Posted on 12/04/2002 3:07:13 AM PST by backhoe
From The Daily News, 3 December
MDC activists arrested at cricket match
Staff Reporter
Eddison Mukwasi, the MDC youth chairman for Harare province, was on Saturday arrested by the police together with five other people while watching a cricket match on allegations of distributing offensive material to incite violence. Mukwasi, Fidelis Kanyemba of Warren Park D and five others, including a family that had travelled from Bindura for the fourth one day cricket international match between Zimbabwe and Pakistan, said they spent two nights at the police holding cells at the Harare Central Police Station. Mukwasi said: "The police accused us of possessing and distributing pamphlets which called for the stripping of Zimbabwe’s hosting of the Cricket World Cup next year, because of the political and economic meltdown in the country. They also queried our presence at a cricket match saying that it was suspicious for blacks to watch a "white man’s game" and accused us of being agents of neo-colonialists. Being an MDC activist, the police "advised" me to change alliance while it was still day." Some of the pamphlets reportedly read: We Are Victims Of Political Violence, Move The Cricket World Cup To South Africa and Mugabe Must Go.
Mukwasi said after they were arrested they were taken to the police station where they were tortured and interrogated. He said they were brutally assaulted by officers named only as Jena and Sergeant Chikande. "We were warned not to visit The Daily News offices or else we would be picked up again. The police alleged that we were accomplices of Tawanda Spicer who they suspected to have printed the messages on the pamphlets," Mukwasi said. "I was denied medication even though I showed them evidence that I was suffering from chest pains, instead they made me sleep in a room that was teeming with insects and lice." Kanyemba said the six had initially been brought under a charge of contravening section 15 of the repressive Public Order and Security Act. However, when they were released yesterday, the charge stated on their Admission of Guilt forms had changed to: "(committing) conduct likely to provoke breach of peace". The police refused to comment on the arrest.
From IRIN (UN), 3 December
Poor rains raise concerns over next harvest
Johannesburg - Farmers and food security specialists in Southern Africa are increasingly concerned that the lack of rain during the current planting season could mean another bad harvest for the region next year. Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho and Swaziland already have more than 14 million people in need of food aid after poor harvests at the beginning of this year. Desperate farmers, many of whom will use donated seed and fertiliser, are pinning their hopes of recovery on next year's crops, but so far rainfall figures have been worryingly low. According to the latest Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) drought and flood hazards assessment, most of the region has only recorded between 1 and 10 mm of rain with "substantially inhibited" rainfall over portions of South Africa, Zimbabwe and central to southern Mozambique. This includes South Africa's maize triangle, which usually supplies surrounding countries and contributes to relief agencies' stocks. But so far there had not been enough rain to plant the important crops of maize, wheat, sunflower, sorghum and soya in South Africa.
"There has been no planting in the western Transvaal region and planting in the east was weakened by poor rains," Fanie Brink, deputy general manager of Grain SA told IRIN on Tuesday. "We are worried about the situation, although there is still time in December to plant," he said. While northern Mozambique had received rain and made preparations ahead of its flood season, rainfall in northern Sofala and southern Zambezia in central Mozambique had been low throughout November and agricultural concerns loomed, the report said. "It's not good for next year, it could be potentially very bad," said Owen Calvert, World Food Programme (WFP) vulnerability analysis and mapping consultant in Mozambique. "The areas hit are in the southern and central maize production areas. Farmers sometimes try to replant their crops if they fail, but then they have to hope that the season is long enough for the crops to reach full maturity," he said. "We've been monitoring the rains for the last two to three weeks and we're concerned that these areas are showing up on satellite images as areas which are not going to get much in the next 10 days."
In Malawi, where President Bakili Muluzi declared a disaster earlier this year, there were similar concerns, with farmers only receiving rain during the last week of November. "We still have the first half of December to plant and after that it will be too late," said WFP spokesman in Malawi, Abdelgadi Musallam. Predictions from the South African Weather Service were equally grim. "Rainfall is definitely going to be below normal so the prospects for this season are not good," Shaumani Mugeri, a meteorologist at the weather service, told IRIN. "What aggravates the matter is we do have an El Nino in the region, even though it is moderate, and it is going to have an impact on us." Mugeri said worried farmers were calling in daily hoping for better news, but predictions were that the poor conditions would last until March, right through the crucial growing period. Richard Lee, WFP regional spokesman said: "We are concerned about this rainy season and are hoping the rains will be good because we clearly need as good a harvest as possible to get Southern Africa through this crisis."
From The Daily News, 4 December
Mayor slams food distribution
From Ntungamili Nkomo in Bulawayo
Bulawayo’s Executive Mayor, Japhet Ndabeni-Ncube, is headed for a showdown with the Matabeleland North Provincial Governor, Obert Mpofu, over the sidelining of the city council by the Food Task Force committee. In an interview yesterday, the mayor said the council wanted to ensure transparency in the distribution of maize which he alleged had been politicised. Mpofu leads the task force, which controls the allocation of maize at the Grain Marketing Board (GMB). Ncube said the distribution of maize at the GMB was riddled with corruption and rampant profiteering by black marketers. He said there was, thus, need for the council to intervene and halt the rot. "We, therefore, as the council have sought to be included in the Food Task Force committee to ensure that no one is denied food, but the governor’s position on our request is disappointing," said Ncube. He said his office had been inundated with reports of maize being bought from unauthorised sites such as open grounds where Zanu PF reportedly sold it only to their supporters. Ncube said last week the council met delegates from the task force and unanimously resolved that there was a food distribution crisis, and that the council should get involved. "We agreed that to ensure fair distribution, the mayor and the town clerk or council representatives should be members of the task force, and that councillors be advised or consulted on the distribution of maize in their respective areas," he said. Ncube sent a letter to the governor after the meeting, and Mpofu’s reply was evasive. In his letter, made available to The Daily News, Mpofu said his office was determined to fight corrupt forces that held the people to ransom, but did not say whether the council would be included in the task force. Ncube has written another letter to Mpofu, pointing out his request had not been answered. At the time of writing, the mayor was still waiting for a reply. Mpofu said the council was already represented in the task force through the Local Government Ministry, and he did not understand Ncube’s request. "The council is represented by the provincial administrator, Livingstone Mashengele, who leads local government in the area," said Mpofu. He said the task force was there to ensure fair maize distribution. He dismissed reports that Zanu PF was denying MDC supporters maize.
From The Daily News, 4 December
Queues remain in spite of fuel delivery assurances
Staff Reporter
Most service stations in Harare had no fuel for most of yesterday, contrary to government claims that the situation was improving following the delivery of thousands of litres of fuel to several service stations between Friday and Sunday. Service stations visited during yesterday’s snap survey revealed that most had run out of fuel on Monday morning. Tsitsi Madari, the manager at Engen Service Station in the city, said they received 15 000 litres of petrol on Sunday and another 15 000 litres of diesel on Monday evening. But by 11 am, they had run out of diesel and were left with very little petrol. A queue was beginning to emerge. Madari said they usually witnessed long queues around 4pm when most people broke for the next day. "They usually refuel in the evening because they fear the next day would be dry," she said. The situation was more severe at Exxor Service Station where there was a long queue. There was no diesel for most part of the day. But at Country Petroleum in Msasa, there was diesel but petrol was only being delivered then. Nearby at Total, there was neither diesel nor petrol. Fuel attendants there said petrol ran out on Saturday afternoon and diesel on Monday morning. "There is nothing and we are not sure when we will get our next deliveries," one worker said. "The situation might be getting worse, we are afraid. Some private suppliers are better positioned to buy their own supplies."
It was established that most service stations that received their fuel supplies from multinationals Mobil, BP and Shell were without fuel. The government has called on them to import their own supplies. The Herald yesterday quoted Reuben Marumahoko, the Deputy Minister of Energy and Power Development as saying the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe, the State-run main importer, had delivered 647 000 litres of petrol on Friday, 457 000 litres on Saturday and 300 000 litres on Sunday in Harare. "The average petrol distribution for Harare is 500 000 litres a day, so we were expecting that the distribution we made over the weekend would improve things somewhat," Marumahoko said. But the situation appeared to be getting worse. Some motorists in a queue at Exor said they were travelling to Bulawayo and Beitbridge to witness today’s solar eclipse and needed to have enough fuel for the return journey. James Makani, 30, of Harare, a commuter omnibus driver, said yesterday as had been hired by people who wanted to witness the solar eclipse he wanted the fuel to make the trip. "There is no fuel around town. We have been going from one service station to another, but with no luck," Makani said.
From The Economist (UK), 28 November
The Zimbabwean model
The pros and cons of opting out of the global economy
Orthodox economists sometimes get it wrong. For example, when a government fixes the prices of various goods below what they cost to produce, and fails to provide the necessary subsidy to fill the gap, orthodox theory predicts that there will be empty shelves in the shops. But in Zimbabwe, this is not how things have turned out. Retailers there have indeed run out of all manner of price-controlled goods. But for some reason they can still get hold of toilet paper. So, instead of empty shelves, Zimbabwean shoppers encounter aisle upon aisle of roll upon roll, where the bread, sugar and oil used to be. Ignore, for a moment, the headlines about murder, torture and election-rigging. For an interesting economic experiment is being conducted in Zimbabwe. To the foes of globalisation, President Robert Mugabe's views are unexceptional. He argues that "runaway market forces" are leading a "vicious, all-out assault on the poor". He decries the modern trend of "banishing the state from the public sphere for the benefit of big business." What sets him apart from other anti-globalisers, however, is that he has been able to put his ideas into practice. In countries where the IMF calls the shots, governments have to balance their budgets on the backs of the poor. Having told the IMF to get stuffed, Mr Mugabe is free not to do this. The official estimate is that Zimbabwe's budget deficit will be about 14% of GDP this year; the government is frantically borrowing and printing money to cover the shortfall. Inflation is now 144%, and it is predicted to top 500% next year.
Mr Mugabe argues that price rises are caused by greedy businessmen. His solution is price controls. For the past year or so, these applied only to everyday essentials, such as bread and maize meal. Shops were ordered to sell such goods at fixed, low prices. Unfortunately, Mr Mugabe was right about those greedy businessmen. Rather than lose money, they stocked their shelves with toilet paper, or tried to dodge price controls by modifying their products. For example, since bread was price-controlled, bakers added raisins to their dough and called it "raisin bread", which was not on the list. Not to be outsmarted, on November 16th the government extended price controls to practically everything, from typewriters to babies' nappies. Some things have to be imported, however, and it is hard to prevent foreigners from profiteering. Mr Mugabe is anxious that petrol, for example, should be affordable; otherwise, people will not be able to get to work. A strong currency should help, so he has frozen the exchange rate for the past two years, and denounced as a "saboteur" anybody who suggests devaluation. Since Zimbabwe's inflation is a tad higher than America's, nobody wishes to surrender hard currency at the official rate of 55 Zimbabwe dollars to one American dollar. The black market rate is several hundreds to one; the government blames speculators. To lay hands on foreign currency, Mr Mugabe has no choice but to rob exporters. Those whose products are bulky and hard to smuggle (tobacco farmers, for instance) must surrender half of their hard-currency proceeds to the government, which repays them in crisp new Zimbabwe dollars, at the official rate.
This is not nearly enough, however, to keep Zimbabwe supplied with petrol (the distribution of which is a state monopoly). So, this month, the finance minister announced a clampdown on the black market: all bureaux de change are to be shut. He also asked expatriate Zimbabweans to remit money home via the central bank, which will confiscate almost all of it. For some reason, they prefer informal channels, such as Internet-based firms that accept cash offshore and issue friends and relatives back in Zimbabwe with local currency or vouchers for supermarkets. For most problems, a coercive solution can be found. The government's debt-servicing costs are too high? Force financial institutions to buy treasury bills that yield far less than the rate of inflation. People are running out of food? Confiscate grain from those who have it ("hoarders") and distribute it at an artificially low price through a state monopoly grain distributor. Ordinarily, this would somewhat dampen commercial farmers' incentive to grow food. But since most of them have been driven off their land, what does it matter?
It would be nice to think that the rest of the world has nothing to learn from Zimbabwe. But Mr Mugabe has many admirers. His fellow Africans cheer his defiance of the old colonial powers. Namibia's government has promised a similar land-grab. South Africa, showing comparable paranoia about currency speculators, recently conducted a pointless investigation into whether banks had conspired to undervalue the rand. Globally, few policymakers favour going the full Mugabe, but many believe that a little bit of price-fixing won't hurt. Price supports for EU farmers, for example, persist because their governments are rich enough to keep subsidising them, and because the costs are spread across the entire population, who are often unaware that they are being fleeced. Influential charities argue that poor countries should also be paid a "fair" price for their products. Oxfam, for example, contends that the price of coffee is "too low" because multinationals manipulate it. The charity is campaigning for it somehow to be raised. It may seem harsh, when faced with the misery of an Ethiopian coffee farmer, to argue that it would be more efficient to let the price mechanism deliver its message ("Grow something else") unmuffled. But greater efficiency leads to greater wealth, and vice versa, as Zimbabwe so harrowingly shows. Nowhere has withdrawn so swiftly from the global economy, nor seen such a thorough reversal of neo-liberal policies. The results - an economy that has contracted by 35% in five years, and half the population in need of food aid - are hard to paper over.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.