LATEST RHODESIAN NEWS

 

Here's a measure of how President Robert Mugabe destroying this once lush nation of Zimbabwe. In a week of surreptitious reporting here (committing journalism can be a criminal offense in Zimbabwe), ordinary people said time and again that life had been better under the old, racist, White regime [sic] of what was then called Rhodesia. "When the country changed from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, we were very excited," one man, Kizita, told me in a village of mud-walled huts near this town in western Zimbabwe. "But we didn’t realize the ones we chased away were better and the ones we put in power would oppress us. It would have been better if Whites had continued to rule because the money would have continued to come," added a neighbour, a 58-year-old farmer named Isaac. "It was better under Rhodesia. Then we could get jobs. Things were cheaper in stores. Now we have no money, no food." Over and over, I cringed as I heard Africans wax nostalgic about a nasty, oppressive regime run by a tiny White elite. Black Zimbabweans responded that at least that regime was more competent than today's nasty, oppressive regime run by the tiny Black elite that surrounds Mr. Mugabe. A [New York] Times colleague, Barry Bearak, was jailed here in 2008 for reporting, so I used a fresh passport to enter the country as a tourist. Partly for my own safety, I avoided interviewing people with ties to the government, so I can't be sure that my glimpse of the public mood was representative. People I talked to were terrified for their personal safety if quoted - much more scared than in the past. That's why I'm being vague about locations and agreed to omit full names. But what is clear is that Zimbabwe has come very far downhill over the last few decades (although it has risen a bit since its trough two years ago). An impressive health and education system is in tatters, and life expectancy has tumbled from about 60 years in 1990 to somewhere between 36 and 44, depending on which statistics you believe. Western countries have made the mistake of focusing their denunciations on the seizures of White farms by Mugabe's cronies. That's tribalism by Whites; by far the greatest suffering has been endured by Zimbabwe's Blacks. In Kizita's village, for example, I met a 29-year-old woman, seven months pregnant, who had malaria. She and her husband had walked more than four miles to the nearest clinic, where she tested positive for malaria. But the clinic refused to give her some life-saving anti-malaria medicine unless she paid $2 - and she had no money at all in her house. So, dizzy and feverish, she stumbled home for another four miles, empty-handed. As it happened, the clinic that turned her down was one that I had already visited. Nurses there had complained that they were desperately short of bandages, antibiotics and beds. They said that to survive, they impose fees for seeing patients, for family planning, for safe childbirth - and the upshot is that impoverished villagers die because they can't pay. I also spent time at an elementary school where the number of students had dropped sharply because so few parents today can afford $36 in annual school fees. "We don't have desks. We don't have chairs. We don't have books," explained the principal, who was terrified of being named. The school also lacks electricity and water, and the first grade doesn't have a classroom and meets under a tree. This particular school had been founded by Rhodesians more than 70 years ago, and the principal mused that it must have served Black pupils far better in Rhodesian days than today. At another school 100 miles away, the deputy headmaster lamented that students can't even afford pens. "One child has to finish his work, and then he lends his pen to another child," he explained.

 

- article by Nicholas D. Kristoff, New York Times, April 9, 2010

 

 

White Zimbabwean [Rhodesian] farmers whose land was grabbed by Robert Mugabe plan to turn the tables by seizing Zimbabwean-owned property in South Africa. Lawyers for dispossessed farmers believe that on Monday they will be able to start using the law to seize houses in Cape Town which are owned by the Zimbabwean government. Their action, which follows a landmark legal ruling, promises to humiliate Mugabe and embarrass South Africa's president Jacob Zuma, who was on a state visit to Britain last week. The battle for justice fought by one of the White farmers, Mike Campbell, aged 77, was featured in the documentary film Mugabe and the White African. It was shown in British cinemas this year to great acclaim. The film tells how he fought stubbornly to bring a legal case in 2008 against Mugabe's government at the Southern African Development Community tribunal, based in the Namibian [South-West African] capital Windhoek. Mr Campbell won a victory when the court ruled that Mugabe's farm takeovers were racist in nature and therefore illegal. At the North Gauteng [PWV area] High Court in the South African capital Pretoria last month, the farmers successfully applied for the Namibian [South-West African] judgement to be enforced in South Africa. Lawyers acting for the Mr Campbell and a group of other farmers believe after that ruling they can seize Zimbabwean government-owned property, to recover legal costs from the South African case. Mr Campbell, who was severely beaten by land invaders in 2008, was too frail to comment yesterday. But his son-in-law Ben Freeth, 41, said: "This is not about revenge. This is about the long arm of the law. We hope to expand our actions further and investigate whether we can, in time, sue individuals who were responsible for what has been going on." Late last year Mr Freeth watched helplessly as thugs burned down his farmhouse in Zimbabwe. Their representatives have identified at least 11 properties which are owned by the government of Zimbabwe, including houses in Cape Town worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. Unlike properties in Pretoria which are connected to the embassy, the Cape Town properties are thought not to be protected by diplomatic immunity. The lawyers say it will be a groundbreaking development, as they are not aware of any precedent for government-owned properties being seized in pursuit of a civil judgement. The timing is awkward for Zuma. This week the South African president called for Western sanctions to be lifted against Mugabe and his cronies, during a state visit to Britain. The EU recently renewed sanctions for another year, although Western officials point out the sanctions hit only specific regime members rather than the Zimbabwean people as a whole.

 

- AfricanCrisis, March 7, 2010

 

 

MDC-T has suspended Bulawayo South legislator Mr Eddie Cross over allegations of indiscipline as internecine strife deepens in the party. Mr Cross is party leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai's economic advisor and is a member of MDC-T's national executive. It is understood that the leadership is still trying to come up with a "soft" way of officially communicating the suspension because they fear a backlash from the White Rhodesian donor element that has traditionally backed Mr Cross' position in the party hierarchy. They also fear that, if not properly managed, the affair could open a can of worms that will reveal the extent of divisions within MDC-T. Reliable sources say the decision to suspend Mr Cross was taken at a meeting of the party's Standing Committee at Wild Geese Lodge in Harare last Friday. "Cross was suspended last week when the party held a meeting at Wild Geese Lodge. He is accused of disseminating information on the Internet and in the Press without clearance from the party and some of the statements were against party policies," one of the sources said. Among the statements the party is using to nail Mr Cross was his declaration last year that the land reform programme was unacceptable and reversible. In the article - which appeared on many online publications - Mr Cross said MDC-T's national executive had resolved that the land reform programme was unacceptable and would be reviewed. His remarks went against Article V of the Global Political Agreement, which upholds the irreversibility of the land reform programme. Another source said the suspension was part of an attempt to "purge the Rhodesian element calling the shots in the Prime Minister's Office". The source said Mr Cross had "rubbed raw nerves when he wrote an article in which he essentially said he wanted to see the inclusive Government crash and burn". The source said the statements gave foundation to those who said MDC-T were "puppets". "The progressive elements in our party are trying to shake off the Rhodesian element that has permeated the ranks. They are, however, yet to communicate the decision (suspension) to Cross as it will have serious repercussions with Rhodesian elements in South Africa and Australia," said the source. A third source said MDC-T was in the process of notifying donors on Mr Cross' suspension. "They took the decision but they are afraid to implement it. Cross is connected. They have not notified him officially but he is already aware of it," the source said.Yesterday, Mr Cross would neither confirm nor deny his suspension. "I do not know. I have not heard about it," he said. Contacted for comment, MDC-T deputy president Ms Thokozani Khupe asked: "Who has told you that?" She went on to claim: "It is not true. We have not yet had any standing committee or national executive meeting." When it was pointed out that the national executive did, in fact, meet at Wild Geese last week she backtracked and said: "That issue (Cross' suspension) was never discussed." This development comes as the party is investigating three senior officials - Energy Minister Elias Mudzuri, Mines Deputy Minister Murisi Zwizwai and Home Affairs co-Minister Giles Mutsekwa. The three are accused of corruption.

 

- AfricanCrisis, January 27, 2010

 

 

A White Zimbabwean farming family, who were forced out off their land, have had a first taste of revenge against Robert Mugabe's regime after a documentary on their plight emerged as an Oscar contender. Mugabe and the White African opens in London this week after being named best documentary at the British Independent Film Awards in December. The movie, directed by Andrew Thompson and Lucy Bailey, is being likened to non-fiction films that achieved global success, such as Super Size Me, Fahrenheit 9/11 and Touching the Void. It tells how Mike Campbell, his wife Angela, daughter Laura, son- in-law Ben Freeth and their black Zimbabwean workers battled to keep hold of Mount Carmel, the mango farm 70 miles south-west of Harare [Salisbury] where his family had lived for 30 years, in the face of beatings by militia gangs loyal to Mr Mugabe. The family lost a long battle to hold on to the farm last year despite winning an unprecedented court case against the Zimbabwean government. The Campbells and Freeths were burned out of their homes in August and Mount Carmel Farm was occupied by Nathan Shamuyarira, an octogenarian former cabinet minister and President Mugabe's offical biographer. Mr Freeth, his wife and their three children now live in a friend's house about 10 miles away in the town of Chegutu while Mr and Mrs Campbell live in the capital Harare [Salisbury]. Months earlier Mr Campbell, 76, was subjected to a horrenous beating after he petitioned a tribunal of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) rule against Mr Mugabe's efforts to seize white owned farms. After a nine-hour ordeal at a militia camp, Mr Campbell was so badly injured that he could not attend the hearing in Namibia; Mr Freeth, whose skull was fractured, managed to be present in a wheelchair with his head bandaged. "We knew there would be consequences, taking on Mugabe," Mr Freeth said. "He's a dictator, he doesn't brook any opposition or anyone trying to bring him to book in any way. But we felt it was very, very important to ensure the world really knew what was going on in this country, so it had a chance to put an end to the suffering." Mr Mugabe once declared: "The White man is not indigenous to Africa. Africa is for Africans. Zimbabwe is for Zimbabweans." But the tribunal's ruling in Mr Campbell's favour was an unprecedented reverse for this doctrine - effectively determining that Mr Campbell and others like him had the same rights as Zimbabwe's majority Black African population. However in February last year, President Mugabe declared that he would ignore the SADC ruling and the forcible seizures would continue. Mike Campbell, 76, hopes it will force the international spotlight back on the campaign of violent, state-sponsored farm evictions which has continued under Mr Mugabe even though he was forced to form a new power-sharing government.

 

- AfricanCrisis, January 4, 2010

 

 

President Robert Mugabe on Friday called Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's choice for a ministerial post an "offspring of a settler" who was not Zimbabwean, a remark which is likely to further strain the country's fragile coalition government. Mugabe was referring to Roy Bennett, a White commercial farmer who was driven off his land by Mugabe's controversial land reform targeting Whites. Mugabe has refused to appoint Bennett as deputy agriculture minister in the coalition government with Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), saying he must first be cleared of terrorism charges he is facing. Addressing a congress of his ZANU-PF in Harare [Salisbury], the president attacked the MDC as a puppet of the West, saying they asked for sanctions to be imposed on Zimbabwe. "To the MDC I say: Open your eyes. This is your country and not for Whites. Not the Bennetts. They are settlers, even if they were born here they are offspring of settlers," he said. The ZANU-PF congress, which ends on Saturday, has already nominated Mugabe as its presidential candidate in the country's next election, for which no date has been set. Mugabe and Tsvangirai formed a power sharing government in February, following a disputed presidential election run-off that the international community refused to recognise. Tsvangirai had trounced Mugabe in the first round. In his speech on Friday, Mugabe admitted for the first time he lost an election. He attributed the loss due to the internal squabbles of his party. He repeated his calls for the West to remove the sanctions imposed on him and some ZANU-PF senior members in 2002 following a spate of human rights abuses and allegations of a rigged election. Mugabe said the sanctions were unjustified and meant to punish him for his controversial land reform programme. "If you have a rich country, well naturally-resourced whether mineral, agricultural, or otherwise, they envy these resources, they find ways of penetrating your system," said Mugabe. He claimed that Britain formed the MDC to change revolutionary trends in Zimbabwe. "That is how the MDC was formed. They (Great Britain) did not hide this. They were blatant." Bennett, 52, is on trial for allegedly plotting to overthrow Mugabe's government in 2006. Mugabe's opponents have often been charged with plotting insurgency, but none of the charges ever stuck.

 

- News24, December 12, 2009

 

 

The treasurer of Zimbabwe’s former opposition party went on trial on terrorism charges yesterday in a case that could decide the future of the fragile “unity” government. Roy Bennett denies plotting to overthrow Robert Mugabe. His party, the Movement for Democratic Change, says that the accusations are politically motivated. The MDC and Mugabe’s ZANU-PF formed a unity government earlier this year, but they co-exist uneasily. The MDC has only just returned to joint meetings with ZANU-PF, having suspended co-operation last month over Mugabe’s refusal to implement key provisions of the power-sharing agreement. Its complaints include malicious prosecution of the party’s activists, and if Mr. Bennett is convicted, let alone condemned to death, the maximum possible penalty, it is unlikely that the coalition will survive. Mr. Bennett was nominated as Deputy Agriculture Minister by the MDC, but was arrested before he could be sworn in. His lawyers have argued that Michael Hitschmann, the main witness against him, was tortured while in custody. He was convicted of illegal weapons possession in 2007, but did not implicate Mr. Bennett at his own trial. Johannes Tomana, the country’s attorney general whose unilateral appointment by Mugabe is one of the MDC’s key complaints, is personally leading Mr. Bennett’s prosecution. Many senior figures in Mugabe’s party genuinely believe their propaganda that the MDC is a tool of the West, bent on re-colonising Zimbabwe by force of arms if needs be.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, November 10, 2009

 

 

Zimbabwe has lost about 200 rhinoceroses - a quarter of its total population - to rampant poaching over the last three years as security and the economy deteriorated, state media reported on Tuesday. The southern African country has been badly damaged by an economic crisis, which critics blame on Mugabe's seizure of White-owned farms, including wildlife farms, to resettle landless Blacks. The director of the National Parks and Wildlife Authority, Morris Mutsambiwa, told a parliamentary committee that 86 poachers linked to international smuggling syndicates had been arrested this year alone. "We have lost close to 200 rhinos in the last two to three years," Mutsambiwa was quoted saying by the Herald newspaper. "From the intelligence we are gathering, we strongly believe that there are syndicates which operate in the region, involving locals." Estimates put Zimbabwe's black and white rhino population at about 500 and 300, respectively. Mutsambiwa said poachers were mainly targeting the low-lying south-eastern part of Zimbabwe and the Zambezi valley to the north. Asia seemed to be the main destination for the illicit rhino horns. Mutsambiwa said the wildlife authority was unable to provide adequate security, hence the rise in poaching cases.

 

- AfricanCrisis, November 3, 2009

 

 

As expected, given the illusionary sham of the so-called 'deal' between the ruling ZANU-PF regime and the opposition MDC, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe's office has ridiculed the boycott of cabinet meetings announced by his 'partner' in the so-called unity government, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Two days after Tsvangirai's announcement, a spokesperson for the ZANU-PF president said in state media that government will conduct business 'with or without the prime minister's party'. "The MDC-T has disengaged from nothing. It's sound and fury signifying nothing. The MDC-T president knows that. It's a poor protest," George Charamba told the Sunday Mail, referring to Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.The 85-year-old dictator has so far not even bothered to reply personally. "As for this needless excitement from the MDC-T, I suppose the president will find time when the right time comes," Charamba said, with Mugabe having been busy selecting students to study abroad and with Zimbabwe's football team. Many independent observers have long pointed out that the so-called deal between ZANU-PF and the MDC has been a sham, forced on Tsvangirai by powers embarrassed by the blatant disregard of election results by Mugabe, the man they put in power in 1980 to get rid of the White Rhodesian government. The 'unity rule' has enabled Mugabe to re-gain some international acceptance and ease the return to stability, getting some money from international donors - though governments like the US still refuse to officially lift all sanctions. Having bent over backwards to try and make it work, Tsvangirai has now announced a boycott of cabinet meetings, following repeated provocations and harassment of his party's leadership and members. The straw that broke the camel's back seems to have been the renewed detention of one of his top aides, Roy Bennett, on terrorism charges this week in a move that the leader said showed the "fiction of the credibility and integrity" of the unity government. The long-suffering White former coffee farmer, whose land was expropriated under Mugabe's land grab policies, was later released on bail and a Mutare [Umtali] court is set on Monday to decide the date of his postponed trial. The MDC has said it is disengaging only from co-operation with Mugabe's party and not quitting the government - though it is unclear how, since the two parties share power through an internationally mediated unity pact.

 

- Southern Cross Africa News, October 19, 2009

 

 

Marauding gangs of armed robbers are on the loose in Harare [Salisbury] and are pouncing on unsuspecting motorists and travelers, stealing vehicles, cash and other valuables. A Harare man was stripped naked yesterday morning and robbed of a Toyota Hiace, valuables and US$170 cash by five armed robbers along Willowvale Road. In separate incidents the same day, nine people lost over US$700 cash, cellphones [mobile ‘phones] and other valuables to five robbers driving a Mazda Eagle. The first incident occurred at around 3:30am near a block of flats in Highfield along Willowvale Road. Harare [Salisbury] provincial police spokesperson Inspector James Sabau said one of the robbers pretended as if their car, a blue Datsun 120Y, had broken down. He waved down the commuter omnibus and the unsuspecting driver stopped with the intention of offering assistance. He went over to the vehicle and found four other men sitting inside. The gang reportedly asked for tools to fix their vehicle and as the kombi driver was walking towards his commuter omnibus, which had no registration numbers, he was hit with an iron bar. They assaulted him all over the body before stealing US$170 cash, LG cellphones [mobile ‘phones], clothes and a leather jacket. One of the robbers went behind the wheel of the commuter omnibus and sped off. Insp Sabau said in another incident over the weekend, three people were offered a lift by robbers at the intersection of First Street and Robert Mugabe Road at around 11:30pm on Saturday. Near Cresta Lodge, the robbers, who claimed they were going to Mutare [Umtali], stopped the vehicle and asked for fares on the pretext that they wanted to buy more fuel. While collecting the money, it is reported that they demanded cash and personal property from the complainants. They collected US$473, two cellphones [mobile ‘phones], a pair of shoes and a satchel. The gang dumped the victims and drove off. A report was made to the police. Insp Sabau said the same gang had at midnight last Friday robbed six people of US$250 cash, cellphones [mobile ‘phones] and various goods along Seke Road. He said they offered the victims a lift to Chitungwiza along Julius Nyerere Way. On the way, the gang -- one of them armed with an iron bar -- ordered all the passengers to surrender all their valuables. The complainants surrendered US$250, a G-Tide, Samsung and Nokia N93 cellphones [mobile ‘phones], shoes and three handbags. They were driven along a dirt road where they were dumped by the gang before it headed back towards Seke Road.

 

- AfricanCrisis, October 11, 2009

 

 

Zimbabwe could start using the Rand as its currency this year. The country's finance minister, Tendai Biti, said his ministry was exploring three options and a decision would be made by the end of the year. One of the options is to join the rand monetary union. We will also consider continuing with the [current] regime of multiple currencies or bring back the Zimbabwean dollar and re-denominate it either with the rand or the US Dollar, he said. Economist Dawie Roodt said South Africans should not be concerned if Zimbabwe adopted the Rand. I'm very much in favour of such a move. People assume that the Rand could go the same way as the Zimbabwean Dollar, but that simply won't be the case. Biti's comments come after ex-President Kgalema Motlanthe suggested in February that it would be a practical move for Zimbabwe as part of their economic recovery plan under its coalition government. The idea was hailed at the time by economists. However, such a move would take away Zimbabwe's powers over its monetary policies. It also means Zimbabwe's interest rates and inflation levels will be the same as South Africa's. Biti said: Any such decision depends on the performance of the economy - that would be the ultimate deciding issue. He said there were signs of stability with the country expecting a growth rate for the year of 6%. Zimbabwe recorded a -1.1% inflation rate in April. Just last month Biti announced that Zimbabwe would be receiving 400-million in credit lines from several African countries. Chris Hart, an economist at Investment Solutions, said adopting the Rand was an important step in terms of Zimbabwe's recovery. It effectively imposes a fiscal and monetary discipline with the Zimbabwean economy functioning on a basis where it does business that is more competitive on an international basis. He said it could be painful initially because, among other things, our interest rates will be linked to theirs and they will have to cut back expenditure. However, it would put their economy on a stronger footing in the long term. Roodt said the only downside would be that, in the short term, South Africa would probably have to lend Zimbabwe Rands to kick-start any switch-over. We can either provide them a loan or they can earn it. The latter is probably best as then we don't have to run any major risk. Last week the African Development Bank announced a short-term emergency recovery programme in Zimbabwe. The bank called for greater foreign assistance and an injection of private capital to resuscitate the economy. Announcing the strategy that would cover the next 19 months to December 2010, the bank said it had eliminated the quasi-fiscal activities of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and introduced cash budgeting, spending only what it receives in revenue.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, June 1, 2009

 

 

Zimbabwe has this week been rated as the most food-aid dependent country in the world, a title that comes as the unity government continues to refuse to act on the ongoing land invasions. According to a report released by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies this week, up to 80% of the population relies on food-aid to survive. The report also revealed that more than half of the children who died as a result of the cholera epidemic were critically malnourished. The details in the report are a shocking indication of the severity of the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe, which used to be regarded as the 'breadbasket of Africa'. The Global Political Agreement (GPA) that set out the guidelines for the formation of the unity government, called for the production of food to be encouraged to counter the desperate food crisis in the country. But, in complete violation of this point in the GPA, farm invasions have intensified and even been encouraged by Mugabe, to the point that food production is mostly non-existent. The ongoing and increasingly violent land attacks are therefore the leading cause of the country's suffering and lack of investment, and yet the unity government seems unable to take any action to stop the attacks. During an interview about the 100-day milestone of the Global Political Agreement last week, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai even played down the serious nature of the invasions, calling them 'isolated incidents' that have been 'blown out of proportion'. "We have investigated examples of those so-called farm invasions," the Prime Minister continued, repeatedly referring to the land invasions as 'so-called' attacks. "We have asked the Minister of Lands (ZANU-PF) to give us a detailed report of what has been happening over all these so-called farm invasions and the outcry over that." Tsvangirai also insisted that the matter was being attended to, despite the clear lack of action by the government that has already sparked anger in the beleaguered farming community. Justice for Agriculture's (JAG) John Worsley-Worswick explained on Tuesday that the Prime Minister's comments are a gross "misrepresentation of the facts," that will ultimately jeopardise the future of the country. He further explained that "papering over the cracks," by playing down the severity of the land attacks, will not solve the bigger problem, saying: "We have a massive humanitarian crisis on our hands that will not be solved until the MDC challenges the Mugabe administration on issues such as the land attacks." The JAG official expressed frustration and disappointment over the MDC's unwillingness to confront ZANU-PF, explaining the party is becoming complicit with ongoing crime. "Farmers are now being exposed as a soft target because no one will take action to stop these attacks happening," Worsley-Worswick explained. "The continued infringement of property rights is a crime that no one is doing anything about." Many farmers have been forced into hiding as a result of the latest attacks, while more than 100 are already facing prosecution on trumped up land-related charges. The physical land attacks have also become increasingly violent in recent weeks, and in most cases, farm workers have been the victims of beatings and harassment at the hands of land invaders. Thousands more workers have lost their jobs because of the forced takeover of land by ZANU-PF loyalists, adding to the 94% unemployment already crippling the country.

 

- AfricanCrisis, May 26, 2009

 

 

The death rate inside Chikurubi prison, about 12 miles east of Harare [Salisbury], compares with the worst jails in history, according to The Standard, an independent weekly newspaper. Of the 1,300 inmates, at least 700 have died in revolting conditions. Six were found dead in their filthy cells yesterday alone. About the same number died last weekend. Some 100 bodies, many of them mutilated by rats, are stacked up in the prison mortuary. If they are unclaimed, they will be buried as paupers in prison grounds. The collapse of Zimbabwe's economy and of the state itself has crippled the prison system, leaving thousands of inmates with scarcely any food. Any provision of medical care has also collapsed, leaving prisoners to die of starvation and disease. Chikurubi packs about 30 inmates into cells designed for only 10. An off-duty warder confirmed the figure of 700 dead and said the mortality rate in other prisons was probably similar. "It's the same at all the rest of the prisons around the country," he said. "We often find six died at a time. A lot have AIDS, but die quickly because they don't have enough food." Since Zimbabwe's new coalition government took office in February, the International Committee of the Red Cross has begun improving prison conditions, installing a borehole in Chikurubi two months ago.The death rate has recently fallen, but prisoners still succumb almost every day. Between November and January, 327 deaths were recorded at Chikurubi - almost a quarter of all the inmates.Major-General Paradzai Zimondi, the commissioner of prisons, is in President Robert Mugabe's inner circle. "He has never been to see what is going on in Chikurubi" said the warder. "He doesn't care."

 

- Daily Telegraph, May 19, 2009

 

 

If the state of the toilets in public and even private buildings in Harare [Salisbury] were a measure of the inclusive government's progress, then it has failed miserably. In the courts, in the ministries, in all public buildings and some privately owned office blocks, the putrid smell of human waste is perhaps President Mugabe's most telling legacy. Emaciated prisoners in fetid cells where water pipes have not been fixed since the days of Rhodesian rule are another legacy of ZANU-PF's staggering failure, which goes way beyond the 10 years of political turmoil since the Movement for Democratic Change emerged. Even top government schools which used to produce some of the best education results are shells. Some of the bricks and mortar are still there, but the windows, desks, doors, blackboards and books are missing. Despite this aversion to maintenance, Mugabe's power is slowly ebbing, mostly because he can't get hold of the cash for his power base. The re-detention on Tuesday of 18 activists accused of a repetitive plot - trying to overthrow Mugabe - was the most serious ZANU-PF breach of the political agreement to date, even if 15 were freed on bail 24 hours later. There are so many breaches of the political agreement it is astonishing that it still there at all. But neither side has any alternative. As one diplomat said after the re-arrests: "Prime Minister (Morgan) Tsvangirai can't threaten to walk out more than once. So he has a very difficult balancing act. But we do wish he, personally, would speak out more critically." Mugabe never gives up, even as his control - now limited to a diminishing group of thugs in the riot police and their senior officers, the hard core of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) and military intelligence - is waning. The ordinary policeman is much more interested in organising a roadblock to extract bribes from motorists than looking for the mythical weapons Mugabe claims photo-journalist Shadreck Manyere, still in detention in hospital on Friday, had stashed somewhere among his laptop and cameras. It has begun to dawn on some ZANU-PF civil servants that the US Marines, the British Army and Rhodesians on zimmer-frames have not been massing on the border, as their CIO masters have been telling them. Mugabe has been at this particular game - keeping Zimbabwe on a war footing for a mythical invading force - for decades. His methods are not working as well as they used to, but he is not finished yet. Three times in the past week he put off a meeting to address his violations of the political agreement. Will he make concessions after he has attended President Jacob Zuma's inauguration? Probably not. Then what? Then the MDC will have to recommend that the SADC tries to resolve outstanding issues, which even some of its apologists recognise are, indeed, outstanding.

 

- AfricanCrisis, May 10, 2009

 

 

The Zimbabwean government has decided to suspend the country's national currency for a year, which has in fact already disappeared from circulation, state-run media reported on Sunday. "The Zimbabwe dollar will be out for at least a year because there is nothing to support and hold its value," Economic Planning Minister Elton Mangoma told the Sunday Mail. In January, in response to unprecedented hyperinflation, Zimbabwe legalised the use of foreign currencies including the Botswana pula, the South African rand, the United States dollar, the Euro and the British pound. The Zimbabwe dollar immediately went out of circulation. In the past two years Zimbabwe's central bank knocked 22 zeros off the local currency as the country's economy plunged info freefall. The highest note previously in circulation, a 10-trillion Zimbabwe dollar note, was not even enough to buy a loaf of bread.

 

- AfricanCrisis, April 12, 2009

 

 

As Mugabe continues persecuting White farmers, eight of them have been arrested for refusing to vacate State land. Two of the farmers have already appeared in appeared in separate courts in Chegutu and Chiredzi over land-related issues. The harassment of farmers comes hard on the heels of calls by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to halt the farm invasions. The farm invasions are likely to affect Zimbabwe’s efforts top secure financial aid from the international community, warned analysts. In Chegutu, Martin Joubert was charged with taking hostage eight youths living on a farm allocated to Zanu-PF information and publicity secretary.Nathan Shamuyarira. Digby Sean Nesbitt appeared in a Chiredzi court for refusing to vacate a farm allocated to the Officer Commanding Matabeleland North Province, Senior Assistant Commissioner Edmore Veterai. Still in Chiredzi, former farmers Michael Fay-Dherbe of Farm 33 Hippo Valley Settlement, Benoit Lagesse of Farm 1 Hippo Valley, Cecil Jean Derobellad, Tony Renato Sarto of Lot 1 Ranch North, Jeffrey Soma of Lot 2 Fair Ranch and Mariah Theressa Warth of Wasara Ranch were arrested for refusing to vacate acquired farms. Also arrested were farm managers Jaison Mahomu (Lagesse), Albert Chisango (Derobellad) and Chenzira Wilson Gondo (Soma). Warth is expected to appear in court today, while the other five are due to stand in the dock on April 16.

- AfricanCrisis, April 10, 2009

 

 

 

Harvey Clifford Potter (aka Cliff), was born during the depression in Rochdale, Lancashire, on 3rd March 1929. He spent many nights in air raid shelters there during World War II before being evacuated to Fleetwood with his younger brother Norman (a stalwart of the Rhodesians Worldwide Kent Branch, who sadly died at the end of 2007) . During this time he joined the Air Training Corps as a cadet attending parades twice a week. At the age of 14 he left school to work at the local aircraft factory, following advice from the headmaster to "help win the war". This was something he later regretted as he forfeited the opportunity for further education. After WWII he moved to Blackpool with his parents, where they purchased a beachfront hotel. It was during this time, aged 17, he decided to join the Royal Navy Supply & Secretariat branch. To satisfy his interest in both aircraft and ships he served on two aircraft carriers, namely HMS Implacable and HMS Illustrious. In 1949 his parents decided to sell up and immigrate, along with his brother and sister. Their decision was based on an article published by Rhodesia House in the local newspaper promising readers "Your place in the sun" and an opportunity to "immigrate and flourish". He was extremely lucky to obtain a compassionate release from the Royal Navy and traveled with his family to Southern Rhodesia. After two years in Rhodesia he returned to the UK to marry Jean, the girl he met before the family emigrated. His two children were born 1952 and 1955 – first generation Rhodesians! After marrying he joined the civil service in Southern Rhodesia, completing 33 years of pensionable service. This service started in the GPO engineering branch followed by many happy years in the Royal Rhodesian Air Force. He retired from the RRAF, aged 50, but continued in the civil service as an Executive Officer with the Ministry of Defence, followed by a period with the Ministry of Agriculture where he eventually retired aged 60. During this time he was called up to the RRAF on many occasions. He became a founder member of the Royal Naval Association of Rhodesia, serving 31 years as a "skipper" and treasurer, and also served over 25 years in the Combined Shell-Hole MOTHs in Salisbury where he was the "Old Bill" for 15 years. In July 2005 he made the difficult decision to leave the country he loved, and that had been his home for 56 years, in order to return to the UK. A decision made by many others living in Zimbabwe. He is the proud grandfather of six grandchildren, and also has one great grandson living in Sydney Australia.

- ORAFs report, March 3, 2009

 

Zimbabwe will introduce a Z$100-trillion note in its latest attempt to keep pace with hyperinflation that has left its once-vibrant economy in tatters, state media said Friday. The new $100,000,000,000,000 bill would have been worth about US$300 at Thursday's exchange rate on the informal market, where most currency trading now takes place, but the value of the local currency erodes dramatically every day. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe is introducing three other notes in trillion-dollar denominations of 10, 20 and 50, the government mouthpiece Herald newspaper said. "In a move meant to ensure that the public has access to their money from banks, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has introduced a new family of banknotes which will gradually come into circulation, starting with the $10-trillion," the bank said in a statement quoted by the Herald. Just last week, the bank had introduced billion-dollar bills in denominations of 10, 20 and 50 with the same goal, but those notes are no longer large enough to keep up with hyperinflation. The last official estimate put inflation at 231 million % in July, but outside experts now believe it is many times higher. When Zimbabwe's leader Robert Mugabe first took power in 1980 the local unit was worth about the same as the British pound. With the local currency in freefall, everyone from street-side vegetable vendors to mobile phone service providers are pegging their prices in foreign currency to hedge against losses. Zimbabwe's central bank has licensed at least 1,000 shops to sell goods in foreign currency in a move aimed at helping businesses suffering from a chronic shortage of foreign currency to import spare parts and foreign goods. Other shops and service providers have followed suit al! though they have not been authorised by the government and have done so despite warnings that those arrested for flouting foreign exchange regulations would be prosecuted. Even basic commodities are scarce in Zimbabwe, driving up their prices in US dollar terms and making life here more expensive than in neighbouring countries, while an estimated 80 % of the population has been driven into poverty. The crisis has left Zimbabwe's health services in tatters, with government doctors and nurses on an indefinite strike to demand higher wages after hyperinflation turned their salaries into pittances. Even if the doctors were on the job, public hospitals and clinics have no money to buy medicine or equipment, no clean water, and often scant supplies of electricity. Most teachers have left the classroom to eek out a living elsewhere, and end-of-year examinations taken in November have yet to be graded after the markers demanded their wages in foreign currency, the Herald said on Friday. Schools were supposed to re-open this week for the new academic year, but government has already pushed back the start of classes by two weeks since students don't yet know if they passed. The breakdown in the national infrastructure has allowed a cholera epidemic to spread across Zimbabwe, claiming more than 2,100 lives, according to UN estimates. Meanwhile, chronic shortages of food are starting to bite again this year, as rural households' supplies from last year's harvest are running out months before the new crops will be ready. The World Food Programme says five million people - nearly half the population - are dependent on food aid.

 

- ZWNews, January 16, 2009
 

 

More than 30,000 people in Zimbabwe have been diagnosed with cholera, the World Health Organisation said Thursday, as the number of those contracting the deadly disease continues to mount. As many as 31,656 suspected cases were diagnosed to date with one third of them in the capital of Harare [Salisbury], the WHO said. The organisation last reported some 29,131 suspected cases on Monday and 1,564 deaths from the water-borne disease. Cholera also continues to plague neighbouring South Africa, where it has killed 13 people, mainly in the Limpopo border region where nine people have died from a total of 1,334 suspected cases, the WHO said citing South African sources. United Nations aid agencies fear Zimbabwe may be hit with up to 60,000 cases, with the upcoming rainy season likely to spread the disease more easily.

 

- report sent by RH-GE (Johannesburg), January 2, 2009

 

I have just returned from Mutare (Umtali) , numbed by the slaughter I have seen. When contacted with the news of these events I packed a truck with food and
blankets and went down with my staff to see what help we could offer. I could not imagine what I was about to see. Bullets whistling across main roads, people screaming and running as bullets punched holes through their homes, bodies being dumped into army trucks. I eventually placed the food and blankets with a church group for distribution and headed to central Mutare (Umtali) to see if I could get help sent south to Marange. Everyone, ZRP included, are too scared to move. Helping a family look for two missing relatives at the Mutare (Umtali) morgue has left me with visions of horror that will haunt me to my death day. I estimate over 200 bodies lies in rotting piles at the morgue, grotesque heaps of what were human beings until a few days ago. They are unknown persons, families are scared to come forward to claim them, fearing the same fate. The stench is indescribable; power is off in Mutare (Umtali) for between 12 and 18 hours per day. You may ask what this is all about. It is simple. The dead are “suspected” by the military bosses to be illegal diamond panners. No due process, no presumption of innocence, no right to defend ones self in a court of law, just instant summary execution by the defenders of this “liberation”. Top businessmen in Mutare (Umtali) have been picked up by the army, and taken away, tortured for a few days, released, no charges, no crimes, just a "suspicion" that "maybe you know something". They are also robbed of any Forex they have on them/in their homes. I met two of them at an attorneys office, one is a 70 year old man, his back and buttocks beaten for 3 days, until he begged them to kill him, then they realised he actually did not know anything. Another, Ari Badhella (family of Badhella Traders) bought his way out of the torture sessions.

 

- report sent by “Neil”, December 16, 2008

 

 

Growing international fury came as cholera ravaged the people - 575 have died and 13,000 are infected - and the economy is worse than anything the world has seen. The Zimbabwe central bank sacked executives at four banks accused of illegal foreign currency trading. The managers were sacked for diverting Zimbabwean dollars to the black market before the notes were introduced, central bank Governor Gideon Gono told the state-run Herald newspaper. Referring to reports that the central bank itself bought black market currency, Gono said: 'We are sick and tired of being labeled crooks.' Inflation is at 231,000,000 per cent and the Reserve Bank has been unable to print money fast enough to keep up with prices, which double every 24 hours.

-  AfricanCrisis, December 9, 2008
 

 

The embattled Zimbabwean strongman, Robert Mugabe ordered the chilling execution of 16 rioting soldiers in a cold blood murder carried out by members of the Presidential Guard death squads at its PG HQ Base in Dzivarasekwa, north-west of the capital. Three others died during torture, we can reveal. The callous act has been communicated to all members of the armed forces as a chilling warning by the paranoid regime. Last night, a fast track military court marshal at Army Head Quarters' KG6 Barracks was presided over by the retired High Court judge Major General George Chiweshe, sitting with three other assessors, two Majors and a Captain. They passed death sentences to the 16 soldiers and it was signed by Robert Mugabe just before midnight and executions were carried out around 4am in the presents of a military doctor and the victim's bodies were taken to unknown destination. It is not known whether relatives of the victims have been informed. Major General Chiweshe is the current Chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, and prior to his appointment to the High Court bench he was the Director Army Legal Services (DLS). The 16 soldiers executed on Tuesday morning are believed to have been arrested during the skirmish with police in the last few days. It is also reported that three other soldiers died during torture. Zimbabwe is also facing a cholera epidemic which has killed more than 400 people.

- AfricanCrisis, December 6, 2008

 

 

The Zimbabwean capital, Harare [Salisbury], is offering free graves for victims of a cholera outbreak sweeping the southern African state, which a United Nations agency says is only the tip of a health crisis. Nearly 400 people have died from the disease, preventable and treatable under normal conditions, which has infected more than 9,400 in the country and spread to some of its neighbours. Harare City Council has decided not to charge fees for the burial of victims of the water-borne disease as residents are already under pressure from an economic crisis, including shortages of food and banknotes, the state Herald newspaper said on Saturday. "Council has since resolved to offer free graves to those who have died of cholera since most people are finding it hard to get cash to pay for the graves," it quoted the town clerk as saying. A grave in Harare costs an average of $30, a teacher's monthly salary at the current exchange rate. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Friday a lack of clean drinking water and adequate toilets were the main triggers of Zimbabwe's epidemic of cholera, a diarrhoeal disease that is especially fatal for children. WHO spokesperson Fadela Chaib said there are very few places where people infected with cholera in Zimbabwe can seek medical care, and the clinics that are open have far too few health workers to contain the outbreak. International aid groups are building latrines, distributing medicine and hygiene kits, delivering truckloads of water, and repairing blocked sewers across Zimbabwe to combat the cholera outbreak, which has moved into South Africa and Botswana.

- Reuters report, December 1, 2008

 

 

Nearly a decade of economic meltdown has made it impossible for Harare [Salisbury] to import adequate chemicals to treat water. As a result, many citizens have
resorted to shallow wells and rivers to obtain drinking water. Meanwhile the United Nations says about half the population is in urgent need of food aid. Unemployment is estimated at 90% and official inflation at 231 million % - the highest in the world. The health and economic problems plaguing the country come as a power-sharing deal between Mugabe and opposition signed in September has failed to take off. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has refused to form the government of national unity, accusing Mugabe of grabbing all the key ministries such as foreign affairs, local government, finance, home affairs and defence.

 

- SAPA report, November 30, 2008

 

 

Inflation levels in Zimbabwe could reach an all-time world record within weeks. The latest figures put the country's annual rate at 516 quintillion per cent - 516 followed by 18 zeros - overtaking Yugoslavia in 1994 and putting it behind only Hungary in 1946. With goods unavailable and official statistics widely distrusted, the Cato Institute in Washington calculated the figures based on exchange rate movements and market data. In post Second World War Hungary monthly inflation reached 12,950,000,000,000,000 per cent, with prices doubling every 15.6 hours - Zimbabwean prices are currently doubling every 1.3 days. The most famous hyperinflation, Weimar Germany in 1923, is in a distant fourth place, at 29,525 per cent a month with prices doubling every 3.7 days. Prof Steve Hanke said: "They still have a way to go to catch Hungary, but they are getting there. This is conjecture, but if they keep going at this pace, they have a shot at it within a month or maybe a month-and-a-half at the outside. "For ordinary Zimbabweans, the consequences are appalling and they must spend money as soon as they get it before it loses its value. But the dysfunctional economy means that goods are in desperately short supply, and they must spend hours foraging to find things to buy. There comes a point, though, where the inflation rate makes little practical difference. "The economy just stops functioning or slows down very much," said Prof Hanke. "A lot of barter takes place. Money is not used as much or if it is, it's all foreign exchange." Supermarkets in Harare are accepting only US dollars and South African rands, leaving those Zimbabweans without access to foreign currency in dire straits. The latest official figure for inflation in Zimbabwe - dating back to July - is 231 million per cent a year.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, November 14, 2008

 

 

Rhodesian regimental colours raised in London - 9th November 2008. Rhodesians never die!

 

 

 

On Saturday 27 September 2008 at Hatfield, Hertfordshire the Rhodesian Light Infantry Association unveiled and re-dedicated the RLI Trooper Statue. This service was carried out in the Chapel and the Armoury of Hatfield House by kind permission of the Marquess of Salisbury. Salisbury in Rhodesia was named after his family, and the Marquess’s brother, who was a member of the RLI, was killed in action. The Sunday started at the ‘Comet Hotel’ in Hatfield town centre. The hotel was named after the world’s first jet engine airliner which was manufactured by the local De Havilland aircraft company. Although the hotel is called the ‘Comet’, the king size model of an aircraft sitting on the top of a pole in the forecourt is that of a De Havilland ‘Dove’. There were over one hundred and fifty RLI members and visitors registered, receiving a complimentary bag containing a souvenir programme, an RLI glass tankard and given a clip-on lapel name-tag, plus the extra security protection of a plastic RLI wrist band. This tag was green and had the picture of the trooper statue on it. At the main entrance of Hatfield House the steps were graced by six standard bearers holding the flags of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, and also eight buglers of the ‘Rifles’ who played a fanfare. The chapel is big for the household but was too small to seat one hundred and fifty ‘botties’, so well over one hundred were seated in the armoury. Col Ron Reid-Daly was present in the upper echelon of the chapel. There were four large television screens in the armoury so that everyone could see and hear the service. The two venues were next to each other and connected by a short passage - so short in fact that when Pipe Major John Spoor in his splendid Scottish regalia played the bagpipes and marched from the armoury into the short passage to the chapel; in doing so he disappeared from our sight and immediately re-appeared on the television screens After this part of the service everyone went back to their coaches and were transported to the bank of the River Lee where the Trooper statue was draped in the Green and White. After a short service and speeches which mentioned the Rhodesian Air Force and its air cover and helicopter transportation into forward areas, the Marquess of Salisbury unveiled the Trooper Statue, with the Last Post played by the buglers of the Rifles Band. Many wreaths of flame-lilies were laid at the base of the statue. Following this all were entertained by the playing and marching of the Rifles Band and Buglers. The Trooper Statue is sighted on a wide grass bank with its back to a commercial forest of tall straight pine trees, fronted by a copse of deciduous trees.

 

-  report sent by ORAFs, September 29, 2008

 

 

Zimbabwe’s inflation rate has risen to 2.2 million per cent, the government said yesterday. Mugabe accused Britain of trying to seize control of resources in Zimbabwe.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, July 17, 2008

 

 

 

This is what Mugabe and his thugs are doing to the elderly people in Zimbabwe. We need to have Mugabe and Thabo Mbeki answer for crimes against humanity.

 

-  pictures sent by ex-Rhodesian refugee now living in Melbourne, Australia, July 10, 2008

 


The Zimbabwe Vigil, a London-based protest group, has launched a campaign to have the 2010 Football World Cup moved from South Africa because of growing instability in the region. It says FIFA must take action to ensure the safety of teams and their supporters. The Vigil has been demonstrating outside the Zimbabwe Embassy in London every Saturday since 2002 in protest at human rights abuses by the Mugabe regime. It is gathering signatures for a petition to FIFA from the thousands of people passing the Embassy. It says the situation in South Africa will be so bad because of the implosion of Zimbabwe that the World Cup should be moved. The Vigil is also running a petition calling on European Union governments to suspend aid to governments of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) because they have failed to hold Zimbabwe to account. It wants this money to be used instead to finance refugee camps in countries neighbouring Zimbabwe to provide a refuge for Zimbabweans forced to flee because of hunger, violence and the need for medical attention safe from xenophobic violence. Vigil Co-ordinator Dumi Tutani said “We find it repugnant, for instance, that British taxpayers' money should go to the Malawi government. More than £60 million a year goes to Malawi whose President, Bingu Wa Mutharika, has been given a farm in Zimbabwe and has named a highway after President Mugabe”.

 

Text of the Petitions:-


1. "A Petition to the International Federation of Football Associations (FIFA). With the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe and the likelihood of unrest spreading to South Africa we call upon FIFA to move the 2010 World Cup from South Africa to a safer venue. By the time the World Cup takes place President Mbeki's support of the Mugabe regime will have made the whole region unsafe because millions more refugees will flee Zimbabwe prompting further xenophobic violence in neighbouring countries. FIFA must ensure that World Cup teams and their supporters are not endangered."

2. "A Petition to European Union Governments. We record our dismay at the failure of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to help the desperate people of Zimbabwe at their time of trial.  We urge the UK government and the European Union in general to suspend government to government aid to all 14 SADC countries until they abide by their joint commitment to uphold human rights in the region. We suggest that the money should instead be used to feed the starving in Zimbabwe."

 

-  report sent from the FLF (South Africa), July 8, 2008

 

 

Mugabe’s onslaught against his opponents widened to include their families yesterday when the wife and child of the mayor of Harare [Salisbury] were abducted. Armed men raided the house of Emmanuel Chiroto, a senior member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and recently elected mayor. They burned down the house with petrol bombs and kidnapped his wife, Abigail, 27, and their four-year-old son, Ashley. The boy was released a few hours later, but Mrs. Chiroto is still missing. The incident bore all the hallmarks of a state-organised operation designed to break the MDC’s organisation by targeting its key figures. Five of the MDC’s local organisers have been murdered.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, June 18, 2008

 

 

Mr X arrived by bus in a town north of Harare [Salisbury] at approximately midnight on the night of Sunday 11th May, 2008.  The (full) bus had been delayed by a breakdown. Despite the late hour, a 200 strong group of stick and axe wielding men and women aged between 20-30 years and imported from another area, was waiting to meet the passengers.  The assailants were led by Mr Mafiyos (MP for the area), Mr Zonke (army personnel, rank unknown, but the only one to carry a firearm) and Mr Kararira of the youth brigade and residing at Dande Store. These 3 individuals represented wards 1 to 34 on the voter's role, which Mugabe lost. The group appeared to be "high" on either alcohol and/or drugs, since their actions were irrational. They questioned the occupants of the bus as to their political affiliation. Those who had a ZANU-PF card were released unharmed, but those men and women who did not have a ZANU-PF card were beaten. Mr X did not observe any children being physically attacked. According to Mr X, one woman and 2 men, all in their 40's, were beaten to death at the bus stop. A lone policeman at the scene was too intimidated to take any action. When it came to Mr X's interrogation, he stated he had lost his ZANU-PF card. This was not believed and he was beaten twice on the lower back and once on the right hand. When I examined Mr X, he had a slow, cautious gait. He experienced obvious pain on flexing his vertebral column. Power, tone, reflexes and peripheral sensation were all normal. There was a healing 4 cm fairly recent superficial abrasion over his lumbar spine.  The dorsum of his left hand was swollen and tender and there was a small superficial abrasion at the base of his thumb and another superficial abrasion on the lateral aspect of the base of the right second finger. He responded well to oral analgesics plus rest. Mr X was also examined by a second doctor in order to confirm my findings. Mr X informed me that persons living in the area were under-going regular beatings, their property stolen, their houses burnt down and their children were unable to attend school since all the teachers had run for their lives.

 

-  Report sent anonymously, June 11, 2008

 

 

Zimbabweans were given the stark choice yesterday of eating or voting, as Robert Mugabe tightened his grip ahead of the final round of voting in the presidential election. James McGee, the US ambassador to Harare [Salisbury], said that Mugabe was using food as a “political weapon”, allowing members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change food aid only if they handed over their voting cards. The claim came after the [ZANU-PF] regime banned all overseas aid agencies and non-governmental organizations from working, ending the food relief they provide to millions. Mr. McGee said the government was trying to become the sole distributor of food to help Mugabe win the election in three weeks’ time. “If you have an MDC card you can receive food, but first you have to give your national identity card to government officials. This means they will hold on to it until after the election.” Mr. McGee said. “The only way you can access food is to give up your right to vote. It is absolutely illegal. We are dealing with a desperate regime here which will do anything to stay in power,” he said. The government said the groups had been banned for “operating politically” and supporting the MDC.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, June 7, 2008

 


Deep into the night a bunch of gangsters burst through the outer gates of the Rogers' property, broke down the door of the house and threatened the occupants with brandished guns. Meanwhile these "war vets" were screaming the usual insults. In case anyone remains unaware of the nature of these brutish impostors, they are drug-crazed youths ruthlessly trained and brainwashed to carry out violent acts on behalf of their paymasters in Harare. Their evil has been unleashed in the aftermath of ZANU-PF's heavy defeat in the elections. Unable to retain power legitimately, Mugabe has let loose the dogs of war. Merely threatening a middle-aged couple was not enough for these heroes. Instead they fired seven bullets and set about assaulting them with rifle butts. Both adults suffered smashed cheek bones. Bruce was beaten black and blue and X-Rays revealed that two of his vertebrae had been broken. Mrs. Rogers incurred a broken eye socket and several fractured ribs. Apparently her face was so badly belted that she was barely recognisable. Both are now on retroviral drugs.

Report sent by Bob Vinnicombe (Sydney, Australia), May, 16, 2008

 

 

The illegitimate ZANU-PF government is at war with its citizens. This war intensified after 29 March 2008 polls, which ZANU-PF lost to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Robert Mugabe (84 old), is the leader of ZANU-PF. It’s a serious crime for not supporting ZANU-PF. Many houses of dissenters have been burned. More than 5000 Zimbabweans have been left homeless. On 4 May 2008, we had 7000 casualties. Now the number has increased as cases of torture, rape, and murder are coming up on daily basis. Only 10% of the people tortured or beaten are able to get treatment. From the 7000 casualties, only 700 have been treated. One State registered Nurse said, "We are particularly worried about people with fractures who are still out there because their injuries will go septic in about a week and there are no drugs in the government hospitals. The violence started slowly in the Mashonaland East province, where Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF suffered defeat in the March 29 election, but had spread throughout the country.” Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF are committing genocide. This is being done tactfully, in such a way that the world will not see. Most of the crimes have been concentrated in rural areas where independent media is not available. Independent newspaper offices have been bombed and closed down some years back. Only state registered (biased) journalists are allowed to report. Thousands of independent journalist have fled the country and are reporting from outside. The world will admit some years after Mugabe is gone that genocide has taken place. 

-  report submitted to AfricanCrisis, May 12, 2008

 

This evening on television I saw that the MDC's spokesman had said that approximately 500 of their members have been injured in attacks by Mugabe's thugs. He also said their houses and huts were being set on fire. Zimbabwe's opposition said on Sunday that 10 of its members had been killed by supporters of Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party since the disputed elections were held three weeks ago. "I can confirm that 10 of our members have died, four of them in the last few days, due to political violence perpetrated by ruling party supporters in the aftermath of the elections," said Nelson Chamisa, spokesperson for the MDC.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, April 21, 2008

 

 

Details of a widespread brutal campaign by the military to keep Mugabe in power has been revealed to The Sunday Independent. Central to the plot are hundreds of "command centres", led by war veterans and youths in police uniform, which are being established across Zimbabwe to wage a national terror campaign. Zimbabwe's top military authority, the Joint Operational Command, made up of service chiefs, has established a chain of command to ensure that Mugabe and ZANU-PF remain in office even though they both lost the elections three weeks ago. The command centres are waging a campaign of intimidation, violence and ballot rigging. In this way, the regime plans to guarantee victory for Mugabe in a second round of presidential elections. The network will probably not cover the cities, all strongholds of Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader. Instead, they will be concentrated in the rural areas where 70% of Zimbabweans live. Three weeks after the poll's first round, no official results have been announced, but the regime has publicly acknowledged that Mugabe fell short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a run-off. A senior army officer and a police chief described the president's re-election plan to The Sunday Independent. They attended a meeting in a rural province on Monday morning. It included traditional chiefs and local politicians and was addressed by two senior members of Mugabe's regime. They said each command centre would consist of three police officers, a soldier and a war veteran who would be in charge. They would dispatch militias, comprising war veterans and members of the ZANU-PF's youth wing, to assault and torture known opposition supporters. They would also control the local police to ensure that the militias were immune from arrest. The generals have called on the four security services - army, police, intelligence and prisons - to ensure that people are terrorised into voting for Mugabe in the expected re-run of the presidential poll. The results of that poll have still not been released, arousing suspicions of vote-rigging and provoking growing domestic and international pressure on Zimbabwe's authorities. The victor has to win 50% plus one vote of the votes cast or face a re-run. The result, when it is finally announced, cannot be recounted, according to the Electoral Act. The Sunday Independent has heard evidence that the announcement of the results has been postponed deliberately to allow Mugabe's government to falsify votes to close the gap between him and Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai is widely believed to have won the election with about 49 to 51% of the vote, against Mugabe's 42 or 43%. Independent candidate Simba Makoni won the rest. Mugabe's strategy appears to be to close the gap so that his rigged victory in the expected run-off election will be more credible. Apart from doctoring the presidential votes, Mugabe's officials have also needed the delay to replace votes cast for MDC candidates in the parliamentary poll on the same day to try to ensure that the rigging cannot not be detected, according to sources. All the results for the four elections - parliamentary, senate, local government and presidential - that took place on March 29 were posted outside more than 8,000 polling stations by midnight April 1. ZANU-PF narrowly lost its parliamentary majority to the MDC and the presidential results had to be transferred to Harare [Salisbury] for collation. Generals who report directly to the Joint Operational Command have explained in a series of closed meetings how people will be terrorised and beaten into voting for Mugabe in a re-run. The details released by our two informants were from one of the planning sessions. They rushed to Harare [Salisbury] from a remote rural area this week to reveal the plan. They disclosed the names, ranks and even the mobile phone numbers of those people from one province who have been ordered to join the campaign. Wilfred Mhanda, one of Mugabe's senior commanders from the 1970s war against white Rhodesia, said yesterday: "The report you have shown me is true. What is explained in the report is typical of what is already happening in various parts of the country, and those who know ZANU-PF as I do will not be surprised. What worries me is there seems to be no way out of where we are going." The scores of names in the report - several familiar to many Zimbabweans who have been victimised for their political beliefs - and the province where the meeting took place cannot be identified to protect the identity of the two men. A senior politician told security personnel at one provincial meeting: "You have to defend the revolution. If you don't and [it] is sold through the ballot, we will go back to the bush and fight. Is that what you want? I don't think so." Select groups have been told how victory for Mugabe will be achieved in the run-off and in the recount of 23 constituencies, which the partisan Zimbabwe Election Commission began on Saturday. State media said the results on the recount were expected in a few days. According to reliable sources, sealed ballot boxes have been opened and new seals have been forged. Votes for the MDC have been taken out and replaced by votes for ZANU-PF. It has been done so carefully that no one will be able to detect the fraud - the bogus votes have the same numbers as those issued to voters on polling day and the number of votes in each box has been carefully reproduced. Also new pale-blue forms, V11, which were posted outside polling stations with results of the four elections, have been recreated with forged signatures of the polling agents and different tallies, favouring both ZANU-PF in the parliamentary contest and Mugabe in the presidential poll. Chiara Carter reports that the campaign of terror was verified yesterday in a report by the Human Rights Watch organisation, which said ZANU-PF was using a network of informal detention centres to beat, torture and intimidate opposition activists and ordinary Zimbabweans. A statement issued on Saturday provided a chilling account of systematic intimidation and violence, including the abduction and savage beating of opposition supporters in several areas. In the past two days, researchers interviewed more than 30 people who had been tortured and, because of it, sustained serious injuries, including broken limbs.Human Rights Watch, a respected non-governmental group that monitors human rights across the globe, called on the African Union to step in immediately to address the crisis and protect civilians.The organisation said its researchers had heard from victims and eyewitnesses that, in the wake of last month's election, ZANU-PF had set up detention centres in the opposition constituencies of Mutoko North, Mutoko South and Mudzi in the province of Mashonaland East, and in Bikita West in Masvingo. Opposition supporters were being tortured at these camps. The organisation said ZANU-PF officials were calling the crackdown Operation Makavhoterapapi ("Where did you put your cross?"). The aim appeared to be twofold: to punish people for having voted for the MDC, and to intimidate them to vote for ZANU-PF in the event of a presidential run-off.

-  report by Petra Thornycroft, April 20, 2008

 

 

Residents of the eastern border city of Mutare [Umtali] were shocked by the spectacle of uniformed Chinese soldiers patrolling the city centre along with Zimbabwean security forces. About 10 Chinese soldiers all carrying revolvers, were part of a heavy security deployment in the city centre. While the situation in the city was generally calm, as residents went about their normal business despite the call by the opposition to stage a strike, policemen, all armed with AK rifles, teargas canisters and baton sticks and some driving around in water canons, patrolled the poorer residential areas of the city. The Chinese soldiers, along with about 70 Zimbabwean senior army officers are booked in the Holiday Inn, in the city centre. “We were shocked to see Chinese soldiers in full military regalia and armed with pistols checking into the hotel,” said a hotel employee. Meanwhile, the incidence of violence targeting opposition supporters is escalating in Manicaland Province, prompting the MDC to make an urgent appeal for tents and relief food supplies to assist hundreds of displaced people in the rural areas. Patrick Chitaka, the MDC chairman in Manicaland Province, says the party requires, as a matter of urgency thousands of tents, food packs and medical supplies to assist thousands of MDC supporters who have been displaced in rural Manicaland. The MDC says about 200 people have been beaten up while more than 1000 have been displaced by the violence.

-  TheZimbabweTimes.Com, April 15, 2008

 

 

An SAA flight, whose passengers included MDC leader and potential Zimbabwean President Morgan Tsvangirai, battled to land at Harare [Salisbury] Airport because runway lights had been switched off. But SAA spokesperson Robyn Chalmers said the company "had no record" of such an event. Tsvangirai was on his way back after his brief visit in South Africa, where he met, among others, ANC president Jacob Zuma. He caught the 7pm flight (SA23) to Harare [Salisbury] on Monday, which was supposed to land at around 9pm. According to a passenger, who spoke to The Star on condition of anonymity, the plane had to fly around the airport because the pilot could not see the runway lights. "The pilot told us that we have passed the airport and there was still no word from the tower about switching on the lights. He said he was facing a dilemma either to return to Johannesburg or fly around the airport. "But he raised the concern that he may run out of fuel if he did not land in the next hour," said the passenger. He confirmed that Tsvangirai was on the same flight and that the lights were finally switched on, to the relief of anxious passengers.

-  AfricanCrisis, April 10, 2008
 

 

People in Zimbabwe queue daily for fuel. This has been their way of life for several years now. In the days of the Rhodesian Bush War we had worldwide economic sanctions against us. Back then Ian Smith's Government issued fuel ration cards and we could only buy fuel according to our monthly allowances. So a farmer would be allowed more fuel than a normal urban dweller for example. In this organised way we never had queues and problems like this.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, March 31, 2008

 

 

According to the 2008 CIA World Fact Book (released on 17th January 2008), Zimbabwe has slipped to second to last poorest country on Earth, just ahead of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It’s GDP per capita stands at a paltry $500. Furthermore, it ranks third to last in unemployment rate which stands at 80%. Zimbabwe also ranks fourth to last in life expectancy at 39.5 years. 24.6% of its population lives with HIV/AIDS, making it the fourth most infected in the world. Lastly, when it comes to inflation, it ranks dead last with an estimated figure of 6072%.

 

-  AfricanCrisis, January 24, 2008

 

 

 

A reunion of the Rhodesian Parachute Jumping Instructors took place in Busselton, Western Australia in January 2008, at which former RPJIs from various parts of Australia and from South Africa were able to attend. The highlight of the reunion was a sky-dive undertaken by Mike Duffy proudly trailing the Rhodesian flag.

 

-  report sent by ORAFs (RhAF Association), January 10, 2008

 

 

Police in Zimbabwe have arrested two more White farmers for defying government eviction orders, news reports said on Wednesday. Johannes Fick and Gideon Theron, both farmers in the tobacco-growing Beatrice district south of the capital, appeared in court on Tuesday, said the official Herald newspaper. "It is alleged the two extended their occupation without government authority," said the Herald. The two will stand trial in January next year. More than a dozen White farmers have been arrested since the authorities started enforcing eviction orders in October. Until then, only 400 or so White farmers were still left on their farms after Mugabe launched his controversial programme of White land seizures in 2000. The government had given some of the White farmers until the end of September to leave. Some of those who have been arrested want to challenge the country's land laws that they say violate their constitutional rights. Zimbabwe, once a renowned farming country, has suffered declining harvests since land reforms were launched.

 

-  SAPA report, December 19, 2007

 

 

The ever-escalating cash squeeze and runaway inflation has made a mockery of the Zimbabwean currency and normal economic activity.  A newspaper advertisement showed a four-bedroom house with a pool and tennis court in Harare's [Salisbury’s] leafy Glen Lorne suburb selling for just under Z$1 trillion, a whopping $33m at the official bank rate but only $667 000 on the widely used black market. An identical property cost half the price only a month ago. Prices of household furniture, groceries and food and rentals have more than doubled in the past month as businesses seek to eke out a profit and remain afloat, but at a cost to consumers ravaged by the world's fastest rising prices. Shops which were emptied of basic goods after Mugabe announced a blanket price freeze to tame inflation in June, have started restocking but prices have sky-rocketed. Salaries are failing to keep pace with galloping inflation - the world's highest at nearly 8000% - which has inflamed tensions in a country with rising unemployment and enduring foreign currency, fuel and food shortages. In spite of claims of recovery in the regime-controlled media, Mugabe's government has so far failed to rein in the economic slide, which started when the ruling ZANU-PF regime seized White-owned farms and launched attacks on the official Black opposition.

 

- Southern Cross Africa News, December 15, 2007

 

 

The very first thing you see upon entering Harare International Airport is a portrait of “His Excellency” the President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. I recall my very first steps off the South African Airways flight from Johannesburg last year, seeing that grim visage and understanding immediately that I was entering a totalitarian state. As a prominent South African told me before I left for Zimbabwe, a surefire sign that you’re in an undemocratic country is the proliferation of presidential pictures. Writing in the Sowetan, a South African newspaper serving the country’s Black townships, about a recent trip to Harare Airport, Andrew Molefe observers “To step out of an aircraft at Harare International Airport is to step into a chamber of horrors. If an international airport is supposed to be the face of a country, Zimbabwe is slipping dangerously towards the edge of a precipice. The airport ablution facilities aren’t working. Human waste greets visitors who need to use the toilets. The taps have run dry.” The latest bad news to emerge about Zimbabwe is that British Airways has decided to cut all flights to and from the country due to the fluctuating state of the economy. This is a major development, considering Britain’s historic ties to Zimbabwe and the relatively large number of people holding British citizenship who live in Zimbabwe. BA has also been an important transport method by which Zimbabwean asylum seekers have made their way into the United Kingdom. To understand the gravity of this news, keep in mind that the only other time in history that British Airways cut off service to Zimbabwe was in 1965 after the then “rebel” colony of Rhodesia declared a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom, which the British government declared to be an act of treason warranting severe international sanctions. Things have changed considerably for this service cut-off, however: Zimbabwe is no longer a fledgling nation, but a failing or failed state run by a brutal autocrat. For now, the only way Zimbabweans will be able to travel to England is via Air Zimbabwe, which, in the words one Zimbabwean, “has developed what you might call a reputation for being unreliable.” Not only is jet fuel hard to come by in Zimbabwe - causing flights to be delayed for days - but the carrier has only one international aircraft, which Mugabe frequently commandeers for his jaunts abroad, often without advance notice.

 

-  CommentaryMagazine.com, October 31, 2007

 

 

Harare, Zimbabwe - Police stopped villagers from slaughtering and eating a giraffe that strayed into the outskirts of the capital amid chronic food shortages caused by an economic crisis, the official media reported Saturday. The adult giraffe was believed to have wandered from nearby farmland. Wildlife authorities took the giraffe away after police kept a crowd from killing it "for the pot," the state Herald reported. Zimbabwe is suffering shortages of meat and basic foods in an economic meltdown that has left it with the world's highest official inflation - nearly 7,000%. Independent estimates put real inflation closer to 25,000% and the
International Monetary Fund forecast it reaching 100,000% by the end of the year. A government order to slash prices of all goods and services by about half
in June has left stores across the country empty of meat, cornmeal, bread and other staples and crippled transportation services. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said this month that it was launching a campaign to raise awareness about the moral and ethical issues surrounding cases of pets being slaughtered for meat. It said while it was not illegal to eat dog meat in Zimbabwe, the nation's laws covered the humane killing of all animals. In recent weeks, authorities also have reported one of the worst spates of bush fires across the country in recent memory, largely blamed on people who set fires to flush out the rodents. Roasted mice are a traditional dish in some areas.

 

-  Article by Angus Shaw, Associated Press writer, September 22, 2007

 

 

British military commanders are reviewing contingency plans for the evacuation of up to 22,000 Britons from Zimbabwe after months of rising violence and food shortages. The Ministry of Defence has been asked to look urgently at what logistical help it could provide amid “real concerns” in Whitehall about Zimbabwe’s slide into chaos. Diplomatic sources said that the review was focusing on a “civil contingency plan”, which included seeking help from neighbouring countries. There is no plan to send in troops. “Military evacuation from a third country would only be used as a last resort,” one source said. Under existing plans, Britons would be advised to take routes out of Zimbabwe into South Africa and to head for a former military base at Artonvilla in Limpopo province (Far Northern Transvaal). The MoD has been asked to consider whether it could help in the airlift of Britons from the region. The diplomatic sources said that if the MoD were unable to do so, chartered commercial aircraft would fly the evacuees to Britain.

 

-  report posted by AfricanCrisis, August 17, 2007

 

 

Zimbabwe has lost over 90 percent of its wildlife since the government's controversial land grab, with an estimated 60 percent of animals having been killed by poachers to relieve massive economic woes, according to a report released by Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force (ZCTF). Johnny Rodrigues, author of the report, said wildlife had been almost wiped out on Zimbabwe's former private game ranches in the seven years since President Robert Mugabe began seizing and dividing the areas into small plots. "Some 90 percent of animals have been lost since 2000, while the country has seen an estimated 60 percent of its total wildlife killed off to help ease massive economic woes indiscriminately. There's a lot of commercial poaching, there are people on the ground snaring these animals," said Rodrigues. According to the task force, Zimbabwe had 620 private game farms before the land seizures began, but now has 14. And of 14 conservancies before 2000, only one remains. "They're telling the world they want the tourists to come back, but the tourists aren't going to come back because most of the animals you see nowadays have amputated legs. It's just like a rehabilitation center," he said. The report acknowledges that the findings are still preliminary - many of the farmers whose land was seized have left the country, so in some cases the group had to rely on hazy reports from people still near the former ranches. "We are not claiming to 'know' how much wildlife has been lost," the report said. "We have just tried to make the most accurate estimate possible with very limited data to work with."

Still, the trend is a disaster, because Zimbabwe once had some of the world's most progressive and successful conservation policies.  Rodrigues blamed the government for killing 100 elephants last year so their meat could be served as part of Independence Day celebrations. His report exposed that the Zimbabwean government recently sold ivory to China in exchange for military hardware. According to the report, of 62 game ranches 59 made massive losses, including the killings of a total of 75 rare black rhinoceroses and 39 leopards. Most of the losses appeared among antelope, including 9,500 impalas, nearly 5,000 kudus, and 2,000 wildebeests. The report said "The country's economic meltdown has had a wide-ranging and devastating impact on what is one of Africa's premier tourist draws. The numbers help give a rough estimate of the environmental impact of Zimbabwe's recent descent into economic and political chaos". The document reported evidence of widespread slaughter of game on the private ranches occupied under Mugabe's controversial land redistribution programme. Government regulations meant to shield the animals have been disobeyed, and wildlife officials have been forced to focus their limited resources on Zimbabwe's national parks and reserves.

 

http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/viewinfo.cfm?linkcategoryid=3&linkid=8&id=5543

 

-  report sent by JMK, New York, August 13, 2007

 

 

Zimbabwe suddenly looks like it has been in a war. The shops are empty, there is little traffic and everyone is walking around in a daze. People stop me and ask what is going on? Well just remember Pol Pot. He came to power in Cambodia in the mid seventies, launched what they called the Khmer revolution and in a matter of months they reduced the capital city to a shell occupied by 25 000 people - down from two million. In the process they had killed hundreds of thousands of skilled and experienced Cambodians, forced millions into the rural areas where they were required to undergo re-education and make a living from subsistence
agriculture. It will take Cambodia millennia to recover after this rapacious and ideologically driven regime was removed from power by military intervention. People outside Zimbabwe have no idea of just what has happened in Zimbabwe in the past month. Conditions have gone from difficult to impossible. I am not exaggerating when I say there are no basics - no flour, no maize meal, no cooking oil, no margarine, no matches, no fuel, no meat, no eggs. On top of this there are widespread shortages of water and electricity. I simply do not know how people are surviving. These terrible conditions are being deliberately created in a Pol Pot style
operation that is supposed to be dealing with run away inflation. Its real goals lie elsewhere. We now know that this operation was planned a long time ago -probably as soon as it became apparent that elections would have to be held in March 2008. This is no knee jerk reaction to inflation, or to remarks by the US Ambassador about regime change. It began with an exercise to generate a sudden spurt in inflation. This was achieved when the State started buying foreign currency on the open market in June, using freshly printed currency. In a week of frenzied activity the price of the US dollar went from about Z$70,000 to Z$400,000. Importers and industrialists were forced to raise prices to cover the replacement cost of stocks. The State then unveiled its "operation good governance". Under secret orders, the security forces were instructed to impose price reductions on all businesses. There was no legal basis for these instructions -just orders to go into firms on a systematic basis and order them to cut prices or else. Managers and owners were specifically targeted to intimidate them into compliance. These have been arrested in their thousands, abused and held over in filthy, overcrowded cells with ordinary prisoners. Trillions of dollars of stock values were slashed from prices, no rational basis for these price cuts were sought or tolerated. Suddenly firms faced the situation where they could not restock, could not manufacture and sell for a profit - most of their established products were now being priced into the market at below cost. The more you produced, the faster your demise. Fuel was priced at half its landed cost and overnight some Z$400 billion in stock values was lost as customers scrambled to buy cheap fuel at
half price or less. All imports stopped. The prices of all staple foods was likewise set at half or less the cost of production and when stocks ran out there was nothing to sell. Now many theories have been put out about this operation - it was popularist is one, "they are preparing for the elections and forcing firms to cut prices is an attempt to curry favor with voters". Many actually say  it was about time that business was brought to heel - a reaction to the sharp price hikes caused by the first stage of this operation. It is too early for that to be the real reason; they see it as one outcome, but with little long-term value in their strategy. My own view, based on what I know about the background, is that this is a carefully planned and ruthless exercise to reduce the urban voting population, undermine the remaining support base of the MDC and take full control of the population and the economy in time for the March 2008 elections. The dismantling of the commercial farm industry has reduced the voting population on commercial farms from 2 million to about 600,000 and all of them are now under the control of either the State or ZANU- PF elements who can dictate how they vote. These resettled areas are virtually no go areas for the MDC. In Communal areas the food supply has been brought under control and direction, as has all other essentials for survival including the right of abode. Traditional leaders are tightly controlled by the State and are now under close supervision by resident CIO operatives who watch their every action. They have been through three elections and now believe that they can control the vote in these areas by these means. They are probably right. So the remaining threat is the urban vote. Now in the majority, with over 6
million people living in urban areas, the towns and cities are the last remaining centers of opposition. So like Pol Pot, the powers that be, in this case the small coterie of leaders surrounding Mugabe and the people involved in the Joint Operations Command, have decided to do some surgery. When this operation is concluded they hope to have reduced the urban population by as much as half, destroyed or taken over all major firms in the private sector and facilitated the takeover of all other surviving firms by loyal ZANU-PF supporters. They are deliberately halting food supplies to the cities, destroying jobs and the transport industry. They will then take the pick of the commercial and industrial infrastructure that remains - intact, almost as if a neutron bomb had been used, and move on from there. The remaining urban population would then be in the same position as the population in the rural areas - under tight control and able to vote only under supervision. Then ZANU-PF can allow an election to take place - probably in March as planned, even with observers for the last few days of the campaign and during the vote itself. ZANU-PF feels confident that it can win a clear majority - even a two-thirds majority vote under such circumstances. The only other issue is what happens to the three million Zimbabweans displaced by this ruthless, but clever scheme. Most of them will swim the Limpopo or cross the border at Beitbridge. Once in South Africa, or Botswana, or Zambia or the UK or the USA, they will settle down, breathe a sigh of relief to be somewhere where sanity prevails and try to make a living, any sort of living. They will gradually be assimilated and will start sending small sums of money "home" to keep their relatives alive in Mugabe's national detention camp. Most importantly, they will not be able to vote. What remains of Zimbabwe will be a sea of poverty and subsistence activity
with Party controlled islands of prosperity. A few foreign firms will be allowed to exploit our resources under close supervision and control and the output used to support the lifestyles of the new elite who will continue to enjoy the luxury and pleasures that have become their norm in recent years on the gravy train. It has nothing to do with price control.

 

-  report by Eddie Cross, Bulawayo, forwarded August 7, 2007

 

 

For Rod Swales and many of Zimbabwe's 4,000 White farmers forced off their land by President Robert Mugabe's chaotic and violent land reforms, the chance to start afresh somewhere else was too good to pass up. Neighbouring countries welcomed them with open arms and furnished them with land, while the agricultural companies provided them with cash incentives. But five years later, 52-year-old Mr Swales is back in Zimbabwe at the forefront of a new wave of pioneers. Far from being deterred by the country's downward economic spiral, the farmers are convinced that it will hasten the end of Mr Mugabe's rule, and speed the day when they can set up in business once again. "I do believe the wheel is turning and sanity will prevail at some stage," Mr Swales said. "I speak to various ZANU- PF moderates and all of them advise us to be patient, there will be change, this thing can't continue."Mr Swales believes Mr Mugabe's regime is nearing the end, that an economy battered by inflation reported to have hit 13,000 per cent in June and where supplies of even basic foods such as maize flour and cooking oil have dried up, must surely soon collapse altogether. But Mr Swales admitted that the prospect of getting his old farm back up to production would be daunting. "Two weeks ago I went out to see it. It's an absolute wreck. It's the closest I've come to crying for some time. The barns, the roofs, the sheds, everything had been stripped. It will cost an untold figure to put that right and make it productive again.  "But we are resilient people, we've hung in through wars and we'll hang in through this."

 

-  Sunday Telegraph, July 29, 2007

 

 

Zimbabwe has imposed tight profit margins for businesses, stepping up a price rollback programme that has led to empty store shelves, long petrol queues and renewed fears of a total economic collapse. Mugabe ordered that prices for a wide range of foodstuffs and consumer items be slashed two weeks ago, accusing businesses of raising prices as part of an effort by Western opponents to overthrow his 27-year-old government. On Wednesday state radio reported a government taskforce overseeing the anti-inflation price scheme had set the price mark-up from producers to wholesalers at 5% and at 10% for prices from wholesalers to retailers. Industry and Trade Minister Obert Mpofu, who chairs the taskforce, also has revoked permits of private slaughterhouses and transferred all the country's
meat processing business to the larger state-owned Cold Storage Company (CSC), it said. Mpofu moved against the abattoirs - which handle about 40% of the country's meat business - because they had stopped meat supplies. "In view of this, the government has thus, with immediate effect, revoked the licences of all private abattoirs," he was quoted as saying by state radio. The new measures came as the government increased police patrols to enforce the price controls, which analysts say may provide temporary relief to a long-suffering population but is bound to worsen Zimbabwe's economy. Zimbabwe is struggling with chronic shortages of food and fuel and inflation of 4,500%. Last month the government ordered businesses to roll back prices on bread, beef, mealie-meal, milk, oil, and salt, sugar and other basic commodities in an effort to stem inflation. The forced price cuts, however, have sparked a wave of panic buying around the country, leaving many urban shops empty of basic goods that were already in short supply as a result of the country's eight-year recession. Long petrol queues have resurfaced in the capital Harare, and hordes of shoppers sometimes lay siege outside supermarkets in the hope of new deliveries of sugar, cooking oil and bread - the most desired products. A Reuters correspondent saw dozens of shoppers jostling outside a shop in the city centre after rumours that a bread delivery van was on its way. "I have to buy because I didn't get any yesterday," one man said. "And now when I have any money I am in the habit of buying anything that I think I
need because there is no guarantee that these things will be available in the future," he added. Zimbabwe's central bank has increased the daily cash withdrawals that
individuals and companies can make from Z$1.5m to up to Z$20m to help people cope with the rocketing inflation. Private economists say the actual figure is probably double the reported government rate of 4’500% for May. Critics accuse Mugabe, who has been in power since 1980, of mismanaging what was once one of Africa's most prosperous economies and suppressing political dissent. The 83-year-old Zimbabwean leader denies he has run the economy into the ground, blaming the problems instead on what he calls sabotage by Western opponents who are punishing him for seizing and redistributing White-owned farms to Blacks.

 

-  Reuters Report - July 11, 2007

 

 

In Mugabe’s Zimbabwe terror is so endemic that not even the daughter of a former prime minister known as a supporter of Black rights is immune from rape. Judith Todd’s father, Sir Garfield Todd, was Rhodesia’s last liberal leader and she was imprisoned, force-fed and exiled under Ian Smith’s rule for her efforts to promote Black majority rule. She returned to head a development agency working particularly with the [terrorist] war veterans who had fought for [Mugabe’s] Zimbabwe.  But when she criticised Mugabe’s regime she was detained and raped by a senior army officer. It was, she said, an example of the culture of fear used to preserve Mugabe’s rule.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, July 9, 2007

 

[ We await Ms. Todd’s admission of her grave errors in siding with such evil terrorists during the 1960s. - Ed.]

 

 

Zimbabwe's beleaguered currency has lost half its value in three days, black market dealers said last night, prompting predictions that the country was plunging into an economic meltdown that its veteran leader Robert Mugabe would not survive. According to the government in Harare [Salisbury], one US dollar is worth 250 Zimbabwean dollars. But the free market rate yesterday reached more than Z$300,000 to one US dollar. "It's gone crazy," said one illegal trader. "People are holding out for the highest bidder and mentioning as much as 400,000-1, which could be tomorrow's price. It's changing by the hour. Rates have doubled since the start of the week." While Mugabe's demise has been predicted time and again over the years, analysts believe that the financial crisis now threatens his hold even on the loyalists who have kept him in power for so long. John Makumbe, a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Zimbabwe, said: "It is the economy that is going to bring the regime down. "I don't think it's very sustainable. Right now the transport sector is grinding to a halt. A lot of people are now in abject poverty. With a million dollars you will be lucky to buy two or three items." A six-mile minibus ride into the city centre could cost a tenth of someone's monthly wages, he said. "I don't think Mugabe will last long if the situation is not arrested by an injection of foreign currency or some alleviation of the cost of living." Christopher Dell, the outgoing US ambassador to Zimbabwe, predicted inflation could reach 1,500,000% by the end of the year. He told the Financial Gazette in Bulawayo: "The first phase of Zimbabwe's liberation [from Mugabe's rule] is coming to an end as the economy is collapsing around us and the second phase to define the future of Zimbabwe past a few old men is coming in the next few months." Splits are now emerging in Mr Mugabe's ZANU-PF party and last week a "coup plot" was proclaimed by the authorities, who charged six people with treason. One of the defendants said the accusations were an attempt to cover up internal divisions. But on top of its abysmal handling of the economy, which has been shrinking for the last eight years, the Harare government itself bears direct responsibility for the collapse of the currency. While accusing Britain and other countries of seeking to destroy Zimbabwe's finances, the central bank has printed vast amounts of Zimbabwean currency to buy illegal dollars in a desperate attempt to pay off the foreign debts of state-owned fuel and electricity companies. More notes have been printed to pay salary increases for soldiers and policemen, even as senior ZANU-PF officials were able to buy US dollars at the official rate and resell them at vast profit. Last month the Central Statistical Office announced that inflation had reached 3,713.9% a year in April - a calculation of unusual precision for an economy in chaos. According to NMBZ Holdings Ltd, a local bank, the figure for May had risen to 4,530%. Other estimates put it as high as 9,000%. The official Chronicle newspaper yesterday blamed Britain and the United States. "The plan is to topple the government before the March 2008 general elections, which the West knows the opposition could never win," it said.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, June 22, 2007

 

 

Mugabe has been told by his own intelligence chiefs that he will lose if he sticks to his insistence on standing again in Zimbabwe’s presidential elections next year. The 83-year-old, who has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, was given the warning last month. He is said to have been livid. Happyton Bonyongwe, Mugabe’s intelligence chief, told the president that voters were so disenchanted with his government that he faced “grave embarrassment”. Bonyongwe presented a report compiled by the intelligence services warning Mugabe to find an alternative candidate to represent the ruling ZANU-PF party, as he would be defeated and gravely embarrass himself because of levels of social discontent that have reached boiling point. The report was presented to a meeting of the joint operations command, which brings together senior representatives of the police, army, prison service and the Central Intelligence Organisation. It said support for the president was at rock bottom because of severe economic crisis, with ordinary Zimbabweans struggling to survive in the face of inflation of more than 3,700%, unemployment at 80% and shortages of basic foodstuffs and fuel. “Mugabe said he was not giving up on next year’s polls as this would be a victory to our colonisers [Britain], who want to rule us using their puppets in the MDC,” said one of those who attended the meeting.

 

-  Sunday Telegraph, June 10, 2007

 

 

Despite an undertaking from Peter Chingoka, the then interim chairman Zimbabwe Cricket , that the report on the investigation of charges of financial maladministration would be made public, no one apart from ZC and ICC have seen it. Chingoka announced sixteen months ago that an independent auditor "of international repute" would be asked to undertake a thorough investigation of the board's affairs following serious allegations from a number of stakeholders that large sums of money were unaccounted for. However, the audit was ultimately entrusted to Ruzengwe and Partners, a small Harare-based outfit. And the terms of reference were drawn up by the interim board, the body at the heart of the allegations. "Their report will be there for all to see," Chingoka said at the time. Unfortunately, although the initial report was delivered to the ICC in November, nobody outside the ICC and ZC has been allowed to know what it contains. Few expected anything sensational. When the audit was announced, Clive Field, the former players' association chief executive, was sceptical. "In the time which has passed since these issues were highlighted last year, it seems to me there would have been ample opportunity to sanitise the books," he said. "All we could originally hope for was that the audit was done quickly. "A senior administrator said that ZC had "appointed a small one-partner local firm who had little chance of investigation the affairs as it was too complex. It would need the assistance of an international firm, as funding included sponsorship worldwide ... as the rights to the various tours would have been put together and sold by Octagon CSI and others and would need the international resources to follow through the paper trail and establish where the funding ended up." The ICC remains tight lipped, only saying that Sir John Anderson, the chairman of New Zealand Cricket who is overseeing the process, is still in dialogue with Ruzengwe and Partners. It is hoped that things will be sorted in time for the ICC's AGM at the end of June. What the ICC cannot say is whether the audit will be placed in the public domain. Against this backdrop of secrecy, Zimbabwe Cricket's coffers are about to swell by another US$11.5 million from the World Cup. Given the virtual total secrecy with which ZC operates, the ICC owes it to the game, to all those who worked tirelessly to build Zimbabwe cricket, and to the thousands of local cricketers who are scraping by with almost no equipment, to make public the report. We were unable to obtain any response from Zimbabwe Cricket. The board refuses to answer any questions from Cricinfo as it objects to our coverage of cricket in the country.

 

-  CricInfo, May 31, 2007

 

 

Zimbabwe is back at another crucial junction in its short history.  At home the economic and political crisis intensifies by the day.  Inflation in April was probably over 8,000% year on year, the currency has slipped to new lows and is trading about 30,000 to 1 against the US dollar.  Severe food shortages are evident and prices have skyrocketed.

 

-  report sent by Eddie Cross (Bulawayo), May 12, 2007

 

 

Pressure is growing for the ICC to take action against “Zimbabwe Cricket” from an unlikely, and usually low-profile, group - the game's statisticians. Until this year, despite increasing reporting restrictions, the Zimbabwe board, aided by dedicated volunteers, has always supplied scorecards of first-class and List A matches to the media. But many of the old statisticians have been driven away, while others have been ostracised by the board. Last year there were increasing problems with the accuracy of the data, and often queries had to be flagged with ZC when cards did not add up or data was missing. These were almost always resolved. However, this year ZC has failed to supply any data, even to its domestic media or on its own website, which is increasingly inaccessible and which has not been updated for several weeks. No cards have been provided for Faithwear Cup matches, the country's List A competition, which took place more than five weeks ago. A source close to the board said that it was unlikely that they would be made available as in some instances the cards had been lost, while in others the data was so poor as to be almost unusable. "Releasing them will be more than embarrassing," he admitted. Cricinfo has made several requests for the information, and the ICC and the influential Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians have also contacted ZC. In almost all instances, the board has failed to even acknowledge the mail. A few cards for the Logan Cup, the first-class competition, have been obtained, but in every instance this has been through volunteers or Cricket Kenya, who have a side in the competition. This will be the first season in the 103-year history of the tournament that scorecards have not been available. The board only published the fixture list on the morning of the first round of matches. Bill Frindall, the BBC statistician, told Cricinfo that "this situation sadly comes as no surprise". He added: "The ICC should threaten ZC with suspension of their membership and the withdrawal of first-class and List A status. They should also withhold Zimbabwe's 2007 World Cup fee which is bound to end up in the hands of their puppet administrators. No doubt the ICC will prevaricate as usual. What a pity those ludicrous multi-national matches of 2005 [the ICC Afro-Asia Cup and Super Series] were not staged in Harare. The scores would have been lost forever. It highlights the growing shambles that is ZC," one administrator in Zimbabwe, who did not wish to be named, said. "They can't even sort the basics, so it doesn't take too much imagination to work out what a complete mess other things it is responsible for are. The game is dying on its feet. If people don't even know that matches are happening locally, what hope is there?".

 

-  Cricinfo, May 9, 2007

 

 

Mugabe declared yesterday that he had overcome alleged British-backed efforts to topple him. Mugabe, 83, described the opposition Movement for Democratic Change as “the shameless local puppets” of a British conspiracy. Earlier he said a two-day general strike called by unions this month was part of “the offensive of [Tony] Blair’s final push”. “The man is about to retire and wants a last push in Zimbabwe,” Mugabe told hundreds of children and teachers during a speech. He said that Britain wanted to make Zimbabwe a colony again.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, April 19, 2007

 

 

Zimbabwe is to set up a new radio station to counter what it perceives as propaganda from outside countries against Robert Mugabe, the country's president. Zimbabwe's information minister made the announcement after talks on Friday with Rasoul Momeni, Iran's ambassador to Harare [Salisbury], in a deal to
refurbish public broadcasting studios in Bulawayo. Iran has already funded the upgrading of studios in the capital, the new station will cost $39.6m. In the face of growing criticism of his human-rights record, Mugabe has in recent years increasingly turned to other countries, including Iran, for help.

 

-  report sent by Bob Vinnicombe, NSW, Australia, April 8, 2007

 

 

Young women used iron rods to beat pleading grandmothers and called them whores, while a policewoman shouted "Now go for the heads!" This is how a prayer meeting in Harare [Salisbury], Zimbabwe, turned into an "orgy of violence", says William Bango, 53, a senior Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) member and spokesperson for party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Bango told Beeld from his Johannesburg hospital bed how he, Tsvangirai and other MDC members were beaten with "unheard of cruelty" by Zimbabwean police on Sunday March 11. Bango described seeing a grandmother, 64-year-old Sekai Holland, repeatedly
hammered with a pole by young women who called her "one of Blair's whores". The assault took place at the Machipisa police station, where Bango and
other MDC activists were taken after police banned a prayer meeting in Highfield township. "We were ordered to lie on the ground. Then the orgy of violence began, with the usual accusations that we were the puppets of Tony Blair and the Whites, and that we wanted to give our land back to the colonialists." The beatings lasted for three-quarters of an hour. They even dragged Tsvangirai from his idling car, and began hitting him. The woman in charge shouted: "Now the ribs! Now the buttocks! Now go for the heads!" Ironically, Zimbabwe was sliding back steadily to the "iron age" just as South Africa was getting ready for 2010 Soccer World Cup, he said. "But South Africa can't exist as a supermarket in the desert. The entire tournament will suffer if there's a thug in the neighbourhood."

 

-  Beeld, April 4, 2007

 

 

Today the Rand went over 3,000 to 1 [to the Z$], the US$ went to over 30,000 to 1 and the price of beer, bread and fuel doubled. I raised our salaries by 50% two weeks ago and I am going to have to find another 100% next week. People cannot afford even the basics, money has no value and everybody is talking about prices and the specter of economic collapse. The government simply does not know what to do next - a 400% salary increment to teachers is now virtually wiped out just weeks later.  They have imposed price controls only to find that market prices have soared to, in some cases, 5 times the so-called controlled price (bread is now about Z$4000 a loaf - the controlled price is Z$825) even though the latter was fixed just two months ago. When the State tries to enforce prices on traders, the product just disappears overnight. I have not seen a bottle of vegetable oil in 4 months. The only product that is occasionally available is imported from South Africa. State institutions are not able to move with the kind of speed that is needed to survive in this situation. All of them are reeling under the strain - foreign exchange is unobtainable except on the parallel market and there the prices rise daily. They cannot generate enough local currency to pay for the currency they need - and it has to be in cash. Maximum withdrawals from the banks are Z$1 million - that is not enough to fill your tank at Z$17,000 or Z$18,000 a litre. The total collapse of these institutions is now almost inevitable - they simply cannot pay their bills and cannot buy the essentials they need to operate. People must be close to saying that it is simply not worth their while going to work. I run a retail operation and have watched my sales rise from about plus 1000% up at the start of last year to 4,800% this month. That just about tracks the sort of inflation that ordinary people now face in their daily lives. In this situation we must remember that this affects everybody. Pretty soon we are going to face complete stock outs of essentials and only those who have foreign exchange will be able to get them. The quality and delivery of all services is about to crash.

 

-  report sent by Eddie Cross, Bulawayo, March 23, 2007

 

 

At long last, President Robert Mugabe's stranglehold on Zimbabwe may be loosening. Throughout his 27 years of dominance, the old dictator's opponents have always risked assault, torture or worse. The bludgeoning meted out to Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, and about 100 of his supporters after they tried to hold a prayer meeting on Sunday, was entirely standard. Violence of this kind has been enough to suppress Mugabe's critics outside the ruling ZANU-PF party. Meanwhile, his skilful manipulation of factions within the ruling party has always thwarted any internal challenge. But there are growing signs that Mugabe is finally losing his grip. Never in its 44 year history has ZANU-PF been as divided as it is today. Mugabe appears to be in a state of open warfare with both his party's main factions. One is led by Solomon Mujuru, a retired general and former army commander who wants his wife, the vice-president Joyce Mujuru, to succeed Mugabe. The other major faction is dominated by Emmerson Mnangagwa, who has served in the cabinet since 1980 and was once a favourite for the succession. But he had a spectacular falling out with the president. In the past, Mugabe always would have been clever enough to ally with one faction against the other. At the very least he would have turned them against one another and kept each permanently off-balance. But today, both the Mujuru and Mnangagwa groups appear to have become united against him. There is no other explanation for Mugabe's apparent failure to extend his term of office. Last year, he announced that he would not bother seeking re-election when his present term ends in 2008. Instead, he would simply amend the constitution and postpone the next election until 2010. But this proposal seems to have been dropped. Both major factions have an interest in Mugabe stepping down next year and opening the way for their champions to seize the presidency. They appear jointly to have thwarted the bid to rewrite the constitution. Having been defeated, Mugabe is now talking about standing for re-election next year. Two factors are eroding Mugabe's position every day. First, he is 83 and his mental powers are visibly failing. While physically fit, the edge has come off Mugabe's mind. Second, Zimbabwe's economy is in meltdown. At first, this national calamity did not threaten his grip on power. On the contrary, by driving the black middle class out of Zimbabwe and leaving the rest of the population destitute and with no thought except day-to-day survival, economic collapse probably reduced the chances of popular unrest and helped Mugabe. But the crisis is reaching such proportions that the Zimbabwean state itself is disintegrating. Mugabe can no longer afford to pay his security forces. The police and the army rank-and-file are just as desperate as everyone else. This combination of discontent within and without ZANU-PF is unprecedented. Mugabe's final days may be upon us.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, March 14, 2007

 

 

The conditions Mugabe rendered in Zimbabwe do not merely stem from idealistic economic and social policies gone awry. He has undertaken a campaign of violence and starvation against political opponents, the fallout of which is killing tens of thousands, if not more, every year. In 2005, there were roughly 4,000 more deaths each week than births, a rate that the famine has surely increased. As early as 2002, the BBC was reporting that people in Matabeleland, the southern region of the country where the minority Ndebele tribe lives, were starving. That same year, on the eve of a massive drought, the Minister of Zimbabwean State Security said, "We would be better off with only six million people. We don't want all these extra people." Today, according to the World Food Program, 38% of Zimbabweans are malnourished. The fallout has rippled through society: Zimbabwe has the world's highest inflation rate (1,600% annually, expected to hit 4,000% by the end of the year) and an HIV prevalence of at least 18%, and probably higher. It also has the lowest life expectancy, by far, in the world: 34 for women and 37 for men. Last year, 42,000 women died from childbirth. The weekly death rate exceeds Darfur's.

 

-  The New Republic, March 3, 2007

 

 

The situation in Zimbabwe has deteriorated sharply in the past few days. The government has imposed a ban on public meetings, the strikes are continuing with the state- run hospitals now completely paralysed. Doctors and Nurses refuse to go back to work. The universities are due to open on Monday but staff are on strike and there are no signs of compromise. Students plan to join the strike on Monday in support of their lecturers and demanding attention to the stark conditions under which they are living. The ZCTU has announced a national strike in a month's time and the State Security Minister has threatened them with dire action. Now a form of curfew is being imposed on the high-density townships across the country in an effort to bring the situation under control. These are clearly signs of panic in the realms of government. Tomorrow should be the start of a 4-month freeze on prices and wages - however I understand the proposal has been abandoned as being simply unworkable. No statements are forthcoming from the authorities and, to say the least, there is considerable confusion in business and Union circles. The Governor of the Reserve Bank speaks of a "Social Contract" but none exists. However the most serious indicator of collapse is in the open market price of foreign exchange. Driven by the frantic efforts of people to buy foreign exchange in any form for a variety of needs from education fees to water chemicals for the cities and those who want to externalize or even protect their assets. No one wants to hold local money - and the options are the stock market, foreign exchange and assets such as property or simply business stocks. Today was no exception - the US$ went to 7,500 to 1, the Pound to 14,200 to 1 and the Rand was at 1,100 or 1,200 to 1. These are dramatic devaluations in a matter of a few days and importers simply do not know what to sell their imported products for when it comes to replacing their stock. Fuel distributors closed their outlets today while the adjusted to the new situation. We bought fuel at Z$6,600 and watched as the company ratcheted up its price to Z$7,500 while we were present. That seems to be the price at the moment. Bakeries are all over the place - most are charging double the "controlled" price. This means a new surge in inflation and it is now clearer than ever that the government has lost all semblance of control in the economy. Gold sales are declining even more rapidly as mines close down in the face of unrealistic prices and exchange rates. Food is now being imported to meet all our basic food needs - local stocks are exhausted. I watched a special programme last night on SABC about the plight of the border jumpers. Anyone watching that could not help but be moved by the plight of the people affected by this crisis in Zimbabwe. To see them risk crocodiles, armed gangs, the SA Police and Army and thirst and exposure to get away from Zimbabwe and try to make a living, any sort of a living, in South Africa was heart wrenching. A White farmer described finding a dead woman next to a game fence with a baby that had lived for 3 or 4 days after the mother had died of exposure. If someone with power does not do something to get this situation back under control, they better prepare for a real flood of refugees into South Africa - because the situation in Zimbabwe is simply no longer tenable.

 

-  report sent by Eddie Cross, Bulawayo, February 28, 2007

 

 

Inflation in Zimbabwe has reached such proportions that it destroyed the value of a new national currency before a single one of its banknotes had been spent. The world’s highest inflation rate, which rose to a record 1,594% yesterday, rendered the new money worthless before it could be distributed. Mounds of banknotes - all paid for in scarce hard currency - are lying unused in warehouses. Mugabe’s regime ordered the new money from a German company in 2004. At the time inflation was a relatively modest 400% and Mugabe was anxious to avoid the impression of economic chaos. Jonathan Moyo, then information minister, disclosed that Mugabe personally insisted that a banknote of 1,000 Zimbabwe dollars could be the highest denomination of the new currency. Yet by the time the new currency had been designed, printed and delivered Z$1,000 had a purchasing power of about nine pence. Today it would be just enough to buy a box of matches. Rather than release a currency whose largest banknote is roughly the value of one tomato, the Reserve Bank in Harare [Salisbury] simply stockpiled the useless money. At present prices in Zimbabwe are doubling roughly every 30 days. By next month the new currency’s largest banknote will be worth about half a tomato.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, February 13, 2007

 

 

It is now certain that 2007 is going to be much worse than 2006. Inflation is going to be higher, the economy will almost certainly shrink - for the 9th year in a row and the flood of economic refugees into other countries will, if anything get worse. Shortages will be more widespread and this will create additional problems for those of us who live here. I predict that the coming agricultural season will be much worse than in the past year. Output across the board will be lower - without exception. Then there is the situation in ZANU-PF. Mugabe is no longer functioning effectively as Head of State - he is working very short hours and for whatever reason is already in a state of semi-retirement. He has moved to his new home in Harare [Salisbury] and goes into the office late in the morning returning home before mid-day. Few people are seeing him and it is clear that government is confused and divided - no strong central direction is apparent. Everybody is doing his or her own thing. Then there is the succession debate. Rumours abound about Mugabe's future plans - they all point to him stepping down and it would appear from our sources that the debate on whether to allow him to remain President until 2010 has been quashed. It would appear to us that he is now committed to retirement in March 2008, if not sooner. A recurrent ZANU-PF nightmare is that he might become incapacitated sooner than March 2008, leaving ZANU-PF unprepared for the succession battles that will follow.

 

-  report sent by Eddie Cross, Bulawayo, October 28, 2006

 

“Skip” Rausch (left) and Robert Shipley (right) proudly unfurl the Rhodesian flag on the bridge of HMS Cavalier at the Historic Dockyard Chatham during a visit by the Springbok Club/Empire Loyalist Club to celebrate Trafalgar Day in October 2006.  (The last operation which HMS Cavalier engaged in was the notorious Beira Patrol to enforce UN-imposed sanctions against Rhodesia during the late 1960s - though it is widely believed that none of the Royal Navy personnel took this ridiculous operation seriously!)

 

 

A scene from the Rhodesian Pioneer Club’s highly successful 2006 July Braai, which was held at their new home in Trentfield, Nottinghamshire, on the banks of the River Trent. The July Braai fulfils three roles; firstly it’s a great weekend for everyone involved, secondly it’s a huge fund-raising event for charity work, which as the situation in “Zimbabwe” deteriorates ever deeper will become all the more important, and finally it is a chance for everyone who had to leave their beloved homeland, to re-kindle the spirit and brotherhood of the Rhodesian nation, and ensure that it is not lost on the future generations who will now be raised overseas. 

 

 

Zimbabwe's prisoners face acute food shortages and are going weeks without soap or toilet paper, reported a parliamentary committee on Friday. Some inmates have resorted to using pages ripped from Bibles to wipe themselves clean, said the report, which sounded the alarm about deteriorating prison conditions amid Zimbabwe's worsening economic crisis. The report found that malnutrition and disease were widespread in Zimbabwe's overcrowded jails, designed for 16 000 people but holding many more. Prison authorities have insufficient funds to buy food, which lead to the spread of malnutrition-related ailments such as pellagra, intestinal disorders and mental disorientation. Water and power outages were also common, said the committee, and sanitation facilities were in urgent need of repair at most facilities. The report said blankets in the prisons go unwashed for months. The Harare [Salisbury] Remand Prison had its water supply cut off for failing to pay its bills. Cooking pots and other kitchen implements at the prison were filthy and "not fit to carry food for human consumption". When Chikurubi maximum security jail ran dry, water was ferried in by chain gangs wielding buckets, said the committee, but 73 inmates had diarrhea as a result of the shortages.
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown has been blamed on disruptions to the agriculture-based economy, linked to years of drought and the seizure of thousands of White-owned commercial farms for redistribution. Inflation is at 1043%. There are acute shortages of hard currency and petrol. The report found that prison authorities could often not take inmates to court for scheduled bail hearings and trial appearances because they did not have petrol. According to the report, five of the eight vehicles belonging to the Harare [Salisbury] Remand Prison had broken down and could not be repaired due to a shortage of spare parts. Few of Zimbabwe's families could afford to pay the bail of more than $Zim 200,000, leaving many of the accused to languish in jail, said the report. Delays in the court system also meant some prisoners remained in custody for more than five years.

 

-  www.news24.com, June 9, 2006

 

 

 

 

I was thrilled to see your photograph of the Queen wearing the flame lily brooch to the Easter service at Windsor. The brooch was given to her by the schoolchildren of Rhodesia for her 21st birthday. Each child donated a tickey (three pence) to pay for the brooch, which was designed and made by local jeweller H. G. Bell. Queen Elizabeth liked the brooch so much that she ordered two more to be made, one for herself and one for Princess Margaret, so Mr Bell visited Johannesburg again to buy de Beers diamonds for the new order. I clearly remember going to school with my ticket for Princess Elizabeth.

-  letter to the Daily Telegraph, May 17, 2006, from June Searson, Borrowdale, Salisbury

 

 

 

A contingent of 40 members of the Rhodesian Services Association attended the ANZAC Day parade with the Hobsonville RSA (Returned Servicemen's Association) in Auckland, New Zealand recently. ANZAC day is the local equivalent of Poppy Day and there were hundreds of memorial parades all around Australia and New Zealand. Hobsonville RSA invited the Rhodesian group to join their parade some ten years ago, and attendance has been growing ever since. A wreath was laid commemorating all Rhodesian's contribution in not only the two world wars, but in many subsequent conflicts in various parts of the world.

 

-  report sent by John Pringle (New Zealand), May 10, 2006

 

 

The average Zimbabwean woman is dying at 34, according to figures released on Friday in the World Health Organisation (WHO) annual report for 2006. Zimbabwean men can expect to live only to 37. While the WHO linked the shocking statistic to the high incidence of HIV-Aids, many doctors complained that it was also because of the collapse of the health system in Zimbabwe, which is struggling through its worst political and economic crisis. “The life expectancy for women in Zimbabwe is not only about HIV-Aids. Many women are dying during pregnancy, or during or after delivery. It is shocking,” said Peter Iliff, a doctor and a member of the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights. The report, based on figures available for 2004, said that in a single year Zimbabwean women’s had become, on average, two years shorter. Mugabe’s policies have seen the country’s economy shrink by more than 40% in the past six years and inflation has soared, becoming the highest in the world. The price of bread rose by 60% overnight on Friday after official statistics confirmed that inflation was close to 1,000%. Zimbabweans battle with chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency, and with a crumbling infrastructure and the poor medical services highlighted by the life expectancy figures.

 

-  Sunday Telegraph, April 9, 2006

 

 

In one hand Frank Wiggill holds his monthly pension statement and in the other a 500 gram packet of salt. It is the only thing in the supermarket that his pension will buy, unless he prefers to splash out on two eggs. When Wiggill retired after 38 years as an engine driver on the Zimbabwean railways, he looked forward to enjoying his twilight years in comfort. Instead he and his wife Jeanette depend on monthly food parcels from well-wishers and handouts from their son in South Africa. The collapsing currency combined with the world's highest inflation - estimated at more than 1,000% a year - has cut their pension to 13p a month. "It's embarrassing," said Wiggill, 79. "I worked all my life and here I am living on food parcels of milk powder and toilet paper." His monthly pension of Z$49,000 is less than the cost of a newspaper (Z$50,000) or a loaf of bread (Z$70,000). It would take him two months to buy a pint of milk (Z$89,000) and nine months to afford the cheapest pack of four toilet rolls (Z$440,000). "The pension is a laugh," he said. "It must cost them Z$25,000 to post the statement." This month the Wiggill’s received nothing. Deductions for three items on prescription (Z$30,000 a time) after Wiggill cut down a cactus and got poisonous sap in his eye left him Z$41,000 in debt to the pension company. At the same time the monthly rates on his bungalow have increased to Z$679,124. Water and electricity are extra.

 

-  Sunday Times, March 26, 2006

 

 

At least 15 men have been arrested by Zimbabwean police amid allegations of a plot to launch an armed rebellion against President Robert Mugabe. A cache of weapons was reportedly seized and those held included some senior officials of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. An MDC member of parliament Giles Mutsekwa, a former officer in the Zimbabwe National Army, and Brian James, the treasurer of the MDC’s Manicaland province, in eastern Zimbabwe, were arrested last week. Roy Bennett, a former opposition MP, who spent six months in prison last year, has been named by police as being “wanted for questioning” in connection with the alleged plot. Police claim they unearthed a cache of weapons in Mutare [Umtali] and linked the haul to a Britist-based group, the Zimbabwe Freedom Movement, which the authorities claim has strong ties to the MDC. A clutch of automatic rifles, AK47 rifles and some weapons more than 40 years old were allegedly found, along with thousands of bullets and a two-way radio system at the Mutare [Umtali] home of Michael Peter Hitschmann, who police said was a member of the ZFM. Mr. Hirschmann, who claimed to have served in the Rhodesian Army during the 1970s Bush War, is alleged to have made a confession to police about the ZFM, its members and links.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, March 10, 2006

 

 

Zimbabwe has two weeks of wheat left and bread prices rose 30% in the past week alone, the country’s Millers’ Association warned.

 

-  Sunday Telegraph, March 5, 2006

 

 

The corpses of at least 20 newborn babies and foetuses are found each week in the sewers of Zimbabwe's capital, some having been flushed down toilets, Harare [Salisbury] city authorities said, according to state media yesterday. Town Clerk Nomutsa Chideya said the babies' remains were found among a wide variety of waste and garbage cleared by city council workers unblocking sewers and drains in Harare [Salisbury]. "Apart from upsetting the normal flow of waste, it is not right from a moral standpoint. Some of the things that are happening now are shocking," the Herald, a government mouthpiece, reported Chideya as saying. Acute shortages of revenue and petrol in the nation's worst economic crisis since 1980 have crippled public utilities and garbage collection services across Zimbabwe. Hospital fees and charges for scarce medicines have soared. Church and charity groups blame economic hardships for an increase in back-street abortions. Inflation is running at 613%.


Associated Press report, February 18, 2006

 

Mugabe has reversed his land policies and has offered some white farmers their land back. With the fastest-shrinking economy in the world, Mugabe has had to backtrack on six years of chaos and his own determination to rid Zimbabwe of all White farmers. At the beginning of 2000, in an orgy of violence, Mugabe seized the land, homes, equipment and infrastructure of about 4,000 White commercial farmers who produced nearly half Zimbabwe's foreign currency. In the process Mugabe rewrote property laws, changed the constitution and nationalised more than 20 million acres. About 1,5 million people lost their homes and jobs. The economy collapsed and continues to contract, while inflation powers towards 1,000%. The ruling ZANU-PF's all- powerful politburo has been informed and selected journalists in the state-controlled media have been briefed on how to spin the dramatic policy reversal. As of now, so the new policy goes, the 5% or about 250 remaining White farmers still on small portions of their land will immediately be offered state leases for their own land. Some will be hoping that their full land holdings will be restored as a second stage. Then the leases will be extended to some farmers who have already been evicted, particularly where there is no activity on that land. Some fled to Britain, Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. The government will admit, in the next few days, that it has only used about 50% of the land it seized. In reality, land economists say nearer to 80 to 90% of the land is lying idle. In anticipation of this change of policy, the Commercial Farmers Union - which has already advised some members to apply for leases - issued a rare statement calling for a "moratorium on land and agricultural policies". It said all those in agriculture should get together and "rebuild the entire industry to return as the principal employer of labour and generator of food and foreign exchange. We have the energy and capacity to help bring Zimbabwe back once again to be the bread basket of the sub-continent". Behind closed doors last week, the International Monetary Fund told Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa that land seizures should halt immediately and that without increased agricultural production there was no chance of halting Zimbabwe's slide. But some white farmers are cynical. "The government vastly underestimates the damage of its insane polices," said one of Zimbabwe's former top cereal producers. "They probably believe that allowing some of us to return will turn the economy around in a single season. We won't be able to do anything without international finance, and we won't get that until there is political reform," he said.

 

-  Cape Argus, February 9, 2006

 

 

The effective nationalisation of Zimbabwean cricket in Harare [Salisbury] has further damaged their Test credibility and, according to the players, carries ominous similarities with the demise of farming. The government dissolved the Zimbabwe Cricket Board, setting up an interim panel for six months, and they announced a cull of administrators along racial lines. Gibson Mashingaidze, an army brigadier and chairman of the Sports and Recreation Commission, said that he was unconcerned about the possible repercussions. He said that White and Asian directors were left out for “their racial connotations and having their own agendas and not government policy”. The brigadier, speaking on behalf of the sports minister, added “We’re prepared to be chucked out of the Test status. The government are saying we are starting afresh. We are not bothered. Those who want to stay in can stay, but those who want to go are free to go. They can go to India, Canada or wherever. We are not bothered.” Clive Field, the Zimbabwe players’ representative, said “This smacks of what happened on the farms. The government said they would simply re-populate the farms with new farmers. They didn’t have the technology, they didn’t have experience, they didn’t have capital. Look where our farming is now: we’re importing food. I think cricket will go along the same lines very quickly.”  Field said that he expected players to leave the country in droves. “It might be the end of cricket [in Zimbabwe], because you can’t just produce cricketers out of a hat. The senior guys aren’t happy with what was said today, and the more junior players don’t see a future in the game here.”

 

-  Daily Telegraph, January 7, 2006

 

 

Zimbabwe’s state airline grounded its entire fleet yesterday after running out of aviation fuel. For the first time in its 25-year history, Air Zimbabwe cancelled flights to every destination. All seven of its aircraft sat on the apron at Harare [Salisbury] airport “until further notice”. Hundreds of angry passengers thronged the check-in desks at Harare [Salisbury]. Zimbabwe’s spiralling economic crisis means that the country has no foreign exchange to buy essential imports. Fuel shortages have been acute for five years. The airline has been ruined by the collapse of Zimbabwe’s tourism industry and interference from Mugabe’s regime.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, November 23, 2005

 

 

In 1976 Ian Anderson of the Candour League of Rhodesia wrote the following: “From Thermopalae (480BC) to Malta (AD1565)…it has often fallen to a small community or people to give a moral examples to its larger and more powerful neighbours … in each case valuable breathing space was gained for other parties to rally to the cause and to complete the task so boldly initiated by faith. “We in Rhodesia have a very strong sense of national purpose. We feel we have been singled out by Providence to be the stumbling block in the path of Communist aggression. There is yet time for the Western powers to put Rhodesia’s stand in its historical perspective; but they are leaving it dangerously late…” [Rhodesia: Myths and Facts]. In standing firm against Communist aggression for 15 years, Rhodesia indeed won valuable breathing space for the free world. In much the same way as the 300 Spartans held up the enormous invading force of Persians at Thermopalae, and as the courageous knights resisted the Islamic invasion of the small island of Malta, I believe that, in time, history will recognise that the sacrifices and courage of Rhodesians in resisting Communist terrorism contributed to the ultimate collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989. Had Rhodesia not resisted, the consequences could have been absolutely disastrous. Had South Africa fallen to Communism during the Cold War, the strategic Cape sea route and vital minerals essential for Western industry and defence, would have fallen into the hands of the Soviet Union with catastrophic consequences. The reign of terror and state sponsored terrorism of Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF regime in Zimbabwe have only vindicated Ian Smith’s position. In time it will become even clearer that in no small measure Ronald Reagan’s successful stand against Communist expansion in the 1980’s was made possible by Rhodesia’s stand against Communist terrorism in the 60’s and 70’s. The history of Rhodesia confirms the disastrous consequences of the unprecedented foreign interference and the rejection of Rhodesia’s internal settlement. Even more seriously, there is a real danger of Mugabe’s example of lawless land invasions in Zimbabwe being followed in Namibia and South Africa.

 

-  www.frontline.org.za, November 17, 2005

 

 

The Hon. Ian Douglas Smith being awarded with the Order of the Flame Lily. The citation on the scroll reads: "... in recognition of his upholding of the ideals upon which the nation of Rhodesia was founded; his courageous leadership in the face of adversity; his wisdom and statesmanship in the transition to international acceptability; and his care and concern for the people of Rhodesia to this present day."

 

 

The big Rhodesian-Zimbabwean Reunion opened at the Shamwari Club near Hillcrest in Natal with a flag raising ceremony on Sunday 6th November 2005. The skirl of bagpipes drew the crowd to the flag staffs, where representatives of the former Rhodesian security forces raised the flags of Southern Rhodesia and Rhodesia. When the bagpipes ceased, the bugler sounded the reveille for the opening of this momentous week, as the rain started to pelt down. At the lunch, people met old friends - some for the first time in many years. Monday saw the usual crowd at the bar, as people started to arrive from all over the world. By Tuesday celebrations were in full swing with the "English Pub Evening" in true English style, and entertainment being provided by Tony Darrell and his band. Wednesday morning was beautiful and clear - ideal for the few staunch fishermen who rallied at the Inanda Dam for the bass fishing competition. By breakfast - bacon, wors, eggs and rolls - not many fish had taken the worm. However, by the second session these well seasoned fishermen started to catch large mouth bass, but none weighed so much as a kilogram. As usual many large ones got away! Still, it was an enjoyable day, which ended with a couple or more chibulies at cut off time. That evening a John Edmond Concert was held, with John live on stage, accompanied by his lovely wife, Teresa, working the instrumental backing. Songs old and songs new, mostly about days of yore, had the folk singing and clapping.  It was an evening filled with nostalgic memories of Rhodesia for the more than 400 people present. On Thursday morning the reunion golf day was held, and was a great success. Johnny Haswell entertained with his humour during the prize giving. That afternoon John Edmond did a special show for the pensioners, some of whom were bussed in from afar, so that they could participate during daylight hours in the reunion. In the evening the BSAP Regimental Association gathered at the Tudor Rose Pub in Hillcrest while the usual crowd kept the Shamwari Club pub open till late. Friday the 11th started with the commemoration of UDI at 13.15 hrs. After replaying the address to the nation delivered by Prime Minister Ian Douglas Smith exactly 40 years previously, John Redfern proposed a toast to Rhodesia. In the evening the "Come as You Were" party took place. A couple of the ‘young ladies' were dressed in their school uniforms from yesteryear – wearing their hair in pony-tails. One guy was wearing his camo with a Corps of Engineers stable belt and beret. Lew Lloyd-Evans wore his No.6 Rhodesian rugby jersey - albeit somewhat tight on him, and there were many others among the 600 people present who ‘dressed for the occasion'. Needless to say, the evening was a great success. The pub did run out of Castle Beer and Coke for a short while, despite plenty of movement between the cold rooms and the bar all night long. People partied until 03.00 hrs the next day. Apart from the liquids, Erica and Roy provided tasty meals throughout the evening. Saturday started with a "Remembrance Parade" organised by the SAS Association, attended by approximately 400 people who gathering for a memorial service at this SAS Memorial at the Flame Lily Park in Malvern. Wreaths were laid by representatives of the various Rhodesian forces, as well as the British SAS, South African Special forces, and the Flame Lily Foundation. The lunchtime gathering at the Club was well attended, while preparations were in being made at the International Conference Centre for the Gala Dinner. Over 800 people sat down to an excellent meal, with a starter of line fish, followed by shank of lamb and ending with mango cheesecake. The speeches were exceptional, with Peter Rawson acting as MC. Richard Wood, with his excellent wit and dry sense of humour spoke on the security forces of Rhodesia; Ann Grant spoke on the women of Rhodesia, and provoked a tear or two; Doug Watson dealt with the sportsmen and women of Rhodesia, John Haswell closed with his own special brand of humour. Between the speeches and during the meal, the building of Kariba and scenes from Rhodesia were displayed on the big screen. John and Mary Redfern were presented with an award for their valued contribution towards the interests of Rhodesians over the past two decades, and John Edmond was made a Member of Honour of the Flame Lily Foundation in recognition of outstanding support in furthering the objects of the Foundation, and his dedication in "keeping the flame alive" by bringing Rhodesians in various parts of the world together. After the speeches, John Edmond entertained the audience with his songs and music that put them in dancing mood for the rest of the evening. Between dances, SAS group photographs were taken and some RLI veterans tried their best to entertain the crowd with their rendering of "When the Saints Go Marching In". The closing ceremony on Sunday the 13th was well attended, with the lowering of flags to the strains of the Last Post, and the Rhodesian National Anthem being played on the bagpipes. The consensus was that it had been a great week, as words of appreciation were declared to all those involved in the organisation. The event ended with the raffle of an iced fruit cake in the shape of Rhodesia, donated by Pet Bester, and the issuing of other wonderful prizes.

 

-  report by Liz Archibald of the Rhodesian Association of South Africa Durban Branch, November 2005

 

 

Mugabe has been in power for a quarter century, and the results have been catastrophic. Unemployment is at 70 to 80 % and inflation at 350 %. Zimbabwe's foreign debt has climbed to more than $4.8 billion, but that didn't stop Mugabe from recently spending an estimated $400 million on military equipment. With his recent "cleanup" program, Mugabe has rendered 700,000 Zimbabweans homeless and driven 500,000 children from their schools. In some cases, the police beat slum inhabitants to death when they attempted to defend their possessions; others were buried under the ruins of their corrugated metal huts. At least 200,000 farm workers lost their jobs as a result of the expropriation campaign. The situation has since become so hopeless that the head of Zimbabwe's central bank, Gideon Gono, recently said the White farmers should be brought back. But Gono's plea fell on deaf ears. Only last week Mugabe's thugs attacked three White farmers so violently that they had to be hospitalized. The United Nations World Food Program estimates that more than 4 million Zimbabweans will soon need food aid. About 3 million Zimbabweans have already fled to Botswana or South Africa.

 

-  report sent by Agnes Römer from Germany, October 9, 2005

 

 

 

The UK Branch of the BSAP Regimental Association held their 58th Annual Regimental Dinner at the Victory Services Club in central London on Friday 30th September 2005, at which the Guest of Honour was General Sir Michael Walker GCB, CMG, CBE, ADC Gen., the Chief of the Defence Staff. Pictured above are [left] a scene at the top table. Seated from left to right are: Peter Phillips (Chairman of the UK Branch of the BSAP Regimental Association), General Sir Michael Walker and Barry Henson (BSAP Regimental Association representative from Cyprus); [middle] assembled members of the Association enjoying the sumptuous dinner, with some of the many Rhodesian flags on display in the background; and [right] General Sir Michael Walker with Alan Harvey, an official guest representing the Springbok Club.

 

 

Fuel prices in Zimbabwe were doubled for the second time in 10 weeks yesterday. Shell said Mugabe’s government had agreed to raise the price of a litre of petrol from 10,000 to 22,300 Zimbabwean Dollars (about 50p), with diesel also doubling. Zimbabwe has suffered erratic fuel supplies since 1999 due to chronic foreign currency shortages during its economic crisis, which deepened with the collapse of its lucrative farm sector following the seizure of land from White owners. The fuel crisis has deteriorated recently. Many filling stations have had no fuel for weeks and even public transport operators have been forced to take their vehicles off the roads.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, September 8, 2005

 

 

In what has been described as a further attempt to keep his armed forces on-side, Mugabe has announced that close to 6,000 members of the defence forces are still to benefit from his notorious land grab and evictions campaign. Mugabe told thousands gathered at a Harare [Salisbury] stadium to mark Defence Forces Day that some members of the military had already been given land - both farmland expropriated from White farmers, and plots ‘cleared’ of Black squatters and informal traders. More than 3,000 White farmers were forced off their farms, and 700,000 Black Zimbaweans lost their homes or their livelihoods during the ZANU-PF regime’s state terror campaigns which, critics say, was aimed at supporters of the opposition MDC.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, August 9, 2005

 

 

Zimbabwe is approaching what is called an economic melt-down. Inter alia, Zimbabwe's national airline has had to cancel flights on some of its established routes, including the popular Harare [Salisbury] to London route, due to its worst fuel shortage in years, while the man in the street is forced to queue for days to get hold of some of the dwindling supplies of petrol - amid a general shortage of virtually anything. However, cynics have pointed out that such predictions have been made before, and that neighbouring South Africa, which is ruled by the allied ANC, is already planning to help its former 'struggle comrades' overcome its latest problems.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, July 30, 2005

 

 

Armed riot police and youth militia of Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party are rounding up homeless people who sought refuge in church compounds where they fled after their homes were demolished by the government. Witnesses said hundreds were cleared from about 17 churches in the country’s second city of Bulawayo. Clergymen said they believed the homeless had been taken to a government “transit” camp and would then be dumped in remote rural areas. They were victims of Mugabe’s “Operation Restore Order”, during which security forces burned legal and informal dwellings in the Killarney township in Bulawayo on June 10. The United Nations has said more than 200,000 people were made homeless during Mugabe’s campaign in urban areas, home to most supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. The new direction in the crackdown came as it was announced that the national airline was suspending several domestic and international flights because of dire fuel shortages. Imports of diesel and other fuel have been erratic since 1999 amid foreign currency shortages due to poor exports. The fuel woes have exacerbated an economic crisis with food shortages, record unemployment and one of the highest rates of inflation in the world.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, July 22, 2005

 

 

As pressure from outside Black Africa mounts, the shortages of basic commodities in Zimbabwe have intensified. Most retail shops have run out of essential goods such as salt and soap. The recent shortages also add to the list of basics that have disappeared from shelves as companies grapple with perennial foreign currency shortages and increased overheads caused by skewed economic policies. The list of shortages includes milk, bread, flour, cooking oil and toothpaste. Experts say the list is likely to widen as the economy continues to crash and government intensifies its interference in the manufacturing sector. The ruling ZANU-PF regime is also likely to worsen the situation with its plans to reintroduce price controls. Fuel is nowhere in sight and queues have now become the order of day with motorists spending as much as two weeks parked at service stations hoping for a product that just is not there.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, July 21, 2005

 

 

Since mid-May, Zimbabwean police have been demolishing houses, cottages, backyard shacks, flea markets and squatter camps as part of what the government says is a campaign which they claim is aimed at curbing crime and easing pressure on overcrowded towns and cities. In addition to creating homelessness up to 750,000 people have been forcibly removed from their livelihoods human rights groups say. Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says the police are trying to drive opposition supporters out of urban areas into the countryside where Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF is dominant.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, July 14, 2005

 

 

The Herald, the state-controlled Zimbabwean daily, has admitted that the ruling Mugabe regime has been forced to cover a grain deficit of nearly 2 million tons of maize. According to The Herald, the regime is importing 1.8 million tons, almost all of its needed grain - to offset a deficit the southern African country is facing this year. As usual a drought is blamed for the short-fall, but critics say the crisis has been caused by falling production at formerly White-owned farms that were seized and handed to Blacks and cronies of the ruling ZANU-PF regime  from 2000 onwards. In Rhodesian days the country regularly provided not only for its own needs, but exported a surplus. Since the arrival of Black rule “Zimbabwe” has depended on food aid and imports for several years to meet requirements averaging from 1.8 million to two million tons of maize per year, according to statistics released by the ZANU-PF regime itself.  A forecast last year promised a return to self-sufficiency, but this month Mugabe admitted  to United Nations envoy James Morris, the director of the World Food Programme (WFP), that he was ready to accept food aid. The WFP estimates up to four million people will require food aid this year. Not only is staple grain in short supply, but other basics such as sugar and cooking oil are not always readily available. On top of this petrol stations have run dry and long queues have become the norm.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, July 1, 2005

 

 

Outspoken White “Zimbabwean” opposition MP, Roy Bennett, has been freed having  served a jail sentence for shoving a Black minister to the ground for insulting him. Bennett, then one of only three White Zimbabweans who held seats in the last parliament, served nine of a 12-month prison term. He is a commercial farmer and a member of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party. He pushed the Black government minister Chinamasa to the floor, after the minister accused Bennett's ancestors of being "thieves". A month ago Bennett went before the country's appeals court, the supreme court, to challenge the sentence and the validity of the special parliamentary committee which heard his case, saying it was dominated by ruling ZANU-PF deputies and was therefore biased against him. During the hearing state lawyer Rumbidzai Gatsi initially conceded that the sentence imposed on Bennett was excessive, but later withdrew her statement - allegedly after threats from the ruling ZANU-PF regime which controls the judiciary. Bennett was barred from contesting the March 31 elections, but his wife Heather ran in his place, losing the seat to a ruling ZANU-PF candidate.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, June 28, 2005

 

 

Mugabe was accused yesterday of displaying “senile dementia” when he boasted to Zimbabwe’s parliament that “great strides” were being taken towards “economic recovery”. The president hailed the march of progress in a capital where bulldozers have demolished thriving factories and township shacks alike, throwing tens of thousands on to the streets. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change denounced his stumbling, hesitant performance at the official opening of parliament, saying that Mugabe had finally lost any “grasp of reality”. The razing of townships and street markets across Zimbabwe has now led to 30,000 people being arrested and 200,000 left homeless.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, June 10, 2005

 

 

Paramilitary units armed with batons, riot shields, and tear gas patrolled main roads in Zimbabwe's capital last weekend as police warned they would not tolerate protests against their crackdown on street trading - the only livelihood for thousands of poor township dwellers. The police, under direct orders from Didymus Mutasa, the head of the secret police (Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organization), have brutally removed any competition to Chinese traders whose shops have sprung up around the capital over the past few years. Mutasa said law and order had to be preserved and Harare's Police Chief, Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka, said 9,653 people were arrested in the five-day blitz on street vendors, flea market stalls, and other informal businesses. This crackdown appears to be part of an orchestrated pro-China initiative. Mutasa, who is now overseeing the distribution of land to the Chinese, would not comment on charges that the Mugabe regime is giving tobacco farming land to the Chinese in exchange for war planes and other arms. What is certain is that the Zimbabwean government is buying these arms and the only imminent threat to Mugabe is his own people. Police Chief Mandipaka said people were preparing to demonstrate but that police were ready and commuter minibuses (the main form of transport across Zimbabwe) were prevented from entering the city centre. As Zimbabweans fight off hunger and oppression, some have had the courage to fight back. Angry demonstrators clashed with police over the weekend in the most serious unrest since President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party stole a landslide victory in the March 31 parliamentary general election. But the violence by demonstrators may backfire, according to Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. He recognizes classic Mugabe tactics and is accusing the 81-year-old tyrant of provoking conditions for declaring a state of emergency, which would give him unlimited powers of detention, seizure, and censorship. Tsvangirai also accused Mugabe of ordering the crackdown in response to pressure from newly-arrived Chinese businessmen to stop second-hand dealers undercutting their cheap imports. "The country has been mortgaged to the Chinese," Tsvangirai said in a statement. "How can we violently remove Zimbabweans from our flea markets to make way for the Chinese? The majority of Zimbabweans depend on informal trade to feed, clothe, and educate their families." Since western countries imposed sanctions on the Mugabe regime three years ago for failing to uphold democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, the Zimbabwean leader has responded by looking East. Mugabe himself vigorously courted Chinese businessmen to invest in Zimbabwe, who in the last three years have descended on Harare and the country's other major cities, setting up shop at every street corner to sell cheap clothing and electronic goods. But Zimbabweans have responded with cut-throat competition and informal trading. Police Chief Mandipaka said operators of informal businesses had been fined for operating without city council licenses or for possessing scarce staple items such as maize meal, sugar, and gasoline intended for resale on the black market. "Police will leave no stone unturned in their endeavour to flush out economic saboteurs," said Mandipaka. One local academic joked that Mugabe had "yellow fever" since he can only see allies in Asia, which he knows will not criticize his oppressive policies. But the academic also raised a more serious point: Mugabe is throwing his own political cronies off tobacco growing land and oppressing street hawkers in towns to make way for the Chinese; and he is selling out his country to the Chinese in order to cling to power. So far, the West has done nothing to stem the tide of human rights abuse in Zimbabwe and has steadfastly refused to push for a UN resolution or any military solution.

 

-  article by Roger Bate, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, May 25, 2005

 

 

Nationwide electrical blackouts for days on end have embarrassed the ruling ZANU-PF regime of President Mugabe. The power cuts caused lifts in buildings to stop working, traffic lights to go out, cafes and restaurants to close and cinemas to send patrons away. Opposition leaders have linked the blackouts to the general decline and lowering of standards under the Mugabe regime. Mugabe 10 years ago vetoed Western companies' completing plans for massive upgrading of Hwange [Wankie] Power Station in favour of his own scheme to give the project to a Malaysian consortium. The scheme was never followed through.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, April 26, 2005

 

 

Mugabe has brazenly cocked-a-snook at a European Union travel ban and flown into Rome to attend Pope John Paul II's funeral. Italy is obliged to let him enter under accords with the Vatican, which is legally a separate state. The trip was immediately denounced by one of Mugabe's fiercest human rights critics, Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo. "That man will use any opportunity to fly to Europe to promote himself. The man is shameless," said the archbishop. According to the state-controlled Zimbabwean radio, Jesuit-educated Mugabe was accompanied by his acting finance minister, Herbert Murerwa, and the normal numerous Black Africa-type entourage of undisclosed size. It was not confirmed whether his wife, Grace, was among them, but she normally accompanies her husband to go shopping.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, April 8, 2005

 

 

Thousands of Zimbabweans raised their hands for change yesterday at the largest rally of the opposition election campaign. Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, was greeted by a sea of open palms as he addressed 15,000 supporters in the capital Harare [Salisbury]. However, the contest is heavily rigged against Mr. Tsvangirai. There is less violence than in any recent campaign but every branch of the electoral machinery is slanted in Mugabe’s favour. Independent surveys have shown that the electoral roll is stuffed with the names of voters who have died or emigrated. At least one million names have been falsely registered.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, March 28, 2005

 

 

The hungry children and the families dying of AIDS here are gut-wrenching, but somehow what I find even more depressing is this: Many, many ordinary Black Zimbabweans wish that they could get back the White racist [sic] government that oppressed them in the 1970's. "If we had the chance to go back to White rule, we'd do it," said Solomon Dube, a peasant whose child was crying with hunger when I arrived in his village. "Life was easier then, and at least you could get food and a job." Mr. Dube acknowledged that the White regime of Ian Smith was awful. But now he worries that his 3-year-old son will die of starvation, and he would rather put up with any indignity than witness that. An elderly peasant in another village, Makupila Muzamba, said that hunger today is worse than ever before in his seven decades or so, and said: "I want the White man's government to come back. ... Even if Whites were oppressing us, we could get jobs and things were cheap compared to today." His wife, Mugombo Mudenda, remembered that as a younger woman she used to eat meat, drink tea, use sugar and buy soap. But now she cannot even afford corn gruel. "I miss the days of White rule," she said.

 

- New York Times article by Nicholas D. Kristoe, March 23, 2005

 

 

According to a UN report and other information, the Zimbabwean economy has declined by 38% from 1999 to 2003 - the highest for any country in the world. Less than 50% of the agricultural land taken from White farmers is still in production. In the period from 1988 up to 2004 life expectancy has dropped from 63 years down to 33 years. About half of the adult population, more than three million, are said to have emigrated. Most of these are now in South Africa, where they are disfranchised and powerless to prevent the re-election of Mugabe.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, March 22, 2005

 

 

The MDC is increasingly perplexed by claims by the South African Government that the elections in Zimbabwe will be free and fair and by its claims that it does not see any problems in Zimbabwe’s Electoral System. The MDC does not understand the South African Government’s ignorance about the situation in Zimbabwe and the basis for such optimism and believes that the position adopted by the South African Government is not only misinformed, but also dangerously premature. At present it is clear to each and every objective observer that conditions for a free and fair election do not exist in Zimbabwe. There is therefore nothing whatsoever to suggest that the elections will be free and fair, or indeed legitimate. The electoral environment is actually worse than it was during the March 2002 presidential elections. Contrary to the view propagated by the South African Government, their counterparts in Harare [Salisbury] are not taking any meaningful steps to ensure the elections will be free and fair. The voters’ roll is in a shambles, violence and intimidation remain prevalent, equal access to the state media is a myth and the elections will be managed and run by the same biased electoral bodies which have manipulated the electoral process to the political advantage of the ruling party in previous elections. The much trumpeted new electoral commission has no direct role to play in this election. It was established far too late to have any meaningful influence on the process. More importantly, anything it does do is subject to the authority of the Mugabe appointed Electoral Supervisory Commission. This compromises its independence. The MDC and other progressive forces in Zimbabwe are therefore deeply concerned to hear the South African Government praising the new ‘independent’ commission and citing its establishment as proof that the Zimbabwe government is complying with the new regional election standards. Nothing could be further from the truth. MDC meetings and rallies continue to be banned or disrupted by the police under the notorious Public Order and Security Act. 16 MDC candidates have already been the victims of arbitrary arrest and police harassment and scores of MDC activists have been arrested for such innocuous crimes as putting up posters. No ZANU-PF supporter has yet to be arrested for this ‘crime’. The complicity of members of the police and army in incidents of political violence casts a dark shadow over the legitimacy of the entire electoral process. The MDC urges the South African Government to re-think the wisdom of publicly expressing its confidence in the capacity of Mugabe and ZANU-PF to host free and fair elections when there is a dearth of evidence on the ground to support such an optimistic outlook. Positive signals from regional neighbours provide unnecessary succour to the authorities in Zimbabwe and often serve to galvanise those bent on engaging in anti-democratic activities. To the people of Zimbabwe, the optimism expressed by the South African Government is increasingly viewed as misplaced solidarity and a deliberate attempt to frustrate the new beginning they so desperately desire. This perception undermines public confidence in the objectivity and impartiality of South African and SADC observer missions. There is a growing suspicion in Zimbabwe that the sole objective of the SADC and South Africa observer missions is not to ensure the full expression of the ‘one person, one vote’ principle but to legitimise a ZANU-PF ‘victory’, regardless of the manner in which this ‘victory’ is achieved. There is an urgent need to demonstrate that this is not the case. However, the decision by the Zimbabwe Government not to invite the SADC Parliamentary Forum (who published an adverse report on the 2002 Presidential poll) to observe the elections, and the public defence of this decision by South Africa, sows further doubts in the minds of the people vis-à-vis the impartiality of the observers who have been invited. The people of Zimbabwe want food, jobs and better living standards. They must be free to vote for the party they believe is best equipped to address these basic grievances. Any moves to compromise the exercise of this basic and hard earned right would severely damage the credibility of both the South African Government and the SADC. Rhetorical commitments to promoting good governance have to be followed up by concrete action if they are to be taken seriously. The elections in Zimbabwe provide the first real test of this commitment.  

 

-  MDC press release, March 13, 2005

 

 

Ole Sande, 66, one of the few White farmers left in the Banket district north of Harare [Salisbury], was beaten to death last weekend.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, February 12, 2005

 

 

Zimbabwean sporting authorities have been forced to admit that what was long touted as one of the country’s “top female athletes” is actually a man. The discovery came when multiple medal winner Samukeliso Sithole was waiting with friends for a train at a Zimbabwean railway station. A man then approached the group and said that Sithole was actually a man. Sithole was subsequently arrested by police in the Midlands chrome-producing city of Kwekwe [Que Que], where a government doctor confirmed he was male. However, the athlete claims he was born with both male and female genitals. He also told a Kwekwe [Que Que] court that his parents had consulted a witch-doctor (‘traditional healer’) in the eastern district of Chipinge, and that the this ‘healer’ had provided herbs which made him female, but because his parents had only paid half the fee due his male genitalia had reappeared - just before the test.  In fact, he said, on the day that he appeared in court he had been due to pay the settlement amount and if he had been able to do this, his male genitalia would have gone away again.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, February 11, 2005

 

 

So many doctors and nurses at Zimbabwe's government hospitals have left the Black-ruled country that its health sector is now in crisis. According to latest reports, the medical brain-drain has reached such critical levels in Zimbabwe that bodies are piling up for months in morgues because there are no pathologists to conduct post-mortems. A report presented last month at the ZANU-PF party congress was forced to admit that only about 9% of pharmacists required in hospitals are currently at work along with less than half of the doctors. At least 1,530 doctors are needed, but only 687 were working at state institutions in 2003, against 6,940 nurses out of a required 11,640, according to a health ministry report. Like in neighbouring, equally Black-ruled South Africa, the most popular destinations for emigrating health professionals are Britain, Australia and Canada.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, January 25, 2005

 

 

Mugabe intensified his purge of Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party yesterday when four senior officials were charged with spying. Among the four, who face 20 years in jail, was Philip Chiyangwa, the president’s cousin.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, January 1, 2005

 

 

The International Bar Association has launched a stinging attack on Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, saying he should be held accountable for his reign of terror. Mark Ellis, the IBA executive director, said there was well-documented and staggering evidence that Mugabe's government has committed murder, torture, rape, abduction and enslavement. The attack on Mugabe's regime was contained in a six-page IBA supplement on the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe published Friday in South Africa's weekly Mail and Guardian and Zimbabwe's weekend independent newspapers. "Zimbabwe's descent into this unimaginable chaos is the result of the perverse policies of Mugabe," Ellis said in the supplement's lead article. "His systematic oppression of an increasingly impoverished people and his government's widespread policy of subverting the press, the rule of law and human rights are a desperate and brutal attempt to retain political power at all costs." Ellis said other inhumane acts by Mugabe's government include the systematic policy of denying food aid to anyone who is not a member of his ruling ZANU-PF party. Ellis also said Mugabe should be held accountable by the International Criminal Court. Even though Zimbabwe has not ratified the creation of the court, he said a post-Mugabe government could request an investigation and indictment. "If Mugabe can manipulate and evade domestic and regional justice, he should not be able to elude international justice," wrote Ellis - in a thinly veiled reference to Mugabe's Black regional neighbours, who, under the leadership of “new” South African president Thabo Mbeki have not only refused to condemn the Zimbabwean state terror, but have come out in full support of Mugabe's repressive, White-hate policies. Ellis added that an investigation by the court would counter what he called the "woeful response to Mugabe's crimes" by many African nations.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, December 14, 2004

 

 

Chinese money is helping keep Mugabe's government afloat, and Zimbabwe's national airline is to start flying to the Chinese capital Beijing twice a week. The plan, announced by Chinese media, comes as China is upping its influence in Zimbabwe's battered economy. The latest stage of a long-standing relationship has seen floods of cheap goods imported from China, and big construction deals go to Chinese firms. Air Zimbabwe is thought to have only two working long-haul aircraft, although it expects another two from China thanks to a deal signed earlier this year. The Beijing flights will help service China's extensive investments
in Zimbabwe, estimated by Zimbabwe's government to be worth US$600m but by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to be much higher. China's relationship with Zimbabwe dates back to the 1980s, when troops were trained by Chinese advisers - as well as those from North Korea and elsewhere. As aid dried up in the 1990s, the Chinese extended assistance, as well as funding military improvements. But with Zimbabwe's economic isolation of the past four years - and its spiralling troubles, including 700% inflation and 70% unemployment - the relationship has strengthened. As many as 9,000 Chinese are believed to be in Zimbabwe working on a wide range of projects. In construction, the Chinese are understood to be working on hydro-electric and coal power stations, bridges, airports, and the reconstruction of Zimbabwe's most important border post at Beit Bridge with South Africa. A Chinese consortium also has a management contract with Zisco, the state steel firm, while technology firm Huawei has a $440m contract to supply telecoms equipment. In addition, the Zimbabwe government confirmed earlier this year it was buying $200m of military equipment from China - although a spokesman later denied it. Zimbabwe's mineral wealth, which includes platinum, gold and diamonds, may also be a cause of China's heightened interest.

-  BBC News report, November 22, 2004

 

 

A Zimbabwean, Reason Tafirei from Harare's [Salisbury’s] satellite city of Chitungwiza, has been charged under public order laws for calling President Robert Mugabe a dictator. Tafirei, who was unemployed, boarded a bus in the generally anti-Mugabe township and shouted: "Mugabe is a dictator who rules by the sword and Tony Blair is a liberator." He has been charged under Zimbabwe's notorious Public Order and Security Act which makes it illegal to denigrate the president. Tafirei has yet to be sentenced.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, November 16, 2004

 

 

A prominent White Zimbabwean MP was jailed last night for a year with hard labour for his part in a scuffle in which two ministers were knocked to the floor of parliament last May. MPs voted last night by 53 to 42 to jail Roy Bennett, a member of the Movement for Democratic Change who has been arrested and tortured repeatedly by the Mugabe regime. The incident was sparked when Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister, called the White MP a racist. Mr. Bennett hit him and then traded blows with Didymus Mutasa, the anti-corruption minister.

 

-  Daily Telegraph, October 29, 2004

 

 

A group of about 30 White holidaymakers, including 14 South Africans, some “Zimbabweans” and two Australians, who were on an annual fishing trip in a fishing camp on the Zambezi river, have been arrested by Zimbabwean police after displaying the Australian flag and, allegedly, expressing their joy over the acquittal of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai during a party at night. On the morning after the party, heavily-armed Black police arrived, arrested all of them, and drove them under escort to Karoi police station, about 200km north of Harare [Salisbury].

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, October 22, 2004

 

 

Night falls across Harare [Salisbury] and Tracy Ncube sashays up Fife Avenue in a tight skirt and borrowed shirt to sell the only thing she can. Half a dozen other young women are already stationed outside Tipperary's Bar and Ncube picks her spot, a tree opposite the car park illuminated by headlights. She has been a prostitute for two weeks and has bagged three customers, earning $45. Zimbabwe's youth were once considered Africa's brightest, graduates of one of the continent's best education systems which bred sophistication, confidence and ambition. But the economy has crumbled and, with it, opportunity. There are virtually no jobs. About 90% of the country's 11,8-million people live on less than $1 a day. Hyperinflation and food shortages are making the middle class destitute. So, a fortnight ago, Ncube (23) turned to prostitution. 'These days life is very hard. My family doesn't know that I do this, but how else am I to survive?'  She was visibly nervous. Her voice trembled, but she was determined to bag a fourth customer to earn between $7 and $20. Aid jargon calls prostitution, or transactional sex, a 'negative coping mechanism', a desperate but effective way to get by. Others emigrate, flying to Britain to work as nurses or jumping a fence to scrounge jobs in Botswana or South Africa. Their pay keeps many families afloat. For President Robert Mugabe, all this is excellent news. Inflation is close to 400%, unemployment is at 70% and hunger and homelessness are spreading, but there is no sign of revolution. On Saturday, the country was digesting the surprise acquittal of the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who had been charged with attempting to assassinate the president. On Friday a high court in Harare dismissed the case which for two years had crippled his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). It was a significant boost for the party but there was little public jubilation. Partly this was because police in riot gear patrolled the capital with guns and batons. A military jet roared low overhead to reinforce the authority of a regime in power since 1980. But another reason was resignation. Analysts say that the ruling ZANU-PF party will sweep parliamentary elections due next March because opposition has been crushed. Starved of an independent media and the right to campaign freely, the MDC has withered, according to a senior MP who asked not to be named. Its narrow defeats in rigged elections in 2000 and 2002 were high-water marks, he said. Both cause and symptom of its malaise are to be found on Fife Avenue. At night, the smart, leafy suburb close to the city centre is a red-light district. None of the prostitutes had a good word to say about Mugabe, whom they accused of despotism, but none responded to the MDC's plea to rally at the high court for Tsvangirai's verdict. 'Look, I'm a working girl. I need to sleep and do things around the house during the day,' said Talent Mushonga (23). Samantha Hazvinei (24) said girls as young as 15 and middle-aged married women were turning up. 'We are too many ladies looking for too few men. I need to come earlier and earlier and stay longer to get business.' A UN report last year said poverty and hunger were fuelling child labour and prostitution. An aid worker, who did not want to be named because of a crackdown on non-governmental organisations, said she knew middle-aged women, including nurses, teachers and police officers, who had turned to prostitution. Maxine (27) a three-year veteran of Fife Avenue, said the new arrivals were reckless. 'They are hot hot, chilli chilli, all in a rush. But they don't last, they die fast.' Official figures show that 24.6% of the adult population is infected with HIV, one of the highest rates in the world.

 

-  Guardian Unlimited, October 17, 2004

 

 

Having successfully driven off thousands of White farmers, and ruined the agricultural sector in the process,  Zimbabwean authorities are now driving off thousands of Blacks who were at the forefront of ‘the people’s hunger for land’ campaign and were used to occupy formerly White-owned farms under Mugabe's land grab scheme in 2000. For the last three weeks, paramilitary police have raided scores of farms in once-productive White commercial farming areas, evicting settlers and burning down their homes. Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena was quoted as saying "We are moving in countrywide as a way of trying to normalise the resettlement patterns." Thousands of evicted Blacks have camped at the roadsides, sheltering with their belongings. All those interviewed said they had been there since 2000 when Mugabe launched his revolutionary land reform programme which urged Blacks to help themselves to White-owned land.

 

-  Southern Cross Africa News, October 5, 2004

 

 

A week before his third birthday, Sunshine, a pet giraffe, was shot last Tuesday by a game warden, then braaied and eaten by police officers, a headmaster and primary school children in Zimbabwe, 120km from the South African border. Several parents have expressed dismay that their children, from Mabeka Primary School in West Nicholson, were taken on an outing by their school principal, and watched a National Parks official shoot  the tame giraffe at point-blank range.
Thea Akeroyd, who looked after the orphaned infant giraffe after its mother was poached in October 2001, was in tears on Friday as she recalled the incident, which has shocked the community. I was in Bulawayo at the time. When I returned home, I was told that Sunshine had been taken away by a senior policeman, a uniformed policewoman, the headmaster of the school, and a bunch of kids, some of them very young. "My husband Gary returned a couple of hours after me, and went to the school which is next door to us to fetch Sunshine. He found them drinking alcohol, and cooking our giraffe. They were loading some of  the meat into a truck. I have reported this to the police, I have the case number, and they are investigating. Some people from National Parks and some important people in the district have been in contact with us and are very angry. Akeroyd said in June she was visited at Tods Guest House, owned by her husband's family, by Assistant Commissioner Ephraim Katya who told her she needed a permit to keep the giraffe as a pet. He had been worrying us for a couple of years because he wanted to take this property for a high person in government, and we didn't move. I went to Bulawayo to National Parks to get a permit, but they just laughed at me, because there is no such permit, there is no rule like that." Akeroyd said Sunshine was a local celebrity and would have been domesticated if he had been able to get inside their home. He used to try and come inside, but of course he couldn't, but it made us laugh, and we kept him in a pen close to the house. All the kids around here loved him. When visitors came from South Africa they loved him. People all around were used to him because he enjoyed human company. So when they came to take him to be killed, he just went with them, he wasn't scared." She said they had witnesses who saw their long-necked pet shot at point-blank range. Assistant Commissioner Katya from West Nicholson police on Friday confirmed that Sunshine had been killed at the primary school. "He  was shot by the man from National Parks, not by the police. We did  not eat his meat, "he said."

 

-  The Star (Johannesburg), October 2, 2004

 

 

In this nation that once boasted one of sub-Saharan Africa's most vibrant economies, things have become so bad that people have taken to telling a wry joke: "What did we have before candles?" The answer: "Electricity." Four years of turmoil have turned back the clock here. Ambulances are drawn by oxen. Hand-guided cattle ploughs have replaced farm machinery. The state railroad uses gunpowder charges on the tracks to warn trains of danger ahead. The often-violent seizure of thousands of White-owned farms for reallocation to Black Zimbabweans, coupled with erratic rains, has decimated Zimbabwe's agriculture-based economy. Mugabe argues that the land seizures have corrected ownership imbalances from British colonial days that left one-third of the country's farmland in the hands of about 5 000 White farmers. Many seized farms went to Mugabe's cronies and lie fallow. Ownership deeds were abolished, denying most new farmers collateral for loans for equipment and materials. Tobacco production - once the country's biggest hard-currency earner - has dropped by nearly 75% since the seizures began in 2000. The economic free-fall has been marked by regular power blackouts and acute shortages of fuel, spare parts and new technology. Soaring inflation and a shortage of hard currency have made it impossible to import machinery needed to rebuild the economy. Once-fertile farmland now has the desolate look of a junkyard; farm machines that used to rumble through fields now stand idle, broken down or plundered for components. "Whole irrigation systems are down, farm equipment is at a standstill or in a shocking state of repair," said John Worsely-Worswick, head of a farmers' support group. A formerly White-owned estate that produced a fourth of the nation's wheat has been broken up into small parcels of land for Black farmers, bringing intensive, large-scale farming to a halt. In an unusual admission of economic weakness, the government recently estimated that at least 35,000 new tractors are needed to revive mechanised agriculture, which began here with the importation of the first tractor in 1911. Foreign investors and aid groups have been withholding support because of alleged government corruption and human-rights violations. The independent Southern African Railways Association has described Zimbabwe's broken railway system as lagging at least 50 years behind present-day standards. Faced with a shortage of ambulances in the crumbling national health system, nine wooden carts hauled by oxen went into service in July to ferry pregnant women, children and other non-emergency cases safely - and slowly - along rural dirt roads to the nearest clinics. Abraham Kochi, a house painter from western Harare [Salisbury], said he can no longer find kerosene for his stove and is forced to cook with firewood. This new reliance on firewood by poor families has caused severe deforestation. As poverty deepens, the Zimbabwe National Association of Traditional Healers has reported a sharp increase in patients consulting herbalists and spiritualists who practise centuries-old rituals that had previously been waning. Doctors say midwives are now sealing off the umbilical protrusion of newborns with string, and dentists say many of their patients are using salt instead of toothpaste. Unemployment of nearly 80% has forced many skilled workers to eke out a living as street vendors. "We have gone back in time," said Worsely-Worswick, of the farmer's support group.

 

-  SAPA-AP press report, September 15, 2004

 

 

Zimbabwe’s opposition yesterday accused Mugabe of preparing to rig the next election after a law was published giving him the power to appoint key figures overseeing the poll. Critics say he has begun a campaign to guarantee victory next March while giving African nations that support him enough grounds to declare the contest free and fair. The stated purpose of the electoral commission bill is to meet international standards. One of these is for elections to be supervised by an independent commission. But the draft law gives Mugabe the power to appoint every member of the commission, including its chairman. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change denounced the law as “cynical”. David Coltart, the shadow justice minister, said the proposed reforms were an “attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of Zimbabweans and the international community”. The MDC has announced that it will boycott all elections unless the [ZANU-PF] regime ends the political violence that has plagued Zimbabwe for the past four years and introduces genuine reforms.

-  Daily Telegraph, September 9, 2004

In two decades of misrule, Zimbabwe has been transformed from one of the most prosperous states in Africa, able to sell its surplus agricultural produce to less fortunate neighbours, into a country of ZANU-PF “haves” and perhaps 6,000,000 starving “have-nots”. There are still upwards of 30,000 people of British extraction in what used to be Rhodesia. That apart, several million Black citizens unfortunate enough to be born into the wrong tribes - the largest being the Matabele - are now dying under Mugabe's iron hand to allow his personal grip on power and the domination of the Shona majority to continue. The country has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection of any in Africa, at what the World Health Organisation estimates as a conservative 34% of all adults. Another third of the population is living on a subsistence diet of food handouts used as a weapon to keep them weak and unable to revolt. The UN confirms that previous food deliveries have been hijacked by the regime and issued only to those willing to vote for ZANU-PF. The others starve. More than 3.5 million have fled abroad in search of work to support their families or to escape repression. Some 800,000 orphans created by the AIDS epidemic and Mugabe's intervention in local diamond wars in the DRC have now been denied the chance of continuing their basic education because the government cannot spare the £440,000 it would cost to underwrite their school fees. The number of children attending school has fallen from 93% - the highest in Africa - to just 65% as the economy collapsed in the wake of the disastrous land-grab policy. Yet Mugabe has found £120m to buy ground-attack jets and armoured vehicles from China to bolster the forces which are the bedrock of his rule. His "throne" is supported by their bayonets. Their loyalty, in turn, is dependent on his ability to pay and feed them. Although he still claims that Zimbabwe is self-sufficient, the UN says this year's harvest will produce barely half of what the population needs, placing an estimated 4.6 million citizens at risk. Mugabe has rejected foreign aid and refuses to meet UN officials. At the root of the problem is the fact that, while there were traditional inequities in the distribution of the most fertile tracts of land, the White farmers ran highly successful, well-organised businesses. Not only did their taxes bolster the general economy, but their exports earned vital foreign currency and the entire process provided employment for thousands of Black Zimbabweans. The land-grab policy was introduced as a desperate ploy to shore up popular support by playing the race card and transferring the blame for Zimbabwe's ills to the former colonial masters. Instead, it has crippled a country where inflation is currently running at 500% and still climbing. The regime, despite support from other African leaders, has been expelled from the Commonwealth. Its senior officials are barred from international travel because of human rights abuses and vote-rigging in stage-managed elections. Mugabe's family and henchmen have also appropriated most of the prime land for themselves as personal estates. Despite repeated denials by the British government that it has contemplated military action to topple Mugabe, the Army has drawn up a contingency plan. It has such plans, however unrealistic, as a reaction template for crises anywhere in the world. Zimbabwe is a large, landlocked country bordered by South Africa to the south, Mozambique to the east, Zambia to the north and Botswana to the west. Only Mozambique and South Africa have deep-water ports suitable for landing an invasion force and keeping open their supply routes. Beira in Mozambique is the closest port, although poor road infrastructure across country would make South Africa the staging post of choice. Neither country would be willing to play host to a cross-border operation by White troops against another Black leader. Nor would they be likely to supply their own soldiers as bit-players. A British-led force would have to have enough tanks, attack helicopters and fighter-bombers in support to ensure a rapid, low-casualty victory. The military estimate is that most of the Zimbabwean regulars would simply melt away in the face of overwhelming firepower, unwilling to die for a dictator whose latest "gift" to his increasingly hungry people is a fleet of ox-driven ambulances as fuel shortages begin to bite hard. The one problem would be a post-invasion insurgency on the Iraqi model, although planners think this might be limited, given Mugabe's growing unpopularity. With the input of substantial international food-aid, the re-establishment of the infrastructure of a functioning government rather than a private fiefdom for the chosen few, and the lifting of sanctions, any unrest would be likely to be short-lived. Zimbabweans are starving. Even at the height of a world embargo, Iraqis were not. The commonest question posed by British soldiers sweltering in the sand of northern Kuwait in the build-up for the invasion of Iraq last year was "Why aren't we in Zimbabwe?" Officers privately admit that they are concerned by the inconsistencies of the UK's new interventionist foreign policy. Zimbabwe was a British colony for the better part of a century. It retains, whether it likes the fact or not, a moral responsibility for the well-being of the country's inhabitants, Black and White alike. Yet, practical difficulties aside, the government has steadfastly evaded that responsibility, relying on soft sanctions and diplomatic initiatives while people are dispossessed, deliberately starved and murdered in large numbers. If we can take up arms for Kosovars with no British connection, what price loyalty to those with real ties?

-  report sent by Bert of S.A.Magte, July 21, 2004

 

The exodus of Zimbabwe's small and anguished White population is under way with record numbers leaving their homeland, mostly for Britain or Australia. They say they have hung on during the past four tumultuous years hoping Mugabe's "hate" campaign against them would ease, but it did not, and two months ago when he shut down private schools for a week for raising fees, they lost their nerve. Up to three million Black Zimbabweans have also gone into exile, estate agents say there has been a flood of houses on to the property market in the past few weeks that has slashed prices to record lows. Most Whites, of whom perhaps 30 000 remain in Zimbabwe, say they will never return. "It was a painful decision because this is the only home we know," said Jeremy Callow, 55, one of Zimbabwe's best-known lawyers. "I love Zimbabwe, love the people, but can't take it any more." The "last straw" is different for each family who boards the planes for distant lands. Callow succumbed to "relentless" pressure traipsing through the courts to assist White farmers legally recover possessions, and when he succeeded, applying in vain to get court orders enforced. “I can't cope any longer with seeing grown men cry. I spent 80% of my time with farmers counselling them and I am not trained for that. The courts do not have the capacity to process thousands of farms seized by the state. So they change the laws, move the goal-posts." Under a new law ahead of the flawed presidential elections in 2002, Callow, like thousands of other Whites born in the country, had to renounce access to British or other foreign claims to citizenship to vote. “It is costing an arm and a leg to claim my British citizenship now," he said. Among about 350 White farmers who remain on the land enduring varying levels of instability are some who have never been touched by ruling ZANU-PF party militants, but are now abandoning their homes. "We have recently noticed quite a number who have been left alone the last four years but are leaving," said Hendrik Olivier, the director of the remnants of the once 4,000-strong Commercial Farmers' Union. One of Zimbabwe's most successful younger industrialists, who asked not to be named, decided to go to Australia a few months after his family was attacked in December in their home about 20km south of Harare [Salisbury]. The family moved to the city and tried to settle in a new and glamorous mansion in a leafy suburb. It is now up for sale. "We couldn't recover. In April I sold my business and as soon as our work permit arrives we will go. “We have young kids and schools are a problem. I will miss it, especially the bush. We have family in South Africa, but the future is uncertain there."

-  Sunday Independent, July 11, 2004

 

 

Mugabe’s government announced plans today to nationalise all Zimbabwean farmland after forcing more than 5,000 White farmers off their properties in an often-violent redistribution programme. Title deeds to all productive land will be cancelled and replaced with 99-year state-issued leases, reported the Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece. “In the end all land shall be state land and there shall be no such thing as private land,” Land Reform Minister John Nkomo said. Since 2000, the government has been seizing White-owned farms for redistribution to Black Zimbabweans. The controversial programme, combined with erratic rains, has crippled the country’s agriculture-based economy and sparked political clashes. Zimbabwe, once a regional breadbasket, now suffers acute shortages of food, hard currency, petrol and other imports. United Nations crop forecasters predict the country will produce only half its food needs this year.

 

-  report sent by B.C., Cape Town, June 9, 2004

 

 

 

This is Anthony Bodington, Manager of Masapas Ranch. For your record, he was ambushed by illegal squatters, poachers and so-called “war vets” on the Ranch at 4pm on Friday 21st May 2004 and abducted together with his 6 game scouts. The assailants were armed with machetes, assegais and knobkerries. They were held captive in the bush for the duration of the night, until they were rescued by police at daybreak on 22nd May. All the abductees were subjected to gross verbal and physical abuse. Anthony was assaulted the worst of all, and at one stage was held down and had to endure the motions as if they were going to cut his arm off. He has since been hospitalized in Triangle. He is severely traumatized, very badly bruised, especially on both his elbows which were subjected to prolonged blows with heavy sticks.

-  report sent by J.M., Pretoria, June 4, 2004

 

A White farmer has allegedly shot dead one of  Mugabe's supporters during an attack on his property. Spiro Landos, 48, a farmer of Greek descent who grew vegetables for British supermarkets, was seriously wounded before being detained by police in hospital in Mutare [Umtali], 160 miles south east of Harare [Salisbury]. During the attack he was pinned down by a 30-strong mob. He apparently drew a gun and fired a warning shot in the air. But one man was hit and died. Mr Landos is recovering from surgery and is unable to walk. His relatives fear he will be charged with murdering one of Mugabe's "war veterans". They said they were anxious about his prospects for a fair trial in a highly-charged racial and political environment following Mugabe's anti-White rhetoric during an interview with Sky News this week. Friends said Mr Landos had been asking police to disperse a mob of ZANU-PF supporters from his land for a week before the attack on the farm, Riverside, in the Odzi district. When he failed to return to his homestead after dark on Monday a friend found him near the farm gate, semi-conscious and bleeding from head wounds. The incident was the first in which any farmer has fired a weapon since Mugabe ordered the land grab of more than 20 million acres in 2000. Up to 3,000 farmers have been attacked or hounded from their homes. It has been a violent few days for many of the country's remaining White farmers. John Worsley-Worswick, a spokesman for the pressure group Justice for Agriculture, said: "The latest onslaught has been sudden after a relatively quiet couple of months. In all cases the attackers have had a common message that Whites must leave and go to Britain." A White manager of a wildlife sanctuary, Anthony Bodington, 35, was abducted and tortured in southern Zimbabwe and is recovering in a private hospital.

-  report sent by Ann Bishop, Cape Town, May 26, 2004

 

The Hon. Ian Douglas Smith talking to members of Rhodesians Worldwide and the Springbok Club at the Rhodesians Worldwide Kent Branch's monthly braai at Chilham in May 2004.

The price of bread in economically ravaged Zimbabwe has rocketed by up to 50% due to a shortage of flour, state media said. Bread is now selling at most shops for between Z$2,800 and Z$3,000 per loaf, state radio said. Standard bread prices were previously set around Z$2,000. "The wholesale price of bread is now Z$2,500, while the retail price is pegged at Z$2,900 a loaf," Armitage Chikwavira, chairman of the Bakers' Association of Zimbabwe told the state-run Herald newspaper. The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation said retailers were blaming the price hikes on the shortages of maize meal and wheat flour. Aid agencies estimate that Zimbabwe will this year face shortages of up to 800,000 tonnes of maize meal, a national staple. Some of the agencies blame the country's controversial land reform programme, which saw the seizure of White-owned farms for redistribution to new Black farmers, for cutting maize production. Annual inflation last month stood at 583.7%.

-  www.AfricanCrisis.org, May 6, 2004

 

Robert Mugabe was airlifted to South Africa for emergency medical treatment yesterday after collapsing at his state residence in Harare [Salisbury], a member of his security staff said last night. The 79-year-old dictator was flown by military aircraft to Johannesburg after a violent vomiting fit. He was accompanied on the flight by his wife Grace, personal doctors and a string of aides. His collapse followed a similar bout of illness three months ago, for which he was also treated in South Africa. Last night, road blocks were set up around Harare [Salsbury], manned by riot police and soldiers to dispel any mass protests. Reinforcements from police, army and militia outside the capital were drafted into Harare [Salisbury] to shore up the ZANU-PF regime. "We were ordered not to give any details of the president's illness in case it brought people out on to the streets," a senior member of the 'Green Bombers', the notorious youth brigade created by Mugabe, told The Sunday Telegraph. Mugabe is understood to have vomited repeatedly during Friday night then collapsed as he attempted to get out of bed yesterday. On arrival in Johannesburg, he was driven away in an entourage of cars accompanied by bodyguards, according to a witness who saw him at the airport. He is understood to have been driven to a clinic for treatment. He was previously treated at a private hospital near Pretoria. Mugabe is taken outside Zimbabwe for treatment to reduce the threat of news of his illness leaking out and prompting popular unrest. Reports of a similar collapse late in October, when he was said to have suffered uncontrollable vomiting, prompted uproar. At the time, spokesmen for his regime denied that he was ill or had left the country, insisting it was "business as usual". However, television pictures purporting to show the president at an international cultural conference are said by broadcasters to have been old footage. A member of staff at Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation later revealed that they were asked to find recent footage of Mr Mugabe and play it during the national news bulletin to "calm public opinion". In fact, the pictures used dated from his ruling ZANU-PF's annual party congress meeting, at Victoria Falls, last August. Supporters of the regime have sought to play down Mugabe's medical problems, but rumours of ill-health and strokes have dogged him in recent years. Mr Mugabe's latest collapse and emergency hospitalisation will intensify jockeying within ZANU-PF over his succession. After 23 years in power, the president has appeared increasingly frail in recent months while at the same time showing remarkable stamina. Last night, a spokesman for the South African government said: "I have no information on whether Mugabe is in the country or not."

- report sent by J.M., Pretoria, February 12, 2004

 

Visitors to troubled Zimbabwe are to get special police protection under a government plan to "restore confidence" in the southern African country as a tourist destination, the state-owned Sunday Mail reported. A special tourism police unit is to be set up "aimed at increasing the safety of tourists in all the country's tourist destinations", the newspaper said. Amid worsening economic hardships in Zimbabwe, foreign tourists have increasingly been targeted by local criminals. Robberies involving tourists have claimed two lives this year, with an Australian killed in the world-famous Victoria Falls resort in January and a young South African tourist shot dead in the second city of Bulawayo in June.

- report sent by "Rhodesia was Super", November 18, 2003

A scene from the "Rhodie Reunion" at the Johannesburg Social Club in November 2003.

 

According to media reports, 43 people have starved to death in Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo. The predicted famine, which is blamed by independent analysts on the ruling Black regime's expropriation and expulsion of White farmers, might eventually affect more than 5 million people, if reports by aid organisations are to be believed.

- Southern Cross Africa News, October 31, 2003

 

Zimbabwe's main public hospital, Harare [Salisbury] Central, does not inspire confidence. Its shabby exterior is dotted with broken windows and leaking pipes. The wards themselves are little better, epitomising the decline of this country's once proud health system. Outside visiting hours the relatives of the patients wander the grounds. Many spend all day at the hospital, simply because they cannot afford the bus fare to make more than one journey. Zimbabwe has entered its fifth successive year of economic decline, which has whittled away the ability of households to make ends meet. The country faces critical shortages of foreign exchange, inflation has reached 364% and is forecast to hit over 500% by the end of the year. Five million Zimbabweans, more than half of the population, are in need of food aid. Harare Central is where the city's poor, who cannot afford health insurance, are forced to come. Within its morale-sapping walls, there seems to be more dying than curing. The high death-rate is linked in part to AIDS. Recent estimates indicate that around 34% of Zimbabwe's 15 to 40 age group is HIV-positive, and more than 2,500 people die every week of AIDS-related causes.

- report sent by T. Jackson, August 13, 2003

 

"Zimbabwe" is becoming a really interesting place. The only country in the world where your largest note - $500 - can't buy you a beer, which is $650. A roll of 1-ply toilet paper costs $1000. There are approximately 72 sections on the average roll, so it is cheaper to take your $1000, change it into $10's, wipe your arse on 72 of them and get $280 change. An additional benefit is that you get to wipe your arse on Mugabe's face!

- report sent by R.Richard (ex-Durban, now living in Canada), June 13, 2003

Irish Guards Piper Christopher Muzvuru on the road to Basra.

A Zimbabwean soldier killed in Iraq who had signed up to serve in the British Army has been denounced as a "traitor" by Mugabe's regime. Piper Muzvuru, 21, who said shortly before his death that his dearest ambition was to play the bagpipes before the Queen, was killed by a sniper in Basra. Piper Muzvuru enlisted into the British Army in February 2001. He joined the Irish Guards in October 2001 and soon completed a course at the Piping School in Edinburgh. He was the first Black piper in the regiment's 103-year history. Up to 200 Zimbabweans are serving in the British Army. On the day of his death Piper Muzvuru was interviewed by a reporter from an American news agency. "I always wanted to learn the bagpipes," he told Martin Walker of UPI. At dawn on April 6, as his regiment prepared to launch an attack on Basra, Piper Muzvuru played two Irish tunes on his charter, a small pipe usually kept for practice. He was killed by sniper fire later that afternoon.

- Daily Telegraph, April 20, 2003

 

At a meeting of the London Branch of the Springbok Club held on 27 August 2002 a motion of support and solidarity with Mr. Cecil John Coleman was passed unanimously. Mr. Coleman had that day been issued with a Section 8 Order by the Mugabe government to seize his farm in Mashonaland, which specialises in honey processing.

 

 

The Conservative Monday Club staged a reception in honour of the Hon. Ian Douglas Smith at the prestigious RAF Club in central London on May 8th 2002. There was a packed audience, which among others included two peers of the realm, one sitting British MP, one former Rhodesian cabinet minister and one former Rhodesian senator. In a powerful and indeed inspiring address Ian Smith outlined the problems and chaos which currently prevailed in "Zimbabwe", but was optimistic that once the Mugabe regime was removed (which he anticipated would be very shortly) then the country could swiftly resume its position as the "jewel of Africa". He was also full of praise for the British people, who had in the past created the greatest Empire the world has ever known. He feared that they were currently suffering from self-doubt however, but called on them to remember their glorious history and to re-establish their self-confidence. During the following question-and-answer session Mr. Colin Lucas stated that he considered Ian Smith the greatest world statesman since Sir Winston Churchill - a remark which was