LATEST RHODESIAN
NEWS
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A Zimbabwean nurse registered with
the Nursing and Midwifery Council in the
- NehandaRadio.com report,
Coming
back to
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report by Cathy Buckle,
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The
Rhodesians Worldwide Kent Branch welcomed Jill Baker, the much loved and
highly respected former RTV presenter, as their guest of honour at their
monthly braai in June 2011. In her keynote speech Jill Baker (pictured right,
standing) outlined some of her experiences and her ongoing commitment to
alerting the outside world to what is really happening in Mugabe’s |
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Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe's Prime Minister, has warned that neither he
nor President Robert Mugabe are now in control of the country, which is instead
being run by a "dark and sinister" military junta. Morgan Tsvangirai is due to address a Movement
for Democratic Change rally in Harare [Salisbury], defying a police order that it be
cancelled. Mr
Tsvangirai on Friday returned from a trip to urge neighbouring leaders to act
to prevent Zimbabwe sliding back to the "dark
days" of violence seen in the disputed 2008 elections which saw him form a
coalition with his rival Mr Mugabe. On Saturday, he is due to address a Movement for
Democratic Change rally in Harare [Salisbury],
defying a police order that it be cancelled. Diplomatic sources in Harare
[Salisbury] said they feared the rally, which will take place close to a
meeting of Mr Mugabe's ZANU-PF supporters, could end in bloodshed if police
intervene. There are also concerns that Zimbabwe's Joint Operations Command,
made up of the heads of the police, armed forces and state security, could use
the opportunity to arrest Mr Tsvangirai, who was last week accused of contempt
of court for accusing the country's senior judges of political bias. Sources
have told The
Daily Telegraph that Mr Mugabe, 87, is becoming
increasingly frail and defers decisions to his closest advisers – mostly
members of the JOC.
-
Daily Telegraph, March 18, 2011
Robert Mugabe’s henchmen are preparing to arrest Morgan
Tsvangirai, his coalition partner, for contempt of court after he accused the
country’s senior judges of doing the bidding of Mr Mugabe’s ZANU-PF
party. Mr Tsvangirai has previously stated that the
government of unity with President Robert Mugabe is 'dysfunctional'. The
arrest of Prime Minister Tsvangirai was discussed in Tuesday’s cabinet
meeting, government insiders told The Daily Telegraph. On Wednesday, Augustine Chihuri, the Zimbabwean chief of police, is understood to
have visited the offices of the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting
Corporation to collect a recording of Mr
Tsvangirai’s allegedly contemptuous comments. Mr Chihuri is a member of
the feared Joint Operational Command, the military junta which remained under
Mr Mugabe’s command when the coalition deal was struck in 2009. He is
believed to be increasingly taking power as the 87-year-old dictator’s
health declines. In the past month, more than 100 activists and politicians of
Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change have been arrested, including Elton Mangoma, the Energy Minister. Mr
Mangoma was detained over an allegedly fraudulent fuel deal struck with a South
African firm last January, when Zimbabwe was facing a fuel shortage.
-
Daily Telegraph, March 17, 2011
Robert
Mugabe’s health is failing, leaving
-
Daily Telegraph,
People in
- AfricanCrisis,
Former Chegutu farmer
Ben Freeth was presented with a prestigious royal award in
- AfricanCrisis,
A recent visit by TAU SA to the
Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) of Zimbabwe annual congress revealed that
Zimbabwe’s small coterie of commercial farmers - some of whom are farming
on the fringes of their properties - are unwilling to leave the land they love.
(Many of course cannot, and others won’t come to
The catastrophe of
Most of the 180 CFU congress
attendees have been in jail, some of them up to fourteen times. Trying to take
out your furniture from your occupied house is enough to draw the wrath of the
regime – it is then that the police arrive with alacrity to cart one off
to the station to be charged and convicted. Despite this, many of these farmers
are convinced that their country will get back on its feet once the poison of
the regime’s presence is removed.
TAU SA members saw the pitiful
remnants of what used to be – macadamia trees at half their usual height,
choked by overgrown grass and weeds, farms where maize had grown as far as they
eye could see, now returned to savannah. The quality
of the soil is outstanding, yet the excuse for non-productivity is drought.
(There’s always an excuse in
TAU SA saw no or little production,
no tractors working – except as transport along the roads! Somebody
donated a huge harvester that in
The country’s agriculture is
returning to the subsistence, live-for-the-present mentality that existed before
the settlers arrived.
Zimbabwe dollars are used no more
– only South African rands and US dollars are legal daily tender, some
notes so dirty as to be illegible. People have taken to washing US dollars and
pegging them out to dry. Check points dot all the roads – it’s easy money. What did you bring for me? asks the policeman as he stops your vehicle. Then there are
the toll roads, another attempt to siphon something from the populace.
Democratic
Let us look at what the
The Zimbabwe government’s campaign
to obliterate commercial agriculture (certainly with a racist motive!), under
the guise of agrarian reform, but in reality in the interest of retaining power
through illegal and violent means, has been incredibly effective. Watched by
the so-called world community,
But they left behind a legacy no
one can obliterate, not even those who denigrated the old
We quote hereunder from a 2008
quarterly issue of the Rhodesians Worldwide magazine:
“In the later nineteenth
century, the first white hunters, traders and missionaries who came to the
region which used to be known as
These first farmers had to discover
how to contend with predators that killed their livestock and other animals
that consumed their crops; and how to control diseases, pests and parasites
that were foreign to them. Knowledge and experience built up over generations
in the developed world had limited application in the new
From this starting point, fraught
with difficulties, agriculture developed faster than it had anywhere else in
the world. Soon the country became self-sufficient in most agricultural
products. In many cases yields per hectare and quality equaled or bettered
those in the developed world.
The United Nations Food and
Agriculture Year Book of 1975 ranked the then Rhodesia second in the world
in terms of yields of maize, wheat, soya beans and groundnuts, and third for
cotton. In the combined ranking for all these crops,
Some of these rankings were in fact
reached long before 1975.
The world’s largest single
citrus producer was developed early in the country’s history. The highest
quality breeding stock of numerous breeds of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and
poultry were imported. At the same time, the indigenous cattle were developed
through breeding and selection to highly productive and respected breeds.
Wildlife was incorporated into farming systems to develop a highly successful
eco-tourism industry and endangered species found their most secure havens on
farm conservancies.
The report continues with details
of government agricultural departments and technical colleges set up, of
veterinary services, of Research and Development of specialist products
including tobacco, of improved crop varieties, of livestock nutrition and
management, of wild life conservation, of water management, of sustainable
production through drought years as well as through high rainfall periods. (Rex
Tattersfield, a former plant breeder in
The farmers contributed to the
leadership, fabric and welfare of society out of all proportion to their
numbers. Each farm was to a certain extent an outpost of civilization, where
schools were established, clinics and dispensaries were built, and where
ambulance services were almost always available.
No more. All of this has been
replaced by poverty, terror, wholesale theft and wastelands where once crops
grew. Yet this state of affairs seems preferable to the world than white
commercial farming control. The yardstick by which countries are now judged is
not whether people go hungry or are crushed by grinding poverty, but by whether
there is a democracy - of whatever sort - where tyrants stay in power for
decades, and where millions flee as refugees, never to return. Indeed, the West
has much to answer for, but they will not be held responsible for present-day
-
International Bulletin from TAU
A new
spate of arrests in the name of Robert Mugabe's land 'reform' programme has
rocked the country's remaining commercial farming community, with at least four
arrests since last Tuesday. Most recently, last Friday police went to James
Taylor's Cedor Park Farm in Nyamandlovu, and arrested him. His son Matthew was
later also arrested when he went to Nyamandlovu police station to assist his
father. Both were kept behind bars over the weekend and were only released on
Monday, despite James being in a fragile medical condition due to a recent
stroke and diabetes. According to Chris Jarrett, the Chairman of the Southern
African Commercial Farmers Alliance (SAFCA), the
-
AfricanCrisis,
Here's a measure of how President Robert Mugabe destroying this
once lush nation of
- article by Nicholas D. Kristoff, New York Times,
White
Zimbabwean [Rhodesian] farmers whose land was grabbed by Robert Mugabe plan to
turn the tables by seizing Zimbabwean-owned property in
-
AfricanCrisis,
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
-
AfricanCrisis,
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
-
AfricanCrisis,
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
- News24,
The
treasurer of
- Daily Telegraph,
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
- AfricanCrisis,
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
-
Southern Cross
Marauding
gangs of armed robbers are on the loose in
-
AfricanCrisis,
- AfricanCrisis,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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
- ORAFs
report,
- ZWNews,
More than
30,000 people in
- report sent by RH-GE (
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”,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
|
|
|
|
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
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
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 (
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,
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,
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,
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),
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,
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,
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
- report by Petra Thornycroft,
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,
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
- AfricanCrisis,
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,
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),
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,
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.
-
Southern Cross Africa News,
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
-
CommentaryMagazine.com,
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,
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,
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
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/viewinfo.cfm?linkcategoryid=3&linkid=8&id=5543
- report sent by JMK,
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
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,
For Rod Swales and many of
- Sunday Telegraph,
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
need because there is no guarantee that these things will be available in the
future," he added.
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
- Reuters
Report -
In Mugabe’s
- Daily Telegraph,
[ We await Ms. Todd’s
admission of her grave errors in siding with such evil terrorists during the
1960s. - Ed.]
- Daily
Telegraph,
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,
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,
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 (
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
- Cricinfo,
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,
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 $39.6m. In the
face of growing criticism of his human-rights record, Mugabe has in recent
years increasingly turned to other countries, including Iran, for help.
- report sent by Bob Vinnicombe, NSW,
Young women used iron rods to beat pleading grandmothers and
called them whores, while a policewoman shouted "Now go for the
heads!" This is how a prayer meeting in Harare [Salisbury], Zimbabwe,
turned into an "orgy of violence", says William Bango, 53, a senior Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
member and spokesperson for party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. Bango told Beeld
from his Johannesburg hospital bed how he, Tsvangirai and other MDC members
were beaten with "unheard of cruelty" by Zimbabwean police on Sunday
March 11. Bango described seeing a grandmother, 64-year-old Sekai Holland,
repeatedly
hammered with a pole by young women who called her "one of Blair's
whores". The assault took place at the Machipisa police station, where
Bango and
other MDC activists were taken after police banned a prayer meeting in
Highfield township. "We were ordered to lie on
the ground. Then the orgy of violence began, with the usual accusations that we
were the puppets of Tony Blair and the Whites, and that we wanted to give our
land back to the colonialists." The beatings lasted for three-quarters of
an hour. They even dragged Tsvangirai from his idling car, and began hitting
him. The woman in charge shouted: "Now the ribs! Now the buttocks! Now go
for the heads!" Ironically, Zimbabwe was sliding back steadily to the
"iron age" just as South Africa was getting ready for 2010 Soccer
World Cup, he said. "But South Africa can't exist as a supermarket in the
desert. The entire tournament will suffer if there's a thug in the
neighbourhood."
- Beeld,
Today the Rand went over 3,000 to 1 [to the Z$], 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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
|
|
“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,
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,
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 (
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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
- Daily Telegraph,
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
- www.frontline.org.za,
|
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 |
|
|
The big Rhodesian-Zimbabwean Reunion opened at the Shamwari
Club near Hillcrest in
- 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
|
|
|
|
The
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,
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,
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,
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
- Daily Telegraph,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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
- Southern Cross Africa News,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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,
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
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.
-
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,
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,
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,