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Archived News
3rd May 2005
Food imports will drain govt coffers, say analysts
Zimbabwe turns to wildlife as food source
Garbage piles up in Zimbabwe as crisis deepens
Bank governor steps on ex-army general’s toes
Zim’s political cancer has gone too deep
Mugabe urged to appeal for food
Zimbabwe to import 1.2 mln tonnes of maize paper
Zim re-elected to UN human rights commission
Minister in land row
Freedom fighter cries out for home
Harare reaches state of collapse
Govt angers IMF
Army digs up ex-MP’s farm in search of weapons of war
Zim ain’t wot it used to be
Zimbabwe fuel and food crisis deepens
The jokes run out in Zimbabwe fuel queues
High finance behind Zimbabwe’s market stalls
School kids denied
MDC supporter killed
Mining decline hits workers hard
Zim crisis as food, fuel, forex run out
Trade unionists arrested
Bid to oust ZCTU leaders fails
MDC supporters flee retribution campaign in Chipinge
Hertz halts Zim forgery
US targets Africa's 'merchant of death'
Zim to pull plug on brain-drain
Zim unions issue May Day distress call
Govt descends on workers' leaders
Pop goes the easel
Less press, little freedom
Campaign launched against Africa’s insult laws
Zimbabwe to pay white farmers, lure others back
In Zimbabwe, AIDS care done on the cheap
Dictators' weapons of choice switch from military coup to stuffed ballot box
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From IRIN (UN), 26 April
Food imports will drain govt coffers, say analysts
Johannesburg - Zimbabwe has turned to Zambia, Uganda and Tanzania for grain imports as the state Grain Marketing Board (GMB) attempts to restock the country's dwindling maize and wheat stocks. Minister of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Nicholas Goche confirmed to IRIN that Zimbabwe had expanded its grain sources to include these three countries, in addition to South Africa, the major supplier. "We have been looking for more and more sources of grain. There are contracts that have been in existence but not in force - we are reactivating those, and signing up new ones, to ensure that food keeps coming. We received about 150,000 mt from South Africa over the past month and we are expecting more deliveries from East Africa," Goche told IRIN. Goche, formerly the state security minister, assumed his new portfolio following a cabinet reshuffle last week.
The government's admission came as economists said the country needed to import at least 1.2 million mt of maize, 200,000 mt of wheat, and unspecified tonnages of barley and sorghum to meet the country's immediate food requirements. Minister Goche said the country was expecting to feed about 1.5 million people in seven mostly rural provinces, but could not say whether there was a parallel relief programme for urban areas. Although there were no responses from the embassies of the three source countries, an official at the GMB procurement division told IRIN that the Zimbabwe-Uganda maize import deal was signed during President Yoweri Museveni's recent visit to Zimbabwe. Didymus Mutasa, Zimbabwe's newly appointed minister of state security, said he could not divulge any details beyond what Goche had said, as food was a national security issue. His ministry, which is responsible for the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), has taken charge of the importation and distribution of food. "Why do you want to know where we get our food? I cannot tell you anything more than what you already know because these are security issues. Besides, I am new in this ministry, so I do not know much," Mutasa said.
A spokesman for the ruling Zanu PF party, Nathan Shamuyarira, said the country needed at least Zim $5 trillion (about US $818 million) for the immediate importation of grains and cereals, and the government would divert money from infrastructure development programmes to import food. "We have been forced to divert resources from other projects to deal with the immediate hunger situation. We are in a predicament. Food importation is our priority at the moment," Shamuyarira told IRIN. Economists Erich Bloch and John Robertson warned that the high cost of importing food would drive up inflation and lead to a thriving alternative market for scarce foodstuffs and foreign currency. "The expanded government and [the proposed new] Senate will both be a huge drain on the national fiscus, which does not have foreign currency at present. It means spending on the bureaucracy would compete with food importation for resources, but government simply does not have such money - food importation alone will cost the country tremendous sums of foreign currency between now and April next year when the next harvest comes," said Bloch. "The result will be a resilient black market for scarce foodstuffs in both rural and urban areas; there will also be a more stubborn foreign currency black market to fill up where government is failing. The cost will be too high for our ailing economy."
He added that there was no hope that the country's winter wheat-growing season, due to begin in late April, would improve the food security situation until the next harvest. Robertson said the diversion of foreign currency into importing food would stall other capital projects, costing the country heavily in terms of development; the government needed to design long-term policies to counter the overall economic meltdown, to solve the problem of food insecurity. "Steps must be taken to deal with the shortage of foreign currency. The causes of food insecurity can be traced back to the collapse of the farming sector - the collapse of the tobacco, cotton, timber and beef export industries. All attempts at ensuring food security without addressing these problems will fail," noted Robertson. The GMB noted in a recent report to the National Taskforce on Food Security that rather than government's harvest estimate of 2.4 million mt, only 600,000 mt of grain had been surrendered to its silos after the 2004 harvest. The country needs 1.8 million mt of grain annually to meet domestic consumption needs. Contrary to government estimates that 1.5 million people would need some kind of food assistance, the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) last month warned that up to 4.5 million were in need of immediate food aid.
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From The Pretoria News, 27 April
Zimbabwe turns to wildlife as food source
Basildon Peta
President Robert Mugabe's regime has directed national parks officials to kill animals in state-owned conservation areas to feed hungry rural peasants - a move that could wipe out what remains of Zimbabwe's impalas, kudus, giraffes, elephants and other species. The directive is a major blow to efforts by conservationists to try to rehabilitate the wildlife sector which was devastated after Mugabe ordered his supporters to invade and confiscate white-owned farms in 2000. The chaotic farm invasions saw party militants storming into conservation areas - both private and state-owned - to slaughter animals. Unscrupulous South African hunters also joined in the looting, paying hefty kickbacks to politicians to go into conservation areas and shoot lions, leopards and cheetahs for trophies. But because of the general abundance of certain species of wildlife in southern Zimbabwe and the establishment of the transfrontier park, which allows animals from Mozambique and South Africa's world-famous Kruger National Park to move freely into and out of Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou (home of the elephants) National Park, there have been high hopes among conservationists that Zimbabwe's wildlife sector could be restored to its former glory.
This now appears highly unlikely as Zimbabwe's department of national parks and wildlife management, the custodian of this embattled country's wild animals, has been given the green light to work with rural district councils to kill animals to feed more than four-million hungry rural Zimbabweans. National Parks officials said the recent shootings of 10 elephants for barbecue meat at festivities to mark Zimbabwe's 25 years of independence around the country had been carried out in the broad context of the directive to kill animals to feed the hungry, particularly those living within the vicinity of national parks. The 10 elephants were killed by National Park rangers. Four of the giant animals were reportedly shot in full view of tourists near Zimbabwe's Lake Kariba, a major haven for wildlife. Zimbabwean conservationists have been particularly scathing about the killings of the elephants for independence celebrations. Rural peasants in Zimbabwe have sold or fed on their own livestock in the past three years of unprecedented hunger, induced by Mugabe's chaotic land seizures.
National Parks officials say many of the peasants living in areas bordering National Parks have already been venturing into these parks to hunt and kill animals using snares. But they said the impact of snare hunting by the villagers was limited compared to what would happen if armed National Parks rangers were allowed to enter conservation areas to kill for meat to feed millions of hungry peasants. "Killing of animals for any reasons other than conservation can be very disastrous," said one National Parks official. "The politicians think we have enough animals to feed people without wiping out different species. We as professionals don't think so. We are talking to them (the politicians) and we hope we will reach consensus on protecting our wildlife heritage." Other government officials said Mugabe was so happy about his rural constituency which ensured him a majority of seats in last month's parliamentary elections that he wanted to do everything to please the peasants.
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From SABC News, 26 April
Garbage piles up in Zimbabwe as crisis deepens
Garbage is piling up uncollected in Harare as Zimbabwe struggles with a deep economic crisis that has also left major towns short of water and electricity. The Harare city council said today that rubbish had not been collected in several townships and suburbs of the capital for three weeks because of a national shortage of fuel and the expiry of contracts for some private garbage collectors. Critics say the city's mounting problems mark a grim new stage of Zimbabwe's long-running political and economic crisis, which many blame on President Robert Mugabe's government. "They have not collected refuse here for two months, and we are sick and tired of their excuses," said one frustrated resident, pointing to a heap of rubbish in Harare's densely-populated Mbare township. Mugabe, who has been in power for a quarter of a century, plunged the southern African country into crisis five years ago when he started seizing white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks, mostly supporters of his ruling Zanu PF party.
The land seizures have hit the country's main commercial agricultural sector, a key source of foreign currency earnings, and are largely blamed for a five-year recession under which the economy has contracted by more than a third and unemployment has topped 70%. Mugabe's Zanu PF won 78 out of 120 contested parliamentary seats in elections last month which the opposition charges were rigged. But the party lost most parliamentary contests in major towns -- which have borne the brunt of the economic crisis to the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), a pattern also seen in earlier elections. Since the election, Zimbabwe city dwellers have seen their problems multiply. Most petrol stations in the capital Harare ran dry this week, while the state electrical utility has warned of power cuts due in part to lack of spare parts to maintain generators. Food is still available in city stores albeit at prices sharply higher than before the election - but officials say the country risks serious shortages amid a drought and inadequate supplies of seed and fertiliser.
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From Zim Online (SA), 27 April
Bank governor steps on ex-army general’s toes
Harare - Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono is headed for a clash with powerful former army general, Solomon Mujuru, after he closed an asset management firm controlled by the general, sources told Zim Online yesterday. They said rumours last week suggesting Gono had attempted to resign from his post were in part sparked by revelations that Mujuru - believed to be second only to President Robert Mugabe in power and influence in Zanu PF owned a controlling stake in Mercantile Asset Management, shut down by the RBZ last Thursday for irregular trading. Gono vehemently denied he had contemplated stepping down vowing to press on with his job and insisted he was not under pressure from anyone to quit as governor. "Mujuru owns Mercantile Asset Management firm through a nominee company. Ray Kaukonde, who was helped by Mujuru to become governor of Mashonaland East province is chairman of the asset firm," said a source in the country’s financial services sector, who insisted on his name not being mentioned. He added: "We were not going to be too surprised if Gono had resigned because the firm he closed is strongly linked to the powerful Zezuru (tribal) clique in Zanu PF." Neither Gono, Kaukonde nor Mujuru could be reached last night for comment on the matter.
Belonging together with Mugabe to the same Zezuru clan of Zimbabwe’s majority Shona tribe, Mujuru is regarded as the kingmaker in Zanu PF and the government. He quietly flexed his muscles last year to catapult his wife Joyce, a lightweight in Zanu PF and virtually unknown outside its ranks, to the key post of second vice-president of the ruling party and the government and position her ahead of the pack to succeed Mugabe when he and his first Vice-President, Joseph Msika, retire in three years’ time. Mujuru, who Zanu PF veterans say was critical in helping Mugabe to the helm of the party in the 70s, is said to have blocked former parliamentary speaker Emmerson Mnangagwa from the vice-presidency as punishment for attempting in the 1990s to prevent the former general from taking over giant chrome concern, Zimasco. Until the emergence of Joyce with support from her husband, Mnangagwa, for long regarded as Mugabe’s preferred choice of heir, was the leading contender for the vice-presidency. A clash between Mujuru and Gono, who insiders say has direct authority from Mugabe to clean up the corruption-riddled financial sector and help turn around Zimbabwe’s troubled economy, could have far reaching effects for both Zanu PF and the government.
According to RBZ insiders, Gono is adamant Mujuru’s asset firm must remain shut down and its top officials prosecuted after a probe he ordered revealed the firm was conducting banking business in violation of the Asset Management Act (Chapter 24:26). The firm was also unprocedurally using depositors’ money to fund fuel purchases with most of the firm’s income generated through interest charged on loans to fuel importers. As at December 31, 2004, interest paid on fuel loans constituted 95 percent of total income of $2.2 billion while fees accruing as a result of core asset management business accounted for a mere one percent. The four percent was attributed to "other" income. In addition, a review of the firm’s asset management portfolio revealed it did not separate clients’ assets from its own properties as required under regulations. The RBZ investigation also showed that accounting was being done manually, rendering the books easy to manipulate. Resignations of directors were also not communicated to the central bank while there was no board or management committee to supervise the operations of the firm as is required under new regulations and guidelines governing asset management firms. For example, a meeting called by the RBZ on 20 April 2005 with the board of directors failed to materialise as no one from the firm pitched up. The board had also never met since the firm was granted an operating licence in July 2004 while the executive management team only met four times since licensing, with the last meeting of the committee being held in October 2004. Mujuru’s firm is the fourth asset management firm to be closed in less than a year. Others are Sunshine Asset Management, First Factoring and GP2 Asset Management Company.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 25 April
Zim’s political cancer has gone too deep
Mandla Mpofu
continued from yesterday...
You once criticised the Zimbabwean government for not giving its political opponents a fair chance. Do you think this has changed and that it is now possible to hold free and fair elections in Zimbabwe under the current Zanu PF leadership? : it has not changed and I do not expect the government will do so. This is something people must do. Governments are not known to give democratic space. But the experience of the past six elections, including the recent one, shows that people are beginning to demand that. The maturity is still not there, especially in the government, but people know better now. We need a mature political system and the government must take the first step. Take, for instance, the jubilee celebrations that we just had. The expectation is that even people in opposition must attend, but how can they attend when they are subjected to ridicule during such national events? The government recognises people according to their rank in the ruling party, even during such important events, and it becomes pointless for opposition leaders to attend.
Did you do anything about it when you were in the government? : During my time in the government, we tried to break such barriers, but obviously we couldn't announce that to the media because we could be kicked out of the government. You know, when you are in a system you don't fight it like an outsider, you have to use the rules of that system. And when you are outside, you also cannot fight like an insider. But there was a lot of opposition from the old guard, who wanted to retain their old ways. Unfortunately, the media only reported these fights with the old guard, but never looked into the details of the fights. But unless you are just reckless or just an ignoramus, you cannot say this government will allow free and fair elections.
Do you think some of the laws that you allegedly crafted, such as the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (Posa), have compounded the problems that opponents of Zanu PF faced during elections? For instance, the MDC says the closure of the Daily News and the absence of private radio stations in Zimbabwe meant that the opposition had very little space in the media : Let me set the record straight - I did not craft the Posa or the NGO Bill. I had nothing to do with those laws. I obviously was responsible for presenting the AIPPA into Parliament and I don't think it is a bad law. It has been politicised a lot, but I believe any government that comes into power in Zimbabwe - including the current opposition - will need such a law. I think one thing we must realise is that opposition parties should not behave as if they will always remain in opposition. There has been a problem with the implementation of the AIPPA, and the main area of confusion has been the requirement for the accreditation and registration of journalists. I can't imagine anyone quarrelling with the requirement that journalists must register and not commit falsehoods, knowing that these are falsehoods. The other problem, I think, is to have a situation where the media become part of the opposition -- that is a poisoned environment. We need a fair media that will report both sides. I am in opposition now and I cherish being in opposition, but I don't want a media that will be partisan even to the opposition. During my time in the government, we also tried to remove the regulation of the media by the government. That authority should not be given to the government. The government must only set policy.
But that brought in the Media and Information Commission (MIC)?: The MIC must not be a government body that does government business and is told by the government what to do, and I think if there is a problem, it is with the personnel, for they must realise that they are not there to do what the government says. They should be fair to all sections of the media.
Has the public media become an extension of the government? : There is also this misconception that Zimpapers belongs to the government or Zanu PF. Zimpapers is listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and 49% of its shares belong to individuals or business establishments who have nothing to do with the government. The other 51% belongs to a trust. That trust is not the government or Zanu PF, and should not be controlled by either. The beneficiary of that trust should be all the people of Zimbabwe, the general public of Zimbabwe. The government has no business directing Zimpapers. The board at Zimpapers, the editors and even the reporters have a legal right to resist any such attempt. The fact that they have not done so is a problem with them. It is also the problem in Zimbabwe that there are many people who know the right thing to do, but who are afraid of doing it.
You fell out favour with Zanu PF after allegedly organising the Tsholotsho meeting, ostensibly to challenge the candidate favoured by the executive for the vice-presidency. Do you feel Mugabe should have allowed more open debate on the issue of his succession? : The contradiction is that the president invited people to debate his succession, and then when people did that, they were criminalised and ostracised. Zanu PF had a great opportunity last year to demonstrate to its members, Zimbabwe and the world that it had transformed into a democratic party, but alas, come November 18, it demonstrated that it was a party run on patronage.
Do you see Mugabe retiring any time soon? : No. I don't expect him to retire any time soon. He has a constitutional mandate to remain in office until 2008, but no reasonable person expects him to seek re-election then because he will lose dismally ... even he must understand 25 years in power is too long. And I must point out that it is complete madness to expect that Zimbabwe should only have four leaders in a century.
You were quoted as having promised the electorate that you would fight for the reduction of presidential powers once elected into Parliament. Do you think Zimbabwe should follow other countries in the region, such as Zambia, Malawi and South Africa, where there are limits to presidential terms? : Yes, and that's why we put it in the draft Constitution in 1999. One thing that must be made clear is that Zimbabwe's economic turnaround cannot be achieved under this president. We need an absolute renewal because the political cancer has gone too deep. There are no new ideas and, as you can see, the same government that abolished the Senate is also bringing it back.
What about you? What is your ambition beyond being an independent MP, especially considering rumours that you intend to form a political party? : My ambition is to succeed in what I do, in what I am entrusted by the Lord and the people to do, and nothing more. Right now, I am the MP for Tsholotsho and I want to succeed in that.
So we should not expect to see you as a presidential candidate in future? : Presidential candidates are chosen by the people of Zimbabwe.
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From Reuters, 27 April
Mugabe urged to appeal for food
Harare - Zimbabwe's main opposition party said on Wednesday the country had virtually run out of the staple maize grain and urged President Robert Mugabe's government to launch an appeal for foreign donor aid. Aid agencies say around 4 million people, a third of the population, will need food aid this year after a poor harvest due to drought and inadequate support to peasants who largely benefited from the government's controversial land reforms. Renson Gasela, shadow agriculture minister for the Movement for Democratic Change, said the party estimated maize output from the just ended cropping season at about 500,000 tonnes against domestic requirements of 1.8 million tonnes. Gasela told a news conference the country did not have adequate stocks to see it through to the next harvest and that some districts in drought-prone areas were already out of food. "In simple terms ... the country has run out of maize and this is a fact," Gasela added, bemoaning what he called failure by the government to quickly approach international donors. "A lead time of three months is required to land maize in the country if such maize comes from South America, for example. From South Africa the lead time is two months," Gasela said, adding that millions of Zimbabweans could not wait that long.
Mugabe has repeatedly denied that his policy of seizing large tracts of white-owned farms to redistribute to blacks has resulted in food shortages. Critics say it has destroyed commercial incentives for farming and that those resettled on the land have not received the support needed to make their plots viable. Government officials could not be reached for comment on the MDC's assessment of the maize situation. The opposition says the government has no foreign currency for food imports and that it will be hard to lure back international aid agencies after Mugabe stopped donors from distributing food last year, arguing that the country had sufficient domestic resources to feed itself. Last month Mugabe conceded for the first time that Zimbabwe would need external food support after drought ravaged the staple maize crop in most parts of the country, but vowed that his government would not let anyone starve. The United Nations World Food Programme this week said at least 80,000 tonnes of maize would be needed in six southern African countries including Zimbabwe between April and June after drought reduced output, but that only 27,000 tonnes was available.
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From Reuters, 28 April
Zimbabwe to import 1.2 mln tonnes of maize paper
Harare - Zimbabwe's government will import 1.2 million tonnes of the staple maize grain in the coming months to make up for a shortfall in national output as the country faces food shortages, state media said on Thursday. Aid agencies say around 4 million people, a third of the population, will need food aid this year after a poor harvest due to drought and a collapse in commercial farming following a land reform programme that gave white-owned farms to landless blacks. But analysts say the government would require more than $250 million to import the maize at a time when it faces shortages of foreign exchange. Food was a key campaign issue in the run-up to March 31 parliamentary polls. President Robert Mugabe publicly admitted for the first time during campaigning that Zimbabwe faced food shortages - but vowed that no-one would starve. "We have put in place a package where we are going to have over 1.2 million tonnes coming into the country over the next few months," Samuel Muvuti, chief executive of state-run Grain Marketing Board (GMB), told the official Herald newspaper. Officials at the GMB, which has a monopoly to import, buy and sell grain, were not immediately available for comment. The Herald did not say where Zimbabwe intended to acquire the maize or how it would pay for it.
On Wednesday the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said Zimbabwe had virtually run out of maize and urged Mugabe's government to appeal for foreign aid. Renson Gasela, MDC shadow agriculture minister, said the party estimated maize output from the just ended crop season at about 500,000 tonnes against domestic requirements of 1.8 million tonnes. Muvuti denied MDC charges that the country had run out of food, saying grain imports had already started being delivered to areas ravaged by drought. The opposition says the government has no foreign currency for food imports and that it will be hard to lure back aid agencies after Mugabe stopped donors from distributing food last year, arguing that the country could feed itself. The United Nations World Food Programme this week said at least 80,000 tonnes of maize would be needed in six southern African countries including Zimbabwe between April and June after drought reduced output, but that only 27,000 tonnes was available. Mugabe has repeatedly denied critics' charges that his land seizure policy has destroyed commercial agriculture, resulting in food shortages.
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 28 April
Zim re-elected to UN human rights commission
Marc Carnegie
Zimbabwe was re-elected on Wednesday to the United Nations human rights commission, a controversial body that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wants to abolish this year. Four vacancies on the 53-nation commission were allotted for Africa, and there was African consensus to award one of the slots to Zimbabwe - whose leader Robert Mugabe is under US and European sanctions. "The United States is perplexed and dismayed by the decision," said US diplomat William Brencick. The United States also won a commission seat. "Zimbabwe maintains repressive controls on political assembly and the media, harasses civil society groups and continues to encourage a climate where the opposition fears for its safety," Brencick said. In Washington, US Senate Republican Majority Leader Bill Frist called the decision "deeply troubling". He said membership of countries like Zimbabwe "renders the commission illegitimate and irrelevant". The Geneva-based commission has been a regular target of criticism over the rights records of some of the nations that have been allowed to serve on it. "Zimbabwe's re-election to the commission reflects badly on the current functioning of the world's pre-eminent human rights body and its credibility," said Peter Tesch, Australia's deputy ambassador to the United Nations. Canada also spoke out but former colonial power Britain did not. "Our position on Zimbabwe is well known," said a British diplomat who asked not to be named. Zimbabwe rejected the criticism. "Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones," said Zimbabwe's UN ambassador, Boniface Chidyausiku.
In a wide-ranging series of reforms unveiled earlier this year, Annan said he wanted to replace the rights commission with a permanent, smaller council composed of member states committed to tackle abuse throughout the world. "We have reached a point at which the commission's declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the United Nations system as a whole," Annan said earlier this month. The other nations elected on Wednesday were Argentina, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, China, Germany, Japan, Morocco, the United States and Venezuela. All won by consensus except Azerbaijan, which won a secret ballot held because there were more candidates than slots available for Eastern Europe. The selected nations won three-year terms beginning next year but Annan has said he would like to push through most of his UN reform package, including the abolition of the commission, by September. Mugabe embarked on a controversial land redistribution programme in February 2000, compulsorily taking away prime farmland owned by about 4 500 white farmers and handing it over to the landless black majority. White farmers owned 70% of the most fertile land in the country before the program was implemented. Zimbabwe's main opposition party earlier on Wednesday said the country has now run out of food. In the UN elections, Zimbabwe was also chosen to sit on the executive board of the World Food Programme.
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From The Daily Mirror, 28 April
Minister in land row
Clemence Manyukwe, Senior Reporter
The newly appointed Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Patrick Zhuwawo, has allegedly occupied part of Little England Farm in Mashonaland West, displacing several settlers who had been allowed to stay there, courtesy of a High Court order. Impeccable sources close to the goings on at the farm told The Daily Mirror yesterday that the lawmaker for the newly created Manyame constituency had caused the displacement of the settlers to pave way for himself. "Little England Farm has a number of sub-plots, one of which Zhuwawo has recently taken and pushed out settlers on the part he now occupies," the source said.Because of persistent threats from unidentified people, the sources said, settlers have been moving off the property since last year with the last batch being kicked off allegedly at Zhuwawo’s behest. However, the youthful politician immediately dismissed his involvement in the fiasco and instead implicated unnamed relatives. The new Member of Parliament countered: "I did not occupy that place. It falls under my constituency and at times I go there to hold meetings in places such as Ivhu Tatora. I have a farm somewhere and I don’t need any other place. It is my relatives who were given part of that farm. It is my brother’s wife and children who occupied it."
In an earlier interview, Zhuwawo’s mother, Sabina Mugabe - President Robert Mugabe’s sister, and also MP for Zvimba North - told The Daily Mirror that the farm belonged to the Mugabe family, before she began threatening to deal with this reporter. "Nzvimbo iyoyo ndeyevanhu vekwaMugabe. Asi haudi kuti hama dzavaMugabe dzipiwe minda? (That land belongs to the Mugabe family. Don ’t you want (President) Mugabe’s relatives to be allocated land?) If you write that story, I will come there and personally deal with you," Mugabe said. Soon after speaking to Mugabe, this reporter received a telephone call from someone claiming to be an officer within the ministry of lands advising him to stop writing about the Mugabe family and Little England Farm. "What is your interest in Little England? If you write the story, it will be the last story in your career. In fact, we know where you live," the unidentified caller threatened. Little England is said to have been earmarked for State House employees, according to a court document by former Lands and Resettlement Minister John Nkomo in a case in which he was seeking the eviction of the settlers. The matter is still to be heard. When Zhuwawo was made aware of his mother’s threats, he asked for the phone number this reporter had used to contact his mother, which after being told he acknowledged as the correct one. He then asked this reporter to hold on while he spoke to his mother. Although this reporter did not hear Mugabe’s voice, he could hear Zhuwawo pleading with his mother not to threaten journalists. He then apologised for his mother’s behaviour.
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From The Globe and Mail (Canada), 28 April
Freedom fighter cries out for home
Thomas Mapfumo's music helped fight white rule in Zimbabwe in the 1970s. Now, Guy Dixon writes, he's a marked man for protesting the iron rule of Robert Mugabe
The man sometimes described as Zimbabwe's Bob Marley answered the telephone cautiously. A singer whose protest music pushed for independence against the white minority government of what was then Rhodesia, he has since been forced into exile by the authoritarian rule of President Robert Mugabe. "Thomas Mapfumo?" I asked after getting past a call-blocking device. "Who's this?" Mapfumo responded with a low rasp from his home in Eugene, Ore., where he now lives. The interview had been prearranged, but he was careful. Fame isn't his only reason to be cautious, even though Mapfumo comes as close to legendary status as anyone in southern African music, specifically chimurenga music. It's a music he largely created, the deceptively light, polyrhythmic pulse of political struggle, and based on the cyclical patterns played on the traditional, metal-pronged mbira. Mapfumo, who is in his late 50s, is also undoubtedly cautious because of Mugabe, who swept last month's elections despite widespread accusations by the West that his ruling Zanu PF party once again stole the vote.
Whenever he returns to Zimbabwe, Mapfumo is threatened by government thugs. When he's away, the Mugabe-aligned press attacks him. Yet, Zimbabwe's economic devastation under the government's tight fist has only strengthened the protest message in Mapfumo's new album Rise Up, currently available in North America only as a digital download at calabashmusic.com. "When you are fighting against oppression, there is no difference. It is the same thing we were fighting against in colonial days. And now this man is in power; he is black like me, and he is still doing the same. The message doesn't change at all," Mapfumo said. "The first song on the CD is Kunarira Mukati," which Mapfumo said means "silent suffering." "A lot of people have hate inside, but they are afraid to stand up and say something. So we are saying to them, you shouldn't just keep quiet. You have to say something. This has been going on for more than 20 years now. How long are we going to suffer?"
Mapfumo's music is banned from Zimbabwean radio, although some of his old material is more or less sanctioned. A disc of his liberation songs from the 1970s with his group at the time, the Hallelujah Chicken Run Band, was recently reissued, harking to an era Mugabe continually celebrates. It was a time when guerrilla fighters were listening to Mapfumo shift his music away from heavily Western-influenced rock and incorporate traditional instruments and lyrics in the language of his Shona people. It became an act of protest against the Rhodesian government, just as the roots movements in reggae and rock around the world were similarly laced with politics. Mugabe would like to pretend that Mapfumo existed only in that era. "I'm in the history books. Schoolchildren learn about me. They talk about me, what I did during the liberation struggle, the part my music played," Mapfumo said. "They tell the people that kind of history. And yet they don't want to play my music on the radio." It seems no surprise, then, that Mapfumo has had problems getting his latest album pressed and sold in his country. To Western listeners, it may be hard to appreciate how the lilting harmonies, the plink-plonk of mbiras and skipping beats can cause such opposition. The reason is in Mapfumo's moral messages. Zimbabwe's Gamma Records has had mechanical problems getting the CD manufactured, or so Mapfumo was told when he contacted the company. Only a few thousand copies have been pressed, a tiny fraction of what the singer believes he could sell if the administration wasn't trying to sabotage his album anyway it can, Mapfumo said.
Since moving away, he has continued to return to Zimbabwe to perform. He is allowed in the country, yet he is invariably harassed. "The last time I was there, I was in the countryside. I went to see my folk there in the rural area. I went into the shops to by some meat - from the butchery. And there was a group of youth. When they saw my car, they were coming for me. My brother saw that we needed to drive away." The group followed them and eventually stopped Mapfumo's car. "When they approached us, they said they wanted to see our membership cards, political cards for the Zanu PF party. I said they have no right to ask me about that. They were just trying to make problems. And then I pulled out my pistol and they ran away." Meanwhile, the press attacks continue. The Herald, a Zimbabwean newspaper, has claimed that Mapfumo exaggerates his popularity. "Mapfumo . . . now spends much of his time spreading falsehoods about alleged threats on his life while his music career is on the slide," a Herald article last December said. This was around the time when the singer had hoped to visit, but cancelled his trip after being told it was too dangerous for him during the runup to the election. Citing a list of allegations, the article also repeated claims that Mapfumo's cars had been connected to an auto-theft ring.
The singer scoffed at this in a grandfatherly way, his heavily accented words occasionally rising above his normal baritone. "I don't want to talk to that paper, because they want to bring me down. Everything they say about me is suspect. That paper is for the Zanu PF." In trying to understand Mapfumo's story from so far away, so utterly removed from Zimbabwe and his experiences, I mentioned a quote attributed to Nigeria's late musical-great performer Fela Kuti that "in my society, there's no music for enjoyment. There's only a struggle for people to exist." I asked Mapfumo if all music in Zimbabwe under the Mugabe government is inevitably political. "No, I don't think so," he answered to my surprise. "It depends on who they are, what their music is all about. My music is different than the rest of music in Zimbabwe." Oliver Mutukudzi, another leading Zimbabwe musician, appears to be striving for apolitical ground, although this only seems to draw him deeper into controversy, particularly after performing at a Zanu PF function shortly before the election. "It had nothing to do with politics," Mutukudzi is quoted as saying in a Zimbabwe Standard article. "I have relatives everywhere, in the [opposition] MDC and even in Zanu PF." Still, one of the singer's hits was also used in a government election ad. His manager described both moves as "business suicide" for Mutukudzi. "I'm sure he's trying to be good so that these people won't come after him. But that's not the way. If you're a freedom fighter, you have to stand with the poor people, stand with those who are suffering," Mapfumo said.
Then there are other musicians who are berated for blatantly pandering to Mugabe, such as the singer Tambaoga, who had a sensationalist hit using a play on words likening Tony Blair to a toilet. Blair has been a regular target of Mugabe's rhetoric. These musicians "are not popular with the people," Mapfumo added. "They are just being used for propaganda purposes." Yet for a sensationalist song like Tambaoga's to become a hit in a country so musically rich suggests an artificial vacuum, a hole caused by the absence of stronger cultural forces such as Mapfumo. The situation, he said, is only getting worse, although he insists his music still has an impact on Zimbabweans. "They go for my music. They are buying my music. And this is why they are trying to sabotage this CD."
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From The Mail & Guardian (SA), 29 April
Harare reaches state of collapse
Harare - Picture a township of 100 000 people going two weeks without water, suffering sewerage bursts, no fuel, and power blackouts that often last half the day. That is the reality in Mabvuku/Tafara township, one of at least seven Harare suburbs afflicted by the progressive collapse of basic services. "It’s a recipe for disaster," said John Chirosvo, of Mabvuku. "The city’s crumbling," says Mark Davies, chairperson of the Harare Residents and Ratepayers Association. "Water and power cuts are widespread; the people who have run the city for the past 25 years have failed us." Davies said several suburbs had gone for two months without water, while there were intermittent power cuts. In Mabvuku/Tafara residents are surviving on water from boreholes and streams that are considered a health hazard. Timothy Mabhawu, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP for the constituency, said he had been warned the township might be without piped water for a year.
The Mail & Guardian witnessed scores of Mabvuku residents trudging long distances to collect water from streams in Gosden. Marceline Nyika (32) was interviewed while fetching water from a borehole at RC Hondo building contractors, meant for brickmakers. "We don’t know who’s to blame," she said, sitting on two tins in a 100m queue. "It’s two weeks now, and no word from the government." About a kilometre south sewerage pipes that burst a few weeks ago remain unrepaired. Inquiries established that the water supply had been interrupted in six other black residential areas in and around the capital, including Ruwa, Epworth, Mbare, Mufakose and the dormitory town of Chitungwiza. Davies said up-market areas of Harare, such as Borrowdale and Greendale, had not been spared. The "overall state of the economy" was to blame. City engineers had told him the government would need $100-million for the construction of another waterworks. The existing facility could service only half the townships and nearby industry.
Lake Chivero dam, about 30km west of Harare, has been the traditional water source for the city. However, rapid population growth - fuelled by the government’s land reforms and the collapse of the rural economy - has outstripped capacity. To ease the pressure, the government proposed building Kunzwi dam and a new waterworks. The project has been on the drafting table for eight years, sources said, as its huge budget required Cabinet approval. Engineers at the city council said the problem was that "everything is centralised". "It was foreseen 50 years ago that Harare would need a new waterworks. But government has sat on the plans." Mabhawu said he had tried to break the water impasse. "Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo is running meetings at the party headquarters, and the mayoress and her town clerk are at a trade fair in Bulawayo," Mabhawu said. "There is nobody to assist." Former Harare Mayor Elias Mudzuri said nearly all the engineers had left the council. "We now have many incompetent people running city affairs because the [national] government bullied its way into council affairs," he said. "[Local Government Minister] Chombo is an educationist, not an engineer," he added.
Harare’s regular power cuts flow from a crippling foreign exchange shortage that prevents the Zimbabwe government from servicing its debts to Eskom and Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa.Zimbabwe’s Standard newspaper has estimated that the Zimbabwe Electricity Authority owes $200-million, of which $12-million (R70-million) is owed to Eskom. However, Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu said Zesa owed Eskom "less than R15-million". Eskom was in no way responsible for Harare’s power cuts. "Several schools may have to be shut down," Mabhawu said. "Children can’t use filthy latrines - it’s a health hazard." Driving into town from Mabvuku, one sees meandering fuel queues that have resurfaced since the elections. Most Harare garages have run dry. The woes of Harare residents are compounded by a shortage of basic food commodities at most supermarkets. Sugar, maize meal, cooking oil and margarine have disappeared from shelves. The MDC on Wednesday said Zimbabwe had run out of food, including the national staple, maize, and demanded an apology from President Robert Robert Mugabe’s government for lying about abundant harvests. "The country has run out of maize, this a fact," Renson Gasela, MDC’s shadow agriculture minister told a news conference. The government, which last year claimed Zimbabwe had produced a bumper harvest, should apologise for misleading Zimbabweans and start approaching international aid donors, Gasela said. Mugabe admitted before the parliamentary elections in March that Zimbabwe would have to import grain following drought and a poor harvest.
Interfin Securities economist Farayi Dyirakumunda said shortages of fuel and basic commodities were linked to Zimbabwe’s critical forex problem. "People could be holding back on fuel supplies in anticipation of a devaluation of the Zimdollar, which would trigger price hikes," Dyirakumunda said. "Many producers of basic food commodities have scaled down their operations because they don’t have forex to import inputs," he said. "The government has aggravated the situation with price controls." Zimbabwean economist Eric Block confirmed that the country’s economy was "in continuing decline", and that Harare was suffering from a lack of forex to maintain equipment and buy water purification chemicals. Tourism was depressed, because of both the political climate and rising prices. The only bright spot was the fall in the inflation rate from a high of 622% in January 2004 to its current 123%. However, Block predicted inflation would start rising again because of oil price increases and Zimbabwe’s poor harvest. The country had produced only a third of the basic foodstuffs required to feed the population. Drought was a factor in this, but "chaos in the agricultural sector" had also played its part. Block suggested the government had subsidised food prices before the election, but said this was not sustainable.
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From The Financial Gazette, 28 April
Govt angers IMF
Staff Reporter
The International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s patience with Zimbabwe is wearing thin after it emerged this week that Harare is seeking to block next week's scheduled visit by the Fund. The ill-advised stalling for time by the government is likely to cause new rifts with the Fund only three months ahead of a key decision on Zimbabwe's future in the IMF. The bid to buy time also comes at a time when the increasingly ostracised Zimbabwe can hardly afford to further stiffen the hands of the international monetarists. The country, which is facing a severe crisis of confidence, is desperate for balance of payments support while its credit rating has been reduced to junk status - a red flag that has not escaped the attention of the international financier community. Impeccable sources in Washington, who indicated that the Fund had been miffed by the latest development, told The Financial Gazette yesterday that the Zimbabwe government is pushing the IMF to postpone a series of meetings, under the IMF's routine Article IV consultations, which had been scheduled to open next Wednesday.
According to the sources, the government through the Ministry of Finance headed by Hebert Murerwa, has told the Fund that because it recently split the former Finance and Economic Development Ministry into two separate ministries, government was "not yet ready" to meet the four-member IMF team. The IMF was not however, convinced and is said to have dismissed this as a flimsy excuse. "They (government) said because of the split, they are still settling in and cannot meet the IMF," our source said. Zimbabwe will be expelled from the IMF at the Fund's next board meeting in July unless the country can speed up payments of its arrears to the Fund and show more commitment to economic reforms. However, the reluctance by government to meet the IMF as per the initial arrangement is being interpreted as arrogance and intransigence in Washington, and is likely to negatively influence the IMF board's decision on Zimbabwe. The IMF had been originally scheduled to first meet the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which is facing the tough task of convincing the global lender that the reforms pledged at the last meeting seven months ago remain on course.
Yesterday, the RBZ public relations department denied it was unable to meet the IMF. "As the central bank, our books and activities are ready for inspection by whoever, whenever. As such, we are ready to meet the IMF any time, but you should understand that the programme has to be cleared by our parent ministry," a spokesman said. "We have made a lot of strides in engaging the IMF so it is not true, certainly not on our part, that we are not ready to meet them (IMF)." The Article IV consultations are mandatory for all members of the IMF. Sharmini Coorey is head of the planned IMF delegation, while other members are Paul Heytens, Sonia Munoz and Sanket Mohapatra. Apart from meeting the RBZ and government, the team also plans to meet officials from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries, the Central Statistical Office and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. After meeting the RBZ on Wednesday, the IMF team had been scheduled to meet officials from the Grain Marketing Board and the Agricultural Marketing Authority, the controversial new body that government has said will be responsible for marketing all agricultural products. On May 11, the IMF team was to hold a meeting with debt laden power utility, the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority and also meet the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. The IMF itinerary says the group will meet with the Office of the President on May 13 to discuss the issue of land reform, corruption and monopolies. It is not clear from the itinerary whether the team will meet President Robert Mugabe himself.
President Mugabe is a strong critic of the IMF, but he last year met Abdoulaye Bio-Tchane, IMF's director for the Africa Department, in a conciliatory meeting that contrasted with President Mugabe's past threats to cut ties with the Fund. Latest events come also weeks after Siddharth Tiwari, a deputy director in the African Department at the Fund gave some guarded optimism on Zimbabwe's progress in turning around the economy. Tiwari told journalists in Washington that Zimbabwe had shown some willingness to undertake reforms, but he said the government needed a more "comprehensive programme that revives economic activity in Zimbabwe". The IMF's February decision to postpone a decision to expel Zimbabwe from the fund came on the back of the RBZ's promise to step up quarterly repayments to US$5 million from US$1.5 million. Progress in restraining inflation, which peaked at 622 percent in January last year but which now stands at 123 percent, had also assuaged the IMF. However, the IMF noted that Zimbabwe's payment of US$16.5 million since the previous review fell well short of its expectations. As of February 15 this year, Zimbabwe's arrears to the IMF stood at Special Drawing Rights (SDR)202 million, or US$306 million, representing 57 percent of its IMF quota.
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From Zim Online (SA), 28 April
Army digs up ex-MP’s farm in search of weapons of war
Chimanimani - Zimbabwe army soldiers and the police have for the last three days scoured jailed popular opposition member, Roy Bennett’s farm, digging up large swathes of land in search of arms of war they claim are hidden on the farm, Zim Online has learnt. The security forces have already arrested one of Bennett’s workers, Rueben Mangiza, who is employed as a security guard and are believed to be planning to arrest more workers at the farm, known as Charleswood Estate, over the suspected weapons cache. An operations manager at the farm, James Mukwanyayi, yesterday told ZimOnline that the security forces have since Monday used heavy duty earth moving equipment to excavate large areas on the farm saying they had information that there were weapons cached at the farm. He said: "They are looking for arms of war at Charleswood but there is nothing there . . . the excavations have been going on for the past three days and they are using graders and caterpillars. Both members of the police and the army are doing the excavation." Mukwanyai said the security forces might have been misled into believing there were weapons cached at Charleswood by a disgruntled former worker fired by Bennett for allegedly stealing a car from the farmer. It was not possible to immediately get an explanation from defence or police headquarters in Harare on what might have led them to suspect there were weapons hidden at Bennett’s farm. Bennett’s wife, Heather, was also not reachable on her phone yesterday.
Bennett’s lawyer, Trust Mhanda, yesterday said he had been informed of the arrest of Mangiza and the presence of security forces at Charleswood but said he was still to go to the farm to ascertain what was taking place. "I am still to go there but I have been informed that the police have actually arrested Rueben Mangiza a former security guard for Bennett. I will have to go there as I am told the police are looking for more people," Mhanda said. White and popular among both black and white Zimbabweans, Bennett is a former opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party Member of Parliament for Chimanimani constituency under which his Charleswood Estate falls. He was jailed last year after ruling Zanu PF party parliamentarians used their majority in the House to vote for his imprisonment for shoving down Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa during debate. Bennett was unable to contest last month’s parliamentary election and his wife who stood in his place lost to Zanu PF’s Samuel Undenge. Chimanimani is among 16 constituencies whose results the MDC is challenging in court in what the opposition party says is an exercise to demonstrate how Mugabe and Zanu PF stole the March 31 ballot. The government has in the last three years ignored several High Court orders not to expropriate Charleswood under its chaotic land reforms instead sending the army and its violent youth militia to occupy the farm on several occasions in a bid to displace Bennett. Mugabe last year openly called on Zanu PF supporters in Chimanimani to seize Charleswood, which is one of the most successful agro-firms in the country.
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From The Zimbabwean, 29 April
Zim ain’t wot it used to be
Jason Claire taught health care in a rural school in Zimbabwe seven years ago and was enthralled by the land and its people. He returned for the 25th Anniversary of Independence last week and found a very different country.
The riot police charge at the crowd. Most are wielding brand-new batons. One has torn a branch off a tree. He uses it to thrash a young man on the back of the legs. I am caught up in the stampede, forced to jump a barbed wire fence, which collapses under me. "Twenty-five years of independence and they are still beating us like this," sighs a young woman. "It’s not right." This is April 18, 2005 25 years after Zimbabwe gained its independence. The state-run media have been counting down to the Silver Jubilee, heralding it as a celebration of independence and democracy. Most Zimbabweans have little to celebrate. We are outside Barbour Fields stadium in Bulawayo. Inside, the official programme is underway, with military drills, marches and music. President Mugabe’s speech is being read out, berating Tony Blair and the West for interfering in African politics, and boasting of Zimbabwe’s "mature democracy".
Thousands of supporters, who have come to watch the Highlanders play in the Independence Cup final, are stuck outside. People arrived at the stadium early to take advantage of the free entry and, three hours before kick-off, the police have shut the gates. Some supporters manage to force open a gate and people start rushing into the stadium. The police move in with dogs. One man is slapped around the face. Another is beaten on the backside. And then they charge, trying to clear the area immediately outside the stadium wall. That’s when I jump the fence. An old lady falls beside me. Children scream. People scatter into the surrounding streets. This area is an opposition stronghold. The people here are angry with the ruling party over the recent rigged elections, soaring inflation, high unemployment, rising transport costs, and the shortage of fuel, sugar and basic goods. On match days Barbour Fields is a place for them to vent their frustrations, an enclave from the fear of recrimination. "Football has become political," says a supporter. "It’s the only place that people can express themselves. It’s become like a rally but football. And the government doesn’t want to see it develop into anything."
A group of about 200 start a running battle with the police. They turn to throw rocks at Zanu PF buses. The police move slowly forward behind their riot shields. There is none of the brutality of the European soccer hooligan. There are women and children in the crowd, and people are even smiling as they run. They are happy for a chance to let loose against Mugabe ’s regime. Tear gas canisters rattle on the tarmac behind us, releasing plumes of white smoke. Running street battles break out all around. Riot police huddle behind their shields, blocking both ends of the street. There are police on horses and police on bicycles. And then a siren wails as a truck, mounted with a giant water cannon, arrives. The street battles continue and the football match is stopped in the second half as tear gas drifts across the pitch. Local residents are forced to close their doors and cover their faces. A female Highlanders fan, who had been beaten on the arm and lost her shoes escaping a police charge, comes up to me, still annoyed at missing the game. She sums up the situation: "No match. No shoes. No life." A heavy downpour causes a lull. But when the Highlanders lose, supporters who have been inside the stadium, now make their way out and join in. Many of them had been able to watch the action going on in the streets from vantage points high up in the stadium. They barricade roads.
The next day the Chronicle newspaper claims "property worth millions of dollars was destroyed". But millions of Zim dollars could be as little as £100. Hyper-inflation has created a nation of poor millionaires. The Reserve Bank issues Z$20,000 bearer cheques. Z$50 notes are litter on the streets, no longer accepted by many as a form of currency. There is no mention of the political edge to the violence. These "unruly elements" are dismissed as "hooligans". Back outside Barbour Fields I meet a man who had offered me refuge during the riot. He is surprised to see me and tells me to be careful. After the match the police had come to his house and dragged him to the station. A neighbour had informed on him to the authorities. "I was at the station until three in the morning," he says. "They were asking me this and that, but I didn’t tell them anything. I am not afraid of them." His bravado is refreshing. Most Zimbabweans are scared of what will happen if they stand up to the government. "What can we do?" is the refrain. "If we take to the streets they will crush us."
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From The Guardian (UK), 30 April
Zimbabwe fuel and food crisis deepens
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Petrol queues stretched more than two miles through Harare yesterday as President Robert Mugabe's government effectively admitted that Zimbabwe faced shortages of vital supplies including its staple food, maize. Frustrated motorists lined up for dwindling fuel supplies after weeks in which hundreds of thousands of households have been without running water and neighbourhoods have been blacked out by power cuts. Yesterday it was announced that 1.2m tonnes of maize was being bought from abroad to bolster supplies. But it was not clear how the government would pay for this as Zimbabwe has a dire shortage of the foreign currency needed to import goods. The government is also short of the money to buy the imported chemicals needed to treat water, as well as numerous other necessities. "So many things are going wrong at the same time that people are getting into a panic," said a Harare factory worker, who did not want to be named. "No fuel, no food to eat. Next we won't have enough air to breathe," she said. "We all know the Mugabe government held things together until the elections and now they are just letting things collapse." Mike Davies, the chairman of the Harare Ratepayers' Association, agreed. "The city is crumbling," he said. "Water and power cuts are widespread. The people who have run the city for 25 years have failed us."
The food and fuel shortages are even worse in the southern city of Bulawayo, according to residents. Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy used to produce enough food to feed the population. Plenty of high-grade tobacco once earned enough foreign exchange for the country's import needs. But Mr Mugabe has now acknowledged that the chaos stemming from his seizures of white-owned farms has left less than half the country's farmland under cultivation. A season of marginal rains has brought a devastating crop failure. Aid agencies say about 4 million people - a third of the population - will need food aid this year. "We have put in place a package where we are going to have over 1.2m tonnes coming into the country over the next few months," said Samuel Muvuti, the chief executive of the state grain marketing board. The announcement contradicts the government's earlier claims of a bumper harvest. The tobacco crop is 70% smaller than it was in 2000 when the government's "fast-track" seizures of 5,000 farms began. The quality of the tobacco is reported to have declined, and international buyers are offering lower prices.
The critical shortage of hard cash was evident at the state's weekly auction of foreign currency, where only US$11m (£5.75m) was available - when fuel importers alone needed $230m. Anthony Hawkins, a professor at the University of Zimbabwe business school, told the Guardian he was surprised by the speed at which things had fallen apart after last month's parliamentary elections, in which Mugabe's Zanu-PF party retained power. "The shortages are a result of the government's lack of foreign exchange," he said. "It's amazing how quickly this collapse occurred. They managed to patch things up until the elections, but the day after voting the shortages appeared. "It is obviously very serious. I don't see any easy way out." International economists say the Mugabe government has exacerbated its economic problems by keeping the Zimbabwean dollar artificially high. Yesterday the exchange rate put the Zimbabwean currency at 6,114 to one US dollar. But on the thriving black market the rate was nearly three times higher, at 17,000 to one. Economists say the unrealistic exchange rate hurts exporters such as gold mines and manufacturing. But despite the dire shortage of foreign exchange, the government struck a deal this month to buy Chinese jet fighters.
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From The Telegraph (UK), 30 April
The jokes run out in Zimbabwe fuel queues
They are called "hope queues", but mostly they bring nothing but bitter frustration. They consist of drivers with empty tanks who converge on garages where a rumour has gone around that a petrol tanker may be coming soon. Sometimes queues build up merely on the off-chance that fuel may arrive. The motorists often wait for hours for nothing. The petrol shortage in the Zimbabwean capital reached even more dire levels than normal this week. No tankers came and even diesel, usually more plentiful, dried up. In the last big fuel crisis three years ago, and there have been many short ones in between, a petrol queue had its moments, witty jokes about the government, anecdotes about the last queue and reunions among queuers in the stop-start lurches towards the pumps. This time around, a fuel crisis so shortly after a general election in a city where most people voted for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has come too soon. No one is talking, let alone joking about the "old man", President Robert Mugabe.
The reserves of everything that kept Zimbabwe limping downhill for the past five years of self-destruction have dried up. Even the last summer rain this week before the long dry winter sets in did not lift anyone's spirits. The wealth of resources on the former white-owned commercial farms that produced foreign currency has run out and the "new" farmers, largely Mr Mugabe's clique, have no idea how to grow tobacco or other crops for export. It doesn't matter if there isn't a yard of electric cable to be had as the factory that makes it cannot get foreign currency to import copper wire. It doesn't matter if there isn't any cooking oil, and we cope without electricity for a few hours daily. We are used to water cuts and have learnt to keep a few filled buckets at strategic places. All that is bearable. But no petrol is unbearable. Those without a car - about 95 per cent of the population of about 12 million - have to walk everywhere as the nation's fleet of run-down mini-buses is grounded. So the 10 to 25 per cent who have jobs arrive late for work, exhausted after several hours' walk from their crumbling ghettos where sewage seeps past many front doors.
Zimbabwe has the cheapest fuel in the world, about Z$4,000 or 33p a litre at the official exchange rate. On the black market, which this week hit Z$30,000 for £1 outside a five-star hotel in central Harare, it's 13p a litre. The government subsidised the price of fuel ahead of the elections last month. Mr Mugabe's minions say increasing the price of fuel will wreak havoc with plans to stabilise inflation at what it claims is about 123 per cent per annum. Inflation is one of the few enduring jokes as everyone knows, especially mothers looking for maize meal for their children, that Zimbabwe's inflation is beyond comprehension. It's probably about 400 per cent and rising according to economists, but what do economists or bank managers know about trying to afford a pint of milk if it is available? Increasing prices are unfathomable and the only certainty is that prices of tomatoes, beans, and bananas if there are any, will go up tomorrow. Most Zimbabweans no longer eat meat or other proteins. Mr Mugabe has seen to that. Zimbabwe's urban shoppers, if they have fuel, have to be energetic. It might take hours from supermarket to corner shop, to women selling on the pavement and to contacts who know, but eventually those with enough money and time will find what they need. They are the minority, mostly foreigners, with access to legal foreign currency, who shop at supermarkets where most consumables are available, including imported wine and fish. The rest are like Constance Goredema, 36, with a nine-month-old baby on her back, trudging to a queue she hopes will yield maize meal in the afternoon, who lamented: "We won't live. We won't see next year. We are going to die."
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From The Age (Australia), 30 April
High finance behind Zimbabwe’s market stalls
By Rochelle Mutton
A shonky market fringing Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, shows little enthusiasm for selling its hoard of clothing, kitchenwares and stereos: The real business here is the deals behind the stalls - selling foreign cash. With the devastated economy plunging further into the financial abyss since last month's disputed elections, the black market is increasingly eager for US dollars, British pounds and euros. Dubbed "The World Bank", Bulawayo's illegal foreign exchange dealers run the only bank without a queue and ready stocks of foreign cash. This is a seller's paradise, securing up to three times more than the official rate, with a staggering 30 per cent rise in black market payments for foreign cash since the March 31 election. But first you have to know where to find it. Rickety wooden tables displaying goods of dubious origin are manned by up to 100 women, mostly dressed head to toe in the white dress-code of a local religious sect. This is all a charade - the real game is brokering foreign currency deals for the local dollar in a dilapidated shack behind the market stalls. Say the magic word - "forex" - and the white-cloaked women will step back and allow you to pass into their inner sanctum, behind the makeshift high wall that surrounds the dealer's shack. The white-cloaked woman who led me behind the partition is crestfallen to learn I have come without forex and hisses, with urgency, for me to return with cash. "Don't change in the street, my friend, they will cheat you. You will cry, my friend," she warns.
In the past few weeks, Zimbabwe has almost run out of the staple maize meal, power supplies are erratic, fuel supplies have run dry and basic commodities are scarce. After five years of seizures of white-owned farms, compounded by a drought, Zimbabwe has harvested only 500,000 tonnes of maize, and another 1.3 million tonnes is required to feed 4 million people - a third of the population. But the Zimbabwe Government does not have the estimated $300 million in foreign cash to buy the necessary maize and its hostile new laws targeting aid agencies have helped scare away donor funds. Government department officials have been seen visiting Bulawayo's "World Bank" where the black market dealers hold the strings to the foreign exchange. Zimbabwe economist Eddie Cross says the parallel market of foreign exchange dealers is a response to the Zimbabwe Government overvaluing the Zimbabwe dollar and pocketing the difference. The Reserve Bank automatically clears all incoming forex well below its real value. "This is one of the principle sources of corruption in Africa," Mr Cross said. "I'd guess the Zimbabwe Government is stealing about 25 per cent of GDP." The biggest single component of foreign exchange earnings is remittances from abroad. Of that about 15 per cent goes through official channels. The rest is channelled through markets like the "World Bank".
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From SW Radio Africa, 29 April
School kids denied
In a revealing development, it is alleged that two named Zanu PF district officials went to Chipashu Primary School in Mhondoro on Monday and blocked children whose parents are suspected to be MDC supporters, from receiving donated books. The books, which were donated by the Zanu PF MP Sylvester Nguni, were supposed to benefit all pupils from grade 3 to grade 7. An angry parent, Francis Kapfumo, who has two children at this school, told Newsreel that the children were lined up and divided into two groups. One supposedly representing those who came from families that supports Zanu PF and the other, the MDC. He says this traumatised some of the children who were told that they would not get the much needed books because their parents supported the wrong party.
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From SW Radio Africa, 29 April
MDC supporter killed
Violence has broken out in Hurungwe East and it is reported that an MDC ward chairman has been murdered in Kasimhure village, a resettlement area 40km from Karoi. The MDC candidate for Hurungwe East in the just ended parliamentary elections, Biggy Haurobi reports that Moffat Ebrahim, died this morning from injuries sustained as a result of assaults by suspected Zanu PF supporters. Moffat is said to have left home yesterday for Kariba where he was going to attend a family gathering. Haurobi told Newsreel that the murdered official was found dead allegedly at the home of a Zanu PF war veteran only known as Gora. Tragically, Moffat had written a letter only three days ago saying his life was in danger. He had also received a letter summoning him to appear before the village head's Kasimhure community court to answer allegations relating to a petition signed by some Zanu PF supporters in the area who wanted him expelled because of his association with the MDC. Haurobi told us that an Inspector Khumalo of Karoi police station confirmed the death and had said a vehicle had been sent to collect the body. No arrests have been made.
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From IRIN (UN), 29 April
Mining decline hits workers hard
Harare - The sudden closure of mines in Zimbabwe five years ago is still having a negative impact on the livelihoods of thousands of former employees. Forty-four year old Sara Muwati was among the 1,300 workers who lost their jobs when the Mhangura copper mine in Mashonaland West province shut down in 2000. "Ever since we were retrenched, after the mine closed, life has been miserable for me and my family, not to mention many other people who were employed by Mhangura," she told IRIN. A mother of five, Muwati worked as a clerk at the mine offices in the small town of Mhangura for 15 years, some 150 km northwest of the capital, Harare. Her husband, Tom, had been an underground miner since 1979. When the operation shut its doors they received retrenchment packages totalling Zim $82,000. The Muwatis used the money to rent a bottle store in the city centre, but poor patronage forced them to abandon the venture, setting off a string of financial problems.
2000 was a difficult year for Zimbabwe's mining sector - a second straight year of negative economic growth, high unemployment, a 60 percent inflation rate and a crippling shortage of fuels and spare parts had started to damage the operations and viability of the manufacturing and mining sectors severely. All gold had to be sold to the central Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, with payment in local currency at a fixed rate, which was lower than the rate at which companies could buy foreign exchange. Three major mines and several small operations ceased operations, including the Connemara, Eureka and Venice mines. Worker unions said the loss of the mines had been a disaster for former employees and their families. "The sudden and swift closure of mines that took place in the late 1990s, particularly from 2000, present well-documented cases of suffering and misery for the majority of those who were employed in the mining industry," Collin Gwiyo, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) deputy secretary-general, told IRIN.
ZCTU attributed the spate of closures mainly to the reaction of donors and investors to the government's controversial fast-track programme of violent farm seizures in 2000. "The land redistribution programme, which entailed the forced removal of white farmers from their properties, gave rise to the perception that the country is a risky, unfriendly destination for investors," said Gwiyo. Research carried out in July 2004 by the Labour and Economic Development Research Institute of Zimbabwe, in conjunction with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a German-based foundation, revealed that the mining sector had also been dealt a body blow by declining global mineral prices. "The fluctuating international commodity prices have hit the (mining) sector hard, resulting in erratic variations in production and foreign currency earnings," the report noted. It also pointed out that domestic economic trends had contributed to the slump in mining activities. "The massive depreciation of the local currency in the 1990s resulted in soaring input costs, thereby undermining the viability of most mineral producers," the report observed. While the capital-intensive mining industry provided six percent of total employment in 1980, data from the Central Statistical Office showed that this figure had fallen to a paltry 0.8 percent by 2002.
Although Muwati was among the fortunate few who were given houses as part of their retrenchment packages, everyday life remains an uphill battle. When their liquor business collapsed, she and her husband decided to look for employment elsewhere. "Tom moved from one mine to another doing piece jobs [contract labour]. His visits back to Mhangura became less and less frequent and, after a year, he stopped coming home. I then heard that he had taken another wife," said Muwati. Confronted with the task of fending for the children alone, she sold second-hand clothes from a stall set up outside her home. However, clients were few and far between, because the other town residents had been equally adversely affected by the closure of the mine. Then she tried smuggling foreign currency from Mozambique to Zimbabwe and selling it on the parallel market. Two of her sons took to illegal gold panning and one of them was maimed in a brawl stemming from a quarrel over the ownership of a gold claim at an abandoned mine, while her daughter took to prostitution in the tourist town of Kariba.
When IRIN visited Mhangura town, once characterised by roaring blast furnaces, all that was left were mounds of slag left over from the operation. The neglected water and sewerage systems suffered constant breakdowns, causing a health hazard to the residents. "The mine used to subsidise the education of our children, and when it closed there were massive dropouts. There have been many deaths because the mine hospital was closed and the nurses were also retrenched," said Muwati. Two leading banks, Standard Chartered and Barclays, moved out when the mine shut down and the few remaining shops took advantage of reduced competition to hike their prices. Similarly, former employees of the Venice gold mine, about 50 km northwest of Kadoma in Mashonaland West, complained of the hardships they had endured since the mine closed. "Most of the people here are unemployed and survive by doing odd jobs and selling second-hand clothes. But most of the youths have been kept going by gold panning in the disused shafts," said Goodman Marufu, a shop assistant in the small business centre of Venice town. Over the past three years, Marufu said, former employees of Venice who could not make ends meet had trekked back to their rural homes.
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From The Sunday Independent (SA), 1 May
Zim crisis as food, fuel, forex run out
USAID warns of impending famine as mealie meal, cooking oil and sugar supplies dry up
Harare - Just weeks after a disputed national poll returned President Robert Mugabe to power, Zimbabwe is falling further into economic meltdown amid a crippling shortage of foreign currency. Fuel as well as the nation's staple food, maize meal, and other basics like cooking oil, sugar and margarine have run out across the country. Zimbabwe's shortage of food has become an emergency, according to a famine warning network that issued an alert this weekend saying most people can no longer afford to eat. Mealie meal is largely unavailable, except on the black market, according to USAID's Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet). Its statement on the perilous food situation is the first assessment of Zimbabwe's summer harvest, which is "insufficient to satisfy consumption needs" for the next year. Fewsnet is a long-established regional food monitor and its cautiously worded statement is confirmation of what farmers and rural Zimbabweans already knew. Patchy rain and drought in traditionally dry parts of the country aside, the harvest was the worst in decades, economists say. "It is urgent that objective assessments of the magnitude of the problem be undertaken to help the government of Zimbabwe determine whether it will need outside help to close the food gap," Fewsnet says.
For several months western countries have tried quietly to prod the Zimbabwean government to sign an agreement allowing donors to launch an international appeal. Mugabe said last year that donors should divert resources to other countries as Zimbabweans would "choke" if any more food aid was delivered. This week Renson Gasela, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change's agriculture secretary, was grim-faced when he addressed a news conference and gave his second food crisis warning of the past month. "Donors have not been approached, nor has a signal been given that the government would welcome assistance." He estimated that Zimbabwe needed to urgently import a million tons of maize as it had grown less than a third of its annual consumption of 1,8 million tons. "Maize is now treated like a security item on which the country must be kept in ignorance," Gasela said. The only legal grain trader, the government's Grain Marketing Board, is not allowed to divulge maize statistics and its senior positions are mostly filled by members of the Zimbabwean national army. "We have fuel shortages and no sugar. There is no cooking oil, no milk. Only totalitarian, oppressive regimes would keep citizens in ignorance of the food supply situation," Gasela said.
Much of the 2004-5 maize crop was planted late, up to the end of January, and even short-season varieties did not enjoy enough heat in the soil for long enough to produce decent yields, according to cereal growers. Former security minister Nicholas Goche, now labour minister, who heads up a food task force, said the government had bought 150 000 tons of maize from South Africa. Poor international prices for cotton, and a hugely decreased crop size for 2004-5, have deepened Zimbabwe's agricultural woes. The tobacco crop is unlikely to reach more than 65 million kilograms and many small-scale growers refuse to sell at the annual auctions because they say the US dollar price is too low, and the exchange rate of US$1 to Z$6 000 prevents them from meeting costs. Most irrigation schemes left on former white commercial farms when their owners were evicted are no longer working. All wheat in Zimbabwe is grown under irrigation. Last season Zimbabwe produced about 80 000 tons good enough for milling, down from a high of more than 350 000 tons four years ago.
Most suburbs of the capital, Harare, have been without water for two weeks and schools are shutting down to avoid outbreaks of epidemics. Power blackouts have become the order of the day, forcing more companies to consider closing or putting workers on short working weeks. One of the country's main gold producers has shut down due to erratic power supplies and soaring production costs, bringing to 10 the number of major mining companies that have closed in the past four years, leaving thousands jobless. The meltdown comes at a time when Zimbabwe has taken delivery of six Chinese jet fighters worth US$120 million (about R7,2 billion). Mugabe justified the purchase of the jets by saying Zimbabwe needed to prepare to defend itself.
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From Zim Online (SA), 30 April
Trade unionists arrested
Mutare - Police in the eastern city of Mutare on Wednesday swooped on Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) leaders planning May Day celebrations in the city and arrested them for meeting without police permission. ZCTU information officer, Mlaleli Sibanda, said the five trade unionists: Eliah Mandipe, Tambaoga Nyazika, Stephen Chakandibata, Superior Boka, Medicine Muringi and Hilarious Ruyi were still in police custody by late yesterday afternoon. "The five were arrested and detained at Mutare charge office," Sibanda told ZimOnline. The ZCTU official said the police had indicated that they were arresting the unionist because they had not sought permission from the police for their meeting. "The police said they have to apply for permission from the police if they want to hold any meetings ... (but) the ZCTU should not apply to the police (to hold meetings) under POSA (Public Order and Security Act)," he said. Under the draconian security Act, Zimbabweans must seek police approval first before meeting in groups of three or more to discuss politics. But professional bodies, trade unions and churches are exempt from this requirement. Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena could not be reached for comment on why the unionists were arrested or what charges the law enforcement agency will lay against them. The police have routinely used the tough security law to prevent the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, civic society organisations and other groups perceived as opponents of the government from holding meetings with ordinary Zimbabweans to propagate their ideas and programmes.
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From The Zimbabwe Independent, 29 April
Bid to oust ZCTU leaders fails
Loughty Dube
An attempt by state security agents to remove the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) leadership and replace it with one that is pro-government failed after the majority of its members refused to fall for the machinations of a rowdy group of youths bussed down from Harare. Chaos ensued at a Bulawayo hotel last Saturday after about 50 youths, allegedly led by a senior intelligence officer, manhandled three ZCTU senior officials and ordered them out of the venue of the general council meeting. ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo, first vice-president Lucia Matibenga and secretary-general Wellington Chibebe were assaulted by the youths who were allegedly bussed to Bulawayo to disrupt the meeting. Sources this week said government was funding some of the affiliates and using them in a plan to oust the ZCTU leadership ahead of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) conference in Geneva. The ILO conference will be held at the beginning of June and government fears that the current ZCTU leadership will present a damning report on trade union rights abuses and human rights violations in the country. After the chaos in Bulawayo last week, a faction of four affiliates announced that the Matombo leadership had been suspended and a committee was set up to run the affairs of the union until the ZCTU leadership had been investigated for corruption. But Chibebe this week said his executive had the support of the majority of unions and was therefore still in charge.
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From Zim Online (SA), 30 April
MDC supporters flee retribution campaign in Chipinge
Mutare - Dozens of opposition supporters from Chipinge town fled their homes for dear life this week as war veterans and ruling Zanu PF militants intensified retribution against opposition supporters in the small farming town, 200 km south of Mutare city. Some of the families - who told ZimOnline yesterday they had fled after receiving death threats from Zanu PF militants - alleged that some members of the police in Chipinge were actively assisting the ruling party militants in persecuting people suspected of having voted for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in last month’s parliamentary election. A spokesman for the police in Manicaland Province under which Mutare falls, Brian Makomeke, refused to discuss the matter when contacted by Zim Online last night. But MDC provincial vice-chairman, Prosper Mutseyami, said Zanu PF leaders were moving around Chipinge, a stronghold of the opposition party, urging their militant supporters to weed out opposition sympathisers. He said the activities of the local Zanu PF in Chipinge had been brought to the police who had so far not moved to stop harassment of opposition members. Mutseyami said: "In rural Chipinge, traditional leaders, Zanu PF supporters and the police are actively involved in the evictions. In Chipinge urban, Zanu PF leaders are moving around urging their militias to weed out MDC sympathizers."
A senior clergyman in Mutare, whose church has offered sanctuary to displaced MDC supporters in the city, also said the families had told him of widespread victimisation of opposition supporters in the small town. "We are helping about 12 families from Chipinge who fled their homes after the elections. But we are doing it clandestinely because we too will be targeted for helping these people," said the church pastor, insisting that his name and that of his church not be mentioned for fear of reprisals. The run up to last month’s election, controversially won by Zanu PF, was relatively peaceful compared to previous elections in 2000 and 2002 when war veterans and ruling party militias tortured and murdered MDC supporters. But the MDC has rejected the poll result claiming President Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF secured victory through fraud. The opposition party has filed petitions in court challenging the results of 16 constituencies in an exercise it says is intended to demonstrate how Mugabe and Zanu PF stole the March 31 ballot. The situation has remained relatively peaceful but tense across the country with several reports of militant supporters of Zanu PF victimising MDC supporters as punishment for backing the opposition party.
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From News24 (SA), 28 April
Hertz halts Zim forgery
Harare - Lawyers for Hertz on Thursday froze all use of 21 cars and office equipment of a Zimbabwean car hire company they are suing for illegally operating as a franchise holder of the US car rental giant. "We have attached 21 cars, accounts and various equipment used by United Touring Group (UTG) Car Rental Services in the infringement of the Hertz trademark," one of the 10 lawyers representing Hertz said. The lawyers combed the offices of UTG Car Rental Services across Zimbabwe with a High Court order to attach all property bearing forged Hertz logos and allegedly used by the firm to pose as a Hertz franchise holder. The attached property will be presented in court as evidence during the hearing expected to open soon. UTG provides car hiring services and has offices at the Harare International Airport, Victoria Falls and other resort towns. Hertz Inc. vice-president Joseph C Delio said in an affidavit attached to the court order that UTG Car Rental had no contract with his company. "In circumstances unknown to the applicant (Hertz), the respondent commenced to use the applicant's trademarks in Zimbabwe," Delio said. "Hertz contends that the use of its marks in Zimbabwe by the respondent is unlawful and in contravention of Zimbabwean law. "Attempts to register UTG hit a brick wall in 2003 because there was no person to sign the relevant papers on their behalf." Hertz System Inc. was last month granted an order by the High Court in Harare barring UTG from conducting business with materials or software bearing the Hertz trademark.
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From The Sunday Independent (SA), 1 May, 2005
US targets Africa's 'merchant of death'
By Chiara Carter
The United States treasury this week took aim at Victor Bout, a Russian businessman and former Johannesburg resident who has been dubbed "the merchant of death" for his alleged involvement in arms trafficking and sanctions-busting across the globe, notably in Africa. The US office of foreign assets control listed 30 companies and four individuals linked to Victor Bout for financial sanction. Bout operates the largest fleet of Antonov aircraft in the world and is said to be the largest arms trafficker of the post-Cold War era. The listed companies include three Bout outfits that were targeted by South African authorities in the late-1990s. Bout's companies' US assets have been frozen and US businesses have been forbidden to have dealings with them. The US also intends to push for similar action from other countries and hopes the names will be added to a United Nations sanctions list. According to US media reports this week, the action by the US treasury has seen US officials for the first time publicly accuse Bout of involvement in transporting arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan in the 1990s - a charge first levelled against him by investigative journalists several years ago.
Ironically, companies linked to Bout are reported to have been flying to Iraq for both private contractors and the US military. The most recent reportedly flew from a US-controlled airbase last week. Bout is an international fugitive from justice wanted in Belgium in connection with money laundering and illicit diamond trading charges. When he came under scrutiny from Belgian authorities in 1996, Bout moved to South Africa where he lived in style in Sandhurst, Johannesburg. He set up an air-freight operation and rapidly became one of the biggest cargo operators in the country. He ran a number of businesses - including a frozen chicken export venture - and he transported food from South Africa to Europe - as well as allegedly flying arms. His social circle included the Swazi royal house and several ANC luminaries. However, South African authorities closed in on Bout and accused him of breaching civil aviation law and breaking UN sanctions by sending supplies to Unita in Angola. UN monitors accused him of shipping contraband weapons to rebel movements in Angola and Sierra Leone and to the Charles Taylor regime in Liberia.
Although Bout stopped operating directly in South Africa at the end of the 1990s, the US-based Centre for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) has claimed he still functions in southern Africa via surrogates. An ICIJ report states: "Bout is now operating a covert network of sub-contractors consisting of smaller Russian operators," adding that "there were 36 flights of his [Bout's] aircraft through South Africa" in 2000 and another 16 up to March 2001. This issue came under the spotlight last year when Raenette Taljaard, the then Democratic Alliance MP, called on the government to ensure it stopped using the services of such air cargo operators. No information has been forthcoming from the government as to whether departments are still using the services of these air cargo operators whose planes are often the only option for moving large equipment and supplies to difficult terrain in Africa. However, several of the country's security agencies have been probing aspects of some of these air cargo operators for some time. Also under scrutiny are flights by similar outfits based outside of the country but using South African airports. Over the years Bout has denied charges against him and said he has not been involved in breaking arms embargoes, money laundering or supplying the Taliban.
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From News24 (SA), 1 May
Zim to pull plug on brain-drain
Harare - The Zimbabwe government, keen to stem the flight of professionals from the economically-ravaged country, will force some graduates to work in government service, it was reported on Sunday. Many professionals will be bonded to government institutions after they graduate in a bid to stop them leaving for better-paid jobs outside Zimbabwe, the state-controlled Sunday Mail reported. "The government will soon compel professionals trained using state resources in universities, polytechnics and colleges to work in the civil service for some time before they can be allowed to join the private sector or legally work in other countries," the paper said. Likely to be affected are workers in the health sector, lawyers, engineers and technicians, where labour shortages are highest. Washington Mbizvo, an official in the country's ministry of higher education, said the recommendations have been forwarded to President Robert Mugabe, the Sunday Mail reported. "The whole exercise involved nine ministries which came up with the recommendations and the document has already been submitted to the chief secretary to the president and cabinet," he said. So many doctors have left Zimbabwe in recent years that now one doctor has to do the work of seven, the local Daily Mirror recently reported. Zimbabwe has had to resort to hiring expatriate doctors from Cuba and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The once-prosperous southern African country has been in the grip of a severe economic crisis for the past five years.
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From AFP, 1 May
Zim unions issue May Day distress call
By Susan Njanji
Harare - Union leaders urged Zimbabweans on Sunday to take action to stave off famine and economic collapse, warning that they may not make it to next year's May Day due to worsening food shortages. Zimbabwe has over the past two weeks faced crippling shortages of fuel, and power and water outages, while basic foodstuffs such as maize grain are in short supply. "Let's take action whilst we still can, otherwise we will not even make it for next year's May Day celebrations due to hunger," said Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU,) at a May Day rally in the capital.About 3 000 people turned out at the rally, held under the theme "Protect our rights, save our economy and our jobs" and which unions said was a call to action to halt the deterioration in living standards of workers. President Robert Mugabe's government blames the shortages, which have worsened in the aftermath of the March 30 parliamentary elections, on a drought but critics say bad policies are also at fault. "Last year government announced that there was enough food and ...right now the strategic grain reserves are empty and Zimbabweans are hungry with no food in sight," said Matombo. The government announced last week that it will take delivery of 1,2 tons of imported staple corn to augment its stocks but it has not approached international agencies such as the UN World Food Programme for assistance. In Harare shops, the national staple cornmeal is snapped up within hours if available, while margarine and even toothpaste have run out. Milk and butter supplies are erratic. Fuel shortages have paralysed the transport industry with workers spending up to five hours waiting for buses to get to or from work, while motorists spend nights in queues at fuel pumps to fill up.
Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank said that the fuel crisis was caused by a foreign currency crunch and that the situation would improve in the coming weeks. "It's not a secret that our resources got a little bit over-stretched during the just-ended election, especially in the area of foreign currency," Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono told the state-owned Sunday Mail. "With respect to fuel, the situation should normalise over the next one-and-half to two weeks," he said. Electricity supply has also been erratic and officials say the power cuts are set to persist as one of the country's main power generators broke down last week and parts needed to repair it must be imported. Water cuts have been so severe in some parts of the country that schools in one Harare suburb were reportedly sending children home after only three hours of classes due to fear of disease outbreak. "From here, let us take time to start thinking seriously about what to do to improve the situation in the country. Our problems are just too many," said Matombo. "Last year we vowed that if prices rose further, we would take to the streets. What streets are you still waiting for?" asked ZCTU secretary general Wellington Chibebe. ZCTU also called for a sharp increase of the minimum wage from the current equivalent of US$96 to US$387, a cut in personal income tax and free anti-AIDS drugs to help the 2,3 million Zimbabweans living with HIV and Aids. The European Union announced in March that it would give €15-million euros in humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe.
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From The Zimbabwe Standard, 1 May
Govt descends on workers' leaders
Scores arrested in nationwide blitz
By Foster Dongozi and Valentine Maponga
The government last week unleashed a blitz against leaders of the mainstream labour movement amid mounting concern that it was anxious to pre-empt demonstrations against shortages of all basic commodities by urban dwellers during today's May Day celebrations. Several labour activists, meeting to plan today's commemorations, were arrested last week for allegedly holding unsanctioned meetings. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) secretary-general, Wellington Chibebe, said he was worried by the rate at which labour activists were being arrested. He also said the government had launched a sustained campaign to infiltrate and sponsor some members of the affiliated unions in order to cause chaos. "Right now we are still coming up with figures on the exact number of our members who have been arrested. Certainly the police have descended on our members and are arresting them on issues connected to May Day. The harassment of ZCTU members is not a new thing. They fear that the ZCTU could mobilise the workers to demonstrate on May Day and that is what has terrified them into making the arrests," Chibebe said.
Six ZCTU officials were arrested in Mutare last week for holding a preparatory meeting for today's Workers' Day. They were released after four hours. Helarious Ruyi, a general council member; Eria Mwandipe (regional chairperson); Tambaoga Nyazika (regional officer); a Mr Chandakabata, (regional treasurer); Superior Boka, (district chairperson); and Medicine Muringi (district organiser) were arrested last Wednesday for meeting at Mutare's Hellenics Sports club. Ruyi said the police stormed the meetings' venue and told them they were holding an illegal gathering because they had not sought police clearance. Innocent Gonese, a Mutare lawyer, who accompanied the six to the police station, said the detentions were illegal since ZCTU, as a labour body, did not require police clearance to hold its meetings. "It is unfortunate that the police do not know the provisions of the law. The provisions of POSA (Public Order and Security Act) are quite clear on who is supposed to apply for police clearance and who is not," Gonese said. Ruyi rapped the police for disrupting the meeting, saying this had been costly to the organisation as they had paid for the venue but had not concluded their business. He blamed the police for what he said was "overzealous behaviour".
In Harare, ZCTU's Health and Safety Co-ordinator, Nathan Banda, and three other workers of the labour movement were on Wednesday morning briefly detained by the police while commemorating the World Day for Safety and Health at Work. Mulamuleli Sibanda, the ZCTU spokesperson, said the four and two other unidentified members from the Associated Mining Workers Union were just about to march from Harare City Centre to the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) House along Sam Nujoma Street when police pounced on them. "The police detained them for more than an hour and asked them not to proceed with the march. They were left with no choice but to abandon the march," Sibanda said. He said the peaceful demonstrations were organised by NSSA and the Associated Mining Workers, an affiliate of the ZCTU. The three other workers from the ZCTU are: Elijah Mutemeri; Nyikadzino Madzonga; and Vimbai Mushongera. The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) condemned the arrests saying the harassment of labour activists was a clear and contemptuous violation of workers' rights. "It is common cause that workers the world over mark and commemorate these days and they have the inalienable right to do so. The State has no right to effectively delete all these rights at whim, as has been the case in Zimbabwe recently," the lawyers said in a statement.
Ordinary Zimbabweans are suffering due worsening economic problems characterised by crippling fuel and water crisis, electricity blackouts and the scarcity of sugar, cooking oil, soft drinks and maize, the country's staple food. Prices of the few available commodities have sky rocketed beyond the reach of ordinary Zimbabweans while the parallel market has resurfaced. Transport shortages have worsened in most urban centres, with commuters spending hours in queues while others foot to and from their work places. The Standard also observed riot police controlling fuel queues at several service stations in Harare's central business district (CBD) to ensure there are no riots as the shortages persist. Roadblocks have been set up along routes leading into the city centre during the past week in a show of strength that the ZCTU says is intended to send warning signals to organisers of today's Workers' Day celebrations.
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From The Sunday Times (SA), 1 May
Pop goes the easel
Zimbabean artist Kudzi Chiurai is about to explode onto the local scene. Bongani Madondo talks to a young man taking up arms against history
The omnipresent eye of President Robert Mugabe keeps watch on every brush stroke and aerosol spray Kudzanai Chiurai puts on his canvasses - or so he thinks. The artist known by his trademark, Kudzi, is a deeply troubled man and a brilliant talent. The 24-year-old who arrived in South Africa five years ago to study fine arts at Pretoria University, says art is his life. Kudzi is a paint-bespattered fugitive, ducking and diving the claws of his country’s president ... Is that it? "No," he says when we meet in his jumbled studio in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. "I don’t necessarily think I’m on Zimbabwe’s most-wanted list, but who knows? I can’t stop feeling troubled by how my work might be interpreted." Kudzi’s larger-than-life, mixed-media works combine political satire, hard-edged hip-hop graffiti, poetry, architectural design and commentary on big cities to produce pop art. His is a political pop deeply embedded in the impressionist tradition - and not in the advertising industry’s variation of pop art.
His large-scale (3.66m x 2.44m) combinations of graffiti, etchings, ink drawing, poetry and watercolours give a sense of a film in progress - the only difference being that the images are frozen on the hardboard on which he chooses to work. In an age where young artists seem to be absorbed by graffiti, self-righteousness, or film and advertising jobs - while older artists are commemorated in one retrospective after another - Kudzi’s arrival and innovative use of street aesthetics to illuminate his conceptual art promises to add zing to the local scene. His brooding, paranoid, funereal and sometimes colourful mixed-media works have thrust him forward as one of the possible heirs to the legacy of US artist Jean Michel Basquiat. As a painter, Kudzi deals with urban African issues with the same subversive and, at times, mad humour as the Zimbabwean novelist Dambudzo Marechera (The House of Hunger). His work charms and chokes. Humour is an integral part of his work and the joke is not on the subjects he tackles with rib-cracking style, but on us, the viewers.
And while Mugabe - his hair flaming orange and spiked to suggest the ageing politician is a devil - seems to pop in and out of Kudzi’s work with ease, the Zimbabwean president is not a subject he discusses easily. "My work narrates a variety of stories, well beyond Mugabe. Uncle Bob is just one of them. I’m keen on themes such as censorship, fear, paranoia, popular culture and inner-city movements ... the individual’s place within the jungle that a big city like Johannesburg is. He [Mugabe] does not define my work, though as a Zimbabwean he is this omnipresent, heroic, self-centred, funny, brutal, visionary, regressive, oppressive figure - the embodiment of what is great and messed with Zimbabwe," says Kudzi. "Whether you are an artist, an accountant, a man of the cloth or a sports player, in or outside Zimbabwe, Mugabe is somebody you cannot not deal with. He lives in our lives. It is quite a stressful undertaking. A yoke many are reluctant to bear. Some carry it inside themselves, hidden, afraid to speak about it in public, but privately deranged. I guess I wear mine on my sleeve. I lay it out for all of us to deal with. It is terribly risky - that I am aware of - but I have to do it."
"Why?" I ask. "I’m an artist and besides, it is what I know, what I understand," says Kudzi. "So you still believe there’s glamour in an artist dying a heroic death?" "Rather the opposite. I think the artist should live longer to record atrocities and beauty. But I am not about to paint flowers, not now anyway. Still, you can neither practise nor dream if fear is a constant factor in your life. In any case, life is about that: everything, every action is political. It can be documented and reviewed according to the viewer’s taste." Though he has created only three works which deal directly with the spectre of Mugabe - The Presidential Wall Paper, The True Believer and The End of Silence - the artist often finds discussing Zimbabwe ’s bespectacled kingpin harrowing. "I might sound brave, but I am very disturbed. I am concerned about my family. I am torn apart... you see, my mother still lives in Zimbabwe. I also love the country. I still want to go back. It’s been three years since I last went back. The country is in my bloodstream." The third time I meet Kudzi, our talk is all about the identity he is creating and about living in a country that is, like its President, torn between pro- and anti-Mugabe camps. He is acutely aware of the battle lines - between those who passionately feel that quiet diplomacy is a game for wild birds, and that Mugabe should be pressured to step down; and those who are motivated by a different set of racial and economic considerations.
"I have been called a traitor several times. Once when I was doing an interview on [Gauteng radio station] Kaya Fm, a caller remarked that I am not patriotic about my country. "The underlying message is: ‘You are living large in this country, a liberated African country, getting media attention, yet you are not grateful for the contribution Zimbabwe has made. Sell-out!’ If Zim was not wobbling by, soaking in pain, I would’ve dismissed the caller for being quite funny on a serious talk show. There’s pressure on commentators - artists are commentators - to take sides. There’s pressure, mostly from black South Africans, to overlook the atrocities in Zimbabwe. For them, Mugabe is the ultimate liberator." He shrugs, lights up a fag and sighs. "The untouchable. Sad." "Do you smoke when you are frustrated?" I wonder out loud. "Yes. Like now. This is a stressful discussion." As if propelled by a similar force, we break beat and change the topic, although it will resurface. It seems Kudzi is unable to shelve Uncle Bob for good - until ... unless ...
Besides Uncle Bob, Ku |
