Posted on 04/21/2002 8:38:14 AM PDT by Clive
THE Libyan government has arm-twisted President Robert Mugabe into surrendering an additional 10 000 hectares of prime farm land as part payment for fuel supplies from the north African country, The Standard has established.
In addition to the land, Mugabe has proposed giving the Libyans a block of flats in Harare, reliable sources told The Standard last week.
Mugabe is said to have made these concessions to his Libyan counterpart, Muammar Gaddafi, during his recent visit to Tripoli.
According to the agreement between the two countries, Tripoli supplies fuel to Harare in exchange for assets within the foreign currency starved southern African country.
Prior to this latest development, Zimbabwe had already surrendered thousands of hectares of prime farmland to the Libyans and allowed them to buy shares in companies where government has a stake.
Libya bailed Zimbabwe out of a crippling fuel crisis in 2001 when it provided a US$360 million credit facility which guarantees fuel supplies to Zimbabwe until August this year.
During Gaddafi's visit to Zimbabwe last year, the Libyan leader toured some of the farms which Mugabe had proposed to surrender to his country.
Following the tour, some 8,000 hectares of industrial and farming land were allocated to Libya, whose business entrepreneurs indicated that they would produce fruit and crops on the land for the purpose of export to the north Africa country.
They also expressed interest in venturing into business with local farming and manufacturing companies.
Most of the Libyan companies which supply fuel to the country had threatened to discontinue the supplies following the failure the country to pay the debt because of foreign currency, shortages.
According to their agreement, if Zimbabwe does not pay in assets it must do so in foreign currency but this is not available.
Efforts by Mugabe to settle the outstanding debt in exchange for beef were rejected by the Libyans who insisted on receiving land instead.
The Libyans, who supply 70% of the country's fuel requirements, were also reluctant to import Zimbabwean beef because of the suspension of exports to the European Union following an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Matabeleland last year.
As part of the barter deal between the two countries, the Libyans have also acquired the government's 70% stake in the Oil Blending Company of Zimbabwe. Initially, a French company, Oil Invest, which has a 30% stake in the blending company, was poised to take over the government's shares, but the deal was scuttled at the last minute when Libya expressed interest in the company.
Zimbabwe has been experiencing an acute foreign currency shortage for the past two years with foreign investors shunning the country because of the prevailing lawlessness.
It also helped finance Zanu PF election activities.
It is also supplying enforcers and Mugabe in turn is providing housing for them throughout Zim.
November 2001 - Gadaafi to supply Mugabe with death squads***From Lusaka Gadaafi drove down to Harare in a 150 car motorcade, his army of amazon women bodyguards virtually taking over Harare. He publicly embraced Mugabe's views in an extraordinary TV appearance in which he announced that Africa was for the Africans and that whites must go back to Europe and only be allowed to stay on as servants. It was also announced that Gadaafi had promised Mugabe $586 million in fuel supplies and had made a $900,000 election contribution to the funds of Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party.
This contribution was made in flat contravention of a law just enacted by Mugabe forbidding foreign donations to Zimbabwean political parties, a law which is being used to hound the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and prevent it from gaining support abroad for its challenge to Mugabe in the coming presidential election. Gadaafi, who has never tolerated an opposition party, is unlikely to have been bothered by this contradiction.
........More sinister is the fact that Gadaafi insisted on calling into conclave Harare's small community of Indian Muslims, telling them that they must assist Mugabe's plans by declaring a jihad (holy war) to throw the whites out. If they did not do this, he told the Muslim elders, he would bring in strong arm men from the Pagad movement in Cape Town with which he had close links. There has long been speculation that Gadaafi might have links to Pagad, an extremist Muslim vigilante movement often linked to bombings and murders in the Cape, including bomb attacks on US-linked enterprises such as the Planet Hollywood restaurant on the Cape waterfront, but this is the first open confirmation of the fact.
The bulk of Harare's Muslim community, consisting largely of merchants and professionals, was aghast at this demand and has failed to declare a jihad ,a failure which they believe lies behind the sudden spate of attacks on Muslim shops by Zanu-PF youths in the last ten days. For heaven's sake, said one Muslim merchant, we all do business with whites all the time. We rely on them and most of us are appalled by what Mugabe's doing. It's obvious that those youths who were sent to attack white and Muslim shops were meant to be punishing us for not complying.
However, Gadaafi - like Mugabe a virtual paranoiac in matters of personal security - had also left behind two extra bodyguards for Mugabe and four specialist coordinators. These men are believed to have experience in the training and handling of death squads and they have, in the last month, bought up 20 houses right around Zimbabwe to act as safe houses for the squads. The houses are strategically scattered only four are in Harare and there is one in every regional town or centre of any size.
The plan calls for the targeted assassination of MDC politicians, troublesome journalists and the like. Because many of the Pagad hitmen it is intended to employ have criminal records which could cause difficulties in entering the country, special instructions have been given to immigration officers at Beit Bridge to let them through. "You can see what a problem Mugabe has with the MDC and the press", said one source. "What he needs is contract jobs done by real pros. No botched jobs and nothing traceable back to him."***
April 7, 2002 - Mugabe goes to Libya to thank Gadaafi for support his "re-election."
FUBAR beyond FUBAR.
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