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Archived News
7th September 2004
Police, National Constitutional Assembly on collision course
Zimbabwe tobacco production hits another low
Fuel queues re-emerge in Zimbabwe
CIO probes Mutasa
Dogs of war? These men in shackles have been whipped into submission
President Obiang wants to see you.' There were no discussions, only orders
Bill blocking foreign rights groups, funding angers activists
SA urged to tighten screws on Mugabe
Speaker of parliament threatens to shoot police officers
A death knell for Zimbabwe's press
Gay leader detained
Zimbabwe runs short of fuel
Mujuru guns for vice-presidency
Protesters back at SA embassy
Zim duped in Congo
Jonathan Moyo in fresh bid to shackle journalists
Where is the yellow card?
Zim Christians vow support for archbishop
Mugabe: Leave us alone
Zanu PF wins seat after MDC boycott
Masawi 'unleashes terror'
Family evicted from home for backing MDC
Group helps orphaned children reclaim lost homes
An African foul-up, with an intriguing cast of Britons
Govt drive against graft losing steam
Namibia and Zim state newspapers join forces
Pro-Zimbabwe paper launched
NGOs to march on Harare
President's farm neglected: workers
Mann: 'Sir Mark had no idea of coup plot'
We guarantee we won't apply death penalty - so let us extradite Thatcher
SA police 'as cruel as Mugabe's militia'
Non-Governmental Organisations street protests put on hold
MDC resignations plunge capital city into crisis
Zanu PF militants force villagers to buy party cards
Zimbabwe, Namibia launch Sunday media offensive
S.Africa cancels Thatcher meeting with Eq. Guinea
Mugabe slams door on talks
Mugabe drags feet over Moyo, Msika
Ministers vie for Mawere's mines
Tekere backs Mujuru
Bogus oil firms siphon US$113 million onto black market
Mark Thatcher faces court over 'coup plot'
Foreign ministry 'unaware' of Equa-Guinea coup probe in Armenia
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From Zim Online (SA), 1 September
Police, National Constitutional Assembly on collision course
Harare - The police have declared illegal a demonstration by the National Constitutional Assembly planned for today setting up the stage for possible clashes with supporters of the civic body which insists it will press ahead with the protest. The assembly, which brings together churches, labour, opposition political parties, student movements, civic and human rights bodies, says the planned protest is to express Zimbabweans' objection to a proposed new law that will severely restrict non-governmental organisations' activities in the country. In a letter to the assembly's chairman Lovemore Madhuku dated August 30, 2004, police superintendent E. Magaya said the demonstrations were not going to be allowed because the organisers had not given enough notification as required under the Public Order and Security Act. Under the security act, Zimbabweans cannot gather in groups of more than two to discuss politics or carry out demonstrations without prior approval of the police. According to Magaya the law requires organisers to seek approval from the police at least four working days before the date they intend to hold political meetings or demonstrations.
Magaya wrote: "We acknowledge receipt of your letter dated 26 August 2004 in connection with the holding of a peaceful demonstration. Be advised that we are not recommending (the demonstration to go ahead)." According to the police officer the law enforcement agency had only received Madhuku's letter yesterday. A spokeswoman for the NCA, Jessie Majome, a lawyer, said the group would go ahead with the protest because it had sufficiently notified the police as required under the security law. She said: "We only notified police. In any case POSA does not say police can deny people their right to demonstrate. Police cannot bless or curse a protest. All it needs is a notification. And we exactly did that. That they received the letter late is something else." Police sources earlier this week told ZimOnline that the force was on full alert to thwart today's planned demonstration. Officers who were either on leave or off duty had been recalled to provide enough manpower to stop the protest. Similar clashes between the police and the NCA have in the past left the civic alliance's supporters injured and some of its leaders arrested.
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From Business Day (SA), 1 September
Zimbabwe tobacco production hits another low
Harare - Zimbabwe's annual tobacco crop, a key source of hard currency, has slumped for the fourth year running to just over 64 million kilograms, official figures revealed Tuesday. According to figures released by the Zimbabwe Industry and Marketing Board (TIMB) the country had sold 64,317,259 kilograms of the golden leaf worth more than 130 million US dollars at the close of business Monday. The figure represents another sharp decline in earnings from the country's key foreign currency spinner compared to last year when over 184 million US dollars was realised from a crop of 81 million kilograms. Zimbabwe sells most of its tobacco to the European Union and Asia. Zimbabwe's tobacco production has declined steeply since 2000, when the country's mainly white commercial farmers produced a crop of 237 million kilograms. In that year the government embarked on a programme of seizing white-owned land for redistribution to new black farmers. The new farmers have experienced problems such as lack of capital and inputs. Triple digit inflation and the high cost of borrowing money has also cut production, analysts say. They point out that a smaller tobacco crop has contributed to the scarcity of foreign currency needed to buy critical imports such as fuel and medicine. Although the official end of the tobacco selling season is Tuesday, "mop up sales" are due to take place in September, TIMB said. This could see the total crop sold in 2004 increasing slightly.
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From Zim Online (SA), 1 September
Fuel queues re-emerge in Zimbabwe
Harare - Fuel queues this week remerged in Zimbabwe amid revelations that a fuel procurement facility between the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and British Virgin Island registered company Saturn had collapsed over non-payment. Details of the fuel deal between the Reserve Bank and Saturn are still sketchy, but well-placed sources within Zimbabwe's central bank told ZimOnline that the company last year arranged a US$60 million credit facility which helped ease the country's four-year old fuel crisis. Zimbabwe's cash-strapped fuel companies tapped into the facility to pay for imports, but most of the companies had failed to pay back, according to the sources. A senior Reserve Bank official, who spoke on condition he was not named, said: "Saturn has withdrawn from the earlier agreement after realising that most of the companies that accessed earlier facilities failed to own up while the Reserve Bank was not making any effort to assist." Reserve Bank officials refused to speak about the matter, referring all questions to bank governor Gideon Gono. Gono was not available for comment.
The bank last week invited tenders on behalf of the Petroleum Marketers of Zimbabwe (Pvt) Ltd a company that was set up to administer the purchasing of bulk fuel for several companies. The tender was for the supply of 2.4 million litres of petrol and 36 million litres of diesel per month. According to the sources the tender was an attempt by mostly black-owned fuel companies to pool resources to prevent the country from drying up in the next few weeks. The companies last weekend raised fuel prices in what fuel industry players said was an effort to make more cash available for fuel companies. The price of petrol was increased from US$0.57 to US$0.63 per litre at the official exchange rate. Diesel now costs US$0.64 up from US$0.55 per litre. Although Zimbabwe's fuel supplies have been erratic since 2000, the situation had improved in the last seven months with the country having just enough to keep it going. Queues at filling stations had also disappeared.
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 1 September
CIO probes Mutasa
President Robert Mugabe has instituted an investigation into the violent clashes between Zanu PF supporters in Manicaland last week. Sources within the ruling party told The Daily News Online that Mugabe had dispatched a seven member team from the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) to Rusape where the clashes took place. "The CIO team was dispatched this week and has been conducting interviews. They say they have been sent by the President. We have told them that Mutasa and Chipanga are using violence to ward off any challengers," said a ruling party official who was caught up in the violence. Scores of ruling party officials including war veterans leader James Kaunye and 40 others were seriously injured after they were attacked by supporters of the Minister of Anti-corruption and Anti-monopolies, Didymus Mutasa and Shadreck Chipanga, the deputy minister of home affairs. The two cabinet ministers led the attacks, according to witnesses, whose names cannot be mentioned. The marauding supporters went on a looting spree and destroyed property worth millions of dollars against fellow party members opposed to Mutasa, the Makoni North Member of Parliament and former CIO director-general Chipanga, the Makoni East MP. Kaunye, who has openly challenged Mutasa in Makoni North, is the chairman of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) in Manicaland.
Mutasa, the party's secretary for external affairs confirmed last week that he was behind the attacks. He claimed that the victims had disrupted a meeting he was conducting. The attacks were targeted at those who wanted to stand against the two in party primary elections scheduled for October. But analysts yesterday said the CIO investigation did not mean that Mugabe was determined to stamp out political violence ahead of next year's elections. They said the investigation was meant to appease war veterans and Zanu PF supporters who felt aggrieved over the attacks by Mutasa. But Mugabe would fully endorse a violent campaign against the MDC during the campaign period, the analysts said. They added that more intra-party violence was likely to erupt as ruling party bigwigs sought to secure the party candidature for the March legislative polls.
Brian Kagoro, the chairman of the Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe (CCZ), a Zimbabwean human rights watchdog said Mugabe's team of investigators was merely there to implement the president's grand plan of appeasing the war veterans and other Zanu PF supporters who are becoming impatient with Mutasa. Kagoro said: "The president's motive to assign some people to Makoni is inspired mostly by his need to be seen to be responding to the crisis. It is imperative at this stage that the broad interests of Zanu PF are not threatened by intra party violence. "That amount of violence threatens the unity of Zanu PF supporters in the province. The violence would be worse against those people outside the ruling party, especially as we prepare for next March's election," said Kagoro, who predicted that Mutasa and Chipanga would go unpunished. The opposition and local civic groups have accused Zanu PF of using political violence and intimidation against opponents. The ruling party denies the charge and instead accuses the opposition of fanning violence. War veterans' national chairman Jabulani Sibanda this week accused top Zanu PF politicians of using violence and criminal methods to secure the party's candidature for the parliamentary polls. Mugabe has said that the ruling party will hold primary elections in all constituencies to choose party candidates for the election.
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From The Independent (UK), 1 September
Dogs of war? These men in shackles have been whipped into submission
By Raymond Whitaker in Malabo
Their wrists and feet shackled, the accused half-crawled, half-fell out of the high four-wheel-drives that had delivered them to a garish conference centre-turned courtroom in Equatorial Guinea's capital. The flashing lights, blaring sirens and escort of camouflage-clad troops merely made the gaunt, grey crocodile of men, shuffling silently through the rain in their T-shirts, shorts and rubber sandals, seem more pathetic. If these were dogs of war, they had been whipped into submission long ago. Since their arrest on 8 March on charges of attempting to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema, eight former members of South Africa's apartheid-era special forces, six Armenian air crew and five local men have been kept chained 24 hours a day in Malabo's notorious Black Beach prison. Although their leader, Nick du Toit, faces a possible death sentence, even he must have welcomed the start of their trial last week as an escape from the uncertainty. But, yesterday, Mr du Toit and his 18 co-accused were thrust back into limbo.
Diplomats and lawyers gathering at the conference centre were expecting yesterday's hearing to be the last, with the defence team making their final pleas before the three judges retired to consider their verdict, possibly as early as Friday. But after a delay lasting well over an hour, Equatorial Guinea's Attorney General, Jose Olo Obono, began by asking for the case to be suspended indefinitely. All the proceedings were conducted in Spanish, the language of the country's former colonial rulers, but in the midst of the unfamiliar legalese, the name "Mark Thatcher" could clearly be understood. The defence objected that it would be inhumane to keep the alleged mercenaries locked up in harsh conditions with no knowledge of when they might be freed, but after an adjournment lasting only a couple of minutes, the judges granted the suspension. Their spokesman, Judge Salvador Ondo Ncumu, said the case had acquired an "international dimension", and it should not continue until investigations elsewhere had been completed.
The misfortune for Mr du Toit and his colleagues is that two days after their trial began last week, it was upstaged by the arrest in Cape Town of Baroness Thatcher's son. Even though the Equatorial Guinea arrests coincided six months ago with the seizure of a planeload of private soldiers in Zimbabwe, led by Simon Mann, an Old Etonian former SAS officer, the affair generated only moderate international interest until South Africa's elite Scorpions crime-busters turned up at Sir Mark's mansion in Cape Town. President Obiang's regime, which wants to demonstrate the conspiracy against him went to the highest levels, suddenly found it might be able to land a much bigger fish. With Mr Thatcher under house arrest in South Africa and Mr Mann on trial in Zimbabwe - he was convicted of illegally attempting to buy arms, though the rest of the 90 arrested with him were acquitted or found guilty of minor offences - the Malabo case risked becoming a sideshow.
Equatorial Guinea wants Mr Thatcher and Mr Mann to be extradited but it has received little encouragement from the South Africans or the Zimbabweans. Like Britain, South Africa refuses to send suspects to countries that retain the death penalty, although it may allow lawyers from Equatorial Guinea to question Sir Mark in Cape Town. But the whole affair has already drawn more attention to this tropical dictatorship, which consists of a few lush volcanic islands and a jungle-covered strip of the African mainland, than it has enjoyed since the Spanish loosened their grip in the 1960s. President Obiang appears to be revelling in it. Yesterday he summoned the foreign press for what turned out to be little more than an opportunity for him to be photographed giving them an audience. The men on trial, he told us, were "individuals without morals who attempted a crime against our country which would have resulted in blood being spilt".
But since he deposed and executed his despotic uncle in 1979, the President has been accused of spilling plenty of blood on his own account, and even of eating the testicles of his murdered enemies to imbibe their masculinity. The accused were not in the courtroom to hear the debate that will prolong their uncertainty. But a door to their holding room was ajar as they were told the news, and one could see the looks of defeat as they shuffled back out to the prison vehicles, a young soldier clapping his hands to speed them up. Mr Mico, their defence lawyer, said: "All the accused apart from Mr du Toit have told me they were tortured." Belinda du Toit, who says her drawn, grey-bearded husband was once the same, ample shape as her, looked on wondering when she would see him again.
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From The Times (UK), 1 September
President Obiang wants to see you.' There were no discussions, only orders
By David Lister
What a difference a day makes. On Monday our correspondent was ordered out of court, yesterday he was invited to meet Equatorial Guinea's ruler. Barely 24 hours after being ejected from one of his courts for taking notes, The Times was yesterday part of a small group of journalists ushered through the gold-embossed gates of the colonial-style palace of President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. This time there was none of the usual dithering inefficiency that accompanies encounters with officialdom across sub-Saharan Africa. At 2.30pm all foreign journalists in Equatorial Guinea, most of them here to report on the trial of 14 suspected foreign mercenaries implicated in a coup attempt allegedly financed by Sir Mark Thatcher, were summoned to one of the country's crumbling old hotels. There had been rumours all weekend that President Obiang, a ruthless dictator said to eat the testicles of his political opponents, wanted to address the media, no doubt to reaffirm his shaky grip on power after whispers about his health and suggestions that it may not be too long before there is another attempt to topple him. Only last week a German visitor was slung in a cockroach-infested jail in Malabo, the capital, for venturing too close to the presidential palace, while on Monday I was forced to tear a page from my notebook after taking notes at the trial of the alleged mercenaries. After deciding to leave the courtroom, I was prevented from going anywhere by a glazed-eyed soldier at the gate. Thirty minutes earlier he had refused me entrance to the compound, but now he was equally adamant. "You are to stay here," he said, spilling whisky from a flask as he gesticulated wildly.
These are paranoid times in a country said to have an army of only 1,400 men to guard offshore oil reserves that are generating more than 350,000 barrels per day. It is no surprise if the President, who at the weekend took possession of a brand-new $55 million (£30.5 million) private jet, feels a little jittery. Yesterday, however, I walked through the gates of a building that most of Equatorial Guinea's 500,000 population can only dream of entering. In a transformation that was extraordinary even by the standards of this bizarre, oil-rich nation, within a day The Times had gone from being persona non grata to honoured guest. As we arrived at Plaza de la Independecia, where a bust of the President sits in the middle of the square above the title "El Libertador", dozens of armed soldiers sealed off the surrounding streets. Outside the colonnaded palace, inherited from the country's former Spanish rulers, Moroccan bodyguards in black suits stood next to a pair of black Mercedes-Benz bearing the presidential number plates "PR" and "PR-004". There was no discussion, only orders. "This is not a press conference. He will say welcome and thank you. If you are not happy, you will take the door," explained an adviser as reporters were led into a grand entrance hall where gold statues of two eagles perched at the bottom of a wide marble staircase.
Red carpet covered the ornate mosaic floor, while on a wall above the entrance were the Spanish words "Unidad, Paz, Justicia" - "Unity, Peace, Justice". Some of us had deluded ourselves into believing that the President might take questions, when at 2.56pm a whisper of "C'est le President!" swept the room. The Moroccan bodyguards, lent to the President by Morocco's King Mohammed VI, glanced furtively across the courtyard. More than a dozen soldiers put their hands on their weapons as besuited lackeys poured out of a side door. Even the country's unflappable Security Minister, in a uniform bedecked with medals, appeared uneasy as he snapped to attention. Then a lean, bespectacled man walked slowly towards a velvet and gold podium and began talking in Spanish in a voice that was almost inaudible. The 62-year-old leader, whose wealth can only be guessed at, appeared anything but the savage his enemies depict him. An earnest-looking, immaculately dressed man, he appeared every inch the statesman in his blue suit and tie. "I want to thank you all for coming here," he said, a translator standing by his side.
As we strained to listen to every word, he said that the coup attempt in March, over which nearly 90 suspected mercenaries are now languishing in jails in Equatorial Guinea, Zimbabwe and South Africa, might have triggered a "macabre situation" and an ethnic conflict similar to that in Rwanda a decade ago. The mercenaries had intended to "carry out a crime against our country that would have resulted in blood being spilt", he said. While it was not his place to comment before the court in Equatorial Guinea delivered a verdict in the case of the suspected foreign mercenaries, they would meet their "condemnation", he added. After barely a dozen sentences and without taking questions, he looked up and spoke again: "That's all I have to say for now. Thank you very much." It was 2.59pm; just three minutes had passed. It was all over, and what had he actually said? With a speed that defied his age and rumours that he has prostate cancer, the President left. His lackeys were already rolling up the red carpet and we were being ushered back out of his inner sanctum. He was wise enough to offer us only a tantalising glimpse, the briefest of insights into his secretive world. And I know that, like all his downtrodden subjects in this tiny country, the next time I go anywhere near his palace I will probably be arrested.
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From Reuters, 1 September
Bill blocking foreign rights groups, funding angers activists
Harare - Zimbabwe police arrested 44 activists Wednesday as they tried to march in protest against a proposed law that would bar foreign human rights groups and block foreign funding for local bodies, an official said. President Robert Mugabe's administration accuses some nongovernmental organizations of working with Western countries to undermine its rule. It has published a bill that would compel the groups to register with a state council empowered to investigate their activities. The bill says local groups would not be able to receive any foreign funding or donations to carry out activities involving issues of governance, defined as "the promotion and protection of human rights and political governance issues." The National Constitutional Assembly said police arrested 44 of its members in the capital Harare as they tried to gather for a protest against what the group called a "draconian bill." "They are at Harare Central [police station], but our lawyers have not been allowed to see most of them," assembly chairman Lovemore Madhuku told Reuters. Police were not immediately reachable for comment.
Before the march, the National Constitutional Assembly distributed fliers around the city center, urging Zimbabweans to protest against the bill. It said the bill "seeks to stop the good humanitarian work that the [nongovernmental organizations] are doing in feeding people, clothing them, attending to the sick and sheltering the homeless." The group also delivered a petition to the South African Embassy, urging President Thabo Mbeki's government to put pressure on Mugabe's government over its alleged rights abuses. South Africa has been criticized by Zimbabwe's opposition over its stance on Mugabe. The bill needs approval by parliament, where Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party enjoys a comfortable majority. Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, accuses Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler of leading a Western campaign to oust him over his government's seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 1 September
SA urged to tighten screws on Mugabe
Pretoria - Sweden wants the South African government to tighten the screws on President Robert Mugabe to ensure that conditions for a free and fair election exist before next year's parliamentary polls. Swedish foreign minister Laila Freivalds told journalists here yesterday after meeting her South African counterpart Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma that Pretoria should do more to rein in Mugabe. Mugabe has said that Zimbabwe's sixth parliamentary polls will be held in March. Freivaids said the withdrawal of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from the elections was "bad news". Hence South Africa needed to pressure Mugabe to hold elections under conditions that were acceptable to all political players in the country. "Democracy needs pluralism and an open debate. As neighbours you have an important role to try to change the negative development in Zimbabwe," she said. Human rights abuses and election rigging in Zimbabwe, she said, had reached alarming levels. "We are very worried, not only about elections but also the human rights abuses in Zimbabwe," Freivalds said.
The MDC last week announced that it would not participate in all future elections unless the government made sweeping changes to the current legal and political framework. The opposition party said it wanted the government to implement electoral guidelines agreed to by Southern African Development Community (SADC) recently. These include equal access to the public media by all political parties, the setting up of independent bodies to run elections, a transparent electoral process, free electioneering for all parties and the upholding of the rule of law and of human and individual rights in the run-up to and during elections. The MDC also wants a stop to political violence and the repealing of repressive legislation which has been used to close down newspapers and stop opposition political campaigns by the government. But the ruling Zanu PF party has bluffed the MDC election boycott threat saying that the election would go ahead, even if the opposition party boycotted the process.
The opposition has accused Mugabe of using a flawed electoral process to rig previous elections. Mugabe denies the charge. Freivalds shot down assertions by Zuma that South Africa would pursue its quiet diplomacy policy on Zimbabwe. "Her (view) is that silent diplomacy is the best way. We would agree if we saw results from that diplomatic approach. But we don't, and so we are worried. It's important to have patience when putting pressure on a country but there are limits to that patience," she told journalists. South Africa has insisted that it would not publicly lash out at Mugabe for the last five years. Freivalds said the European Union, which has slapped travel and economic sanctions on Mugabe and members of his ruling elite, was pursuing other methods to squeeze Mugabe to accept reform.
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From Zim Online (SA), 2 September
Speaker of parliament threatens to shoot police officers
Harare - Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa is understood to have threatened to shoot police officers investigating him for allegedly dealing in gold and foreign currency, ZimOnline has learnt. Authoritative sources said the policemen now feared for their lives following the alleged threats by Mnangagwa, a close associate of President Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa is also touted as a possible successor to Mugabe. According to the sources the investigating officers had told Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri about the alleged threats but he also appeared unable to do much. It was not possible since Monday this week to get a comment on the matter from Mnangagwa. His mobile phone was continuously unreachable. His secretary at Parliament promised the Speaker was going to call ZimOnline. He had not called by late last night. Chihuri could also not be reached for comment while police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena refused to discuss the matter. One of the police officers said to have been threatened by Mnangagwa, Musarashana Mabunda, confirmed he was indeed investigating the Speaker. But he denied he had had any confrontation with the powerful Zanu PF politician. Mabunda, who is a chief superintendent with the police's Special Investigations Unit, however said that he was aware that another police officer also probing Mnangagwa on another matter had an altercation with the politician. He said: "I have been involved in the case. But I have never met Mnangagwa and he does not even know my face. He has never threatened me. I know that he had a confrontation with another police officer over some investigations but that was not me." Mabunda is investigating Mnangagwa's role in financial irregularities including illegal externalisation of foreign currency by some Zanu PF-owned companies. Mnangagwa, who is secretary for administration in Zanu PF, was for a long time the party's finance secretary and supervised its companies. He also sits on the board of ZIDCO Holdings, the holding company of Zanu PF's businesses.
The sources said Mnangagwa in July this year summoned Mabunda to his office at Parliament where he told the policeman to stop investigating him or he would be shot dead. "He (Mabunda) was summoned to Parliament where he was shown three bullets which Mnangagwa said were reserved for police officers who were sniffing around. He was told that he could be a beneficiary of the bullets if he continued with his investigations," one source said on condition he was not named. Another police officer, only identified as Nyamupaguma, was also allegedly threatened with death by Mnangagwa after he visited him last May at his office at Parliament. Nyamupaguma wanted to question Mnangagwa about his alleged links to an illegal gold trading racket in the Midlands province, where the politician comes from. The Speaker is also said to have in April this year summoned police assistant commissioner Boysen Mathema to his office where he is said to have quizzed him about who was sending the police officers after him. "He (Mnangagwa) asked Mathema where the police were getting the nerve to investigate him. But then Mathema is not really in charge of the investigation," said a senior police officer closely linked to the matter. According to the officer, assistant police commissioner Chris Gora was heading the probe into Mnangagwa. He is deputised by Mabunda. For many years the front-runner to succeed Mugabe, Mnangagwa was earlier this year hauled before a party committee investigating the operations of businesses owned by the party. He was also accused by the United Nations of taking part in the looting of diamonds and other resources from the Democratic Republic of the Congo during that country's civil war.
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From World Press Review, 1 September
A death knell for Zimbabwe's press
Julius Dawu
Bulawayo - "Here lies the private press that defended press freedom to the last drop of ink." A fitting epitaph for Zimbabwe's independent press should President Robert Mugabe succeed in closing down what is left of the country' s privately-owned newspapers. Ahead of parliamentary elections next March - which Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party is prepared to fight and even shed blood to win - the government is hoping to cow all opponents, if not eliminate them altogether. In 2002, Zimbabwe's infamous minister of information and publicity, Jonathan Moyo, accused the pro-opposition press of tarnishing Mugabe's administration. He has since repeatedly threatened to deal with all "mercenary" journalists, a term he reserves for those who freelance for the international press. With the closing of the Daily News in 2003, and the Tribune last month, the threat is serious enough to warrant vigilance on the part of independent journalists.
"We will not allow Bush's boys in our midst ... The situation in Zimbabwe today calls for principled actions without fear or favour, and without succumbing to any threats or intimidation. Mercenaries of any kind, whether carrying the sword or the pen, must and will be exposed and they will suffer full consequences of the law," Moyo thundered in a front-page story carried by the Bulawayo-based Chronicle (March 9, 2004) adding that "No media organization, certainly not Zimpapers, will be forced to employ Bush's and Blair's media mercenaries whose mission is to destroy Zimbabwe from within. That will not happen." Zimpapers, founded in 1980, is a government-controlled company that publishes The Herald, The Sunday Mail, The Chronicle, The Manica Post and The Sunday News. The pro-government Herald conducted its own witch hunt earlier this year dismissing what it called media "mercenaries" for threatening national security. The journalists lost their jobs when it was discovered that they had freelanced for Studio 7, a radio station launched in 2003 by Voice of America (VOA). This discovery only heightened the government's suspicion of journalists, especially those in the independent press.
Writing in the pro-opposition, Financial Gazette (March 11, 2004) journalist Brian Mangwende asked if the government was making good its controversial pledge to deal with its perceived enemies in the media. "And the ongoing crackdown at Zimpapers, the biggest newspaper company in the country where heads have started rolling, dovetails with that new thrust. While media observers were unanimous that the move at Zimpapers could be a veiled attempt to cow media practitioners and force journalists to toe a certain political line ahead of the watershed 2005 parliamentary election, the government is adamant that the concerned journalists' conduct was inconsistent with the terms of their contracts," said Mangwende. Zimpapers also fired Matthew Takaona, acting news editor of the Sunday Mail and president of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists, for allegedly addressing reporters from the Daily News. Then it fired Robson Sharuko and Tendai Ndemera, who were on the sports desk, and Rex Mphisa, a feature reporter, for filing stories with VOA - an action defended by the Media and Information Commission (MIC). "The other serious problem is that of national interest and national security. The VOA is an arm of the US State Department, which is on record as seeking to overthrow the government of Zimbabwe through unconstitutional means and (that are also) illegal under the United Nations Charter," the MIC said.
Mugabe's government began its assault on the independent media in 2002 with the reshaping of the colonial Law and Order Maintenance Act - used by the former Rhodesian government to suppress nationalists - into the now virulent Public Order and Security Act (POSA). The law makes it an offence to criticize the president and gives extra powers to the police. Several journalists have been arrested for covering meetings deemed illegal under POSA. The government also enacted the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which bans foreign journalists and requires local journalists to obtain yearly accreditation from a government-picked MIC. Unable to receive accreditation, many independent journalists have lost their jobs in a punitive settling of old political scores. AIPPA also makes it an offence to "spread rumours or falsehoods" or publish "unauthorised" reports from governmental bodies. More than 30 Zimbabwean journalists and international correspondents have been harassed, arrested and charged for flouting various sections of the Act. Zimbabwe, unlike South Africa, does not guarantee the freedom of the press in its constitution.
The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) expressed concern about how the pro-government media was being used to vilify members of the judiciary who made court rulings that were unfavourable to the government. "ZLHR is also gravely concerned at the continued use of the Herald and other state-controlled public media as instruments to attack members of the judiciary who in the course of their duties as judicial officers make rulings that may not be favourable to certain quarters within the state," the ZLHR said in a public statement recently. The government denies that it sought to punish the independent press with AIPPA. Instead, the government claims, the law instils media ethics and restores the dignity of individuals, especially those government officials long disparaged by the "unpatriotic press." Analysts interviewed by the Financial Gazette (March 11, 2004) decried the plight of the press in Zimbabwe, which has gradually lost its freedom ahead of the crucial 2005 elections, where access to information is sure to be a decisive factor. "The media can influence public thinking so those who are against democracy will obviously want to destroy it. The government believes anything divergent to them should be thoroughly punished and that is what is happening," said political commentator Lovemore Madhuku. Mugabe's government shows little tolerance for criticism, either from the independent press or the pro-government press. The death of free expression in Zimbabwe draws near. So, too, does the death of democracy and accountability.
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From The Daily Mirror, 1 September
Gay leader detained
Clemence Manyukwe
Gay leader Keith Goddard was detained at State House for several hours and later spent two days at Harare Central Prison for breaching security regulations at State House recently. The incident happened on August 17 when Goddard and two Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (Galz) members were found parked in their vehicle near the State House main entrance along Chancellor Avenue. President Mugabe holds most of the State functions at State House. Reasons for their presence in the high security area could not be established, leading to their arrest. Police spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena, confirmed the incident, but did not give details. He only said Goddard's plight was caused by the fact that the President's residence was a high security area and anyone caught behaving in a suspicious manner around there would immediately be investigated. Sources said the three Galz members were quizzed by State House security staff for more than five hours, before being taken to Harare Central Police Station and held for a further 48 hours. The sources said the trio's attempts "to get freedom by pleading that they had been silly" were fruitless. President Mugabe has denounced homosexuals as being worse than dogs and pigs. Goddard confirmed the detention and arrest but he refused to give details saying he was afraid of reprisals. "I am not permitted to comment on that incident by the organisation for fear of reprisals and reprimands by the country's security agents. But the use of violence to achieve an end, including subjugation and humiliation, is condemned in the strongest terms," said the Galz director, insinuating that he was assaulted.
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From VOA News, 1 September
Zimbabwe runs short of fuel
Fuel shortages have resurfaced in Zimbabwe after an eight-month period of easy supplies. Economists say that, despite government assurances that Zimbabwe is on a path to recovery, the economy continues to decline. They say that, while measures taken by the Central Bank to make hard currency available for oil imports have been successful, they will be insufficient to cover the rising prices of fuel imports. Both Harare and the second-largest city, Bulawayo, are experiencing fuel shortages that did not improve, even though suppliers raised prices by about 10 percent this week. Economist Tony Hawkins says the shrinking economy and the rocketing cost of crude oil are pushing Zimbabwe to a point where it will run out of currency reserves to pay for imported fuel and other commodities. And Masimba Kambarami of the Petroleum Marketers Association says he does not see the situation improving anytime soon. Mr. Kambarami said the increase in the price of crude oil means Zimbabwe has to find more foreign currency to buy the same amount of fuel. Other importers say that many of the newer, smaller fuel dealers can no longer get credit from South African suppliers, and are being asked to pay for deliveries in advance. The government previously imported fuel mainly from Libya and South Africa, but both countries halted sales to Zimbabwe more than a year ago when Harare failed to pay the bills. The situation has been compounded by a 75 percent drop in Zimbabwe's tobacco production. Tobacco exports have traditionally been the country's largest source of foreign currency, earning at their peak five years ago about 40 percent of the total. The shortage of fuel is the most visible sign that the economy continues to fail. Economists say without energy, Zimbabwe's faltering economy will continue to decline ever faster.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 3 September
Mujuru guns for vice-presidency
Dumisani Muleya
The influential Zanu PF Women's League has entered the ruling party's succession race and is now lobbying for politburo member Joyce Mujuru to be nominated as vice-president during the party's forthcoming December congress. Official sources said the Women's League, headed by Thenjiwe Lesabe, who is seen as close to President Robert Mugabe, is vigorously pushing for Mujuru to fill the post left vacant by former vice-president Simon Muzenda's death last year. Joseph Msika remains as the other vice-president. Sources said the Zanu PF women were planning to come up with a key resolution after their congress, which will be opened by Mugabe today at City Sports Centre in Harare, backing Mujuru. The congress is being held under the banner of "Total Empowerment of Women in Zimbabwe". It is understood that the women will insist on the overhaul of the archaic Zanu PF constitution - which was tailor-made to suit Mugabe's failed one-party state project of the 1980s - to allow their candidate to be elevated to the party's top hierarchy through affirmative action. Sources said the outdated Zanu PF constitution would be amended to take into account present political realities and discard the structures of the past. "The women want Mujuru to be one of the two vice-presidents because of the key role they played in the liberation struggle and after Independence," a source said. "Mujuru is seen as the most suitable candidate because the Women's League chairperson Lesabe is now rather old. Lesabe could have been vice-president in 1999 if the women had pushed harder for her elevation." Lesabe almost became vice-president during the 1999 Zanu PF congress but was blocked by the hierarchical impediments in the ruling party.
However, sources said Mujuru could come unstuck in her bid because there were other stronger forces gunning for the same job. Zanu PF secretary for administration Emmerson Mnangagwa and foreign relations secretary Didymus Mutasa have been mentioned as candidates. Mnangagwa is said to command a majority of provinces through the chairmen of Midlands, Manicaland, Mashonaland West, Mashonaland East, Matabeleland North and Bulawayo. He is also said to be backed by retired General Vitalis Zvinavashe. Mutasa is thought to have only an outside chance due to his lack of political clout. However, Mnangagwa, who lost the chairmanship to John Nkomo in 1999, is said to be highly unpopular with the grassroots and his political record is seen as tainted by allegations of corruption which he has strongly denied. Nkomo has been named as a successor to Msika and possibly Mugabe. Sources said the only blot on Mujuru's record was her insult of Joshua Nkomo during the Econet saga in 1996. She later apologised. Besides that, she is seen as in with a chance due to Women's League's support.
Zanu PF has been making much of its newly-discovered gender-sensitive role after Thabo Mbeki appointed women to top jobs in his party and government. Last Thursday a Women's League delegation, led by Lesabe, met Mugabe to raise concerns over the current infighting in Zanu PF. It is said the group also discussed other issues. After that Lesabe lambasted Zanu PF "mafikizolos" - newcomers - in the ruling party mouthpiece, The Voice, who she said were engaged in attempts to discredit the party's leadership through vitriolic calumnies in anonymous columns in the state media. Lesabe was last month reported to have raised concern over Zanu PF deputy Information secretary Jonathan Moyo's conduct. She was said to have been supported by party heavyweights, including Nkomo, spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira and politburo bigwig, retired General Solomon Mujuru. Mugabe is expected to meet senior party members over the issue. He is understood to have raised the matter in cabinet last week. Sources said Msika's attempt to be reelected could falter because there is growing internal resistance to his comeback. The increasingly intricate situation leaves Mugabe in a fix over the simmering succession issue at congress.
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From Zim Online (SA), 3 September
Protesters back at SA embassy
Harare - An alliance of local civic and political groups for the second time yesterday demonstrated at the South African embassy here calling on Pretoria to help end Zimbabwe's crisis. The National Constitutional Assembly, which is a coalition of churches, labour, opposition political parties, and human rights groups, on Wednesday handed a petition to South Africa's ambassador to Zimbabwe, Jeremiah Ndou, calling on Pretoria to throw its weight behind the search for democracy in its northern neighbour. Yesterday more than 400 placard-waving members of the civic alliance were back at the embassy. Alliance chairman Lovemore Madhuku, said: "We are indebted to the embassy for giving our delegation an opportunity to hand our message yesterday. It is important to show that this message is not just an invention of the National Constitutional Assembly leaders. It is a reflection of the views of thousands of ordinary members and the only way of showing this is by a peaceful demonstration at the embassy. This is why the demonstration is going on today." Police armed with guns and batons dispersed the demonstrators from the embassy. There were no reports of assaults or arrests. The alliance, which is pushing for a new and democratic constitution for Zimbabwe, said this week's demonstrations were to voice Zimbabweans' objections to a proposed new law that will severely restrict the operations of non-governmental organisations in the country. Meanwhile, a lawyer representing activists arrested during Wednesday's protest Alec Muchadehama, said seven of them had been released by the police without being charged. Four other activists are to appear in court today to answer to charges of contravening Zimbabwe's strict Public Order and Security Act. The law prohibits Zimbabweans from holding political meetings or demonstrations without prior approval of the police. The alliance's protests were not approved by the police.
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From The Financial Gazette, 2 September
Zim duped in Congo
Thomas Madondoro
Zimbabwe, which played a critical role in propping up the government of the strife-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has emerged bruised after burning its fingers in a flopped US$300 million timber deal sealed in 2001, The Financial Gazette can reveal. News of the deal-that-never-was comes after this paper revealed some three months ago that Zimbabwe, previously seen as key to the resolution of the DRC crisis, risked being written out of the script ahead of the reconstruction of the war-torn diamond-rich country. This was after the United Nations under- secretary general for peacekeeping operations, Jean Marrie Guehenno, visited all the other countries considered key to the DRC problem except Zimbabwe. Diplomats and political observers were agreed that the move by the UN amounted to a snub and belittled the role played by Zimbabwe in the DRC.
This week, Global Witness, an international non-governmental organisation (NGO) privy to the secret deals doled out to allied forces that operated in the DRC, disclosed that Zimbabwe was duped into accepting flawed timber logging concessions worth a staggering $1.68 trillion at yesterday's ruling auction exchange rate. The NGO, which probed the Harare-Kinshasa sweetheart deal, revealed this week that the country was awarded the contract to exploit vast tracts of Congolese forests when Zimbabwean troops were deployed to assist the late president Laurent Kabila, who was under attack from rebel fighters assisted by neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda. It said the timber concessions covered Katanga, Bandundu and Bas-Congo. Corene Crossin, a Global Witness official, said: ". . . Zimbabwe was given a bit of a raw deal in terms of the quality of timber in the concession. As far as we know the deal did not go ahead, and no logging or exploitation of timber in the concession has taken place - thus it is doubtful that any money has been made from it."
Congolese Society for the Exploitation of Timber, whose French acronym is Socebo, was supposed to execute the deal. Socebo is a joint venture between a Kinshasa-based firm linked to the late Kabila called Comiex Congo and Osleg, a business front for the Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI). The deal would have enabled companies linked to Zimbabwe to log 33 million hectares of Congolese trees and produce over 150 000 cubic metres of timber annually. Part of the deal was that the Forestry Company of Zimbabwe would act as technical adviser. Among its possible financiers were Malaysian banks and logging companies from France, Malaysia and Lebanon. Most of the timber was to be transported by rivers because of the poor roads in the DRC, before being exported via Harare and Durban to markets in South East Asia and some European destinations such as France. According to Global Witness, the deal was brokered by the late Kabila as compensation to the Zimbabwean government for its massive losses in money and human lives in the DRC war that sucked in at least seven Southern and East African countries.
Unconfirmed independent estimates indicate that Zimbabwe sank in excess of Z$10 billion in its DRC adventure to save Kabila, who was under siege from invading rebels supported by Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda in 1998. No official figures on the cost of the war have been made public yet. Global Witness claimed that Kabila was keen to appease President Mugabe after the failure of other business ventures between the two governments. The international non-governmental organisation named some of the failed deals as the aborted flotation in London of Oryx Diamonds and the collapse of Congo-Duka, a joint venture between the ZDI and its Congolese partner, General Strategic Reserves. An insider who was a board member of some of the companies established to exploit business opportunities in the DRC yesterday revealed that up until now, no board meeting has been convened as yet. "A lot of things went wrong," he said without elaborating. "And the deal did not succeed." The Minister of Defence, Sydney Sekeramayi, could not say much either. "The defence forces withdrew from the DRC, so we do not have any operations in that country, either commercial or military" he said.
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From Zim Online (SA), 3 September
Jonathan Moyo in fresh bid to shackle journalists
Harare - Information Minister Jonathan Moyo plans to tighten further Zimbabwe's already restrictive media laws by banning local journalists from working for foreign media, according to proposed new legislation gazetted by the government last week. Journalists carrying out their work without being registered with the government-appointed Media and Information Commission will be fined or jailed for not more than two years under the proposed new regulations. The new regulations will be tabled in Parliament when it resumes next month. Section 83 of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act that governs the operations of journalists and media companies only prohibits journalists from working without being licensed by the government commission. The section will be amended to provide for a penalty of a fine or imprisonment not exceeding two years. A new section will be added to the media Act which will read: "Registered journalists will only work for media houses under which they are registered and are not allowed to work for outside media."
Moyo also wants to amend Section 40 of the Act which requires an association of journalists and another one of media companies to nominate a representative each to the seven-member state media commission. Under the new changes either the journalists or media companies could nominate the two members of the commission. Media companies could nominate the two members of the commission sidelining journalists or vice versa. Banning local journalists from working for foreign media could finally impose a blackout on Zimbabwe. The government has already expelled from the country all foreign journalists. International news agencies Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France Press still have bureaus in Zimbabwe. The South African Broadcasting Corporation also has a correspondent in the country. But all of the international media have small teams of one or two people and nearly all depend on local journalists to cover the entire country.
Media organisations and journalists' unions castigated the proposed new regulations saying they imposed further hurdles on an already severely shackled media. The Zimbabwean chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa said: "We have been hoping for amendments that would make the (media) law fair and create a conducive environment for journalists to work in. But these amendments rather make the law more draconian." Zimbabwe Union of Journalists secretary general, Forster Dongozi, said: "What we have been calling for, is a total change to the draconian media law. There must be broader involvement of the stakeholders if any changes to it are going to be meaningful and beneficial to the media, which is currently in a bad state." In a statement the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe said: "These amendments will make the media law more sinister and therefore are against our calls for consultation in efforts to save the media fraternity currently under siege." The government has shut down three newspapers over the past year for breaching its media laws.
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Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 2 September
Where is the yellow card?
Iden Wetherell
It is only too easy to argue that Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) did the right thing in deciding last week to suspend any further participation in polls until President Robert Mugabe's government adheres to the electoral standards laid down by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) heads of state in Mauritius last month. It is more difficult to say the party did the wrong thing. But it is beginning to look like that.
The MDC was right in claiming that any future election would place it at an unfair disadvantage given Zanu PF's refusal to do anything more than submit to pressure from the SADC leaders for technical reforms in the conduct of polls. While those reforms, providing for independent electoral institutions, non-discriminatory voter registration, and accessible voters' rolls, among other things, will do much to improve the electoral process in Zimbabwe, they don't address the wider context. Mauritian Prime Minister Paul Berenger spelt that out when he said "really free and fair elections mean not only an independent electoral commission, but also include freedom of assembly and absence of physical harassment by the police or any other entity, freedom of the press and access to national radio and television, and external and credible observation of the whole electoral process".
The MDC will argue that none of those broader, but essential, requirements are in place. More to the point, Zanu PF appears to have no intention of putting them there. Even before the ink was dry on the Grande Baie protocol, Zimbabwean ministers were planning new ways of closing democratic space by further restricting freedom of expression and association ahead of a general election scheduled for March. A proposed NGO Bill plans to do to civil society what Mugabe's media law did to the press - muzzle it. Both the SADC and the African Union share a commitment to popular participation in the political process. But voters cannot make an informed choice if they are denied access to competing views or don't know what their rights are. NGOs perform a vital public service as electoral monitors and in telling voters what rights they have. Now they will be closed down if they are foreign-funded, leaving the electoral terrain wide open to Mugabe's blandishments - and his militias.
The SADC principles require equal access to the media for contesting parties. Far from tolerating dissent, Zimbabwe's public media pour forth a daily diet of calumnies and hate speech directed at the opposition and civil society. Partisan policing and a judiciary subject to constant threats make for a toxic political climate that is designed to discourage people from exercising their rights. It is, therefore, understandable that the MDC should wish to draw a line in the sand, refusing to provide a veneer of legitimacy to the ruling party's electoral chicanery. But the timing is terrible. Whatever we might say about the reluctance of SADC leaders to make a stand against misrule in Zimbabwe, the fact is they have now succumbed to patient prodding from President Thabo Mbeki and set down benchmarks on electoral reform that are unambiguous.
What was required was for the MDC to test the water. It should have used Parliament to showcase the government's recidivism over the NGO Bill. And then explained to the country and the region the implications of stunted electoral education and monitoring as Zanu PF's militias move into action. It should have applied for access to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation and monitored professional standards in the broadcaster's coverage well ahead of the March poll. It should have seen who Mugabe appoints as head of the new electoral commission. This was an ideal opportunity to test the government's sincerity against the SADC electoral principles, step by step. Each new travesty could be documented - but only if the MDC waved a yellow card. As it is, SADC heads will feel their efforts were ill-rewarded. But worse, they now have the perfect excuse to nod through the March election outcome, however un-free or unfair. The MDC has let them off the hook just as they were showing a hint of firmness. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai's assurance to his followers this week that "the political electric fence that denied you access to the watermelon has rusted away" may prove a tad optimistic. If the MDC decides to re-engage early next year when SADC leaders might secure a political opening ahead of the March poll, it could well be too late to make a difference.
Iden Wetherell is group projects editor of the Zimbabwe Independent and Standard newspapers
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From Sapa, 3 September
Zim Christians vow support for archbishop
Harare - Zimbabwean Christians from many denominations on Friday joined in strong public support of Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo who has been denounced as "satanic" by President Robert Mugabe for demanding tougher international pressure to end human rights abuses. In a series of statements which defied Zimbabwe's draconian security legislation, the archbishop's supporters accused Mugabe's government of intolerance which "amounted to persecution of the church". Ncube says 10 000 Zimbabweans have already died of hunger and malnutrition as a result of 80-year-old Mugabe's use of famine relief as a political weapon and disruption of commercial agriculture by "fast track land reform". Ncube also alleges state-sponsored agitation surrounding the seizure of 5 000 white-owned farms was exploited as a "smokescreen to intimidate opposition". In a speech in Harare on August 21, in Ncube's presence, Mugabe accused him of "joining hands with our erstwhile colonial masters to peddle lies" and allowing the church "to be infiltrated by the British".
Three organisations on Friday placed a joint advertisement in the privately-owned Zimbabwe Independent describing Ncube as a "true patriot" and "a humble man of God who speaks the truth". The organisations included the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, Christians Together for Justice and Peace, and the Solidarity Peace Trust. The latter two are groupings, including Protestants and some South African churches and religious organisations dedicated to helping victims of violence. They condemned recent claims by state media that Ncube's words "border on treason" and that he should be banned from travelling outside Zimbabwe. In a similar statement eight Catholic and Protestant groups and ecumenical associations, likewise denounced the "calculated, hateful and unjustified criticism of Archbishop Ncube". "This amounts to the persecution of the church and its leaders as a ploy to silence it from voicing the glaring evils perpetrated against the generality of the population." They rejected plans to enact legislation strictly controlling the work of charities and voluntary organisations, and banning those focused on "issues of governance and human rights" from receiving foreign help.
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From News24 (SA), 3 September
Mugabe: Leave us alone
Harare - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe warned Britain, the United States, Australia and Nigeria against interfering in Zimbabwe as he accepted the credentials of their new ambassadors, state radio reported on Friday. Receiving the representatives at his official residence in Harare on Thursday, the 80-year-old Mugabe made reference to the 1972-80 war to end white racist rule in former Rhodesia, telling the officials: "We will turn our people into guerrillas again should the need arise. So leave us alone." Mugabe reportedly told the incoming ambassadors "categorically that Zimbabwe was an independent nation which brooked no interference in its affairs and would fiercely defend its independence and sovereignty". The new Nigerian representative, Anthony Ufumwen Osula, has waited three months for accreditation due to a cooling of relations between Abuja and Harare over Nigerian President Olusagun Obasanjo's failure in the 14-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) in support of Mugabe's seizure of 5 000 white farms and confrontation with developed world critics of his human rights record.
A broadcast said Mugabe told new British ambassador Roderick Pullen that "regime change" was the prerogative of the Zimbabwean people - a reference to a speech British Prime Minister Tony Blair made in the House of Commons in June concerning contacts with the Zimbabwe opposition Movement for Democratic Change on hoped-for reform. A British embassy spokesperson confirmed the meeting and said Pullen pledged to work to improve relations. Mugabe was also reported to have criticised the United States' refusal to accept his March 2002 claim to have won a further six-year term of office as "legitimate", in view of alleged rigging, intimidation and other abuses during the poll. Zimbabwe also received the new representatives of Egypt, Mexico and Benin. Britain, the United States and the European Union have been foremost in backing international efforts to feed up to six million Zimbabweans during three years of dire food shortages due to the collapse of commercial agriculture here. Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo, a leading critic of Mugabe, says over half a million Zimbabweans would have starved to death but for the aid, and accused Mugabe of using food and land redistribution as political weapons against opponents of his 24 year rule.
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From Reuters, 4 September
Zanu PF wins seat after MDC boycott
Harare - Zimbabwe's ruling party won a new parliament seat from the main opposition, which announced a poll boycott last month to press for electoral reforms, state radio reported on Friday. "The ruling Zanu PF has won Seke parliamentary seat following the failure by the opposition parties to present candidates," the radio said, calling this a major boost for President Robert Mugabe's party ahead of elections next year. Won by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in the 2000 parliamentary poll, the Seke seat fell vacant after the death of its opposition legislator this year. Seke is about 35km southwest of the capital Harare. Mugabe's Zanu PF now holds 98 seats in the 150-strong legislature and needs two more to push through constitutional changes. No further by-elections are scheduled ahead of next year's vote, slated for March.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 3 September
Masawi 'unleashes terror'
Itai Dzamara
Mashonaland Central governor Ephraim Masawi has been accused of unleashing a reign of terror in the province in a bid to win the forthcoming Zanu PF Bindura primary election. Masawi is allegedly trying to wrestle Bindura from former Minister of Youth, Gender and Employment Creation and Mashonaland Central governor Elliot Manyika although he denies it. The Zimbabwe Independent visited Bindura last week to monitor the situation in the area. People who spoke on condition of anonymity said political tension was rising in the constituency. Masawi's supporters are said to have set up bases and have been attacking opposition supporters. MDC Chitungwiza executive council member Claudius Marimo said he lost goods valued at about $1 million and about $3 million in cash last month after Masawi's supporters raided his general dealer shop and grinding mill in Musana. "Masawi initially approached me and urged me to defect to Zanu PF, which I openly said was impossible," Marimo said. "He then told me that he was going to deal with me and that my plans to contest against Herbert Murerwa in the Goromonzi constituency were unacceptable. He started sending chiefs to persuade me to join the ruling party before his youths attacked me on several occasions, at one time looting goods and cash worth over $4 million," Marimo said. "Now I can only go to my business at night and cannot spend more than 30 minutes there." However, Masawi denied the allegations that he was perpetrating violence. "I don't normally speak to newspapers. Just write Masawi says its rubbish. Who is he? Who is Marimo? He is running a grinding mill and I am running a farm. So that is damn bulls..t," Masawi said. "He was attacked because he is a problem. If he wants, he can come and get his money," Masawi said.
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 4 September
Family evicted from home for backing MDC
About 20 Zanu PF supporters in Masvingo allegedly assaulted and evicted the sons of Joubert Mudzumwe, a national executive member and the secretary for local government of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) from their homes for supporting the opposition party. The attack on the MDC member's children is the fifth incident of violence breaking out over political differences in various parts of Zimbabwe in as many weeks as the country braces for the March 2005 parliamentary election. Political analysts in Zimbabwe have warned that the next parliamentary election would be fraught with electoral irregularities that include massive violence against members of the opposition. Supporters of the MDC in Chipinge and Chimanimani were said to be fleeing from marauding Zanu PF activists. Intra-party fighting also broke out between Zanu PF supporters in the two districts after clashing over the candidates to stand for the party against the MDC in the parliamentary poll. In Makoni District, Zanu PF supporters and war veterans last week fought running battles after two junior party members openly declared their interest in wrestling the Makoni East and Makoni North constituencies from incumbents Shadreck Chipanga and Didymus Mutasa, both cabinet ministers.
Paul Themba Nyathi, the MDC spokesman yesterday said the Zanu PF militants ordered Silent (17) and Maxwell (16) Mudzumwe to immediately leave Zvemusha Village in Bikita after they found them at their home. Themba-Nyathi said: "Silent and Maxwell had been sent by their father who works in Masvingo to their rural home in Bikita to deliver some groceries for the four orphans that Mudzumwe is looking after. The Zanu PF militants raided Mudzumwe's home early Wednesday morning at around 4am. The two sons ran for dear life and left behind their bags while the fate of the four orphans is still unknown." According to the MDC spokesman, the trouble for Mudzumwe started two months ago when he rejected calls for a meeting between him and the Zanu PF youths at a nearby Zanu PF torture base. The situation got worse for the village headman, only identified as Zvemusha who has been constantly harassed and threatened with expulsion himself if he continued to host the Mudzumwe family in his village, the MDC claimed. Themba Nyathi alleged that the youths have given Mudzumwe until end of September to iron out his differences with the Zanu PF terror group or be permanently barred from ever coming to the village. Yesterday, Nathan Shamuyarira, the Zanu PF national secretary for information and publicity was not available for comment. The MDC has constantly accused the ruling party of perpetrating violence against its supporters. Zanu PF denies the charge.
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From Zim Online (SA), 4 September
Group helps orphaned children reclaim lost homes
Bulawayo - Ivy Sibanda's home resembles a refugee camp for residents of Ward 23 in Bulawayo's Nkulumane suburb. Toddlers, teenagers, parents and grandparents stream in and out all day to play, chat about their health and welfare or get something to eat. "Everyone is welcome here anytime of the day. I've somehow become the neighbourhood granny," explained Sibanda while a four-year old boy plays on her lap. The boy is not her grandson but one of over 600 orphans that Sibanda assists through a community-based organisation that she heads. A nurse by profession, Sibanda is chairperson of Silundika AIDS Health Project. The project was set up in 2000 to help feed and send to school orphans in the suburb. Each month, the project gives the orphans food, soap and helps with payment of rent, water and electricity bills. The food and money comes from various international donor organisations and is channeled through the Matabeleland AIDS Council. The 20 members of the project also offer home-based care to bed-ridden AIDS patients in the Ward.
During the past year, Silundika members have been forced to expand their activities to include helping orphans reclaim lost family houses. According to Sibanda, an increasing number of minor children find themselves homeless when their parents die of AIDS because unscrupulous relatives would have sold off their late parents' houses. In the past year alone, Silundika members have helped repossess 15 homes which had been sold behind orphans' backs. Kundai Madyahoto is one of the orphans that Silundika is helping at the moment. Kundai's parents died of AIDS-related illnesses. According to Kundai, her aunt sold her late parents' home in February this year. She said her aunt, who is an informal trader, said she was selling the property to recover money she had spent taking care of Kundai's mother. The new owner of the house has vowed to evict Kundai and her four siblings. She said some months ago the new owner came to 'their house' and threw their belongings onto the street. They are still at the house today only because the police ordered the new owner not to evict them until the ownership dispute was resolved, said Kundayi.
Now with the help of neighbours and Silundika, Kundayi insists she and her siblings will fight to have back their parents' house. "We are not leaving. Where do we go if we we leave our parents' home? If we move out we will end up as street kids. We will be forced to steal or become prostitutes to survive," she said. Kilibong Nkomo, another member of Silundika blamed the problems Kundayi and many other such orphans across Zimbabwe have to face when their parents die on greedy and selfishness. She said: "It is greed and lack of feeling. Relatives do not care about the children's welfare. They just want to grab the property." Nkomo complained that helping resolve the house disputes takes up too much time and money as they have to shuttle between the police, courts and non-governmental organisations such as Childline and Zimbabwe Women Lawyers Association to get expert help to have the disputes resolved. And this leaves little time to focus on their core activities. According to Sibanda there was need to revise property transfer rules to save orphans from losing their homes and the hassle of claiming them back. She said most sick parents would have been coerced or cheated to enter into agreeing to sell their properties. Sibanda said: "Most of the times, the relatives use forged papers to transfer ownership. Also, the parents will be very sick and disorientated and unaware what they will be signing for (when they agree to sale houses). Surely, such agreements should not be valid. The practice is inhuman."
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From The New York Times, 2 September
An African foul-up, with an intriguing cast of Britons
By Michael Wines
Johannesburg - They say the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. Alas, the same appears not to be true of coups in Equatorial Guinea. A week ago, South African prosecutors tied the patrician son of Margaret Thatcher, the former British prime minister, to an improbable, botched coup in Equatorial Guinea, a minuscule, humid, African dictatorship. Now others in England's political and boarding-school elite are being dragged, over furious denials, into what is becoming a black eye for the British, whose colonialist image in Africa has been waning. The would-be coup's ever more byzantine story, redolent of greed, stupidity, code names like Smelly and Scratcher, and "a large splodge of wonga" - apparently an Etonism for money - is providing a field day for South Africa's splashy press and its British mentors. "It's an incredible tale of intrigue and scandal and embarrassment," Patrick Smith, the editor of the London newsletter Africa Confidential and the affair's reigning authority, said in a telephone interview. "It's kind of our silly season here and, in the absence of real events, it's captured the public imagination."
Recent revelations center on Sir Mark Thatcher, 51, Lady Thatcher's son and a graduate of Eton's 432-year-old archrival, Harrow. South Africa's anticorruption police unit, known as the Scorpions, arrested him last week on a charge of illegally helping to finance the Guinea coup. He faces up to 15 years in jail if convicted. In an interview, Peter Hodes, one of his lawyers, called the charges "rubbish." Two Etonians have also been linked to the plot. One is Simon Mann, military adventurer and scion of the Watley Ale brewing fortune, who now sits in a prison in Zimbabwe, one of 70 men arrested as mercenaries in March when their northbound jet landed in Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, to pick up weapons. The other is David Hart, millionaire and onetime adviser to Lady Thatcher, who turned up in a note Mr. Mann wrote from jail seeking help. The best-selling author and former deputy chairman of Britain's Conservative Party, Jeffrey H. Archer, has also surfaced in reports about the coup's financiers. All three reject any role in plans to overthrow Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, Equatorial Guinea's strongman since claiming power in his own coup in 1979.
Not that some would not welcome it: Mr. Obiang's government is among Africa's most repressive, and its human rights record execrable. It was not democratic idealism, however, but Equatorial Guinea's oil production - Africa's third largest, netting an estimated $700 million in profit for Mr. Obiang each year - that probably lured the soldiers of fortune. As first reported, the plot was straightforward. Ninety mercenaries intended to topple Mr. Obiang and install his exiled rival, Severo Moto, with help from a London friend of Mr. Moto, an oil trader named Eli Calil. Mr. Calil has denied any role in a coup attempt. The putsch fell apart after South African intelligence tipped off Mr. Obiang and the Zimbabwe police. When Mr. Mann and other mercenaries landed in Harare to pick up arms, they were arrested. Simultaneously, Mr. Obiang's security police arrested 20 others in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea's capital. Mr. Mann was convicted of violating weapons laws in Zimbabwe last month and faces sentencing this month. Amid tales of torture, the other mercenaries in Zimbabwe have been released or held over on lesser charges. In Malabo, 19 reported plotters are being tried, and could face long stretches in Black Beach Prison, one of Africa's very worst. A 20th died last spring; Amnesty International says he was tortured.
Zimbabwe's autocratic leader, Robert Mugabe, who accuses Britain of plotting to invade and reimpose white rule, seized on the Guinea coup as proof of his prescience. "This has obviously been a godsend to the regime," said one Harare political analyst, who demanded anonymity. And that, it seemed, was that. Except that it was not. Locked in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison in Harare, facing years there or extradition to a potential death sentence in Malabo, Mr. Mann smuggled a plea to his wife. "Our situation is not good and very URGENT," it stated. "We need heavy influence of the sort that ... Smelly, Scratcher ... David Hart, and it needs to be used heavily and now. It may be that getting us out comes down to a large splodge of wonga! Of course, investors did not think this would happen. Did I?" The note, with its tantalizing reference to "investors," reached the Scorpions, who concluded that "Smelly" was Mr. Calil and that "Scratcher" was Sir Mark, a neighbor of Mr. Mann in Cape Town. Yet, for all its innuendo, the note could be read as a cry by Mr. Mann for rich friends to rescue him. Not so a second note. Known as the "wonga list," this one was reportedly prepared by Mr. Mann's accountant, a 24-year-old former Congo diamond-mine bookkeeper. It supposedly records the names of some 15 investors in the coup, and the sum each pledged to the operation. The Scorpions refuse comment on its existence. Who heads the wonga list? The Independent, a London newspaper, reports that it includes one J. H. Archer, who placed $135,000 into Mr. Mann's bank account on March 3, three days before the coup plot collapsed. Lord Archer has denied through a spokesman that he has ever met Mr. Mann or that he knew of any coup, but has not explicitly refuted the money transfer, The Independent reported. Mark Thatcher, whom the Scorpions say has cooperated with their inquiry, is also reported to be on the list. Through lawyers and spokesmen, the thrust of his defense is clear: he invested $250,000 in an air-ambulance venture run by Mr. Mann and another Thatcher friend, Crause Steyl, and nothing more.
"They did have a business dealing'' said Mr. Hodes, Sir Mark's trial lawyer. "It had to do with a helicopter." He added that the contract "has been made available to the local gendarmes." If Mr. Mann and Mr. Steyl flew the company into wrongdoing, Sir Mark's defenders say, it was without his knowledge. Mr. Steyl, a former mercenary pilot, is accused of doing just that, flying Mr. Moto, the exiled opposition leader, to Bamako, Mali, in March as the coup began to unfold. When the Zimbabwe police seized the mercenaries' jet in Harare on March 6, Mr. Steyl's brother Neil was at the controls. Sir Mark, who inherited his father's baronetcy in 2003, has led a checkered life. In the mid-1980's, his dealings in arms and construction contracts led British critics to accuse him of trading on his family's political influence. He moved to the United States, only to be dogged by American tax investigators over a failed security company, and took his family to South Africa in 1995. His latest brush with trouble, a coup that melds Bertie Wooster and "Scoop" in equal doses of farce and incredulity, has earned him no sympathy in the British or South African press. But if ever he needed it, it is now. Last week, Equatorial Guinea said it would seek an international arrest warrant so that he could face trial - and, on conviction, a stay in Black Beach Prison.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 5 September
Govt drive against graft losing steam
By Foster Dongozi
When the government launched its much-publicised crackdown on corruption towards the end of 2003, Zimbabweans dismissed the initiative as a stunt designed to win votes ahead of the March 2005 parliamentary election. Cynics suggested the stunt was designed to settle personal scores with business people and bankers who had crossed the paths of the Zanu PF top leadership. Nine months down the line, the scepticism appears to have been vindicated. The so-called anti-corruption drive appears to have lost both direction and momentum. Most of the suspects who were being investigated have now been cleared of the charges or were conveniently out of the country when the investigations started, raising questions about the authenticity of the crackdown on corruption, spearhead by the Anti-Corruption ministry. Police spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena vehemently denied that they were being used as pawns in a war to settle personal scores. "That is a very crude allegation to make. But then in a country such as ours, people are free to air their opinions. We as the police don't have a role to play in political issues but should politicians commit crimes then naturally we will investigate them," Bvudzijena said. Asked why most suspects were outside the country when investigations were launched, thus allowing some of them to abscond, Bvudzijena said: "That might be true, but we don't determine when people can give us leads or information on corrupt activities."
The head of Intermarket Building Society, Nicholas Vingirai, and the founder of Barbican Bank, Mthuli Ncube, were outside the country when the investigation was launched, while the remaining NMB directors found their way out of the country when investigations started. Chinhoyi Member of Parliament, Philip Chiyangwa, who was facing charges of contempt of court, perjury and attempting to obstruct the course of justice was acquitted on August 26. The magistrate said the State had failed to establish a case against him. In acquitting Chiyangwa, Harare provincial magistrate, Judith Tsamba said: "It appears that initially, there was a reasonable suspicion linking the accused (Chiyangwa) to the offences. However, in view of the evidence on record, it is surprising that this case was brought to trial." He had been linked to operations of the collapsed asset management company, ENG, after some of the company's vehicles were found on his property. Four days later, Zanu PF supporter and aspiring Kadoma East Member of Parliament, Bright Matonga, had charges he was facing under the Prevention of Corruption dropped. Matonga, the Zimbabwe United Passenger Company (Zupco) chief executive officer, was arrested in March on corruption charges involving $1,25 billion. Prosecutor, Venrandah Munyoro told the court that the Attorney General's Office had decided to drop the charges because it wanted to research on certain evidence.
After being arrested in a blaze of publicity early this year, Harare businesswoman and Zanu PF supporter, Jane Mutasa, was fined $8,5 million for illegally dealing in foreign currency. The anti-corruption crusade also netted ENG directors, Nyasha Watyoka and Gilbert Muponda. Muponda was granted bail and skipped the country, reportedly headed for the USA. Ever suspicious, Zimbabweans suggested his connections to powerful people in the ruling Zanu PF could have facilitated his way to freedom. But while the anti-corruption drive steam appears to be fizzling out, the spotlight will remain trained on Finance Minister Christopher Kuruneri, and Zanu PF central committee member, James Makamba. Kuruneri faces charges of allegedly externalising funds, while Makamba faces charges of illegally dealing in foreign currency. Pastor Goodwill Shana, the chairperson of Transparency International Zimbabwe, said the haphazard nature of the anti-corruption crusade made it open to abuse and different interpretations. "The anti-corruption drive has been very selective and haphazard in addressing issues of corruption. There is need to be more serious and vigorous because it looks like the anti-corruption measures are implemented when it is convenient. We could start, for example, with all people in leadership positions declaring their assets and this would avoid problems such as multiple ownership of farms."
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From SAPA, 4 September
Namibia and Zim state newspapers join forces
Harare - Two state-run press groups in Namibia and Zimbabwe have teamed up to launch a new weekly regional paper for southern Africa, state media reported on Saturday. The Southern Times was launched late on Friday at Zimbabwe's premier north-western resort town of Victoria Falls, state radio and the daily Herald said. Publishers say they anticipate a readership of 340 million people for the Sunday paper, but did not specify when the first issue will roll off the presses. The paper will have its editorial offices in the Namibian capital Windhoek, with the assistant editor of Zimbabwe's state-run Herald, Moses Magadza, heading the weekly as editor. "For many years the African story has been told to the world by those who only yesterday sought to undermine and plunder the continent and despised everything that was Africa," Herbert Nkala, chairperson of Zimabwe's state publisher, Zimpapers told guests at the ceremony. He said former colonialists distort facts on Africa. "Colonial media institutions can never be and should never be relied upon to report factually about Africa," he said. "Reading about Africa in the Western media, one only reads about scorched earth, hopelessness, despair, hunger and disease," Nkala said. The launch ceremony was attended by the two country's information ministers Jonathan Moyo of Zimbabwe and Nangolo Mbumba of Namibia, as well as business executives, journalists and diplomats from the region.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 5 September
Pro-Zimbabwe paper launched
A newspaper aimed at countering stories which reflect badly on the Zimbabwean government was launched on Friday. The paper - the brainchild of Zimbabwe and Namibia's departments of information - will be called The Southern Times after a plan to name it The New Sunday Times was scuppered. Zimbabwe newspaper The Herald reported that Zimbabwe's Information Minister Jonathan Moyo and his Namibian counterpart, Nangolo Mbumba, attended the launch in Victoria Falls. South Africa's two neighbours had intended calling the newspaper The New Sunday Times, but backtracked after intervention by lawyers acting for the Sunday Times. New Era and Zimpapers jointly own The Southern Times through a company called NamZim Newspapers. While observers say The Southern Times's brief will be to counter anti-Zimbabwe publicity, that country's government is adamant the newspaper "will tell the stories of the two countries from an informed viewpoint". It was not clear when the first issue would appear.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 5 September
NGOs to march on Harare
Zimbabwe's National Association of NGOs (Nango) is expected to march on Tuesday against the proposed Non-Government Organisations (NGO) Bill which seeks to ban charity groups from operating in Zimbabwe. At least 150 Nango representatives met in Harare this week to finalise plans for the demonstration. The Zimbabwe government has said it wants to stop "foreign donors employing local puppets or fronts to champion foreign values, much to the detriment of national security". NGO leaders also met United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative Victor Angelo to discuss the potential impact of the Bill on humanitarian and development projects. The UNDP co-ordinates donor aid in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe government early this year appealed for US95-million in humanitarian assistance. At least five million Zimbabweans rely on donor aid for food. Nango, which represents about 300 organisations, also met with Social Welfare Minister Paul Mangwana over the same issue last week. However, it seems unlikely that the government will back down. Should the Bill be passed, it would also violate the 2000 Memorandum of Understanding between the Southern African Development Community Council of Non-Governmental Organisation and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). President Robert Mugabe told parliament last month that government would not allow NGOs "to be conduits of foreign interference in national affairs".
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 5 September
President's farm neglected: workers
By Foster Dongozi
Farm workers at Bineth Farm, outside Kadoma, owned by Malawian President, Bingu wa Mutharika say poor housing at the farm - dilapidated pole and mud structures - poses a health hazard. The workers, who spoke on condition of anonymity also called on the Malawian President to ensure that electricity was installed at the compound. "In addition, not all the 22 workers at the farm have been paid their August wages and this is very demoralising, but we hope that since Mr Wa Mutharika is now a Head of State, our conditions of service will improve," said one farm worker. A spokesperson for the farm, only identified as Mai Nyoni, who is an in-law to President Wa Mutharika, was not available for comment. Wa Mutharika reportedly bought the farm in 1994 and named it Bineth. Bin, is taken from his name, Bingu and eth from the name of his Zimbabwean wife, Ethel, said to hail from Murehwa, according to some farm workers. The Malawian leader was in the country to open the 94th edition of the Harare Agricultural Show nine days ago. On the same night, Newsnet reported that Wa Mutharika had extended his stay in Zimbabwe to attend the burial of national hero, Dr Eddison Zvobgo last Sunday. It, however, did not mention that, in addition to attending Zvobgo's burial, the Malawian Head of State intended to take time out to visit his dairy farm just outside Kadoma, on the Gokwe-Sanyati Road.
The Standard established that after opening the Harare Agricultural Show, the Malawian leader, in a State motorcade, drove towards the gold-mining city of Kadoma, where he was booked into Executive Suite of Kadoma Hotel and Conference Centre whose buildings are owned by the Zvobgo family. "The Executive Suite costs $800 000 a night and the Malawian Embassy paid for their president's stay at the hotel," said an employee at the KHCC hotel. Security at the hotel on the night was very tight. The security details were reportedly courteous to hotel guests. "On Saturday morning, Wa Mutharika and his delegation which included the Malawian First Lady, Ethel wa Mutharika checked out of the hotel and their motorcade drove towards the farm on the Gokwe-Sanyati road," a source at the hotel told The Standard. Workers at the farm confirmed that the Malawian President visited the farm last Saturday morning. "A beast was slaughtered for people of Malawian origin from Patchway Mine and other surrounding areas who came to meet Wa Mutharika," another farm worker told The Standard. The farm worker said the hill next to the farm and surrounding areas were teeming with armed soldiers and policemen during the visit. When The Standard drove along the Harare-Kadoma Highway on Saturday, members of the Police Support Unit were heavily deployed along the route to guard the Malawian leader, who returned to Harare towards sunset. Wa Mutharika was said by his workers to have 35 dairy cows, 40 head of beef cattle and several goats. The Malawi president also runs a small vegetable garden. Sam Banda, an official at the Malawian Embassy, confirmed on Friday that the President visited the farm last week but could not comment further.
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From The Sunday Telegraph (UK), 5 September
Mann: 'Sir Mark had no idea of coup plot'
By Jane Flanagan in Johannesburg
Sir Mark Thatcher "knew nothing" of any alleged plot to overthrow the President of Equatorial Guinea, his friend Simon Mann has said in his first communication with the outside world since he pleaded guilty to weapons charges in Zimbabwe. Mann, who is in prison awaiting sentence this week for attempting to buy weapons illegally, has told friends he was certain Sir Mark would be cleared of allegations that he helped bankroll an attempted coup in the oil-rich African state. The former SAS officer - who denies knowledge of or involvement in an attempted coup - said he had been "extremely upset" to hear of Sir Mark's arrest 11 days ago and was convinced his friend would never knowingly have become involved in such a plot. Sir Mark's name became linked to the ill-fated mission to topple President Teodoro Obiang Nguema in the "Scratcher and Smelly" letter - written by Mann from Harare's notorious Chikurubi prison - which was leaked to the press. Now Mann has told friends: "Mark and I were neighbours in Cape Town and I can't imagine for a moment that he would ever find himself caught up in a business like that. There was nothing that came out of our many discussions that suggested it even for a moment." Mann, 51, is said to be distressed that his own arrest and subsequent letter in which he appealed for financial help for himself and his co-accused, has invited trouble for his friends, including Sir Mark and David Hart, a one-time adviser to Baroness Thatcher.
Mr Hart, a well-connected "trouble-shooter" and trusted family friend, has been offering assistance to Mann's second wife, Amanda, in recent weeks. She is due to give birth to Mann's seventh child in 10 days' time. Mann's arrest was linked by authorities in Equatorial Guinea to a planned coup attempt in that country, one of Africa's richest and most repressive regimes. He was seized by Zimbabwean police as he met a plane carrying dozens of men, which landed in Harare to collect weapons. Mann maintains that he and the 69 men on board had been hired to carry out security work at a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. A second group of men were arrested in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea's island capital, at about the same time. Authorities in the tiny West African state have implicated Mann and his men in a planned strike against President Obiang, who himself came to power in a coup. Nick Du Toit, who is on trial in Equatorial Guinea accused of leading the advance team of mercenaries, named Sir Mark as a backer of the coup in a statement which prompted his arrest. Sir Mark is involved in an air ambulance service called Triple A Aviation which signed a contract to supply aircraft and aviation services to Logo Logistics, a firm owned by Mann. He has insisted to South African authorities that this meant only the supply of an air ambulance.
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From The Independent on Sunday (UK), 5 September
We guarantee we won't apply death penalty - so let us extradite Thatcher
Equatorial Guinea demands handover of former PM's son
By Raymond Whitaker in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
Equatorial Guinea is willing to guarantee that it would not use the death penalty if it were allowed to extradite Sir Mark Thatcher and other British citizens it accuses of involvement in a coup plot, the country's Attorney-General, Jose Olo Obono, has told The Independent on Sunday. Sir Mark, freed from house arrest in Cape Town on Friday after his mother, Baroness Thatcher, put up £165,000 bail money, is being investigated under South Africa's Foreign Military Assistance Act for his alleged part in financing a botched coup against President Teodoro Obiang Nguema's regime in March. Equatorial Guinea officials are due to arrive in South Africa today, and may be allowed to question him, but the west African nation wants Sir Mark and other Britons, including Simon Mann, an ex-SAS officer facing sentence in Zimbabwe on arms charges, Greg Wales, a British businessman, and Ely Calil, a London-based oil trader accused of masterminding the plot, to face its own justice.
Sir Mark's alleged fellow conspirators have far more reason to fear a request for them to face charges there. Apart from President Obiang's dismal human rights record, British and South African law prevents extradition to countries that have capital punishment, and Mr Obono has demanded the death sentence for Nick du Toit, one of eight South Africans on trial in Malabo on charges of abetting the coup attempt. But in his tiled office in the capital's Spanish colonial-era presidential compound, the Attorney-General said: "South Africa would simply try them [the British residents] in connection with illegal arms trading. We accuse them of crimes against the life of our head of state, of compromising the peace and independence of our country. We have a better claim. If we give an undertaking to the British Government that they will not be executed, then Britain should be willing to extradite them here." He dismissed allegations that some of the accused in Malabo had been tortured, saying: "At this stage they will say anything to get sympathy. Their defence counsel are free to say what they want, but they have not raised the matter." Amnesty International says, however, that a German suspect who died soon after his arrest was tortured, and defence lawyers have complained of intimidation and lack of access to their clients. The trial was suspended for a month last week to allow fresh evidence about the abortive coup to emerge from proceedings abroad, and Mr Obono said it could be delayed further. But President Obiang left little doubt about the outcome when he said: "It is up to the court to decide what condemnation they will set."
Previous coup attempts against the President, who overthrew and executed his uncle in 1979, were small, domestic affairs. Few paid attention to events in Malabo, which, according to a whitewashed obelisk at the harbour, was originally named Santa Isabel in 1843 by its founder, the commander of the Spanish vessel Nervion. But Equatorial Guinea has become sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest oil exporter since offshore fields were discovered in the mid-1990s, raising the stakes. International involvement in the latest plot, which collapsed when Zimbabwe intercepted a planeload of South African former special forces soldiers in March, has kept tensions high in Malabo. A large number of foreigners were expelled from the country immediately afterwards, and those remaining are treated with suspicion and hostility. A force of Moroccan bodyguards surrounds President Obiang wherever he goes, but there are rumours that his health is failing, and that another coup attempt may not be long delayed. According to a High Court action in London launched by Equatorial Guinea, the aim of the plotters was to replace the president with Severo Moto, an opposition politician exiled in Spain. Mr Obiang's government has accused the former Spanish government of Jose Maria Aznar of complicity, and according to Mr Obono, Britain and the US were "fully aware" of the intended coup. "We received warnings from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Angola, but nothing from Britain or America," he said. "There are indications that they, like Spain, were prepared to recognise a Severo Moto government."
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From The Cape Argus (SA), 5 September
SA police 'as cruel as Mugabe's militia'
Basildon Peta
Young Memory Moyo witnessed the horror of her village being burnt and destroyed by President Robert Mugabe's notorious youth militias. She witnessed her young friends being raped and tortured by the youths known as Green Bombers. She decided to flee Zimbabwe after fighting off several attempts to rape her. She says she never expected a life of milk and honey on coming to Johannesburg. After home affairs authorities issued her with an Asylum Seeker's Temporary Permit which allows her to stay and work in South Africa, she had hoped the income earned from plaiting women's hair would allow her the basics of survival. But now the 19-year-old Moyo says her life in Johannesburg has become "hell on earth" thanks to the South Africa Police Service (SAPS). "We (Zimbabwean refugees) seem to have become a lucrative industry for the SA police," said an angry Moyo shortly after her recent release from the Lindela refugee holding centre near Johannesburg. They (SA police) are just as cruel as Mugabe's notorious militia. They arrest us and demand bribes or sexual favours in exchange for not being deported."
Moyo has been arrested several times even though she holds the temporary asylum permit, the most recent arrest was following yet another police swoop on illegal immigrants in and around Hillbrow. She claims police officers tore up her permit and loaded her into the back of a police truck bound for Lindela, where arrested immigrants are held pending deportation. She was told she could avoid deportation if she had sex with each of the four police officers and paid a R400 bribe. "I refused both options and they offloaded me at Lindela and urged my deportation. They did not even mention that they had torn up my temporary refugee permit and I was not an illegal immigrant." She was held for four days and her deportation papers were ready when a sympathetic immigration official finally listened to her story. Her name was checked against the department's computer files which confirmed that she had been granted the temporary asylum permit. She was released.
Several Zimbabwean political refugees who have been returned to Zimbabwe have allegedly disappeared after being accused of "treachery". Despite the risks Moyo says she has decided to go public with her story to expose "the sadistic" ways of the South African police with desperate young Zimbabwean girls. She says many of her friends who have fled to Johannesburg have become "unofficial wives" of policemen here. She claims they are arrested, driven to dark areas where they are forced to have sex with several officers at a time to avoid deportation. While some have legitimate refugee permits, many others don't and the wait to get them is often a long one. "The police don't differentiate between who holds an official permit and who does not. They harass everyone," says Moyo. "While it is their legitimate duty to fish out and deport illegal immigrants, it's high time they were stopped from abusing their powers and victimising hapless girls and women. They (the police) say it's them who have the power to decide who should live in South Africa and who should not and don't care about Home Affairs permits," says Moyo. In the end, it's either you pay them or submit to sex or both. This has become a nightmare world for us," says Memory.
Another victim, Valentine Mpofu says she offered the police her cellphone in exchange for her freedom when they arrested her over a week ago. She did not have the bribery money and also resisted sex. "They refused the cellphone saying it would give them more work in trying to find a buyer. So they took me to Lindela for deportation," she says. "They had also asked me if I was a virgin or not, saying they preferred to sleep with refugees who were virgins. I told them I wasn't and resisted their advances. Luckily I was not raped." At Lindela, Mpofu, 21, was also lucky to find a sympathetic immigration official who checked her name against official records and found her to be a legitimate refugee. She gave her a permit to go back to Rosettenville or Pretoria to replace the temporary asylum seeker's permit destroyed by the police. It's not always easy to find sympathetic immigration officials at Lindela says Mayibongwi Nkosi, 22, another Zimbabwean. "Most (immigration officials) don't listen to the cries of refugees and will simply process papers and deport you," says Nkosi.
Nkosi says the refugees deported back to Zimbabwe are accused of betraying Mugabe while in South Africa. They are taken to militia torture camps where many are raped and some are killed. "While we are here, it's difficult to maintain regular contact with home because we don't have resources. So our families think we are safe here," she says. Nkosi said the third time she was arrested, she was one among 20 other people. By the time they reached Lindela, only nine remained; the others had paid bribes to the officers and were dropped along the way. The Zimbabwean interviewees claimed a lot of abuses also took place on the train transporting deportees to the Zimbabwe border. They said women and girls are sexually abused in one of the coaches in the train reserved for staff. The situation was even worse for Zimbabwean men who were accused of being "thieves who are killing South African policemen and committing robberies." Apart from paying bribes, the men often endure heavy beatings and abuse.
Two young Zimbabwean male refugees who did not want to be named said the police often told them that Zimbabwe was not at war and that they should go back. "We tell them that what's happening in Zimbabwe amounts to war. They hardly listen," said one of the men. He said he saw no point in SA authorities issuing temporary asylum permits if the police trashed them. Only 12 Zimbabweans have reportedly been given full asylum despite hundreds of thousands of applications. An estimated three million Zimbabweans are now living either legally or illegally in South Africa. What all these refugees now want is for President Thabo Mbeki to institute an inquiry into the abuse of refugees and temporary asylum seekers by SA authorities including probing the "inhospitable and horrible" conditions at Lindela where they say inmates are fed at most one or no meals per day. They say they did not flee to South Africa out of choice but because of political hardships which South Africans should understand. They said the behaviour of SA authorities flies in the face of international conventions for refugees.
Lungelo Dlamini, the spokesperson for the SAPS in Gauteng, said the police had dealt with cases of alleged corruption involving the police and immigrants but emphasised that there was little the SAPS could do unless the victims came forward to report their grievances and backed them with evidence. He said if they were afraid to report to the police stations in person but felt they had compelling evidence, the victims could write letters to the Commissioner of Police detailing their cases or to station commanders at various police stations and these would receive due attention. "We do have complaints of police corruption and we deal with them from time to time. Although the complaints are of a general nature, we have indeed received corruption complaints relating to police and illegal immigrants," said Dlamini. He said the SAPS would prosecute officers caught soliciting bribes or abusing immigrants if the allegations were backed with evidence. Dlamini also encouraged refugees to report any forms of abuse to their respective embassies in Pretoria, an option that seems totally out for Zimbabwean political refugees here.
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From Zim Online (SA), 6 September
Non-Governmental Organisations street protests put on hold
Harare - Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) will tomorrow submit their objections to a proposed new law to govern NGOs in the country to Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare. The committee will bring civic society's objections before the House when it debates the draft NGO Bill that civic activists say will virtually force 90 percent of NGOs in the country to shut down. Nationwide street demonstrations to protest against the Bill that had been penciled in for tomorrow will now be put on hold while NGOs attempt to lobby Parliament. Crisis Coalition of Zimbabwe chairman Brian Kagoro told ZimOnline: "Members of the National Association of NGOs agreed in Harare to make their submissions known to the Parliamentary committee. "There would be no demonstrations but all civic society would gather and make submissions." Executive director of the NGOs' association Jonah Mudehwe said: "We have been requested by NGOs to make use of the opportunities that are being created by Parliament for engagement. We are rigorously pursuing negotiations for now and not demonstrations."
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From Business Day (SA), 6 September
MDC resignations plunge capital city into crisis
Harare Corresondent
Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, has been crippled by the en masse resignation of opposition councillors after their recent decision to resign in protest against political interference in their duties by the government. Harare was plunged into chaos two weeks ago after the withdrawal of the |
