Zimbabwe Weekly Update- 17/11/09

The three principals in Zimbabwe’s coalition government met on Friday to negotiate a solution to outstanding issues threatening the power-sharing agreement.

President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara face a 30-day deadline set by the SADC Troika. 

Botswana’s President Ian Khama has again called for the holding of new elections in Zimbabwe as a strategy to break the country’s political impasse. 

SADC ministers have recommended that Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono should be dismissed to save the unity government. President Mugabe (who has vowed that Gono will never be fired) has meanwhile remained silent on the scandalous findings of the Auditor General’s report, which recently exposed massive looting of state coffers through Reserve Bank channels.

The Chamber of Mines has sought the intervention of Finance minister Tendai Biti in a bid to recover funds misappropriated from its members by the central bank over the years. 

Local government minister Ignatius Chombo has dismissed the MDC deputy Mayor of Mutare and replaced him with a discredited councillor who recently defected to Zanu PF. The MDC claims that Chombo cannot dismiss a deputy mayor for no apparent reason. 

Cholera

The World Health Organisation says 116 cholera cases have been reported in Zimbabwe since August, killing five people in nine out of 62 districts in the country.

With the rainy season starting and the availability of clean drinking water in short supply, it is estimated that between 100 000 and 125 000 people could be infected this year compared to last year, when nearly 100 000 cases were reported. 

Violence

Three more soldiers died under torture on Nov. 13 at Harare’s KGIV barracks, and two others are critical. This brings to 16 the total number of soldiers tortured to death since the ‘investigation’ began.

Reports say at least 120 soldiers are being brutally ‘interrogated’ following a weapons disappearance two weeks ago at Pomona barracks. Activist groups have called for UN intervention to stop the killings. 

MDC employee Pascal Gwezere, who was abducted by state security agents from his home two weeks ago, has been severely tortured and was refused medical treatment. Gwezere was accused of breaking into a military armoury  and undergoing military training in Uganda. 

The United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has placed Zimbabwe on its “watch list” as the political and economic situation in the country deteriorates. The agency said that trafficking in human beings and drugs are on the increase. “Zimbabwe is on the Tier 2 Watch List for its failure to combat severe forms of human trafficking,” the CIA said.

A DVD documentary presented in Harare by the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe says more than 60 percent of farm workers said they were tortured and forcibly removed from their homes during commercial farm seizures since 2000. The report says abused farm workers outnumber their former white-farmer employers by 100 to one.

A dozen gun-toting soldiers reportedly ransacked an orphanage in Bulawayo last week and beat up children in the process. The soldiers went on the rampage in the Trennance suburb of the city, in what has been described as an operation to look for MDC supporters. 

Three uniformed soldiers in Darwendale beat a civilian unconscious for wearing an Anti-Kariba Draft Constitution T-shirt on Saturday. 

The continuing arrests and harassment of Zimbabwe’s trades unions were denounced by South Africa’s COSATU labour movement, the African regional organisation of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC-Africa) and the European Union. 

Diamonds

Powerful diamond trading merchants, the Rapaport Group and the RapNet Diamond Trading Network announced last Friday that it is “implementing an immediate trading ban on all diamonds from Zimbabwe due to severe human rights violations in Marange.” 

The government will allocate US$10 million for the relocation and housing of thousands of families from the militarized Chiadzwa diamond fields in eastern Zimbabwe’s Marange district, to make way for commercial extraction of the gems.

This came after a meeting of the Kimberley Process (KP), a diamond trade monitoring body, voted not to ban Zimbabwe from the world market and instead gave the country a six month deadline to improve conditions in Marange. 

Insurance giant Old Mutual has a nearly six percent share in a South African company New Reclamation Group, which is exploiting the Chiadzwa fields in a joint venture with the state’s mining and development corporation. 

Mines Minister Obert Mpofu named Mbada Minerals and Canadile Miners Pvt. Ltd. which is reported to have South African shareholders, as being the two companies presently mining the eastern Chiadzwa field.

Neither company is the legal owner of the diamond claim. Human Rights Watch says the military in control of the diamond fields has killed more than 200 people. 

Legal

Zanu PF last week tried to block the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill which aims reduce the bank chief’s powers by appointing an independent board. Introducing the Bill in the Lower House on Tuesday, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said reform was a key demand of donors and stakeholders including SADC, the World Bank, and the IMF.

But Zanu-PF officials this week stepped up their efforts to block the Bill, stating it was motivated by self-serving “personal agendas”. They said the Bill aimed to weaken Gono while giving “too much power” to Biti.

The High Court trial of MDC treasurer-general Roy Bennett, who is facing terrorism charges, commenced last Monday. The case was adjourned till Wednesday when the defence requested a new judge. Justice Bunhu did not recuse himself and the trial got under way on Thursday.

Attorney General Johannes Tomana is personally prosecuting the case, with a ’star witness’, weapons dealer Peter Hitschmann, who has already been cleared of all wrongdoing. Tomana insists that Bennett and the dealer plotted to blow up communications installations. Bennett pleads not guilty. 

MDC MP Blessing Chebundo was acquitted of rape charges in a Gweru magistrate’s court. Chebundo defeated Zanu PF senior politburo member and  Minister of Defence, Emmerson Mnangagwa, in the 2008 election. 

Scores of lawyers staged a protest march in Harare yesterday (16 Nov)  to protest the increasing intimidation tactics being used by the state against them, as they try to defend various human rights activists in the country. 

Education

Only 680 students from the University of Zimbabwe graduated on Friday, out of nearly 3000 students.  Even President Mugabe, who annually caps thousands of graduating students from the university, was shocked and said he understood the universities are faced with serious problems.

“Colleges are in mess, I am aware that there is no water, food, lecturers and a lot of other essential things,” said Mugabe, who then blamed South Africa for luring away all the lecturers. 

Business

The Presidential entourage jetted off to Egypt for the Forum on China-Africa Co-operation trade summit. China invests heavily in African resources, without regard to a nation’s human rights or governance record.

Robert Mugabe has urged other  countries in the world to emulate the example of China which he said provides “the best example” of how countries should relate globally at the economic, political and cultural levels. Analysts observed that China may overtake the EU as Africa’s biggest trading partner before long. 

Cape Town-based Circle Capital Commodities Trading has brought  an application in the Western Cape High Court for summary judgement against the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe after the bank failed to pay for an order of 40 000 metric tons of wheat worth US$6.6 million. 

The Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI) says factory output doubled in the first six months of the year and capacity utilisation had climbed to 32.3 percent from below 10 percent.

President Mugabe made a surprise announcement that the Zimbabwe dollar was coming back before the end of the year. The stock market panicked and shares nose-dived by more than 12% compared to the previous week. Some reports indicated that the Government printers are already at work on a new Zimbabwe dollar. 

Well-connected tycoon, Robert Mugabe’s cousin Philip Chiyangwa, is busy with an urban land-grab to develop property on Harare’s green belt protected area of the Borrowdale vlei, a catchment area for one of the city’s water supply dams. 

A consortium led by Jindal Steel and Power Limited has been shortlisted as one of two bidders to buy a majority stake in state-owned Zimbabwe Iron and Steel Co, or Ziscosteel. The consortium includes the Investment Development Corporation of South Africa and the Development Bank of South Africa. The other contender is ArcelorMittal South Africa Ltd.

SA’s Old Mutual is facing a boycott petition for holding shares in Zimbabwe’s state-owned  propaganda mouthpiece, Zimpapers. South Africa’s powerful trades union, COSATU, has backed the call and threatened action against Old Mutual. 

Commercial Farming Sector

Zanu PF youths in Kadoma held their district administrator hostage, threatening violence and demanding ‘their share’ of land offer letters, in return for violent farm takeovers done on behalf of local Zanu PF politicians. An official explained that the youths were in reality only after the ‘farming input loans’ which they have been taking and abusing since 2000. 

About 500 ‘new settlers’ were evicted from the land they have occupied for nine years. The villagers said the farms belonged to the late Speaker of parliament, Nolan Makombe, Minister of Defence, Emmerson Mnangagwa and the late commander of the Zimbabwe National Army, General Vitalis Zvinavashe. 

Robert Mugabe took an entourage of 60 to Rome to attend the United Nations FAO World Food Summit. 

Zimbabwe is now dependent on massive food aid, after Zanu PF land ‘reforms’ all but destroyed the country’s agriculture. Meanwhile the FAO secretary-general, Jacques Diouf, is staging a symbolic hunger strike in the lobby of the FAO building. 

79-year old Hester Theron – the mother of Commercial Farmers Union president Deon Theron – faces six months in prison if she fails to leave the 2 000 hectare Friedenthal farm, south of Harare where she has lived since 1957.

Posted by ZDN on November 17, 2009