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Zimbabwe Weekly Update - Number 6
Zimbabwe Democracy Now
February 15, 2010

http://www.zimbabwedemocracynow.com

Politics

• Jonathan Moyo was passed over for promotion to the new Zanu-PF Politburo lineup. The spin-doctor was hoping to become either information secretary or to head the party's commissariat. The central committee was reportedly wary of trusting political chameleon Moyo enough to be part of the party's inner circle.
• The EU has decided to extend targeted sanctions until 2011 against Mugabe and Zanu-PF elite, official sources said in Brussels on Friday. The decision was based on a "shortage of sufficient progress" in the implementation of the GPA. But the EU food security co-coordinator in Zimbabwe Pierre-Luc Vanhaeverbeke said it would continue to support efforts to revive Zimbabwe's economy and provide humanitarian assistance.
• The MDC announced on Friday the inter-party talks on the GPA had reached a deadlock and now required the intervention of SADC. MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said if the deadlock persists, the only solution is free and fair elections.
• But the South African mediation team contradicted this on Sunday, saying the coalition parties were still in negotiations. President Jacob Zuma's International Relations Adviser and team member Lindiwe Zulu said they had successful meetings in Zimbabwe.
• Meanwhile a new report released on Friday by the Civil Society Monitoring Mechanism (CISOMM) said the unity government had not delivered on its promises, failing to resolve the land dispute, transitional justice, human rights and institutional reform. The report said the unity government has instead become a "talk-shop".
• Amnesty International (AI) on Wednesday called on the unity government to fulfill its promise to reform state institutions, in a bid to end continuing human rights abuses. AI said that without genuine reform, the abuse would likely persist.
• President Robert Mugabe has withdrawn a directive to ministers and permanent secretaries to report to his deputies after protests by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his deputy Arthur Mutambara when they met last Friday. The directive was made through a circular dated January 25 by the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda.

Governance

• The civil servants' strike for a quadrupling of wages has reportedly been encouraged by Zanu-PF. Off-duty officers in the armed forces and police were ordered to join the demonstrations in civilian clothes. Zanu-PF youths and soldiers allegedly raided several schools and government institutions in Masvingo Province to enforce the strike. The MDC has accused Zanu-PF of politicizing the strike in an effort to wreck the fragile coalition government. The civil service is being paid in US$, supplemented by donor funds to support essential services, but these funds will not cover any increases. The civil servants say that revenue from the Marange diamond fields should be used to improve salaries and working conditions.
• Prison labour is being exchanged for maize grain to feed inmates at Guruve Prison. A senior prison officer said senior government officers and Zanu-PF officials were using prisoners as 'slave' labour on their farms in exchange for maize. The government is mandated to provide food for prisoners.
• The government is to review the salaries of top earning parastatal bosses in an attempt to pacify the civil servants currently on strike. The strike has exposed some utilities who pay their employees as much as US$5 000 a month.
• The ongoing constitution-making process has become illegitimate and confusing, National Constitutional Assembly Chairperson Lovemore Madhuku said on Thursday. Madhuku said the process was not "people-driven" as planned, criticizing politicians for their "power-hungry motives."
• The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) is reported to have purchased around 200 Nissan twin cab trucks for as yet unexplained reasons. Observers say the agency spent approximately US$5 million.

Business

• The new regulation that requires businesses to hand over at least 51 per cent ownership to indigenous Zimbabweans will be enforced from March 1, with jail penalties of up to five years. Minister of Indigenisation Saviour Kasukuwere said the regulation would not be reversed, despite the MDC's call to withdraw the "destructive policy." Tsvangirai allegedly said the gazette had been made without his knowledge.
• Zimbabwe's biggest international investment conference since the formation of the unity government started in Harare. The Africa investor (Ai) Pan-African Tourism and Infrastructure Investment Summit runs until Thursday, with an aim to discuss tourism strategies, investment opportunities and tourism infrastructure development to help Zimbabwe benefit from the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
• The tourism sector is projected to grow by 10 percent this year, underpinned by a stimulus package, Tourism and Hospitality Minister Walter Mzembi said on Friday. Mzembi said investment was crucial to growth.

Economy

• A project aimed at alleviating the water in shortage in Bulawayo has finally started, but the laying of the pipeline from the 99% full Mtshabezi Dam is underfunded by more than US$18 million. Only 2km of pipeline has been laid of the 33km needed to connect Mtshabezi to the city's main supply dam, Ncema.

Agriculture

• The European Union (EU) announced a US$13 million funding scheme to assist smallholder communal farmers. Head of the EU Delegation in Zimbabwe Xavier Marchal said the rehabilitation of the agricultural sector is crucial to Zimbabwe's economic revival. The scheme will run till 2012.
• A state newspaper Manica Post said on Friday the government had allegedly banned all food handouts by NGOs. The decision was announced by Agriculture Minister Joseph Made, who said the main motivation was agricultural rehabilitation.
• Local Government minister Ignatius Chombo and Information minister Webster Shamu are allegedly leasing out their farms to former white commercial farmers, Mashonaland West secretary for lands and resettlement Temba Mliswa said. Chombo and Shamu are reportedly part of a scam involving senior Zanu-PF officials subletting more than 30 farms in the province. Mliswa also said Chombo and Shamu were multiple-farm owners.
• The Commercial Farmers Union reported that 'at least' 16 judges have so far benefited from the chaotic and violent land reforms.
• Zimbabwe's commercial farmers will ask the SADC Tribunal to set guidelines on 'fair compensation' due to farmers for land lost under the land distribution programme. The Southern African Commercial Farmers' Union (SACFA) supported the initiative.

Humanitarian

• US$500 million is needed in food aid amid a serious drought that has hit the country. Tsvangirai said a government response to the food shortage was urgently needed. He said the government would have a mid-term plan to import food by June or July.

Violence

• MDC transport manager Pascal Gwezere, who was recently released after being abducted from his home in October, said he was tortured while in custody. He said his torturers were often drunk when interrogating him, and used a variety of torture methods such as tying his genitals with strong cotton thread and threatening to bury him alive.

Law

• Mugabe's war veterans on Friday had a run in with riot police when they were found digging up the Zimbabwe Ruins, allegedly to exhume remains of bodies of fighters of the liberation struggle, which they said had been buried there. The ruins are the most important historical monument in the country and a prime tourist attraction in Masvingo.
• Two senior police officers and an ex-policeman were last week arrested after they were accused of violating the Official Secrets Act by leaking police information to the MDC.
• The civil servants' strike forced the postponement of Deputy Minister of Agriculture (designate) Roy Bennett's treason trial. The trial was deferred for the duration.

Media

• Distributors of UK-based newspaper The Zimbabwean were arrested on Friday and charged with publishing "falsehoods prejudicial to the state." Media groups pointed out that distributors are not publishers and have decried the charges, saying they demonstrate the coalition government's insincerity about media reforms.
• A Mexican journalist was arrested Friday while filming tourist facilities in southern Zimbabwe. Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi said the unnamed journalist had been cleared by the Zimbabwean government to film attractions in Masvingo ahead of the FIFA World Cup.
• A three-member cabinet team led by Vice-President John Nkomo has been tasked to summon editors from the state and independent media to urgently discuss 'hate speech' in the media.

Diamonds

• The diamonds removed from the Reserve Bank on the orders of Mines Minister Obert Mpofu last week are still unaccounted for. The missing diamonds are part of a collection that was mined by the UK based mining firm Africa Consolidated Resources. "We don't know where they (the diamonds) are," ACR's lawyer, Jonathan Samkange said, "The police robbed the central bank."
• Zimbabwe's House Committee on Mines warned government officials that they risk being charged with corruption and sentenced to prison if they keep mismanaging the Marange diamond fields.
• Two executives of Canadile Miners, a South African mining firm, were arrested in Zimbabwe on Tuesday on charges of stealing diamonds from Marange. They were reportedly found with 57 diamonds worth R280 000. Canadile's board members include diamond smugglers from the Congo and mercenaries from Sierra Leone.

Health

• A four-member delegation from Tanzania arrived in Zimbabwe on Sunday to study how the country administers the Aids levy. Zimbabwe has used the National Aids Trust Fund (NATF) - funded through a taxpayer levy in 2000 - to implement a successful campaign against the disease. The National Aids Council which delivers services has in the past been accused of holding on to funds. In Zimbabwe the treatment gap is huge with only 180 000 of the 600 000 people in need of ARVs accessing the life-saving drugs.
• Zimbabwe's Health Minister Henry Madzorera on Tuesday acknowledged improvements in the country's health delivery system but said it is still in "high dependence unit" and would remain so until the international community increased funding.
• Water Resources, Development and Management minister Samuel Nkomo has accused two mining companies and Zesa (the electricity supply utility) of releasing toxic waste into a Hwange river, posing a serious health hazard to villagers, livestock and wildlife. He said he would continue to "monitor" the situation.

Diaspora

• Hundreds of Zimbabweans were on Friday evicted from Chambers Building in Johannesburg central after the property was deemed unsuitable for human occupancy. The residents were left stranded after they were ordered to vacate the property immediately.
• Refugee rights group PASSOP said last week that Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa are given "selective assistance" by organisations meant to help them. The group's Braam Hanekom said the organisations, funded or mandated by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), have refused to help some Zimbabweans and acted "maliciously" towards displaced Zimbabweans in De Doorns in the Western Cape.

Wildlife

• Zimbabwe could face sanctions at the upcoming Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) conference in Qatar in March for its failure to control poaching of wildlife, especially of the endangered rhino, the Convention's secretary general Willem Wijnstekers warned. Wijnstekers, in Harare after a fact-finding tour, also charged that Zimbabwean security forces are spearheading poaching of elephants and rhinos in the country.
• The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park Initiative joining Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South African national parks is under threat as villagers illegally living inside Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park have vowed to stay put, demanding compensation from Zanu-PF for broken promises. At least 1000 families have accused Zanu-PF of abusing them for political gain.

The Good News

• Nobody was arrested when members of WOZA and MOZA held their annual Valentine's Day march in Bulawayo and Harare, distributing 'protest Valentine' cards and red roses during the peaceful march.
• Zimbabwe's biggest cell phone operator Econet Wireless is asking its more than three million subscribers to help raise aid for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. Subscribers wanting to help will donate US$0.89 for every text message sent.
• The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) last week donated communication equipment to the government, in order to improve the response to disease outbreaks in remote areas. The equipment will be used to bridge the communication gap between rural health centres and district hospitals.

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