White land grab policy has failed, Mugabe confesses

[Greed]

White land grab policy has failed, Mugabe confesses
By David Blair in Johannesburg
(Filed: 03/03/2005)

President Robert Mugabe confessed yesterday that millions of acres of prime land seized from Zimbabwe's white farmers are now lying empty and idle.

After years spent trumpeting the "success" of the land grab, Mr Mugabe, 81, admitted that most of the farms transferred to black owners have never been used.

All but a handful of Zimbabwe's 4,000 white farmers lost their homes and livelihoods when armed gangs of Mugabe supporters began invading their property in 2000.

In the first 18 months of the campaign, eight white landowners and 39 of their black workers were murdered, court orders defied and Zimbabwe's economy plunged into crisis.

Mr Mugabe said this was the price that Zimbabwe would have to pay to redress the wrongs of the British colonial era, which left much of the best land in white hands. He claimed that the seizures would boost production and benefit millions of blacks.

Yet in his home province yesterday, Mr Mugabe chided the new landowners for growing crops on less than half of their land.

"President Mugabe expressed disappointment with the land use, saying only 44 per cent of the land distributed is being fully utilised," state television reported. "He warned the farmers that the government will not hesitate to redistribute land that is not being utilised."

Some 10.4 million acres were seized under a scheme designed to create a new class of black commercial farmer. By Mr Mugabe's figures, 5.8 million acres are lying fallow.

Last year, Mr Mugabe boasted of a bumper harvest and said that Zimbabwe no longer needed help "foisted" on it from the United Nations World Food Programme.

His land grab had made Zimbabwe "self sufficient", Mr Mugabe repeatedly claimed, and the national maize crop was a record 2.4 million tonnes.

The Commercial Farmers' Union said that Zimbabwe grew only 850,000 tonnes of maize last year, not enough to meet domestic demand. In 1999, the last year before the land grab began, Zimbabwe grew 1.5 million tonnes. Then, Zimbabwe also earned about £263 million from tobacco exports. Last year, production had fallen by more than 70 per cent and earnings were down to £77 million.

Critics said Mr Mugabe's admission exposed the land grab's "failure".

"It has been a phenomenal and absolute failure on every level," said Tendai Biti, secretary for economic affairs of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. "It has failed both in terms of production of crops and in terms of the occupation of the land."

The new farmers are unable to raise bank loans because their properties are formally owned by the government and they have no individual title deeds. Without loans, they cannot buy seed, fertiliser or farming equipment and the regime has broken a pledge to supply them with tools.

Some farmers have resorted to using horse-drawn ploughs. Many have given up trying to produce anything at all.

Zimbabwe will hold parliamentary elections on March 31 and, for the first time in 10 years, Mr Mugabe is no longer holding out the offer of white-owned land as a vote-winner. Instead, his speeches are dominated by attacks on Tony Blair, who he claims is plotting to recolonise Zimbabwe.

About 400 white farmers remain in Zimbabwe, with about one third of this year's tobacco crop of 89,000 tonnes coming from only 250 white landowners.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/mai...im03.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/03/ixworld.html

 

[Greed]

Fair poll in Zimbabwe 'impossible'

Fair poll in Zimbabwe 'impossible'

Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Thursday March 17, 2005
The Guardian

State torture and violence in Zimbabwe makes it impossible to have free and fair elections on March 31, says a report released today.

The report by the anti-torture group Redress criticises President Robert Mugabe's government for failing to arrest and try several police and army officers suspected of torture. It also says torture has been inflicted on the political opposition "with impunity" which has made the population afraid of expressing its dissatisfaction with the government.

The Redress report supports the findings of Amnesty International, which yesterday issued a warning that the elections could not be credible because of the Mugabe government's "persistent, long-term and systematic violations of human rights."

The last parliamentary elections in June 2000 and the presidential election in March 2002 were widely condemned because of state violence and evidence of vote-rigging.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/zimbabwe/article/0,2763,1439355,00.html

 

[Greed]

Zimbabwe Bars Critics As Poll Monitors

Zimbabwe Bars Critics As Poll Monitors
34 minutes ago

By TERRY LEONARD, Associated Press Writer

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - The government of President Robert Mugabe has hand-picked observers for Zimbabwe's upcoming parliamentary vote in what critics call a shallow and transparent attempt to restore legitimacy to the country's discredited democracy.

It has systematically barred observer missions from countries and groups that said elections in 2000 and 2002 were flawed and probably stolen by Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party amid massive vote-rigging and state-sponsored violence and intimidation.

Observers for the March 31 elections have been invited from generally pro-Mugabe African states such as South Africa, friendly countries such as China, Iran (news - web sites) and Venezuela, and from the Southern African Development Community, a generally supportive regional body.

"They left out everybody who gave them a negative report," said University of Zimbabwe political scientist John Makumbe.

"Essentially it says the regime has something to hide, that it can't stand close scrutiny," Makumbe said in a telephone interview from the United States, where he is a guest lecturer at Michigan State University.

Those excluded include the European Union (news - web sites), the United States, the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, the South African Council of Churches and the SADC Parliamentary Forum — the only African mission to condemn the 2002 presidential elections.

If the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front wins an election endorsed by his hand-picked observers, Makumbe said Mugabe will claim legitimacy and expect African countries to support the assertion.

European Union countries imposed sanctions on Mugabe and his ruling elite ahead of the 2002 vote after the head of the EU observer mission was expelled from Zimbabwe.

The United States, Australia and Canada, among others, followed with sanctions citing manipulation of the elections, human rights violations and Zimbabwe's refusal to restore the rule of law.

Mugabe has moved to limit criticism and has instituted some electoral reforms that most independent observers have dismissed as too little too late.

Former President Jimmy Carter, whose Atlanta-based Carter Center monitors elections around the world, told reporters during Mozambique's polls in December that the center could not observe votes in Zimbabwe.

"Zimbabwe is a disgrace," said Carter, referring to the country's electoral system. "Mugabe declared that the Carter Center is a terrorist organization and asked us to leave."

Mugabe insists Zimbabwe's economic and political problems are the direct result of a plot by Britain and the United States to topple him.

South African President Thabo Mbeki and officials in his administration said they see no reason why the vote won't be free and fair.

"There is a growing suspicion in Zimbabwe that the sole objective of the SADC and South African observer missions is not to ensure the full expression of the 'one person, one vote' principle," but to legitimize a victory for Mugabe's party, said Welshman Ncube, a leader of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party.

Draconian security laws have been used to disrupt opposition meetings and rallies, restrict opposition campaigning, arrest opposition candidates and supporters, and to deny citizens free access to the political process.

Political violence is down markedly from 2002 levels, but Amnesty International said this week that it continues, along with threats of post-election reprisals.



State media continue to give the opposition only very limited time and access. The government also has used its media laws to silence criticism. Many foreign reporters and Zimbabwean reporters working for foreign publications who could have provided an independent perspective on the election have been harassed or effectively barred from working in the country.

Makumbe believes a strategy designed to give Mugabe legitimacy through the verdict of friendly neighboring states will fail.

"Legitimacy can only come from the right countries, those that have the resources to drag this country out of the quagmire Mugabe has dragged it into," he said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=6&u=/ap/20050319/ap_on_re_af/observing_zimbabwe

 

[Fuckallyall]

Re: Fair poll in Zimbabwe 'impossible'

Bump for argument's sake.

 

[Greed]

In Zimbabwe, people power fails to ignite

In Zimbabwe, people power fails to ignite
March 22, 2005

By Abraham McLaughlin

HARARE, ZIMBABWE – In the past four months, spontaneous democratic movements have transformed Ukraine and Lebanon. In South Africa, the masses overthrew decades of autocracy when the racist apartheid regime fell in 1994.

But here in Zimbabwe, one of six countries the US calls "outposts of tyranny," there has been no people-powered revolution. Many ask why the democratic wave that has swept Africa since the cold war's end - bringing multiparty voting to Zambia, Ghana, and other nations - has bypassed Zimbabwe, once seen as a shining light of the continent.

Instead, things here are getting worse. Zimbabwe's once-vibrant economy is collapsing under semi-socialism - with at least 127 percent inflation, 70 percent unemployment, and 4.8 million people verging on starvation. Its government tortures critics, gags the media, and uses food to gain support. Experts expect another flawed election March 31.

Yet, so far, there's been no revolt. Observers cite several reasons. President Robert Mugabe is still revered as colonial-era liberator despite his brutality. And the opposition hasn't unified behind a figure akin to Nelson Mandela or Ukraine's Viktor Yushchenko.

"There's been no spontaneous combustion" - despite several sparks that could have ignited it, says Chris Maroleng, a Zimbabwe expert at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria, South Africa.

He's referring to the relatively strong political opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In 2000, it won 57 seats in the 150-seat parliament - and will try to expand on its minority in next week's elections. In 2003, for instance, the MDC organized stay-at-home strikes in its "final push" to oust the government. The government beat demonstrators and jailed MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. But people didn't rise up.

Some analysts attribute the lack of response to poverty and AIDS. "When people are starving, it's awfully hard to promote democracy," says Robert Helvey, president of the Albert Einstein Institution in Boston, who has worked recently in Zimbabwe. Some 4.8 million of the country's 12 million people urgently need food aid or they could starve, according to a recent report by the Famine Early Warning System Network, based in South Africa. Referring to Ukraine's Orange Revolution, Mr. Helvey says, "You can't have 1 million people sitting in the streets of the capital for 17 days. There's not going to be food for them."

Then there's AIDS. In 2002, the official HIV infection rate was 27 percent, one of the world's highest. And it's thought to have gone up since then. "Who's got the energy to protest?" asks Mr. Helvey.

One Harare activist, who declined to be named, cites Zimbabweans' "amazing passivity." He explains that two policemen could pull up to a dissident's house in an urban, anti-government area, beat the person badly, and drive away unhassled. "In South Africa in the 1980s, police could never do that," he says with exasperation. "They were terrified of the townships, because they'd get stoned or mobbed."

Another reason may be Zimbabweans' lingering sympathy for their octogenarian president, Robert Mugabe. He fought the white colonial government to achieve independence in 1980 - and has been the country's only leader since. For two decades he led a relatively peaceful nation that was southern Africa's breadbasket and a regional economic powerhouse. "It's like he's your father," says Mr. Maroleng. "He may do bad things, but he's still your father."

Maroleng also worries that southern Africa's black leaders and intellectuals have been slow to criticize a black peer like Mugabe. Compared to the clarity of the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, many people haven't seen it as "quite as black and white - no pun intended," he says.

Even Mugabe's harshest critic, Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube allows, "There's still a love-hate relationship" between the masses and Mugabe. "People are confused." [Editor's note:The original version misspelled Ncube's name.]

Many also give Mugabe credit for shrewdness. Despite a comfort with brutality - including the apparent killing of thousands of opponents in the 1980s - Mugabe hasn't recently provided the opposition with a rallying point, as did Syria with its apparent assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Instead, Mugabe has hobbled Mr. Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, with treason trials and other harassments. "If he had imprisoned him, you'd have another Mandela," says Maroleng. "If he'd killed him you'd have a martyr" - like Hariri.

Because of Mugabe's cunning, he says, Zimbabwe has neither.

Nor does it have a figure like Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a unifying moral force in the anti-apartheid struggle. Zimbabwe's churches are divided, as is civil society and the political opposition.

Archbishop Ncube is perhaps the closest thing to a Zimbabwean Tutu. Posters of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi adorn his office walls in Bulawayo. He rails at the regime's tricks. "Did you know there are 800,000 dead people on the voters' roll?" he asks.

But in the capital, even anti-Mugabe clergymen criticize Ncube. "He represents a bitter minority" in his home area, says Methodist Bishop Levee Kadenge. "He can't speak for all of us."

But unity may yet emerge. Many churches have joined a campaign to "Raise the flag of Zimbabwe in prayer." It's a nationalistic approach that insulates churches from government criticism that they are agents of Western powers.

With economic frustration rising, some say a blatantly rigged election could bring people into the streets. "If they steal it this time, people will say, 'Enough, enough!' " says Casmere, who works at a Harare rental-car firm.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0322/p01s04-woaf.html

 

[Greed]

US blasts "despicable" food-for-vote practice in Zimbabwe

US blasts "despicable" food-for-vote practice in Zimbabwe
Wed Mar 30, 4:17 PM ET

WASHINGTON, March 30 (AFP) - The United State denounced what it called the "despicable" practice by Zimbabwe's ruling party of using food supplies to win over voters in this week's parliamentary elections.

The State Department took President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front to task after a report in the Washington Post said it was using food as a political weapon.

"Our understanding is that ruling party candidates have given out government-owned food to draw voters to rallies," said deputy department spokesman Adam Ereli. "And that is, frankly, a despicable practice."

Ereli said the campaign ahead of Thursday's legislative polls was already tilted in the government's favor through threats and intimidation of the opposition and a crackdown on the media.

He also regretted that no independent election observers had been invited to oversee the ballot. "So there are practices that I think we find troublesome that cause us concern," Ereli said.

But the spokesman said the United States took heart in what he called a "relatively nonviolent" campaign. "That's a positive development," he added.

Ereli called on Mugabe's government to do its utmost to make sure the elections were peaceful, transparent and free of intimidation and fraud.

"We will base our assessment of the election results according to not only what has happened in the run-up to the election, but on the way the election is conducted tomorrow," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050330/pl_afp/zimbabwevoteus_050330211743

 

[Greed]

Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated

Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria, and agencies in Tsholotsho and Harare
The Guardian
Wednesday March 30, 2005

President Robert Mugabe called the Zimbabwean opposition "traitors" yesterday and accused the Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai of running to the British "like a puppy wagging its tail".

As the tension increased before tomorrow's general election, Mr Mugabe told 20,000 supporters that his party, Zanu-PF, would win a "free and fair" contest with the MDC, whose leader he mocked as a "big-headed man with no brain".

Article continues
"He runs to the British like a puppy wagging its tail, campaigning for sanctions, and asking to be installed as leader," he said at one of his biggest rallies since electioneering began a month ago.

Later he declared that victory by the opposition party "will not be tolerated".

Reginald Matchaba-Hove, director of the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network, said he was concerned about Mr Mugabe's remarks and had asked foreign observers to stay in the country for at least a week after polling for fear of renewed violence.

The opposition said yesterday that one of its supporters had been killed by Zanu-PF members: its first accusation of murder in the campaign.

The police denied that the crime was politically motivated.

The EU dismissed the elec tions as "phoney", yesterday, and said that it would take unspecified steps against Harare.

"As soon as these phoney elections have been held, I can commit myself to the fact that the issue of Zimbabwe will be on the [EU council of ministers'] agenda when we next meet," the deputy foreign minister of Luxembourg, Nicholas Schmit, said.

On Sunday the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, called for a "nonviolent mass popular up rising" if Zanu-PF won the general election by fraud.

Yesterday he said Mr Mugabe's comments revived ominous memories of moves against suspected opposition voters after previous elections.

"It may be quiet now, but we are not sure what will happen after these elections," he said.

"You are dealing with people who bullied everyone into silence in the past."

Voters will choose 120 members of Zimbabwe's 150-seat parliament. The president ap points the remaining 30 seats, so the MDC needs to win 76 seats for a majority.

Mr Mugabe's former information minister Jonathan Moyo told Reuters that the president's remarks showed that he was unable to accept a democratic opposition.

"[He] has an unfortunate habit of always accusing opponents of plotting a coup. That might demonstrate his attitude to the democratic process," he said.

Mr Moyo, who is standing as an independent in his home area, Tsholotsho, said Mr Mugabe's rhetoric showed that he was nervous about the outcome of the elections, which he described as too close to predict.

He hoped that voters would deny Zanu-PF the two-thirds parliamentary majority it is seeking, which would enable it to amend the constitution and strengthen its grip on power.

Campaigning yesterday Mr Tsvangirai focused on the economy, as has been his party's strategy throughout. Zimbabwe's farms, industry, education and international relations had all been destroyed, he said, speaking in his home region, Buhera.

"How are we going to rebuild Zimbabwe? You and me have to work together," he said.

Yesterday was expected to be the last day of campaigning, but electoral officials said additional rallies would be permitted today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1447821,00.html

 

[Makkonnen]

Re: Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated

"democracy matters when its convenient for it to matter"

 

[Greed]

Re: Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated

"democracy matters when its convenient for it to matter"

thats the smartest shit i ever heard. that shit works on so many levels.

where did you get that ill quote from dolemite?

 

[Makkonnen]

Re: Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated

thats the smartest shit i ever heard. that shit works on so many levels.

where did you get that ill quote from dolemite?

this republican porno was posted on wgol and this white bitch was blowing a gw look alike, he busted in her face then she said it to the camera

 

[Greed]

Re: Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated

this republican porno was posted on wgol and this white bitch was blowing a gw look alike, he busted in her face then she said it to the camera

thats a sell out move, what the fuck you doing on WGOL

busted

 

[Makkonnen]

Re: Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated

naw someone pm'd me a link with no description - the clip was only 5 seconds

you know how stupid white whores are anyway, that low-life bitch will probably have banners all over the internet soon

 

[QueEx]

Re: Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated

<font size="6"><center>In Zimbabwe, 'There's No Reason to Be Scared'</font size></center>
<font size="4"><center>Drop in Violence Before Vote Kindles Hope in Opposition</font size></center>

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, March 31, 2005; Page A14

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe -- Two weeks ago, Mike Sibanda strode down the dingy streets of Zimbabwe's second-largest city with a swagger, chest out, shoulders rolling, a broad, wise-guy smile on his face. The image exuded a single message: I'm nobody's fool.

So when the subject of Thursday's national election came up, Sibanda, 24 and long attracted to opposition politics, swiped his right hand in the air and said dismissively, "Ah, it's useless." That week, as opposition activists braved possible arrests by gathering for a nighttime rally at a suburban park near here, Sibanda gathered instead with friends to drink beer.

But as the national parliamentary election has drawn nearer, his interest in voting against the ruling party of President Robert Mugabe -- in power since before Sibanda was born -- has returned. Sibanda has found his faith in democracy rekindled by what he calls growing tolerance of dissent and reduced threat of violence.

Among other tactics, Mugabe's camp still withholds food from villagers who support the opposition, human rights workers say. And dozens of people have been arrested for playing a role in candidate-voter meetings, hanging campaign signs and participating in other political activity.

But in the face of strong international pressure, Mugabe is trying to convince the world that he can stage a fair election, analysts here say. The violent tactics of recent elections, in which opposition supporters were beaten, tortured and even murdered, have declined, according to human rights workers. The government has also eased restrictions on access to airwaves, though they are still dominated by Mugabe's message that members of the opposition are traitors who want to reestablish Zimbabwe as a British colony.

With these small steps toward fairness, attendance at campaign rallies is at the highest level in the five-year history of the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change.

"There's a possibility for them to win now. There's hope," said Sibanda, who joined throngs at a soccer stadium on Saturday to cheer the opposition. "There's no reason to be scared."

The turning point came when he saw a television advertisement for the opposition party. On the national network, usually reserved for ruling party propaganda and official government pronouncements, opposition activists were shown flashing the party's signature open-hand gesture.

The opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai -- who was on trial and facing a death sentence on charges of treason six months ago but was acquitted -- was pictured in his trademark cowboy hat addressing cheering crowds. On the radio, the opposition can be heard spreading its slogan, "A New Zimbabwe, a New Beginning."

Up for grabs are 120 seats in a parliament representing all parts of this troubled southern African nation of 13 million people. Mugabe, whose term as president lasts until 2008, will appoint the remaining 30 members of the 150-seat body, making it difficult for the Movement for Democratic Change to gain outright control. It now has 51 seats.

Mugabe has vowed to have a "free and fair election." He has also called for voters to "bury the MDC," by giving the ruling party control of two-thirds of parliament, which would allow Mugabe to rewrite the constitution to further entrench his party in power.

Leaders of the opposition, meanwhile, say that if they could win more than half of the popular vote, it would undermine Mugabe's claims to credibility and hasten his ouster. Such a result, they say, would make it easier for Zimbabwe to attract foreign investment and end the economic decline, hunger and hyperinflation that have ravaged the country, once an oasis of prosperity in the region.

International human rights organizations and the European Union, which on Wednesday called the election "phony," say the outcome is unlikely to reflect the will of most Zimbabweans. Mugabe controls every daily newspaper, all broadcasters, thousands of patronage jobs, the electoral commission, the courts that would review accusations of rigging, and the dwindling food reserves for a populace on the brink of starvation.

Most international election observers have been kept away. And Mugabe increased the budget of his secret police force by six times in advance of the vote.

A 24-year-old friend of Sibanda's, Zibusiso Ncube, said fear remained that the brutality of the past would return after the election, when the world's attention subsided. "It's like you beat a child, then put away the stick," he said. "When the visitor goes, you know the stick is coming back."

Yet the relative absence of violence in the weeks leading up to the vote has brought a surge of optimism here. Opposition leaders reported the killings of 300 supporters in the elections in 2000 and 2002. The death toll so far this year is one.

The visibility of election monitoring teams that have been allowed in -- from countries such as South Africa that Mugabe regards as friendly -- has also helped convince many voters that violence will be averted during this election. In rural areas, Zimbabweans in previous years felt compelled to wear ruling party T-shirts or hats to ward off attacks. Now, they don't, and sometimes they even wear opposition campaign gear.

"With more observers around, it gives people confidence," said Geodfrey Mpofu, 41, an opposition supporter in the village of Tsholotsho west of here. "They go to the polls with a free mind."

Sibanda once had a closet full of clothing announcing his political affiliation. He had a Movement for Democratic Change hat, a jacket, a sweater and a T-shirt. In 2002, the last national vote in Zimbabwe, he regularly attended political rallies.

After the opposition narrowly lost in an election that most outside observers deemed deeply flawed, Sibanda lost interest in politics. He spent several months working in South Africa, joining an estimated 3 million Zimbabweans living outside the country as economic refugees. When he returned to Bulawayo in December, he deemed the opposition party clothing too dangerous to bring home with him.

Sibanda moved into his grandmother's three-room, concrete house and found a job as a technician at a cell phone shop. And though he was lucky to find work in a country with an unemployment rate estimated at 80 percent, his salary, about $80 a month, is eaten away by electric bills, grocery bills and an inflation rate that officially is 127 percent but, by some measures, is higher.

His hope for a better life, Sibanda said, hinged on whether the opposition could defy predictions and gain control of the parliament. Only then, he said, could things improve.

And though he is encouraged by signs of opposition strength, Sibanda said he has a backup plan if the vote goes to the ruling party: He plans to return to South Africa, where politics are peaceful and good jobs are relatively plentiful.

"I'm going," he said. "Seriously."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14103-2005Mar30.html?referrer=email

 

[Greed]

Mugabe's party wins Zimbabwe elections as opposition charges fraud

Mugabe's party wins Zimbabwe elections as opposition charges fraud
Fri Apr 1, 2:47 PM ET

HARARE (AFP) - President Robert Mugabe's ruling party prevailed in parliamentary elections as the opposition charged "massive fraud" and accused the veteran leader of treating Zimbabwe like his "private property."


Mugabe's ZANU-PF took 59 of the 120 contested seats, which -- combined with the 30 seats directly appointed by the president -- gave the ruling party the upper hand in parliament.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) garnered 34 seats, winning victory in Harare and Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, while the rural vote went to ZANU-PF, according to incomplete results.

But as the ruling party steamed toward victory, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai told AFP in an interview that he did not accept the outcome of what he termed "this disgusting, massive fraud" and charged that Mugabe was bent on winning a two-thirds majority in parliament that would allow him to change the constitution.

"For people to even claim that this is a democratic process is simply not acceptable," Tsvangirai said, although he added that he did not plan to challenge the results in court.

Tsvangirai cited discrepancies in several constituencies between the number of voters and the final tally announced by the elections commission, citing as an example the district of Manyame near the capital Harare, where a 10,000-vote gap existed between the number of voters and the final tally.

Mugabe's nephew Patrick Zhuwao was elected in Manyame, while his brother Leo and mother Sabina Mugabe also won.

"He is going to do what he wants, this is his private property and for people to even claim that this is a democratic process, when it is so fraudulent, is totally not acceptable," said Tsvangirai.

Turnout was below 50 percent during voting on Thursday, which passed off peacefully, in marked contrast with the previous elections in 2000 and 2002 when scores were killed and beaten in political violence.

Another notable win was that of Mugabe's former close advisor, Jonathan Moyo, who was elected in Tsholotsho, a poor rural area in the southeast Matabeleland region, despite threats from the president to "isolate" Tsholotsho if it handed the seat to Moyo.

Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe's independence in 1980, dismissed charges of fraud as "nonsense" after he cast his ballot on Thursday, adding that he was "absolutely confident" of winning a two-thirds majority for his ZANU-PF.

"Everybody is seeing that these are free and fair elections," said the 81-year-old leader.

The elections were closely watched to gauge whether Mugabe would live up to a commitment to hold a free and fair vote, in accordance with guidelines for democratic polls agreed last year by regional leaders.

Britain said the vote was "seriously flawed," with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw saying Mugabe had "yet again denied ordinary Zimbabweans a free and fair opportunity to vote, further prolonging the political and economic crisis he has inflicted on their country".

For their part, election observers from a key southern African grouping led by regional power South Africa issued a statement that fell short of calling the vote free and fair, instead saying that the elections were "conducted in an open, transparent and professional manner."

The 55-strong observer team from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) expressed concerns over the number of people turned away at polling stations during voting.

"It is still not clear to us exactly how many people were affected in this way as well as the reason for them not being able to cast their vote," the SADC observer team said in a statement.



The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, an elections monitoring group, said it estimated that 25 percent of voters had been turned away from polling stations nationwide, with the highest number prevented from voting in the Midlands area and Harare.

In the last parliamentary vote in 2000, the MDC picked up 57 seats while ZANU-PF got 62, but under Zimbabwean law, the president directly appoints 30 members of parliament, meaning that the ruling party was able to command a strong majority in parliament.

To win in this election, ZANU-PF had to pick up only 46 seats as it could rely on the 30 presidential appointments to pad its majority in the 150-member parliament.

Once considered the breadbasket of southern Africa, Zimbabwe is facing food shortages with the government admitting for the first time last month that it would begin importing corn meal, the national staple, to feed some 1.5 million needy citizens.

The food shortages are partly blamed on Mugabe's land reform program that saw thousands of white-owned farms seized and distributed to landless blacks five years ago.

Some 5.8 million Zimbabweans were registered to vote in the elections, Zimbabwe's sixth parliamentary vote since independence.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050401/wl_afp/zimbabwevote_050401194727

 

[QueEx]

Re: Mugabe warns that opposition election victory will not be tolerated

Tight quote, Dolemite.

Fuck Democracy. IT's another white lie.

So much for quotes; what about the allegations of oppression and starvation ???

QueEx

 

[Greed]

African Observers Say Zimbabwe Poll Free, Credible

African Observers Say Zimbabwe Poll Free, Credible
2 hours, 44 minutes ago

By Manoah Esipisu

HARARE (Reuters) - African observers endorsed Zimbabwe's disputed parliamentary election on Sunday, countering critics from outside the continent who accused President Robert Mugabe of rigging the vote.


The African Union (AU), the 13-member regional Southern African Development Community (SADC) and government delegations from Zambia, Mozambique and Malawi joined economic powerhouse South Africa in saying Zimbabwe's poll was free, credible and reflected the will of the people.

Mugabe's ZANU-PF party scored a massive win in Thursday's election, taking the two-thirds majority it needs to push through constitutional changes at will.

The opposition rejected the result and joined Western governments in denouncing the poll as a fraud, saying Mugabe had stolen his third election in five years.

The European Union called the election "phony" and the United States attacked its credibility, saying the process was unfairly tilted in favor of the government.

Africa's observers appeared satisfied, however.

"We are saying that this election was free," Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, head of the SADC observer mission and South Africa's energy and minerals development minister said.

"The process was credible. It reflects the will of the people of Zimbabwe," Mlambo-Ngcuka told a news conference.

Harare refused to invite U.S., British or Australian observers or groups such as the Commonwealth and European Union, arguing they had prejudged the poll because they were hostile to Mugabe's government.

Observers from the 53-member AU, Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique said separately that they agreed with SADC's assessment, saying decreased violence compared to parliamentary and presidential elections in 2000 and 2002 showed Zimbabwe had made political progress.

SOME CONCERNS

Mlambo-Ngcuka said not all conditions for the poll were fair and the state media did not give as much access to the opposition as required under regional election guidelines that Zimbabwe pledged to honor.

But she said this did not change the fact that on election day voters made their choices freely.

Mlambo-Ngcuka conceded that thousands of people were turned away from polling stations but blamed that on inadequate voter education. She said the MDC, which has alleged serious ballot fraud in at least 32 constituencies, should seek redress through electoral courts.

SADC was guided in its overall assessment of the vote by the fact that the MDC had chosen to participate, indicating the party believed it had a fair chance of victory, she said.

Final results announced on Saturday showed ZANU-PF with 78 of 120 contested seats against 41 for the MDC, a net loss of 10 for the opposition. One independent, purged former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo, was also elected.

Mugabe, who has ruled for 25 years, by law will appoint 30 additional members of the 150-seat legislature, boosting ZANU-PF's majority well past the two-thirds mark needed to change the constitution.


Zimbabwe's official media on Sunday declared the election a success and questioned the validity of criticism.

"If the farcical Iraqi elections can be termed free and fair, one would have to be disappointingly dishonest to question the overall integrity of Zimbabwe's 2005 parliamentary elections," the official Sunday Mail newspaper said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&ncid=578&e=8&u=/nm/20050403/ts_nm/zimbabwe_dc

 

[Greed]

Mugabe Reshuffles Cabinet After Disputed Election

Mugabe Reshuffles Cabinet After Disputed Election
Fri Apr 15, 4:10 PM ET

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on Friday reshuffled his cabinet in the wake of last month's disputed parliamentary election, putting a couple new faces into key posts but retaining most of the old guard.



Mugabe appointed former ambassador to Britain Simbarashe Mumbengegwi as foreign minister, while the key post of information minister went to Tichaona Jokonya, a former ambassador to the United Nations and most recently chief executive of Zimbabwe's state tourism body.

Acting Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa, who has helped slow the country's economic slide since taking up the job last year, was allowed to keep his portfolio.

Former Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa, once seen as Mugabe's preferred successor but sidelined in a ruling party power struggle late last year, was given a relatively low-profile job as minister for rural housing and social amenities.

Mugabe, 81, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has been battling a severe political and economic crisis over the last five years which many critics blame on his policies. Mugabe's ZANU-PF party swept 78 seats of the 120 seats contested in the March 31 elections while the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won just 41 seats -- 16 down on its 2000 performance.

One seat went to an independent candidate, former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo.

But a further 30 seats in the 150-member house reserved for presidential appointees and traditional chiefs ensured ZANU-PF got a two-thirds majority.

The MDC has charged ZANU-PF with widespread electoral fraud, allegations that are backed by major Western governments but dismissed by most African observer missions who gave the poll high marks.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050415/wl_nm/zimbabwe_cabinet_dc_1

 

[Greed]

In Zimbabwe, AIDS care done on the cheap

In Zimbabwe, AIDS care done on the cheap
By John Donnelly, Globe Staff | May 3, 2005

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Some of those who fight AIDS in southern Africa have a name for Zimbabwe: the ''hole in the doughnut." In the region with the highest HIV infection rates in the world, they explain, all the countries except Zimbabwe are beginning to receive heaps of donor money and putting significant numbers of people on AIDS treatment.

A World Bank analysis last year found that Zimbabwe receives $4 in donor support for each person infected with HIV, compared to $187 per infected person in neighboring Zambia.

The reason is simple: Donors fear the government of President Robert Mugabe would either steal some of the AIDS money or divert it for political ends.

But the results here, according to numerous interviews during two trips over the last two months, have not been all dire. One major AIDS prevention program, for instance, has expanded nationwide with little funding, thanks to initiatives started by the country's health administrators and workers. That program is designed to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child during birth.

''The effort to prevent mother-to-child infection was developed in large part by health workers themselves, which is very encouraging amid all the crises here," said Geoff Foster, a pediatrician and AIDS researcher in the eastern city of Mutare.

Agnes Mahomva, the government coordinator of the program, said it is in 800 of the country's 1,183 hospitals and clinics, likely the most extensive national program in Africa. She said 265 of those health facilities offer full services, including rapid HIV tests.

''We decided to move with the capacity that we have," Mahomva said in an interview in her office earlier this month. ''We've been working flat-out, and the expansion was so rapid, moving like a veld fire."

Yet, she said, the country's problems are beginning to erode those gains.

In 2002, according to government figures, 35 percent of women testing positive for HIV and their babies received a single dose of nevirapine -- which dramatically lowers the transmission of the virus -- during and after birth. In 2003, the figure jumped to 56 percent of the HIV-positive women, but last year it fell to an estimated 46 percent.

In recent weeks, Mahomva investigated the decline and discovered that many health workers trained to give the medicine and test for HIV had left the country in the past year. ''In one area, we don't have a trainer anymore," she said. ''The last one is going to Botswana."

The flight of health workers stems from the ongoing political and economic troubles in Zimbabwe, which only a decade ago had one of Africa's best health and education programs. In 2000, Mugabe won an election that international observers called deeply flawed, and he ordered many of his supporters to seize hundreds of white-owned farms. As a result, most major foreign investment in the country ended and the country's agricultural output was crippled.

While causes of death in Africa are extremely difficult to estimate because of a lack of good research, the United Nations believes about 2,800 people die each week of AIDS in Zimbabwe.

Only about 9,000 people now receive antiretroviral treatment, which can greatly extend the life of someone infected with the deadly virus. The UN estimates one-quarter of the population aged 15 to 49 is infected, or roughly 1.8 million people. Of those, an estimated 295,000 may need treatment.

Money is the major reason most are not getting help.

The US government, by far the largest donor, this year allocated $25 million for HIV/AIDS programs in Zimbabwe, including $1.6 million for the program to prevent mother-child transmission. US officials said they have not found any instances of misspending, including money that goes directly to the Ministry of Health.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, recently assured that Zimbabwe has instituted the proper safeguards, last month released $10 million in grant funding that had been on hold since 2002. Zimbabwe's was the 68th and last grant to be funded from that year.

''It would have been easy to provide money to Zimbabwe much earlier so we can feel better," said Global Fund spokesman Jon Liden in a telephone interview from Geneva. ''But that doesn't necessarily mean that money will be translated into money that helps people on the ground. . . . Now we believe the proper safeguards are in place."

Last year, Liden said, Zimbabwe submitted a request for $300 million in grants, but a technical review panel rejected it, finding that the country could not effectively oversee that much money.

To fill the gap in the meantime, a handful of US-based non-governmental groups have been illegally smuggling in thousands of doses of antiretroviral drugs to clinics.

Officials at one clinic confirmed they had received batches of the drug nevirapine from the New Mexico chapter of the National AIDS Brigade, an AIDS activist group. They traded some of the nevirapine to another clinic in exchange for other antiretroviral drugs to put together triple-combination therapies for treatment. One clinic worker, who asked not to be identified, said such smuggling and drug trading were part of an extensive underground effort to treat people with AIDS.

Prisca Nyakutombwa, an AIDS activist in Harare, said she knew of several such situations where activists were forced to work beneath the government's radar. ''We are suffering because of our government," said Nyakutombwa, who has been living with HIV since 1986.

But in Glendale, about 50 miles north of Harare, the government is starting its first rural treatment program at Howard Hospital. Paul Thistle, the Canadian doctor in charge, said he has 160 people on antiretroviral drugs, and hopes to have 200 by the end of the year. He estimates that 5,000 people need the drugs in his district alone.

One receiving treatment is Tambudzai Chigwida, 30, who had given birth three months earlier to a son, Isheunesu, which means, ''The Lord is with us." Both mother and son are still at the hospital -- the mother weighing 77 pounds, her boy less than 4 pounds. Both have slowly gained weight.

As the mother gently pulled her son from an incubator, Thistle said of the baby, ''He's a survivor."

The doctor's hope is that the mother, now on AIDS drugs, is one as well.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/he...5/03/in_zimbabwe_aids_care_done_on_the_cheap/

 

[Dolemite]

Re: In Zimbabwe, AIDS care done on the cheap

Good background info courtesy of Nzinga
http://www.swans.com/library/art8/elich004.html

[frame]http://www.swans.com/library/art8/elich004.html[/frame]

 

[Greed]

Zimbabwe devalues currency by 45%

Zimbabwe devalues currency by 45%
Zimbabwe has devalued its currency by 45% in an attempt to raise foreign exchange for food imports.

The country's central bank said one US dollar would now be worth 9,000 Zimbabwe dollars, from 6,200 before.

The widely-expected adjustment remains some way below black market rates, which can command up to 18,000 Zimbabwe dollars per US dollar.

Drought has left the country in need of more than 1.2 million tonnes of food imports, at a cost of up to US$250m.

Economic policies, like the large-scale seizing of white-owned farms, have also contributed to a slump in domestic food production.

However, the central bank's currency auctions have failed to meet demands from importers for foreign exchange.

Soaring inflation

"Devaluation is not the only panacea. Exchange rate management must be carried out in a measured and balanced manner," said central bank governor Gideon Gono, in a televised address.

Zimbabwe's central bank also cut its economic growth forecasts for the current year to 2% to 2.5%, from 3% to 5% previously.

The government in Harare has declared inflation as one of the main economic threats facing the country.

Inflation jumped by an annual rate of 129.1% in April, up slightly from March's figure, but below January 2004's peak of 623%.

The central bank's inflation target for 2005 was raised to between 50% and 60%, from 20% to 35%.

Zimbabwe's economy has been reeling from six years of recession caused, critics say, by the land reform policies of President Robert Mugabe.

But Mr Mugabe, whose Zanu-PF party won a majority of seats in Parliamentary elections in March, says Zimbabwe's economy is being sabotaged by opponents of his policy of seizing white-owned farms for the country's landless black majority.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4563747.stm

 

[Fuckallyall]

Re: In Zimbabwe, AIDS care done on the cheap

That article on Zimbabwe in nothing but bullshit excuse making. The government fucked up, period. Own that shit and move on. It seems like the "blame whitey for everything" camp wants it both ways. In "western" (read: free market) societies, they decry large corporations being so involved in policy making, but they say that Zimbabwe is being "punished" for trying to merge business with government. And then, Zimbabwe says it's going to privitize in the near future. Puh-leeze. That means that Mugabe's homies will get sweet contracts. But when Bush does the same thing, he is lambasted as the Anti-Christ (as he should be).

 

[Greed]

Millions of Zimbabwe's Poor Face Eviction

Millions of Zimbabwe's Poor Face Eviction
By MICHAEL HARTNACK, Associated Press Writer Tue May 24, 2:35 PM ET

HARARE, Zimbabwe - The government threatened Tuesday to demolish squatter shacks in what it called an urban beautification campaign after the arrests of about 10,000 street traders in the capital, a stronghold of the opposition.

The opposition accused the ruling ZANU-PF party of trying to provoke confrontations so it can declare a state of emergency before the tattered state of the economy leads to riots.

"They are now going for broke," said Paul Themba-Nyathi, spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. "It is obvious these are all punitive measures aimed at urban people who voted against ZANU-PF."

A five-day blitz against street vendors and flea markets already has sparked clashes between the traders and police, and unrest has been reported elsewhere. Police Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka said Monday that 9,653 people have been arrested.

On Tuesday, the government set a June 20 deadline for demolishing unauthorized buildings in Harare unless the residents appeal and receive a grace period. The demolitions could evict more than a million urban poor in the middle of the Zimbabwe winter.

"The attitude of the members of the public as well as some city officials has led to the point whereby Harare has lost its glow. We are determined to get it back," government-appointed Mayor Sekesai Makwavara said in a statement.

She said all "illegal structures" would be demolished during the operation, which was dubbed "Operation Marambatsvina" or "drive out rubbish."

The crackdown on street traders — who include teachers and other professionals unable to make a living at their old jobs — is aimed at crushing the black market for scarce staple goods like maize meal, sugar and gasoline. The government claims the traders are not licensed and blames them for sabotaging the economy.

Lovemore Madhuku, a university teacher who leads the National Constitutional Assembly, an umbrella group of organizations seeking radical reform, warned the demolitions might ignite public anger on a scale unseen since the African nation gained independence from Britain in 1980.

"I think now people are really going to react," he said.

The cleanup ultimatum revived memories of the 1985 elections when ZANU-PF mobs, reacting to comments by longtime leader Robert Mugabe, forced thousands of families suspected of supporting the opposition from their township homes until they could produce ruling party cards. An unknown number of people were killed while police refused to intervene.

Township resident Petros Nyoni said the mood in Harare's crowded suburbs was tense Tuesday, with workers already angry at a police crackdown on the commuter minibuses that are the mainstay of the transport system.

Hundreds of the taxis have been grounded by lack of fuel at filling stations while many more have been impounded at roadblocks for allegedly being unfit to drive.

"There is a very big crisis. People are so desperate they are jumping through (minibus) windows or onto the roof carriers," he said.

After seven years of unprecedented economic decline, 80 percent of the work force is unemployed and 4 million of Zimbabwe's 16 million people have emigrated. Agriculture, once the mainstay, has been hard hit by Mugabe's seizure of 5,000 white-owned farms for redistribution to blacks.

The government last week announced a 45 percent devaluation of the Zimbabwean currency against the dollar, a ban on luxury imports and heavy subsidies for agriculture and exporters.

Michael Davies, chairman of the Combined Harare Residents Association, said more than half of the capital's population of 2 million to 3 million people live in housing marked for demolition. He said in some cases rents from the buildings were the only means of survival for elderly owners.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto...&u=/ap/20050524/ap_on_re_af/zimbabwe_crisis_1

 

[Greed]

Thousands homeless as Zimbabwe police raze shanty communities

Thousands homeless as Zimbabwe police raze shanty communities
Andrew Meldrum in Pretoria
Tuesday May 31, 2005
The Guardian

Zimbabwean police yesterday bulldozed thousands of shanty towns in Harare and cities across the country, making thousands of people homeless.

After a weekend hiatus President Robert Mugabe's authorities restarted the massive demolition campaign to tear down all illegal houses that have sprung up in the cities, according to accounts from Harare, Bulawayo, Mutare and Victoria Falls.

Armed police razed homes as families scrambled to save their possessions. The army was called in to help in some areas where residents protested and put boulders in the roads.

Residents of Harare's Mufakose township said police used flamethrowers to burn homes.

A third of Harare's two million residents live in the wooden, backyard dwellings targeted, according to urban planners. Many of the backyard structures were erected more than 15 years ago, as residents coped with a huge shortage of housing.

Thousands of families have been made homeless and are sleeping in the open as winter sets in, taking night temperatures down to 4C (39F).

"The police came in the morning and just started tearing down people's homes. Some were burned down, others were bulldozed," said a resident of Chinotimba township in Victoria Falls. "My sister's home was torn down, and so she has moved in with us."

The woman, who works at a tourist hotel, said police paid no heed to municipal permits, which many homes had obtained. Police in Victoria Falls also destroyed a mile-long development of stands selling tourist items.

On Friday Mr Mugabe said the campaign would rid the cities of "havens for illicit and immoral practices" and make way for a "more salubrious environment".

The police officer commanding Harare, Assistant Commissioner Edmore Veterai, said people should leave the cities and return to the rural areas "where they belong".

Initially the government said it would not tear down structures until July 31, but police launched the demolition raids last Thursday.

The campaign was condemned by the National Pastors Conference, representing more than 100 Christian ministers, who urged the Mugabe government to "engage in a war against poverty and not against the poor".

Police and army flattened nearly 1,000 homes in an area of the capital known as Hatcliffe Extension, according to Trudy Stevenson, MP for Harare North. "It looks like a bomb hit the area. The destruction is terrible." Mrs Stevenson, a member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said most of the demolished homes had been legally registered in a housing scheme funded by the World Bank.

"The police also destroyed gardens which provided food for many families. As many as 10,000 people were made homeless in a 24-hour period. At least 5,000 of them are children. Many have been orphaned by Aids. The government has created this terrible humanitarian crisis. The International Red Cross has refused to help. Only the local churches are helping."

James Morris, director of the UN World Food Programme, is due in Zimbabwe tomorrow to discuss with Mr Mugabe the need for international food aid.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1495740,00.html

 

[Dolemite]

"Thousands of families have been made homeless and are sleeping in the open as winter sets in, taking night temperatures down to 4C (39F)."

smh fuckin scumbags

 

[Greed]

if only they would run a plane into a building then they would deserve cake and ice cream.

bipolar justice...catch it.

 

[Dolemite]

if only they would run a plane into a building then they would deserve cake and ice cream.

bipolar justice...catch it.

Nope save all the cake and ice cream for the deserving pirates! I have a yellow ribbon magnet on my truck too and have a flag out front during daylight hours.


If people didn't care about bombing innocent Iraqi or Afghani or Sudanese why should they care if someone blows up innocent people in America?

Bullies generally are surprised when someone kicks them in the nuts or gives them a black eye and they don't appreciate it, they generally don't give a fuck about the misery they hand out either.
Funny stuff. Crocodile tears lmao

what comes around goes around....catch it.......or don't, it will catch you sooner or later

 

[Greed]

watching you post is like watching Wild Kingdom.

this is really the natural environment of posters who promote a fringe opinion that represents .001% of the real world.

god bless the politics board/zoo.

 

[Visualface]

Bullies generally are surprised when someone kicks them in the nuts or gives them a black eye and they don't appreciate it, they generally don't give a fuck about the misery they hand out either.

what comes around goes around....catch it.......or don't, it will catch you sooner or later

Brilliant

 

[Greed]

Brilliant

oh look two.

i wonder where the rest are...this habitat is actually full of them. must be sleep.

 

[Greed]

Zimbabwe's poor living on porridge await food aid

Zimbabwe's poor living on porridge await food aid
Fri Jun 3,12:30 PM ET

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (AFP) - After being diagnosed HIV positive two years ago and forced to quit his job due to failing health, Jabulani Ndlovu has relied on charity for daily meals but these days getting food is a problem, like for most Zimbabweans.

Ndlovu's wife Zodwa says local charities stopped food supplies to poor patients in their township near Zimbabwe's second city Bulawayo in January following a crippling food shortage that has hit the southern African nation.

She says she now struggles to ensure that her husband, who used to work in a bakery, has a balanced diet.

"Sometimes we give him sadza (traditional thick porridge) and matemba (dried fish). Sometimes when we get a few dollars to spare, we try and buy him things like ox liver," she said.

"But on most days, all there is to give him is plain corn porridge without salt or sugar," she said.

Zodwa says her husband has been bedridden ever since his diet changed.

"He was sick all along, but he could get around the house, feed and bathe himself. Now, he just lies in bed, I have to feed him and turn him to avoid bed sores and he cannot go to the toilet on his own," she said.

President Robert Mugabe's government says some 2.8 million people are in need of emergency food assistance but aid agencies and the opposition estimate that about four million Zimbabweans -- close to a third of the total population of 13 million -- are going hungry.

Families like the Ndlovu are struggling either because of the scarcity of food or because of sky-high prices affecting many basics like cooking oil, sugar, milk and wheat flour.

Nanzeni Dladla, an HIV and AIDS counsellor at a local clinic, said more and more people with HIV were malnourished in Zimbabwe, which has one of the world's highest AIDS infection rate, affecting one in four adults.

"People are suffering. Some of them are not really sick, it's just because they are not getting the right food, they are hungry," said Dladla.

Zimbabwe is experiencing a serious grain deficit blamed on a drought and land reforms launched in 2000 in which the government seized white-owned commercial farms to give to landless blacks.

An estimated four million Zimbabweans out of 11.6 million could face starvation unless they get food aid, according to UN World Food Programme chief James Morris who visited the country last week and held talks with Mugabe.

Mugabe, who scoffed at food offers last year saying his country produced enough and did not want to "choke" with surplus food, accepted Morris' offer for food aid on "humanitarian" grounds.

His government, which is under fire from the West for the alleged suppression of human rights and democracy, has however stressed that it will not accept aid if strings are attached.

Even charitable organisations are finding it tough to get food for distribution.

Some churches that feed the sick and victims of Mugabe's regime say they are now forced to dole out cash.

Zimbabwe National Pastors Conference national chairperson, Raymond Motsi said: "Whilst we have been avoiding handing out cash to people because of the various temptations ... we are left with absolutely no alternative."

Motsi said beneficiaries receive about a million dollars (111 US dollars) a month, adding that sky-high inflation was another factor impeding their efforts. He said churches had been forced to whittle down the number of beneficiaries.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=sto.../20050603/lf_afp/zimbabwefoodaid_050603163041

 

[Greed]

Zimbabweans ignore mass strike against unpopular urban clean up drive

Zimbabweans ignore mass strike against unpopular urban clean up drive
Thu Jun 9, 6:55 AM ET

HARARE (AFP) - A two-day mass strike called by a Zimbabwean civic and opposition coalition against a highly unpopular urban clean up drive which has left thousands homeless in winter got off to a lame start with tens of thousands turning up for work in Harare.

The first day of the protest Thursday coincides with the opening of a new parliament in which President Robert Mugabe's party, armed with a two-third majority after the March parliamentary polls, is expected to make sweeping constitutional changes on its own.

There was heightened security in the capital and Harare's roads were chock-a-block with early morning traffic like any normal day. Both private and government schools were open as were shops and banks.

Commuters, faced with a shortage of buses, were seen perched on trailers of heavy goods vehicles which have become an alternative mode of public transport in recent months in Harare after several buses went off the roads due to crippling fuel shortages.

Long queues of private mini-buses and other cars were seen at gas stations which were due to receive supplies of diesel.

Police meanwhile mounted checkpoints along main roads leading to the city centre and checked the identity cards of commuters.

Armoured military vehicles were however, seen driving in the direction of the teeming township of Chitungwiza outside Harare which is a traditional hotbed of opposition politics.

A coalition of opposition, labour, students and rights groups has called for people to stay away from work on Thursday and Friday to protest against the urban clean-up drive that has left thousands homeless and destitute, with streetside vendors' kiosks destroyed, and led to the detention of at least 22,000.

The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, which is part of the coalition calling the protest, had said: "We call on all the people to stay at home ... to organise themselves and protest against the actions of this regime."

Mugabe meanwhile justified the clean-up operation and hinted that foreign powers could be behind the protest call.

"Some people are conniving ways and means of making us collapse. We have said we will never collapse, never ever," Mugabe told party lawmakers and foreign diplomats late Wednesday.

"Ways have been tried, mass actions and all kinds of machinations. We have said we will stand by that which is right," Mugabe said.

Mugabe who has repeatedly accused some Western powers, particularly the United States and former colonial ruler Britain of meddling in his country's affairs, reiterated he would not tolerate any "interference."

"We are ... a sovereign people of our country and we shall not brook any interference in the domestic affairs of our country," he said.

Mugabe said the urban campaign would improve the lives of Zimbabweans.

"The clean up operation is meant to remove dirt as well as unhealthy circumstances that might breed illness, but also destroy hives in which thieves and other lawbreakers tend to thrive," he said.

"In fact the clean up is meant to create a better infrastructure for the ordinary man," he said.

The campaign has drawn widespread criticism at home and internationally, including from the UN which accused Harare of "a gross violation of human rights" and of creating a "new kind of apartheid."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2005060...V2FOrgF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

 

[Greed]

........

 

[Dolemite]

Re: Zimbabweans ignore mass strike against unpopular urban clean up drive

Mugabe Defends Evicting Shack Dwellers
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe Defends Eviction of Tens of Thousands of Traders, Shack Dwellers
By MICHAEL HARTNACK
The Associated Press

Jun. 9, 2005 - President Robert Mugabe on Thursday defended the eviction of tens of thousands of traders and shack dwellers from city streets as a two-day strike against the campaign got off to a slow start.

Many roads were quieter than usual in the capital, Harare, and other major centers. But banks, schools, shops and most other businesses were open as Zimbabweans apparently heeded police warnings not to participate in the protest.

In an address to Parliament, Mugabe called the three-week blitz "a vigorous cleanup campaign to restore sanity" in urban areas.

"The current chaotic state of affairs where (small and medium enterprises) operated ... in undesignated and crime-ridden areas could not be countenanced for much longer," Mugabe said at the opening of Parliament.

Opposition lawmakers have called the campaign a strike on their urban support base and boycotted the session in protest. Police continued to round up residents and pile them into trucks in at least one Harare township Thursday, they said.

Police using torches, sledgehammers and bulldozers have burned down homes and kiosks in shantytowns around the country since launching the campaign dubbed Operation Murambatsvina, or "drive out trash," last month.

A broad alliance of civic groups, churches, opposition parties and trade unions called the strike Thursday and Friday to protest the drive, which U.N. officials say has left at least 200,000 urban poor homeless. More than 30,000 people have been arrested, according to police.

Lovemore Madhuku, a spokesman for the recently formed Broad Alliance, which organized the protest, blamed poor participation on a climate of fear.

"If police can demolish your home, they can come to your room and demand why you are still in bed and have not gone to work," he said.

Economists also noted it would be difficult to mount an effective general strike with only about 800,000 of Zimbabwe's 12 million people in formal sector jobs.

Police had warned for days they would "deal ruthlessly" with anyone participating in the strike. Paramilitary officers in riot gear deployed in Harare, sealing off a large part of downtown ahead of Mugabe's speech and causing major traffic jams.

Mugabe's government says its campaign is aimed at cleaning up cities and cracking down on black market merchants it accuses of sabotaging the economy, marked by five years of unprecedented decline.

The opposition says the crackdown is meant to punish its supporters among the urban poor and to scapegoat traders for the economic chaos in this southern African nation once the regional breadbasket.

"A grave crime has been committed against poor and helpless people," six Roman Catholic bishops said in a statement. The Protestant Evangelical Christian Fellowship also condemned the crackdown, saying police were "wantonly destroying property."

In Mbare, a township on Harare's southern outskirts, a man sat on his bed in the middle of a field, surrounded by furniture from his demolished home, according to Associated Press Television News footage. Nearby, a woman washed pots in the street.

"My whole family, including my young children, are all sleeping out in the open," said another woman, with a child balanced on her hip. "We are so desperate for food and shelter, that we think we are better off dead."

Mugabe, who has led the country since independence from Britain in 1980, also vowed to complete the takeover of 5,000 white-owned farms for redistribution to black Zimbabweans despite "residual problems," including international investment treaties protecting some properties.

Sounding confused at times and stumbling over his words, the 81-year-old leader also promised tough new laws to fight corruption and electronic crime, including the "dissemination of offensive material." He did not elaborate.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

 

[QueEx]

Re: Zimbabweans ignore mass strike against unpopular urban clean up drive

<font size="6"><center>Priests told: don’t aid ‘filth’</font size></center>

Sunday Times (London)
Christina Lamb
June19, 2005


EVERY morning Father Michael looks out of the window of his Harare parish house and sees an ever larger crowd of homeless families outside. “I feel helpless,” said the Jesuit priest, who was too terrified to give his real name.
“I keep telling them my little homilies, that the violent will not win, they will have to answer for what they have done, but I see a city ringed by fire.



“People who worked to look after their families — carpenters, metalworkers, street vendors and caterers — have been turned into beggars by their own government. This is a crime against humanity and all we can do is give them black plastic sheeting.”

As Operation Murambatsvina or “drive out filth”, moves into its second month, as many as a 1m city-dwellers have been made homeless by government bulldozers and axe-wielding police.

Churches have become the only refuge for people who have lost everything. But priests have now been warned not to help by the government of President Robert Mugabe.

Harare has been turned into a refugee city with marauding bands of families pursued through the smoking rubble by police who move on anyone they find sleeping outside or still retaining a few possessions.

Some have been taken to camps outside the city such as Caledonia Farm, where there is only one lavatory for several thousand people. Those with money have left for villages but many have no family to go to and the country’s fuel shortage means buses are few and far between.

Others have returned to Harare, claiming village chiefs are refusing to accept them because there is not enough food. Zimbabwe is facing its lowest harvest since independence. The United Nations estimates that 6m Zimbabweans are in urgent need of food aid.

With international aid agencies prevented from helping, those who can have sought shelter from the freezing winter nights in church yards and halls.

But confidential minutes of a meeting last Wednesday between community representatives and government officials headed by Ignatius Chombo, the minister of public works, confirm that church leaders have been refused permission to help the homeless.

The Catholic church has called for prayers all over the country today. Bishops will condemn “the injustice done to the poor” in the bravest move yet to stand up to Mugabe.

“It’s social engineering with sledgehammers,” said Oskar Wermter, a Jesuit priest in Harare. “I do not know anyone poorer than a widow with her orphaned grandchildren — remember, there is Aids all around — surrounded by the rubble of her destroyed home.”

Yet far from halting the brutal campaign, which has seen people forced to destroy their homes at gunpoint, government officials said yesterday they were extending it to rural areas. “We must clean the country of the crawling mass of maggots bent on destroying the economy,” declared Augustine Chihuri, police commissioner.

The announcement came as a list compiled by directors of education in Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces showed that more than 300,000 children have dropped out of school since their homes were destroyed.

According to Catholic priests, many of those seeking refuge have appeared in the past couple of days waving pieces of paper forced on them by police. These are bills for water, sewerage and electricity on their destroyed homes and businesses, complete with enormous penalty charges.

“A stream of people come to the parish, waving those ominous letters, asking for loans to pay them,” e-mailed one priest yesterday.
“It’s just becoming madder,” said a Zimbabwean reporter. “All this puts a question on Mugabe’s patriotism. It seems as if he hates his own people.”



Steve Kibble, of the Catholic Institute for International Relations, put it more starkly. “This is a genocide policy,” he said. “It’s a strategy of letting the urban population die by leaving them to starve in the bush rather than facing the bullets of Mugabe’s goons. It doesn’t cost them a cent.”

One of those to receive a bill for electricity supplied to her destroyed home and business was Glory Mawimbi. Everyone knew Glory’s Hair Palace on the corner of Madzima Road in Mbare. The pink-painted building was her pride and joy.

Inside, a radio blared township jazz and the walls were covered with pictures of celebrities and the latest hairstyles torn from South African magazines.

Mawimbi had worked hard to create the business after her husband left her with three children. Over the years, her fame had spread and Glory’s had become the place to go, particularly on a Friday evening when people had just been paid and were planning a night out. She employed three other women and paid for her children to go to school.

Then two weeks ago the bulldozers came, flattening most of Mbare. Mawimbi’s home was destroyed in the early morning and she ran to the salon to find it gone. The destruction means she and her employees now have no income; none of them can send their children to school.

Yesterday Mawimbi sat in the rubble, staring blankly. When a priest asked how she would survive, she replied: “We will do, I suppose. I made a decent life for my family out of nothing and now it’s all gone.”

Zimbabwe has become a land with hundreds of thousands of such stories. Many of the people the government is referring to as tsvina (filth) are mothers and employers like Mawimbi.

Mugabe’s former information minister, Jonathan Moyo, said the blitz was linked to a power struggle within the ruling party over who would succeed the ailing 81-year-old president.

“It seems to be a directionless activity of some mischievous group which imagines it can profit by this in some mysterious way and position itself ahead of the pack in the succession game,” he said.

Another former close associate of Mugabe, now in exile in Britain, said: “It’s an exercise of power. He’s doing it because he can.”

Whatever the reasoning, nobody is spared. Among the properties to have been wiped out are many built by war veterans, the men who were Mugabe’s staunch supporters and were used to carry out the violent invasions of white-owned farms.

One of those to have the roof fall in on him last week was a leading war vet called Dickson Chingaira, better known as Comrade Chinx. During the land seizures, he composed and sang a song called Hondo Yeminda which refers to whites as “devils” and was frequently played on state radio.

Police demolition squads descended on a mansion he had built near Ngungunyana Housing Co-operative in Harare, an area mainly occupied by war veterans.

Witnesses told SW Radio Africa that Chinx pulled a gun and fired shots in the air as the police arrived at his house.
When that did not deter them, he climbed on the roof and demanded to talk to Mugabe. Eventually the police persuaded him down, only to give him a thorough beating, leaving him badly bruised with a suspected broken leg.



Another group to find themselves unexpectedly disadvantaged by Mugabe was the Zimbabwe national football team. The Warriors, as they are known, had chartered one of Air Zimbabwe’s three remaining functioning aircraft to fly them to Algeria for a World Cup qualifier. When they arrived at the airport they were informed that the president had taken the plane to fly to Qatar for a meeting of G-77 nations.

Yesterday in the face of all this, even the state-owned Herald newspaper was finding it difficult to maintain its usual slavish support for government policies. An article on the havoc caused by Operation Murambatsvina ended by saying: “While there is consensus that people had illegally built housing structures, there are widespread views that the exercise has contributed to massive homelessness.”

Reuben Marumahoko, the deputy minister for home affairs, told the civic leaders last Wednesday that the operation has been a success. “Streetism has been wiped out,” he said. “Robberies have fallen down drastically and ladies can walk in the city freely.”


Some names have been changed to protect identities

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1660059_1,00.html

 

[mttocs]

Re: Zimbabweans ignore mass strike against unpopular urban clean up drive

There must be some ostensibly rational objective here, even if it is an evil one. I would think Mugabe and his government are trying to get the poor to turn refugee and move to another country?

Bizarre.