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Archived News
19th April 2005
Retribution campaign hits food distribution
Survey records alarming level of child malnutrition
Zimbabwe March inflation eases but pressures lurk
Flawed system ‘must go’
If the MDC changes it’ll be another Zanu PF
Zanu PF stalwart commits suicide
Zimbabwe poll result 'credible' cabinet
Zimbabwe opposition releases dossier on ‘stolen’ elections
Opposition supporters face violence in wake of Zimbabwe election
Zimbabwe buys six fighter jets to defend airspace, ‘deal with any challenges ’
British reporters spend another night in jail
Zanu PF steps up bid to seize urban councils
MDC dossier backs poll fraud claims
Telegraph two cleared of illegal reporting
Security ministry takes over food distribution
Zimbabwe must face economic problems - IMF official
Lindsey Hilsum pities a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe
When you're up against a total onslaught, you need fighter jets
Mugabe appoints trusted lieutenants to key ministries
Zimbabwean court acquits British journalists
Zimbabwe seen to need S Africa food, but who pays?
Mozambique president snubs Mugabe
Observers are welcome - if there's nothing to hide
'SA bankrolled Zanu PF election campaign'
President Mugabe to add two years to term
MDC supporters barred from buying maize meal
A revolution off the rails
Zimbabwe readies for independence shindig
SA poised to assist Harare in food crisis
Cabinet post for Mugabe nephew
No place like home
Expatriates an untapped development resource, IOM
Zimbabweans contented, Mugabe insists
Army put on alert
Zim dollar to be devalued
Turmoil in Bulawayo
MDC supporters denied food in witch hunt
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From Zim Online (SA), 13 April
Retribution campaign hits food distribution
Harare - Government youth militias and self-styled veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s independence war have taken over control of state food aid in many parts of the country, denying food to opposition supporters, ZimOnline has established. In yet another clear case of retribution after last month’s disputed poll, the militias and war veterans - blamed by churches and human rights groups of torturing and murdering opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party supporters vet food aid beneficiaries preventing suspected MDC members from getting cheaper-priced maize from the state Grain Marketing Board (GMB). For example, at Watsomba rural business centre in the eastern Manicaland province, ZimOnline reporters witnessed as war veterans told all known MDC supporters to leave a queue of people waiting to buy maize saying they would not be allowed to purchase the staple food because they voted for the opposition party in the March 31 election. "We know all the MDC supporters here so don't bother standing in the queue because we will flush you out. Some of you are buying Zanu PF cards to get food but you voted for the MDC. There will be no grain for you," one of the war veterans said to the horde of hungry villagers who had gathered at the depot to buy maize.
A senior official at the depot later explained how the war veterans and youth militias had taken over distribution of maize soon after last month’s election. The official, who did not want to be named for fear of victimisation, said: "Even though we are the managers, we don't have control over who gets the grain anymore. These guys (youths and war veterans) run the show and we are just there for the logistics, not the actual distribution." GMB chief executive officer Samuel Muvuti refused to take questions on the matter when contacted, while Social Welfare Minister Paul Mangwana could not be reached for comment. But Mangwana has in the past insisted that food is given to all hungry people regardless of their political affiliation. President Robert Mugabe, speaking after his Zanu PF party’s controversial landslide victory in the election, also said the government would fairly distribute food to all deserving people. But villagers from Manicaland and other parts of the country such as Mashonaland West province and the southern Matabeleland region interviewed by ZimOnline reporters this week, said they were being prevented from buying maize from the GMB if suspected of having voted for the MDC. "Those being denied food are mostly people who were known to be MDC supporters or those like myself who were campaigning for MDC candidates in the last election," a villager from Hurungwe West constituency in Mashonaland West province said. He did not want his name published for fear of further reprisals.
In Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second biggest city and the major centre in Matabeleland, Catholic archbishop Pius Ncube said he has also received reports from the church community that ruling party cadres had taken over food distribution from government workers. Ncube said: "Starving women with children on the backs came to me crying because they had been denied food on the basis that they were MDC supporters. Before the election, it was food for votes and now the same food is being used as retribution against those who sympathise with the opposition. "Now it is clear why Mugabe doesn't want food donors here. He wants to use food to reward his supporters and starve to death opposition members. Anyone in his right senses would not refuse to have his people fed especially when he can’t feed them himself." Mugabe, who repeated soon after his party’s election victory that Zimbabwe has enough resources to ensure all its 12 million people are fed, told international food relief agencies to take their help elsewhere because the country had enough food. But a subsequent probe by Parliament revealed that claims by Mugabe and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made that Zimbabwe harvested 2.4 million tones of maize from the 2003/2004 season were over exaggerated with only about 600 000 tonnes of the staple in the country by the end of last year and much more needing to be imported. Zimbabwe consumes about 1.8 million tonnes of maize per year. Critics say Mugabe banned outside food aid groups to ensure his government could manipulate food aid to reward its supporters and to punish those of the opposition by denying them access to food.
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From IRIN (UN), 12 April
Survey records alarming level of child malnutrition
Johannesburg - A survey in 10 districts across Zimbabwe has recorded alarmingly high levels of malnutrition among children. Interviews conducted by the country's Food and Nutrition Council, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, showed stunting or chronic malnutrition levels as high as 47 percent among children aged from six months to 59 months on commercial farms. High rates of wasting or acute malnutrition, ranging between 5.5 percent and 6.7 percent, were noted in the southern provinces of Matabeleland - triple the "acceptable" level of two percent, according to the council. The high malnutrition levels coincided with high prices for the staple food, maize. All three nutrition indicators - wasting, stunting and being underweight - were worse among orphans. "Orphans are three times more likely to be wasted/thin, two times more likely to be stunted and 1.5 times more likely to be underweight than non-orphans," the survey found. The council called for assistance to orphans and vulnerable children to be scaled up.
The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), which funded part of the survey, said the findings highlighted the need for strengthened funding for ongoing food and supplement interventions. "The survey supports what UNICEF has said for some time, and it has [made a case for] what we have been working towards - that is, critical support to the country's nutrition and health services," said James Elder, UNICEF's spokesman in Zimbabwe. "There is an enormous need for children in this country; a need that UNICEF and partners are ready to respond to on a large scale ... for this to happen, a boost in funds is desperately required," Elder said. "With elections now behind us, we are hoping that the issue of people will override that of politics ... until that happens, life will remain very difficult for Zimbabwean children," he told IRIN. Among its recommendations the report called for an extension of the surveillance system to all districts in Zimbabwe; an investigation into the poor coverage by vitamin A supplementation programmes; and the inclusion of an HIV indicator in the system.
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From Reuters, 12 April
Zimbabwe March inflation eases but pressures lurk
By MacDonald Dzirutwe
Harare - Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate, among the world's highest, slowed slightly in March, but analysts warned that food and foreign currency shortages could push price pressures higher in the coming months. Inflation, branded enemy number one by President Robert Mugage, eased to 123.7 percent in the year to March from 127.2 percent in February, according to official figures on Tuesday. Last year inflation hit 624 percent. However, the figures took no account of the doubling by businessmen of prices of basic goods such as maize meal and sugar shortly after the March 31 election in which Mugabe's Zanu PF party won a two-thirds majority in parliament, The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has rejected the result, accusing Mugabe's government of vote-rigging. The government, which had kept a tight cap on price increases ahead of the parliamentary elections, ordered a reversal of the increases but most businesses have defied the directive, resulting in basic commodities disappearing from shops. Some have re-emerged on the black market at higher prices.
The Central Statistical Office said that on a month-on-month basis the consumer price index in March was up 4.3 percent, compared with 3.1 percent in February. "Going forward we will see a reversal in the inflation trend as a result of pressures from food shortages and foreign currency shortages," economist Witness Chinyama told Reuters. An acute shortage of foreign currency has forced manufacturers to operate well below capacity, further worsening the scarcity of commodities. The southern Africa nation is facing its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, blamed by critics on Mugabe's policies, which include the seizure of large tracts of land from white farmers to resettle blacks. The central bank has forecast inflation between 20 and 35 percent by the end of this year, but analysts are sceptical on whether this will be achieved. "Because of the poor agriculture season and food shortages, prices will rise further and food has a higher weight in the CPI basket," Chinyama said. Mugabe charges that the economy has been sabotaged by enemies of his controversial land reforms, denying charges he has mismanaged the once prosperous economy.
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Comment from The Mail & Guardian (SA), 12 April
Flawed system ‘must go’
Rapule Tabane
Lovemore Madhuku is a political commentator and head of the National Constitutional Assembly, a coalition of civil society groups agitating for constitutional reform in Zimbabwe. He suggested that the opposition boycott the elections and not legitimise government repression. He did not cast his vote. Two weeks ago, he was detained briefly for making "unsubstantiated allegations" against the government.
As an outspoken critic of participation in the election, what is your assessment of how the elections actually turned out?: The results were predictable. There was no way that the Movement for Democratic Change [MDC] could suddenly expect a miracle when it had no access to voters for four years. The MDC was only able to move to rural areas four weeks before the elections. Its leadership was naive to think that if you arrive at a new place, speak to people and they cheer, you could then think they would vote for you. Voters are engaged over a longer period of time. The conditions that the MDC had presented as a sine qua non of participation in elections did not change so I don’t know why it still participated in the elections.
You have insisted that there is no point in participating in elections unless there are constitutional reforms. What are these reforms?: We want the elections to be conducted by an independent electoral commission. We also want the scrapping of the clause that guarantees the president 30 seats before the elections. We also need an independent body that regulates the media. We also oppose laws that give police powers to authorise meetings.
What difference would that make to the outcome of elections?: They would create a free environment for all political players. All parties will be able to campaign wherever they want in the country. We need mechanisms that would announce in a dramatic way that things have changed in this country. They would create confidence that you can still vote against the ruling party and be patriotic. Are you aware that there are many voters who believe that to vote for the MDC is to be unpatriotic?
Realistically, do you think Zanu PF will accede to these demands?: We have not tried hard enough before to push for change. If there was united popular mass pressure, Zanu PF would shift. If we had at least 10 000 people on the streets of Harare and thousands in other towns across the country, it would have to listen. Let’s see how it reacts to mass power. Is it ready to kill people because they want constitutional change? We are not calling for [President Robert] Mugabe to resign and be replaced by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. We must acknowledge the value of the liberation struggle and his contribution, but we must say we want to broaden the freedom they brought.
How would these people-driven constitutional reforms happen in practice?: We want the creation of a framework where people can freely express their views. Government must formulate a process whereby a committee can be appointed to look at all proposal documents, including the constitution that was rejected in 2000. Civil society, the opposition and the government can all sit down to produce a draft document. Then we either constitute a constitutional assembly or a conference, to debate the proposals of what makes a good constitution, and agree by consensus. Once that has happened, the president can take the constitution to a referendum.
Is there a role for the international community, which has ostracised the Zimbabwean government, in all of this?: It should try to persuade Mugabe that as head of government he must accept the wishes of the Zimbabweans. It must support those who are fighting for democracy here. It must understand the nature of the crisis here. That means understanding that we are not fighting to kick out Mugabe and replace him with Tsvangirai, but to get the president freely elected by the population.
In particular, what role do you see for President Thabo Mbeki, whose quiet diplomacy has failed to produce results so far?: South Africa’s influence is quite critical. Mbeki must push Mugabe to ensure that when the next elections are held, there is no controversy about the elections. He must insist that the next two to three years are used usefully so that when the next elections are held, the constitution will be legitimate.
The MDC took a hammering in the elections even though it complains about irregularities. Will people still look to the party to deliver them from Mugabe?: It depends on what it does. It must realise that its loss was owing to a flawed system and it must mobilise Zimbabweans to change that system. But, if it is still obsessed by minute details such as results being tabulated late or figures that it does not like, people will lose interest in the MDC. Tsvangirai must do less talking and start focusing on the bigger picture. This thing of trying to create the impression that Zanu PF has totally no support is wrong and must end. Even if free and fair elections were held soon, Zanu PF would still be a formidable party.
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Comment from The Daily News Online Edition, 12 April
If the MDC changes it’ll be another Zanu PF
The view of the cynical student of Zimbabwean political history is that Robert Mugabe believes he will only relinquish power if someone can do to him what he believes he did to Ian Smith. Mugabe and Zanu PF believe firmly they removed Smith from power through force of arms. They would never hand over power to the MDC after an election. For them, the MDC and Morgan Tsvangirai have to beat them on the battlefield to win the country. Zimbabwe ’s independence was negotiated among, as they say today, "all stakeholders" who included the same much-despised Ian Smith, and the even more pilloried Abel Muzorewa, prime minister of the fortunately very short-lived Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. But for Zanu PF and Mugabe, independence was negotiated on the battlefield. You would think that Lancaster House, where a new constitution was hammered out by the same stakeholders had not happened at all. Many political students believe it is this view of the birth of Zimbabwe which inhibits Zanu PF from letting "people who were not bitten by mosquitoes" as the late Eddison Zvobgo put it famously take over the country.
What critics of the MDC are urging the party to do - to be more militant, to be more uncompromising - could turn it into another Zanu PF. It would have to plunge into the gutter to the fight the dirty war that Zanu PF is accustomed to. Mugabe is no different, in this respect, from some of his contemporaries - Kenneth Kaunda, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Milton Obote, Daniel arap Moi, Mobutu Sese Seko and Yoweri Museveni. These people wanted to hang to power for ever. In most cases, they believed their countries owed them so much, it was unthinkable for them to give away power in an exercise as mundane as an election. Some of these people died in ignominy, out of power and quite often out of their minds. In most cases, as well, their countries suffered incredible economic decline. Zimbabweans must pray this does not happen to their country. Of course, relying on prayer alone might not save it either.
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From Zim Online (SA), 13 April
Zanu PF stalwart commits suicide
Harare - Ruling Zanu PF party stalwart and veteran nationalist Enos Chikowore yesterday committed suicide at his Harare home. He was 62. There were unconfirmed and conflicting reports last night as to why Chikowore took his life with some suggesting he took an overdose of unknown tablets after President Robert Mugabe broke a promise to appoint him to Parliament and pave way for his return to the Cabinet gravy train. But others suggested the veteran of Zimbabwe’s anti-colonial struggle might have killed himself because of pressing personal problems unrelated to his fading political career. The state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings’ Newsnet television reported on its 8 o’clock news bulletin last night that Chikowore, a former energy minister, had died but did not give the cause of death as it normally does when reporting deaths of prominent Zanu PF figures.
Senior Zanu PF officials gathered last night at Chikowore’s home in Harare’s Umwinsdale suburb told a ZimOnline correspondent there that he had requested a meeting with Mugabe sometime last week. At the meeting Chikowore, one of the few people in Zanu PF reputed to have been personally close to Mugabe, is said to have told the President that he had hit hard times since being forced to resign from Cabinet five years ago for allegedly mismanaging Zimbabwe’s then beginning fuel crisis. Mugabe allegedly promised he would do something when he appointed the 20 non-constituency Members of Parliament he is constitutionally entitled to nominate to Parliament. The President is also said to have hinted he might give Chikowore, who served in the government for many years at a senior level, a lesser Cabinet post to ensure he got "a salary, just something to get by," one of the officials said. Chikowore allegedly decided he had had enough when Mugabe omitted him from the list of people appointed to Parliament. Without a parliamentary seat, it was virtually impossible for Chikowore to get any job in Cabinet as only people who hold seats in the legislature must be appointed ministers or deputy ministers.
Others added that what appeared to have irked him most was the fact that Mugabe had left him out although he had rescued other Zanu PF senior officials such as former parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa whose political careers appeared stuck after losing last month’s election. "What we hear is that sometime in the afternoon today (Wednesday), he telephoned one of his sisters or relatives telling them he had had enough of politics," said one Zanu PF official, who insisted on not being named. He added: "It appears after the phone call nothing was heard from him until he was discovered by another relative lying unconscious in one of the rooms." The relative reportedly summoned an ambulance to take Chikowore to hospital. But unfortunately he was pronounced dead on arrival at Parirenyatwa hospital. Chikowore, who during his heyday was well known for his love of television cameras, delaying officiating at public ceremonies until the camera crews were in place to cover the event, was unfairly blamed for mismanaging Zimbabwe's ongoing fuel crisis at its onset in 2000. Made the scapegoat, he was forced to unceremoniously quit his energy ministry post after the country had run dry of diesel and petrol for several weeks. The fuel shortage was however more because of a shortage of foreign currency to pay foreign oil suppliers after the International Monetary Fund had cut balance-of-payments support to Harare in late 1999. As secretary for lands in Zanu PF’s inner politburo cabinet, Chikowore stunned delegates during the party’s congress last December issuing a frank report admitting that newly resettled black farmers were failing to maintain production on former white farms. Chikowore’s report also exposed that fewer families had been resettled on former white farmland than the exaggerated 300 000 claimed by the government. He will most likely be declared a national hero according him a state funeral at the national hero’s acre shrine in Harare.
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From The Cape Times (SA), 14 April
Zimbabwe poll result 'credible' cabinet
'Reflection of the people's will'
By Jeremy Michaels
South Africa has stopped short of giving its full blessing to the March 31 Zimbabwe election, steering clear of describing the poll as free and fair. Instead President Thabo Mbeki and his cabinet described the poll as "a credible reflection of the will of the people of Zimbabwe" and pointed to several concerns about problems experienced by voters on the day as well as the vote-counting process. Speaking after its fortnightly meeting in Cape Town, chief government spokesman Joel Netshitenzhe said the cabinet had noted that the various missions which had observed the elections "were at one that that the conduct of these elections was much, much better than those that took place in 2000 and 2002." These included delegations representing the government, parliament, the Southern African Development Community and the African Union, as well as the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network. However, Netshitenzhe said that while the government welcomed the improvements compared to the last parliamentary election in 2000 and the presidential election in 2002, cabinet had also noted that there were a number of concerns raised by other roleplayers. Responding to questions about whether this meant the government had not concluded that the election was free and fair, Netshitenzhe said: "The issue of whether it was free and fair did not arise."
Government's concerns included discrepancies in counted votes and the number of people who had for various reasons been turned away from polling stations. Netshitenzhe said the government believed the Zimbabwean people and authorities should deal with these concerns. The Democratic Alliance said the government was "dodging the issue of whether or not the Zimbabwe elections were free and fair". "Perhaps realising that declaring the elections free and fair will expose it to deserved ridicule, government spokesperson Joel Netshitenzhe has put forward the absurd formulation that the elections reflected credibly the will of the Zimbabwean people," said DA spokesman Joe Seremane. "Clearly he is trying to obscure the fact that there was no free campaigning, there was effectively no free media, that there was widespread intimidation and that tallies of votes in some areas were, to put it mildly, suspicious. "Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans in our country bear testimony to that ongoing repression. The issue is too important to let the ANC get away with this egg dance," he said. Mbeki would be asked in parliament today to state clearly whether he believed the Zimbabwe elections were free and fair, said Seremane. "The credibility of his government, the credibility of South Africa, the credibility of our struggle for human rights and democracy and the credibility of Nepad depend on his answer."
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From AFP, 13 April
Zimbabwe opposition releases dossier on ‘stolen’ elections
Harare - Zimbabwe's opposition released a dossier on Wednesday to back claims that last month's elections were rigged to hand victory to President Robert Mugabe's ruling party. "This document you have before you is the MDC report on how the elections were stolen and rigged," Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) secretary general Welshman Ncube told journalists after releasing the 56-page report titled "Stolen - How the Elections were rigged." "It is the MDC's view that the findings in this report demonstrate in unequivocal terms that the huge irregularities that occurred in both the pre-election period and on the voting day itself, make it impossible to judge the elections as free and fair." The elections were endorsed by regional observer missions from southern Africa as "reflecting the will of the people." Ncube said the opposition party has resolved to take a two-pronged plan to challenge the results from the polls. "The MDC national executive decided at its meeting last week that it does not recognise the outcome and decided on two forms of action...that is political action on the one hand and legal action on the other," Ncube said.
Ncube said the party will this week file challenges in the Electoral Court for 12 constituencies to be used as case studies of alleged poll fraud. He would not divulge details of the proposed political action saying the party was holding consultations to determine the "form, content and timing." "We are going to devise a programme of political action regardless of whether we get responses to our concerns or not," Ncube said. According to the report "more than 133,000 would-be voters attempted to participate on election day but were turned away" while "unknown thousands of voters were either added or subtracted from vote tallies in 72 of 120 constituencies." The report said opposition rallies were banned under Zimbabwe's tough security laws while the ruling Zanu PF campaigned without restrictions. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabwean citizens living outside the country were denied their legitimate right to vote, according to the report. The opposition complained that the voters' roll was in a shambles claiming some of its well-known activists killed years ago were still listed as voters as well as thousands of people who have left the country in the last five years.
"This created tremendous capacity for ballot stuffing especially when one considers that members of the military, the ruling party or the intelligence service were in charge of a large number of polling stations," the report said. The MDC said in the report it was denied access to areas where people have been allocated farms under Zimbabwe's controversial land reforms. "The people who live there are the most unfree people...they are hostages to Zanu PF. People in these areas live in fear and refused to be our polling agents and we had to look for polling agents from other areas," it said. Welshman said the court challenges would be filed by Friday although the MDC maintains the judiciary is packed with Zanu PF sympathisers. "All we seek is to use the courts as a public forum for the people of Zimbabwe to know how the election was stolen," he said. The MDC has slammed the parliamentary elections held on March 31 as a "massive fraud", alleging ballot stuffing on polling day and intimidation leading up to vote. Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party won enough seats to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament that will enable the veteran leader to make changes to the constitution.
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From VOA News, 13 April
Opposition supporters face violence in wake of Zimbabwe election
Harare - Arrests and beatings of opposition supporters in the wake of Zimbabwe's March 31 general election continue. Some opposition supporters have been so badly beaten by police, they have had to be hospitalized. Sukoluhle Ncube, 48 and the mother of four, has been in the hospital since the day after Zimbabwe's election. She was among the more than 250 women arrested after Zimbabwe police broke up a peaceful post-election prayer gathering in Harare by the grassroots group, Women of Zimbabwe Arise. According to opposition reports, police beat several of the women during and after their arrest. In her hospital bed, Mrs. Ncube says she is still sore from the multiple beatings and subsequent bruising from police batons. Medical staff at the private clinic say her skull is cracked, her blood pressure fluctuates wildly, and her condition is not improving. Of the more than 250 women arrested and detained, eight were hospitalized. All but Mrs. Ncube have since been released from the hospital.
In her hometown of Bulawayo, Mrs. Ncube normally earns money to pay school fees for her two youngest children by knitting jerseys. But she is worried because she says her hands are not working. She said her husband has a job in a textile factory which only operates one day a week, so money is tight. Mrs. Ncube said she joined Women of Zimbabwe Arise because of the results of Zimbabwe's economic crisis on children. When the group decided to gather in Harare after the elections, she travelled from Bulawayo for the prayer meeting in solidarity with all of Zimbabwe's women, she said. When they approached a small park in Central Harare policemen asked them what they were doing in Harare. "We want to pray. You do not know how to pray?.... they said why did you come here? We said we wanted to come. Lie down. Then they started beating us with sticks kicking us, stepping on our spines, jumping, jumping, jumping saying you are WOZA woman. You are from Bulawayo. You are WOZA here. We do not want to see WOZA here. You are mothers of Bulawayo WOZA. We know you ....some of you told us.. ..So we laid down there. Then we said, 'Why are you beating us?" Harare does not want people t o pray.......? So when we crowded, carrying our travelling bags, kicking us. When those cars come, ..beating us. Then we went to Central Police Station. When we reached Central Police station we found too much mothers.. Where did they get this women? They were crying some. Some this and that. Some were coming by foot. They were taken from the main station," she said.
Along the corridor in the same hospital west of the center of Harare is Joseph Mukaganise, who hospital staff estimate is in his mid 40's. He also has brain injuries and is largely incoherent. Medical staff say he was wearing an MDC T-shirt when he was taken to the hospital. His family says he had been to an MDC rally the day before the election, and that eye witnesses say he was knocked over by a small bus filled with Zanu PF supporters. No one knows whether it was deliberate or an accident. MDC legislator Nelson Chamisa was arrested last week, kept in leg irons, and says he was tortured in a Harare police station. He has since been released on bail. About 18 people under the age of 18 said they were beaten severely while in police custody before being released on bail. Police said these arrests were made in connection with a demonstration in central Harare following the announcement of election results that said the MDC had lost to the ruling Zanu PF, which now has a two-thirds majority in parliament. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said he was not aware of anyone having been hurt by police during post election arrests.
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From Associated Press, 14 April
Zimbabwe buys six fighter jets to defend airspace, ‘deal with any challenges ’
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's government has acquired six fighter jets "to deal with any challenges," state radio reported Wednesday. It did not disclose the supplier or the price tag, but the report first named them as the "K-8" and then the "K-fighter". The aircraft appeared to be the K-8 advanced jet trainer, a Chinese copy of the British Aerospace BAE "Hawk," said Michael Quintana, former editor of Africa Defence Journal. The Hawk was supplied to Zimbabwe by then Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher soon after independence in 1980. But Tony Blair's Labour party slapped an Embargo on spare parts in 2000 to protest human rights abuses. Quintana said Egypt bought K-8 trainers from China a price tag of $20 million US each. "If the country had to save up for these, no wonder we are experiencing shortages of petrol (gasoline)," Quintana told the Associated Press. The radio broadcast quoted air force acting director of operations, Group Captain Builtin Chingoto, as saying the new fighters were meant to keep up with fast changing technology. "They will go a long way to improve the operations of our air force in order to defend the country's air space and territorial integrity," he said. "They will enable the force to deal with any challenges."
Mugabe described Britain as "this enemy country" on the weekend and said he was continuing to wage what he called a "chimurenga" or civil war against the remaining 20,000 whites for control of natural resources, particularly land. Claiming a two-thirds majority in March 31 parliamentary elections, he said "the nation had mobilized through the ballot box to repulse imperialism". Zimbabwe has been in serious economic crisis since Mugabe dispatched 14,000 troops backed by tanks and aircraft to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1998 and in February 2000 began seizing 5,000 white owned farms. Some 70 per cent of Zimbabweans live in absolute poverty, with five million of its 11.6 million people dependent last year on international food aid. Hospitals lack medicines and food, while schools lack desks, books and writing materials. Official figures showed Zimbabwe's inflation rate fell to 123.7 in March, down 3.5 per cent in February, the government-controlled daily The Herald said in a report Wednesday. The K-8 flies under the speed of sound, 950 kilometres per hour, and has limited combat ability. It has already been supplied to the Namibian and Zambian air forces, Quintana said. He said that while engaged in the Congo civil war, Zimbabwean forces acquired three MIG-23 interceptor fighter-bombers from Moammar Gadhafi's Libyan Government. They have been seen at recent ceremonial fly pasts here.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 14 April
British reporters spend another night in jail
Zimbabwean officials late on Wednesday defied a judge's order to release two British journalists on bail, two weeks after they were detained near a polling station during Zimbabwe's parliamentary election. Toby Harnden (35) and Julian Simmonds (45) of The Sunday Telegraph, have pleaded not guilty to charges of violating Zimbabwe's draconian Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act by working as journalists without government accreditation during the March 31 election. A court in the rural center of Norton, 40km from Harare, ruled earlier on Wednesday that the journalists should be released on bail of Z$1-million (US$161), pending the judgement expected on Thursday. But senior immigration officer Evans Siziba arrived at Harare's central remand prison and forbade warders to free them into the custody of British diplomat David Ashford, who was waiting outside the gates after being present in court. Previous efforts to get the journalists released on bail were barred by a special government order, which expired on Wednesday. Siziba told warders to ignore the judge's ruling, the journalists' lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said. "The court order had been overruled by the Department of Immigration, and it is illegal," Mtetwa said. The British journalists were arrested near a polling station in Norton during the parliamentary elections. They have been held longer than any other journalists in Zimbabwe since the country gained independence in 1980.
Judge Never Diza is due to give a ruling on the case on Thursday afternoon on the charges of violating media and immigration laws, which carry a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment. The media laws, passed in 2002, have been used to control the media by shutting down the country's only independent daily newspaper, The Daily News, jail independent Zimbabwean journalists and expel or bar foreign journalists. Mtetwa has accused the authorities of calculated vindictiveness in the case of Harnden and Simmonds. The immigration official, Siziba, was a key figure in the 2003 abduction and expulsion from Zimbabwe of American journalist Andrew Meldrum, correspondent for the British newspaper, The Guardian. Meldrum, who had permanent residence status after 23 years in Zimbabwe, was forced by Siziba onto on a flight to Johannesburg, South Africa, in defiance of court orders after he was acquitted of charges of filing a false report. Defence lawyer Mtetwa asked that the charges against The Sunday Telegraph journalists be dismissed, saying prosecutor Albert Masamha had failed to prove the two had been working as journalists or had overstayed visas given to them when they entered the country on March 20. The prosecutor argued the visas were for tourism purposes and were good for only a week. The government granted accreditation to some foreign media during the ballot, but not all. President Robert Mugabe's governing party swept the March 31 elections, though the opposition and international governments criticised the vote as flawed, noting unfair reporting laws and widespread irregularities.
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From Zim Online (SA), 14 April
Zanu PF steps up bid to seize urban councils
Harare - The government has ordered urban councils to slash down rates to 2004 levels in a move insiders said was calculated to precipitate the collapse of opposition-led councils and pave way for the state to take over control of the politically vital urban areas. The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party controls five of Zimbabwe's biggest cities excluding Harare where the opposition party lost control after the government controversially dismissed an MDC-led council that was running the capital and appointed a commission in its place. The MDC also swept nearly all urban constituencies during last month's disputed parliamentary election to maintain its dominance in cities and towns. Insiders said the ruling Zanu PF party's key politburo committee, stung by the part's heavy loses in urban centres, tasked Local Government Minister, Ignatius Chombo, during its regular Wednesday meeting last week to ensure that all major towns and cities were wrestled away from the MDC. The order to freeze rate hikes and revert to last year's levels is hoped to destabilise urban councils and cripple local governance and eventually provide a pretext for the government to fire MDC council executives for non-performance and appoint commissions in their places, Zanu PF insiders said.
Urban councils were already facing severe financial difficulties because of poor revenue inflows after the government again clamped down on rates last year. "The government plans to fire the councils on the basis of poor service delivery and appoint ministerial commissions as what happened in Harare. There is desperation to have back the control of urban centres in Zanu PF," said a senior Zanu PF official, who did not want to be named. For example, in Zimbabwe's fourth largest city of Mutare, opposition executive mayor, Misheck Kagurabadza said his council will certainly collapse if they reverse rates to last year's levels. He said: "In December, we collected $3.5 billion and if we revert to that, then we won't be able to pay half our workforce because our salary bill is $7.2 billion, never mind service delivery. We will just collapse," he said. A government committee appointed to investigate the Mutare city council last year has already recommended that the entire council be fired and replaced by a government commission. Chombo however dismissed allegations that the instruction to revert to the old rates was meant to seize the opposition-controlled councils. He said: "Our interest is not in seeing the councils collapse but they have to follow procedures when increasing tariffs. We are safeguarding the residents. As for towns that fail to cope, well, we will take over as government if there are signs of failure." The Urban Councils Association of Zimbabwe vice president Japhet Ndabeni Ncube has constantly accused the government of sabotaging opposition-run municipalities by freezing rate hikes.
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From The Daily News Online Edition, 14 April
MDC dossier backs poll fraud claims
Harare - The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) this week released a damning report that documents all the alleged electoral malpractices by the ruling Zanu PF using State resources and electoral institutions during the March 31 parliamentary elections. In its 56-page report on the elections, subtitled "Stolen", the MDC points out the shortcomings of the so-called independent body responsible for the supervision and administration of elections, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the abuse of repressive laws to stifle the press and the opposition leading to "the denial of the Zimbabwean peoples’ will". The MDC said the management structure for the March 2005 elections was partisan and unprofessional in its conduct of electoral business. The opposition claims the whole administration of the election was supervised by the same partisan institutions that allegedly subverted the electoral processes in the controversial June 2000 parliamentary elections and the March 2002 presidential elections, giving Zanu PF "hollow victories". "Both the Registrar General (Tobaiwa Mudede) and Mariyawanda Nzuwah (the Elections Directorate) are two individuals who openly support Zanu PF," the document says. "Claims that the creation of ZEC, established under the ZEC Act have ensured that Zimbabwe’s electoral laws were consistent with regional guidelines do not stand up. Firstly, the ZEC was established too late in the day to have any real role in running the elections. Many of ZEC’s key functions had already been carried out by the time it was formally established. For instance, the Office of the Registrar General had carried out the voter registration exercise in May and July 2004."
According to the MDC document, ZEC was subservient to the Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) a constitutional body whereas ZEC was merely a legislative body. The MDC questions the independence of ZEC, the appointment of people to ZEC and how a body whose responsibility was to run the elections could be expected to deliver without its own support staff. Other parts of the document highlight the partisan attitude of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) in granting permission to hold campaign rallies, the restrictive nature of the legislation in place to curtail information dissemination, the biased coverage of MDC campaign rallies and programmes, and the continued abuse of grain maize as a campaign tool. During the campaign period, the MDC recorded 124 incidents of selective food selling, denial of right to hold campaign rallies, threats of expulsion from villages if people voted for the MDC, and beatings by Zanu PF militants and the police throughout the country, including illegal arrests and detention. Zimbabwe has been enmeshed in controversy since the infamous farm invasions in 2000 which led to the breakdown of the once vibrant agriculture industry, the rule of law, the economy, the health delivery system and the lifestyles of the majority Zimbabweans has worsened. The country’s elections since 2000 have been condemned by Zimbabwe’s civic society, the opposition, Europe and the United States of America as fraudulent and rigged in favour of President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF.
From ZWNEWS: If you would like to read "Stolen" - the MDC dossier backing its claims of electoral fraud - please let us know. It will be sent as attachments to an email message, approximately five times the size of the average daily ZWNEWS.
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From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 15 April
Telegraph two cleared of illegal reporting
By our Zimbabwe correspondent
A Zimbabwe court yesterday acquitted two Sunday Telegraph journalists of illegally reporting on last month's elections but said they still faced charges of overstaying their visas. The magistrate hearing the case, Never Diza, ruled that state prosecutors had failed to prove that Toby Harnden, the Sunday Telegraph's chief foreign correspondent, and Julian Simmonds, his photographer colleague, were working in the country illegally. "All in all, the state failed to provide sufficient evidence to show the accused persons have a case to answer," Mr Diza said. "I find both of them not guilty and acquitted." Mr Diza said the pair, who were arrested in Norton near Harare on election day, should still stand trial on lesser charges that they overstayed their visas in the country. If found guilty on these charges, they could either expect a fine or, less probably, a custodial sentence. Before the court announced its verdict, the two men were released on bail after a fortnight spent in custody, most recently in Harare's central remand prison. A court decision on Wednesday to grant them bail was overruled by immigration officials. They were staying last night with British diplomats before a hearing on the visa charges today. Harnden and Simmonds were originally charged with violating Zimbabwe's strict media laws, which require any foreign reporter working in the country to obtain permission from a government commission. A state prosecutor at court did not immediately indicate whether the government would appeal against Mr Diza's ruling. Harnden and Simmonds pleaded not guilty to all charges and argued that they were visiting Zimbabwe as tourists. The pair have also denied deliberately overstaying their visas, saying they believed they had been given the normal 14-day period instead of the shortened seven days.
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From Zim Online (SA), 15 April
Security ministry takes over food distribution
Harare - President Robert Mugabe’s national security ministry has taken over food importation and distribution in Zimbabwe, in a development observers told Zim Online will cast a veil of secrecy on the country’s food situation as well as perpetuate politicisation of food aid. Mugabe, who until last month had insisted that Zimbabwe had enough to feed itself, recently appointed a National Task Force on Food Security to deal with the country's fast deteriorating food crisis. The task force is headed by National Security Minister in the President's Office, Nicholas Goche. Goche also heads the state's spy Central Intelligence Organisation accused of hunting down and victimising opposition supporters. "The task force is a Zanu PF (Mugabe’s ruling party) creation and its operations are not open to the public," said a source privy to the latest developments surrounding food procurement and distribution. The chief executive officer of the state’s Grain Marketing Board GMB), in charge of food procurement and distribution, Samuel Muvuti, refused to take questions on the matter and referred all questions to Goche. Goche could not be reached for comment. International and local food relief organisations say up to four million people or about a quarter of Zimbabwe’s population need emergency food aid or they will starve.
Mugabe, who admitted during campaigning for last month’s parliamentary poll controversially won by Zanu PF that Zimbabwe faces a serious food crisis, told international food agencies to take their help elsewhere because the country had enough to feed itself. But a subsequent probe by Parliament revealed that the state’s Grain Marketing Board was to receive only about 600 000 tonnes of the staple maize in its silos by December 2004, a far cry from the 2.4 million tonnes Mugabe and his Agriculture Minister Joseph Made claimed Zimbabwean farmers had produced. Zimbabwe requires 1.8 million tonnes of maize for human consumption and stock feed per year. The country has virtually survived on food handouts from the international community in the last four years after Mugabe plunged the large commercial farming sector into turmoil through violent land seizures for distribution to landless blacks. Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) shadow spokesman for agriculture Renson Gasela, a former GMB boss, condemned the government’s move to place food distribution under state security. Gasela said: "Zanu PF wants to use food as a tool to sway voters to the ruling party. They want to distribute food along party lines." The opposition accuses the ruling Zanu PF party of denying food aid to its supporters as punishment for backing the MDC. Zanu PF denies the charge.
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From SABC News, 15 April
Zimbabwe must face economic problems - IMF official
With parliamentary elections over in Zimbabwe, a senior International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said yesterday it was time for the government to pay attention to repairing its economy. Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party scored a massive victory at the April 1 poll, which has been disputed by the opposition. Zimbabwe is about US$306 million in arrears to the IMF, which has halted lending to the government and is considering expelling it from its ranks at a time when the country is struggling with its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980. "The authorities know they need to implement one comprehensive programme that revives economic activity in Zimbabwe. With the election over, now is the time to move in that direction," Siddharth Tiwari, a deputy director in the IMF's Africa department, said at a news conference before the start of the IMF and World Bank spring meetings in Washington. Donors and investors have largely deserted the country due to the country's reform policy in which white-owned farms were seized for distribution to the poor, concerns about human rights abuses, a lack of rule of law and uncertainty about property rights. Gross domestic product tumbled between 2000 and 2003 as agricultural, mining and manufacturing output fell, inflation soared to around 600% and the country faced chronic shortages of food, fuel and medicine. In February the IMF gave Zimbabwe six months to increase its debt repayments and introduce policies to begin its economic healing. The board acknowledged some steps the government had taken to turn the economy around, but said it was not enough. Introducing structural policies and improving the investment climate were key to revive the economy, Tiwari said. "From the commitments we have, they have the desire to move in that direction," he added. Tiwari said donors would likely not return to Zimbabwe until the government addressed its economic policies. "There are a lot of multilateral institutions and bilateral countries willing to help, but (Zimbabwe) needs to move first," he added.
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Comment from The New Statesman (UK), 15 April
Lindsey Hilsum pities a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe
Dictators always ensure that what follows their rule will be worse. After Mugabe dies, South Africa will have anarchy and warlordism on its border, writes Lindsey Hilsum
The elections in Zimbabwe were like a bad film sequel. The plot was predictable and the characters repeated what they'd said in part one, so we shuffled out of the cinema before the end. Violence makes good TV, unlike arithmetic, and the Zimbabwean government knew that the media would lose interest if the argument came down to number-crunching when the poll was over - which is why it is worth re-examining the concluding scene. By the time Robert Mugabe was playing his bit part in the Pope's funeral, the final polling figures for the 120 contested parliamentary seats had been announced. The opposition MDC won just 41 - a loss of 16 - while Mugabe's Zanu PF party had 78, up from its previous 63. Add on the 30 MPs that the president appoints, and Zanu PF has an unassailable two-thirds majority.
So how did the party do it? Before the election, the opposition complained that the voters' register was inflated with as many as two million "ghost voters". The "ghosts", it seems, voted in the period between the point at which the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission announced the number of votes cast in a particular constituency, and the moment the same commission declared the result. For example, in Manyame constituency, just outside Harare, the commission first announced that 14,812 people had voted. The MDC candidate won 8,312 votes, which should have made her the winner. But at the end of the day, the number of votes cast suddenly rocketed to 24,303. A majority of the 9,491 extra votes went to the Zanu PF candidate (who happened to be President Mugabe's nephew). So he won, after all. A similar pattern was repeated in 29 other constituencies. The electoral commission chairman, George Chiweshe (a retired colonel), denied any rigging, saying that the initial totals given for votes cast were merely "updates from people on the ground which had not been verified". After the discrepancy was noted, it took him a week to come up with this explanation.
On election day, I watched as voters patiently queued at polling stations in the farming lands of Marondera East. The following day, it was announced that the defence minister, Sydney Sekeramayi, who won the seat by only 38 votes in the 2000 elections, had increased his majority to 9,126. Again, the number of voters shot up from the 25,193 initially announced, to 29,935. A South African election monitor told us that he had been ejected from a local polling station, and had to fight his way back in. None the less, the South African government endorsed the election, and observers from neighbouring African countries declared it "peaceful, credible, well managed and transparent". Sources close to the South African government say Mugabe agreed to limit violence on the understanding that the election would be deemed sufficiently free and fair. The EU and the US, both relying on resident diplomats, said it was rigged - but so what? Sanctions and travel bans have angered Mugabe, but they haven't made him change his policies.
What will happen now? Nothing. The opposition's 39 legal challenges to the 2000 parliamentary results languish in court; none has been resolved. This time the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, said it would not go "the legal route", but he has not indicated any alternative, leaving the impression that he is weak and paralysed. The country is not on the verge of an uprising: most Zimbabweans I met felt powerless. "We have become a bantustan," wrote a friend in a despairing e-mail. "South Africa panders to our leaders, and we provide them with cheap labour." The reaction of President Thabo Mbeki provides an uneasy contrast to President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. When Togo's leader, Gnassingbe Eyadema, died at the age of 69 in February, Obasanjo acted swiftly to condemn an army-backed takeover by Eyadema's son. Sanctions were imposed, arms twisted, and within three weeks he had stood down to make way for elections.
Eventually Mugabe, who is 81, will also die. His chosen successor appears to be Joyce Mujuru, a Zanu PF functionary whose main distinction is being married to a guerrilla leader from the struggle against white rule in the 1970s. It seems unlikely that she could retain the loyalty of the ruling party, let alone reunite the country. Dictators always ensure that what follows their rule is worse: "Apres moi le deluge." Mbeki says - with some justification - that it is ridiculous for the outside world to care so much about Zimbabwe and not about the Democratic Republic of Congo, where more than two million have died in a decade of civil war. But after Mugabe, dissent among the Zimbabwean armed forces could turn to anarchy, and factional rivalry to warlordism. Today, it's an argument over numbers, but tomorrow Mbeki may have a much bigger problem on his border.
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Comment from The Cape Times (SA), 15 April
When you're up against a total onslaught, you need fighter jets
By John Scott
'So why do you need fighter jets?" I asked Solly Malinga, who is usually willing to give me the inside story on events in Zimbabwe, because I always report him faithfully. That country has just taken delivery of six K-8 fighter-jet training aircraft from China, each costing about $20 million, with another six to come. President Mugabe says they will prepare pilots for war. "You heard what our president said," said Solly. "We have enemies on all sides. If they try anything, we'll bomb them to smithereens." "Such as whom?" "The British imperialists for a start. Now that we have beaten them in the election, they may want to invade Zimbabwe, re-colonise us and give the whites back their land. The RAF should know that we will be waiting for them, once we have trained our pilots. They mustn't think we'll welcome them with open arms, just because our president shook Prince Charles's hand. We're ready for Bush, too. We won't be a walk-over like Iraq."
"It's highly unlikely that the Brits will want whip up the winds of change again, Solly. They were so relieved to get rid of Zimbabwe in the first place that Maggie Thatcher gave you some Hawk fighters, in case you needed to defend yourself against somebody. As for Bush, you're quite safe. You haven't got any oil he might be interested in, not even in some of your service stations." "Then there are the remaining 20 000 whites who still haven't learnt their lesson and think they can go on living in Zimbabwe," said Solly. "We have to wage what our president calls the Chimurenga or freedom war against them." "Not with fighter aircraft, surely?" "If you want to see people get off the land in double-quick time, just do a couple of strafing runs," said Solly. "It will finally get rid of the stragglers."
"Still, it seems a lot of money to spend on arms when millions of your people are starving." "At least they will die grateful, because they are free," said Solly. "Which reminds me, that's another thing we need the jets for, to stop refugees returning. We don't want people back who left simply because they were hungry. Cosatu will also think twice before trying to cross the border again, to see what's happening. They'll be dive-bombed, that's what will be happening." "I didn't realise your fighter jets would be so busy," I said. "That's not the end of it," said Solly. "Morgan Tsvangirai, Archbishop Pius Ncube and their mob are talking of a mass people's uprising against the government. Well, we've got news for them, in the shape of six shiny little babies warming up their engines on the runway." "Surely not," I said. "When you're up against a total onslaught, you must be prepared to take extreme measures," said Solly. "PW Botha taught us that."
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From Zim Online (SA), 16 April
Mugabe appoints trusted lieutenants to key ministries
Harare - President Robert Mugabe last night appointed trusted lieutenants to the key Ministries of National Security and Foreign Affairs in a bloated Cabinet meant to appease rival factions of his ruling Zanu PF party. Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa, who last year said Mugabe was Zimbabwe's Messiah "sent by the Almighty to lead Zimbabwe . . . the best thing that has ever happened to the African continent," is now State Security Minister, a key and influential post in Mugabe's secretive government. Mutasa will be in charge of the feared state spy Central Intelligence Organisation known for hunting down, victimising and sometimes eliminating troublesome opposition activists. He will also be in charge of a new government food task force that oversees importation and distribution of food in the country, where four million people face starvation. Zimbabwe’s ambassador to former colonial master Britain, designated the arch-enemy by Mugabe, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, takes over as Foreign Affairs Minister from Stan Mudenge who has been demoted to the less influential Higher and Tertiary Education Ministry. Mudenge supported former government propaganda chief Jonathan Moyo in a plot to block the elevation of Joyce Mujuru to second vice-president of Zanu PF. His downgrading is in line with demotions of nearly all the key figures that tried to block the rise of Mujuru whom Mugabe openly preferred for the vice-presidency, seen as a key post to the top job.
But Mugabe made sure none of his squabbling followers got away empty-handed with a new and strange Ministry of Rural Housing and Social Amenities created to accommodate former parliamentary speaker, Emmerson Mnangagwa. Mnangagwa, long viewed as Mugabe’s choice of successor, leads the other faction of Zanu PF that also included Moyo. He lost the vice-presidency to Mujuru and his banishment to the obscure Rural Housing Ministry appears to signal the end of his presidential ambitions. Long-time Zimbabwe representative to the United Nations, Tichaona Jokonya, takes over as government chief spin doctor at the Ministry of Information and Publicity. The information job is one of the most crucial posts in a government that must churn out propaganda on a daily basis to defend and justify its policies, blamed by many for turning one of Africa’s most vibrant economies into a basket case. Ever-loyal Sydney Sekeramayi was retained as Defence Minister, so was Kembo Mohadi at Home Affairs and Herbert Murerwa, acting Finance Minister since last year takes over at the ministry. But Murerwa’s ministry, which used to be called the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development was split up to create another and separate Ministry of Economic Development and in the process creating a job for Rugare Gumbo.
Matabeleland North governor Obert Mpofu makes a return to Cabinet as Minister of Industry and International Trade replacing Samuel Mumbengegwi. Patrick Chinamasa, who led the purging of independent judges from Zimbabwe’s bench, was retained at the Justice Ministry, his sins after joining Moyo in trying to block Mujuru’s rise clearly forgiven. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, who has endlessly bungled since being first appointed in 2000 was retained in his post. Made is infamous among Zimbabweans for falsely claiming in 2002 and again last year that the country had enough food when millions were and are facing starvation. Also retained are Education Sports and Culture, Aeneas Chigwedere; Health and Child Welfare, David Parirenyatwa; Local Government and National Housing, Ignatius Chombo; Transport, Chris Mushowe; Mines and Mining Development Amos Midzi, Youth Development and Employment Creation, Ambrose Mutinhiri; State Policy and Implementation, Webster Shamu; Indigenisation and Employment Creation Josiah Tungamirai and Small and Medium Scale Enterprise Development Minister, Sithembiso Nyoni. Besides Mnangagwa’s ministry, three other new ministries were created with former army general and governor of Manicaland province Mike Nyambuya appointed new Minister of Energy and Power Development. There are various other lesser important ministries of state which although technically not considered full ministries do still draw huge votes from the fiscus. Although clearly at pains to ensure everyone got a seat on the gravy train, Mugabe gave all the key posts out of the total 30 ministries to members or allies of the Zezuru-led faction of powerful former army general and Mujuru’s husband, Solomon. Mugabe himself belongs to the same Zezuru clan of Zimbabwe’s majority Shona tribe.
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From Business Day (SA), 15 April
Zimbabwean court acquits British journalists
A Zimbabwean court has acquitted two British journalists from the Sunday Telegraph newspaper of breaching immigration laws, a day after clearing them of covering last month's parliamentary elections without accreditation. Magistrate Never Diza said the charge that chief foreign correspondent Toby Harnden, 37, and photographer Julian Simmonds, 46, had overstayed a seven-day permit was left "hanging and unexplained." "It cannot be said the state proved its case beyond reaonsable doubt. The accused therefore get the benefit of the doubt and I find them not guilty and I acquit them," he said. Harnden and Simmonds were arrested on March 31 at a polling station in Norton, 40 kilometres west of Harare, as Zimbabweans cast ballots to elect a new parliament. They were accused of working without accreditation, an offence that carries a maximum jail sentence of two years, and for violating visa regulations which is punishable by a maximum fine of 2.5 million Zimbabwe dollars. "The failure by the state to call the immigration officer who attended to the accused on whether or not the accused were granted 14 days or not also left the state evidence hanging and unexplained," the magistrate said. He said two other immigration officers who were called in to testify "also admitted that the expiry date was not indicated and... conceded that the figures in the passports looked like 14 and another like a one and another figure." "Even police officers could not tell whether the accused had overstayed by merely looking at their passports" when the two newsmen were arrested, said Diza.
Harnden pronounced his "delight" after the ruling. "We are very pleased that justice has been done in the court today. We are delighted to be able to leave the country and get back to Britain, see our families and get on with our lives." Harnden's father Keith expressed his "great relief. I am very, very pleased that they were found not guilty. I believe they had a fair trial." When asked what he thought of Zimbabwe's judicial system, he said "I would like to think that this is typical of justice in this country. I would like to hope that this is going to be the case with every other case" that comes up. Magistrate Diza said the men would be handed over to immigration authorities, an order pointing to an immediate deportation. Both Simmonds and Harnden had testified during the two-week trial that they believed their visas were valid for 14 days. "If I believed the visa had expired, I would have made representations to have it extended," Simmonds had said. On Thursday, Diza said the prosecution had failed to build a case for a guilty verdict on the media laws charge. A police officer testified that a digital camera taken from Simmonds did not contain any images while a notebook also seized from the journalists eluded Zimbabwean investigators, who said they could not read short-hand. "No pictures were produced and the camera was never presented before this court as evidence. The notebook was also produced but no one was able to read the contents," Diza noted. President Robert Mugabe's party won a crushing victory in the parliamentary elections, which were covered by 212 foreign journalists who were granted accreditation. Harnden and Simmonds were arrested under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) which has led to the closure of four independent Zimbabwean newspapers and the arrest of scores of journalists since it was adopted in 2002.
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From Reuters, 15 April
Zimbabwe seen to need S Africa food, but who pays?
By Peter Apps
Johannesburg - Drought and poor seed distribution may force Zimbabwe to import more South African food, traders say, but many doubt whether President Robert Mugabe's government has the money. Aid workers say this year's drought would have cut the staple maize crop anyway, while Mugabe's critics say chaotic seizures of white-owned farms over the past five years have left the nation's once-thriving farm sector in ruins. "Even in the commercial areas it would have been bad," said one aid worker. "But those guys would have had irrigation. There could be real suffering this year." Some wonder if Zimbabwe's food needs might be funded by China or Iran -- both wooed as part of Mugabe's "Look East" policy aimed at developing new friends for a government widely reviled in the West. "We don't know where they will get the money from," said another aid worker. "(Iranian President Mohammad) Khatami was in Zimbabwe recently, so we wonder if it's someone like that."
With state-supplied seeds and fertilisers arriving late or not at all, some aid workers say Zimbabwe's overall maize crop could be as little as 300,000 to 700,000 tonnes - well short of the 1.8 million tonnes they say the country needs, and estimates of a one million-tonne 2004 crop. South Africa on the other hand is expecting its best harvest in over a decade after good rain, but much of the rest of the region also faces shortages after late-season droughts destroyed much of the crop in Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique, leaving South Africa the only regional source for grain. Some traders say the rest of southern Africa may need as much as 1.5 million tonnes of South African maize to stave off starvation in a region where the HIV/AIDS pandemic has left many weakened and unable to farm. Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and the kingdoms of Swaziland and Lesotho can either buy the food themselves or ask for food aid, but no one knows how Zimbabwe will meet its shortfall. Zimbabwe, along with much of the rest of Southern Africa, saw serious food shortages in 2002-2003, with as much as half the country's 14 million people needing food aid.
Agencies like the World Food Programme saw operations significantly cut back in 2004, when Zimbabwe said it had enough to feed its people, and economic decline has left the country with little foreign exchange to buy imports, traders say. Some aid workers had expected relief agencies to be invited back after parliamentary polls at the end of March - criticised by Western countries as unfree - but nothing has happened. Traders say food is moving into Zimbabwe anyway, as the 2004 harvest is exhausted and the main 2005 crop awaits harvesting towards May. Further orders were expected, they said. There were no signs the South African government is buying on behalf of Zimbabwe, as it has done in the past, traders said, leading some to talk of Chinese or Iranian involvement. Both have invested in Zimbabwe in recent years as western donors flee. South African rail and road transport operators ship some 40,000 tonnes of food a month to private buyers around the southern Zimbabwe city of Bulawayo, rail operator Spoornet said. Some South African traders say they distrust Zimbabwe's state Grain Marketing Board (GMB) after it failed to honour contracts last year, and a few say the government is using private buyers rather than the GMB to purchase its grain. Although current orders are being processed and paid for, traders say large future orders may to be treated with caution until Zimbabwe's ability to pay becomes clear. Other trade sources say as much as 70,000 tonnes of white maize could be already in transit to Zimbabwe from South Africa, with a possible further 80,000 tonnes on the way. "I think you'll see the export figures to Zimbabwe rise next week or the week after," a trader said.
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From Zim Online (SA), 16 April
Mozambique president snubs Mugabe
Johannesburg - Newly elected Mozambican President, Armando Guebuza, has deliberately side-stepped visiting Zimbabwe, amid allegations that he is not happy with the manner in which the just ended parliamentary poll was conducted. Guebuza was elected into office in November last year after trouncing Alfonso Dhlakama, the leader of Mozambique’s main opposition Renamo party. Sources within his delegation, which has been visiting Southern African Development Community (SADC) states, said Guebuza did not want the international community, which has condemned the Zimbabwe election, to put him in the same boat with Mugabe who is accused of human rights abuses. Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF party won 78 seats against the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) 41. Another seat went to an independent Jonathan Moyo, who is Mugabe’s former information minister. The MDC has refused to accept the election results alleging massive rigging by Zanu PF. "We have so far visited Angola, Botswana and South Africa. We have deliberately side-stepped Zimbabwe because it is coming out of a controversial election," said a senior Mozambican government official in Johannesburg yesterday, where Guebuza is currently on an official state visit. "We will visit Zimbabwe and Namibia sometime, not now because we do not want to be seen as the first country to endorse the government there by undertaking an official state visit," added the official. Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo party observed last month’s polls but the party is yet to pronounce its verdict on the polls. But regional powerhouse South Africa, and the SADC election observers have all said the poll reflected the will of the Zimbabwean people.
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Comment from The Pretoria News (SA), 15 April
Observers are welcome - if there's nothing to hide
Disingenuous to suggest it is foreign interference
By Peter Fabricius
Southern African countries know how to run and observe elections "and don't need outsiders chaperoning" them how to do so, Mineral and Energy Affairs Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka declared in Harare on the day of Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections. She was there as the leader of the Southern African Development Community's election observer team which eventually found that the elections were fine. The South African government came to the same conclusion. The Minister was commenting on - and implicitly approving - the Zimbabwe government's refusal to invite election observers from Western countries and organisations, like the European Union, because it wished to avoid foreign interference. The fact that Zimbabwe also failed to invite the Commonwealth somewhat gave the lie to this justification, suggesting that Robert Mugabe's government excluded any organisation likely to disapprove the elections, as the Commonwealth had last time.
Mugabe's ex-information minister Jonathan Moyo was fond of berating Westerners for insisting on observing African elections but not reciprocating. The US in particular, he said, did not want observers to come and see it rigging elections like the presidential poll in Florida in 2000 which won George W Bush the White House. But then the American NGO Fair Election International did in fact invite international observers - including several South Africans, among them members of the Independent Electoral Commission - to observe the 2004 elections. Brigalia Bam, head of the IEC was part of a team which observed the election preparations. She said the election officials they met were rather bemused - and at first rather reluctant - to be observed by foreigners but did not try to obstruct them. In their report, these observers said the US electoral system was "in considerable distress". Confidence in and the equity of the system was "compromised by ambiguities in election standards, partisan oversight and problematic voting equipment". The report implicitly suggested, though, that these problems had not changed the overall result. But had the vote count been closer, the problems "could have thrown the elections into protracted dispute" - as in 2000.
And now the British government has invited international observers - including also members of SA's IEC and Department of Foreign Affairs, to observe the May 5 parliamentary elections. They will be there from May 2 to May 6, meeting officials, including those of Britain's elections commission and then splitting into groups closely to observe actual voting on May 5. British officials stress that this will not be an official election observation mission - more of a study tour - but that the observers will nonetheless have "the same access to the election process as anyone else" and will, of course be free to report on their findings. These missions rather undermine the arguments of Mlambo-Ngcuka, Jonathan Moyo and others that Africa does not need foreign chaperones to help it observe fellow-Africans elections. If the US and Britain tolerate or even welcome Africans to come and observe their elections, why not vice versa? Inviting observers does not imply that one is incapable of running or monitoring one's own election, as Mlambo-Ngcuka and others suggest, either over-sensitively or perhaps disengenuously. It is merely that if you have nothing to hide, then why stop anyone observing your elections? And if they are really free and fair, then the more people who say so, the better.
By limiting the observation of its elections almost exclusively to fellow-Africans, Zimbabwe only helped to undermine the credibility of those observers, rather than raise the credibility of its elections. The tentative efforts by the United States and United Kingdom mentioned above, should perhaps be expanded, formalised and institutionalised into some form of standardised international election observation effort. Making election observation as inclusive as possible, in this way, would be far better than the sort of suspect, exclusive approach advocated by Mlambo-Ngcuka. Democracy is a universal value. African democrats are no better qualified than any others to observe African elections. And they are no worse qualified than any otherss to observe non-African elections.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 17 April
'SA bankrolled Zanu PF election campaign'
By Loughty Dube
Bulawayo - In what could expose the double standards of President Thabo Mbeki's government in handling the Zimbabwean crisis, the opposition Freedom Front Plus on Thursday alleged in parliament that South Africa donated about R1 million towards Zanu PF's election campaign. Freedom Front Plus MP, Pieter Groenewald, asked Mbeki in Parliament if he was aware that about R1 million was allegedly handed over by the secretariat of the armed forces to the Zimbabwe military attaché to South Africa to support the ruling party in the 31 March parliamentary elections. Under the Political Parties (Finance) Act, it is an offence for a political party to receive foreign funding in any form. In February, the government gave Zanu PF $3.3 billion, while $3.1 billion was made available to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for the elections. Groenewald alleged that the money was donated at a function that was held in Pretoria in March and was deposited in the personal account of the attaché, who was not named in parliament. Groenewald, however, told parliament that Defence Minister, Mosiuoa Lekota, was not present during the handover ceremony. Reports from South Africa said a stunned Mbeki in reply said: "The South African government had never financed an election campaign in any country." According to News 24.com, an online publication, Mbeki asked Groenewald to furnish him with more details of the incident before investigations were instituted.
The South African press said Defence spokesperson, Sam Mkhwananzi, refused to comment on Thursday. "I can not comment as we do not have enough information. The department will investigate the matter," Mkhwananzi was quoted as saying. Contacted for comment yesterday Zanu PF secretary for finance, David Karimanzira, said he was in a meeting before switching off his mobile phone. However, Zanu PF national chairman, John Nkomo, denied that his party received any funds from the South African government. "I do not know anything about that, absolutely nothing about the matter you are talking about," said Nkomo before switching off his mobile phone. MDC secretary general, Welshman Ncube, said the opposition party was far from being shocked by the latest revelations. "The South African government is an ally and supporter of Zanu PF and they provide the party with material, moral and financial support. In actual fact, they helped Zanu PF rig the elections and they turn around to the world and say the elections in Zimbabwe were free and fair," Ncube said. The South African Observer Mission declared the disputed 31 March elections, won by Zanu PF, as free and fair. In the past Zanu PF has accused the MDC of being funded by Western countries, especially Britain and the United States. The opposition party has dismissed the allegations as baseless.
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From The Independent (UK), 17 April
President Mugabe to add two years to term
By Christopher Thompson in Harare
President Mugabe is trying to add two more years to his time in office, according to official sources. Senior members of Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party are contemplating extending the President's term by introducing a constitutional amendment to hold presidential and parliamentary elections together in 2010. The elections on 31 March handed Mugabe 78 seats - enough to change the constitution. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has denounced the elections and launched a legal challenge over alleged vote-rigging. Officials are quietly considering the issue, which would form part of Zanu PF's legislative agenda in the new parliament. Given Mr Mugabe's majority, the initiative would be easy to push through, meaning the presidential poll currently scheduled for 2008 would be moved to 2010. Mr Mugabe has made no secret of his wish to make constitutional changes in the wake of his controversial win and in particular his desire to run the two main elections concurrently. He has also publicly called for a reintroduction of a senate, which critics argue would be used as a dumping ground for the president's cronies. The idea was rejected in a referendum in 2000. The Zanu PF secretary for administration, Didymus Mutasa, said that pursuing the legislative agenda would be facilitated by extending Mr Mugabe's term: "The easiest way of doing it would be to delay the presidential election to 2010. If we hold the parliamentary election early in 2008, that would be costly." Though Zimbabwe's political calendar has long been acknowledged as overcrowded,critics say the real reason Mr Mugabe wants to merge elections is to consolidate executive power.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 17 April
MDC supporters barred from buying maize meal
By Godfrey Mutimba
Masvingo - Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) supporters in rural areas of Masvingo province are allegedly being denied access to maize meal because they are suspected of having voted for the opposition party in the just ended parliamentary polls, The Standard was told. Also affected were local election observers who were attached to the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn) during the March 31 parliamentary elections. Villagers interviewed by The Standard alleged that Zanu PF officials ordered headmen and councillors to strike off the names of suspected opposition supporters and local observers from lists that are submitted to the Grain Marketing Board (GMB). The lists enable people to buy maize meal from the GMB. The worst affected areas are Gutu South, Mwenezi and Bikita East constituencies, which were won by Zanu PF in the just ended parliamentary polls. Eshmael Mazuru of Mataruse village, in Gutu South, said he was finding it extremely difficult to fend for his family. "We are being made to suffer because we support the opposition MDC. Our families have virtually nothing to eat. We can't buy maize meal in the shops because the shelves are empty, so we can't do anything. We are dependent on help from sensitive relatives who support Zanu PF," said Mazuru.
Elizabeth Dube, who said she was an election observer with Zesn in the just ended elections, said she was chased away from a GMB maize selling point in Bikita East by a councillor, she identified by name. She said the councillor accused her of being an opposition sympathiser. It was not immediately possible to reach the councillor for comment. "I was chased away from a GMB selling point by the councillor who said I was an opposition sympathiser because I observed the elections under Zesn. "If this continues many MDC supporters here will starve to death because we did not have a good harvest this season due to erratic rains", she said. MDC provincial chairman Shacky Matake said chiefs, headmen and councillors were denying opposition supporters in Masvingo rural access to buy food. "We have been receiving numerous reports from our supporters in different areas in the province, who are denied the right to buy maize meal because they voted for us and this is being done through abusing the role of traditional chiefs,'' said Matake. He added: "To us it's a clear indication that the ruling party, which stole the recent election, has been victimising our supporters in the rural areas using such things as food. Now they want to fix them so that they desert our party in order to boost Zanu PF's dwindling support base." Zesn national director, Rindai Chipfunde-Vava, said the organisation will investigate the matter. Most villagers in rural Masvingo, which received poor rains this season, face starvation because of widespread crop failure.
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From The Sunday Argus (SA), 17 April
A revolution off the rails
Robert Mugabe couldn't be more different to the man who offered great hope when he came to power 25 years ago
There were always silly rumours that a ghost writer, such as the last British governor Christopher Soames, had written Robert Mugabe's speech of reconciliation after he won the first general election in 1980. That speech that he made 25 years ago today (April 17) - on the eve of independence - always stuns young Zimbabweans when they see the black and white footage for the first time. "If yesterday you hated me, today you cannot avoid the love that binds you to me and me to you. Is it not folly, therefore, that in these circumstances anybody should seek to revive the wounds and grievances of the past?" Mugabe said. Among those who questioned his authorship were vanquished whites, mourning their dead and scared after decades of demonising propaganda by the Rhodesian Front-controlled media. Others who questioned the speech, were the left wing of Zanu PF, many of whom had been detained by Mugabe in Mozambique during the war, and of course, the towering Joshua Nkomo, who led the original liberation movement, Zapu.
But Mugabe wrote the speech himself, according to a former Rhodesian senior civil servant who stayed on in his office after independence. And it needed little editing. If many questioned it then, almost everyone now finds it hard to believe, so far does Zimbabwe seem from those emotions today. They were directed mainly at whites who controlled much of the economy at independence. But Mugabe quickly made them politically irrelevant. Many of the racists and the heartsore slunk off to South Africa. Those who stayed, largely disappeared from the political scene. A few months after independence, Mugabe still had a positive message for whites, though rather less so that in that April 17 speech. He told a group of white farmers in a hall in Chinhoyi, 100 kilometres north of Harare: "You will need shock absorbers, as you will hear many things about yourselves, but just keep going." They heard the message in a province which provided 70% of agricultural foreign currency earnings. Agricultural expansion, which spread into an increasingly sophisticated and growing peasant sector who quickly became the largest maize producers, seemed set to provide food security for ever and ever, even in drought years when there was enough foreign currency for short term imports of grain in 1991.
This sector drove the economy so fast it was almost breathtaking and Mugabe invested the proceeds in health and education. According to the United Nations, Zimbabwe achieved 85% literacy within 15 years of independence, and health care was up there too. Even now, when the country is mired in staggering domestic and foreign debt and a collapsing infrastructure, there is still zeal and dedication among many public health workers struggling to alleviate the suffering of those affected by HIV/Aids. "They are surprisingly committed, hamstrung by lack of resources, of course, but their data collection, for example, is really good," said a foreign doctor, seconded to the department of health. "Despite everything, many African countries could learn something from the Zimbabweans." By 1990, a decade after independence, infant death rates had been reduced by more than 16%, maternal deaths were more than halved, and immunisation and nutrition levels had soared. After free and compulsory primary education became law, the number of primary schools nearly doubled - from 2401 to 4324 - between the last year of minority white rule in 1979 and 1985. Zimbabwe more than doubled its number of trained teachers between 1980 and 1995. Secondary schools sprung up everywhere.
But if things looked good at the start, it was because Mugabe's essentially autocratic, undemocratic nature had not fully revealed itself. Mugabe's political plans were always to establish a one-party state under the comfortable cloak of his allies in the eastern bloc. Zapu leader, Joshua Nkomo, stood in his way. Zapu won 20 of 120 elected seats in the liberation election of 1980. Shortly after independence, fighting broke out between Mugabe's former combatants and those loyal to Joshua Nkomo's Zapu in post wartime assembly points. Former Rhodesian soldiers, mostly black, restored an uneasy peace but the wound ran too deep to heal. Former Zapu combatants struggled for places in the Zimbabwe National Army and many of those who did get recruited and who were manifestly better trained than those loyal to Mugabe, found themselves stuck in junior positions. They left in droves. Top Zapu leaders were arrested and tried for treason, acquitted and detained under emergency regulations for a further four years. A mysterious force, known as the "dissidents" began killing a few white farmers and some Zanu PF members in Matabeleland province. Many of Mugabe's opponents suspected that this was a "dirty trick" by Mugabe himself to give him ammunition to crush Zapu, which he in any case did.
Mugabe accused Nkomo in the following provocative terms: "Zapu is irretrievably bent on its criminal path ... time has now come to show this evil party our teeth. We can bite, and we shall certainly bite." He told his supporters to "weed them out of your gardens." He sent in the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade, and for five years parts of the Midlands and the two Matabeleland provinces were consumed by violence in remote villages and journalists who reported it were routinely deported. Food in those dry and hungry areas was used as a weapon, development was withheld, and the state controlled media was used, much as the Rhodesians had used it, to persuade the dominant Shona tribe that Zapu and Ndebele speakers in general were the enemy. Many Shonas outside of Matabeleland didn't know, or didn't believe, what was going on in the south of the country, and peace, development and growth continued in the provinces closest to Harare. But Zapu had been quietly vanquished, and Nkomo, who had fled Zimbabwe three years after independence, returned, and he and his party retreated into a junior partnership with Zanu PF. Zapu died when Nkomo reluctantly signed a unity accord with Mugabe in 1987. The massacres in Matabeleland left unknown thousands dead, many injured and thousands fled from the rural areas.
The economy, now struggling with outdated capital equipment from years of sanctions against Rhodesia began to falter, and then in 1997, Mugabe made a huge unbudgeted, pension pay-out to restless, unemployed war veterans which sank the value of the Zimbabwe dollar overnight. Foreign currency became scarcer and the International Monetary Fund's structural adjustment programme in the early 1990s, which facilitated cheaper imports, and led to factory closures and massive job losses, ripped the social infrastructure further apart. So, when a growing, well educated urban society began questioning the loss of civil liberties and the trade union movement grew in protest against the economic hardships of structural adjustment, it was inevitable that a new opposition would emerge. Several small parties came and went, and only one, the Zimbabwe Unity Movement, lead by former Zanu PF heavyweight Edgar Tekere, made any impression. But it was demonised and made a foolish alliance with conservative whites, fought an election in 1990, won two seats, and disappeared before the next poll.
The new party, the Movement for Democratic Change, (MDC) as in the early days of Zapu when it was still a liberation movement, would emerge cutting across the lines of tribe, clan, class and province. When the MDC mobilised the population to reject Mugabe's proposed new constitution in a referendum in February 2000, Mugabe was caught by surprise. His old international allies in the Soviet bloc had become multiparty democracies, the world had changed, so dealing with the MDC in the same way as he had crushed Zapu was not an option. So, Mugabe played his last card - the card which some believe he had always kept at the bottom of the deck for an emergency like this - the white farmers whom he had always berated verbally when he needed a scapegoat, but whom he had basically left intact. Some say that the farmers "brought it upon themselves" by providing financial and logistical support for the MDC. In any case, now he needed their land and he unleashed his war veterans and unemployed youths onto well developed farms, evicting white farmers and their workers. Commercial agriculture shrank and the peasant farmers who grew the maize were collateral damage as tractor mechanics left, foreign currency for fertiliser dwindled, reliable seed was no longer available. But that was okay for Mugabe because his objective was political not economic. With civil liberties largely extinct, collapsed education and health sectors, a constitution so massively amended and often ignored, a justice system mired in political patronage, Zimbabwe's future is as breathtakingly perilous as it was bright when Mugabe made that speech 25 years ago.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 17 April
Zimbabwe readies for independence shindig
Harare - Zimbabwe has invited five heads of state and two prime ministers from the Southern African region for its 25th anniversary of independence celebrations, according to an official document seen by AFP. Presidents Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia and Benjamin Mkapa of Tanzania are expected to attend the silver jubilee celebrations on Monday. Newly-inaugurated Hifikepunye Pohamba of Namibia and Festus Mogae of Botswana are also expected to arrive in the country this weekend for the fete. Zimbabwe on Monday celebrates its 25th anniversary from colonial British rule. Prime ministers Luisa Diogo of Mozambique and Fernando da Piedade Dias dos Santos of Angola will represent their countries. Surviving former presidents of what were then known as the Frontline States, have also been invited and will receive awards for their contribution towards the liberation struggle in Zimbabwe. Kenneth Kaunda, the founding president of Zambia, Sam Nujoma of Namibia and Fredrick Chiluba had been the former leaders invited. But the Zambian government has blocked Chiluba, who is standing trial on corruption charges, from attending Zimbabwe's national day celebrations. Algeria is also invited and will be represented by the president of its senate. The celebrations which started on Thursday have been going on in various parts of the country. On Friday night more than 50 athletes were awarded with medals for outstanding contribution to sports over the last 25 years. Saturday will see all night music and cultural galas taking place in various cities and towns across the southern African country. On Sunday President Robert Mugabe and his wife host a children's party at a city sports stadium before attending a ceremony at a city five-star hotel to honour African and national liberation icons. The main celebrations on Monday will include an address by Mugabe, the release of 25 pigeons and a football match between Zimbabwe and Tanzanian national teams.
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From The Pretoria News (SA), 18 April
SA poised to assist Harare in food crisis
Zimbabwe's food crisis is worsening and millers are poised to lay off staff if 50 000 tons of maize from South Africa isn't off-loaded and distributed shortly. Just before the March 31 election, the Grain Marketing Board, Zimbabwe's only legal grain trader, discovered that it had only 88 000 tons of stored maize, 54 000 tons less than it had on its books. It ordered 150 000 tons from South Africa at up to R600 a ton, "the cheapest maize in the world" said one miller, before cartage costs. A third of this has been despatched by road. But congested wheat deliveries have slowed distribution of this initial shipment of maize, according to well-placed sources in the cereal's sector. Zimbabwe will need to import another 700 000 tons before the next harvest a year from now. A spokesperson for the Grain Marketing Board said this week that security minister Nicholas Goche has been appointed to head up an emergency "task force" to ensure President Robert Mugabe's pre election promise that "no one would starve" is kept. He did not respond to written questions put to him early this week about the grain statistics and plans to alleviate the crisis, which has seen the staple food mealie meal missing from most supermarkets around the country since the election.
Although there has been patchy rain and drought in some parts of the country, little maize was planted this summer season, and much of it was still being planted in late January which would mean yields of less than 50 percent of normal. Planting delays, according to the Zimbabwe Farmers' Union which represents more than 100 000 small scale farmers, were caused by the lack of seed maize, late availability of fertiliser and lack of power for ploughing. Well-placed sources in the non-governmental sector said they expected the Zimbabwe government to authorise an international appeal for food aid in June. "We cannot move until the government says so. It is still estimating this year's crop. We are not even sure whether the statistics they provide will be reliable as it will probably be embarrassing, again," said a Harare-based NGO. Last year President Robert Mugabe told international donors and NGOs distributing grain to send their aid elsewhere. He said in an interview with Sky News that Zimbabweans had grown 2,4-million tons of maize and would "choke" if donors continued to provide food. In neighbouring Zambia a grain bag manufacturing company in Lusaka is working around the clock producing for the anticipated movement of large amounts of food aid bought from South Africa. Since the collapse of commercial agriculture in 2001, which impacted heavily on peasant farmers, Western countries, through the World Food Programme and USAid, provided food for up to 5,5-million people, or nearly half the population until late last year.
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From AFP, 17 April
Cabinet post for Mugabe nephew
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has appointed his nephew, Patrick Zhuwao, a newcomer to politics, to the post of deputy minister of Science and Technology, media reports said. Zhuwao, who won last month's elections in the hotly disputed Manyame constituency, 40 kilometres west of the capital, is son to Mugabe's sister Sabina, who was also elected in the rural constituency of Zvimba south. Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is challenging Zhuwao's victory in Manyame, pointing to a 10,000-vote discrepancy between the number of votes cast and the final tally announced by the electoral commission. Zhuwao, who holds a degree in computer engineering, made his first foray into politics in the March 31 parliamentary elections as did his older brother Leo Mugabe who also won victory. Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party won enough seats to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament that will enable the veteran leader to change the constitution.
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From Time, 4 April
No place like home
Zimbabwe's expats keep their country's economy afloat, but they can't take part in this week's vote
By Simon Robinson and Megan Lindow
Bulawayo/Johannesburg - For Zimbabwean Mike Maseko, the journey home is a bitter reminder of his country's decline. It's a trip Maseko makes almost every week, driving the 800 km from Johannesburg to Bulawayo in his blue Toyota minibus. Before setting out, he packs the van with groceries and televisions, furniture and children's toys, carefully concealing envelopes filled with South African rand so the corrupt border guards who inspect his vehicle won't confiscate the money. The cash and consumer goods are gifts from Zimbabwean expatriates in South Africa to their desperate families at home. Maseko, 32, makes roughly $700 from each trip; but for the families in Zimbabwe, where food is scarce and jobs are even scarcer, his cargo can mean the difference between life and death. More than 3 million Zimbabweans - about a quarter of the entire population - have left their country, many in the past five years, as President Robert Mugabe has tightened his grip on power. In the first decade of independence from white rule, Zimbabwe boasted a vibrant developing economy and one of the best education systems in Africa. Those achievements have turned to dust. The economy is the fastest-shrinking in the world. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans have fled - across the borders to Botswana, Mozambique and Zambia, or to Australia, Britain, Canada and the U.S. But the vast majority - perhaps as many as 2 million - now make South Africa their home.
Maseko's story is typical. He moved to Johannesburg in 1993 in search of work. After taking odd jobs, he started his transport business four years ago. But he won't be voting in this week's parliamentary elections. Last year, Mugabe's ruling Zanu PF party barred all expats, except for diplomats, from casting a ballot; a Supreme Court ruling two weeks ago confirmed the ban. That decision rankles with the millions of Zimbabweans, up to half the voting-age population, living in exile. If Zanu PF wins - or fixes - a two-thirds majority, it will be able to change the constitution, making it easier for Mugabe to stay on or handpick his successor. "Of course, [Mugabe] doesn't want us to vote," Maseko says. "Most of us have left because of him, so he knows we will vote against him. But in a democratic country, all of us should have the right to choose our leaders." That right has proved unpalatable to Mugabe. In 2000, the Zimbabwean President was shocked when changes to the constitution he wanted were rejected in a national referendum. During parliamentary elections a few months later and the presidential campaign in 2002, Zanu PF used police and trained thugs to attack the opposition MDC, bullying, beating up and even murdering opposition supporters to ensure victory. The MDC, led by former union boss Morgan Tsvangirai, struggles on.
While violence in the run-up to this week's vote has been only sporadic, independent observers, human-rights groups and MDC officials say that's because Mugabe is now using more subtle means to ensure victory. Zanu PF controls the electoral commission, and has closed most of the independent media outlets in Zimbabwe. The party also oversees the electoral count and voter rolls - which opponents allege are swollen with "ghost" voters. Ironically, even reforms urged by the MDC are being turned by Zanu PF to its own advantage. Translucent ballot boxes, for instance, meant to symbolize an open voting system, will instead enable observers to see how people vote, warn Zanu PF officials. After the last few years of state-sponsored thuggery, the threat is clear. "You don't have to murder now," says MDC M.P. David Coltart. "The mere presence [of those behind past violence] is enough to intimidate." The massive exodus from Zimbabwe is both symptom and cause of the country's decline. Beset by drought and food shortages, runaway inflation and 80% unemployment, Zimbabwe's economy is just two-thirds the size it was in 1999. The country's best and brightest - medics, accountants, teachers, engineers and other skilled workers - are leaving in droves. The U.S. State Department says that 1,200 doctors trained in Zimbabwe in the 1990s, but by 2001, only 360 remained; some 18,000 nurses departed, too. The situation is now even worse. "It's no longer just a brain drain; it's much broader," says human-rights lawyer Daniel Molokele, who left Bulawayo for Johannesburg two years ago. "This is not just a question of leaving for greener pastures. This is a direct result of the lack of confidence in the future of Zimbabwe."
For Dr. Samukeliso Dube, the futility of writing out prescriptions for patients who could not afford to have them filled became too much. She left in 2003 after watching the health-care system deteriorate and her own living standards plummet. "The health system has been ravaged by hiv/aids," says Dube, who is now studying for a masters degree in public health in Johannesburg. "Almost everyone I knew working there had a strategy to leave." Zimbabwe can ill afford to lose so many skilled workers, but those who do leave become crucial supports for families and friends back home. Expats send an estimated $100 million a year to relatives, money that many poor Zimbabweans depend on to survive. John Nzira left Zimbabwe in 2002 after the purchasing power of his salary, worth roughly $100 at the time, was devoured by double-digit monthly inflation. When three of his brothers died of aids, he found himself responsible for their eight children and other needy relatives. Nzira now lives in Johannesburg, where he works for an environmental group. But every three months he fills his truck with groceries for a trip to his mother's village, where a total of 11 family members rely on him for support. "We are not here because we want to be here, but because we have to be here," he says. "I love Zimbabwe, but the way things are now, we wouldn't survive."
Ironically, the expat community is helping to sustain Mugabe's regime. "What keeps Zimbabwe from total economic collapse is the Zimbabwean diaspora," says Elinor Sisulu, who is a co-ordinator of the Zimbabwe Crisis Coalition, an advocacy group for the expat community in Johannesburg. "Mugabe's investment in education is paying off now. The diaspora is providing something of a buffer against the real anger of the people, because they are being kept from total poverty." The diaspora also funds opposition groups and organizes protests against Mugabe's misrule in Johannesburg, London and other expat centers. In London, a gaggle of protesters gathers every Saturday outside the Zimbabwean embassy. Britain is also the base for SW Radio Africa, which beams news into Zimbabwe, and the recently launched weekly newspaper The Zimbabwean. Activists plan to stage mock polls on election day in Johannesburg, London and Sydney to highlight the ban on expat voting. Still, most Zimbabweans abroad would rather be at home, but few seem likely to make that journey anytime soon. On his return trips from Zimbabwe, minibus driver Maseko carries a different freight: Zimbabweans headed for Johannesburg and the possibility of jobs, money and something to eat. "There is nothing to bring from Zimbabwe except those who want to leave," he says. "My country exports only people now. It breaks my heart."
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From IRIN (UN)
Expatriates an untapped development resource, IOM
Johannesburg - Zimbabwean expatriates living in the United Kingdom (UK) and South Africa are an untapped development resource, says a study by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). The organisation conducted a survey of 1,000 Zimbabwean expatriates in South Africa and the UK last year and found that, apart from economic remittances to Zimbabwe, "nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of respondents wanted to participate in a skills transfer programme and ... 77 percent wanted to contribute to the development of Zimbabwe". IOM explained that the research "was not part of a wider programme ... or developed to evaluate policy", but rather to gather data that would inform a range of policy-makers and organisations. The survey aimed to obtain a profile of Zimbabweans in the UK and South Africa, determined by their skills base, transnational links and interest in contributing to development in their home country.
"In terms of immigration status, 13 percent [of respondents] were naturalised EU [European Union] or South African citizens, 15 percent were permanent residents or had indefinite leave to remain, 20 percent were on working visas, 12 percent were on student visas, seven percent had refugee status or a form of humanitarian protection, 12 percent were asylum seekers and 19 percent were undocumented migrants," the report noted. Thirty-two percent of the South African survey sample were undocumented migrants, compared to six percent in the UK. Zimbabweans living in South Africa also visited Zimbabwe on a fairly regular basis, "with 55 percent returning for a visit ... every six months or more". The main reason for emigrating was the economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe, and the consequent high rate of unemployment. "Forty-eight percent said they left Zimbabwe due to the economic situation, the lack of employment ... and around a quarter (26 percent) said that their main reason for leaving was political," the report said.
The majority (82 percent) had arrived in the UK or South Africa with a qualification, of which 38 percent held a bachelor's degree or higher, 19 percent had a diploma in higher education and three percent had a professional qualification. However, many in the UK and South Africa have had to take employment not commensurate with their skills or experience, and "an area of great concern is the effect on the skills base of this very highly skilled diaspora population of not being able to use their skills and qualifications" in their |
