Reuters
Mon 23 Jul
2007, 11:29 GMT
By Cris Chinaka
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's
parliament opens a new session this week to
debate radical plans to
nationalise foreign firms and a law empowering the
house to name President
Robert Mugabe's likely successor without a national
vote.
Mugabe, the
southern African state's sole ruler since independence from
Britain in 1980,
will on Tuesday officially open the last session of the
House of Assembly
and the upper Senate ahead of general polls due by next
March.
Political analysts say the proposed legislation before the
chambers,
including the constitutional bill seeking to combine parliamentary
and
presidential elections and the economic empowerment bill, could increase
uncertainties about Zimbabwe's future.
"On the economic side, we are
looking at a government that is, in word and
in deed, continuing with
radical policies, which in respect of the farm
seizures, badly hurt the
economy," said Eldred Masunungure, a political
science professor at the
University of Zimbabwe.
"The nationalisation of foreign firms may have a
similar impact if it is
handled as badly as the land redistribution
programme," he added.
Masunungure said the Constitutional Amendment Bill
consolidating the
electoral calendar, with clauses giving parliament power
to elect a new
president if a vacancy occurred between elections, could give
Mugabe an
avenue to retire after the 2008 polls with room to influence who
will
succeed him.
"I know that the concept of a dignified exit for
Mugabe has been dismissed
by some people, and that there those who believe
he wants to hang onto power
for life, but I think Mugabe also knows that his
future depends on creating
enough space to manoeuvre," he said.
"To
me that bill gives him space for some exit, but then politics is not a
clinical game with predictable results."
POLITICS OF
PATRONAGE
Mugabe, 83, is seeking re-election in 2008 and analysts say he
is sure to
use the empowerment law to enrich supporters and consolidate
ranks before
those elections.
Leading economic consultant John
Robertson said the black economic
empowerment and a nationalisation drive,
which the government hopes will
start October, would further damage an
economy already hit by Mugabe's other
controversial policies.
Mugabe
plans to transfer control of all companies, including foreign banks
and some
mining operations, to locals under the black empowerment bill.
Mugabe's
ruling ZANU-PF party dominates parliament and is expected to pass
the bill
before September.
"This is going to be another exercise in cronyism,
grabbing companies or
shares and giving them to the party faithful," he
said.
"The country needs policies that will attract more foreign
investment, and
all that is happening at the moment is such that it's making
the situation
worse," Robertson said.
Analysts say Mugabe's
government has compounded the Zimbabwe economic crisis
in the last three
weeks with a price blitz that has led to empty shop
shelves in a country
which suffers from the world's highest inflation rate.
Mugabe ordered
consumer prices slashed by half last month after the cost of
some foodstuffs
had risen threefold, further squeezing urban workers living
with severe
water and power cuts, burst sewer pipes and a suffocating
political
environment.
Once the breadbasket of the region, Zimbabwe has endured a
punishing
recession that has squeezed consumers with rocketing inflation,
left four
out of five people without jobs and resulted in shortages of
foreign
currency, food and fuel.
Mugabe says the economy has been
sabotaged by his Western foes and branded
company executives "serpents"
drafted by former colonial power Britain to
help topple him by raising
prices, cutting production and stashing foreign
earnings abroad
United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs -
Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
Date: 23 Jul
2007
HARARE, 23 July 2007 (IRIN) - An urgent call on Zimbabwe's ZANU-PF
government and the international donor community to mobilise food aid to
avert an impending crisis has been met with assurances by government that
"no one will starve".
"There is a general consensus that Zimbabwe's
2006/07 cereal production has
to be complemented by imports of over one
million mt [metric tonnes] if the
country is to meet cereal requirements for
the 2007/08 consumption year,"
said the latest overview of sub-Saharan food
security by Famine Early
Warning Systems (FEWS NET), published in
June.
"The government and donor community need to mobilise for an
immediate and
coordinated response to address the growing levels of [food]
insecurity in
the country," said the US-based FEWS NET, which provides food
security
information on 17 countries in the region.
Zimbabwe's
agriculture minister, Rugare Gumbo, admitted in June that the
country was
facing a food crisis after a growing season marred by drought
and widespread
shortages of inputs, and that maize production of between
600,00mt and
800,000mt "falls far short of the national requirement of about
two million
mt".
After publication of the FEWS NET report, the deputy minister of
information, Bright Matonga, told the official daily newspaper, The Herald,
that "no one will starve".
The Food and Agriculture Organisation
(FAO) and the World Food Programme
(WFP) recently conducted a joint
assessment of food security and found that
Zimbabwe had produced around
1,055,000mt of cereals, around 300,000mt more
than government
estimates.
The assessment said more than a third of the population would
require food
aid by early 2008, and the country would have to import a total
of
1,052,000mt of cereals: 813,000mt of maize, and the remainder as sorghum,
wheat and millet.
To partially bridge the gap, the government has
bought 400,000mt of maize
from Malawi, of which 70,000mt had been imported
by June, according to FEWS
NET.
The current winter wheat-growing
season started poorly as a result of
inadequate fuel, fertiliser, equipment
and expertise, while an unreliable
electricity supply has hampered
irrigation.
Food insecurity was worsening, the report said, particularly
in the
southwestern parts of the country, which traditionally experienced
arid
conditions.
Here households were "already running out of food
stocks from their current
harvests", a situation that was being compounded
by the unreliability of
other sources of cereals, like the Grain Marketing
Board (GMB), the
government's official buyer.
Inflation
The
hyperinflationary environment - over 4,000 percent annually - has led to
a
steep rise in grain prices, making it difficult for consumers to access
staple foods such as maize, FEWS NET said.
The report cited
Chimanimani and Nyanga in Manicaland Province, the southern
districts of
Masvingo Province, as well as Hwange and Nkayi in Matebeleland
North
Province as having been particularly affected by rocketing prices.
"The
annual rate of inflation has continuously increased, and most
households
have not been able to meet their minimum food requirements and
non-food
requirements, and instead have cut back on expenses for education,
transport
and medical services," FEWS NET commented.
"Soon after harvests, most
households are already out of own production
stocks," and have consumed what
was already often a diminished or poor crop.
Around 80 percent of the
country's 12 million people live below the poverty
datum line, with the
Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) saying an average
family of six needed
Z$5.5 million (US$22 at the parallel market rate of
Z$250,000 to US$1) to
sustain themselves in May.
The government imposed stringent price
controls after daily increases in the
prices of commodities and other
services by business attempting to cushion
itself against the effects of
inflation.
Scores of businesspeople were jailed for not complying with
government's
edict and many formal-sector firms heeded the instructions, but
others have
scaled down their operations or stopped production, resulting in
an acute
shortage of food items and a growing reliance on sourcing food from
the
parallel market, where goods are available but at much higher
prices.
Rural areas
During a recent trip to Mhondoro, a district
in Mashonaland West Province,
an IRIN correspondent found many rural
households severely affected by food
shortages.
"Our harvests were
poor and, as a result, we were depending on shops and the
owners of grinding
mills for maize, but after the crackdown on shops, grain
is no longer
available," a villager, who declined to be identified, told
IRIN.
"When sugar is available, we have tea and sweet potatoes in
mid-morning, and
then sadza (thick maizemeal porridge, a staple dish) and
vegetables grown in
our gardens in the evenings," she said.
"But
since maize is hard to come buy, we are now mostly surviving on maheu
(a
mildly alcoholic home brew made of maizemeal) and the sweet potatoes,
which
could run out at any time."
She said the local GMB depot was not
providing them with maize because it
wanted to build up reserves, and
farmers who had managed to produce
surpluses were not selling to the GMB
because of delayed payments. Instead,
they sold directly to the informal
market, where cash was paid immediately,
or they smuggled their harvest to
neighbouring countries to sell it for a
more stable
currency.
This article does not necessarily reflect the views of
the United Nations
By Violet
Gonda
23 July 2007
It's reported the SADC-led talks on Zimbabwe
hang in the balance over the
issue of the constitution - a key issue on the
MDC's agenda. South Africa
based journalist Basildon Peta said in a report
that "efforts to resolve the
crisis in Zimbabwe are hanging by a thread"
because Robert Mugabe is
refusing to negotiate a new constitution with the
opposition. Sources say
ZANU PF representatives met with South African
officials Sydney Mufamadi and
Frank Chikane last Monday, but said they were
only prepared to amend the
current constitution.
Mugabe recently said
there was no need for a new constitution as the present
one has served the
country well, despite being amended a record 17 times
since independence.
Sources close to ZANU PF say the consensus within the
ruling party is that
the issue of the constitution should evolve from the
Zimbabwe Parliament and
not as part of a SADC initiative.
A source said: "Mugabe is expected to
announce on Tuesday, during the
opening of parliament, that the next session
of parliament is going to
discuss constitutional amendment 18, which
includes the harmonization and
conduct of elections. That is why he
tactfully sent Patrick Chinamasa and
Nicholas Goche to South Africa last
week ahead of this announcement. He didn't
want to be seen to be just saying
it off the top, without briefing Thabo
Mbeki about the position of ZANU
PF."
Given ZANU PF's majority in parliament the clauses in amendment 18
will be
tailor-made to perpetuate its power and Mugabe's rule. The
discussions so
far had been to agree the agenda for the talks, and a new
constitution was
part of this agreement for discussion. But now Mugabe is
reneging on this
agreement.
Sydney Masamvu, a senior analyst for Southern
Africa for the International
Crisis Group said that the MDC had invested its
soul, spirit and work in the
talks but seemed to have no other political
answers.
Masamvu added: "On the other hand while ZANU PF is tactfully
engaged in the
talks, it continues with a political programme running in
Zimbabwe. Mugabe
is moving ahead with amendments to the constitution, he is
moving to seal
off the rural areas and moving on with the voter registration
exercise,
while there continues to be this absence of a political leverage
on the part
of the opposition."
The whole paralysis of the SADC
initiative comes ahead of the August 16th
summit in Lusaka where Zambia is
supposed to take over the chairmanship from
South Africa. This is where
President Mbeki is expected to brief the
regional leaders on the progress of
the talks. The details of the talks are
shrouded in secrecy but it had been
reported that both ZANU PF and the MDC
had also been discussing the
possibilities of using a 2004 draft
constitution created by the principal
players. But sources say ZANU PF has
rejected this idea as this constitution
would dismantle its hold on state
institutions.
SW Radio Africa
Zimbabwe news
By Tichaona
Sibanda
23 July 2007
The government is reported to have backed off
from a controversial plan to
ban fuel coupons and food imports into the
country, clearly indicating that
it is the chaos theory that is running the
country.
The regime last week gave fuel coupon holders two weeks in which to
redeem
them, creating a wave of panic as people rushed to exchange their
coupons
for fuel.
As fuel completely ran out the Zimbabwe Standard
reported that there were
chaotic scenes on the streets as thousands more
commuters had to walk to
work.
It is believed the crisis at most garages
prompted the government to
reconsider its decision on the coupons, now rated
by industry and commerce
as the most convenient way of accessing fuel for
over 70 percent of
motorists.
Industry and International Trade Minister
Obert Mpofu tried to back down
from the chaos by telling business people at
a Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce meeting that his statement on fuel
coupons had been misinterpreted.
Harare businessman Bernard Chiondegwa said
the new law on food imports
announced by the government last week were
photocopies of laws first enacted
by the Smith regime in 1965.
'The
Rhodesians used this law to stop people from buying goods from outside
to
try and keep the foreign currency within the country's borders. It worked
because people had alternatives. There were no shortages because the economy
was doing well as it was agro-based, but since agriculture was killed there
is nothing to sustain the economy with,' Chiondegwa said.
Chiondegwa said
what surprised him was that government did not bother to
edit or panel beat
the law from the Rhodesian era but simply changed the
dates and the
statutory instrument numbers.
'If you read the law that was first enacted in
1965 and amended in 1974, 77,
and 78 you will see it is exactly the same
with its full stops and comas to
statutory instruments 137 and 138. This is
the work of a government that has
failed and that has no other ideas,' said
Chiondegwa.
The importation of beef, butter, cooking oil, milk, cheese,
sugar, tea,
wheat flour, ice cream, fertilizer, cotton lint and hides and
skins without
a permit would have become illegal on the 1st
August.
Individuals and companies wanting to import them would have to be
first
cleared by Mpofu's ministry. But Mpofu has now said he had recalled
the
statutory instrument because it would cause a lot of
confusion.
Meanwhile informal traders and other individuals have been
streaming into
the South African border town of Musina. This comes in the
wake of the
severe shortages after the government enforced price cuts early
this month.
Retailers across the country were left with empty shelves, after
consumers
cleaned out all stock at reduced prices. The shortage of basic
groceries has
increased the number of shoppers crossing the border into
South Africa. And
retailers of household goods have experienced a huge
increase in sales. One
beneficiary of the wave of Zimbabwean buyers is Spar,
the largest retailer
in the border town.
Reports said Pieter Koekemoer,
the store manager at Spar Musina said that
sales had increased by 75 percent
in the past three weeks. Bulk buyers, also
known as runners, have driven the
increase in turnover with customers buying
goods worth up to R20 000 at a
time. Spar's bread sales have doubled in the
past month to 5 000
loaves.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
ZCTU calls for stayaway
The national labour mother body in the country, Zimbabwe Congress of
Trade
Unions (ZCTU) is scheduling a national stay away for early next month.
The
stay away is meant to pressurize the government towards addressing the
plight of workers who are living in squalor.
The ZCTU is among other
things demanding for the government to address the
following
issues:
The government must accord a remuneration system which is in
tandem with the
Poverty Datum Line (PDL). As of May 2007, before the price
blitz, the PDL
was pegged at 5.5 million whilst civil servants such as
teachers were
earning Z$2 million per month. Farm workers are earning Z$96
000 per month
in what the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZHLR) has
produced a report
in which they have argued is legalized
slavery.
Reduction of Income tax to a maximum of 30%
The government must
address the spiral circle of inflation which is
adversely affecting the
workforce. Zimbabwe's inflation rate has been ranked
the highest in the
world, currently pegged at 4 500%.
The government must address the
unemployment levels currently pegged at 85%
The labour body will announce
the actual dates of the action in due cause.
The Crisis in Zimbabwe
Coalition is in solidarity with the labour's
position. The government of
Zimbabwe has lost interest in addressing the
plight of workers. The same is
true for the retired workers who are now
living lives of destitute ass their
pension packages have been eroded by the
hyper-inflation environment which
the Zimbabwean government is presiding
over. The government of Zimbabwe,
just like any other government in the
world has an obligation of
facilitating an environment that is conducive for
both the workers and the
business for the benefit of the nation at large.
Meanwhile.
The
Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Law and Order Section has not yet
followed up
on the case of the ZCTU Secretary General Wellington Chibebe, in
which the
police are alleging that he made subversive utterances at May Day
celebrations at Rufaro Stadium in Harare. The police argued that the case is
being handled by one Officer Chikuwe who is stationed in Chivu.
The
silence over the case is suspicious, especially when the labour body is
planning a stay away. The police are likely to resuscitate its case towards
the stay away to intimidate the ZCTU leadership from going ahead with the
intended action.
SW Radio Africa Zimbabwe news
Jul-23-2007
By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service
CAPE
TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- The Southern African Catholic Bishops'
Conference said it hopes that allegations of adultery against Zimbabwean
Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo will not divert attention from the
political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe.
Noting with "sadness and
concern" the widely publicized allegations, the
bishops said they come "at a
time when Zimbabwe is facing one of the worst
political and economic crises
in its history, a crisis which Archbishop
Ncube has consistently expressed
great concern about and which we believe
the country should be focused
on."
Archbishop Ncube, an outspoken opponent of Zimbabwean President
Robert
Mugabe, plans to deny in court allegations of adultery that his
lawyer said
are part of a well-orchestrated campaign to discredit him.
According to
Zimbabwe's state media, Onesimus Sibanda is claiming $160,000
in damages
from Archbishop Ncube for the alleged affair with his wife,
Rosemary
Sibanda.
A July 20 statement issued by Archbishop Buti
Tlhagale of Johannesburg,
South Africa, president of the Southern African
Catholic Bishops'
Conference, said many Catholics in Zimbabwe are suffering
because of the
country's economic crisis, which is causing "a huge number"
to seek refuge
in neighboring countries, crossing borders "at great danger
to their lives."
Food and fuel shortages are acute in Zimbabwe, which is
crippled by the
highest rate of inflation in the world and unemployment of
more than 80
percent. With elections scheduled for March, political violence
has
intensified, causing many to flee. More than 5,000 Zimbabweans have been
arrested for illegally crossing the South African border since the beginning
of July. About 3 million Zimbabweans are believed to already be in South
Africa.
Archbishop Ncube's "voice of reason in this context is very
important and
should continue to be heard," the bishops said.
"We
therefore hope that Zimbabweans and the international community will not
be
sidetracked" by these allegations in their efforts to find "a lasting
solution to the serious problems bedeviling the country," the bishops
said.
Noting that Archbishop Ncube's "guilt or innocence has yet to be
proved,"
the bishops appealed to "the media and everyone concerned to allow
the law
to take its course without passing premature judgment on the
archbishop."
"We call on all the faithful in Zimbabwe and the
international community to
continue to pray for the archbishop during this
... period," they said.
END
zimbabwejournalists.com
23rd Jul 2007 18:30 GMT
By Nothando
Motsipe
HARARE - Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)
parliamentarians will for the
first time since 2002 attend the official
opening of Parliament by President
Robert Mugabe on Tuesday.
The MDC
has since the disputed March 2002 presidential elections been
refusing to be
addressed by Mugabe as the opposition party claimed he had
stolen the
election that could have enable them to form the next Zimbabwe
government.
Legislators walked out every time Mugabe's procession
came through the
august house's doors, saying they did not recognise him as
the elected
leader of Zimbabwe. The MPs, however, contributed to debate on
Mugabe's
address after he presented it.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
said in a statement on Monday that he had
instructed his MPs to attend the
official opening in the spirit of the SADC
Heads of State initiated
dialogue.
Said Tsvangirai: "On 29 March 2007, the SADC Heads of State, at
a meeting in
Tanzania, resolved to appoint President Thabo Mbeki of South
Africa to
broker dialogue between the MDC and the government."
"That
dialogue, although fraught with difficulties and challenges, has in
fact
commenced. As a gesture of our bona fide belief in this dialogue, I
have
duly instructed our MPs to attend the official opening of Parliament on
24
July 2007."
Tsvangirai said the MDC's National Council meeting held in
March 2002, had
noted with great unhappiness and regret, the fact of the
stolen Presidential
election of the same year.
"Pursuant to this, the
MDC initiated a Presidential election petition to
challenge this result. The
MDC resolved in the same National Council meeting
that the candidate then
elected as President was illegitimate and that the
people's will had been
subverted.
"Over the years and pursuant to this resolution, the MDC has
boycotted all
functions and events presided over by the aforesaid "winning"
candidate,"
said Tsvangirai.
He noted that Zimbabwe is in a serious
crisis that has seen the erosion of
the people's dignity, a crisis that has
resulted in the lot of people losing
confidence in their own
government.
Inflation, officially pegged at 4 500 per cent, remains the
highest in the
world. The education and health delivery systems have
virtually collapsed
while an ill-advised populist policy to slash prices has
resulted in empty
shelves and imminent food shortages in an economy already
battered by 10
consecutive years of negative growth rates.
"With this
decision, it is my sincere hope that Zanu PF and President Robert
Mugabe
will also show restraint and maturity. In this regard, the withdrawal
of
Constitutional Amendment No 18 that is currently awaiting its first
reading
in the Lower House will be a good and decisive confidence-building
measure.
The cessation of violence against the MDC and indeed the immediate
release
of our cadres that are unlawfully detained at Harare remand prison
will be
another equally decisive measure," said Tsvangirai.
From: "Sokwanele" <info@sokwanele.com>
Dear
Friends,
We have received an email asking us to circulate information
that there will
be a multi-denominational prayer service held Wednesday, at
St Mary's
Cathedral, Lobengula Street, Bulawayo, from 1-2 pm.
This is
a prayer service to enable all to stand in solidarity with
Archbishop Pius
Ncube.
What: Multi-denomination prayer service in support of Archbishop
Pius Ncube
Where: St Mary's Cathedral, Lobengula Street, Bulawayo
When:
Wednesday 25 July 2007, 1-2pm
Please can you circulate this information
widely.
Many thanks,
Sokwanele
--
SOKWANELE -
ZVAKWANA - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
Visit our website at: www.sokwanele.com
Visit our blog at: www.sokwanele.com/thisiszimbabwe
Mail and Guardian
Harare, Zimbabwe
23 July 2007
02:03
A woman in Zimbabwe had her leg broken in a crush of
people
desperate to buy scarce sugar following a delivery in the eastern
town of
Marondera, reports said on Monday.
A queue about
800m long built up on Saturday outside a
supermarket where 30 tonnes of
sugar had just been delivered, said the
state-controlled Herald
newspaper.
But pandemonium broke out as people jostled in the
queue,
resulting in a wall collapsing and part of a security fence being
flattened.
Riot police with dogs had to be called in to
control the crowd,
the paper said.
Sugar, like most
basics including cooking oil, flour and maize
meal have disappeared from
shop shelves in recent weeks following the
governments blitz on high
prices.
Retailers were late last month ordered to sell sugar
for about
Z$30 000 per 2kg packet, resulting in chronic shortages in
supermarkets.
Sugar is now readily available on the black
market for at least
five times the official price.
Some
residents in Marondera on Saturday said the situation was
made worse by
abuses by the police, who themselves bought sugar ahead of
people already in
the queue. -- Sapa-dpa
IPS news
Michael Deibert
PARIS, Jul 23 (IPS) - While China's growing
trade and investment flows to
Africa have sparked a sometimes contentious
debate with the United States
and Europe over who has the continent's best
interests at heart, a closer
look at the dynamic developing reveals a
political landscape where the
rhetoric is rarely in line with the reality,
observers say.
When a recent World Bank report revealed that trade
between Africa, the
European Union (EU) and the U.S. is nearly equalled by
that between Africa
and Asia, a closer look at the numbers brought the
picture of China's
involvement in Africa into even starker
relief.
African exports to China grew 48 percent annually between 1999
and 2004,
with 10 percent of all sub-Saharan exports now destined for the
Asian
behemoth. Likewise, as a whole, over the last five years Asian exports
to
Africa increased at an annual rate of 18 percent, higher than that of any
other region, including the EU.
China's deepening involvement in
Africa has been driven by its domestic
demand for the natural resources and
raw materials that are needed to
support its population of 1.3 billion and a
booming economy -- the country
has the second-largest economy after the U.S.
and the world's largest
current account surplus nearly 180 billion
dollars.
It is a development that is profoundly -- and, many believe,
permanently --
changing the nature of Africa's relationship with the former
colonial powers
of the EU, and re-writing the nature of African realpolitik.
But at present
the EU remains Africa's largest trading partner with trade
totalling more
than 200 billion euros in 2006.
"I think it's going to
dramatically change the diplomatic and economic
landscape," says Mamadou
Diouf, a noted West African scholar who directs the
Institute for African
Studies at Columbia University. "In the previous world
defined by the Cold
War, the pressure was much more ideological, Africa had
to align itself
ideologically rather than come up with its own agenda. Today
they are
negotiating between different choices and possibilities."
The seeming
lack of conditionality to China's aid, such as the absence of
any
stipulation based on anti-corruption measures, as well as the speed with
which it is dispersed have both proved attractive to African governments
with varying degrees of accountability and respect for human
rights.
"China's zero-condition policy is appealing to a country which
doesn't have
very transparent reporting and budgetary mechanisms," says
Katherine
Constabile, an Africa analyst with the New York-based Eurasia
Group, a
global political risk consultancy.
Among the more
controversial aspects of China's involvement in Africa is
that of the
PetroChina company, a subsidiary of the state-controlled China
National
Petroleum Corporation, which owns a major stake in Sudan's national
oil
consortia, and maintains extensive operations there.
To help meet its
demand for fuel, China purchased more than half of Sudan's
oil exports in
2006. Critics charge that profits from these sales have
enabled the Khartoum
government to buy weapons with which to continue its
military operations --
both directly and by proxy -- in the nation's Darfur
region.
The
Sudanese military and government-aligned Janjaweed militia forces stand
accused here of carrying out war crimes against the area's civilian
population. The chaos engulfing Darfur has claimed an estimated 200,000
lives, mainly civilians, since 2003, according to a study published in the
journal Science.
Some in Africa, though, despite being skeptical of
China's motives, see a
certain amount of selective memory in the West's
position.
"Both the U.S. and Western Europe, particularly over the last
two decades,
have linked their involvement in Africa -- whether trade or
other -- with
demands for reform or better governance and a more democratic
substance,"
says Ayesha Kajee, programme director with the International
Human Rights
Exchange (IHRE) at the University of the Witwatersrand in
Johannesburg,
South Africa.
"But elections have come to represent the
be all and end all, with very few
(African) governments paying more than lip
service to them," Kajee says.
"When it comes to the institutions of
democracy, and instituting democratic
practice in society, the U.S. and
Europe haven't been half as vocal."
Western powers, even in recent years,
have appeared to be willing to turn a
forgiving eye to questionable regimes
when the moment suited them.
In 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush
invited Ethiopian President Meles
Zenawi to the White House, and then
conducted a high-profile meeting with
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
outside of Kampala in 2003. Both men had
also enjoyed warm relations with
the administration of former president Bill
Clinton.
Zenawi's
government has been accused of massacring nearly 200 protestors
around the
Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in violent upheaval following
disputed May
2005 elections, and routinely jails opposition politicians. He
has been
named 'Predator of Press Freedom' by the journalist's advocacy
group
Reporters Sans Frontières.
During elections in 2005, Museveni arrested
Uganda's main opposition leader,
Kizza Besigye, and posted heavily-armed
government partisans around the
court where his bail hearing was being
held.
At the same time, the EU seems willing to engage in a bit of its
own
non-conditionality to adapt its Africa involvement to this new reality
with
the announcement that it will invite Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe
to
an EU-Africa summit scheduled in Lisbon this coming December, despite
Mugabe
being the subject of an EU travel ban.
Mugabe stands accused
of gross human rights abuses and economic
mismanagement in his 27-year rule
of his country, once one of Africa's
richest. Zimbabwe's inflation is now
believed by unofficial estimates to
measure around 15,000 percent. A recent
report by the New York-based group
Human Rights Watch concluded that "police
routinely arrest and detain
political opponents and government critics, and
then abuse them in custody."
The African Union (AU), a body of 53 African
states formed in 2001 with the
ostensible aim of integrating the region's
currency and its defence forces,
as well as promoting human rights, had
threatened to boycott the summit if
Mugabe was excluded.
Stepping
into this landscape of grey area and compromise, Chinese President
Hu Jintao
has visited 17 countries on the continent during the last year,
making him
the most frequent visitor among heads of state.
"The EU knows how much
influence China has in Africa, they know that it's
profound and that it has
implications on EU-Africa relations," says Veronika
Tywuschik, an academic
researcher based in the Netherlands currently
exploring Chinese-African
relations.
In a June report 'From Cairo to Lisbon -- The EU-Africa
Strategic
Partnership', the European Commission, which serves as the
executive body of
the European Union, called for a reassessment of EU-Africa
relations based
on "a genuine partnership of equals."
The report went
on to say that the new understanding between the two regions
should "promote
peace and security, governance and human rights, trade and
regional and
continental integration in Africa" as well as to "facilitate
and promote a
broad-based and wide-ranging people-centred partnership for
all people in
Africa and Europe."
In an almost musical corollary, though, in late June,
China's
state-controlled China Development Bank commenced the first phase,
measuring
a billion dollars, of its 5-billion-dollar China-Africa
Development Fund.
Belying China's supposed carte blanche to its African
counterparts, this aid
in fact comes with many strings attached, though
none, perhaps attractively
for some governments, related to human rights or
anti-corruption.
The conditions include that the aid's availability will
be restricted solely
to investment in Chinese enterprises and projects in
Africa, and that 70
percent of the contracts be set aside for Chinese
companies, with the rest
going to African businesses, many already working
with Chinese enterprises.
Despite all the sound and fury, some Africa
observers say, what we may be
witnessing is the same old networking simply
presented in a new wrapping.
"By and large, when you look at foreign
interest in Africa, it is still
directly linked to geo-strategic concerns,"
says Human Rights Exchange's
Kajee.
Mineweb
Billy Rautenbach swears blind that he wasn't arrested or
detained in
Lubumbashi, but confirms his departure, and names his perceived
enemy, while
DRC demurs.
Author: Barry Sergeant
Posted: Monday ,
23 Jul 2007
JOHANNESBURG -
Muller Conrad "Billy" Rautenbach has
insisted that he spent last Wednesday
night with friends in Lubumbashi and
left on Thursday morning when the
runway reopened. This contradicts a
statement last Thursday by the
government of the Democratic Republic of the
Congo (DRC), where it was said
that Rautenbach was arrested and subsequently
deported to Zimbabwe, in
enforcement of a persona non grata order against
Rautenbach, unveiled last
Wednesday.
Speaking through a Johannesburg
publicity agent, Rautenbach categorically
states that "he was not
interviewed nor interrogated by immigration
officials, his passport was not
confiscated and he was not detained as
certain media articles have claimed".
Rautenbach is wanted by law
enforcement agents in South Africa, and by
Interpol.
Rautenbach's claims are in line with earlier statements by
Central African
Mining & Exploration Company (CAMEC, CFM.L, £0.58 a
share), in which he is a
shareholder, which questioned the authenticity of
the DRC's persona non
grata declaration. As to authenticity of his latest
experience, Rautenbach
did not hesitate in supplying copies of the relevant
pages of his passport,
where a handwritten note provides on page 41:
"L'interesse n'est plus
autorise d'entrer en Republique Democratique du
Congo". Another on page 42
states: "Entrée non authorisee en DRC". There are
no official stamps near or
over the handwritten annotations.
On
Monday, the DRC government said via a London publicity agent that
Rautenbach's latest claims directly contradicts the facts, the statements
for the record of Moise Katumba Chapwe, governor of Katanga Province, and
the statement of Denis Kalume, the minister of the
interior.
Rautenbach also directly named his key "enemy," by stating that
he believes
the current "dispute relates to Dan Gertler of RP Capital". RP
Capital is in
fact a manager of hedge funds, and while Gertler may have
invested in
certain underlying RP Capital funds, he is certainly not "of RP
Capital".
Rautenbach argues that Gertler "would have liked to have
acquired the
Katanga [Mining] asset and that investors should ignore the
background noise
and focus on the fundamentals". Katanga Mining (KAT.T,
C$22.32) is one of
the three really big Katanga Province assets currently
benefiting from heavy
foreign investment.
RP Capital holds a stake in
Katanga Mining, and also in Nikanor (NKR.L,
£6.27), in which Gertler is a
founding shareholder, and which is to be found
with properties alongside
those of Katanga Mining. The third mega mine is
being established on virgin
ground at Tenké Fungurume, by Tenké Mining
Corporation (TNK.T, C$24.00),
owned 57.75% in turn by copper giant Freeport
McMoRan (FCX,
$99.05).
Two weeks ago CAMEC, which purportedly purchased its Katanga
Province assets
from Rautenbach, announced an unsolicited bid for the 78% it
does not hold
in Katanga Mining. Since then CAMEC's stock price has slipped
from 80 to as
low as 56.75 pence a share.
From Mining Weekly (SA), 20 July
By Barnabas Thondhlana
Skilled mining
personnel from Zimbabwe have left the country for greener
pastures, with
many opting for menial jobs to make a living, a senior mining
executive
says. Chamber of Mines president Jack Murehwa tells Mining Weekly
that
Zimbabwean mining companies used to be led by the best brains "but we
are
into a period where the worst managers are leading and, as we speak,
second-rate and mediocre managers are leading operations". "This applies to
all sectors because our skilled personnel cannot afford houses and cars and
their wages are no longer enough to meet basic needs." Describing the
situation as desperate, Murehwa says: "Metallurgists are driving trash
trucks in Europe, experienced mining engineers are teaching geography in
South Africa and human resources practitioners are nursing the elderly in
the UK." Murehwa says at least 40 000 workers have resigned or lost
employment in Zimbabwe's mining industry in the last ten years, adding that
more professionals could leave. He says that the closure of mines and the
slump in output has scared away both skilled workers and potential investors
in the industry, which, in 1997, employed 75 000.
The mining sector
now employs about 35 000 but there are fears that more
skilled professionals
could leave this year. The bulk of the workers are
destined for the South
African, Zambian and Mozambican mining industries,
which are growing on the
back of fresh foreign investment inflows. "At the
height of the relatively
good times, which was not so long ago, formal
mining companies had the
capacity to employ about 75 000 employees," Murehwa
said. He says that, as a
result of the brain drain, Zimbabwe gold producers'
capacity use has
plummeted to below 25%. The gold-mining industry - as well
as other sectors
of the mining industry and the rest of the economy - is
reeling under
rolling power cuts and late payments for gold delivered to the
Reserve Bank
of Zimbabwe (RBZ), the sole authorised buyer of gold and
silver. "I do not
see any increase in gold production in the near future, if
the situation
remains like this," he says. An official at a leading
gold-mining firm, who
spoke on condition of anonymity, says payment delays
and power cuts are
hurting operations. "We know that the situation is not so
favourable for
many business operations in the country, but it will not be
as bad as it is
now if we got our payments on time," says the official. RBZ
governor Dr
Gideon Gono acknowledged the challenges facing the gold-miners
during a
familiarisation tour of RioZim's Renco mine and pledged to assist
wherever
possible. He said the central bank was crafting strategies aimed at
bringing
the sector back on its feet, adding that no mine would be allowed
to shut
down. The Chamber of Mines has indicated that gold output is likely
to fall
by 23% this year to about 8 700 kg, from 11 354 kg last year, a far
cry from
the 27 000 kg produced in 1989.
20 July
2007
Development
experts set out 100 day agenda for post-Mugabe
EMBARGOED UNTIL 16.00 FRIDAY JULY
20, 2007
A report setting out a 100 day
agenda for a post-Mugabe
Release of the report has been
brought forward in light of the current hyper-inflation and likely imminent
collapse of the regime. “Mugabe’s inability to pay soldiers’ wages, provide
basic services to the people or prevent total economic meltdown signals that his
regime is in its terminal stages”, says
The report agues that while the
nature of the new Zimbabwean Government is uncertain, unless it has a clear
plan, the political will to implement it and firm and timely support from the
international community, then
The report sets out sixty
recommendations for action by the new Government within its first 100 days of
office. Some of the key ones include:
·
Liberalise and unify official
exchange rates.
·
Demonstrate commitment to greater
fiscal responsibility.
·
Scrap price
controls
·
Build the capacity of the
President’s Office and the Cabinet Office to drive the 100 Day
Agenda
·
Build the capacity of the Ministry
of Finance and line ministries to operate basic
budgets.
·
Encourage the return to government
of competent civil servants
·
Ensure government salaries can be
distributed efficiently.
·
Replace inappropriate high level
police officials and develop a code of conduct for all police
officers.
·
Bring back competent police officers
from the Officers’ Pool
·
Collaborate with UN agencies and
NGOs to rapidly upscale their provision of basic health
services.
·
Prioritise the restoration of
electricity and water supplies to hospitals and health
centres.
·
Help teachers return to
school.
·
Restore vital water generating
infrastructure; build ZINWA’s capacity to fulfil its core
functions.
·
Design a simple constitutional
reform process and publicise it well.
·
Repeal repressive media legislation
and encourage independent media organisations.
·
Repeal legislation restricting
academic freedom
·
Establish a Central Communications
Unit to direct a comprehensive communications strategy in support of
reform
The report suggests that from the
outset all efforts must be focussed on fostering a sense of national identity
and a shared vision for the future of the country. It highlights the need for
the new government to develop a very clear and coherent short-term policy agenda
that manages expectations of what can be achieved and creates enough political
space to begin solving many of the more long-term and intractable problems that
will face the country.
Critically the paper focuses on the
importance of using modern government communication techniques to build domestic
support and understanding, harness the goodwill of the international community,
and secure the return of exiles. A separate section of the report addresses
western governments and international donor organisations. The reports stresses
that “the international community will need to provide high quality advice and
assistance to the new Government as soon as possible. It will be vital to build
up the momentum for reform from the earliest days. Lessons must be learnt from
the crises in
The report points out that
According to the report, ‘
The report as a whole focuses on the
practical steps that will have to be taken quickly to take
ENDS
For further information please
contact:
·
·
Zane
Kanderian, Project Manager, Tel; 07980 622517
Zane.Kanderian@adamsmithinternational.com
Note to
editors:
Adam Smith International (ASI) is a
leading independent, employee-owned international development consultancy, based
in
For more information please visit
our website, www.adamsmithinternational.com
(Adam Smith International should not be confused with the Adam Smith Institute.
The two are different and distinct organisations).
Zane
Kanderian
Social
Development Adviser
Adam Smith
International
+44 (0)20
7091 3511
+44
(0)7980 622 517
Front Page Magazine
By Joseph
Klein
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 23, 2007
They call themselves the
"Elders," a group of self-described "wise men and
women" that former South
African President Nelson Mandela launched last week
on the occasion of his
89th birthday. Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan and Mary
Robinson (former Irish
President and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights)
are joining Mandela and
a bevy of other has-beens to offer their services as
roaming freelance
diplomats. They are being financed in part by British
tycoon Richard Branson
and Ted Turner's UN Foundation.
"The Elders won't get involved delivering
bed nets for malaria prevention,"
said Jimmy Carter. "The issue is to fill
vacuums - to address major issues
that aren't being adequately
addressed."
Translated, this means that the Elders won't be doing
anything useful for
suffering human beings. Instead, they will continue
their legacy of
wrong-headed solutions to problems they do not understand.
Individually,
they were bad enough. Together, they have formed a club that
no
clear-thinking person would want to join or consult.
Jimmy
Carter himself is the most glaring example of a walking vacuum, bereft
of
any sensible ideas or understanding of what is at stake in our fight
against
global terrorism. His fellow "Elders" are no
improvement.
Carter's presidency was the antithesis of effective
world leadership. During
his watch, Iran's terror-sponsoring theocracy took
power and brazenly held
Americans hostage for more than a year without
paying any price. Islamic
terrorists were watching. The Soviet Union
expanded its empire by force
culminating in its invasion of Afghanistan,
which led in turn to the birth
of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organization.
Carter did nothing except
administer a slap on the wrist by keeping our
athletes away from the 1980
Moscow Olympics.
Since his sound
defeat by Ronald Reagan, Carter has continued to make a fool
of himself and
embarrass his country. Learning nothing from his fruitless
attempts to
negotiate the release of the hostages when he was President,
Carter now
demands that we enter into fruitless negotiations with Iranian
President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has vowed to wipe Israel off the face of
the earth.
This madman reportedly participated in the 1979 taking of
American hostages
and has now presided over the recent arbitrary
imprisonment of
Iranian-American citizens while they were visiting Iran.
Carter
has never had an unkind word to say about Ahmadinejad, Saddam
Hussein,
Castro, Hugo Chavez, or any other dictator. Their atrocious human
rights
records have not attracted any attention from this self-described
human
rights advocate. They can all be reasoned with, Carter
believes.
Likewise, Carter is an apologist for terrorists. He has gone
out of his way
to praise the Iranian-armed terrorist group Hamas and said
recently that it
was "criminal" for the U.S., Israel, the European Union,
and the Arab League
to shun these murderers of their own people who continue
to vow the
destruction of Israel.
Of course, Carter has no
interest in the survival of the only true democracy
in the Middle East.
Indeed, his recent inflammatory book, Palestine: Peace,
Not Apartheid,
compared Israel with apartheid era South Africa. Carter the
Elder wrote a
worthy sequel to the notorious "Protocol of the Elders of
Zion."
Fourteen officials of his own Carter Center resigned
in protest against the
lies and distortions in Carter's propaganda screed.
In a joint letter to
Carter they declared, "We can no longer endorse your
strident and
uncompromising position. This is not the Carter Center or the
Jimmy Carter
we came to respect and support." One Carter Center board member
went even
further, stating that Carter has "abandoned his traditional
position of
honest broker and mediator," and "goes so far as to condone
terrorism until
such a time a Palestinian state is
achieved."
Actually, Jimmy Carter has not changed at all -
unfortunately it took some
of his supporters more than twenty years to see
what was there all along.
The late Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick
Moynihan understood. He put it
best when he described Carter this way back
in 1980: "Unable to distinguish
between our friends and our enemies, he has
adopted our enemies' view of the
world."
Then there is
Carter's fellow-Elder, former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
During his
tenure, Annan appeased some of the world's worst dictators and
state
sponsors of terrorism. He conferred what he called the UN's "unique
legitimacy" on them in order to show how 'even-handed' he
was.
For example, Annan declared that Saddam Hussein was someone
"I think I can
do business with" (which, in a sense, the UN did via the
looting of the
Oil-for-Food program in which Annan's staff participated).
And he referred
to the Islamic-fascist regime in Iran as a "partner" in
negotiations. Annan
preferred shaking hands and being photographed with
Iran's thugs rather than
standing up to them in the name of human rights.
Back in 2003, during one of
his visits to Iran, student dissidents
criticized Annan for being "deaf to
the screams of the demonstrators down
the street while elements of the
regime, brandishing clubs and chains, were
smashing the bones of Iranian
workers, mothers and
students."
Annan's "partner" in negotiations, Iran, is also a
state sponsor of
terrorist organizations. Iran's leaders have outsourced the
killing of
innocent people to Hamas and Hezbollah. Denying all sense of
reality, the
United Nations under Kofi Annan refused to acknowledge even
that Hamas or
Hezbollah were part of a dangerous global terrorist network
whose common
denominator is Islamic fascism, let alone Iran's connection to
them.
Here is a revealing exchange with Kofi Annan's press
spokesperson at a daily
press briefing in January 2006 regarding
Hamas:
Question: Does the Secretary-General consider Hamas to be
a terrorist
organization?
Spokesman: The Secretary-General has
denounced in clear terms every time any
organization has done a terrorist
act, including when those acts were
claimed by Hamas.
Question:
But that doesn't answer my question.
Spokesman: There is no United
Nations label that I know of, of a terrorist
organization.
During last year's war between Israel and
Hezbollah, which Hezbollah
precipitated, Kofi Annan focused his criticism on
Israel. He falsely
proclaimed to the world that Israel was guilty of
"apparently deliberate
targeting" of a UN observation post, killing four
observers. Even after it
came to light that the Hezbollah terrorists had
positioned themselves all
around the UN observation post and drew fire on
it, which led to the tragic
accidental deaths of the UN observers, Kofi
Annan did not apologize for his
rash accusations against
Israel.
Mary Robinson, another of the 'distinguished' Elders, was
Kofi Annan's
choice as the United Nation's High Commissioner for Human
Rights. Like Annan
and Carter, she indulged dictators while condemning
Western democracies.
For example, Robinson presided over the
"World Conference against Racism,
Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance" that turned into
a non-stop hatefest against Jews and
Israel. She remained silent while her
commission was deciding to condone
suicide bombings as a legitimate means to
establish Palestinian statehood.
She has since lamented that the U.S. was
not continuing to embrace Jimmy
Carter's failed foreign policy and
criticized our wise decision to oppose
the new UN Human Rights Council
travesty.
Nelson Mandela, the
leading "Elder," has squandered any moral authority that
he had garnered
while ushering in South Africa's post-apartheid pluralistic
democracy. He
has voiced strong support for such dictators as Fidel Castro,
and Libya's
Moammar Qaddafi, while declaring that "[I]f there is a country
that has
committed unspeakable atrocities in the world, it is the United
States of
America."
Mandela accused both President Bush and Tony Blair of
undermining the United
Nations during Kofi Annan's tenure, asking
rhetorically whether this is
"because the secretary general of the United
Nations [Ghanaian Kofi Annan]
is now a black man? They never did that when
secretary generals were white."
Mandela has remained strangely
silent on the brutality occurring daily on
his own continent against black
Africans. For example, he has chosen not to
condemn the Mugabe dictatorship
in Zimbabwe for the suffering that it has
caused its own people and has
opposed any sanctions against Mugabe. Adotei
Akwei, Africa advocacy director
of Amnesty International USA, was quoted as
saying about the silence of
Mandela that "[I]f Mandela would speak out that
would be a big breakthrough.
But in addition to his disinclination to attack
Mugabe, the 'liberator' of
Zimbabwe, in the past, Mandela is a very loyal
person, and he has known
Mugabe a long time."
In other words, Mandela's blind loyalty to a
brutal dictator trumps speaking
out against the horrible violations of human
rights taking place today in
Mandela's own backyard. This is not a legacy to
be proud of. He certainly
has no business telling us how to behave in the
world.
Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson, and their
club of
fools all share one fundamental flaw. Each of them demonstrated time
and
again a willingness to accommodate the enemies of freedom at all cost in
order to pursue an illusory peace. It is time for these "Elders" to disband
before they can do even more harm in unison.