link
HARARE – President Robert Mugabe on Sunday used the burial of his former air force commander to showcase his disdain of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, labeling them “political stooges, crooks and cowards”.
Addressing thousands of mostly supporters of his ruling ZANU PF party gathered to pay last respects to the late Josiah Tungamirai, who was also a minister in Mugabe’s Cabinet, the veteran Zimbabwean leader said: "Zimbabwe is no home for traitors, for political stooges, for crooks and political cowards."
But the important part is here:
South Africa, fearing Zimbabwe’s collapse would trigger off an immense humanitarian crisis that would spill beyond its northern neighbour’s borders, has offered Zimbabwe a US$500 million bailout loan to pay off its IMF debts and to buy critically needed food and fuel.
But Mugabe rejected a precondition by Pretoria to revive dialogue with the MDC before the money could be released, forcing Mbeki and his government to instead now demand that Zimbabwe undertakes wider and democratic constitutional reforms to address governance problems at the root of its crisis, according to authoritative sources.
I have commented earlier that SA seemed to be oblivious to refugees, and that a further collapse of Zim would affect the SA economy...however, few articles, even in Human rights notes, seemed to stress this, instead mainly stressing political angles...
Monday, August 29, 2005
Saturday, August 27, 2005
phone problems
We are having phone problems, so no new posts for a couple more days.
LINK
link
I'm having phone problems due to the monsoons...but sounds like same old same old...
United Nations relief coordinator Jan Egeland criticised Zimbabwe over the government's recent campaign to demolish slums. Hundreds of thousands people were affected by the operation which began May 18 and ended in late July. Shacks, homes and small businesses were razed in shantytowns and other poor urban areas. The government has portrayed the cleanup blitz as an urban renewal campaign and said it would build new housing for the displaced. Mr Egeland said the evicted slum dwellers had gone back to live with relatives in the countryside or had gone to other urban slums.
nothing
LINK
link
I'm having phone problems due to the monsoons...but sounds like same old same old...
United Nations relief coordinator Jan Egeland criticised Zimbabwe over the government's recent campaign to demolish slums. Hundreds of thousands people were affected by the operation which began May 18 and ended in late July. Shacks, homes and small businesses were razed in shantytowns and other poor urban areas. The government has portrayed the cleanup blitz as an urban renewal campaign and said it would build new housing for the displaced. Mr Egeland said the evicted slum dwellers had gone back to live with relatives in the countryside or had gone to other urban slums.
nothing
Sunday, August 21, 2005
South Africa to get tough with Mugabe
LINK
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has privately conceded his "quiet diplomatic" approach towards Zimbabwe has failed to yield results, opening the way for a more forceful policy towards Robert Mugabe's regime....
...
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has privately conceded his "quiet diplomatic" approach towards Zimbabwe has failed to yield results, opening the way for a more forceful policy towards Robert Mugabe's regime....
...
The African Union, an alliance of all 53 countries on the continent, had decided to send a mediator to Zimbabwe to broker talks between Mr Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. It chose Joaquim Chissano, the former president of Mozambique, for this mission.
But Mr Mugabe refused to receive him and called on those who "should know better" to stop asking him to meet his opponents.
Until deciding on this abortive mission, the AU had always described Zimbabwe's crisis as an "internal matter". When AU leaders gathered for summit meetings, they would ensure that Zimbabwe did not figure on the agenda....
South Africa has more bargaining power over Zimbabwe than ever before. Unable to import essential supplies of food or fuel, Mr Mugabe has been forced to turn to his powerful neighbour for a rescue package.
This report is what was said by a "diplomat" named Miss Jana...who was briefed by SA authorities...she is an MP from Durban belonging to the ANC...
UKTelegraph link HERE
Amnesty group condemns Zim homeless camps
LINK
The U.N. report described dire conditions at what the Zimbabwean government had called "transit camps" for those affected by the campaign. Clearing the transit camps appeared aimed at removing "this visible evidence of what had happened," Amnesty's Gaughran told The Associated Press. "This may be an attempt to hide people away."
"It's just transferring people from a pretty dire camp to a camp that is even worse," Gaughran said.
Gaughran said aid groups had not been told of the moves and those who were able to find the twice-displaced were at first barred from Hopley Farm. She said that since the footage was shot Aug. 4, aid groups had been able to persuade the government to allow them inside.
Zimbabwean officials have said Operation Murambatsvina has been completed and they are now moving onto a rebuilding stage. Critics, though, charge the government does not have the $171 million it has pledged for reconstruction.
Gaughran said she had seen houses under construction during her trip to Zimbabwe, "but nothing on the scale that will be needed to address the scale of the homelessness that's been created."
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Youth brigades in Zim
LINK
....Children as young as 11 have reportedly been through the youth service programme, whose stated catchment age is between 12 and 30 years. Such training could amount to creating child soldiers, analysts have noted. The new Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in force since February 2002, raises the minimum age for military training to 18 and requires strict safeguards for voluntary recruitment.
"Actual training on weapons to youth under 18 amounts to recruitment of child soldiers," explained Enrique Restoy, Africa programme officer at the London-based Coalition Against the Use of Child Soldiers. "We condemn the use of children and youth as instruments of repression and torture."
The militia has been deployed in force during local and national elections. "They have been blatantly used by ZANU-PF as a campaign tool, being given impunity and implicit powers to mount roadblocks, disrupt MDC rallies and intimidate voters," said the report. Alcohol and marijuana consumption occurs routinely during training and deployment, according to former militia members and their victims.
"The militia is turning children into little vandals who murder their uncle and torture their neighbours," said the human rights activist, who asked not to be named.
The youth militia allegedly operate with police complicity and under the command of war veterans. The Kamativi training camp in northern Matabeleland is reportedly run by the notorious "Black Jesus", a war veteran jailed in 2001 for the murders of three opposition activists in Kariba, northern Zimbabwe, but was later freed.
A former militiaman, aged 25, interviewed by researchers in August, explained: "When you move as a group, we felt that we were feared a lot ... Our source of power was this encouragement we were getting, particularly from the police and others ... It was instilled in us that whenever we go out, we are free to do whatever we want."
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena denied police complicity, or that there were widespread acts of political violence by the youth brigades. "For some time we've tried to investigate these cases and found these allegations to be of no substance at all."
...
Remember Ruanda...remember the Brownshirts...
....Children as young as 11 have reportedly been through the youth service programme, whose stated catchment age is between 12 and 30 years. Such training could amount to creating child soldiers, analysts have noted. The new Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, in force since February 2002, raises the minimum age for military training to 18 and requires strict safeguards for voluntary recruitment.
"Actual training on weapons to youth under 18 amounts to recruitment of child soldiers," explained Enrique Restoy, Africa programme officer at the London-based Coalition Against the Use of Child Soldiers. "We condemn the use of children and youth as instruments of repression and torture."
The militia has been deployed in force during local and national elections. "They have been blatantly used by ZANU-PF as a campaign tool, being given impunity and implicit powers to mount roadblocks, disrupt MDC rallies and intimidate voters," said the report. Alcohol and marijuana consumption occurs routinely during training and deployment, according to former militia members and their victims.
"The militia is turning children into little vandals who murder their uncle and torture their neighbours," said the human rights activist, who asked not to be named.
The youth militia allegedly operate with police complicity and under the command of war veterans. The Kamativi training camp in northern Matabeleland is reportedly run by the notorious "Black Jesus", a war veteran jailed in 2001 for the murders of three opposition activists in Kariba, northern Zimbabwe, but was later freed.
A former militiaman, aged 25, interviewed by researchers in August, explained: "When you move as a group, we felt that we were feared a lot ... Our source of power was this encouragement we were getting, particularly from the police and others ... It was instilled in us that whenever we go out, we are free to do whatever we want."
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena denied police complicity, or that there were widespread acts of political violence by the youth brigades. "For some time we've tried to investigate these cases and found these allegations to be of no substance at all."
...
Remember Ruanda...remember the Brownshirts...
Zim refugee problem
I know that there are many Zim refugees, and have been trying to find a more recent report.
LINK
is a RadioNetherlands interview with a local bishop on the refugee problem...but it's from late in 2004...if it was that bad then, wonder how it is now...
Human rights groups are warning of grave consequences for Zimbabwe as millions of people try to escape the Mugabe regime. A new report says about one quarter of the population has already fled from political oppression and poverty, and most of them have settled in South Africa.
LINK
is a RadioNetherlands interview with a local bishop on the refugee problem...but it's from late in 2004...if it was that bad then, wonder how it is now...
Human rights groups are warning of grave consequences for Zimbabwe as millions of people try to escape the Mugabe regime. A new report says about one quarter of the population has already fled from political oppression and poverty, and most of them have settled in South Africa.
Some 70 percent of the Zimbabwean workforce has left, robbing the country of vital labour. In addition, the large numbers of refugees are causing tensions in South Africa.
Bishop Kevin Dowling of the South African Catholic Bishops Conference has been researching the trend. In this interview with Radio Netherlands he describes the extent of the problem:
"These are people of the age group of 18 to 35, it's also the skilled population, including teachers. They find themselves reduced to begging, trying to find just some way to survive. It's the whole gamut of the population, skilled people as well as unskilled, untrained young people and young adults in particular."
RN: "What effect is this exodus of professionals having on Zimbabwean society?"
"It's devastating, because the services, whether it be teaching, education, health services, everything is breaking down. The skilled population needed to drive the whole economy, the production capacity of the country - this is being severely limited now.""So, this is precisely what is causing so many additional problems and this led to this exodus of so many people, because what is happening there is that people are in dire straits, they're not getting particular care in terms of health services, and so forth. And because of the political situation of course, which is extremely oppressive and increasingly so, people are being driven out."
"One of the things that we highlight in this report is the politicisation of food distribution. The Zimbabwe government has consistently maintained in the last year that there is no problem, where in fact there is a very serious problem. UN agencies now predict a 50 percent food deficit, and what is happening is that the available food is being politicised."
"People who are perceived to be supporters of the opposition, or known MDC opposition areas, they are being denied food. And this is causing a very serious problem, which we want to test in South Africa as a reason for refugee status. If food is denied to you by political decision-making then you are in fact a political refugee if you flee the country because you cannot get food. Because it puts you in physical danger."
RN: "Wouldn't that encourage more Zimbabweans to leave the country?"
"Of course, and this is what is happening. There's been a very marked increase in the number of refugees from Zimbabwe fleeing south, not only to South Africa, but also to Botswana, which is very close to Zimbabwe as well. But we have a huge number: the Zimbabwe group is now the second biggest number of refugees after Mozambique in our country, and if the current situation persists, then there will certainly be more."
RN: "It seems to place the people of Zimbabwe in a kind of dilemma: because if that legal challenge that you would like to mount results in a recognition of refugee status of Zimbabweans leaving the country, and more Zimbabweans leave, then of course this puts Zimbabwean society in even more dire straits than it already was…"
"Exactly, and it's also, unfortunately, causing immense problems down here, because we have a 40 to 45 percent unemployment rate. One of the things that's emerging from all this is xenophobia, because this huge number of Zimbabwean refugees are perceived by many of the poor and unemployed as taking potential jobs."
"If we've got two million, at least between one and two million, Zimbabwean refugees down here, putting added strain on our resources and the 24 million South African people living down the poverty line here, you can imagine all this is only complicating and exacerbating the whole situation."
© Radio NederlandNext step; Operation "live well"
LINK
ZIMBABWE: Operation Live Well struggles to take off
HARARE, 19 August (IRIN) - The painful lesson of the government's urban cleanup campaign, launched three months ago in defiance of international opinion, is that it is much easier to destroy shanty homes than to build the victims proper accommodation.
A UN report estimated that Operation Murambatsvina ('Clean Out Garbage') - which the government said was aimed at clearing slums and flushing out criminals - left more than 700,000 people homeless or without jobs after kicking off in mid-May.
Beginning in July, its successor, Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle (Live Well), under which the authorities promised to provide the deserving displaced with decent and affordable accommodation, has barely scratched the surface of those in need. "What we have observed so far is that the government lacks the capability to avail accommodation to people who were affected by Operation Murambatsvina, and one is justified in being sceptical about the whole project," said Mike Davis, chairman of the Combined Harare Residents' Association. "A lot of money was spent in destroying the structures - some of them not classic shanties as government officials would want us to believe - and these authorities now have a bigger financial and logistical burden to honour their promise to provide acceptable housing," Davis noted.
But according to humanitarian officials, although cash-strapped, the government is quibbling over the wording of a "flash appeal" to international donors to help fund assistance to the homeless. "The government reacted negatively to the language of the flash appeal - they said it was too harsh and seems to imply Zimbabwe is facing an emergency," said one aid worker. "They're in denial; they don't want to acknowledge that this is a humanitarian issue, they want to present it as a normal housing development programme." There are three recognised reconstruction sites around the capital, Harare: Hatcliffe Extension, from where 17,000 people were originally evicted under the cleanup programme, and Whitecliff and Hopely farms....
A member of one brigade, who identified himself simply as Chamu, said they had managed to dig foundations for a total of 200 houses. "We are supposed to build houses for 4,000 people, even though I understand that there should be a total of 15,000 housing units at Hatcliffe.
Some beneficiaries of Operation Garikai have been given four sheets of corrugated asbestos per family for roofing, but the way I see it, that will not be enough, meaning that residents will have to use their own money to buy extra material," said Chamu.
Most of the residents who returned to Hatcliffe have set up makeshift shelters next to their demolished homes, using whatever building materials they could scrounge. There is no running water after a World Bank-funded scheme was destroyed in the cleanup operation. "Here and there some young mothers are sleeping in the open with their babies, as they do not have plastic sheets to build huts.
It is so tragic that all these residents had adequate, if flimsy, shelter three months ago, and now many cannot afford to replace even the basic shelter," wrote opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) member of parliament for the area, Trudy Stevenson.
"What confuses us is that when we came here several years ago, the government gave us title deeds, but said we should not build permanent structures. Maybe the reason why they returned us here was that they knew that we were legally entitled to our stands," said Hatcliffe resident Simon Munyoro.
.... Timothy Mucheneripi (not his real name), a worker at the site, told IRIN that the irregular supply of cement was hampering construction. "Given the rate at which we are going, the rains might come without much progress, even though we have been told to speed up the construction of the first phase of houses because they should be occupied by civil servants." Davis pointed out that even if the promised construction of new houses in Harare were to be completed, the municipality lacked the capacity to provide adequate sewerage systems, as the existing network was already seriously overloaded.
Most of the publicity was given to a few Harare suburbs...what is not mentioned is that a similar "clean up" occured in smaller towns, and according to my private sources, even rural market places were destroyed.. also not mentioned is that many of the displaced were ordered to go back to their villages, where food is already short thanks to the drought...and of course, since the press in Zim is controlled, and reporters are not allowed in, few reports are coming out of rural areas...
ZIMBABWE: Operation Live Well struggles to take off
HARARE, 19 August (IRIN) - The painful lesson of the government's urban cleanup campaign, launched three months ago in defiance of international opinion, is that it is much easier to destroy shanty homes than to build the victims proper accommodation.
A UN report estimated that Operation Murambatsvina ('Clean Out Garbage') - which the government said was aimed at clearing slums and flushing out criminals - left more than 700,000 people homeless or without jobs after kicking off in mid-May.
Beginning in July, its successor, Operation Garikai/Hlalani Kuhle (Live Well), under which the authorities promised to provide the deserving displaced with decent and affordable accommodation, has barely scratched the surface of those in need. "What we have observed so far is that the government lacks the capability to avail accommodation to people who were affected by Operation Murambatsvina, and one is justified in being sceptical about the whole project," said Mike Davis, chairman of the Combined Harare Residents' Association. "A lot of money was spent in destroying the structures - some of them not classic shanties as government officials would want us to believe - and these authorities now have a bigger financial and logistical burden to honour their promise to provide acceptable housing," Davis noted.
But according to humanitarian officials, although cash-strapped, the government is quibbling over the wording of a "flash appeal" to international donors to help fund assistance to the homeless. "The government reacted negatively to the language of the flash appeal - they said it was too harsh and seems to imply Zimbabwe is facing an emergency," said one aid worker. "They're in denial; they don't want to acknowledge that this is a humanitarian issue, they want to present it as a normal housing development programme." There are three recognised reconstruction sites around the capital, Harare: Hatcliffe Extension, from where 17,000 people were originally evicted under the cleanup programme, and Whitecliff and Hopely farms....
A member of one brigade, who identified himself simply as Chamu, said they had managed to dig foundations for a total of 200 houses. "We are supposed to build houses for 4,000 people, even though I understand that there should be a total of 15,000 housing units at Hatcliffe.
Some beneficiaries of Operation Garikai have been given four sheets of corrugated asbestos per family for roofing, but the way I see it, that will not be enough, meaning that residents will have to use their own money to buy extra material," said Chamu.
Most of the residents who returned to Hatcliffe have set up makeshift shelters next to their demolished homes, using whatever building materials they could scrounge. There is no running water after a World Bank-funded scheme was destroyed in the cleanup operation. "Here and there some young mothers are sleeping in the open with their babies, as they do not have plastic sheets to build huts.
It is so tragic that all these residents had adequate, if flimsy, shelter three months ago, and now many cannot afford to replace even the basic shelter," wrote opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) member of parliament for the area, Trudy Stevenson.
"What confuses us is that when we came here several years ago, the government gave us title deeds, but said we should not build permanent structures. Maybe the reason why they returned us here was that they knew that we were legally entitled to our stands," said Hatcliffe resident Simon Munyoro.
.... Timothy Mucheneripi (not his real name), a worker at the site, told IRIN that the irregular supply of cement was hampering construction. "Given the rate at which we are going, the rains might come without much progress, even though we have been told to speed up the construction of the first phase of houses because they should be occupied by civil servants." Davis pointed out that even if the promised construction of new houses in Harare were to be completed, the municipality lacked the capacity to provide adequate sewerage systems, as the existing network was already seriously overloaded.
Most of the publicity was given to a few Harare suburbs...what is not mentioned is that a similar "clean up" occured in smaller towns, and according to my private sources, even rural market places were destroyed.. also not mentioned is that many of the displaced were ordered to go back to their villages, where food is already short thanks to the drought...and of course, since the press in Zim is controlled, and reporters are not allowed in, few reports are coming out of rural areas...
Zim going broke take two
LINK
IMF Team Due in Zimbabwe as Inflation Soars, Economy Collapses
IMF Team Due in Zimbabwe as Inflation Soars, Economy Collapses
A team from the International Monetary Fund is due in Harare next week for talks ahead of a key meeting in September at IMF headquarters that could result in the expulsion of Zimbabwe if it cannot pay down debt arrears of some $295 million.
Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa said the IMF team arriving Monday will be following up on a meeting with Zimbabwean officials held in June.
The IMF board is scheduled to discuss Zimbabwe’s future in the organization on Sept. 9. It has threatened to expel zimbabwe for its debt repayment arrears.
Harare has been in talks with South Africa about a loan of several hundred million dollars that would let it make at least a partial payment on those arrears.
But the loan discussions have become intertwined with talk of restarting a dialogue between Harare and the local opposition. President Robert Mugabe this week rebuffed efforts to arrange mediation of such talks, so the status of the Pretoria bailout deal is unclear.
The IMF team arrives as Zimbabwe’s economic problems continue to deepen. Inflation soared in July to an annual rate of 255% with consumer prices jumping 47% in a single month as critically short stocks of food and fuel pushed prices much higher...
zim going broke
LINK
LINK
Last Updated: Tuesday, 16 August 2005, 12:52 GMT 13:52 UK   |
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Printable version | SA fears Zimbabwe 'failed state' | ||
Aziz Pahad said South Africa did not want Zimbabwe's government and opposition to form a government of national unity to solve its problems. He said South Africa wanted Zimbabwe to change its economic policies, in return for a loan, which is being negotiated. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's government has again ruled out the idea of holding talks with the main opposition party. Zimbabwe is going through an economic crisis, with shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, and rampant unemployment and inflation. 'Fundamental changes' It has asked South Africa for an emergency loan so it can repay its debts to the IMF and avoid expulsion. | ||
| Zimbabwe govt broke, Murerwa admits Rangarirai Mberi 8/18/2005 9:20:06 AM (GMT +2) THE government - relentlessly seeking recourse from the domestic market to make ends meet and facing expulsion from the 184-member International Monetary Fund (IMF) - is technically broke. | |
| After twice postponing the mid-term fiscal policy presentation, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa all but admitted on Tuesday he cannot quench the government's insatiable appetite for funds as he rejected pleas for $31 trillion in additional funding from bankrupt line ministries. |
Friday, August 19, 2005
Mugabe: an end to sight? Not really...
The previous IHT article is cheerful, but ignores that Mugabe won't see the delegate, and is actually increasing laws that tyrannize people...
LINK
President Robert Mugabe has rejected the appointment of an African Union envoy to help solve Zimbabwe's political problems, the envoy has said.
However, these "democratic institutions" have been decimated, and are continunig to be destroyed...
LINK
LINK
Zimbabwe 'rejects' African envoy
 President Mugabe's government faces expulsion from the IMF |
Former Mozambique President Joaquim Chissano said Mr Mugabe felt there was no need for talks with the main opposition party, the MDC......
Mr Chissano was appointed earlier this month by African Union Chairman, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo.
"It is an internal problem that they can handle through the democratic institutions in Zimbabwe," Mr Chissano said he had been told by Zimbabwean officials....However, these "democratic institutions" have been decimated, and are continunig to be destroyed...
LINK
Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF took a two thirds majority in parliamentary elections in March -- criticised as neither free nor fair by the opposition and Western nations -- and is using this mandate to introduce a raft of changes to the constitution.
"I want to assure honourable members and the nation at large that ZANU-PF will use this majority to effect constitutional changes which we promised the people during the run-up to the March 2005 elections," Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told parliament to murmurs of disapproval from opposition deputies.
The amendments include barring individuals whose land has been seized from making a court challenge except on the amount of compensation, setting up a Senate and a single electoral body and the imposition of travel curbs on Zimbabweans suspected of "engaging in terrorist training abroad".
Authorities would also be able to confiscate passports and impose travel bans on people thought to pose a risk to state interests...
"Laws which deprive one of their passport are only found in countries like North Korea," MDC MP David Coltart said, calling the proposed legislation "draconian and retrogressive".
They are also planning a take over of all schools in that country...
LINK
Against this background, Chigwedere's stated goal of doing away with hot-seating by 2011 through the construction of hundreds of new schools looks decidedly utopian.
The situation clearly cries out for private investment in the education sector, but instead of facilitating the entry of non-state players in the sector, the education ministry has, since Chigwedere's appointment, fought a war of attrition with privately owned schools and has moved to nationalise all schools.
A former headmaster at one of Zimbabwe's oldest and prestigious government-run schools - Goromonzi - Chigwedere has ignored the onerous challenges facing public schools in pursuit of a destructive war with private schools over fees. Although he lost out in court following a nasty episode which saw school heads arrested and some schools failing to open for the new term, Chigwedere has now sought to take the legislative route to assuage his bruised ego.
Parents, represented by their development associations, responsible authorities from church-run schools, teachers' unions and an association of trusts running private schools, have come out in force to oppose the Education Amendment Bill tabled by Chigwedere in Parliament in May, saying if enacted into law, it would be the final straw.
Jameson Timba, chairman of the Association of Trust Schools (ATS), a representative body of 61 private schools, said the proposed amendment to the Education Act "was in essence an attempt to nationalise private educational institutions - from pre-schools up to high schools."
Mugabe's regieme: an end in sight?
LINK
The International herald Tribune thinks so, since the country is on the verge of collapse...
Mugabe, 81, has finally run out of options. Zimbabwe's treasury is bare. The scraps of foreign exchange on which the tattered country had been relying for derisory amounts of imported fuel, power and essential goods are now gone. No one - not even China, Malaysia and Libya, Mugabe's usual patrons of last resort - will lend the required $1 billion or so for which Zimbabwe has recently been begging. Given a permanent cold shoulder by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Mugabe has had nowhere else to turn but to South Africa, his indulgent neighbor. South Africa has watched with horror as Mugabe systematically cultivated internal chaos. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, nevertheless perversely refused to condemn Mugabe's outrages, persistently promising President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair that "quiet diplomacy" would turn Mugabe around. It never did. But this month Mugabe finally had to go hat in hand to Mbeki, asking for hundreds of millions, if not the full $1 billion. In exchange for such a cash infusion, South Africa has demanded that Mugabe negotiate in good faith with Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, an opposition political party that European, American and some African observers believe actually won the rigged elections of 2000, 2002 and 2005. "Never!" was Mugabe's initial petulant reaction. South Africa threatened to withhold its bailout. It also unleashed a regional diplomatic firestorm. President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, chairman of the African Union, told Mugabe that he had to think again - that his time of tyranny was at an end. Obasanjo dispatched Joaquim Chissano, former president of Mozambique, to make sure Mugabe understood what he had to do. Chissano was instructed to moderate discussions between Tsvangirai and Mugabe that would lead to Zimbabwe's political and economic reconstruction, and possibly to properly supervised new elections. The soft landing that is being forged would send Mugabe to comfortable exile, possibly in Namibia. Some kind of transitional coalition between the opposition and Mugabe's henchmen would begin the long, hard process of restoring sanity to the country's economy. It would also dismantle the baleful apparatus of tyranny and create a political climate conducive to wholesale reform.
The International herald Tribune thinks so, since the country is on the verge of collapse...
Mugabe, 81, has finally run out of options. Zimbabwe's treasury is bare. The scraps of foreign exchange on which the tattered country had been relying for derisory amounts of imported fuel, power and essential goods are now gone. No one - not even China, Malaysia and Libya, Mugabe's usual patrons of last resort - will lend the required $1 billion or so for which Zimbabwe has recently been begging. Given a permanent cold shoulder by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, Mugabe has had nowhere else to turn but to South Africa, his indulgent neighbor. South Africa has watched with horror as Mugabe systematically cultivated internal chaos. Thabo Mbeki, South Africa's president, nevertheless perversely refused to condemn Mugabe's outrages, persistently promising President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair that "quiet diplomacy" would turn Mugabe around. It never did. But this month Mugabe finally had to go hat in hand to Mbeki, asking for hundreds of millions, if not the full $1 billion. In exchange for such a cash infusion, South Africa has demanded that Mugabe negotiate in good faith with Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, an opposition political party that European, American and some African observers believe actually won the rigged elections of 2000, 2002 and 2005. "Never!" was Mugabe's initial petulant reaction. South Africa threatened to withhold its bailout. It also unleashed a regional diplomatic firestorm. President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, chairman of the African Union, told Mugabe that he had to think again - that his time of tyranny was at an end. Obasanjo dispatched Joaquim Chissano, former president of Mozambique, to make sure Mugabe understood what he had to do. Chissano was instructed to moderate discussions between Tsvangirai and Mugabe that would lead to Zimbabwe's political and economic reconstruction, and possibly to properly supervised new elections. The soft landing that is being forged would send Mugabe to comfortable exile, possibly in Namibia. Some kind of transitional coalition between the opposition and Mugabe's henchmen would begin the long, hard process of restoring sanity to the country's economy. It would also dismantle the baleful apparatus of tyranny and create a political climate conducive to wholesale reform.
Zim to speed up land seizures..and give the confiscated land to football players
LINK
Zimbabwe's government has tabled a constitutional amendment bill to speed up the acquisition of white-owned land.
Zimbabwe's government has tabled a constitutional amendment bill to speed up the acquisition of white-owned land.
The proposals would nationalise all land and stop appeals to the courts.
Some 4,000 white farmers have been evicted from their land since 2000, but the government says legal battles are slowing up the transfer of ownership.
President Robert Mugabe's party gained the two-thirds parliamentary majority needed for constitutional change in March's disputed elections.
Passport confiscation
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, who introduced the bill to parliament, told the AFP news agency that the legislation would "conclude the land question"...
Being the Beeb, the photo shows a poor black farmer hoeing his land by hand...hello fellas: Rototillers and hand plows have revolutionized small farm outputs, along with fertilizer and drought resistant crops...have mugabe ask his Chinese friends about it...
But of course, the land is not being given to the people who have traditionally lived on and worked on the land. It is being given to Mugabe's cronies...and football players.
who are also being granted residential stands...
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Clean up of poor people resumes
LINK
In the wake of Zimbabwe's 'tsunami':
In the wake of Zimbabwe's 'tsunami':
Operation Murambatsvina - the aftermath
Sokwanele Report: 13 August 2005
First, the destructive phase is not yet over, as reports from around the country confirm. Second, the so-called rebuilding phase, Operation Garikai, is patently nothing other than window dressing - frantic damage control by the regime, without any real substance, after a particularly damaging episode (from their point of view) of exposure to the truth. And third, the catastrophic consequences of Operation Murambatsvina are not yet over. Far from it. In fact, just as the full extent of the suffering caused by a natural tsunami only becomes evident some time after the tidal wave has struck, so are Zimbabweans only now beginning to see the huge damage inflicted by their man-made tsunami. There is still a story to be told. We dare not fall for the Mugabe fiction, and the world's free press dare not shy away because of the difficulties or dangers of following the story in a country under fascist rule....
...One of those most closely involved in this mission of mercy said that in his experience less than 5 per cent of those hurriedly dumped in remote locations had been able to secure a place they might again call "home" or even a prospect of shelter, food or the basic necessities of life. He related how many of the victims had been moved five or six times in recent weeks - from their original homes in Killarney or Ngozi Mine, to a church; then onwards to another church to link up with family members from whom they had become separated; before being forcibly removed by the riot police, first to the holding camp at Helensvale Farm and then onwards to a rural dumping place; and finally back, usually by foot, to somewhere close to where they had started from....
... Bulawayo pastors indeed confirmed to our reporter 6 known deaths closely related to Murambatsvina. And how many others, we ask, are still to come to light in this region or elsewhere, the more so in places where the Church has not played such a high profile role in support of the victims ? And how many others again whose deaths will just pass unnoticed and unrecorded ?
No, Murambatsvina is not over yet, and certainly the effects of the devastating aftermath will be felt for many years to come. For hundreds of thousands of victims life can never be the same again. Which makes it all the more important that we continue to track events on the ground closely, and to monitor and record as many as possible of the gross human rights abuses perpetrated. The world needs to know the scale of the disaster that is still unfolding, and human rights lawyers and others must continue to record the violations of national and international law so that, as Anna Tibaijuka, the UN Special Envoy has recommended, all those responsible will be held to account....
Ah yes...they will send them a wery nasty letter...
Zim to resume "cleanup"
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Zim government to restart destroying houses
LINK
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe authorities said on Tuesday they would resume a clean-up blitz to drive illegal vendors out of the capital, weeks after halting the exercise which sparked an international outcry.
Zimbabwe last month declared an end to its controversial demolitions of shantytowns, dubbed "Operation Restore Order", after a critical U.N. report said the operation had destroyed the homes or jobs of at least 700,000 people.
Harare City Council spokesman Lesley Gwindi told Reuters on Monday that municipal authorities were worried that street children and illegal traders had returned to the capital and were once again operating from unapproved sites.
"We are going to remove them, we will push them out," Gwindi said. "The question was always whether we will be able to sustain the order and cleanness that was brought about by the clean-up exercise and this is what we are doing," he said....
They are going to "push them out"?
I have Irish ancestors...who were "pushed out" when the potato crop failed and they could not pay the rent...many Irish died of cholera or hypothermia on the roads, or died in coffin ships going to America or the UK...and 150 years later, we still remember these things..
it is a sin to simply throw people out in the dead of winter with no place to go.....
With nowhere else to turn, some people are making their way back to their bulldozed homes.
...Some of the people evicted from their homes in Zimbabwean towns in recent weeks are trickling back to their destroyed homes, hoping to rebuild their lives and start afresh.
But many find that as soon as they start building on the site of their flattened shack, they are forced on to police trucks to be ferried out of town again....
Despite the government’s public claims that it has allocated people new housing plots, Ndongwe and many thousands of others have not benefited because they are unable to meet all the conditions. To apply for one of the limited places, they would need a rent card, a marriage certificate and a salary slip -- none of which people them are likely to possess....
Last week, the police came back, and loaded the Ndongwes and others onto trucks, and dumped them on the road to the eastern border city of Mutare.
As the transit camp at Caledonia Farm, inmates were ordered onto trucks last week and driven away to unknown destinations.
Also last week, police evicted hundreds of homeless families who had been given refuge in churches in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, where pastors and priests were providing temporary sanctuary for victims of Operation Murambatsvina.
Riot units raided the churches and loaded the dispossessed people into trucks. Police said they had instructions “from the bosses to take the victims to Tsholotsho", referring to a rural community in an area of severe drought some 120 km northwest of Bulawayo.
The police raids have deeply angered the Churches in Bulawayo, a coalition of churches which has come together because of the demolition programme and the resulting humanitarian crisis.
“The removal of the innocent, poor, weak, voiceless and vulnerable members of society by riot police was uncalled for and unnecessary,” said the coalition in a statement. “It is inhuman, brutal and insensitive and in total disregard of human rights and dignity.”
Meanwhile police barred churches and non-government groups from entering Helensvale Farm, a transit camp 20 km from Bulawayo that is the second largest holding facility for families whose homes have been bulldozered and burned in the city.
“There have been no provisions for the people at the transit camp since we were ordered off Helensvale farm,” said the Reverend Ray Motsi, a spokesman for the church coalition. “And we do not know what the people are eating now because we did not supply them with long-term food and other provisions. The reports we got from the camp are worrying.”.....
Zim democide "not a regional situation"
LINK
GABORONE (Reuters) - Southern African leaders meeting this week will not address Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis because it is not a "regional situation", officials said on Tuesday.
"There is no agenda on Zimbabwe. We discuss regional situations not individual countries," Prega Ramsamy, executive director of the 13-member Southern African Development Community (SADC), said ahead of the organisation's summit on Wednesday....
The reason that I find this ironic is because if the famine was due to the drought, it WOULD be a regional problem...essentially they are acknowledging that the problem is an internal political problem so they don't want to interfere...
remember this next time you read that all of Zim's problems are due to the weather...
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Zim's "spies in Media" scandal
LINK
How to silence opposition voices? Have your spy agency buy up all the news papers...
How to silence opposition voices? Have your spy agency buy up all the news papers...
...The CIO reportedly copied their strategy of owning newspapers through shell companies or as silent shareholders from Angola, where the intelligence service owns the largest circulating daily.
Mugabe’s government already controls a chain of newspapers under the Zimpapers stable, and enjoys a monopoly of the airwaves.
Over the past five years, the government has intensified media tyranny in tandem with political oppression as part of its political survival strategy.
Dozens of journalists of the independent media have been arrested and foreign correspondents deported. The Independent newspaper named CIO officers deployed to the three newspapers to tighten the intelligence service’s grip on the publications....
Zim's "spies in Media" scandal
LINK
...Government sources said State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa was expected to meet senior intelligence officers in a bid to limit the damage caused by media reports that Zimbabwe’s state security agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), had taken over three private newspapers using billions in taxpayers’ funds. The development further cripples independent critical voices in the country....
...Government sources said State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa was expected to meet senior intelligence officers in a bid to limit the damage caused by media reports that Zimbabwe’s state security agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), had taken over three private newspapers using billions in taxpayers’ funds. The development further cripples independent critical voices in the country....
The CIO reportedly copied their strategy of owning newspapers through shell companies or as silent shareholders from Angola, where the intelligence service owns the largest circulating daily.
Mugabe’s government already controls a chain of newspapers under the Zimpapers stable, and enjoys a monopoly of the airwaves.
Over the past five years, the government has intensified media tyranny in tandem with political oppression as part of its political survival strategy.
Dozens of journalists of the independent media have been arrested and foreign correspondents deported. The Independent newspaper named CIO officers deployed to the three newspapers to tighten the intelligence service’s grip on the publications....
Food aid still being held up...
LINK
It has been revealed that the food aid from South Africa that is being held up is not the only consignment waiting for clearance from Zimbabwe officials. Thousands of tonnes of other emergency aid are reported to be held up by Zimbabwean red tape. Tony Hall, the United States food ambassador who visited Zimbabwe, told reporters at the weekend that 10 000 tons of food were waiting for an import licence in Durban, while 15 000 tonnes, already inside Zimbabwe, needed permission before it could be distributed....
LINK
JOHANNESBURG -- Relief supplies organised by South African churches for victims of a government clean-up operation in Zimbabwe are expected to arrive in the country this week after the Harare authorities finally allowed in the aid.
It has been revealed that the food aid from South Africa that is being held up is not the only consignment waiting for clearance from Zimbabwe officials. Thousands of tonnes of other emergency aid are reported to be held up by Zimbabwean red tape. Tony Hall, the United States food ambassador who visited Zimbabwe, told reporters at the weekend that 10 000 tons of food were waiting for an import licence in Durban, while 15 000 tonnes, already inside Zimbabwe, needed permission before it could be distributed....
LINK
JOHANNESBURG -- Relief supplies organised by South African churches for victims of a government clean-up operation in Zimbabwe are expected to arrive in the country this week after the Harare authorities finally allowed in the aid.
The Zimbabwean authorities were refusing to allow the aid into the country arguing they needed certificates indicating the food was not genetically modified. Zimbabwe has banned genetically modified food over safety fears.
The South African Council of Churches (SACC) which organised the aid said the trucks finally left Johannesburg where they had been held up for Harare at the weekend.....
The stuff about genetically modified food is another "green" worry that kills poor people...
We already have thousands of poor Africans dying after the greens worried about DDT...well, genetically modified food, which is commonly eaten in the USA, is another PC issue...
Of course, it is probably just a lame excuse to "punish" the donors...
The Harare authorities had refused to allow in the aid throwing hurdles in the church's way. State Security Minister Didymus Mutasa last month accused the churches of “pushing a political agenda.”
The SA clergymen have criticised the Zimbabwe government for demolishing people's homes in a controversial clean-up exercise two months ago.
Makes me happy that I live in a country where a hundred peso bribe would settle the whole thing...Gloria, have your son call his office...his juteng bribe check is waiting for him...
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