intended beneficiaries have failed to resettle the land they had been allotted. "In some cases, the percentage of people who took up the farms that they were allocated has not been encouraging. In some cases you have almost 40% of people who were allocated the land who've taken up the land." Mr Nkomo blamed funding problems, saying resettled farmers had difficulties in obtaining loans from banks. The reality is that the government's controversial policy was poorly planned and implemented from the beginning. Some of those allocated land had little or no experience of commercial farming. Others had no desire to move from their homes. Those who did move often did so with minimal support, sometimes unable to afford even to pay for seed or fertiliser. The upheaval has contributed to two years of severe food shortages which have left millions of Zimbabweans dependent upon emergency aid. Nonetheless, President Mugabe and his ministers maintain that land redistribution has been a success and that, in time, it will produce bumper harvests. There is no sign of that yet.
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From IPS, 2 January
Nation reaps benefit from Zimbabwean farmers
Zarina Geloo
Lusaka - White Zimbabwean farmers who sought refuge in Zambia, have helped the country pull out of a crippling food shortage that saw millions of people relying on food aid last season. The landowners were forced off their properties in Zimbabwe during the fast-track land reform programme that began in 2000. Over 100 of them have since settled in Mkushi, a fertile maize-growing area in central Zambia that is favoured by commercial farmers. The Zimbabweans either rent land for farming from the locals, or go into partnership with owners who do not have the capacity to till huge tracts of land. The Zambia Investment Centre (ZIC) says it has issued certificates to 31 Zimbabweans to allow them to begin commercial farming. These farmers, having had their fingers burnt once, are not in a hurry to put down roots in Zambia just yet. But as one of the migrants, Jimmy Stewart, says: "It's farming that we know and do best. So we just want to see where the land lies, if you will excuse the pun, before we apply for permits and licenses and buy land." Deputy Agriculture Minister Chance Kabaghe has nothing but praise for the farmers, even though their arrival prompted anxiety amongst Zambians - and some discomfort in relations between Lusaka and Harare. "People saw them as the enemy, seeking refuge in Zambia. Because they were white, people were also scared that the history of racism would resurface. Even people in government thought there should be solidarity (with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe), and we should refuse them (entry)," says Kabaghe. "But we saw them as potential investors who could improve our food security. We have now been vindicated." His boss, Agriculture Minister Mundia Sikatana, is more grudging with accolades. He explains that Zambia, reeling from the effects of two successive droughts, had a shortfall of 635,000 metric tonnes of grain last year. Food prices rocketed and 2.9 million people were in need of assistance. "This season we were determined to prioritise agriculture with timely input distribution," he said.
The government continued to support more than 150,000 local farmers with subsidised maize seed and fertiliser. It also specified that commercial farmers, both local and foreign, had to put at least ten percent of their acreage into maize production to ensure Zambia did not suffer another grain shortage. There is no figure to show exactly how much maize Zimbabwean farmers produced as a result of this directive. But, some reports indicate that they grew over 70 percent of the maize needed in Zambia. ZIC notes in its end-of-year report that all the Zimbabwean farmers awarded licenses had also started producing tobacco and wheat. "They have what it takes to undertake various farming enterprises and we would like more farmers of the calibre of Zimbabwean farmers to invest in agriculture," it said. While acknowledging the farming prowess of the Zimbabweans, local farmers complain they had an unfair advantage. "I do not want to sound petulant - I am happy that we have a bumper harvest and do not need food aid. But I feel a little peeved because we (local) farmers have been made to look incompetent. There are reasons the Zimbabweans had such a good crop," Thrifty Stephenson, a Zambian farmer, told IPS. He says the Zimbabwean farmers had collateral for loans from local and international financial institutions, while some also brought equipment and machinery with them. This gave them a "leg up" when they arrived in Zambia. "We are not talking refugees here. We are talking well-heeled business people," he says. The Standard Chartered Bank of Zambia, for example, gave loans to more than 20 Zimbabwean farmers who had settled in Zambia, to acquire existing farms or buy land. The bank's executive director of finance, Brighton Ngoma, says his institution had set up an agricultural unit to help boost the sector. The money being lent out was from the European Investment Bank and from Standard Chartered itself.
Local farmers were also supposed to have benefited from the funds, but discussions about this matter are still underway with the Zambia National Farmers Union. "It's not that we do not have confidence in the local farmers. We need to make sure that we protect our investment and also attain our objective to increase agricultural production. Already we are seeing the benefits of our lending to Zimbabwean farmers, because the good harvest has helped reduce inflation as well as stabilise the foreign exchange," said Ngoma. President Levy Mwanawasa announced recently that government would revitalise farming through agricultural financing, tax exemptions for imported equipment and low power tariffs. The government also wants to revive co-operative banks that lend money to farmers at favourable rates, and national marketing boards to buy their crops. Stewart, who has a 10-acre farm leased from a local resident, was reluctant to criticise existing agricultural policies. But he agreed that it was difficult to make commercial farming viable in Zambia. He cited high electricity tariffs, duties on equipment and the lack of a good lending and marketing policy. "Basically we came equipped with our own money, some equipment and good relations with international banks and donors. So we are not affected by those problems." On the positive side, says Stewart, there is a steady and reliable supply of manual labour, abundant land and water resources. Forty seven percent of Zambian land is suitable for various types of crops. Government appears to be keeping an eye on the Zimbabweans. "The minister (Sikatana) visited us here, I think, just to make sure we were doing what we said we would do, and was quite happy with our output. So for the time being, things are looking good," Stewart says. Kabaghe is confident that more Zimbabwean farmers will come when they realise Zambia welcomes investors, and that it does not have the land-ownership problems that have beset other countries in the region. Meanwhile Zimbabwe is experiencing a debilitating food shortage for the second year running - something that analysts have ascribed to drought, and the drop in food production caused by the land distribution programme. More than half the country's population will require emergency food aid this year, according to the World Food Programme.
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From The Observer (UK), 4 January
Mugabe aide admits land grab failed
Jeevan Vasagar in Nairobi
Seized farms unclaimed amid warnings of famine later this year
A senior Zimbabwean Minister has admitted that the seizure of thousands of white-owned farms has failed to benefit large numbers of poor black farmers, many of whom have failed to take up the land that was grabbed. Special Affairs Minister John Nkomo, chairman of the ruling Zanu PF, said that in some areas fewer than half of the black farmers who were allotted land had started farming it. Commercial agriculture has collapsed following Robert Mugabe's land redistribution policy, leaving about five million people needing food aid because of shortages. 'In some cases, the percentage of people who took up the farms that they were allocated has not been encouraging,' Nkomo said in a BBC interview at the weekend. 'In some cases,' he added, 'only 40 per cent of people who were allocated land have taken it up.' The Minister blamed lack of finance, saying that the farmers who wanted to take the land had difficulties obtaining bank loans, but such difficulties had been foreseen by the Mugabe regime's critics.
The poor peasant farmers who were meant to benefit from land seizures did not have the money to buy seed, fertilisers or hoes, let alone redevelop the farmland to make it productive. And without the title deeds, which are still held by their white owners, black farmers cannot obtain bank loans. Critics say further problems were caused by members of the Zanu PF elite - who often had no interest or ability in farming - seizing land and then leaving it idle. Mugabe's wife, Grace, is among those who have seized prime land. Rensen Gasela, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change's shadow Minister for land, said: 'We knew all along that the land reform was very chaotic, and we said so. They gave land to people who are not farmers, who are soldiers and police and civil servants. These people are working in towns. They are not interested in the land. They got the land for speculation purposes, so that they can sell it later. Even Mugabe has admitted that there were problems, but they have always glossed over the problems or indicated that they were teething troubles. If John Nkomo has said this, then this is the first time there has been such a frank admission.'
The failure to make use of Zimbabwe's farmland could well worsen food shortages. A spokesman for Justice for Agriculture, a white farmers' pressure group, said: 'We've flown around the country and seen there's nothing being grown. The maize crop is down, the wheat is down. A lot of people have started to prepare their land, but it's too late to get any reasonable crop. What we saw last season is going to be nothing compared to what we're going to see. The food shortages will be horrendous. They keep blaming what's happening on drought, but the drought in the past couple of years has been in specific areas, and the main grain-growing areas haven't had any drought.' The Minister's embarrassing admission comes after Mugabe's government announced on New Year's Eve that it had recovered half a million acres of farmland from Zanu PF loyalists who had seized two or more white-owned farms. However, the Justice for Agriculture spokesman said it had seen no sign that those involved in multiple land grabs had abandoned any of the land. 'One Minister is now on his third farm,' the spokesman said. 'They go on to the farm when it is ready to produce, kick the owner off and take the crops.' Even if the land is recovered, it will not be handed back to white farmers, but given to other black Zimbabweans who failed to get land during previous seizures.
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From The Sunday Mirror, 4 January
President's office probes Gov. Mpofu
Innocent Chofamba-Sithole, Editor
The Ministry of Special Affairs in the Office of the President has launched an investigation into Matabeleland North governor, Obert Mpofu’s alleged impropriety in the allocation of land in the Sikumi Forest area of Hwange district, the Sunday Mirror has established. Mpofu, who occupied Railway Farm 40 and 41 in the wildlife-rich forest, has also been saddled with allegations by safari operators on the same properties that he is demanding "unreasonable" lease conditions, including the payment of monthly rentals of up to US$1 500 from them. Special affairs minister and chairman of the presidential land implementation committee, John Nkomo declined to elaborate on the investigation saying: "I don’t want to say anything on this matter, perhaps if you spoke to me on Monday (tomorrow) after I receive a full appraisal from my officers." The shady goings-on at Mpofu’s properties came to light when Zimsun, proprietors of the Hwange Safari Lodge on Farm 40, were forced to pay out a check of $30 million to an unnamed man who had promised to get the designation of the farm reversed. "Whether this man was acting on behalf of Mpofu or not, we could not establish," said a source privy to the transaction, preferring anonymity. " But when the farm was not delisted, Zimsun took the matter up with Special Affairs," the source added.
Before Mpofu’s occupation of the two farms, Zimsun held a state lease and in turn leased part of the property to Kanhondo Lodge, which falls under Rainbow Tourism Group (RTG)’s Touch the Wild Safaris. Mpofu has also communicated to Touch the Wild his demand for monthly rentals of US$1500 for Kanhondo. Touch the Wild is jointly owned by RTG (which holds 60 percent shares and is itself partly owned by government) and IBL of Mauritius (40 percent). "Legally, after cancellation of the state lease we are supposed to continue for eight years under the existing lease agreement before any changes can be effected to it. But Mpofu wanted it cancelled so we could immediately lease directly from him," a Touch the Wild official told this newspaper. Mpofu has also reportedly demanded hefty rentals from the Painted Dogs Project, which operates on a tiny stretch of land in the area between Farm 39 and 41. However, chairman of the project, Jerry Gotora told the Sunday Mirror this week that negotiations between them and the governor were going on amicably and no hefty rentals were being demanded from them.
Special affairs ministry senior bureaucrat, Willard Chiwewe professed knowledge of the allegations being levelled against Mpofu but said he was on leave and so could not give any elaborate comment. "I’m away in Kariba right now. I’m aware that there is a story to that effect, contact Mr. Moyo or Mr. Dube from my office on Monday," he said. Meanwhile, a high-ranking National Parks and Wildlife official confirmed Mpofu was under investigation by the special affairs ministry. "Yes, Special Affairs is investigating irregularities on land reform in the Hwange area and Mpofu is under the spotlight he’s not clean," he said, declining to be named. The official also alleged his department was experiencing problems with the governor’s attempt to "use his political muscle" to circumvent a hunting ban effected in the area covering his properties. "These people are greedy, they want to use their political muscle to bulldoze the hunting ban but we are insisting that this should be respected. As the wildlife authority we have the mandate to implement a sound wildlife management programme," he said, adding that the country had lost much credibility as a result of the illicit hunting activities.
Mpofu’s properties are home to the Presidential Elephant herd, which is protected by a special decree passed by President Robert Mugabe in 1990. They occupy land on the eastern boundary of the Hwange National Park in the vicinity of the Main Camp. The heart of their range covers farms 39, 41 and state land in the area known as Kanhondo, which land has all been allocated to individuals under the land reform programme. Excessive hunting has been reported on Farm 39, with hunters killing at least 20 of the Presidential Elephant bulls up to the year 2002. Mpofu had initially been issued with hunting quotas for elephants, which he agreed to relinquish upon request by conservationist and founder of the Presidential elephant project, Alan Elliot. The area is traditionally used for non-consumptive safari activities. However, the issue of Mpofu’s occupation of state land albeit under the land reform programme has been described by the lands, agriculture and rural resettlement ministry as anomalous. A ministry spokesman confirmed that it was a mistake to allocate state land to individuals, which should be rectified. "The second anomaly in Mpofu’s case is that he got two farms, when the policy is clear about one man, one farm," the official added. The case could as yet be the clearest illustration of the abuse of power perpetrated by senior government officials during the land resettlement exercise where they picked choice properties for themselves. When this writer contacted Mpofu for comment his wife answered the mobile phone, but just soon after she had informed him the call was from the Sunday Mirror, the phone went silent. All attempts to reach the governor after that proved fruitless as the mobile phone remained switched off.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 2 January
Made in Xmas farm invasion
Augustine Mukaro/Ndamu Sandu
The involvement of senior Zanu PF ministers in land grabs took a new turn over Christmas when Lands and Agriculture minister Joseph Made led an occupation of the multi-billion dollar Kondozi farm in Odzi. Kondozi is a 224-hectare horticultural product-exporting project with a turnover of US$15 million ($90 billion on the parallel market) and employing around 5 000 workers. The property is registered as an Export Processing Zone farm and is only second to Mitchell & Mitchell of Marondera in horticultural production. The government has already gazetted the Land Acquisition Amendment Bill, which seeks to empower the state to take over properties that have EPZ status and those protected by government-to-government agreements. This is contrary to the recommendations of the Utete land audit report which said such properties should be spared from compulsory acquisition. According to Edwin Masimba Moyo, the major shareholder in Kondozi farm, Made, accompanied by deputy minister of Transport and Communications Christopher Mushowe and Agricultural and Rural Development Authority (Arda) chief executive Joseph Matovanyika, moved onto the property, defying a High Court interdict barring them from interfering with the farm operations. Moyo has a 54% stake in the project. "During the festive season raid the trio held a Christmas party at the farm," Moyo said, "Made addressed our workers trying to entice them into accepting them as the new owners."
Moyo said the trio had shown interest in the property, especially the equipment and are hiding behind Arda in their bid to take over the farm. "When they invaded us, they brought an offer letter alleging that the farm had been allocated to Arda. We offered three alternatives to them. First we proposed to lease the farm from Arda, which they turned down. Secondly we proposed to move out, taking with us all our equipment to a new site which they vehemently denied us," Moyo said. "This invasion is not about land but an eye for my equipment but I have told them that they would not take it and I am going to fight for it," Moyo said. "I cannot borrow money and donate it to inefficient people who have no capacity to manage my investment," he said. He said Made has been making frantic efforts to influence Kondozi out-growers to stop delivering their produce to the farm so that it fails to meet its market demands. "We have 35 out-growers registered with us drawn from both A1 and A2 resettled farmers," Moyo said. Kondozi exports fresh vegetables and flowers to Europe and South Africa. Contacted for comment Mushowe denied visiting Kondozi farm. "I don't know what you are talking about," Mushowe said. "I don't even know what Kondozi is."
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From IRIN (UN), 2 January
USAID donates sorghum worth $12 million to WFP
Johannesburg - The US Agency for International Development (USAID) on Wednesday announced a donation of 30,000 mt of sorghum, valued at $12 million, for distribution in Zimbabwe by the World Food Program (WFP). Estimates indicate that more than five million rural Zimbabweans, around half the population, need food aid before the next harvest in April. The number of food-insecure people in urban centres is less well quantified, but may be as high as one million. Preliminary information suggests that these numbers may increase over the coming months, USAID said. WFP is targeting 4 million of the most vulnerable Zimbabweans for food aid, while the C-Safe consortium, grouping the NGOs Care, Catholic Relief Services and World Vision are feeding another 400,000 people. "The US government remains concerned about Zimbabwe's on-going humanitarian crisis, and is committed to providing assistance to the most food-insecure members of the population. To improve the country's ability to respond to the humanitarian needs of the Zimbabwean people, the US government encourages the government of Zimbabwe to institute economic policy reforms that provide incentives for the private sector to play a role in feeding Zimbabweans," USAID said. Lack of donor funding for WFP's US $311 million regional appeal, two-thirds of which is earmarked for Zimbabwe, forced the food agency to halve its cereal ration to more than 2.6 million hungry Zimbabweans in December. "Without sufficient food people won't have enough energy to cultivate crops for the year's first harvest which is vital for stabilising a household's food needs," WFP regional director for Southern Africa, Mike Sackett, warned last month. Zimbabwe's lean season starts in January, a period when granaries tend to be exhausted and people facing food shortages are most reliant on food aid.
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From Xinhuanet (China), 3 January
Zimbabwean central bank to take measures to solve banking crisis
Harare - The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) said on Saturday it would intervene to end a devastating banking crisis that has led to the closure of a discount house and the arrest of two top bank executives. In a statement, the central bank said the measures would be taken to ensure that depositors were not unduly inconvenienced. The RBZ did not give details of the measures to be taken but said some banks were experiencing liquidity problems as a result of their involvement in non-core and speculative activities. The RBZ on Friday withdrew Century Discount House's operating license, as it emerged that its parent company, the ENG Capital Holdings, was in financial distress. The ENG Capital reportedly failed to pay investors on Dec. 31, resulting in the New Year's Day arrest of founding directors Nyasha Watyoka and Gilbert Muponda. Police said the pair would appear in court on Monday charged with serious fraud. The ENG collapse threatened to suck in a number of financial institutions. First Mutual Asset Management Company (FMAMC) said in a statement it had taken precautions to protect its clients. "FMAMC, a subsidiary of First Mutual Limited (FML), has exposure to ENG Capital, a company that is reported to be affected by the crisis in the sector," the company said without stating by how much it was exposed. FMAMC said the financial services market was experiencing severe payment delays. "Unfortunately, these difficulties have increased significantly in the last few weeks," FMAMC said. Zimbabwe's banking sector is facing severe strain after centralbank governor Gideon Gono threatened to get tough with offending institutions. Delivering the 2004 monetary policy statement on Dec. 18, Gono said liquidity support to faltering banks would no longer be delivered on a silver platter as some of them abused it for speculative purposes. Gono said support to under-performing banks would only be for the purpose of protecting investors. He threatened to fire boards, managements and treasury departments of failing banks in exchange for RBZ support. Zimbabwe has 17 commercial banks with assets amounting to 2.9 trillion Zimbabwean dollars (about 3,522 million US dollars). Average liquidity ratio as at Sept. 30 was 58.2 percent.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 2 January
Chiwenga threatens doctors with detention
Blessing Zulu
New Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander General Constantine Chiwenga has threatened striking doctors with detention if they do not go back to work, the Zimbabwe Independent has been told. General Chiwenga yesterday took over at Defence House from General Vitalis Zvinavashe who has retired from the force. The former Zanla guerrilla chief chaired a meeting between Health minister David Parirenyatwa and three Hospital Doctors Association (HDA) members on December 22. The meeting, described as tense, was held at Parirenyatwa's office at Mukwati Building. The minister who called the doctors to the meeting introduced them to Chiwenga whom he said was going to chair the meeting.
Parirenyatwa yesterday confirmed that Chiwenga was part of the meeting in question but denied that he threatened the doctors. "General Chiwenga attended the meeting I had with the HDA," Parirenyatwa said. Asked in what capacity the general had attended the meeting, he said Chiwenga was a concerned party. "You are well aware that army doctors are helping in the hospitals so naturally he is concerned like anyone else. He was merely appealing to the doctors to go back to work," he said. However, sources close to the meeting said Chiwenga, who was in an uncompromising mood, ordered the doctors back to work. "We want to leave this meeting with an agreement," Chiwenga is reported to have told the doctors. "If you refuse to co-operate we can take you to the army barracks and detain you and you will see what will happen," he said. "I have fought 45 battles since I was 17 years old and I have never lost. This one is just a cup of tea and we can solve it within a matter of minutes," he said.
Junior medical doctors embarked on industrial action two months ago, while medical specialists and nurses from major public hospitals have been on strike for over a month. Sources privy to the meeting told the Independent that Chiwenga even offered to give the doctors millions of dollars. "Chiwenga told the HDA members that he was prepared to fork out $70 million from his own pocket to be shared amongst all the striking doctors," a source said. The money was supposed to be shared among the more than 120 doctors who have embarked on the industrial action. The crisis deepened last month when the Public Service Commission tried to use the legal route to force the doctors back to work. This failed when seven HDA members were acquitted in the magistrates' court. Chiwenga told the doctors at the meeting that the acquittal was academic. "You are going to town over the court decision. I am sorry to inform you that we do not respect that ruling. We are the ones who are in power and we can choose to ignore that ruling. Court order or not we rule this country," Chiwenga was reported as saying. At the end of the meeting, Chiwenga said he was giving the doctors 24 hours to go back to work but this call has been ignored as the doctors have resolved to press on with their industrial action.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 4 January
ENG bosses seek Zanu PF protection
By Rangarirai Mberi
Directors of troubled ENG Capital, arrested last week after failing to account for about $100 billion worth of investor funds, last week sought protection from Zanu PF legislators David Chapfika and Philip Chiyangwa, The Standard can reveal. Both MPs, who have vast business interests themselves, confirmed to The Standard yesterday that they had indeed met ENG directors Nyasha Watyoka, Gilbert Muponda and Elton Chitondo at Chiyangwa’s office early last week, but strenuously denied any business links with the troubled outfit. Chiyangwa yesterday said he had met the three only as a facilitator for a meeting with Chapfika, who heads the Parliamentary Budget, Finance and Economic Planning committee. "What’s wrong with that? I’m a public figure. For your own information, if Tsvangirai wants to meet Mugabe, I will be prepared to facilitate. I’m not afraid," Chiyangwa said. Asked why ENG targeted him as a source of support, Chiyangwa said it was because of his long history of black empowerment, and support for struggling black businesses such as Zimbabwe Building Society and Universal Merchant Bank. Chapfika, a former director of Unibank which caved in under the weight of bad loans three years ago, yesterday denied any financial exposure to ENG. "I just bumped into them at his (Chiyangwa’s) office. I hardly spent five minutes in there. I told them to come clean on their status, that if they were part and parcel of these speculative practices then the Reserve Bank had to act", Chapfika said, adding the ENG directors had admitted to him that they were operating without a licence.
Banking sources say the closure of ENG has pushed three more named banks towards financial ruin, as they had been exposed to ENG to varying extents. Bankers say they fear the contagion effect of the closure will spread wider, as Zimbabwe’s biggest ever financial crisis continues to unravel. Police on Friday arrested two of the ENG directors Watyoka (28) and Muponda (30), hours after RBZ head of bank supervision, Stuart Gwasira, announced the central bank had shut down Century Discount House, a division of ENG Capital, and withdrawn its trading licence. Police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka yesterday confirmed they were still holding the two on fraud charges, as police widened their search for the remaining directors. The two are expected to appear in court tomorrow. ENG Capital bought Century Discount House from Century Holdings Limited for $1,6 billion in April last year, but ENG had kept the name "Century" owing to delays by banking regulators to approve a name change. Century Holdings CEO Gary Shoko immediately moved to distance his bank from the troubled ENG, telling The Standard in an interview on Friday that his bank had no exposure to ENG. "None of the companies within the Century Group was exposed in any way to Century Discount House or to ENG Asset Management", Shoko said. However, investigations by The Standard last week revealed a network of banks that had varied extents of exposure to ENG. One of the banks is a recently licenced entity, which is still rolling out its branch network, while the other, a large financial group, has been exposed to ENG through its own discount house.
ENG Capital was founded by a band of young directors, Chitondo, Watyoka and Muponda, and was headed by Lloyd Kazunga. Chitondo is separately a director of Wanai Finance, another of the country’s ever-swelling ranks of asset management firms. The three directors were college mates at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), and founded their outfit with hardly three years of industrial experience behind them. Trust Bank, named as one of the banks in trouble, has denied any exposure to ENG, and also shot down reports it had been placed under curatorship. "The Reserve Bank didn’t find anything untoward regarding the status of our bank", Nyemba told reporters, however conceding that the bank would take "a little while" to heal after the negative perception which has hurt the bank in the past week. In reaction to widespread market reports that Trust had ploughed central bank funds into the purchase of a substantial stock of bricks from Willdale and an entire six months supply of vehicles from Willowvale, Nyemba said his bank had simply extended support to both struggling companies. He insisted that Trust had assisted Willowvale to import car assembly kits to assemble passenger and light commercial vehicles. The bank had "ring fenced" its exposure to its assistance to the firm, he added. "The bank has since sold its shareholding in Willdale but has continued to support this important asset", Nyemba said. "Trust had also converted its Willdale debt into equity to save it from imminent collapse," said Nyemba.
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From AFP, 4 January
Suspect held in murder case
Harare - Zimbabwe police have arrested a second suspect in connection with the December murder of Australian accountant Philip Laing, a police spokesperson said on Sunday. Oliver Mandipaka said that the second member of a four-member gang of armed robbers who attacked and robbed the Eastern Highlands Tea Estate was arrested in Harare a few days after a first suspect was picked up in late December. "The police have the identity of the other two," Mandipaka told AFP. Laing and several other members of the accounts department on the tea estate were abducted on December 19 and forced to drink acid after the robbers emptied office safes of workers' wages. The 51-year-old Laing died from ingesting acid, while his co-workers were seriously injured. The incident came amid strained relations between Australia and Zimbabwe after Prime Minister John Howard led the push to continue Zimbabwe's suspension from the Commonwealth last month. A family member of Laing, who is from Perth, told Australian media in December that the crime appeared to have been politically motivated, but Zimbabwe police dismissed the theory. "One thing we know for sure is that the case was not politically motivated. It was purely criminal," Mandipaka said on Sunday. He said one of the suspects arrested had two prior robbery convictions.
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From Business Day (SA), 3 January
Activist after Mugabe
London - A veteran British human rights activist said that he will go before a central London court next week to try to obtain an arrest warrant and extradition order against Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe. Peter Tatchell said his case against Mugabe - supported by affidavits from three Zimbabwean torture victims - will be heard by judge Timothy Workman at Bow Street magistrates court on Wednesday. "The scheduling of this case before such a prominent judge is an indication of the seriousness with which my application is being taken," said Tatchell, a longtime campaigner against the Zimbabwean leader. He said he was aiming for an arrest warrant and extradition order to be issued under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, which outlaws torture, and the UN Convention Against Torture 1984. "If an arrest warrant and extradition order is granted, it would mean Mugabe could be arrested and extradited to Britain from any of the 100-plus countries with which Britain has an extradition treaty," he said. Those countries include France, Malaysia, South Africa, Switzerland and Thailand, "all of which he has visited recently," he added in a press statement.
Tatchell, a founder of the gay rights group OutRage! in 1990, has long been a critic of Mugabe, who was once quoted as describing homosexuals as "worse than pigs or dogs". In February last year Tatchell lodged a formal complaint with French authorities to get Mugabe - who was then attending a Franco-African summit in Paris - arrested under French anti-torture laws. Instead, he was seized by French police along with a fellow protester before they could carry out a demonstration against Mugabe, who was attending the summit despite an EU travel ban on him and members of his inner circle. In March 2001 the activist got into a scuffle with members of Mugabe's entourage as he tried to carry out a citizen's arrest against the president in the Belgian capital Brussels. In October 1999 Tatchell was arrested in London as he attempted to carry out a similar citizen's arrest against Mugabe, who was visiting the British capital. The charges against him were later dropped due to lack of evidence.
Britain, the former colonial power in what used to be called Rhodesia, has been at the forefront of international efforts to isolate Mugabe's regime, including its suspension from the Commonwealth last month. In his press statement, Tatchell said his bid for a British arrest warrant would be supported by affidavits from three Zimbabwe torture victims, whom he did not identify. "They implicate Mugabe in the authorisation and condonement of torture," he said. He added: "I also have affidavits and reports from human rights groups attesting to the widespread use of torture with the knowledge and consent of the Zimbabwean government and its security and defence forces." He acknowledged, however, "two big legal hurdles". "The first is that the consent of the attorney general is required for a prosecution under Britain's anti-torture law, Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988," he said. "The second obstacle will be the issue of sovereign immunity - the legislation and legal rulings that heads of state, such as president Mugabe, are immune from prosecution," he said. He said he would tackle the latter hurdle by citing a number of international legal precedents, including the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic of war crimes while he was still president of Yugoslavia.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 5 January
Sorghum could be key to food security
Wilson Johwa
Bulawayo - For many subsistence farmers in the semi-arid regions of southern Africa, dependence on drought relief is tantamount to serving a death sentence. About half of all farming seasons in the affected areas, which support about 30 million households, are characterised by the early termination of rains. Many have been encouraged to expand their production of maize, which is the dominant cereal crop in the 14-member Southern Africa Development Community (SADC). There is no doubt the cereal is popular. The problem with maize is that it needs regular rainfall over a 90-day period. And when seasonal downpours dissipate it is farmers who are most affected. Dusty, dry furrows and failed crops mean they lack the grain necessary for their own domestic requirements, let alone setting any aside for the next season. In an effort to increase grain production many SADC governments implemented technologies geared at expanding yields. But many of these were inappropriate in semi-arid regions because they were originally designed for higher rainfall zones.
Some scientists say improved varieties of millet and sorghum could hold the key to regional food security, despite the smaller grains' blighted reputation as "poor man's" crops. Geoffrey Heinrich is the regional representative of the International Crop Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). He says the institute helped develop early-maturing varieties of sorghum and millet which, in effect, cheat drought. Tanzania is a case in point. "They had several significant late season droughts," says Heinrich. "Most of these materials (improved small grain varieties) are early maturing. They yielded much better than the traditional varieties." Based in Zimbabwe, which hosts one of ICRISAT's six centres on the continent, Heinrich explains that Tanzania distributed two improved varieties of sorghum six years ago. It did so with assistance from ICRISAT's sorghum and millet improvement programme (SMIP). Heinrich says the good reception of these early-maturing varieties resulted, in one year, to a drop of US$17-million the country's food import bill. He admits that farmers may be reluctant, at first, because of the work involved in protecting sorghum and millet from birds. "People who are used to maize find it tedious," he adds, "but there is no reason why it should be looked at as inferior."
With funding from the US development agency USAid, the SMIP was launched in 1983, by ICRISAT, at an invitation of SADC heads of state to help ease persistent food deficits caused by drought. The programme was also to ensure the establishment of a technological base for the region over a 20-year period. While those two decades ended on December 31, Heinrich says components of the programme will continue because of the region's recurring food shortages. SMIP has acted as nucleus of a network of various national agricultural research initiatives, including studies by universities and the private sector. In particular, the programme resulted in the development, and distribution, of 49 varieties of sorghum and pearl millet across Zimbabwe. The programme has also led to the strengthening of seed systems. "Just releasing a variety doesn't do any good," says Heinrich. He adds that while maize has a "pretty good" rural retail market, the same cannot be said for crops like sorghum, millet or groundnuts which, in his view, are important for food security.
In addition many traders are reluctant to stock seed, or even fertiliser, because agricultural inputs are periodically handed out, free of charge, as part of relief efforts. Lack of demand, in turn, led to commercial seed development and distribution lagging behind. ICRISAT and its partners counteracted this by working through farmer-based production systems and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in an attempt to build rural retail markets for seed. One of these systems, according to Heinrich, involves voucher programmes, so that rural retailers stock the seed and instead of being given free seed. Vulnerable households are actually provided with vouchers, which they take to the retailer who remains in business and can make a profit from that process. Currently there's close to 30% coverage of improved varieties of sorghum in the SADC, and about 35% for millet. Heinrich says more than 1.5 million households have access to, and are utilising, improved seed. Developing industrial demand, which is key if one wants to raise prices, was a persistent challenge for the SMIP. In Zimbabwe, however, there has been major success. Demand for the small grains increased exceptionally, particularly from the stock feed industry.
Research methods employed by ICRISAT in improving the small grains have relied on traditional scientific techniques. Bio-technology, or genetically modified organism (GMO), has not been used, although Heinrich says ICRISAT feels there are potential risk-free uses for some of these technologies. He says such a possibility is being explored in developing disease-resistant groundnuts. "But none of that would be released to any country that does not have bio-safety regulations," he says. With the exception of South Africa, which is much more advanced, the rest of the SADC countries have no bio-safety regulations and so cannot benefit from the selective application of GMO technology. "ICRISAT would like to work with SADC countries in developing these kinds of policies," Heinrich says. "There are areas where the materials would be very safe, where they can bring important benefits to farmers."
ICRISAT is also affiliated with an initiative called the "Challenge Programme on Water and Food Consortium". Chairman Frank Rijsberman, recently called on scientists to breed new varieties of high-yielding crops that require less water. Heinrich says this is another avenue ICRISAT will soon start exploring. "The materials we have been looking at have, to a large extent, been screening for drought tolerance. We have not been looking at water usage efficiency but I think our programme is going to head that way." He says the centre in Zimbabwe has been unaffected by the upheaval caused by land reform programmes and is maintaining its presence in the country. Its other core research activity -- natural resource management, especially soil fertility and soil water management -- has become crucial and will also continue. Soil fertility in most of southern Africa's communal areas is declining, Heinrich notes. One reason is the non-application of both organic and inorganic fertilizers. "There is a net outflow of nutrients," Heinrich says. "If that trend is not reversed, ultimately the productive capacity of those areas will be completely eroded."
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 4 January
ZNA recruits flee training
By Richard Musazulwa
Gweru - About half of the 139 trainee Zimbabwe National Army soldiers deserted training at the Zimbabwe Military Academy (ZMA) in Gweru last year due to hunger and rigorous training, The Standard can reveal. Military sources say this was the first time in the history of the army for such a large number of recruits to abscond training. They said many of the trainees fled after receiving reports of the death of two recruits in the camp. "After enduring the endless hardships, they feared they could be the next victims. So they scaled the fence and fled," said a source. The trainees were said to have been subjected to prolonged food deprivation, intensive propaganda and unhealthy living conditions, in addition to rigorous basic military training. The issue of army deserters came to light at the army’s 2003 end of year graduation ceremony at ZMA when President Robert Mugabe, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces, commissioned only 77 instead of the 139 officer cadets. Mugabe (79), confirmed in his speech that 62 recruits dropped out of the Regular Officer Cadets Course. Zanu PF supporters, who were obviously not listening to the speech, clapped hands and whistled loudly when Mugabe read out the high number of officers who had deserted the army. Among those who successfully completed the tough training were seven women cadets. One of the female cadets, Maria Jaravana, made history by becoming the first woman cadet to get a guard of excellence since the country’s independence in 1980.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 6 January
Zimbabwe gloom grows as shops refuse cheques
Harare - Meltdown of Zimbabwe's economy passed a milestone yesterday when shops began refusing cheques from six commercial banks teetering on the brink of insolvency. Supermarkets in the capital, Harare, displayed notices warning customers that no cheques would be accepted from some of the country's best known banks. One third of Zimbabwe's commercial banks have been blacklisted, heralding the collapse of Harare's once sophisticated financial sector. "We have an avalanche in progress, and there is a known list of banks which have little stamina and so, for them, it will be very destructive," said John Robertson, an independent economist. The banks have fallen victim to hyperinflation and flagrantly corrupt lending policies. Zimbabwe's real inflation rate exceeds 1,000 per cent yet the government has set interest rates at only 800 per cent, forcing most banks to lend at a loss. To make matters worse, many have chosen to favour President Robert Mugabe's wealthy followers with unsecured loans at preferential rates of interest.
The combination of negative real interest rates and bad debts from supporters of the ruling Zanu PF party has driven six of the 15 black-owned banks to the verge of insolvency. Some are so short of cash that they have started offering interest of 650 per cent for 10 day deposits. Few of these banks will have the means to honour their promises. Only foreign-owned institutions offer complete security. Confidence remains high in Standard Chartered, which is British, and South Africa's Stanbic bank. The names of the threatened banks cannot be disclosed for fear of precipitating their collapse. Zimbabwe's economic collapse has created countless money-spinning opportunities for unscrupulous bankers with links to Mr Mugabe's regime. At the official exchange rate, £1 is worth Zimbabwe $815. On the black market, £1 buys Zimbabwe $7,000. Some banks have bought hard currency from the Reserve Bank at the official rate and pocketed huge profits by selling it on the black market. Zimbabwe's economy is among the fastest-shrinking in the world. Its collapse has assumed such proportions that unemployment has risen to more than 70 per cent and half the population survives on international food aid.
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From IRIN (UN), 6 January
Land to be reallocated to "serious and committed" farmers
About 400 of the farms recovered so far from senior government officials who ignored a presidential directive and held multiple properties will be given to farmers who are "serious and committed" to agricultural production, authorities said on Monday. "The land will only be reallocated to farmers who have experience and are able to prove that they intend to use the land for the sole purpose of agricultural production. Property speculators will not be considered," government spokesman Steyn Berejena told Irin. The government has yet to announce when reallocation will begin, but Berejena acknowledged that there was a waiting list of people who were "very eager to move onto the land in order to begin farming". In July last year President Robert Mugabe ordered top officials of his ruling Zanu PF party to give up excess farms if they had acquired more than one under the country's fast-track land redistribution programme. "There is now consensus that we are moving towards a fairer distribution of land, so that there isn't one group of individuals who has more land than they deserve," Berejena added.
In 2000 Mugabe's government appropriated white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless blacks. However, since the start of the controversial programme, the government has been widely criticised for allowing Zanu PF's top hierarchy to grab some prime farms. Last year Mugabe appointed a committee headed by the former chief secretary to the cabinet, Charles Utete, to assess the resettlement programme. The "Utete Report" found that a number of top Zanu PF officials owned multiple farms, prompting Mugabe to issue a directive to officials to hand over excess land within two weeks. It also noted that almost 40% of land made available for commercial farming had not been taken up by beneficiaries. The government cited a lack of farming equipment and inputs, and the difficulties resettled farmers faced in obtaining loans from banks as reasons for the slow uptake.
Critics have argued that the land reform programme was implemented in a haphazard way, leaving many resettled farmers without the necessary support. However, Berejena dismissed these claims, saying the government had embarked on a number of assistance programmes that targeted newly resettled farmers. "Of course there is the problem of funding but with the little that is available the government has assisted farmers with seeds and fertiliser. This has been ongoing - even those individuals who will be given the land that has been recovered will be given assistance," he said. Meanwhile the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was less optimistic that the recovered land would be benefit those most in need. MDC's shadow minister of agriculture Renson Gasela told Irin: "We don't expect that this land redistribution process would be any fairer than the previous one. We suspect that the beneficiaries are likely to be those who were left out the first time, namely some of the top ranking soldiers in the army." More than 200 000 landless black Zimbabweans have been resettled onto about 11 million hectares of land since the start of the land reform programme.
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From ZWNEWS, 6 January
Petrol bombing, assault
The home of the deputy chair of Zvishavane Town Council was petrol-bombed early on Sunday morning. Simon Dick, who is a ward councillor in the Town, and also youth chair for Midlands South for the opposition MDC, fled unhurt from the house in Zvishavane with his sister-in-law Esther Wilson. The house, however, was devastated, and all their belongings except the clothes they were wearing were destroyed. Zvishavane is in Mberengwa East constituency, in which there was more violence than in any other constituency in the 2000 parliamentary elections. In Nkulumane suburb near Bulawayo last Friday, Fr Nigel Johnson, a Jesuit priest, was assaulted by CID officers, He had been filming local musicians when he was set upon by the police officers, kicked onto the ground, and threatened with the confiscation of his car, camera and ID card. Local residents protested at his treatment, and the police officers then took Johnson to the local police station, from where he was transferred to Bulawayo Central. He was released the next morning after a night in the cells. No charges were brought against him.
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From VOA News, 5 January
Private doctor fees in Zimbabwe skyrocket
Tendai Maphosa
Private doctors in financially troubled Zimbabwe have increased their fees by more than 500 percent, and they are demanding payment in cash even for patients on medical insurance plans. The move likely will make it even more difficult for ordinary Zimbabweans to get healthcare. It will now cost a patient on medical insurance more than 50 dollars for a visit to the doctor, up from 10 dollars at the official rate. The physicians announced the increase after the collapse of negotiations with medical insurance companies. The president of the Zimbabwe Medical Association, Dr. Billy Rigava, said private doctors decided on the hefty hike as a result of the current hyper-inflationary climate the country is experiencing. Dr. Rigava also said they had decided on demanding cash up front from patients because medical insurance companies were taking too long to pay them after they had attended to patients. He said some medical insurance companies were taking up to more than two years to pay the doctors after submission of their claims.
Dr. Rigava accused the insurance companies of engaging in non-core activities such as investing their members' money, resulting in large sums of money being tied up and none left to pay the doctors. The medical association chief said the talks collapsed after the insurance companies offered payment in 30 days. As Dr. Rigava put it, We are demanding payment within a week after submitting claims, and no more. He said that because of Zimbabwe's current economic situation, the doctors were finding it increasingly difficult to meet their own costs. Medical insurance is not compulsory in Zimbabwe and membership is open to most people with a regular job as well as their families. Private doctors have for some time now provided an important alternative to the country's public health system, which has all but collapsed due to the shortage of foreign currency to buy essential drugs and equipment. Doctors in the public sector have been on strike since last October for more money. Nurses also have joined the strike. A skeleton staff of army doctors and nurses and student nurses is now manning Zimbabwe's hospitals. No end to the strike is in sight, and some doctors and nurses are resigning and joining the exodus of skilled Zimbabweans to countries where they can get better pay.
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Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 5 January
Mbeki's smoke and mirrors
Iden Wetherell
South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki is a man on a mission. He believes he can secure what he calls leadership renewal in Zimbabwe by June. That is the deadline he has set himself. And following his recent humiliating rebuff in Abuja, Nigeria, where Commonwealth leaders rejected his bid to re-admit President Robert Mugabe to the fold, he is under intense international pressure to show that his quiet diplomacy is capable of delivering change. But how effective will he be when, according to some soul-baring on the ANC Today website, he sees Mugabe as more sinned against than sinning - a victim of the very forces Mbeki blames for having thwarted his own diplomacy at Abuja? Mbeki’s apologists have been busy arguing that his public declarations on Zimbabwe shouldn’t be taken too literally. There was a need to propitiate that country’s notoriously prickly ruler, they suggest. But the president’s Internet intervention reflects all too obviously his own deeply held convictions to be dismissed as diplomatic footwork.
He slams Australian Prime Minister John Howard, chair of the troika of leaders tasked at the previous Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) in Coolum, Australia, with deciding what steps to take on the Zimbabwe issue, for calling an "unscheduled" meeting in September 2002 to impose new sanctions on Harare halfway through its one-year suspension. The troika, comprising Howard, Mbeki and Nigeria’s Olusegun Obasanjo, had imposed the suspension in March 2002 following the verdict of a Commonwealth observer team that Mugabe’s re-election had been seriously flawed. Howard had no mandate to call such a meeting, Mbeki indignantly declares. He also castigates Commonwealth Secretary General Don McKinnon for misleading member states when he said it was the "broadly held view" of government heads that Zimbabwe’s suspension should be extended beyond March 2003 until the Abuja Chogm in December. Some were not consulted, he said. Mbeki claims the Zimbabwe government was not given a chance to respond to the report of the observer team. He expresses a clear preference for the views of South Africa ’s own observer mission, which declared that the poll outcome represented "the legitimate voice of the people of Zimbabwe".
Mbeki is disingenuous on all these points. The troika was mandated at Coolum to adopt whatever measures it saw fit based on the report of the Commonwealth observer group. It was entirely within the remit of Howard as both Commonwealth and troika chair to schedule meetings and propose fresh measures if it was felt Zimbabwe was refusing to comply with the Marlborough House terms set out by the three leaders in March 2002. These included electoral reform, repeal of repressive laws, inter-party dialogue and engagement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on land reform. McKinnon was authorised to liaise with the Zimbabwean government in ensuring the terms were met. After a year of frustration, McKinnon spent most of February 2003 discussing Zimbabwe’s suspension with Commonwealth leaders. He saw most in person. That is how he arrived at the "broadly held view" that Zimbabwe’s suspension be continued until the Abuja Chogm. This was hardly surprising. In the 12 months since Zimbabwe’s suspension there had been no repeal of repressive laws and no attempt to set up an independent electoral commission or to disband ruling party militias. Army officers continued to supervise polls.
Howard and McKinnon’s stance in maintaining Zimbabwe’s suspension was vindicated by the decision of the committee of six, appointed at Abuja, and subsequently endorsed by all government heads in their final communique that Zimbabwe’s suspension should be maintained until Mugabe met the terms laid down in 2002. In other words, the "broadly held view" that Mbeki questions is the majority view that prevailed. McKinnon had misled nobody and Mbeki, lashing out at procedures that "undermined democratic principles", ended up in a minority of one. Reference to Pretoria’s own observer mission does little to bolster Mbeki’s case as it was widely seen as susceptible to manipulation by South African ministers who made their views known ahead of its findings. When the team’s chair Sam Motsuenyane was asked why there had been insufficient polling stations in Harare, an opposition stronghold, he replied that it was an "administrative oversight". Mbeki ignores the report of the regional parliamentary observer group, which concurred with the Commonwealth mission’s conclusions.
Contrary to Mbeki’s claim, the Zimbabwe government was given every opportunity to respond to the Commonwealth’s report and to engage with McKinnon on matters of concern but, as Mbeki conspicuously omits to mention, McKinnon and his envoys were refused visas to visit Harare. On the vexed subject of land reform Mbeki claims the large sums of money promised by the British government at the Lancaster House conference on Zimbabwe’s independence never materialised. In fact, Britain provided more than £47-million in the period 1980 to 1985 for land reform. But few of the farms acquired found their way to the deserving poor. Most ended up in the hands of Mugabe’s cronies. And when the UNDP decided after the 1998 Harare donors’ conference that land redistribution was chaotic, donors felt they could no longer justify funding a programme that lacked transparency, failed to address poverty alleviation, and undermined self-sufficiency in food production. When Mbeki visited London in 2000 he was told Britain had set aside a further £36-million for land reform if the UNDP was prepared to approve a workable plan. He omits that detail from his account.
While Mbeki makes repeated reference to Britain’s "kith and kin" in Zimbabwe, he seems studiously indifferent to the fate of trade unionists, women’s groups, lawyers, and students. While lamenting Zanu PF’s treatment by the international media, he has no words of compassion for the victims of Mugabe’s unrelenting violence. If "those who fought for a democratic Zimbabwe" have been "turned into repugnant enemies of democracy" by a hostile media, as he claims, that could be because they have indeed become repugnant enemies of democracy! Mbeki denies lobbying at Abuja for the lifting of Zimbabwe’s suspension. In fact, his officials lobbied hard ahead of Abuja, according to senior diplomats. That included support for former Sri Lankan foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar’s candidacy for McKinnon’s job and, according to one account, an attempt to get the Commonwealth observer team’s report rewritten to bring it into line with South Africa’s.
But what is most revealing in Mbeki’s ANC Today commentary is his resentment of any foreign policy that is driven by concern for human rights. He appears shocked that United States administrations should want to "foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities and allow people to choose their own way..." Nowhere in his article does Mbeki say what happened to South Africa’s human rights-based foreign policy unveiled with much fanfare seven years ago. Nor does he say why he thinks it is "meaningless" for the Commonwealth to have upheld its core principles in its policy towards Zimbabwe. He laments that the land issue has "disappeared from the global discourse about Zimbabwe" but fails to understand that most leaders have now seen through Mugabe’s spurious nationalist smokescreen. In any case, Mugabe’s land grievance can hardly continue to resonate as a global issue when nearly every white farmer has been expropriated!
Mbeki was in Zimbabwe in December to promote a government of national unity. But any such plan - the one-size-fits-all being hawked from Burundi to the Comores - that forces the Movement for Democratic Change into bed with Zanu PF is bound to fail. Zimbabwe’s problems derive from repression and misrule, not a lack of national unity. Zimbabweans are united in wanting free and fair elections. If Mbeki sees his mission as indulging Mugabe by doctoring the diplomatic record and forcing an accommodation with an increasingly brutal regime, he had better get used to further setbacks of the sort he experienced in Abuja.
Iden Wetherell is editor of the Zimbabwe Independent
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From Reuters, 7 January
Zimbabwe lays fraud charges amid financial turmoil
By Stella Mapenzauswa
Harare - Two directors of a Zimbabwe company have appeared in court on fraud charges, becoming the first legal casualties of a financial sector crisis that has seen a run on deposits by panicked investors. The country's central bank said on Monday it was reviewing the operations of local banks, after new governor Gideon Gono last month criticised some firms over their lending practices and said he would not bail out those in trouble, triggering panic withdrawals by investors and depositors. On Tuesday two directors of asset management firm ENG made an initial court appearance on charges of fraudulently borrowing billions of dollars from three firms, including Century Discount House, without issuing bills to secure the loans. "Investigations carried out by police so far have revealed that some of the money...was being used to buy forex by the accused on the black market which was used to buy expensive luxury cars and houses," the state prosecution said in its case. Defence lawyer Eric Matinenga asked the court not to pursue the charges, saying the state had presented no evidence to show they acted outside normal practice for asset managers.
Zimbabwe's official Herald newspaper said on Tuesday police had seized eight of 18 luxury cars worth billions of Zimbabwe dollars bought by the two directors in the last few months. The central Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said on Monday it had closed Century and cancelled its licence to protect depositors and creditors after finding that the firm was not "in a sound financial condition". Local media have speculated on the imminent collapse of several mostly new banks formed after President Robert Mugabe's government liberalised the sector in the 1990s. Critics say the central bank has failed to put in place appropriate supervisory measures to monitor the institutions and that some have misused investors' money in speculative deals for personal gain. They say skewed government policies since independence from Britain in 1980 have led to an economic meltdown shown in soaring inflation, unemployment of 70 percent and acute shortages of food, fuel and foreign exchange.
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From Business Day (SA), 7 January
Zim depositors panic at crackdown on banks
Harare - Panicky Zimbabwean depositors have been moving their money from some recently established commercial banks following an announcement by the central bank that it is investigating the operations of banks suspected to be experiencing liquidity problems, officials said. "It's bad, our deposits are moving up and down," an official at one bank said. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe announced last week that it had launched an extensive review of the operations of some banking institutions, leading to the closure of a leading asset management company on New Year's Day. Another banking official said only big clients were moving their deposits to the traditional banks such as Standard Chartered and Barclays. State media reported that these long-established traditional banks had been turning down cheques issued by the banks suspected to be under investigation by the central bank. Zimbabwe has about 16 registered commercial banks. About two-thirds of them have been established in the past decade. The central bank has warned that in the process of its review of the financial sector, "some banking institutions may experience liquidity difficulties as they justify their assets (or) liability mixes". The bank said it was probing the banks in an effort "to rid the sector of speculative and non-core banking activities which had become rampant in this sector". On New Year's Day the central bank shut down Century Discount House and cancelled its banking licence after it failed to pay out some funds owed to investors. Two directors of ENG Capital, which had in April last year bought Century Discount House, were arrested and they appeared before a court yesterday. Cuthbert Muponda, 32, and Nyasha Watyoka, 32, were accused of defrauding several clients of more than 61 billion dollars (about 76 million US dollars). The state alleges that the clients' money, which was intended for investment on the money market, was used by the two to buy properties in Zimbabwe and overseas as well as to import luxury vehicles.
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From VOA News, 6 January
Zimbabwe's new monetary policy causes turmoil in banking sector
Harare - At least six of Zimbabwe's newer commercial banks are in trouble, and many retailers are refusing to accept their checks or guarantees. The growing turmoil in the banking sector follows the government's new monetary policy announced in December, in which the central bank vowed to stop speculation in the Zimbabwe dollar and related investments. Most mainstream retailers have a list at their check-out counters with the names of banks from which they will not accept checks. In addition, some of the larger and older banks are not clearing checks from some smaller banks, several of which were established by prominent members of the ruling Zanu PF party. The new governor of the Reserve Bank, Gideon Gono, has said he will not lend money to banks which, in turn, lend to clients who engage in currency speculation. Some of those clients buy foreign currency a high rates, hoping the rate will go even higher. Others buy luxury goods, such as cars or jewellery, hoping their value in Zimbabwe dollars will go up dramatically. Mr. Gono said banks must only lend to those who will use the money to enhance Zimbabwe's productivity.
The acting-chief executive of the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, Farai Zizhou, said Monday that Mr. Gono is trying to clean up the country's international image. Mr. Zizhou also noted that the central bank wants to gain control of foreign currency transactions in order to have the funds to repay its debt to the International Monetary Fund. Zimbabwe has not been able to make even minimum required repayments. Next week, the Reserve Bank is due to begin foreign currency auctions in what it says is a move to end black market trading. Several banks have been ordered by the Reserve Bank to make sure they can meet commitments to depositors. This has resulted in some banks disposing of hoarded foreign currency, luxury vehicles, houses and jewellery. The short-term result is that the black market for U.S. dollars has dropped to about $4,500 (Zimbabwe) to $1 (US), from about $6,000 (Zimbabwe) a week ago. Several leading exporters say this has affected their ability to do business, because they have only managed to stay afloat by cashing foreign currency at the top rate. Economist John Robertson said Tuesday the long expected meltdown of Zimbabwe's financial sector has begun. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change said Tuesday the financial crisis was caused by rampant corruption. Zimbabwe has 17 commercial banks, and more than a third now have liquidity problems, including the government's Agri Bank, which has lent an undisclosed amount to new farmers. These farmers were given land confiscated from white commercial farmers, and have not managed to grow adequate crops to repay their loans.
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From The Financial Times (UK), 7 January
Crisis for Zimbabwe banking as cash runs out
By Tony Hawkins in Harare
With more than a third of the country's 17 commercial banks unable to honour their customers' cheques, Zimbabwe's financial system is in crisis. For the last week six banks - including one owned by the government - have been excluded from the daily clearing because they do not have the necessary cash to pay other banks. Trust Bank, the largest, said yesterday that an audit by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, the central bank, had shown it to be "one of the most solvent institutions" in the country. It tried to calm depositor nerves amid reports that leading retailers had refused to accept its cheques. Trust said "the only challenge" was its liquidity situation - which was being addressed. Zimbabwe's banking crisis was foreshadowed by the International Monetary Fund last year, when it warned that four years of "persistent economic decline" posed a serious threat to the health of the banking system. With inflation trebling from 199 per cent at the end of 2002 to 619.5 per cent last November, the authorities finally moved to tighten monetary policy late last year. Money market interest rates surged from well under 100 per cent to as high as 900 per cent, forcing some banks to increase their prime lending rates to between 300 and 600 per cent. At the same time the stock market collapsed. Industrial share prices have halved over the last four months. Many companies, financial institutions and individuals that borrowed heavily during three years of substantially negative real interest rates, well below the inflation rate, have now been squeezed by the steep rise in borrowing rates, forcing them to liquidate assets. Financial institutions and companies have been dumping foreign exchange on the parallel market. Consequently the exchange rate has strengthened from Z$7,000 to the US dollar three weeks ago to Z$4,750. There are reports too of forced selling of vehicles and real estate as companies and banks scramble to convert assets into cash. Last week an asset management group, ENG Capital, collapsed and the central bank closed one of its subsidiaries, Century Discount House. The ENG group, whose directors have been arrested on allegations of fraud, was managing funds worth Z$190bn (£132m). Last month Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank, announced an end to easy access for banks to central bank credit at low interest. But as the crisis deepens, bankers and economists say Mr Gono will soon be forced to choose between pumping cash into the system to relieve troubled banks or risk pushing them to the wall.
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From News24 (SA), 6 January
Zim docs to return to work
Harare - Zimbabwe state hospital doctors who have been on strike for close to three months will return to work this week on humanitarian grounds, the head of the doctors' union said on Tuesday. "It's been 76 days and people are suffering. We are going back on humanitarian grounds, the situation is very bad," Hospital Doctors Association chair Phibion Manyanga told AFP. The doctors went on strike over pay in October demanding an 8 000% pay hike, and government has offered to review their salaries. But Manyanga, who did not reveal the government's proposed new salaries, described the offer as far below expectations. He said doctors were giving the government two months' breathing space to increase the salaries to doctors' expectations and address outstanding grievances such as car allowances and providing hospitals with equipment and drugs. If the issues are not addressed to their satisfaction, they will strike again, he warned.
Doctors who were earning the equivalent of US$473 a month are demanding Z$30m per month (US$6 600 at the current parallel rate), a figure which the government said it could not afford. The doctors have not received their salaries for the past two months, and the association had asked the government for a survival allowance to enable them to eat between now and their next salaries. "We are expecting this allowance as soon as possible so that our members return to work by Thursday," Manyanga said. During their strike, doctors were arrested and taken to court by the government for neglecting their duties but were later discharged. Meanwhile nurses who had also joined the doctors strike were seen working when AFP visited Parirenyatwa, a major referral hospital for Harare. Zimbabwe Nurses Association spokeswoman Abigail Kurangwa said the government had pleaded with the nurses to return to work pending the outcome of their pay negotiations with the state.
The strike had paralysed Zimbabwe's public health system as patients were turned away at hospitals, while private doctors have introduced fees that are now out of reach of many ordinary Zimbabweans. Private doctors have more than doubled their consultation fees and are from this month demanding cash up front, arguing that health insurance firms have been taking more than two months to pay them, by which time the money has lost value in the hyperinflationary economy. Inflation is currently running at an official 620%, unemployment is estimated at 70%, and prices go up on a near-weekly basis.
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Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 6 January
Battling it out in Zim
Iden Wetherell
Working as a journalist in Zimbabwe today is something of a challenge, it might euphemistically be said. Zimbabwean editors have to tip-toe their way through a legislative minefield designed to cause them and their publications as much harm as possible. The misnamed Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, passed after President Robert Mugabe's disputed re-election in 2002 - ostensibly to stop the media "lying" about him - has transformed the practice of journalism into a criminal enterprise by specifying a wide range of offences that any self-respecting newspaper would have difficulty avoiding. Causing public disaffection towards the president is just one. Looking out for unwary offenders is a media and information commission, which is the chief weapon of Mugabe's menacing Minister of Information, Professor Jonathan Moyo. He appoints all seven members of the commission, which is headed by a state newspaper columnist, Dr Tafataona Mahoso, who laments the fall of the Iron Curtain and makes no secret of his hostility towards the independent media. Other members include former state-media editors and journalism lecturers at state institutions. The commission is responsible for licensing journalists.
The state lost several high-profile court cases under the Act in 2002, but won its first significant scalp last year when it closed the Daily News, the country's only independent daily, for operating without a licence. The Supreme Court, which is widely seen as sympathetic to the executive, has declined to hear the Daily News's appeal against the constitutionality of Mugabe's media legislation, but a lower court has ruled that the media commission is improperly constituted and its members biased. The government has ignored the court's ruling that the paper should be allowed to resume publication. The closure of the Daily News should not be seen in isolation. Since Mugabe lost the 2000 referendum on a new Constitution that would have legitimised his dictatorship and came within a whisker of losing the subsequent parliamentary election, he has embarked on a campaign of vengeance against political opponents. While commercial farmers and their workers were previously the main victims of his wrath, more recently lawyers and civic activists have been in the firing line. At the same time the government has been anxious to manage the message. It accuses the independent press of tarnishing the government's reputation and "demonising" Mugabe. Inevitably, newspapers that have exposed the ruling Zanu PF's career of misrule and violence have been threatened with closure.
The question we are most commonly asked is whether this has led to a degree of self-censorship. While we are obviously keen to avoid giving hostages to fortune, we cannot at the same time be any less bold than our readers. Mugabe holds no terrors for a younger generation of Zimbabweans who are quite clear as to how he has pauperised the nation while enriching his followers. Mugabe has lost every single electoral contest he has fought in the capital since 1996. His blandishments about sovereignty and land have no purchase here. So editors have a duty, not only to tell it like it is, but to recognise the popular imperatives around them. None of our readers are saying: "Please don't be so critical of the president." And Mugabe certainly doesn't mince his words when referring to us. Nor is this an equal battle.
In addition to an energetic propaganda department in the office of the president, Zimbabwe has a powerful state media, which runs a stable of long-established newspapers and enjoys a monopoly of broadcasting. The country is thus treated to a steady torrent of invective against civic activists and outspoken journalists. We are accused of working with the British and Americans to unseat Mugabe. We are the targets of hate speech and personal vilification in the columns of newspapers like the Herald and the Sunday Mail that are mouthpieces of Mugabe and Moyo. These same papers have misled the country into believing 300 000 people have been resettled under the badly managed land reform programme when the president's own audit revealed only 134 000. They have downplayed the seriousness of the food crisis Zimbabwe is facing and misrepresented the views of senior United Nations officials and diplomats based in Harare. None of this has raised objections from the media commission.
While civil society in South Africa has provided important moral support for the struggle for democracy north of the Limpopo, there is not always a full understanding of the issues at play. Some South African editors for instance cannot understand why those of us working in the independent media are reluctant to get into bed with hate-mongering state publicists, closely allied to Mugabe's intelligence network, masquerading as journalists. South African editors have even collaborated with government journalists in Zimbabwe to form a rival editors' forum to the one already in existence because they feel our scope is too narrow. In fact we have repeatedly said our door is open to all editors who subscribe to the principles of a free press. But the most disappointing aspect of South African attitudes to Zimbabwe is the notion that Mugabe should be indulged to render him more amenable to dialogue. Behind this convenient smokescreen the steady subversion of the rule of law and erosion of democratic institutions has intensified. Lawyers have been assaulted in police stations when visiting their clients, trade unionists have been arrested for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and women have been jailed for protesting the soaring cost of living.
South African President Thabo Mbeki's quiet diplomacy is so quiet as to be inaudible. When he does find his voice, as on the ANC Today website, it is to express sympathy with Mugabe's predicament and claim Zanu PF has been unfairly treated by its critics whose attachment to human rights values he deplores. With the closure of the Daily News, independent weeklies now carry a heavier burden in getting news to the public that the government media won't publish. Whatever Mugabe may throw at us, the Zimbabwean media - at least that part of it still operating freely - remains committed to the struggle for democratic rights. We have a very clear obligation to the majority of Zimbabweans who want to see change. Democracy can't function in the absence of an informed electorate. And without accountability the government can do what it likes. Mugabe has the armed forces, a suborned police and a compliant judiciary. We have the one thing we know he cannot suppress: an idea whose time has come.
Iden Wetherell is editor of the Zimbabwe Independent and chairperson of the Zimbabwe National Editors Forum
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