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Archived News
9th March 2004
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US targets ZANU-PF properties
US widens its sanctions against Zimbabwe
Treasury designates seven entities as Specially Designated Nationals of Zimbabwe
Mbeki is still Zimbabwe point man, says top US Africa official
Clerical task team to kick-start talks
Nkala murder case: State evidence ruled inadmissible
Daily News challenges press laws
Police seek Zimbabwean bankers in forex case
Doctors backtrack on cash upfront demand
US linked to bizarre Zimbabwe claim
Australia expands Zimbabwe bans
Take action against unpatriotic politicians
Daily News launches new legal challenge
Six forced confessions thrown out
Registration is repugnant
Moyo's powers unreasonable, lawyer concedes
Zanu PF scrambles to win approval
Chiyangwa’s bail conditions relaxed
A day in the life of the camp
Makamba ousted from Telecel
Camps 'decolonise' Zim youth
The relentless march of the military men
Fresh row over chefs’ hunting safari leases
Only 2% land given to ex-farm workers
Ailing judge defies Mugabe
Impose sanctions on Mugabe: Zimbabwe cleric
Gono's appeal shot down
'Black Moses' morally revulsed' by homosexuality
Mugabe's men fight over farms and hunting rights
'My life is in danger' - Gono
Zanu PF sets up youth camps to spearhead violence in Zengeza
Zim suspect nabbed in raid
Court declares 73 Manicaland soldiers dead in the DRC
Harare bids to woo back tobacco farmers
Zengeza militia attack
Ncube asks churches to act against Mugabe
Nkala judgement
SA-owned plane 'with mercenaries, weapons' held in Zim
'Mercenaries on US aircraft are held in Harare'
Zim plane mystery continues
Mugabe's foes 'face constant attacks'
New urgency for Mbeki in Zim
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From IOL (SA), 3 March
US widens its sanctions against Zimbabwe
Washington - The United States on Tuesday said it was widening an existing sanctions regime against Zimbabwe to include seven government-related businesses. The enhanced US sanctions ban any transactions with the seven black-listed groups. The US state department said the sanctions will apply to commercial farms "seized" by Zimbabwe Information Minister Jonathan Moyo; Zimbabwe Defence Industries, a state-owned arms maker and M&S Syndicate, a holding group owned by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. Also targeted are two companies "representing the interests" of retired Zimbabwe Defence Forces General Vitalis Zvinavashe, the state department said in a statement. "Should Zimbabwe's rulers continue to oppress its citizens and to resist forthright efforts toward resolving the country's political crisis, we are prepared to impose additional targeted financial and travel sanctions on those undermining democracy in Zimbabwe," the state department said. A high profile state department human rights report, released here in February, said Zimbabwe's government continued to oversee "a concerted campaign of violence, repression and intimidation." "Torture by various methods is used against political opponents and human rights advocates," the report added.
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From The US Treasury, 2 March
Treasury designates seven entities as Specially Designated Nationals of Zimbabwe
The Department of the Treasury today announced the designation of seven Zimbabwean entities, three commercial farms and four businesses, as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) of Zimbabwe. "Today's action illustrates the Bush Administration's commitment to condemn those who threaten the democratic process and institutions in Zimbabwe by isolating and exposing them and the entities they own and control," said Juan Zarate, the U.S. Treasury Department's Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Executive Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes. The farms, owned by Jonathan Moyo, Minister of Information of Zimbabwe, are among those that were passed on to favored members of the Mugabe regime following his chaotic land redistribution scheme. The four other businesses designated today include:
M & S Syndicate (Pvt) Ltd., an influential Zimbabwean holding company owned by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). M&S Syndicate (Pvt) Ltd. is controlled by SDN Emmerson Mnangagwa, Parliamentary Speaker of Zimbabwe, and four other prohibited officials;
Zimbabwe Defence Industries (Pvt) Ltd., a government-owned manufacturer and distributor of arms, ammunition and other military-related items;
Swift Investments (Pvt) Ltd., which operates miscellaneous retail stores; and
Zvinavashe Investments (Pvt) Ltd., which manufactures transportation equipment.
Zimbabwe Defence, Swift Investments and Zvinavashe are controlled by the retired Zimbabwe Defense Forces General, Vitalis Zvinavashe.
Each of the seven entities is controlled by one or more key members of the Mugabe regime that were named as prohibited persons in the Annex to Executive Order 13288. This Order imposes economic sanctions on persons who undermine democratic processes and institutions in Zimbabwe. The President of Zimbabwe, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, and 76 other Zimbabwean government officials and persons of influence are included in the Annex. Executive Order 13288 provides for the blocking of properties within U.S. jurisdiction or the possession or control of U.S. persons in which the SDNs have an interest. Blocked properties are denied access to the U.S. financial system. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) worked in close consultation with the U.S. State Department in the designation of these seven entities. Treasury will continue working closely with the State Department in implementation of Executive Order 13288 to disrupt the efforts of those who disregard democracy. Doing business with an SDN of Zimbabwe may carry criminal penalties of up to $500,000, twice the monetary gain or loss per violation for an organization. Individual criminal penalties may be up to $250,000 or twice the monetary gain or loss per violation. Individuals may also face imprisonment for up to ten years for a criminal violation. In addition, civil penalties of up to $11,000 per violation may be imposed administratively.
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From Business Day (SA), 3 March
Mbeki is still Zimbabwe point man, says top US Africa official
'The jury is out as to whether SA has done enough to help resolve the crisis - we are not getting a sense of progress'
International Affairs Editor
The US is impatient to see a settlement in Zimbabwe, but for the moment it still considers President Thabo Mbeki the "point man" on negotiations, says the most senior US state department official on Africa. Charles Snyder, acting assistant secretary of state for African affairs, said: "The jury is out as to whether SA has done enough to help resolve the crisis." Snyder was in SA earlier this week to speak with US diplomats. The problem "is we are not getting a sense of progress", on bringing about a settlement in Zimbabwe, Snyder said. He said the US had not imposed a deadline on SA achieving a settlement, "but there is a clear sense of urgency because people are dying". When President George Bush said on his visit to SA last year he considered Mbeki the "point man" on Zimbabwe there was no deadline set for a settlement, and there was none now, Snyder said. The crisis, he said, must ultimately be resolved by Zimbabweans and countries in the region. "Our option is to reach out more broadly as this is a process that needs many heads," he said. "We believe that the Africans will push Zimbabwe to closure."
Zimbabwe, he said, had become a problem for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), and had come at a crucial time for the initiative. Nepad, he said, was not dissimilar in its basics from the US' Millennium Challenge Account, a Bush administration initiative to support African countries in their reform efforts. But Snyder said the sequencing was different with Nepad asking for money ahead of promised reforms. Snyder said the US wanted to be shown reform efforts were under way prior to supporting them. The signs are that with no settlement in Zimbabwe and Nepad in its early stages, that Africa will not be a high-profile issue at the Group of Eight (G-8) Summit that the US will host this year. "There are crises elsewhere in the world," said Snyder. But he did expect the G-8 would discuss UK Prime Minister Tony Blair's recently appointed commission looking into Africa's problems.
Despite the pressure of the US budget deficit, Snyder said that the US congress would if it was convinced of progress in Africa approve the Bush administration's request for an increase in aid under the Millennium Challenge Account as well as the programme to combat to HIV/AIDS. With the US election in November, Snyder said it was difficult to predict whether the US congress would renew the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, which gives tariff- and quota-free access to African countries for certain goods with US or local input , in the next few months. But he said the need for a longer extension of the act was something on which there was likely to be broad agreement between Democrats and Republicans. Snyder said the US effort to assist African countries on fighting terrorism through intelligence- sharing and other measures such as improved airport, customs, and border controls, "is not a one-off short campaign". He said the US was "well satisfied" with the South African "reaction and willingness" to cooperate in fighting terrorism.
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From IRIN (UN), 2 March
Clerical task team to kick-start talks
Johannesburg - South African and Zimbabwean church leaders on Tuesday said they would play a more active role in trying to defuse tensions between Zimbabwe's political leaders in the run-up to next year's parliamentary elections. On Monday seven prominent clergy from both countries formed a task team aimed at encouraging talks between the ruling Zanu PF and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). "We are particularly concerned about the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans, and we will pool our resources together to assist those who are in need. But we also realise that unless the political crisis is resolved, much of our efforts will, in the long term, be ineffective," secretary general of the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference, Father Richard Menatsi, told IRIN. He acknowledged current efforts to get both parties back to the negotiating table. "We hope to assist those who are already working towards a solution to the Zimbabwean crisis, so there is no intention, at the moment, to repeat much of the efforts that are already underway."
Since talks between President Robert Mugabe's government and the MDC broke down in April 2002, there have been several attempts by the diplomatic community and the church to re-start them. In July last year Zimbabwe clergymen met with both the MDC and Zanu PF in a bid to resolve the political impasse. To date, the parties have yet to resume a formal dialogue. But Trevor Manhanga, the head of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe told IRIN: "There has been some progress since our meeting. Both sides have presented us with some of their concerns and now we can work towards finding common ground." According to Manhanga, the government had raised concerns over a court challenge to Mugabe's presidential victory in 2002 and the perceived British influence over the MDC. The opposition had called for electoral reform and the scrapping of legislation that undermined a free and fair poll.
Menatsi said the current concern of the churches was the ongoing political instability as the country started preparing for parliamentary elections in 2005. Menatsi warned: "It is clear that the upcoming parliamentary elections will not be free and fair as long as the situation is unstable - it doesn't matter who wins the election, because everybody loses in an unstable environment." "We are aware that the army and police are very powerful in Zimbabwe - one of the urgent issues right now is trying to get some assurance that the police and army would remain neutral during the elections," he added. Last month the South African Council of Churches (SACC) wrote an urgent letter to South African President Thabo Mbeki, requesting that a delegation be sent to Harare to help resuscitate talks with the MDC. The SACC called on Mbeki to clarify whether Mugabe was indeed committed to talks with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, after Mbeki had publicly stated he had been personally told by Mugabe that preparations for talks were underway. However, the MDC subsequently denied having had any contact with Zanu PF.
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From The Herald, 3 March
Nkala murder case: State evidence ruled inadmissible
Court Reporter
The warned and cautioned statements by three MDC activists accused of kidnapping and murdering war veterans’ leader Cde Cain Nkala cannot be admitted as evidence, the High Court ruled yesterday. Handing down judgment in the "trial-within-a trial" in the murder case, Justice Sandra Mungwira also rejected the video recording in which Remember Moyo, Khethani Sibanda and Sazini Mpofu were making indications from the police to where Cde Nkala’ s body was found. The ruling comes after the three had challenged the validity of their statements. They said they confessed to kidnapping and murdering Cde Nkala under duress. "As a result, the warned and cautioned indications, statements and video recording sought to be produced by the State against each of the accused are ruled to be inadmissible," she said. The court held a "trial-within-a trial" seeking to establish whether the police had forced Moyo, Sibanda and Mpofu to make the confessions. In their evidence, police said the three confessed to the murder of the war veterans’ leader without any undue influence.
In her ruling, Justice Mungwira found that the police officers’ accounts on the manner in which the suspects were handled, were fraught with inconsistencies. She said the State witnesses made a poor showing as their testimonies lacked coherence. Under the circumstances, the judge said, it would be foolhardy to conclude from the facts presented that the State had proved its case. "The witnesses conducted themselves in a shameless fashion and displayed utter contempt for the due administration of justice to the extent that they were prepared to indulge in what can only be described as works of fiction as is especially illustrated by the state of (the) investigations diary." The judge also found that the fears expressed by the defence during the proceedings, although at times exaggerated, were reasonable. The three are jointly charged with MDC legislator Fletcher Dulini-Ncube, Nicholas Masera and Army Zulu. They all deny the charges, claiming political persecution. Cde Nkala was kidnapped and murdered in November 2001 as campaigning for 2002 presidential election heated up. His decomposing body was found buried in a shallow grave at Norwood Farm near Solusi University outside Bulawayo. The date for the continuation of trial is still to be announced. Advocates Happias Zhou, Edith Mushore, Erik Morris and Deepak Mehta are representing the six MDC activists in the case, instructed by Bulawayo based lawyers Mr Nicholas Mathonsi and Mr Josephat Tshuma. Mr Neville Wamambo and Mr Charles Kandemiri are appearing for the State.
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From The Star (SA), 3 March
Daily News challenges press laws
Harare - Zimbabwe's Daily News is challenging the country's tough media laws before the Constitutional Court. Mordecai Mahlangu, lawyer for the paper, yesterday said the Daily News was due to "ask for leave to be heard on the constitutional challenge" today. The challenge comes six months after the Supreme Court accused the Daily News of operating illegally by not being registered with a state-appointed media commission as required under press laws. The paper had gone to the Supreme Court last year to argue that the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, passed by President Robert Mugabe shortly after his controversial re-election in March 2002, was unconstitutional. But the court accused the paper of approaching it with "dirty hands", and on September 12, police forcibly shut down the newspaper. When the Daily News tried to register with the Media and Information Commission, its application was turned down. That marked the beginning of a marathon legal battle between the paper and the media commission.
The Daily News successfully challenged the commission's refusal to register it in the Administrative Court, but the commission immediately appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court was due to hear the commission's appeals against the court rulings made in favour of the daily. Meanwhile, Mahlangu said the Daily News had now done "everything to comply with the law" and expected to have its constitutional challenge heard. The lawyer said the Daily News intended to challenge the legal requirement for media houses to be registered with the commission. The Daily News is the only independent alternative to the two state-run daily newspapers - The Herald and The Chronicle. Its million or so readers have seen the paper for only short periods since its forced closure in September last year after various courts ordered that it be allowed to publish again. The Daily News stopped publishing last month after the Supreme Court upheld a section of the press legislation requiring journalists to register with the commission. None of its journalists are registered.
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From Business Day (SA), 2 March
Police seek Zimbabwean bankers in forex case
Harare Correspondent
Four leading Zimbabwean bankers accused of illegally moving Z$30bn offshore were still on the run yesterday, police said. Police were looking for NMB Bank MD Julius Makoni, deputy MD James Mushowe, financial director Otto Chekeche and executive director Francis Zimuto in connection with externalising funds in alleged breach of the Exchange Control Act. Makoni was said to have escaped to London, while the others could still be in the country. Mushowe may be in SA. The four bankers ran NMB Holdings, which is listed on the Zimbabwe and London bourses, and owns NMB Bank. They allegedly siphoned off foreign currency through LTB Money Transfers. About £3m and $2m was allegedly transferred. Last year the government withdrew NMB Bank's foreign currency licence, accusing it of black market trading . The licence was recently returned to the bank, which has 10 large institutional investors. The government recently launched a campaign to fight corruption, which is widely seen as a vote-catching gimmick. A few politicians from the ruling Zanu PF and several businessmen have been arrested.
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From IRIN (UN), 2 March
Doctors backtrack on cash upfront demand
Bulawayo - Zimbabwe's private doctors this week stopped demanding cash payments for services and reverted to accepting valid medical aid cards, easing the difficulties of patients struggling to afford medical attention. Private doctors had been demanding cash upfront since January, citing long delays in the processing of claims by the National Association of Medical Aid Societies (NAMAS). They also hiked their consultation fees from an average of Z$26,500 per visit to Z$46,500. Dr Billy Rigava, president of the Zimbabwe Medical Association (ZIMA), said members would now comply with an amendment to the Medical Services Act introduced by the government last week, which effectively made it a crime for any doctor to refuse services to holders of valid medical aid cards. The amendment also sought to address the doctors' complaints about delays in payment by compelling medical aid societies to pay doctors within 30 days of receiving their claims for services rendered. "We are law-abiding professionals and our role is not to make laws but to abide by them. So, with effect from [1 March], all doctors under our association shall accept medical aid cards," Rigava announced on Friday.
He said one of ZIMA's conditions for reverting to the acceptance of medical aid cards was that patients requiring a general consultation at a rate of Z$46,500 would make a cash payment of Z$14,500 as "co-payment", which he defined as the difference between ZIMA's own consultation fees and that of NAMAS. While ZIMA increased its consultation fees by 400 percent in November, NAMAS opted for a 360 percent rise. Doctors insist on demanding the non-refundable co-payment to make up the difference in the fee structures. "Part of the impasse between us and NAMAS was that they wanted to impose a fee structure on us - but these are the same medical aid societies that have been taking as much as three years to pay doctors for services rendered to their members. We felt this posed a serious threat to our viability," said Rigava. With ZIMA and NAMAS unable to settle their differences, the government had threatened to intervene and gazette the fees in the interests of the public.
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From Business Day (SA), 4 March
US linked to bizarre Zimbabwe claim
Harare - The United States was trying to remove Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe from power with millions of condoms as weapons, state radio in that country said. It said President George Bush's regime was behind the "rebranding" of prophylactics that carry a bright red and yellow sticker advertising "revolutionary condoms" and a message urging Zimbabweans to "get up, stand up!" A bulletin said condoms carrying a sticker with "an oppositional political message" were being distributed throughout Zimbabwe "in what appears to be collusion between opposition groups and a United States-based condom manufacturer". The radio said the appearance of the redecorated condom packets was "not surprising, since the United States government has made it clear it is working toward changing of the regime in Zimbabwe". It says the sticker also bears the name of an underground group of activists with the name and motto, "Enough!", and an appeal to Zimbabweans to stop tolerating abuse by Mugabe's government. The motto appears in graffiti, and is also the name of a news sheet secretly distributed. The words on the condom are from a composition by reggae legend Bob Marley who sang, "Get up, stand up, stand up for your rights, get up, stand up, don't give up the fight". He performed the song in front of Mugabe and thousands of ecstatic Zimbabweans at the country's independence celebrations in 1980. Recipients of the news sheet two weeks ago found the "revolutionary condom" inside. No comment could be obtained from the United States embassy, but an activist who asked not to be named said: "the Americans had nothing to do with it". He said "a few hundred" condoms had been bought, and locally printed stickers had been glued on before handing them out.
The bulletin linked the "revolutionary" condoms to Population Services International, a Washington-based non-profit organisation working for child and maternal health HIV prevention. PSI provides condoms for aid programmes in Zimbabwe, but by far the biggest provider is the United States Agency for International Development with a budget this year of US 8.5 million that will provide 89 million American-manufactured condoms to Zimbabwean couples. Condoms are estimated to be the cheapest commodity in Zimbabwe, selling for about two Zimbabwe dollars each, or a twentieth of a US cent. About 49 million of the USAid condoms are issued to the private sector for sale, and the rest go to health institutions for free distribution. Health officials say as a result of the USAid programme, condom use in Zimbabwe has risen to about 100 million a year, and proved to be a major factor in restricting the spread of HIV. "If the Americans had wanted to achieve regime change in Zimbabwe, they could have used something more forceful than condoms," said a Western diplomat. "They must have saved the lives of thousands of Zimbabweans. "It's a weird mind that sees the condom programme as a way of overthrowing Mugabe." Enough!, known in Shona as Zvakwana! and Sokwanele! in Ndebele, was formed around 2002, to galvanise opposition against Mugabe around the time he won presidential elections that were dismissed by independent international groups as the result of fraud and violent intimidation. When Mugabe celebrated his 80th birthday last month, Enough! circulated stamped postcards, with Mugabe's address and carrying a photograph of two frightened, sickly children. "There is no reason to celebrate your 80th birthday," it said on the back of the card. "HIV/Aids, poverty and hunger are robbing our children and our country of a future. Why don't you care?"
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From The Age (Australia), 4 March
Australia expands Zimbabwe bans
Senior managers of Zimbabwean state-owned enterprises will be banned from travelling to Australia under the latest expansion of so-called smart sanctions against the African nation. They will join government officials on the list of Zimbabweans facing visa restrictions for travel to Australia. Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the targeted sanctions were aimed at encouraging the Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe to address the human tragedy underway in the country, without the sanctions harming the strife-torn nation's people. "The policies and actions of the Mugabe regime are forcing Zimbabweans to endure economic meltdown and relentless attacks on democratic values and the rule of law," Mr Downer said in a statement. "I call on Robert Mugabe to take immediate steps to restore his country to democracy and the rule of law." Australia would continue to provide food aid to Zimbabwe, he said.
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Editorial from The Herald, 3 March
Take action against unpatriotic politicians
As the countdown to next year's general elections begins, the global onslaught against the ruling Zanu PF Government is being revived, with the international media and other organisations such as the European Union being primed for another go at removing President Mugabe and his party from power. The EU has already fired the warning shots with the continuation of sanctions against senior Zanu PF officials, which was followed up by opposition MDC pronouncements that it would boycott elections if there is no dialogue and the BBC's regurgitation of the same old falsehood that youths were being trained to kill for Zanu PF while others were being raped. The British government was euphoric last week when it got the support of the EU to continue with its sanctions regime even though there was no justifiable basis for these. Building up on this success, the Tony Blair government, which has heavily funded the BBC since the 2000 parliamentary elections to intensify its coverage on Zimbabwe, has unfortunately run out of ammunition and has resorted to regurgitating old stories that have absolutely no basis in truth. The BBC ran a weekend story alleging that the National Youth Service was being used to train young boys and girls to kill for the ruling Zanu PF Government to stay in power. To spice up the story and hopefully cause as much damage as possible, the television programme interviewed one girl who claimed to have been raped over several months and some training officer who allegedly confirmed that this was part of the training. The story was primed to be picked up by other newspapers and news agencies throughout the world that ran it with screaming headlines on the so-called Zanu PF torture camps.
While the story was making headlines, the British-funded MDC was in South Africa waxing lyrical about boycotting next year's elections if Zanu PF does not agree to hold talks with them. Everybody back home knows that the opposition party is deep in the middle of a campaign to contest the Zengeza by-election and that its own campaign has been fraught with violence against its own members for demanding democracy and transparency in the choosing of candidates. Of course, the international media will ignore reports of violence within the MDC or that it has not boycotted any elections as it clearly knows that the electoral landscape is even, making it possible for it to win the elections. The decision to make this announcement of boycotting the polls in South Africa clearly demonstrates that this is part of the revival of the international campaign to demonise not only the ruling Zanu PF Government but also the country in general. This is what creates the justification for Zimbabwe's imperial enemies to call for tougher sanctions against the country and for other neutral countries to develop hostile attitudes towards Zimbabwe. There should come a time to say enough is enough. Those who campaign against their own country should be made to pay for their callousness. We surely cannot have politicians who openly campaign for sanctions against their own country and enjoy the comforts of that same country at the same time without being made accountable for their misdeeds.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 3 March
Daily News launches new legal challenge
Ryan Truscott
Harare - Zimbabwe's Supreme Court on Wednesday began hearing a constitutional challenge brought by the country's main independent daily, a fierce critic of President Robert Mugabe, against tough media laws that were used to close down the newspaper last year. The Daily News was shut down by armed police in September for operating without registering with a government commission, a requirement under a law passed by Mugabe shortly after his re-election in March 2002. The Daily News had refused to register, arguing the law was unconstitutional. It mounted a challenge to the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act in the Supreme Court in September, but the court said the paper was operating illegally and should comply with the law before challenging it. A day later police forcibly shut down the paper. Various courts have since then ordered that the paper be allowed to publish again, but it has only sporadically appeared on newsstands. The last edition came out on February 5 this year.
Daily News lawyer Chris Andersen on Wednesday told the five judges sitting as a constitutional court that the paper has now "satisfied the provisions of the order made by this court". This referred to the fact that the Daily News has applied to the media commission for a licence, but the application was turned down. He said that sections of the media law, which has been condemned by rights groups here and abroad, contravene the Zimbabwean Constitution. These include the section allowing the government to seize property of a media house that breaks the law. Computers and other equipment seized by the police after the Daily News was closed down in September last year have still not been returned. Andersen argued that members of the Media and Information Commission (MIC) are appointed by the minister of information and could be suspended by him and therefore could not be "independent minds". In the case of the Daily News it amounted to being "subjected to discipline by a hostile minister", Andersen said.
The Daily News, founded in 1999, has been a thorn in the side of Mugabe's government because of its unrelenting criticism of the regime's policies. The government has in turn accused the paper of being a front for Western interests. Government lawyer Johannes Tomana defended the media law as "entirely reasonable in a democratic society". But two judges questioned the power of the minister to hire and fire members of the commission. "Is there justice in it?" asked Judge Luke Malaba. The Daily News had in October last year challenged the media commission's refusal to register it. The administrative court ordered the Daily News to be licensed and accused the state-controlled media commission of showing bias towards the paper and of being irregularly constituted and ordered it disbanded. The commission appealed to the Supreme Court against the ruling, and that appeal was also heard on Wednesday. Media commission lawyer Tomana told the Supreme Court that the administrative court had erred in ruling against the commission, which he said was properly constituted and had not shown any prejudice. The Daily News is the only independent alternative to Zimbabwe's two state-run dailies, The Herald and The Chronicle, and has about one million readers.
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From Associated Press, 4 March
Six forced confessions thrown out
Harare - A Zimbabwean court has rejected the alleged confessions of six opposition activists accused of killing an official of the government party, Zanu-PF, 28 months ago. Judge Sandra Mungwira said the police had assaulted the six and their relatives, deprived them of sleep and food, threatened them with guns, and denied them medical attention and access to lawyers. The men's lawyers said they would ask the state to withdraw the charges and free the men, who include a Movement for Democratic Change MP, Fletcher Dulini Ncube. State prosecutors said they reserved the right to call further witnesses. The six were arrested for killing Cain Nkala in November 2001 near Bulawayo. Nkala was strangled after being accused of kidnapping and killing an opposition election agent. Police submitted a video purporting to show the accused leading them to a shallow grave where Nkala's body was buried. The judge said the officer who filmed the scene arrived late, admitted that his recording was incomplete and testified that he forgot to switch on the time and duration indicator.
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Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 3 March
Registration is repugnant
Guy Berger
First was Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. "But what's wrong with registering journalists?" was the bottom line of her message. Then came Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Penuell Maduna. The gist of his theme: "Why assume that registration of the media is necessarily bad?" Their mantra has been making many media people angry, because it whitewashes Zimbabwe's repression of the press via registration. It's easy to counter the ministers' flighting of supposedly innocent, almost academic, posers. The facts are straightforward. Through registration, the regime of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has raped its country's media and robbed its people of their right to information. Harare's Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (Aippa) decrees that both media and journalists have to be approved. It bans anyone from practising without a licence. Accordingly, a government agency, the Media and Information Commission (MIC), operates to force media companies and individual journalists to apply for registration. And not only these entities, but also advertising agencies and even media-related NGOs. The MIC has refused to register the Daily News newspaper. It followed this up by refusing to license the newspaper's staff. Result: the Daily News is dead.
A simple sequence of events, and yet Dlamini-Zuma and Maduna purport to be pondering the abstract principle of registration. Meanwhile, Zimbabweans feel the practical pain. Their independent newspaper had survived two bombings to become the most popular publication in the country. People voted for it through their voluntary daily purchase, happily forsaking Mugabe's miserable Herald and Chronicle - "newspapers" that are effectively edited by his henchman, Jonathan Moyo. Zimbabwean media freedom activists put things plainly. They say that the Aippa has served to convert the constitutional right to receive and disseminate information into a privilege dependent on the remit of the regime. Hear the Zimbabwe Media Alliance: the Aippa "sets down strict conditions for those wishing to practise this so-called 'journalistic privilege' and criminalises anybody who fails to comply with them". According to the group, 76 journalists have so far been charged under the Aippa.
The evidence why registration in Zimbabwe is so repugnant is blatantly there for all to see. But, like their president, the two South African ministers lack the political will to admit the obvious. Instead, this particular pair is now proffering rhetorical games to try to legitimise the shameful abuses next door. Writing in the Sunday Independent last week, Maduna speciously confined his discussion to the registration of media while keeping conspicuously quiet about the even greater controversy of licensing individual journalists. The man further cooked up his case by conflating registration with regulation, and he abused quotations from the International Federation of Journalists to imply that this body would support media registration. What neither minister tells us is that no democratic Southern African country licenses journalists. And that worldwide - as regards media institutions, generally only broadcasters are licensed, and that is for technical reasons of limited frequencies. In the few cases where newspapers are required to register, this is a purely administrative matter such that no publication can be turned down for political reasons.
The ministers also fail to reflect on our own history. They should know that the investigative paper Vrye Weekblad nearly never saw the light of day thanks to a politically inspired punitive registration fee. But thanks in part to the valiant efforts of that paper, today anyone can publish in South Africa without government permission. Instead, our ministers fudge the whole issue by asking why, in principle - as distinct from Mugabe-style application - registration as such is problematic. Maduna goes even further to claim that registration is necessary because of global media monopolies. He and Dlamini-Zuma are probably sympathetic to other arguments in favour of licensing media and media makers. These hold that freedom goes hand in hand with responsibilities. Accordingly, controls are needed as to who can exercise freedom of the media, and how this can be done. Journalists cannot have their cake and eat it. Thus, the press cannot claim exemption from testifying in judicial proceedings, and then seek to avoid registration to identify who counts as media.
Against these arguments, it can be pointed out that there are many means of securing accountability of a free media and journalists within a democracy - such as a panoply of complaints systems and laws that protect individuals from defamation. Where there is media pluralism, audiences have consumer power to boycott any media they think use freedom irresponsibly. Identifying journalists for exemption from testifying does not have to entail statutory registration. These factors mean simply that there is no necessary case for registering journalists. And it does not follow from any constitutional or legislated rights of the media that there should also be specifically legislated responsibilities and licensing for this institution and its members. At heart, the freedom to engage in journalism is a manifestation of each individual's freedom of expression - which in turn is a fundamental right of all humans. By definition, a democracy cannot restrict free speech to a registered class of communicators, and certainly not by creating an exclusive club along political - or even professional - lines.
In some respects, this understanding is shared by an important component of the African Union, and which is expressed in the Declaration of Principles of Freedom of Expression in Africa. Adopted in October 2002 by the AU's Commission on Human and People's Rights, the document affirms "the fundamental importance of freedom of expression as an individual human right, as a cornerstone of democracy and as a means of ensuring respect for all human rights and freedoms". This acknowledgement is somewhat watered down when the declaration adds that "the right to express oneself through the media by practising journalists shall not be subject to undue legal restrictions". Even with this dilution, however, the declaration still serves to de-legitimise both the Aippa and its application. The patently "undue" killing of the Daily News is certainly something that our government - an advocate of democratic governance on the continent - should be shouting about. However, Pretoria nowadays no longer claims to practise "quiet diplomacy" and withhold public criticism. On the contrary, its ministers are now actively defending Zimbabwe's violations of basic rights. "We accept the Aippa," says Dlamini-Zuma.
Against this depressing background, three questions arise. For how long must Harare continue to trash AU protocols before Pretoria takes a public stand in favour of free expression in Zimbabwe? For how long will our government prattle on about political solutions being found by Zimbabweans when the basic precondition of free expression and free media is non-existent? How long - if ever - will it take for Dlamini-Zuma and Maduna to take a lead in strengthening the AU commission document so that it expressly says that freedom of expression precludes the political registration of media and licensing of journalists? The answer to these questions is equally depressing: a long, long time, if ever. And besides the questions above, there is an additional one that now has to be to asked. Is the ministers' pontificating about the "merits" of media registration simply a way of apologising for Zimbabwe - or does it also tell us something about what they would like to see back home? There is no denying that for democrats, the registration of newspapers is utterly objectionable; that of journalists is wholly obnoxious. Do Dlamini-Zuma and Maduna really want to run with their registration hogwash?
Guy Berger is head of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University and deputy chair of the South African National Editors Forum (Sanef). He was recently nominated for the World Technology Awards.
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From The Financial Gazette, 4 March
Moyo's powers unreasonable, lawyer concedes
The lawyer representing the government and the Media and Information Commission (MIC) in the case in which the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ) is challenging the constitutionality of some sections of the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) yesterday conceded that some of the powers vested in the Information Minister were unreasonable. Johannes Tomana of Muzangaza, Tomana and Mandaza, yesterday admitted that some of the powers given the minister through AIPPA were too much, unreasonable and cannot satisfy the natural laws of justice. Under cross-examination from Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku and Justice Luke Malaba when the Supreme Court sat as a constitutional court to hear ANZ's challenge on AIPPA, Tomana could not defend the sweeping powers that the Act gives to the minister, especially under Section 4. Under this section, the minister can charge a member of the media regulatory body, the (MIC), with misconduct, suspend him, investigate him, prosecute him and even dismiss him without the involvement of any other person.
"The body regulating journalists should be independent from both the government and commercial interests, but with the minister having powers to suspend members of the Commission, how would this be possible?" said Justice Chidyausiku. "How can the minister, who is an interested party, have the powers to charge a member with misconduct, investigate and prosecute him?" Asked, as a lawyer, if something was not wrong with such powers in a democratic society, Tomana responded: "I have no specific instructions to concede to that," to which Justice Malaba interjected: "You don't need to have any instructions to concede to this if the section is unlawful, it is unlawful! "What makes it even worse is that the Act does not even attempt to define what constitutes an act of misconduct," Justice Chidyausiku said. "The minister would have to decide what constitutes a misconduct and what does not in this case even sneezing can be defined as misconduct."
ANZ challenged the constitutionality of several sections of AIPPA, but the Supreme Court has already ruled on a number of them after they had been challenged by Capital Radio and the Independent Journalists Association of Zimbabwe. Tomana argued that most of the remaining provisions of AIPPA were "reasonable in a democratic society and therefore constitutional", drawing parallels with some Swedish and British media laws. He said Swedish media laws, which he said has 14 journalistic crimes compared to AIPPA with one journalistic crime, were worse than the Zimbabwean laws. ANZ lawyers led by Mordecai Mahlangu dismissed Tomana's arguments, saying it was not true that Swedish and British media laws were worse than AIPPA as in most cases they were not interpreted the way the State was interpreting them.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 5 March
Zanu PF scrambles to win approval
Dumisani Muleya
Harare - After exhausting the land reform programme theme as a vote-catching gimmick, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has embarked on an anti-corruption crackdown as yet another ploy ahead of next year’s parliamentary election. Mugabe himself took the initiative to situate the anti-corruption campaign at the vortex of national discourse and effectively made it the centrepiece of his election drive. He recently announced that the general election would be held next March. Mugabe said he would retire in five years but would remain in politics. Zanu PF officials such as Chinhoyi MP Phillip Chiyangwa and party central committee member James Makamba and a number of businessmen have been netted in the current crackdown on corruption. New Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, who is battling to re-organise the country’s chaotic financial system and put the economy on a path to recovery, is brandished by government as the messianic corruption-buster. Mugabe’s government is already showcasing Gono’s moves as evidence of reform and national rehabilitation.
Zanu PF is desperately trying to whitewash its appalling political and economic record and repackage itself as a party. Anachronistic tendencies and hysterical anti-Western sabre-rattling are being toned down, despite intermittent vitriolic outbursts motivated by international pressure and political grandstanding. The language of reform has not only been embraced by Gono, currently meeting Western donors to market his economic reconstruction measures, but also by government hardliners. This week government spokesperson and Information Minister Jonathan Moyo said Zimbabwe will repay its long-standing debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to avoid losing its membership. Moyo said the move was designed to "increase our credit rating". The IMF last year threatened to expel Harare for failing to service its debts. Although Mugabe is decidedly anti-IMF, he realises the country has no choice but to deal with the Bretton Woods institutions. Last week he said it was better to deal with the World Bank. His "look East" policy has clearly failed as countries such as Japan and China have increasingly moved towards the West. This failure by Mugabe to adapt to global realities has been at the centre of his policy contradictions since independence from Britain in 1980. When he came to power he tried, to no avail, to reshape Zimbabwe’s politics along socialist lines by aligning himself with the Soviet bloc and Stalinist states like North Korea, while the economy was assertively capitalist and linked to Western economic systems. The result was a damaging clash between his political vision and economic reality. Mugabe’s economic technocrats and advisers would come up with market-oriented policies, only for him to dump them at funerals and rallies on the wave of his customary populist rhetoric.
A political cost-benefit analysis of Mugabe’s current election strategy shows that there is more for him to lose than to gain. The strategy, although currently making a positive impact, could, in the long-run, yield negative returns unless properly managed, especially insofar as its impact on Mugabe’s succession battle is concerned. The succession struggle has been raging for some time now but no clear and indisputable heir apparent has managed to emerge although Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa has often been touted as the anointed successor. However, Mnangagwa now seems to be damaged goods after reports that he was under investigation for corruption involving precious minerals at the Democratic Republic of Congo. This has left his rivals rubbing their hands with glee and poised to capitalise on this chink in his armour. Mnangagwa’s rivals are seen as Special Affairs Minister John Nkomo and Defence Minister Sydney Sekeramayi. Former finance minister Simba Makoni has also been mentioned. The ongoing graft-related arrests and investigations have fuelled Zanu PF infighting and spawned a dog-eat-dog political combat. Personal and political scores appear set to be settled through the campaign. However, Mugabe has always been a volatile demagogue and sometimes unpredictable, in particular in his penchant for doing the unthinkable. Zanu PF insiders are beginning to suspect that he could be trying to manoeuvre Gono through the backdoor as a possible successor. Gono, using delegated power, is now powerful and, some say, ambitious. Top Zanu PF officials who have tried to threaten him to avoid investigation have hit a brick wall and been forced to retreat. Although Gono is an upstart in the Zanu PF scheme of things, fears abound in the ruling party that he is being packaged by Zanu PF royalty as Mugabe’s successor.
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From The Financial Gazette, 4 March
Chiyangwa’s bail conditions relaxed
Staff Reporter
Bulawayo - The High Court has relaxed bail conditions for Philip Chiyangwa, the flamboyant Chinhoyi legislator and ZANU PF chairman for Mashonaland West, who is facing three criminal charges. Harare High Court Judge Justice Bhunu on Monday this week varied Chiyangwa’s bail conditions imposed by the court on January 16 2004. Chiyangwa is out on bail on charges involving the obstruction of justice, contempt of court and perjury which surfaced after the arrest of ENG Capital Asset Management directors, Nyasha Watyoka and Gilbert Muponda, on fraud allegations involving $61 billion. Justice Bhunu ordered Chiyangwa to report to Borrowdale Police Station once a fortnight every Sunday between 6am and 6pm. Before the bail alterations, the legislator was reporting at Harare Central Police Station on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The judge also directed the Registrar of the High Court to release the ZANU PF Member of Parliament’s passport "into the latter’s custody whenever applicant (Chiyangwa) intends to travel on business, subject to the applicant providing proof of destination and duration of visit, and applicant shall surrender the passport to the Registrar of the High Court within two (2) days of returning from such travel." Meanwhile, the Carte Blanche show, which recently broadcast a documentary implicating several ruling party and government officials in a grain smuggling operation, has publicly issued an apology to Chiyangwa after the station named the Chinhoyi legislator in the insert broadcast on February 22 2004. The insert, entitled "An empty grain basket?" contained footage of a delegation of prominent Zimbabwean public officials at Shankuru Estates - from which the grain smuggling operation was run. Carte Blanche said one of the members of the delegation identified as Chiyangwa was in fact not him.
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From Panorama (BBC), 2 March
A day in the life of the camp
Zimbabwe's National Youth Service is described by the government as a peace corp designed to lift youngsters out of poverty and educate them. However, stories which emanate from those who have been through the training camps tell a different story. They speak of beatings, rapes and being taught to intimidate and kill political opponents of President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party. Estimates vary, but there are believed to be at least six permanent camps in Zimbabwe. This number can fluctuate - and there are often reports of hundreds of youth training camps springing up around the country in the run-up to an election. These can be temporarily occupied schools, farms, business centres and army barracks. A typical camp is run by a war veteran, that is someone who fought in the independence struggle against Ian Smith's government in the 1960s. It is believed that there are usually a further four or five war veterans operating under him in various camp management positions. As well as this, there are also "elite" members of the youth militia who hold positions of seniority. These usually consist of people who have already been through the camps. Accounts given by former camp recruits seem to indicate that the camps all have at least one senior female figure who takes the role of matron. It is also thought that some of the larger camps have a medical block.
Inside the camps, the curriculum is largely decided by the camp commanders. Although they do use a 'manual' titled 'The Third Chimurenga' written by Robert Gabriel Mugabe and the structure and subject do seem to be uniform across the different camps. The education does usually involves some kind of political education and lessons in sovereignty and history. One camp instructor revealed that they don't want the students getting hold of information from independent papers as they get "misguided" about them. Some former camp recruits have claimed that newspapers, books, radio, TV or even blank sheets of paper and pens are banned in the camps, unless used for taking notes of the classes. The weekly routine also involves a lot of physical training, including many hours of running. This seems very much the same in all camps: they get woken at the crack of dawn and have to run 10km and do 200 press-ups. In some camps it is believed they have to run with heavy sacks uphill as well. All recruits are given some kind of weapons training - usually with sticks and sjamboks, a type of rubber whip, but conversations with some former youth militia indicate that there is a more sinister form of training. Some recruits are taught how to beat people, many are believed to be taught how to kill and other groups are taught torture techniques - usually involving water and/or electricity. Panorama interviewed dozens of former youth militia who spoke about life in the Zimbabwe youth training centres. The following stories are from people who's stories were not used in the main documentary. Their names have been changed and their anonymity protected.
James
Well this guy came late in the camp, he came late night so and he was drunk, so then he was shouting too much in the camp, so they - firstly they took four guys in the hall, they say to this guy that they should beat this guy before they put him into the electricity. Then the four guys beat this guy, he was crying, they beat him in the hall. And they were beating him with some sticks in the head and after that they take a bucket, they say he should take a bucket of some water and then we should rinse him to be awake. Then they call others, other youths they should put him to electricity, where they doing the in the hall showing us how the, how they do in the camp if you do something wrong. So they put him electricity after he was crying then he was injury in the chest and his chest is not Ok, he was my friend.
Q: How badly did they torture him?
A: I'm sure they torture him about just for twenty minutes, twenty minutes, in the morning they do it for about for ten minutes, in the night they torture him, in the night then he was sleeping, then in the morning when we awake they say to him to wake up and other four guys beat him again.
Q: And this was all because he was drunk?
A: He was drunk and he was talking too much, he was shouting in the room in the hostel, in the hall.
Peter
It was during the night when we were just sleeping in that same room. There were boys and girls and then it was in a corner where I used to sleep, then Zanu PF took guys, the others which I say they came from Mashona, the other commanders, they came and then they told me that I must have sex with that girl and I said no, I can't have sex with that girl without his permission and without - you can't force me without my permission to have sex with him. I do not have sex with him, with her for I can get Aids or whatever. I don't even know I have got Aids, I can give Aids then they said you, you are still supporting MDC and then they started beating me with whips and boots and shamboks. Then that's when they wounded me in this right hand and even sometimes my teeth, I have got a problem with my teeth.
Q: Were other girls being raped that night?
A: Yes they were taken to the tents where the other commanders were sleeping, the other boys were, who had been beaten, then they had sex with the girls. It was a Thursday and then we were going to attend a Zanu PF rally in Esewong and then we were deployed to go to the shops. Others were deployed to go for school children to go to the rally. Then the school children, some of them were refusing to go to the, to the meeting point. Then they started beating the boy, when I was a metre away in the shops and the school are close, just eight hundred metres away and when I was forcing the other people to go to the shops, I saw a gathering of people beating someone. Then I asked, when I asked my colleague they told me that it's a school boy who was aged around fourteen or fifteen. There he was being beaten using shamboks, whips, sticks and stones. It was a gathering of so many Zanu PF supporters around, 40, 50, around that boy who was being beaten. Then from that point it was said he was taken to the clinic, then the nurses were not allowed to treat the boy up to a point that when they said the boy was died.
From ZWNEWS: If you would like to read the transcript of the recent Panorama documentary, Secrets of the Camps, please let us know. It will be sent as a Word attachment to an email message, approximately 1 1/2 times the size of the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From The Financial Gazette, 4 March
Makamba ousted from Telecel
Brian Mangwende
The drama continues in the long-running James Makamba case with reports that the Empowerment Corporation (EC) last week staged a boardroom coup to oust the embattled business tycoon from the chairmanship of Telecel Zimbabwe and replaced him with Silas Hungwe. Hungwe, whose corporate history is suspect, is the president of the Zimbabwe Farmers Union (ZFU) which is also a member of the EC. The EC is a consortium of indigenous entrepreneurs with a controlling stake (60 percent) in the mobile cellular phone operator whose licence was granted by Cabinet in 1997. The licence was granted for political considerations under the banner of black empowerment and wealth creation. Telecel International, a foreign firm, owns the remaining 40 percent. Makamba, the former Zanu PF chairman for Mashonaland Central and central committee member, is a founding member and chairman of Telecel Zimbabwe. The prominent entrepreneur was arrested on February 9 on allegations of externalising billions of dollars in foreign currency and is still incarcerated under the anti-graft crusade in the financial and business sectors initiated by President Robert Mugabe.
Impeccable sources close to the developments yesterday said that EC members including representatives from the ZFU, National Miners Association of Zimbabwe (NMAZ), Magamba eChimurenga and Integrated Engineering Group held a meeting last Thursday and replaced the beleaguered Makamba arguing that the changes were unavoidable in the face of his arrest. Leo Mugabe, President Mugabe’s nephew, who is fighting to reclaim a long disputed 10 percent stake in Telecel, was said to be at the meeting. Absent from the meeting were representatives from the Indigenous Business Women’s Organisation (IBWO) and Makamba’s Kestrel Corporation. EC’s secretary-general Giles Munyoro confirmed Makamba’s "ouster" saying it was precipitated by his arrest. "We held the meeting last week and replaced Makamba with Hungwe," Munyoro, also the president of the NMAZ said. "We have provisionally appointed Jane Mutasa as the vice pending her sentence in court." Munyoro said: "We gave all representatives of the EC seven days notice of the meeting. We formed a quorum and made our decision. IBWO turned down the invitation. I was re-elected secretary-general."
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From News24 (SA), 5 March
Camps 'decolonise' Zim youth
Harare - The Zimbabwean government has defended its youth training camps, saying a recent BBC documentary claiming they are used to train youngsters to attack and torture opposition members is "unfounded rubbish". Youth minister Ambrose Mutinhiri told a press conference that, contrary to the documentary, the youths who go through the camps learn technical skills, health, entrepreneurship and disaster management. He said they were not subjected to rape, torture and violence. "The programme focuses on mental decolonisation of our youths and brings back their dignity as a people," Mutinhiri said. The Panorama documentary, broadcast by the BBC on Sunday, showed interviews with people who claimed to have escaped from the camp. They gave grim testimonies of how female inmates as young as 11 were raped in the camps. Others said they were trained to torture or kill members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). But Mutinhiri said everything in the camps was above board. He said the government would never adopt torture because that was "used by the white regime during our struggle for democracy and dignity". The minister dismissed claims that female trainees were raped, saying they were safely accommodated in their own hostels "cordoned off with razor-wire fence" and guarded by watchmen. The minister said the camps are purely voluntary, and very popular amongst young people. He said that for every 100 places in the country's six camps there are 2 000 applicants. More than 18 000 young people had gone through the camps since they were started in 2001, he said. Trainees are derisively referred to here as "Green Bombers" because of their green military uniforms. The MDC claims that camp recruits are responsible for terrorising its supporters. The opposition, as well as local church groups and civil rights organisations, have called for the disbanding of the camps.
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From IPS, 4 March
The relentless march of the military men
Wilson Johwa
Bulawayo - A silent revolution, with far-reaching political and social implications, is underway in Zimbabwe. In many divisions of the public service including the judiciary, and state-run companies, military men are on the ascendant. Their upward march is so swift and focused that one member of their ranks is in the running for the position of vice-president, currently vacant. If the appointment goes through, it will place an ex-general in line to succeed President Robert Mugabe. And the list goes on. The head of Zimbabwe's dreaded intelligence service is a former brigadier. Two judges are ex-military, and one of the eight provincial governors is a former general. Other key civilian posts taken up by former soldiers include that of secretary in the Ministry of Transport (the appointee was previously a colonel). The head of the state grain procurement agency, the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), is an ex-military man, as is the commissioner of the prison service. In a cabinet reshuffle last month, Mugabe appointed four soldiers to ministerial or deputy ministerial positions. The military's tentacles are so widespread that one of the two "assessors" helping a High Court judge decide the fate of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has the rank of major. Tsvangirai is currently on trial for allegedly plotting to assassinate Mugabe ahead of the 2002 presidential election.
Less evident - but perhaps more important - is the scope of the military's influence further down the bureaucratic chain. Many depot managers at the GMB are ex-soldiers. And since 1998, when the prisons department was turned into a commissioned service similar to the police and army, military men have been appointed in senior positions, much to the chagrin of long-serving officers. "It's demoralizing as everyone is looking to be promoted," remarks a junior prisons officer. Analysts believe that Mugabe has a variety of goals in appointing soldiers to civilian posts. Political survival is undoubtedly one of his aims - and in this respect the strategy appears to have paid off. On the eve of the 2002 presidential election, senior officers released a statement saying that the military would not support a president who lacked liberation war credentials - a clear reference to Tsvangirai. Former defence force chief, General Vitalis Zvinavashe, reiterated this partisan stance in his valedictory speech made last December.
Political commentator Themba Dlodlo of the National University of Science and Technology says Mugabe also has his retirement prospects in mind. "For him to survive after his rule he needs to have these people in power because they are his supporters and they cannot prosecute him for the atrocities he has committed in the country," Dlodlo told IPS. As far as opposition member of parliament and shadow Minister of Defence Giles Mutsekwa is concerned, the president's motives are even more complex. He believes that drawing the military into civilian life has the effect of enmeshing it in Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis, "so that as the economy collapses, those in the military will also be blamed". Since the start of 2000, food production in Zimbabwe has declined significantly - in part because of a controversial programme aimed at redistributing land owned by minority white farmers. Some of this confiscated land has been allocated to black peasant farmers; however, high-ranking officials have also been accused of helping themselves to several of the best properties. Aid agencies are now gearing up to distribute food aid in Zimbabwe for the third successive year.
Other aspects of Zimbabwe's economy are also in decline, leading to mass unemployment and inflation that tops 600 percent. But, while officers may be specialists in guns, grenades and fighting battles, they generally lack the skills or training to take over civilian functions. "Why they are allowed to lead these organisations purely because they were generals or colonels, surprises me," Mutsekwa says. Dlodlo agrees: "Theirs is a rule by force and that will not lead us anywhere." He notes that the ease with which military men have slipped into leading positions may have a lot to do with the fact that the ruling Zanu PF itself is less a political party than a paramilitary organisation. "You can see from the way they behave, and how they act, they're still operating as though they're guerrillas." Most of Zimbabwe's top brass are veterans of the 1970's war against white minority rule and are fiercely loyal to Zanu PF. With new recruits to the army now coming from the country's infamous youth training camps, there appears to be little hope that the military will turn into an impartial body at any point in the near future. The camps, which have been in existence since 2001, are portrayed by government as places where school leavers are imbued with patriotic values. However, critics maintain the camps are used to transform youths into militants who terrorise government opponents. Preparations for the 2002 poll and the 2000 parliamentary election were marred by widespread violence, most of it aimed at supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
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From The Financial Gazette, 4 March
Fresh row over chefs’ hunting safari leases
Njabulo Ncube
Fresh allegations of favouritism in the allocation of hunting quotas for this season have emerged in Hwange, giving a fresh dimension to the controversy in Matabeleland North that has sucked in senior Zanu PF officials. The new twist to the saga surrounding the allocation of lucrative hunting concessions comes at a time when disgruntled locals have recommended the cancellation of all contentious safari leases parcelled out to Zanu PF chefs. Last month, The Financial Gazette highlighted the discord in the area over the allocation of photographic and hunting leases to senior Zanu PF officials from outside the region. Players in the hunting and photographic sector in the province held a highly charged meeting on Sunday chaired by the governor and resident minister for Matabeleland North, Obert Mpofu, demanding the re-distribution of hunting quotas. Locals claimed the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management had denied them hunting quotas this season, a charge a department official said was necessitated by over-hunting, mostly in the Gwayi and Hwange areas. The entry of alleged outsiders dominated the meeting, also attended by officials from the National Parks and Wildlife Management, the Intensive Conservation Association, the Forestry Company of Zimbabwe (FCZ) and local government officials. It emerged at the meeting that some Zanu PF politicians, business-people and ambassadors from outside Matabeleland held about 100 000 hectares of land each, while local politicians, among them governor Mpofu, held about 3 000 hectares. Mpofu confirmed holding the land but said he and others in the eastern part of the massive Hwange National Park had been banned from hunting.
Mpofu told The Financial Gazette that the meeting recommended the repossession of land with a view to re-distributing it in a manner that would not raise eyebrows. "It has also been recommended that locals be given priority in the allocation of the safari and forestry lands. The stakeholders felt that if locals were given some of the lucrative farms with large game, they would be able to develop their communities. I am happy that the meeting came up with recommendations and I will be forwarding these to Minister John Nkomo and Minister Francis Nhema," he said. Nkomo is the Minister of Special Affairs in the Office of the President Responsible for Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement. Nhema, the Minister of Environment and Tourism, could not immediately comment, but has in the past disassociated himself from the allocation of the farms allegedly to his close colleagues in Zanu PF. Last month, Nhema defended the allocation of farms to some of his colleagues outside Matabeleland, saying it would be unfair for his ministry officials to discriminate people from other provinces.
Documents prepared by the Department of National Parks shown to this newspaper before the meeting on Sunday showed that in Matetsi Unit One, Eddie Kazombe was allocated 403.77 square kilometres in Unit 2, Enos Dube 292.11 square kilometres, Unit 3 Jacob Mudenda 355.51 square kilometres, Unit 4 M. Chidziva 469 square kilometres and Webster Shamu of Famba Safaris in Unit 5 with 368.59 square kilometres. Jocelyn Chiwenga, wife of Zimbabwe National Army Commander Constantine Chiwenga, is listed as holding 585.40 square kilometres in Unit 6, while Lovemore Chihota has 614 square kilometres in Unit 7. Marble Dete is listed as holding 30.5 square kilometres and Tobias Musariri 512 square kilometres. Several others connected to the ruling party also held huge tracts of land in the wildlife-rich Sikumi Forestry under the jurisdiction of the FCZ. These included a Mr Nyamupingidza of Kasipite Safaris, L Chitiga of Forklands Investment and Ms Nyamuswa of Shanganai. Ambassador Mvududu is listed as having been allocated 8 000 hectares of Deka.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 5 March
Only 2% land given to ex-farm workers
Augustine Mukaro
Government has allocated a mere 2% of the 11 million hectares acquired under the land reform programme in the past four years to former commercial farm workers, the Zimbabwe Independent heard last week. At a workshop in Masvingo last weekend to assess the situation of farm workers after the land reform programme, Mashonaland East Farm Community Trust of Zimbabwe provincial manager Clifford Mpande said of the estimated 350 000 former farm workers only 13% had benefited from the fast-track land reform programme. "The farm workers were settled on 2% of the acquired land," Mpande said. "Official statistics as of the end of March 2002 indicated that only 1 183 former farm workers had been resettled. This is in stark contrast to an estimated 140 000 who had lost their jobs at the same time." "It has been estimated that currently only 600 commercial farms are still operational across the country, out of a total of 4 247 farms reported by the Central Statistical Office in 1997, meaning that 86% of farms have been closed. Given that the average work force on a farm was 40 people, it is estimated that with the 90% of the farms fast tracked, over 320 000 farm workers had been laid off by the third quarter of the 2002," Mpande said.
Before the inception of the farm invasions and fast-track land reform programme, commercial farms used to employ over 350 000 workers and offered shelter to over 1,5 million including workers' relatives and children. The farming community constituted 15% of the Zimbabwean population. Mpande said between 60 and 80% of the displaced workers were still at the closed farms' compounds without a stable source of income while the rest had been forced back to their rural homes. Parliamentary portfolio committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare acting chairman Paurina Mpariwa told participants that infrastructure and guaranteed human component were key to propelling Zimbabwean's agriculture-based economy. Mpariwa said the land reform programme had empowered historically marginalised Zimbabweans although like all programmes of its magnitude it had its negatives such as shortages of infrastructure and services to the affected communities. "Facilities such as schools, water and sanitation, health institutions and a sound road network are among the top priorities of the numerous demands and challenges confronting the communities," Mpariwa said. "As a committee, we are aware of the general poor living conditions of most farm communities but this is a mammoth task which cannot be left to government alone to accomplish but should involve all stakeholders with an interest in the agricultural sector."
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From The Times (UK), 6 March
Ailing judge defies Mugabe
From Jan Raath in Harare
A High Court judge has thrown out the "confessions" of six Zimbabwean opposition activists charged with murdering a pro-government militia leader, claiming that they had been tortured. Judge Sandra Mungwira said that 14 out of 15 police witnesses had "shamelessly lied". Police had assaulted the activists and their relatives, deprived them of sleep and food and threatened them with guns. The six had also been prevented from seeing lawyers or receiving medical attention. Judge Mungwira’s stand was all the more courageous because she is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer and nearly collapsed as she left the courtroom. Tomorrow she flies to Britain for treatment. The case centred on the activists, from the Movement for Democratic Change, being accused of abducting and strangling Cain Nkala, the head of the notorious war veterans’ militia, in western Zimbabwe in November 2001. The discovery of his body in a shallow grave north of Bulawayo was met with condemnation of the MDC by Mr Mugabe, who branded the party a terrorist organisation. Thousands of war veterans destroyed the MDC’s offices in Bulawayo and for weeks MDC supporters were dragged out of their homes and assaulted. Judge Mungwira called the investigation into Mr Nkala’s death "an appalling piece of fiction". She said police had visited the grave of Mr Nkala the night before one of the six accused was supposed to have guided them to the site. The trial began in October 2002. Three of the six had been in custody since November 2001, in violation of a Supreme Court order for their release. Judge Mungwira made her ruling in an atmosphere of overt political intimidation. Nine High Court judges have resigned in less than three years.
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From Business Day (SA), 6 March
Impose sanctions on Mugabe: Zimbabwe cleric
South Africa should impose sanctions on crisis-ridden Zimbabwe to force President Robert Mugabe into peace talks with the opposition, a senior Zimbabwean cleric said. In a radio interview, Pius Ncube, the Archbishop of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, said just as the world helped establish a new democratic government in South Africa through sanctions, Pretoria could do the same with its northern neighbour. "South Africa was helped by the sanctions imposed by the international community. We (Zimbabwe) should also be helped by South Africa," Ncube, one of the most outspoken critics of Mugabe's government, told SABC public radio. Ncube suggested South Africa's giant power utility ESKOM should warn that electricity to Zimbabwe would be cut off if there was no progress on long delayed talks between Mugabe and the opposition. "Zimbabwe is owing billions in electricity (bills). They just would need to be told: ‘Hey you people, settle your affairs or else we cut off'. Then Mugabe would be forced to dialogue with the opposition because Mugabe is refusing to talk to them," Ncube added.
Mugabe slammed the door on proposed negotiations with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) last month, dealing a new blow to the "quiet diplomacy" tack taken by South Africa to try to resolve Zimbabwe's long-running political crisis. The Zimbabwean leader, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has accused the former colonial power of bankrolling the MDC in a bid to oust him from power and return imperialist interests to the former British colony. Zimbabwean church leaders, including Ncube, last year slated Harare's "irresponsible, inhuman, violent (and) partisan" methods of land redistribution, and accused it of fueling a culture of violence. But Ncube warned that "violence" against the government would only worsen the situation in Zimbabwe, where inflation has soared above 620% and aid agencies say chronic food shortages were widely due to Mugabe's agrarian reforms, including redistributing white-owned farms to new black farmers. "There would be a danger in this (violence) that if you look at places like Liberia," Ncube said. "The key is this that we are trying to look for peaceful means of change."
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 5 March
Gono's appeal shot down
Augustine Mukaro
Donors have shot down Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono's appeal for help in implementing his monetary policy, saying government should first create a conducive environment for political dialogue and economic growth. Gono has been meeting diplomats in Harare over the past two weeks to soften donors' hard-line position on Zimbabwe and to convince financiers to open new lines of credit as well as provide balance of payment support. Diplomatic sources who attended Gono's luncheons said donors would be meeting soon to "make a collective response" to the governor's request. "As Zimbabwe already owes its creditors, the first thing will be to demand a convincing debt repayment plan with government commitment," the diplomat said. "We would also demand a workable plan for the creation of a viable economy and a return to the rule of law. We want a culture of accountability and credibility which respects democratic values and principles." A Japanese embassy spokesman this week confirmed meeting Gono together with other diplomats but would not give details of what transpired. "We pay respect to the monetary policy and financial reforms which Gono has undertaken and wish success of it," the spokesman said. "However, an environment which is conducive to the international community to extend its support to Zimbabwe must be developed through economic and political reforms."
Sources said diplomats were in the process of forming a taskforce that would lobby for the implementation of their demands by the government and other stakeholders. "We are proposing to set up a diplomatic taskforce that will monitor government's commitment and progress on our demands. The taskforce will then recommend to the international community as and when the environment is fine," the diplomat said. At diplomatic luncheons hosted by the United Nations Development Programme and the Sudanese embassy last week, Gono appealed for donors' support for what he called "self-correction measures". Sources said Gono's appeal was aimed at urging donors mainly in Europe, Japan and the United States to soften their demands for a political settlement before opening lines of credit. Donors insist the 1998 donors conference recommendations on land reform should be revisited, effectively meaning that they are not accepting the current mode of agrarian reform despite Zimbabwe's frantic efforts to cover-up serious discrepancies through legislative changes.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 7 March
'Black Moses' morally revulsed' by homosexuality
Harare - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Saturday lashed out anew at homosexuality and also promised to stamp out corruption, which he said was destroying the crisis-ridden southern African nation. Mugabe, who turned 80 last month, was speaking at a special thanksgiving ceremony for his long life organised by prominent Zimbabwean churchman Obadiah Musindo. "I'm morally revulsed by homosexuality," Mugabe told the function, which also featured popular gospel singers and choirs. Mugabe, who has called homosexuals "worse than pigs and dogs", said same-sex marriages also deserved outright condemnation. "It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Adam, Eve and Eve," he said in biblical reference to humanity's first parents. "Let us never entertain the theory that man and man can form a family." Mugabe also waxed eloquent on corruption - a theme he has taken up recently - saying Zimbabweans had the right to prosperity honestly gained. But anyone guilty of corruption would be brought to book no matter "who it is that offends - a relative of mine, a great man in business, a great politician". Offending businessmen would also be dealt harshly with because they were "offending against the rules of our society... ruining our own heritage". The function was attended by government officials, prominent Zimbabweans and hundreds of flag-waving students. Reverend Musindo, the organiser of the function, described Mugabe as a "black, political, economic Moses" whose vision was "to raise millionaires and billionaires" in the country. The economy of the former British colony has been in a nose-dive in recent years with international support drying up, and rates of inflation and interest skyrocketing to record highs of more than 600%. Mugabe's reputation as an African statesman started fading in recent years after the country -- once the region's breadbasket -- slid into economic decline as land reforms which had been left unresolved for years, were jump-started with the violent occupation of white-owned farms.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 7 March
Mugabe's men fight over farms and hunting rights
Sunday Times Foreign Desk
In the aftermath of Zimbabwe's disastrous land reform programme, President Robert Mugabe's chief lieutenants are squabbling over the spoils of the government's land seizures. Zimbabwe seized land from white farmers under the pretext of redistributing farms to needy peasants and alleviating poverty. However, land disputes involving the political elite have exposed high-level greed and other abuses attending land reform. The latest disputes over farm seizures, as well as the dishing out of lucrative hunting concessions, involve Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, Special Affairs Minister for Lands, Land Reform and Resettlement John Nkomo, Environment and Tourism Minister Francis Nhema and Matabeleland North provincial governor Obert Mpofu, among others.
Moyo, who has been linked to three other farms, is now at the centre of yet another controversy over a safari farm, Sikumi 2, in Dete near Hwange. The farm has a top-of-the-range lodge, Sikumi Tree Lodge, and was seized by the government before being parcelled out to a company controlled by Moyo. The lodge is an ecotourism facility that offers upmarket accommodation and photographic safaris to tourists. It was previously owned by a Mr B de Fries, through freehold, but was leased by the Rainbow Tourism Group, which tried to prevent Moyo from taking it over. Rainbow Tourism, in which the government has a 17% stake, wants Moyo out as it claims his presence is disrupting its tourism activities. Zanu-PF supporters in the area also want Moyo evicted because he is not from that region. However, despite his involvement in various farms, Moyo this week insisted that he had only one property, Patterson Farm in Mazowe.
Mpofu is also fighting with Rainbow Tourism and other stakeholders over two farms, Farm 40 and Farm 41, in the same area. And Mpofu is locked in a dispute with authorities over Wildlife Estate, a world-renowned heritage site that he seized two years ago. The farm has about 500 "presidential herd" elephants given special protection by Mugabe in 1991. Police are reportedly investigating Mpofu over his failure to bring foreign currency earned from hunting back into the country. Made, meanwhile, is embroiled in conflict over Chiumbiri River farm. Mugabe last year ordered party loyalists with more than one seized farm to give the rest up. But the government is still battling to repossess farms from leading party officials.
John Nkomo, who heads a presidential committee tasked with repossessing land from Mugabe supporters, says more than 400 farms have been taken back from members of Zanu PF's elite. He has issued a warning to those resisting government efforts to recover land, saying they face arrest as their acts constitute corruption. Nkomo is involved in a dispute with Zanu PF official Kenneth Karidza over Rocky Arlington farm, which also incorporates Mbizi game park. Nhema stands accused of granting hunting and photographic concessions to Zanu PF political heavyweights in Dete, Gwayi Valley, Hwange, Binga and Victoria Falls. Zimbabwe Defence Force commander General Constantine Chiwenga and Policy Implementation Minister Webster Shamu are among a string of officials who have been granted hunting concessions. However, disgruntled Matabeleland North Zanu PF officials and safari operators have cried foul - and have called for the eviction of ruling-party bigwigs from other areas. This has sparked a high-level fight within Zanu PF over land. The hunting industry is a money-spinner that generates millions in foreign currency.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 7 March
'My life is in danger' - Gono
By Savious Kwinika
Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono says his life is now in danger and that he has received death threats from top Zanu PF politicians and bankers. Gono has now been allocated round-the-clock protection that includes close security details and members of the dreaded Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). The Standard has established that the 24-hour protection is jointly co-ordinated by the two State security agencies. Wherever Gono goes these days, there are at least three close security officers charged with ensuring his safety, official sources told The Standard last week. Speaking during a seminar hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe and the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) in Bulawayo on Friday, Gono told participants that his life was in real danger. "I have received serious death threats from corrupt bank managers, politicians and other company owners who were thriving from rampant corruption. They want my head on the platter but this will not stop the policies we are trying to implement," said the RBZ Governor. "But while I need security, it is important to highlight to the nation that even if I am killed, Zimbabwe has a population of 14 million people who will take over the fight against corruption in the financial sector," said Gono. He added that he felt his "security" was from the ordinary women, men and children who had found that life in Zimbabwe was becoming unbearable.
A Standard reporter spoke to one of Gono's security aides at a Bulawayo hotel on Friday who said: "It is true that we are providing tight security for Gono, but it has nothing to do with your newspapers." Following the announcement of Gono's December monetary policy, some senior executives in the financial sector have been forced out of their influential positions while others have fled the country. Leading politicians, including Philip Chiyangwa - Zanu PF's chairman for Mashonaland West - have been incarcerated after being implicated in dubious deals uncovered by the close monitoring of asset management firms and commercial banks. The Standard last week learnt that Gono, the former boss of Commercial bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ) who is known to be a close confidante of President Robert Mugabe, first sought protection late last year after he received threats from some people who were affected by his monetary policy.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 7 March
Zanu PF sets up youth camps to spearhead violence in Zengeza
By Chris Bvunzawabaya
Zanu PF has set up several youth camps in Zengeza where a by-election is due within two weeks and residents complain that the youths have already started to harass them. Four candidates: James Makore of the MDC, Christopher Chigumba of Zanu PF, Tendai Chakanyuka of NAAG and Gideon Chinogureyi of Zanu Ndonga are locking horns for the constituency. The seat fell vacant after opposition MDC Member of Parliament Tafadzwa Musekiwa went into self exile in UK amid claims that his life was in danger. The MDC, which has won nearly all major urban elections since its inception in 1999, is heavily tipped to retain the vacant seat during the elections pencilled in for March 27 and 28. MDC officials told The Standard last week that several youths, some of them members of Zanu PF's infamous Chipangano vigilante group, have been bussed into the constituency and were already unleashing terror among opposition party supporters. The Deputy Mayor of Chitungwiza, Lovemore Mutsamba, a senior MDC official, said ruling party supporters were also camped near the police station in Zengeza where they have held at least one person hostage while several people, including children and the aged, say they have been assaulted by the "chain wielding youths". "They beat up several people this morning (Friday) with chains and whips and what is worrying is that they are based close to the police camp,'' said Mutsamba.
The youths are reported to be targeting MDC supporters distributing party campaign fliers in the constituency. Residents said the situation was particularly tense in Unit D and 14 where several MDC supporters have been beaten up. In those sections, the Zanu PF youths are alleged to have set up four strong bases, one of them close to Makore's house. MDC Secretary for Information and Publicity, Paul Themba Nyathi said about 170 points had been set in the constituency. "We have someone in the truck who was heavily assaulted by the youths," Nyathi told The Standard yesterday. An MDC supporter identified as Chikemu was hospitalised after he was attacked by the marauding youths, said Makore. "These people are not from Zengeza - they are being brought here from other places. The people of Zengeza are peaceful," said Makore. Asked about the situation in Zengeza, Electoral Supervisory Commission spokesperson Thomas Bvuma said they had toured the constituency recently and had not received any reports of violence. "'We toured the area recently and the only report we had is of a woman who claims to have been head butted by a Zanu PF supporter," said Bvuma.
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From City Press (SA), 6 March
Zim suspect nabbed in raid
Dominic Mahlangu
Police raids in Hillbrow, Yeoville and Berea this week led to the arrest of a number of wanted criminals involved in armed robberies and other serious violent crimes. Among those arrested were suspects who police said might be linked to armed bank robberies carried out by Zimbabweans. Last week City Press revealed that many of these organised gangs were found to be Zimbabweans who planned their operations across the border. City Press also reported that police were looking for more than 100 Zimbabwean nationals, suspected of being behind these crimes. This week's police raid in Hillbrow was a joint operation that involved members of the crime intelligence unit and the violent crime unit from Gauteng, Limpopo, North West and Mpumalanga. George Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean national, who was being sought in connection with a number of serious crimes, was one of those arrested during the raid. He was captured while partying at the Base nightclub in Hillbrow. Police said they would conduct a thorough investigation into all allegations against Ndlovu. He was identified with the help of a portable finger-printing device, known as the morpho-touch machine. The system is the latest technology used by police to trace wanted criminals. Ndlovu was picked up together with another suspect whose name police could not verify at the time. They believe that he has on numerous occasions pretended to be a police officer.
Police spokesperson inspector Dennis Adriao said Friday's crackdown was only the start of what is to become and extended anti-crime campaign. He said "it will be carried out at other provinces and areas". Police arrested a total of 138 people. Of these 30 were on the wanted list for various crimes ranging from murder to rape and armed robbery. All 138 were illegal immigrants. All those arrested are still in police custody and are expected to appear in court this week. According to Adriao, Friday's raid enabled police to gather substantial information on a number of criminals' activities. The operation also saw police seize two illegal firearms and ammunition, cocaine and other drugs. Gauteng provincial deputy police commissioner Afrika Khumalo recently said there was clear evidence linking some of the highly-trained gangs from Zimbabwe to about 80 percent of the bank robberies carried out in South Africa. Khumalo, who revealed how police were cracking down on cash-in-transit heists, said last week that a number of meetings have taken place between South African police and Zimbabwean authorities in order to stamp out the tide of bank robberies carried out by Zimbabweans. "We believe they have military training...Through our intelligence and contacts with the Zimbabwean police we have been able to get information," Khumalo said.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard
Court declares 73 Manicaland soldiers dead in the DRC
By our own Staff
Mutare - More than 70 Zimbabwean soldiers from army barracks in Manicaland have now been declared dead after having been reported missing in late 1990, during the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, The Standard has established. A Mutare Magistrates' Court heard on Thursday that 73 of the soldiers declared dead were from Manicaland and were killed during one battle in the DRC on March 15, 1999. The disclosures were made by senior army officials during a missing persons' hearing before Provincial Magistrate Hosiah Mujaya and another Mutare Magistrate Billiard Musakwa. The court heard that the soldiers who perished on March 15, 1999 were under Major Stephen Madzorere. Ten of the soldiers who died at the Mpunbu battle in the DRC were named in court on Thursday, with the names of the remainder expected to be made public this week. Among those officially declared dead in court were Private Manyepa, Ruhodo Marshall, Kuchona Isaac, Vhelapi Nkomo, Vukile Sibanda, Madzutu Titus Mashava, Gwete David Zvanyanya, Promise Maphosa, Dryton Chasakara and Tarugarira. They were all from 31, 32 and 33 Infantry Battalions in Manicaland.
President Robert Mugabe sent Zimbabwean troops to the DRC in 1998 - without consulting Parliament - to repel rebels that were fighting to overthrow the late Congolese leader Laurent Kabila's government. The Zimbabwe Parliament was forced to ratify the army's involvement in the vast central African country more than 18 months later. Although the Zimbabwean government has never publicly announced the number of soldiers who died in the Congo, unofficial estimates say thousands of Zimbabweans perished in the three-year campaign. The Zimbabwean presence in the DRC is also reported to have milked the government of billions of dollars. Although The Standard and its sister paper, The Zimbabwe Independent published some names of soldiers reported to have died in the DRC in 1999, the government, at the time, could neither confirm nor deny their identities. According to the Missing Persons' Act, a person who has been missing must be declared dead after certain period of time. This is done for the reasons of issuing a death certificate or for the purposes of disposing of the deceased's estate to family members or relatives. An authority of the rank of a provincial magistrate makes the declaration.
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From Business Day (SA), 8 March
Harare bids to woo back tobacco farmers
A landmark barter deal has been struck between Zimbabwe's defence ministry and two Zimbabwean businesses that could see many of the country's displaced former commercial tobacco farmers resume farming under military protection. While the scheme does not address the issue of land ownership, it could result in the return of some farmers to the farms to which they own title deeds. But under the new plan, the farmers will lease the land from the military, which has been ceded farms by the government. The deal a revamp of a similar deal that failed in 2002 has been brokered by Zimbabwean businessman Jonathan Fernandes, of Zimbabwe Aeronautical Industries (ZAI), which is instrumental in marketing Russian technology and related products in sub-Saharan Africa, and Sean Nicholson of Tobacco Sales. The deal was initially brokered in July 2002 to meet Zimbabwe's farm mechanisation programme, which at the time required a 250m line of credit.
The new programme which according to Fernandes has been approved by President Robert Mugabe and is due to be signed off by air force chief Perence Shiri will ultimately still fund this mechanisation programme, whose intended beneficiaries are communal, old and newly settled, small-scale and indigenous large-scale commercial farmers. It will also fund the purchase of military equipment for the armed forces. The military and farming equipment is to be bought from Russia. ZAI is to identify A2 farms (former white farms now occupied by unskilled emergent black farmers) along with supporting infrastructure, on which enough tobacco can be grown to raise the line of credit for the purchases. Former commercial farmers will then be leased the farms to produce the tobacco crop. In terms of the new deal, ZAI will buy the tobacco crop from the farmers and sell it on the international market.
The buyers of the tobacco will pay US dollars to Barclays bank, which will then issue a letter of credit to the Russia State Industry, which will supply the military and farming equipment to the Zimbabwe air force, which will then pay ZAI in Zimbabwean dollars. Tobacco growers will be paid a rate in Zimbabwean dollars by the Zimbabwe Development Bank. ZAI will export the financed crop to repay its line of credit, which is expected to be roughly $50m. Fernandes envisages that initially 500ha of tobacco will be grown under the scheme by at least 50 farmers each being contracted to produce an estimated 20000kg of export grade tobacco. Normally, all tobacco grown in Zimbabwe has to be sold on registered auction floors but the new deal appears to come with a special dispensation to export it directly.
According to the 2002 agreement, the deal has also secured the approval of Barclays corporate division in Harare, which has offered to finance the agricultural inputs of black commercial farmers and A2 settlers to the tune of Z500m on the proviso that an agreement is signed by the parties, including the agriculture ministry, to guarantee land tenure during the loan period and that all tobacco produced is sold direct to the Mashonaland Tobacco Company. According to Fernandes, the scheme will benefit the country by offering the immediate benefits of mechanisation, by providing employment, by assisting the government's resettlement programme, and in boosting the country's declining tobacco production. Roy Bennett, an opposition Movement for Democratic Change MP, says he does not know of any farmer who will participate. When the plan was first mooted some farmers willingly participated and got their fingers burned. "Even if the scheme is successful, it will produce a very small fraction of the amount of tobacco produced in the year before the farm invasions began."
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From ZWNEWS, 8 March
Zengeza militia attack
Zanu PF militia invaded the venue of an opposition rally in Zengeza, the MDC said yesterday. The rally was planned to launch the opposition campaign for the by-election to be held in the Zengeza constituency, east of Harare, on 27 and 28 March. The militia attacked MDC party members who had been preparing the venue, seriously damaging two vehicles. Six people were reported to have been injured, and equipment was stolen. The MDC said that the militia then moved around the area in vehicles attacking anyone seen travelling to the rally. There have been numerous reports n recent weeks that Zanu PF militia have set up bases in Zengeza, including one near a police station. In Bulawayo yesterday, police arrested three women at a meeting of the NCA. The three, Patricia Khanye, Magadonga Mahlangu and Jenni Williams, are all members of a women's protest group, WOZA. WOZA had been planning church services and protest marches today to mark International Women's Day.
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From The Sunday Independent (SA), 8 March
Ncube asks churches to act against Mugabe
By Christelle Terreblanche
South African religious leaders are set to become the leading voice against the escalating human rights abuses in Zimbabwe after a series of meetings and appeals from their Zimbabwean counterparts. An "in-principle agreement" this week to take on a more pro-active role has been given impetus by an unprecedented cry for help from a Zimbabwean archbishop, who asked the churches to intervene urgently in the human rights situation and not to wait for approval to send a taskteam to their strife-torn neighbour. The appeal came from the Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, who was in South Africa this week to garner support for increased pressure on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe to enter into talks with the opposition ahead of the proposed 2005 election. Ncube, who has won several international human rights awards, also wants more pressure put on the South African government to abandon quiet diplomacy and give Mugabe an ultimatum to enter into talks. "The international community must assist us to force these people," Ncube said. "There is no other way of dealing with such a dictator. There must be pressure from a whole lot of sides. We can't solve this problem alone... He needs an ultimatum. So far and not further!"
Ncube met senior clergy this week, including the Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, and Dr Molefe Tshele, the general secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC). His visit coincided with an "in principle" resolution this week by the SACC, after a first-ever high-level meeting with Zimbabwean clergy, to send a taskteam to Zimbabwe as soon as the organisation received a green light from all its counterparts. But the archbishop feared such a mandate might not be forthcoming. "People are dying now," he said. "We can't wait for protocol. It is their duty to respond urgently to the situation." Ncube warned that religious leaders in Zimbabwe were divided because Mugabe had "bought out" most of them and that the church in Zimbabwe could not play a meaningful role without help from neighbouring countries. "Mugabe gave them money and farms," Ncube said. "He even offered me a farm as part of his evil devices."
He said those clergy who were anti-Mugabe felt that they couldn't "make it alone". "We need urgent intervention from all churches, but South Africa is the closest historically," he said, adding that some Zimbabwean church leaders were bedevilling efforts to garner support. "They are trying to prevent South African churches coming in on the grounds that South Africa is playing 'Big Brother' and that they themselves know better about Zimbabwe." Tshele said his discussions with Ncube on Friday had given momentum to the earlier agreement that the SACC would help reinforce the importance of the church in resolving the Zimbabwean impasse. "I agree with him that the churches in South African and Zimbabwe should jointly become the voice against moral and human rights abuses, but that we should refrain from party political issues because it could become a divisive issue," Tshele said on Saturday. "[Ncube] made an appeal that we have influence and that we should therefore use it, but this would be subject to an [SACC] executive meeting on March 17."
In an interview, Ncube also confirmed the existence of secret terror camps in which Mugabe's regime was teaching thousands of youths to torture and kill. He feared these youth militia were already being used to control political activity ahead of next year's elections with tactics similar to that of the war veterans. Ncube said the only thing keeping the economy going was the South Africa's continued support of Mugabe's Zanu PF government. "If they cut off the electricity and transport that will be the end of the game," he said. Mugabe was dependent on South Africa and he owed millions in electricity bills, Ncube said. Ncube's visit also had a third dimension - to highlight that half his Bulawayo parish now lives in Hillbrow. Ncube said that South Africa was breaking its own laws by not giving the estimated 2 million Zimbabweans in the country refugee status and asylum. "Those people have a very rough time [in South Africa]," he said. "They can't find employment, they are badly treated and often go without accommodation and food. They have to prostitute themselves." He called the South African government's attitude "very hypocritical". "On the one hand they are supporting Mugabe... and on the other will not give refugee status to Zimbabweans."
Ncube said it was crunch time for talks as there was no possibility of holding free and fair elections next year, as Mugabe had announced. After President Thabo Mbeki's recent optimism about talks, Mugabe has again rejected the possibility of entering into talks with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Ncube said Mugabe would not give in without pressure from all sides. "He is a liar, gets up to all sorts of tricks, he will do everything he can to stay in power. He will kill, buy people out, cheat," the archbishop said. "It is absolutely urgent that South Africa help convene talks as soon as possible. It is a total fallacy to say Zimbabweans must solve their own problems." Ncube said the situation on the ground was "deteriorating very, very fast", with thousands dying every month of starvation and HIV/Aids, while last year's inflation rocketed. "It's impossible to live. Something like 80 percent of the people are living below the poverty line," Ncube said, adding that the population was also overcome by a hopelessness and a moral decline. "People are now saying that the white government was less oppressive than the black government." Ncube will hold a special service for Zimbabweans in Braamfontein today.
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From ZWNEWS, 8 March
Nkala judgement
One 19 June 2000, a week before the parliamentary elections, Patrick Nabanyama was abducted from his home in Nketa, Bulawayo by war veterans. Nabanyama was the polling agent for the opposition candidate for the Bulawayo South constituency, David Coltart, who was subsequently elected to the seat. Nabanyama has not been seen since his abduction, and it is feared that he was murdered. The war veterans, whose identities are all known, were arrested in 2000 and charge with kidnapping. In 2001, the State changed the charges to murder. One of those accused, Cain Nkala - then chairman of the war veterans in Bulawayo - protested himself innocent of murder, and there were strong indications at the time that he was threatening to reveal who, at a senior level, had ordered the kidnapping and subsequent disappearance of Nabanyama.
On 6 November 2001, Nkala himself was abducted from his home in circumstances very similar to Nabanyama's abduction. The police began an urgent investigation, and on 11 November several MDC workers were arrested. That evening, vice president Msika appeared on state television accusing Coltart of being behind th |
