• Zimbabwe marked its 30th anniversary of Independence this week on Sunday 18 April. For the first time, parties other than Zanu-PF were involved in the celebrations. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was cheered each time his image appeared on the live video monitor at the national stadium.

• The Chinese embassy in Harare made a significant financial contribution to the celebrations and activities in collaboration with Saviour Kasukuwere’s Ministry of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment, as part of a drive to strengthen diplomatic and business ties. The National Art Gallery exhibited a 30-year collection of photos featuring China-Zimbabwe diplomatic and business relations.

• Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and President Robert Mugabe disagreed on the progress of the South African-mediated talks on implementation of the GPA. SA President Jacob Zuma promised impartiality in his government’s mediation efforts after the ANC Youth League leader, Julius Malema, had promised ‘undying support’ for Mugabe.

• Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara was invited to the USA by Congress’s Black Caucus to report on progress in the GPA that might warrant the lifting of targeted sanctions against top Zanu-PF officials and their businesses.

• Zimbabwean prosecutors have withdrawn charges of  ‘illegally keeping maize’ against Senator and MDC Treasurer Roy Bennett, a former commercial farmer who is still awaiting a ruling on his recent terrorism trial.

Governance

• A new multiple-entry Emergency Travel Document was introduced by the Registrar General’s office. The document, which has a 6-month validity, has several security features to prevent counterfeit copying.

• The (MDC-dominated) Harare city council has proof that billionaire Philip Chiyangwa, a relative of Mugabe, and the Minister of Local Government, Ignatius Chombo, have fraudulently acquired municipal land. So far the police response has been to interrogate journalists reporting the story, and arrest and ‘caution’ eight city councillors for ‘leaking’ the report. The affair is being seen as a test of the GPA, which states police should be impartial in their duty to bring charges against any criminal.

• Phillip Chiyangwa has announced he will sue the Harare City Council and local newspaper The Standard for US$ 900 million (R6,5 billion) for defamation over allegations that he illegally acquired city land.

• Zimbabwe prison services have advertised urgently for the services of a hangman.  The number of prisoners on death row has been increasing since 2005 when the previous hangman quit. Humanitarian and church organisations are meanwhile pressing for the abolition of the death sentence.

• Zimbabwe’s Law Society has called for the appointment of a new Anti-Corruption Commission as specified in the GPA. Members of the previous commission were appointed in 2006 by the Zanu-PF-led government and have done did nothing during their term of office except draw salaries. The Law Society points out that the existing commission is now operating illegally.

• The Ministry of Finance will move in to deal with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ)’s debt and protect it from writs of execution, an initiative aimed at halting the stripping of the bank’s assets by creditors.

• Zimbabwe’s dilapidated weather stations and meteorological equipment need upgrading, but government does not have the US$7 million required to modernise the department.

Economy

• Finance Minister Tendai Biti has announced that the 2010 economic growth forecast could be cut from 7.7 percent to 4.8 percent due to political uncertainty and the country’s failure to attract foreign donor support. Biti said donors had so far provided only US$2.9 million to finance a US$810 million budget deficit, a shortfall which analysts say is due to the non-implementation of reforms under the GPA.

• The Industrialisation Fund for Developing Countries (IFU), a Danish development financial institution, is prepared to invest in Zimbabwe’s tourism sector among others but is holding out until there is political and economic certainty.

• Zimbabwe’s annual inflation rate accelerated to 3.5 percent year-on-year in March. Finance minister Tendai Biti accused local businesses of stoking inflation, saying speculative price increases were creating inflationary pressure. “On analysis, the increase in the inflation figures has largely been food-driven,” he said. Month-on-month inflation rose to 1% in February from 0,7% in January.

• Dysfunctional parastatal, the National Railways of Zimbabwe, has contracted to purchase rolling stock from China while many of its employees have gone without salaries for months. 29 new coaches are due to be delivered in June.

• A peaceful demonstration outside electricity utility ZESA Thursday to protest the price and lack of electricity supply led to the arrest of around 60 members of WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise). Most were held overnight and released but four leaders remained in custody over the weekend, including leaders Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, who were honoured last year by President Obama.  WOZA is a community based social movement with 70,000 members countrywide.

Business

• Tsvangirai and Mugabe have publicly contradicted each other over the status of the empowerment law which would give black Zimbabweans a 51% interest in white and foreign owned companies.

• According to legal monitor Veritas, the Indigenisation Regulations [Statutory Instrument 21/2010] have not been suspended. They continue in force in the form in which they were gazetted on January 29. One amendment is expected to be gazetted in the near future to accommodate the views of the Parliamentary Legal Committee. There are still ongoing consultations which may result in further amendments but until these are gazetted – and there is not sign of this yet – the present regulations hold good.

• US investment fund African Century has bought a 25 percent stake in NMB bank. The fund’s CEO says that “..Investment will in the long term help the continent (Africa) more than any amounts of aid have.”

• South African fixed-line telephone provider Telkom is in discussions to sign a contract with Zimbabwe’s TelOne to provide the state-owned entity with a wide range of management services such as engineering expertise.

Agriculture

• A ban on beef imports from South Africa has been imposed to prevent the spread of Rift Valley fever. A beef shortage looms as Zimbabwean commercial beef production has plummeted following 10 years of de-stocking by white commercial farmers forced off their land and with no access to grazing.

• Co-Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi (Zanu-PF) is believed to be behind the invasion of Denlynian Game Ranch, a South African-owned wildlife conservancy near Beitbridge.  This latest invasion violates the bilateral investment promotion and protection agreement (BIPPA) signed between South Africa and Zimbabwe in November last year which protects South African-owned property in Zimbabwe. The invasion is a threat to tourism business in the area.

• On Friday, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Tourism, Walter Mzembi, told his South African counterpart that Zimbabwe would like to intensify tourism co-operation and secure at last 30 percent of all tourists who visit South Africa.

Mining/Diamonds

• The blocking of a fact-finding parliamentary committee to the Marange (Chiadzwa district) diamond fields at the end of March has been described as a delaying tactic to provide more time to conceal the military presence and show the pretence of a normal diamond mining operation.  On Wednesday the visit finally went ahead and Public Works Minister Theresa Makone announced that all was well and the diamonds were being mined according to international requirements.

• This contradicts the findings of the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme monitor for Zimbabwe, Abbey Chikane of South Africa, who noted in a report on his March fact-finding mission that the presence of too many state entities increased the risk of diamond leakages and the absence of paper trails made the situation worse. He said most state workers lacked specialised training.

• Mines Minister Obert Mpofu has admitted that his department did not follow proper procedure when it allowed the two firms, Mbada Investments and Canadile Miners, to work the Chiadzwa claims.

• If managed correctly, economists say the diamond wealth of Zimbabwe could fund the entire rebuilding of the country.

• Gold production in the first quarter reached 1.667 tonnes, compared to zero tonnes during the first quarter of 2009, but mines are still being hampered by intermittent electricity supply, according to a Chamber of Mines report.

• Four Zanu-PF officials have reportedly started fighting over which of them should be given ‘empowerment’ shares in the country’s largest lithium mine, Bikita Minerals. Board member and Zanu PF politburo member Dzikamai Mavhaire has already announced he wants 51% of the shares on the grounds that “giving me shares will not affect the viability of the company.”

New Constitution

• Zanu-PF has launched ‘Operation Hapana Anotaura‘ (Nobody Speaks) to silence rural people during the constitutional outreach programme to be undertaken by the Parliamentary Select Committee. The Centre for Community Development in Zimbabwe (CCDZ), an NGO working with traumatised communities, has expressed concern at this latest development.

• Victims fleeing political violence in Matabeleland Central province told reporters they were warned that “only selected Zanu-PF officials, youths and war veterans would be allowed to speak at outreach meetings. Anybody who spoke without permission would be beaten up after the constitutional outreach teams had left.”

Political Violence

• Zimbabwe’s civil society organisations are calling for the coalition government to temporarily postpone the re-introduction of the National Youth Service programme since the scheme had been prone to sexual and physical abuse and has been used as a political tool to maim or kill Zanu-PF perceived opponents.

• A Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) agent, Innocent Makamure, who went missing after denouncing President Mugabe and saying he felt used by the government for taking part in the torture and harassment of innocent MDC members, has been found dead.  His body was discovered floating in the Mwerahari River – foul play is suspected.

• In Masvingo, more than 100 informal traders, mostly women, had their wares looted and were brutally beaten on Saturday morning by a group of war veterans and Zanu PF youths who had demanded at least US$2 from each trader to pay for ‘independence celebrations’ on Sunday 18. Over 20 traders had to be taken to Masvingo General Hospital for treatment.

• Zanu-PF youth militia yielding iron bars and machetes descended on Dandare Primary School in Murewa and frog marched the school’s headmaster, John Chananda, out of the building after accusing him of being an agent of the MDC-T.

Elections

• President Mugabe has told his supporters they should prepare for general elections next year but commentators say it is doubtful whether this could be feasible before a new constitution is adopted.

• Reports from the rural areas indicate that Zanu-PF has stepped up youth militia deployment in most areas. Traditional chiefs, who have been used consistently to force villagers into voting for Zanu-PF, are reported to be receiving 100 percent salary increases.

• Villagers in Mutoko have reported seeing soldiers and war veterans brandishing brand new AK47 and FN assault rifles as well as Uzi sub-machine guns. There is growing concern that arms have been purchased by Zanu PF from China with money generated by Marange diamonds.

Humanitarian

• The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Zimbabwe government have said the measles outbreak has now spread to 48 districts in the country, with 200 confirmed deaths and at least 3,285 suspected cases since the outbreak was first announced in September last year.

• Human rights group Amnesty International marked Zimbabwe’s 30th Independence Day celebrations by releasing ‘a series of exclusively commissioned photographs which show the effects today on those evicted en masse in 2005 under Operation Murambatsvina’.  More than 700 000 people were rendered homeless or jobless and at least 2,4 million poor people were affected.

• The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) announced a contribution of US$5.5 million to support the humanitarian crisis in Zimbabwe, to be channelled to targeted UN-approved organisations.

Media

• The work of the new Media Commission is being hampered by lack of funds. The task of drafting new regulations for licensing newspapers has been handed to the discredited Attorney-General, Johannes Tomana. This latest move has sparked outrage among media players who fear that Tomana may use his influence to block or delay registration of media houses seen as critical of Zanu-PF.

• First in line for licensing is the Daily News, banned by the previous Zanu-PF-appointed Media and Information Commission. In preparation, the Zimbabwe Times website masthead was last month replaced by that of the Daily News. Zimbabwe’s only privately owned daily newspaper, the Daily News was forced to shut down seven years ago and its printing presses were bombed.

• The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA Regional Office) announced Wednesday that the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) is to launch a second television channel on May 1.

Education

• The Zimbabwe National Students’ Union (ZINASU) faction which backs the parliamentary-led constitutional revision process has informed Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that since January one student has been abducted, 51 have been arrested and 13 have been expelled.

Diaspora

• Gabriel Shumba, the Director of the Zimbabwe Exiles Forum in South Africa, Irene Petras (the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights) and Lovemore Matombo (the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) ware holding the first in a series of workshops in London this week, aimed at garnering input and opinions from Zimbabweans in the Diaspora on transitional justice options.

Sport

• The Zimbabwe cricket team went to the West Indies to participate in the World 20Twenty tournament, with a new coach and former Zimbabwean greats, Grant Flower and Heath Streak, as specialist coaches.

The Good News

• US-based charity Operation of Hope started its seventh programme of surgical corrections for cleft-palate children referred from all over Zimbabwe, with 70 operations planned.

• The award-winning Dangamvura Old Students Association (DOSA) choir from Mutare has been selected to compete in the 6th World Choral Games in China in July.

• The Harare International Festival of the Arts is on next week:  27 April to 2 May.

Source:   Zimbabwe Democracy Now

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• A consolidated report by the three principal parties in the GPA has been forwarded to South African President Jacob Zuma. The parties failed to agree on all outstanding issues and now await SADC’s recommendations. It will be viewed by President Zuma before being forwarded  to Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, the SADC chairman on defence politics and security.

• MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said the party would not accept deputy agriculture minister (designate) Roy Bennett being given anything less than a junior agriculture portfolio. Bennett is still waiting a ruling on his treason trial.

• Zanu-PF and MDC negotiators have agreed on a raft of electoral reforms designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 presidential election fiasco. The proposed new amendments to the Electoral Act outline strict procedures on how the poll is to be conducted and results announced. They are also calculated to stem systematic rigging.

• An MDC delegation, reportedly to be led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, will travel to Brussels later this month to campaign for the removal of targeted sanctions still in place on Zanu-PF elite in the MDC’s latest concession to the party.

• US Congressman Donald M. Payne concluded a two-day trip to Zimbabwe on April 9. He met with Tsvangirai and leaders of civil society in order to assess political and economic progress since the signing of the GPA. He was unable to meet with President Robert Mugabe, despite a US Embassy request made two weeks before the visit.

• President Mugabe last week jointly swore in commissioners of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in line with constitutional provisions.

• At a news conference in Durban on Saturday, South African President Jacob Zuma said ANC Youth League leader Julius Malema’s conduct was “alien to the ANC”.  He rebuked Malema for meddling in the talks on Zimbabwe and for continuing to sing the “shoot the boer (farmer)” apartheid era song.

• Retired Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who played a brief but historic role as the prime minister of the short-lived state of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia in 1979, died Thursday at his Harare home at the age of 85.  Politically moderate, Muzorewa opposed the armed struggle that ultimately led to majority black rule.

Economy

• Zimbabwe will face serious power shortages in the next six weeks as the country’s power utility ZESA carries out maintenance at Kariba power station. This comes at a time when all but one of the generators at Hwange Power Station are inoperable.

• The joint venture project between ZESA and Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) to revive Bulawayo’s thermal power station is hanging in the balance due to bureaucracy within the Harare company, which is stalling progress.

• Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mirkzemi discussed energy ties with Zimbabwean Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Didymus Mutasa, on Tuesday. Based on a memorandum of understanding signed in 2006, Iran agreed to take part in the Feruka refinery renovation project.

• The Competition and Tariff Commission will next week conclude investigations into allegations that ZESA is abusing its monopoly by charging excessive tariffs and over the arbitrary disconnection of supplies. The commission’s assistant director said they would set a hearing for the power utility to respond, compile a report and recommend action.

• Zimbabwe’s cash strapped Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) will next month begin retrenching about half of its bloated staff as it embarks on an exercise to realign its structures.

Business

• Tsvangirai on Thursday promised business leaders new and “more progressive” empowerment laws, as the government continues to give conflicting signals over its controversial new indigenisation regulations.

• In direct conflict with Minister of Youth and Economic Empowerment Saviour Kasukuwere, his deputy, Thamusanqa Mlangu, said the government is seriously considering revising the controversial indigenisation law. He said the ministry does not want to repeat the land ‘reform’ error that was done in a chaotic manner and only benefited a few people, most of them with links to Zanu (PF).

• Kasukuwere has dismissed an offer from Zimplats to set aside 10 percent of shares for black Zimbabweans, saying he would rather do away with all foreign-owned mining firms than accept anything less than a 51 percent stake.

• Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono last Monday maintained that the new indigenisation laws are susceptible to abuse by senior officials. He and Kasukuwere have openly clashed over the controversial empowerment regulations.

• A New Jersey congressman said he would demand a government inquiry into a possible deal by Mikhail Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire, to buy the New Jersey Nets in a US$200 million team deal, for his extensive business dealings in Zimbabwe. Democratic Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. is questioning whether Prokhorov’s companies in Zimbabwe violate US sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies.

• Mugabe has invited controversial Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to officially open this year’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) in Bulawayo on April 23. Local human rights and journalist organisations have condemned the decision to invite the dictator.

Diamonds

• The Kimberley Process (KP) monitor for Zimbabwe, Abbey Chikane, has slammed the involvement of too many government agencies in the handling of rough diamonds from Chiadzwa. He said this “poses the danger of diamonds being swapped or stolen in the process.” The report notes that between October 2006 and February 2010, the Marange fields have produced 4,4 million carats.

• A week before Chikane’s visit, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy was banned from touring the diamond fields and holding meetings with different stakeholders.

• The government is considering auctioning parts of the Chiadzwa diamond field to firms that have applied to mine in the area, but this could prove problematic because not all of Chiadzwa has been surveyed to establish the value or size of deposits.

• Villagers in Chiadzwa are demanding the immediate withdrawal of soldiers from the area, whom they accuse of demanding national identity cards and assaulting those found without cards.

Agriculture

• Zimbabwe has so far earned US$45,3 million from 13,39 million kgs of tobacco since the auction floors opened last month, the Tobacco Industry Marketing Board (TIMB) said last week. Seventy-seven million kgs of tobacco are expected to be sold this year, up from 42 million kgs last season.Tobacco is the country’s second largest foreign currency earner after mining.

• Zimbabwe’s ailing dairy industry is on the verge of collapse, with the national dairy herd down to just 22,000 cows from 192,000 in 2000 when the land grabs began.  Deliveries have plunged to 38 million litres a year from 138 million litres of milk. The state-controlled Dairibord is being supplied by just 60 dairy farmers compared with 215 providers in 2000.

• A multi-million dollar dairy plant, built for President Mugabe and his wife Grace by a South African-based German firm, Guth SA, is reportedly finished and ready to be transported to Zimbabwe. Payment for the plant, believed to be about US$13.5 million, is understood to have been channeled through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).

• White Zimbabwean commercial farmers who lost their farms under the land reform programme have asked the SADC tribunal in Namibia to find the Zimbabwean government in contempt for ignoring a 2008 judgment by the tribunal saying farm seizures were illegal and discriminatory.The farmers also plan to refer the matter to SADC, whose next summit is likely to be held later this year.

• Civil rights group AfriForum, which last month helped commercial farmers attach a Cape Town property belonging to the Zimbabwean government to cover outstanding legal costs, said it will wait to hear from the government if there are plans to compensate the farmers before selling it. AfriForum also said it will wait before going ahead to attach three others properties in the city.

Education

• Education Minister David Coltart said his ministry has hired a German-based chartered accountant to help rehabilitate the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC), which has for years faced allegations of corruption and mismanagement.

• Lecturers at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST) have gone on strike over unpaid allowances. Meanwhile, the state has renewed its crackdown on students over demonstrations staged on 29 March in protest against continuing deterioration of university standards.

Law

• 210 rapporteurs for the public outreach phase of the constitutional revision process on Friday completed two days of training in Harare. But the outreach programme has been delayed due to donors only disbursing US$2,1 million of the total US$14 million they were promised for the constitution-making process. The donors are allegedly still consulting their home countries regarding various aspects of concern.

• The High Court will next month make a ruling in a case in which a senior official at the Ministry of Mines is suing Mines Minister Obert Mpofu for US$30 000 as damages for criminal defamation. Mpofu allegedly accused Manyenge and other commissioners of corruption.

Violence

• Human rights groups are urging the newly constituted Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) to ensure that Zimbabwe takes immediate steps to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture. Zimbabwe is one of the few SADC countries that have not signed this convention.

• Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition says the unity government should give a high priority to the prosecution of human rights violators and perpetrators of political violence.

• A Zanu-PF deputy minister, Hubert Nyanhongo, was on Wednesday named in the MDC’s roll of shame as one of the masterminds of the political violence during the 2008 elections.

• A member of Mugabe’s Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), who recently publicly apologised to villagers in his home area for being used by Mugabe to torture MDC party members, has gone missing, according to relatives.

• Police on Thursday barred MDC youths from holding a peaceful demonstration on transitional justice, saying it would cause anarchy in the country.

• An annual report by the US State Department on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe has warned of a rise in trafficking in persons through Zimbabwe.  It has also revealed that ‘corrective rape’ against gay men and lesbians is on the increase.

• Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (Zimrights) director Okay Machisa has said the organisation will not be intimidated by police in their quest to showcase pictures of the victims of political violence and will soon be taking its photo exhibition to rural areas.

• The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR)’s Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has urged the Zimbabwean government to compensate three Banket residents who were abducted by state security agents two years ago and held incommunicado for several months.

• Scores of war veterans who refused to beat up people in the violence-ridden 2008 Presidential Election run-off have had their benefits withdrawn.

Humanitarian

• An estimated 78 percent of Zimbabweans are “absolutely poor,” with 55 percent of the population living below the food poverty line, a UNICEF report said Wednesday. The report said a burgeoning HIV/AIDS pandemic has killed many breadwinners leaving large numbers of child-headed families. Zimbabwe currently has an estimated 1.6 million AIDS orphans.

• A report by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWSNET) said although most households in rural areas have come through the peak hunger season, adverse agricultural conditions are affecting Masvingo, Matabeleland South and Manicaland provinces, among others. More than three million people needed food aid between January and March.

• Hundreds of villagers from the drought-perched Benzi communal lands in Zaka, Masvingo Province, staged a six hour sit-in Monday at the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), demanding urgent food relief to avert possible starvation of their families. About 100 000 villagers are reported to be vulnerable.

Media

• The US State Department’s annual report on the human rights situation in Zimbabwe has identified media freedoms as an area where there has been little progress over the past 13 months.

• A Beitbridge correspondent for the state-owned Chronicle Newspaper has been arrested as the ongoing clampdown on the media continues. The incident comes in the wake of the arrest of four journalists who were detained after exposing the Philip Chiyangwa land scandal. MISA, the Media Institute of Southern Africa, has expressed concern.

• Despite having a propaganda monopoly on the public media, Zanu-PF has launched two newsletters, The Insider, and The Zimbabwe Today, which are circulated free of charge in rural areas, and are being seen as an attempt to counter successful MDC publications.

Sport

• China has handed over a revamped national football stadium to Zimbabwe after refurbishments costing US$10 million. China first built the 60,000-seat stadium in 1987, but it has been closed for renovations for the past three years.

• North Korea will train in Zimbabwe before heading to South Africa for this year’s World Cup in June. Zimbabwe approached five countries playing in the tournament to set up their training bases in the country, but only North Korea has confirmed it will come.

The Good News

• The Zimbabwean government has allocated US$2 million through the Ministry of Tourism to provide free access in rural areas to transmissions of the FIFA World Cup, while corporate sponsors are funding public viewing stations allowing urban residents to watch the games.

• President Jacob Zuma has both visited and sent negotiating delegations to Zimbabwe over the last few weeks, but the South African leader is being tested by Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party: reported agreements reached on implementation of the GPA were rebutted by Mugabe as soon as the South Africans went home.  The coalition partners failed to meet the March 31 deadline set by Pretoria to complete negotiations.

• The stand-off continued all this week while SADC, guarantor of the GPA, has neither commented on or condemned the situation publicly. President Zuma is due to present a report to the SADC organ on security, defence and politics, which may then call a plenary meeting to discuss the situation.

• Solidarity Peace Trust director Brian Raftopoulos told journalists at the launch of a new report in Johannesburg Wednesday that President Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party is determined to remain in power at any cost.  “ Be very clear this is a struggle for the state. Any struggle for the state is intense, it is violent, it is problematic, especially when you are fighting a party whose very future is invested in control of the state.”

• The Zimbabwean judiciary has once more postponed the final ruling in the Roy Bennett case which has been adjourned to May 10.  On the same day police served the MDC senator with a new summons on charges of ‘hoarding’ maize he had grown on his farm nine years previously.

• France, which is in charge of granting Belgian visas to Zimbabweans, has declined to issue a visa to discredited Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa as part of a delegation from Zimbabwe to discuss re-engagement plans. However, Chinamasa, who is on the EU travel-ban list, could apply direct to the Belgian Embassy in South Africa.

• Minority partner in the GPA and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara angered his supporters in a speech at a Women’s Day event, when he heaped praise on Robert Mugabe, describing him as “a consistent leader with organizational capacity and strategic vision.”

• South Africa’s ANC Youth League president, Julius Malema, visited Zimbabwe to “learn about Zimbabwe’s revolutionary empowerment programmes” from Zanu-PF Youth Minister, Saviour Kasukuwere. Also a controversial figure, Kasukuwere admitted last year that Zanu-PF deployed youth militias to spearhead its violent 2008 pre- and post-election campaign. Malema created controversy by declaring the ANC would start confiscating white-owned farms and nationalising mines in South Africa.

• In-fighting within the re-formed ZAPU party has surfaced, with several suspended officials seeking to sue the party’s chairman, Dumiso Dabengwa over their outstanding grievances.

• Zimbabwe Liberation War Collaborators (ZILIWACO) members who took to the streets in Masvingo Wednesday claimed sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the West had caused the deaths of half a million people through cholera and malnutrition. The demonstration was called to pressurize Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to push for the removal of sanctions.

Governance

• After a year of delay, two key reform commissions were finally sworn in – the Human Rights Commission and the Electoral Commission. But analysts at legal monitor Veritas say the new electoral commission cannot reform the deeply flawed electoral laws without the consent of Zanu-PF Minister of Justice, Patrick Chinamasa.

• Harare City Council has adopted a report exposing illicit municipal land deals by Mugabe relative Philip Chiyangwa and Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo. A local newspaper which covered the leaked report was raided by the police and journalists were interrogated.

• Bulawayo city council has announced plans to purchase six luxury vehicles for its top managers, while the city’s water reticulation system, street lighting, and roads are all in serious disrepair through lack of finances.

• The new constitution-making process became marred in controversy after reports emerged that the committees and MPs involved in the process were paying themselves hefty allowances during the training period. The UNDP and other donors therefore announced they would only fund the 70% of the public consultation programme which deals with the actual constitution-making process. The Zimbabwe government is to fund the remaining 30% of costs.

Business

• The German African Business Association (GABA) cancelled a visit to Zimbabwe because Zimbabwe has become a “no go area” for foreign investors following promulgation of the empowerment laws that give foreign-controlled business up to 2015 to sell a majority stake to indigenous Zimbabweans or face punitive levies and taxes from the government. Norway recently announced that it was putting on hold a US$1,5 million project to assist Zimbabwe’s agriculture sector because of the indigenisation law.

• State electricity utility Zesa is battling to find investors to pay for new generators at Hwange power station, while other generation projects remain unfunded, including the proposed Batoka Hydro Power station, the Gokwe North Power station and a raft of mini hydro power stations across the country.

• Lack of electricity has forced thousands of residents to use wood fuel for cooking, causing massive deforestation as entrepreneurs cut down trees in the countryside to transport to the cities. Environmentalists have warned that 20 percent of forests have been lost to firewood vendors since 1990, and that losses are accelerating by an alarming 16 percent each year.

• Hwange Colliery Company Ltd (HCCL) has resorted to barter trade. It will pay two South African companies with processed coal (coke) to the value of US$4 million, in exchange for repairing its 32-coke oven battery.

• State telecoms regulator Telco has switched off the internet accounts of 200 of ISP Zimbabwe Online’s customers. The Zol account holders have refused to supply their personal details as demanded by the much-maligned Interception of Communications Act. The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) enforces compliance with the Act.

• A shortage of over-the-counter drugs has been caused by the forced closure of pharmaceutical manufacturer Caps Holdings’ factory by the Medicines Control Authority of Zimbabwe.  This was reportedly due to the production of drugs from the newly-refurbished plant before it had been inspected.

• Taxi bus operators have appealed to Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri to stop his police officers forcing the operators to ‘donate’ a routine US$5 bribe at roadblocks in and around Harare and outlying towns.

• Ecoweb, the wholly-owned ISP subsidiary of Zimbabwe’s largest cellular network operator, Econet Wireless, has started implementing a project to install the country’s first mobile WiMAX network.  The new network will be capable of carrying mobile, nomadic and fixed services ranging from individual netbooks to large corporate networks.

Elections

• The Zimbabwe Republic Police has ordered all officers-in-charge to eliminate ‘unpatriotic’ officers from the force as the country prepares for a possible fresh election.  Last week senior police personnel warned officers at Police General Headquarters that anyone who was suspected of supporting any other party than Zanu-PF would be dismissed from the force.

• Hundreds of thousands of ‘invisible’ and ‘forgotten’ Zimbabweans inside the country, disenfranchised by the Citizenship Amendment Act of 2001 and denied many rights, including the right to vote, are lobbying for dual citizenship.  This constituency comprises an estimated two million second and third generation Zimbabweans, many of Zambian and Malawian descent.

Agricultural Sector

• The SADC Tribunal in Windhoek has postponed the hearing of a contempt of court case brought by the Commercial Farmers’ Union against the Zimbabwe government after Mugabe refused to accept the Tribunal judgment outlawing the country’s land reforms. The Tribunal ruled that the “reforms” were “discriminatory, racist and illegal under the SADC Treaty”. The commercial farmers want the Tribunal to grant an enforcement order urging SADC leaders to take measures that might include the suspension or expulsion of Zimbabwe from the regional bloc.

• Lawyers for civil rights group AfriForum seized a luxury property in Cape Town belonging to the Zimbabwe government, in what is a significant step towards gaining compensation for Zimbabwean farmers who lost their land in President Mugabe’s unlawful land reform programme. Zimbabwe’s ambassador to South Africa had no comment on the action, but returned to Harare to ‘consult’.

• South African foreign affairs official Kgomotso Molobi announced that the South African Government would appeal the court ruling in favour of AfriForum.

Political Violence

• On Wednesday the pressure group Restoration of Human Rights (ROHR) reported that Zanu-PF mobs had attacked villages in Mashonaland East, burning houses and a church in Muzarabani district and forcing 16 families to flee. Certain MDC officials have denied that there is organised violence in the area.

• Demonstrations by Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) members were violently disrupted and several student leaders were arrested in Harare and Masvingo. The students were demanding the ‘full implementation of the GPA’ as well as protesting against ‘deteriorating conditions in education’.

• The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) released its report on election violence, rape and sexual abuse, entitled “Fighting for a New Constitution: Human Rights Violations Experienced by Female Members of the National Constitutional Assembly”. The report detailed serial abuse of women by Zanu-PF youth militias, ‘war veteran’ groups and police.

• A grouping of NGOs under the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition say they are seeking an audience with South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma over the rising levels of violence and harassment in Zimbabwe.

The Arts

• An exhibition of paintings at Bulawayo’s National Gallery was closed and the artist, Owen Maseko, arrested and charged with ‘inciting violence’. The exhibition theme was the political violence and the Gukurahundi massacres which took place in Matabeleland in the 1980s. Last week in Harare’s Delta Gallery, a photographic exhibition by ZimRights, featuring pictures of the 2008 political violence, was also shut down by police.

Mining

• Mining Minister Obert Mpofu is under scrutiny after a personal multi-million US dollar cash spending spree on property in Victoria Falls.

• Minister Mpofu admitted to the parliamentary committee probing mining activities in Chiadzwa that he had issued licences to two diamond mining firms in Chiadzwa in which it is believed he may have an interest. Although the firms are more than 50 percent owned by the Government, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said there had as yet been no income from the two firms.

• The Parliamentary Committee on Mines’s fact-finding mission to the Marange/Chiadzwa diamond diggings was refused entry to the diamond fields and to the premises of the two firms exploiting the diamond fields. The group of lawmakers and journalists were barred by police on the orders of the Zanu-PF Provincial Governor, the Police Commissioner and Minister of Mines Obert Mpofu.

• The Kimberley Process monitor for Zimbabwe, Abbey Chikane, said no diamonds from Marange have as yet been certified for sale, but he has submitted a detailed report to the Kimberley Process working committee on monitoring.

• Illegal gold panners have descended on two farms near Masvingo, causing massive land degradation and trampling crops. Police have arrested 80 people but the gold rush is attracting hundreds of men, women and schoolchildren every day.

• The Zimbabwe Chamber of Mines submitted a proposal to the Ministry of Indigenization under which foreign-owned mining companies would set aside 10 percent of their equity shares for indigenous blacks under the indigenization program. The proposal noted that bodies such as the IMF could fund the purchase of shares for ordinary Zimbabweans who would otherwise not be able to afford them. The proposal was rejected by Indigenisation Minister Kasukuwere.

• The 5 000 workers at Zimbabwe’s massive Shabanie and Mashava asbestos mines have not been paid for 18 months, and are now being assisted by the World Food Programme. The mines were confiscated from businessman Matuma Mawere by the Zanu-PF government and are no longer operating.

Health/Humanitarian

• UNICEF director in Harare, Dr Peter Salama, has called for international aid to restart the measles immunisation program in Zimbabwe, where 183 deaths have occurred in the last few months and fears of an epidemic are rising. Health Minister Henry Madzorera (MDC) said US$ 8.4 million would be required for a countrywide measles vaccination program.

• Thousands of Bulawayo residents who have not paid their water bills are being disconnected by the Bulawayo city council, prompting fears of another cholera outbreak.

Diaspora

• Solidarity Peace Trust has released a new report titled:  “Desperate lives, twilight worlds – how a million Zimbabweans live without sanction or sanctuary in South Africa”.  It details the dire reality facing Zimbabwean immigrants who fled their country seeking safety and work in South Africa, a trend that is still continuing. It also notes that more Zimbabweans have fled their country in the past 10 years than those who fled Mozambique at the height of its long and bloody civil war.  Click here to access the report.

Good News

• The United States government officially handed over a new, upgraded bio-safety, level-two-plus laboratory to the Minister of Health, Dr. Henry Madzorera. The facility at Harare hospital will enhance the capacity of the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare to offer clinical and diagnostic testing as well as research on indigenous/exotic agents which may cause serious disease after inhalation, such as Mycobacterium tuberculosis (TB) ,typhoid (Salmonella Typhi),anthrax (Bacillus anthracis) and the H1N1 virus.

• US-based media development organisation Internews Network plans to launch a project to use local media, video and civic networks to promote understanding of Zimbabwe’s national healing and reconciliation agenda. There are no transitional justice mechanisms sponsored by government in spite of the organ on national healing having been set up under the GPA.

• An ex-member of Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Office (CIO) has publicly apologised for violence and torture campaigns in which he participated during and after the 2008 elections, saying there were many more in the CIO who felt guilt and shame.

Most of these torture camps have been brought back in Mashonaland, Manicaland, Midlands. Many of the youth who were in the camps up to 2008 were put into the police, army and the CIO as a way of keeping them available in case anything happens. The youth are taking part in making sure that the constitutional process is disturbed and that the elections are to be held under the Kariba Draft, the current constitutional document. They are making sure they do their best to intimidate, torture and instill fear, so people will vote for the Kariba Draft in the referendum.

What surprises me is that the unity government is pushing the issue to remove the sanctions, and South African President Jacob Zuma was in the United Kingdom pleading with the west to lift sanctions, but not acknowledging the torture that will come thereafter. Once the sanctions are lifted, members of Zanu will go overseas and grab their wealth, stolen in Zimbabwe but hidden abroad, and take back their assets to local banks. Once they do that, come elections they will revive torture camps and people from the opposition will be killed and then, even if they bring back the sanctions, it will be of no use. For the safety of all of us in Zimbabwe, sanctions must stay. SADC must conduct the elections and not just observe. It must take part to make sure the referendum and the constitution-making process is done freely and fairly. If that is not done then the Global Political Agreement (GPA) will just be one other useless, ceremonial gathering of the time.

The political instability is the reason there are still torture camps in Zimbabwe, and there isn’t much hope it will improve. The only way the three political giants will make peace is if one joins the other, but Zanu will not give it easy to the two MDCs. They fear they will go from being heroes to prisoners in The Hague, so unless someone proves that they will be safe and they feel convinced maybe they would let the power go to the other parties or else nothing is going to happen. Zimbabweans will always suffer and the MDC will disappear like smoke in the air in the hands of Zanu-PF.

It is the duty of South Africa as the mediator to make sure that what was signed is being implemented, and to make sure ordinary people are not being abused by their own brothers and sisters. After the World Cup, there is speculation of xenophobia here in South Africa. If these militia camps are allowed, then there will be no place for us, the Diaspora, in Africa because we are targeted in South Africa for being foreigners and targeted in Zimbabwe for not supporting Zanu-PF.

• The MDC on Sunday said it was seeking SADC intervention to help resolve outstanding issues in the Global Political Agreement (GPA). The decision will be passed to the party’s national council, due to meet in Harare on March 12.

• In a government gazette issued on Friday, President Robert Mugabe reassigned powers from the Ministry of Information and Technology and the Ministry of Labor, both allocated to the MDC, to ministers loyal to Zanu-PF. Finance Minister Tendai Biti condemned the reassignments, saying it was not “the unilateral right” of the president. Mugabe also re-allocated the Interception of Communications Act to the president’s office, which houses the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO).

• In a similarly provocative move, Mugabe also transferred responsibility for Zimbabwe’s Human Rights Act and Electoral Commission Act to the Justice Ministry controlled by one of his top advisers, Patrick Chinamasa.

• The United States on Tuesday extended targeted sanctions against Zanu-PF elite for another year, stating the political crisis remains unresolved, President Barack Obama announced.

• SA President Jacob Zuma attracted criticism during his state visit to the UK last week for campaigning for the removal of EU sanctions against Mugabe and his cronies. A crowd of angry demonstrators greeted Zuma outside the South African High Commission in London, urging him to take a tougher stance against Mugabe and to urge early elections in Zimbabwe.  British Prime Minister Gordon Brown however declared that the sanctions would remain in place until the GPA was fully implemented. Winding up his visit, Zuma said on Friday he was satisfied that he had put his point across.

• South Africa’s main opposition party the Democratic Alliance (DA) last week lashed out at Zuma, accusing him of failing to take a principled stand against Mugabe.

• Neighbouring Botswana, which is negatively affected by fallout from the Zimbabwean crisis, last Tuesday called for the West to lift sanctions against Zanu-PF elite, saying they are impeding efforts by the unity government to bring stability to the country.

• Mugabe last week said fresh elections would be held next year “with or without a new constitution”. He said the GPA has a two-year lifespan, and said he would stand for re-election.

• Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Sunday called for an African Union (AU) and SADC peacekeeping force during the forthcoming elections to ensure a “free and fair environment.”

• First Lady Grace Mugabe has ordered the destruction of 100 households in a Mazowe suburb to make way for the expansion of an orphanage her aides claim she is building in the area. The households have been promised land elsewhere, but angry residents say they are being unjustly removed, and don’t believe she plans on building an orphanage.

• The MDC has released a code of ethics to govern the behavior of its members elected to public office. The party’s ‘Real Change Code of Ethics and Values’ seeks to promote and entrench accountability by its top officials.  This is the first of its kind to be crafted and implemented by a political party in southern Africa.

• According to his officials, Tsvangirai narrowly escaped death last month when his official vehicle burst a rear tire during a trip to Matabeleland where he had gone to assess the food security situation in the region. Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) chief Happiton Bonyongwe has ordered a probe into allegations that Tsvangirai was issued with a defective vehicle.  The vehicle importer, a German expert who examined the car afterwards, reported evidence which suggested the vehicle had been tampered with.

Governance

• An ultimatum issued by striking civil servants expired without a response from the government in the four-week-long industrial strike. The workers insist the government could afford their requested quadruple wage increase if it tapped the revenue from Marange diamond sales. The Apex Council representing the civil servants will meet early this week to review the situation.

Business

• Industry Minister Welshman Ncube said Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere had prematurely pushed through the regulations of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act without Cabinet’s legal committee’s approval or input.  He said the government was now revising the regulations.

• Trading on Zimbabwe’s stock exchange has plummeted from a daily average of US$2 million to US$500 000 since the controversial indigenisation law was published.

• Zimbabwe’s House of Assembly on Thursday ratified the Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) signed by Zimbabwean and South African officials last November. The move means that South African firms would likely be exempt from the indigenisation law.

• Kasukuwere ordered foreign banks operating in Zimbabwe to start financing black businesses or leave, in remarks that are likely to further unsettle foreign investors. As locals do not possess the capital to participate in the new indigenisation programme, the government may force banks to fund the buy-in transactions.

• Government is planning to raise mining taxes amid projections of growth in the sector this year. Mines Minister Obert Mpofu said the country was not capitalising on the “vast mineral deposits” being exploited by foreign firms. The revelations are likely to further unsettle investors.

• ArcelorMittal’s bid for Ziscosteel may be withdrawn after the steel giant expressed major concern over Zimbabwe’s new indigenisation law. A globally diversified steel company with its headquarters in Luxembourg, ArcelorMittal, through its South Africa subsidiary, is one of the two firms short-listed by the government to take over a significant part of its interest Ziscosteel.

• The Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce (ZNCC) has urged the repeal of the National Incomes and Pricing Act as it deters investors seeking a free-market economy. The Price Control Act is blamed for hastening the collapse of the economy.

Economy

• The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) is set to retrench 2 157 “idle” workers countrywide due to viability problems and the liberalisation of the grain market.

• Six ageing and faulty generation units at the Hwange thermal power station may be decommissioned as repairs become non-viable.  This is despite the fact that Namibia pumped US$40 million into the refurbishment of the plant three years ago.

Agriculture

• The landmark South African High Court ruling in February, which upholds the 2008 SADC Tribunal ruling and allows dispossessed farmers in Zimbabwe to attach Zimbabwe government-owned property in South Africa as compensation for lost farms has paved the way for justice.

• Lawyers for commercial farmers who were dispossessed of their Zimbabwean farms are planning to start using the law to seize houses in Cape Town that are owned by the Zimbabwean government.

• In an about turn on Saturday 6 March, Lands Minister Herbert Murerwa (Zanu-PF) announced that the Zimbabwe government was setting up a Compensation Fund to assist commercial farmers who had lost their farms in the “resettlement programme”. However, he stressed that this would apply to “genuine cases” and that the farmers would not be compensated for their land.

• After several court battles initiated by parents through the Association of Trust Schools (ATS), Mugabe has barred Presidential Affairs and former Lands Minister Didymus Mutasa’s lawyer, Gerald Mlotshwa, from taking over Enthorpe farm in the Karoi district where Rydings Primary School is situated.  Mugabe told journalists that the farm allocation by Mutasa was “an abuse of power” and that the offer letter given to Mlotshwa should be withdrawn.

• More than 200 000 hectares of the current maize crop in Zimbabwe has failed after a dry spell during December and January.

• Zimbabwe’s state-owned Agriculture and Rural Development Authority (ARDA) plans to lease out to private companies all its estates that lie derelict after years of mismanagement. ARDA owns land totaling more than 450 000 hectares, which agriculture experts say could produce half of Zimbabwe’s grain needs on a commercial scale.

Law

• A High Court judge on Monday dismissed last week’s bid by Deputy Agriculture Minister (designate) Roy Bennett’s lawyers to bar state witness Forgive Munyeki, allegedly a telecommunications expert, from presenting evidence in court. The ruling allows the State to call upon the TelOne employee to give his testimony.

Constitution

• In its latest report on Zimbabwe released on March 3, the International Crisis Group (ICG) listed public consultations on a new constitution as one of the key areas blocking the progress of the GPA.  Additional blocks included a land audit, appointment of MDC governors, an end of arbitrary detentions and arrests, regular functioning of the National Security Council in place of the infamous Joint Operations Command (JOC) and preparation for elections. http://www.zimbabwedemocracynow.com/2010/03/05/

• An opinion piece published by the Zimbabwe Independent on Friday March 5 noted that, while Zanu-PF, the MDC-T and the National Constitutional Assembly agree on many aspects of what should be in the new constitution, the three disagree on fundamental areas to do with the executive, commissions, land, systems of government and on how the bill of rights should be expanded.

Violence

• Three teachers in Masvingo were severely beaten by Zanu-PF youths for refusing to demonstrate against Tsvangirai for failing to end targeted sanctions on Zanu-PF elite. The teachers were on Saturday still recovering at Gunikuni clinic.

• Civil society organisations warned that in the last three months there has been an escalation in the number of threats and incidences of intimidation and harassment against its members at the hands of state security agents. The warning was made during a press conference in Harare on Wednesday, convened by the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights).

• High profile union leader Gertrude Hambira, Secretary-General of the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers’ Union (GAPWUZ), remains in hiding in neighbouring South Africa because of  “fears for her life,” after repeated raids by the police on her offices.

Education

• National University of Science and Technology (NUST) authorities have expelled student leaders, banned student activism on campus and imposed a curfew over the university. Armed youth militias from the Border Gezi training camps are allegedly being deployed every evening to arrest and beat up any students seen out at night.

Humanitarian

• Matabeleland South and North provinces will require urgent food aid in the next two months owing to the failed crop season. 1.3 million people are in need of food aid, with Matabeleland South being the most affected as 700 000 face starvation. Angeline Masuku, the Matabeleland South governor, on Thursday said the province had only 600 tons of maize for drought relief.

• About ten families were left marooned after flash floods swept across the low-lying Mbire rural District in Mashonaland Central near Zimbabwe’s border post with Zambia and Mozambique. Three of the families were trapped in trees before being rescued. The floods could worsen when floodgates at Kariba Dam are opened next week, March 15.

Diamonds

• An independent monitor appointed by the Kimberley Process (KP) arrived in Zimbabwe. Abbey Chikane, the head of the South African Diamond Board and a former Chairman of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme, is expected to visit the Marange fields.

• The Zimbabwean government has hired Namibian consultants to train locals and help clean up its diamond industry to meet KP requirements, Secretary for Mines Thankful Musukutwa told members of parliament. Musukutwa said Marange has produced 2 million carats of diamonds so far this year.  However, Finance Minister Tendai Biti (MDC-T) said that the fiscus has not received any revenue from Marange.

• The government has accused mining giant De Beers of looting tons of diamonds from Marange over a period of fifteen years, keeping its discovery of the gems quiet. The government is alleging that it could have lost billions of dollars in revenue as a result. Mines Minister Obert Mpofu said the government at the time believed De Beers was only prospecting, but in reality the company was carrying out covert mining activities.

Diaspora

• The UK is holding at least 209 Zimbabweans at its immigration centres and prisons, according to the British government, which has over the years suspended deportations to Zimbabwe due to the ongoing human rights abuses in the country.

• The influx of refugees from Zimbabwe is placing “significant strain” on South Africa’s capacity and resources, President Jacob Zuma told British parliamentarians in London on Thursday.

Media

• In a surprising rebuke to Media, Information and Publicity Secretary and Zanu-PF spin doctor George Charamba, Mugabe told the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC) to get on with its duty of expanding the industry.

• Andrison Shadreck Manyere, an award-winning photojournalist, was arrested for the third time in five weeks. The constant harassment of Manyere has sparked anger from New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Manyere was freed after spending a night in police custody.

The Good News

• “Music by Prudence,” a film about singer/songwriter Prudence Mabhena and seven other disabled young musicians in Zimbabwe, won the Academy Award on Sunday for best short documentary.

• Human rights activist Jestina Mukoko, who in 2008 was abducted and tortured by state security agents, is one of ten winners of the 2010 International Women of Courage (IWOC) Award. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will present the award.

• A massive commemoration rally was held for the late Susan Tsvangirai in Harare. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai announced the launch of a new charity foundation in her name.  Mrs Tsvangirai died in a controversial car crash on March 6 last year.

• The Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has partnered with the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA) to launch the ‘Fan Park’ concept to promote tourism during this year’s FIFA World Cup in South Africa. Fan Parks are places where the public can gather to watch matches during the tournament.

Source:  Zimbabwe Democracy Now

www.zimbabwedemocracynow.com

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• The MDC is demanding drastic action against Zanu-PF youths who last week threatened Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for not calling for the removal of targeted sanctions. The youths were marching in the capital on Wednesday in protest against the sanctions. They also detained a freelance photojournalist Andrison Manyere for filming the demonstration, but he was later released.

• President Robert Mugabe on Saturday defended the new indigenisation law that requires all foreign companies to be 51 percent locally-owned, and he also warned foreign investors to keep away from the country’s mineral wealth. He was speaking at celebrations to mark his 86^th birthday. Tsvangirai and his two deputies did not attend Mugabe’s lavish birthday party which is estimated to have cost up to US$500 000.

• China said last Monday its embassy in Zimbabwe had thrown a birthday party for Mugabe on Sunday. Chinese businesses are investing heavily in Zimbabwe.

• An MDC rally on Sunday in Epworth just outside Harare was violently disrupted when Zanu-PF supporters in a three-vehicle convoy allegedly drove at the crowd, resulting in a brawl that left many injured. The act was condemned by the MDC who insisted on Tuesday that the Zanu-PF supporters sparked the violence.

• US embassy economic advisor James Garry on Wednesday rejected suggestions that Zimbabwe was unable to access loans because of the targeted sanctions against Zanu-PF elite. He said even if Washington were to repeal the sanctions law, Zimbabwe would still not be eligible for financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank and other funders because of outstanding arrears.  In January, the African Development Bank said Zimbabwe’s debt of close to US$6 billion was too huge to allow the country to access new money.

• South African President Jacob Zuma will use his state visit to the UK next week to plead with the British government to remove targeted sanctions against Mugabe and his supporters.

• Zimbabwe’s constitutional committee has said it hopes to produce a new draft constitution by next February, which could see fresh elections, initially earmarked for 2011, further delayed.

Governance

• Mugabe on Friday said the government is doing its best to increase salaries and improve conditions for civil servants, and asked workers to be patient while the government stabilizes the economy.

• The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) has allegedly recruited hundreds of street vendors and illegal street dealers as informers to monitor the activities of MDC officials and supporters, as well as diplomats and trade unionists. The youths have allegedly received Zanu-PF ideological training and are considered reserve militia.

• A new report accuses Zimbabwe Cabinet ministers in the previous regime of plundering state assets prior to the formation of the unity government last year. The special report, compiled by the parliamentary committee on public accounts, also revealed the irregular appointment of more than 10 000 ghost workers, crippling the government’s capacity to pay civil servants.

• Zimbabwe Prison Services (ZPS) allegedly does not have vehicles to transport remand and convicted prisoners to jail or to trial. At times, the police are called in to assist ZPS in transporting the prisoners.

• State-owned Air Zimbabwe is to retrench a further 468 workers this year after it laid off 700 workers last year. The airline has also had to ground two of its three Chinese aircraft due to a serious shortage of spare parts and debt to the plane’s suppliers.

• Zimbabwe and Botswana made peace last week when they met after weeks of tension following the arrest of three Botswana game rangers.

Business

• Zimbabwe will impose a levy on foreign firms to compel them to comply with the new empowerment law. Indigenisation Minister Savior Kasukuwere also said the new empowerment law is only the beginning of legal interventions his ministry will undertake as it seeks to further indigenise the economy, 30 years after independence.

• Mugabe and Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) governor Gideon Gono have reportedly differed on the indigenisation law, with Gono arguing that the act discourages investors. He has also said the law is being created by greedy Zanu-PF officials who want to grab companies for free, in the same way that they appropriated white-owned farms.

• South African mining group African Rainbow Minerals is facing resistance from its shareholders to invest in Zimbabwe. Shareholder Anglo-Rand Financial Services (ARFS) is objecting to the initiative to invest in Zimbabwe’s platinum group metals, citing the new indigenisation law as a concern.

• About 78 percent of exhibition space for this year’s Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF) has been taken up, with seven African and Asian countries having already confirmed their participation.

• Nigerian immigrants with businesses in Zimbabwe said they were taking the Affirmative Action Group (AAG) to court over its threats to grab their businesses in the name of black empowerment.

• Zimbabwe’s largest auto assembler, Willowvale Motor Industries, is on the verge of collapse due to a US$3.4 million debt to its principal supplier in Japan.

Economy

• The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) regulations will be finalized this year to provide the necessary legislation to help grow the sector. The new regulations are a component to the strategic plan launched on Monday designed to create an enabling environment for the growth of the industry.

• The African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) has teamed up with pan-African housing finance company Shelter Afrique to provide funding for the country’s tourism industry.

• The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe said prices of basic commodities rose 20.5 percent from January to February, placing pressure on low-income families.

• The Zimbabwe government is losing more than 30 percent of its annual revenue to widespread tax evasion due to “trade mispricing”, a new study by a US think-tank revealed last week. The study by Washington-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) shows that Zimbabwe tops the list of countries that recorded the largest tax revenue losses as a percentage of total government income between 2002 and 2006, losing US$225 million over the five-year period.

• Zimbabwe’s government is earning only US$100 million per month, 65 percent of which goes to wages, Finance Minister Tendai Biti told said on Thursday. He also said Western donors are ready to cancel Zimbabwe’s US$6 billion foreign debt if the country declares itself a heavily indebted country, but Zanu-PF is firmly opposed to the idea.

• Zimbabwe is seeking US$135 million from two African financial institutions to deal with the debilitating nationwide power shortages. Zimbabwe’s state power utility ZESA said it would bring all the units of its Hwange power station back into operation by the end of March.

Agriculture

• The entire leadership of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers’ Union of Zimbabwe (GAPWUZ) are in hiding after a series of arrests, raids and threats against them by Mugabe’s Joint Operating Command (JOC), lawyers said Sunday. The interrogations and threats followed the release of a documentary, “House of Justice”, that the union produced exposing the lawlessness and violence of Mugabe’s land seizures.

• South Africa’s High Court on Thursday upheld a ruling by the SADC Tribunal outlawing Zimbabwe’s land reform programme and paving the way for white commercial farmers who lost property under the chaotic land grab to file for compensation in South African courts. The ruling means that farmers can attach Zimbabwe government-owned property in South Africa as compensation for lost farms.  The Zimbabwe High Court in a ruling last month refused to enforce the SADC Tribunal judgement.

• Zimbabwe is taking legal action to recover US$3 million owed by Zambia for maize delivered prior to the land invasions a decade ago.  Last year, Zambia donated maize to the Zimbabwean government to ease massive food shortages.

• The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has been sued by Seed Co. International of Botswana, one of the largest maize and small grain seed suppliers in the Southern African region, over an outstanding US$3.6 million debt.

• Zimbabwe has declared 11 percent of its 2009/10 planted maize crop a failure after it was badly damaged by a dry spell, and has repeated calls for urgent imports, a crop assessment report has shown.  There has been widespread theft of irrigation equipment and general vandalism of infrastructure by new farmers and the Mugabe elite.

Law

• On Wednesday the Zanu-PF dominated Senate forestalled the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Amendment Bill through proposed amendments apparently meant to weaken it further. Zanu-PF once again adjourned debate on the bill, which aims to limit the Reserve Bank governor’s considerable powers, to March to allow them further time to study it.

• The treason trial of Deputy Agriculture Minister (designate) Roy Bennett was adjourned until next Monday after his defence declared the state witness not suitably qualified to assess the authenticity of email evidence against Bennett.

Diamonds

• Mines minister Obert Mpofu said Zimbabwe would pull out of the Kimberley Process (KP) if the diamond regulatory body finds the country has failed to comply with its regulations. Mpofu said Zimbabwe would continue to sell its gems to diamond trade markets.

• Mpofu has complied with a Supreme Court order instructing him to return diamonds from the Marange field to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, from which he removed the gems last month. The court had ordered the 300,000 carats of diamonds to be held by the central bank pending resolution of a suit against the government by UK-based African Consolidated Resources (ACR) over contested mining rights.

• The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions has called for an investigation into mining of diamonds at Chiadzwa, adding that diamonds should be bought and sold in a transparent matter that will benefit the country.

• Leaders in the global diamond industry are condemning the KP for allowing Zimbabwe’s diamonds to reach the consumer market. Online American jeweller Brilliant Earth said the KP was misleading consumers when labeling the diamonds as “conflict-free.”

• Human Rights Watch (HRW) said last Friday the KP was failing in its core mission following its failure to ban diamonds mined from Marange.

• The Zimbabwe-Russia Mining Protocol has been jeopardized after a Russian company pulled out, citing the controversy surrounding the Marange blood diamonds as its reason.

Health

• About 50 percent of children and teenagers admitted to hospitals in Zimbabwe are HIV positive, a new British study has revealed. Conducted by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the study reveals the growing crisis of HIV infection acquired at birth in developing countries.

• Aid agencies operating in Zimbabwe have been urged to take antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) directly to people infected with HIV/AIDS amid allegations that some state officials involved in the distribution system were corrupt. The drugs are allegedly being sold on the black market in Mbare, a high-density suburb of Harare.

• The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as well as other organizations in the health sector have embarked on an intensive vaccination programme following a measles outbreak which has hit 28 of Zimbabwe’s 62 districts and is still spreading.

Humanitarian

• An ex-UN official, Zimbabwean Dr Georges Tadonki, is due to give evidence against Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, showing that Ki-Moon and other senior officials blocked cholera relief efforts in 2008 that could have stopped the deaths of 4 000 people.

• UNICEF’s regional child protection advisor for East and Southern Africa, Cornelius Williams, said between 3 000 and 15 000 Zimbabwean children move into and out of South Africa every month. He said the movement of unaccompanied children was one of the biggest problems confronting humanitarian agencies in the region.

Violence

• Human rights group ZimRights said armed Zanu-PF militia have set up torture camps in parts of Mashonaland West, Midlands and Manicaland provinces to threaten villagers if they denounce the Zanu-PF backed Kariba Draft constitution.

• The police have been accused of beating to death Wilson Sabun and of attempting to cover up the act by holding onto the postmortem results. Sabun was arrested at his house in Mutare on January 15 on allegations he impersonated a police officer.

Media

• Dumisani Sibanda, news editor with the state-owned Sunday News weekly, was elected the new Zimbabwe Union of Journalists (ZUJ) president following a re-election in Bulawayo on Saturday. Sibanda replaces Mathew Takaona, who has headed the union since 1999.

• Alpha Media Holdings (AMH), the publishers of the Zimbabwe Independent, the Standard and NewsDay, have appointed new editors for the newspapers in a restructuring exercise to position the company for a more liberal media environment.

Diaspora

• Zanu-PF has proposed in its nationality programme that only children born in the Diaspora be allowed dual citizenship. If this regulation is adopted, it could affect Zimbabweans living abroad who have taken up foreign citizenship. This has been interpreted as a method of stripping diasporeans of their nationality and thereby reducing voter numbers.

The Good News

• The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights (ACHPR) has begun working on a case in which a Zimbabwean exiled lawyer, Gabriel Shumba, wants the Zimbabwean government to be held liable for torture.  The government denies the torture ever happened, despite evidence in the form of medical affidavits and records.

• The U.S. Embassy on Thursday honoured five Zimbabwean students for essays about their hopes following the election of Barack Obama as US president in 2009. The students received certificates, books, and cash prizes, while their schools will receive reference book collections for their libraries.

Source:  Zimbabwe Democracy Now

www.zimbabwedemocracynow.com

• 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.

• The three principals in the unity government reached a small breakthrough on Friday when they agreed to appoint the chairs of two of the Commissions – the Electoral and the Human Rights – who were named as Justice Simpson Mtambanengwe and Professor Reg Austin respectively.

• The South African mediation team is expected to meet negotiators from the three principal parties ahead of the resumption of inter-party talks today.

• Parliament was forced to adjourn prematurely on Wednesday after chaos erupted between the political parties over the issue of sanctions.

• A visiting UK delegation has expressed satisfaction at Zimbabwe’s economic progress but called for the resolution of outstanding issues in the GPA.

• A US Congressional delegation will visit Zimbabwe later this month to review the power-sharing deal and assess US humanitarian work in the country.

• Finance Minister Tendai Biti said in a statement last Tuesday that the MDC is ready for an election after he accused Zanu-PF of creating conditions for a total breakdown of the unity government.

• Echoing this, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai told the radio station Voice of America (VOA) News that the inter-party talks would likely reach a deadlock, and that early elections could be the only solution to the political problems.

• The MDC has lodged an official complaint with the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC), which oversees the power-sharing agreement, about “unjustified arrests and harassment” of its officials and supporters by state security agents.

• Tsvangirai has rejected a circular from President Robert Mugabe’s office directing ministers to report to his two vice-presidents instead of to the Prime Minister.

• Members of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIO) team assigned to Mugabe during a visit to an international telecommunications summit last October were each paid a total of US$50 000 (US$5 000 a day) over Mugabe’s 10-day stay. On another trip to Rome in November, his security detail was paid the same. In Zimbabwe, most of the population lives on less than US$1 per day.

Governance

• Zimbabwe’s civil servants went on strike on Friday after last-minute negotiations with the government failed. They are pushing for a five-fold wage hike. Civil servants earn on average a paltry US$150 (R1 100) a month. They are demanding up to US$630 (R4 900) a month.

• Zimbabwe and Botswana officials will hold security talks over the detention of three Botswana game rangers who inadvertently strayed across the border last month.

• Mines Minister Obert Mpofu has returned two expensive vehicles he illegally took away from the Ministry of Industry and International Trade when he changed portfolios last year. Mpofu is one of several government officials named in a damning report to parliament on the pervasive looting of state assets.

• The Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Accounts has reported massive irregularities and ‘gross incompetence’ in government ministries and departments in scams that may have cost the Treasury millions of dollars. These include payment of ghost workers and the irregular employment of 10 000 youth officers.

• The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions says it has recorded more than 2 300 cases of violation of workers’ rights in 2009, most of them committed by state security agents who have routinely assaulted and tortured union activists.

Business

• Major Zimbabwe mining group Rio Tinto has proposed that locals have 10 percent ownership of foreign-owned companies, and not the 51 percent the government wants under a draft law that has scared off investors. The Chamber of Mines of Zimbabwe president said government had in principle agreed to the proposal.

• Zimplats, which is owned by South Africa’s Impala Platinum (Implats) – the world’s second biggest platinum producer – reported a US$50 million operating profit in its quarterly report ending December 2009 released thisweek. The company is also owed US$34 million by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

• The failure of Zimbabwe’s coalition partners to fully implement the Global Political Agreement (GPA) is keeping foreign investors away, according to separate reports released last week by Renaissance Capital, a Russian investment house, and the World Bank.

Economy

• The UK Treasury said Friday that it supports the restoration of Zimbabwe’s voting rights in the IMF, attributing its decision to the improved macroeconomic environment in Zimbabwe under Finance Minister Tendai Biti.

• Senior IMF director Samuel Itam said on Wednesday he was ‘cautiously optimistic’ the international community would support Zimbabwe’s request to restore its IMF voting rights.

• The cost of food for a family rose 10 percent last month, according to the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe.

• The Zimbabwe government spent nearly R86m (US$11.6m) in one year in fees for children and relatives of mostly top Zanu-PF officials who are studying in South African universities while local universities struggle to function.

Agriculture

• The SADC Tribunal said ongoing land invasions in Zimbabwe were beyond its control, that it was unable to enforce its ruling, and that it was up to the SADC Summit to take up the matter.

• Commercial farmer Ben Freeth, who is campaigning for the implementation of the SADC Tribunal ruling, has been accused of contempt of court after he criticised a High Court judge’s decision in January to dismiss the ruling in Zimbabwe. The Law Society of Zimbabwe will decide if Freeth should be charged.

• The South African government may be forced to pay up to R100 million in damages to South African farmer Crawford Von Abo, whose farms were seized in Zimbabwe as part of the land grab. The North Gauteng High Court on Friday found that the government was liable for Von Abo’s losses, as they neglected to prevent the violation of his rights by the Zimbabwean government.

• A magistrate on Tuesday granted bail to five white commercial farmers who were arrested in Chipinge last week for failing to vacate their properties. Another farming family in Rusape came under siege from farm invaders last week.

• Zimbabwe needs to urgently import 500,000 tonnes of maize to avert shortages. Agriculture Minister Joseph Made says the crop has been affected by an extended dry spell. But the Commercial Farmers’ Union said that 1,8 million tonnes would be required.

• The Famine Early Warning Systems Network (Fewsnet) said in a new report the number of Zimbabweans in need of emergency food aid now stands at 2.17 million, a huge jump from the December figure of 1.74 million.

Diamonds

• The court-ordered transportation of 60 kg of diamonds to the Reserve Bank was suspended after an armed gang raided the offices of mining firm African Consolidated Resources (ACR), the legal owners of the Chiadzwa diamond claim, and stole the company’s computers.

• Mines Minister Obert Mpofu (Zanu-PF), backed by armed police, on Thursday night removed a 29kg consignment of Chiadzwa diamonds worth millions of dollars from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), violating a Supreme Court order that the diamonds remain in the custody of the central bank until the mining rights case between ACR and the government is resolved.

Violence

• More than thirty men and women from the Bhuka area (Masvingo) were severely beaten on Saturday by Zanu-PF youths for failing to comply with the headman who instructed they should not attend an MDC rally the previous day.

• MDC activist Peter Magombedze, who died in December, was “killed by severe blows during the barbaric assault” by members of the police, an autopsy report has confirmed. Two police officers, Sergeant Zvinavashe and Sergeant Nzori of Nembudziya police station, have reportedly since been arrested in connection with the death.

• Villages in the remote Rushinga district north-east of Mount Darwin report that people who want to contribute to the constitution-making process are being threatened with death or vicious beatings comparable to the June 2008 violence.

Law

• Zimbabwe’s constitutional committee has put the outreach exercise on hold because it cannot send teams to interview people without police backing. Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri has demanded US$3 million in payment to release 1 000 police officers to accompany outreach teams.

• Police on Wednesday arrested eleven students for holding a public students’ meeting on the University of Zimbabwe (UZ) campus. The Zimbabwe National Students’ Union (ZINASU) is demanding the arrest of a security guard from the university after one of the students was severely beaten.

• A Harare magistrate this week removed senior MDC official Pascal Gwezere, charged with stealing weapons from an army barracks, from remand after the state failed to produce sufficient evidence linking him to the crime. Gwezere was abducted last October by state security agents and was severely beaten in custody.

• Attorney General Johannes Tomana has said prosecutors are free to oppose bail and even overrule magistrates as long as they are acting according to ‘law’.

• Roy Bennett treason trial: Tomana accused the defence of “caricaturing him and demeaning his office.” Bennett’s lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa  had demonstrated that false emails could easily be created, using a spoof message from Tomana himself.

• Twenty-two members of the pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) were arrested while holding a structural meeting on the constitution-making process in a private home in Bulawayo on Tuesday. They were all later released and, in a surprising move, the police apologized.

Health

• Bulawayo’s Mpilo Hospital is only sustaining operations through donations because government has not released most of the promised funding since January last year. The 1 000 bed hospital needs about US$600 000 but has so far received only US$60 000 from government coffers and in donations.

Diaspora

• Zimbabwe’s Co-Ministers of Home Affairs on Saturday urged thousands of Zimbabweans living in South Africa to return home and help rebuild the country’s economy. Addressing a gathering in Johannesburg, Ministers Kembo Mohadi (Zanu-PF) and Giles Mutsekwa (MDC-T) said the government is ready to drop all charges against political activists and specified business people who are currently living outside the country. Unemployment in Zimbabwe however, remains over 90 percent.

• Fifteen Zimbabwean civic organisations in the UK met in London last weekend to choose a taskforce to coordinate the constitutional awareness and information-gathering process in the UK.

Wildlife

• Zimbabwean officials are unhappy that Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) chief Willem Wijnstekers will tour a top private conservancy during his visit to Zimbabwe next week, allegedly fearful he will learn too much about endemic poaching decimating the country’s wildlife.

• Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority’s claim it has not carried out a game census since 2008 due to a lack of funds is said by some conservationists to be a ploy to hide the extent of poaching by officials working in cohorts with ministers and other senior government officials.

The Good News

• Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams on Friday launched an exhibition in the UK of photographs showcasing the work of Anglicans in Zimbabwe. He praised their courage and faithfulness in the face of violence from state authorities attempting to close down their services.

• The Zimbabwean government and Iran will jointly set up a helicopter repair, maintenance and training centre in Zimbabwe. The centre will benefit Zimbabwean technicians as well as their counterparts across Africa.

• The Zimbabwe Open golf championship has been relaunched after a nine-year hiatus and will regain its place on the South African “Sunshine Tour” in April.

Source:  Zimbabwe Democracy Now

In an article published on the Zimbabwejournalists.com website on 24 December 2007, the author, Freeman Forward Chari, posed the following question:

“In a country of nearly 200 000 military people…..  whose public sector is run by the military, where does the common man fit in?  Is there a possibility of civil participation in the country?”

Chari breaks down the military component for 2007 as follows, but does not indicate his sources, so the accuracy of his figures cannot be confirmed:

Security Forces – total 80 000

• Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA):                    35 000 [1]
• Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ):                          5 000
• Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP):                  25 000
• Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO):        15 000

Those with a basic knowledge of military operations/training – total 110 000

• Prisons Service:                                             10 000
• War veterans:                                                 35 000 [2]
• Trained youths / youth militia:                         30 000 graduates since 2005
• Zimbabwe People’s Militia (trained in ‘80s):    20 000 vigilantes/youths
• Plus voluntary retirements from ZNA & ZRP:            15 000

Total number:  190 000

“This means we have (in 2007) at least 190 000 people in Zimbabwe who have a basic understanding of military language,” wrote Chari.

He reminded Zimbabweans that, at the level of leadership and policy formulation, there was a need to also explore the level of involvement of the military in strategic entities that deal strictly with civilians.  In December 2007, the line-up was:

• Minister of Energy and Power Development – Rtd Lieutenant General Mike Nyambuya.
• Minister of Youth Development and Employment Creation – Rtd Brigadier General Ambrose Mutinhiri.
• Ministry of Transport – Rtd Colonel Hubert Nyanhongo, Deputy Minister
• National Railways of Zimbabwe – Brigadier Douglas Nyikayaramba (Board chairman) and Air Commodore Mike Karakadzai (CEO).
• Grain Marketing Board – Rtd Colonel Samuel Muvuti (CEO).
• Permanent Secretary for Industry and International Trade – Rt Colonel Christian Katsande.
• Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) – Justice Chiweshe, (head) a former Advocate-General in the Zimbabwe National Army.
• Attorney General – Sobuza Gula-Ndebele, a retired Colonel.
• Sports and Recreation Commission – Brigadier General Gibson Mashingaidze and Rtd Lt Colonel Charles Nhemachena.

Chari summed up the relevance of the appointments as follows:

Zanu PF controls:

• Food (Grain Marketing Board – GMB)
• Transport
• Energy, fuel, power
• Trade and industry
• Sport
• Youth
• The Attorney General
• Elections.

Chari pointed out that Joint Operations Command (JOC) comprises the ministries of Defence, Finance, State Security, Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs.  “The military therefore controls the finances and even the foreign policy is directed by the military and not parliament,” he said.

Major Martin Saurombe (Rt), writing for the website zimsecurityforces.com in 2007, brought in an interesting perspective.  He reminded Zimbabweans that, in politicising the military, Zanu PF had started by appointing raw guerrillas to top posts in the army.

He noted that:

• General Solomon Mujuru commanded the army from 1981 to 1992 without attending a single military course.
• The late General Vitalis Zvinavashe, retired former commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, also never attended any military courses.
• Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander, General Constantine Chiwenga, Air Force Commander Perence Shiri and Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri are also politicians in military uniform.

One wonders how many people are aware of this fact.

Frustration in the ranks

Despite the fact that it became very dangerous for members of the armed forces to show the slightest signs of disloyalty to Zanu PF, by mid 2007 the dissatisfaction that had been brewing began to mount and to be expressed openly.

In August, Perence Shiri and Constantine Chiwenga were shocked when they were booed by junior soldiers at the KG VI Barracks in Harare for trying to convince them that the hardships being experienced in the military were caused by sanctions imposed by Britain and the USA.

The following month, disgruntled veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war asked government to hike their monthly allowances five-fold, just two weeks after pledging undying loyalty to Mugabe and declaring him the only one fit to rule the country.

Four months later, in January 2008, former army general Vitalis Zvinavashe sent political temperatures within Zanu-PF soaring after calling on Robert Mugabe to step down.  Zvinavashe is reported to have said that, “by clinging onto power, Mugabe was betraying the essence of the liberation struggle.”

Mugabe’s hatchet men

Authoritative journalist Basildon Peta wrote in an article published in the Sunday Independent of June 29, 2008 that “the multi-billionaires who have Zimbabwe by the throat are right to dread the people’s revenge.”

He listed Mugabe’s six “hatchet-men” as Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, General Constantine Chiwenga, Augustine Chihuri, Paradzai Zimondi, Perence Shiri and Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono.  He noted that this Joint Operations Command junta controls Zimbabwe.

“When Mugabe lost control of parliament and it became clear that he was also losing the presidency to Morgan Tsvangirai after the poll on March 29, it was these six men who hurriedly assembled around their octogenarian leader,” explained Peta.

“For five weeks, the announcement of the presidential election results were stalled while they plotted…(but) none of their charges stuck.

“So they unleashed the infamous Operation Makavhoterapapi (For whom did you vote?) in preparation for the presidential runoff….”

Peta reports that it was Constantine Chiwenga, as commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Force, who spearheaded the campaign of violence that led to the deaths of 86 people, the serious injuries inflicted on thousands more and the massive displacements countrywide.

Police and army clash in Harare

By the beginning of December 2008, tensions across the country were heating up.  In Harare, police shot at rioting soldiers on the streets as unpaid uniformed personnel sided with the country’s impoverished people for the first time in protest against Zimbabwe’s collapsing economy.

“If Mr Mugabe is unable to maintain loyalty even within his own armed services, his position will come under serious threat,” commented The Telegraph (UK) on December 1.

The following day, Mugabe ordered the execution of 16 rioting soldiers in a cold blood murder carried out by members of the Presidential Guard death squads at its PG HQ Base in Dzivarasekwa, north west of the capital.  Three others were reported to have died during torture.

The fast-track military court martial was presided over by High Court Judge Major General George Chiewshe, with three other assessors, two majors and a captain.  Chiweshe, who is the current Chairman of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, was previously Director Army Legal Services.

Soldiers tortured following theft of guns

During October 2009, at least 12 soldiers died after they were brutally tortured by military intelligence agents following the alleged disappearance of an assortment of guns and other military equipment from Pomona barracks.

By early November reports were being leaked that an additional 120 soldiers had been horrifically tortured at KG VI Barracks in Harare following the alleged theft of the guns. SW Radio Africa warned of rising tension in the Zimbabwe National Army.

A retired army colonel who fought with ZANLA forces in Mozambique, told the radio station that Robert Mugabe had lost the control and trust of the army. (ZANLA was the armed wing of ZANU PF during the liberation war of the 1970s).

Security reports from Zimbabwe indicated the situation was volatile.

Fear of reprisals, retribution and paranoia

Dr George Ayittey, a prominent Ghanaian economist, author and president of the Free Africa Foundation in Washington DC, analysed the militarisation of Zanu-PF in Part 1 of “The Zimbabwe Conundrum” (September 8, 2009) as follows:

“The hierarchy of the ruling Zanu-PF has fully been “militarized” or integrated with the security apparatus. The security chiefs who are behind President Mugabe presently — Paradzai Zimondi (rtd), head of prison service, Augustine Chihuri, head of the police force, Perence Shiri — want Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is also the choice of “war of liberation veterans,”[3] to succeed Mugabe.

Mnangagwa, known as the “Butcher of Matabeleland,” is known for his uncompromising stance and ruthlessness. He was the Minister of State Security who orchestrated a systematic and brutal 1981-1983 campaign (known as Gukurahundi) to suppress the Ndebele people and wipe out the main opposition, ZAPU and its leader, the late Joshua Nkomo.

It is fear of reprisals, retribution and paranoia which haunts the ruling Zanu-PF regime…. Their hands are dripping in blood and their pockets are full of booty. They are afraid that all their gory misdeeds will be exposed once they are out of power. So they must do everything they can to cling to power. They must crush the opposition and ruthlessly silence any whiff of protest. But in doing so, they dig deeper graves for themselves because these brutal tactics seldom work.

African tyrants spend an inordinate amount on an elaborate security-cum-military structure to protect themselves and suppress their people. Since they came to power through illegitimate means (a military coup or stolen election), they are suspicious of everyone and paranoid of any little event, however innocuous.

So they spend huge resources creating layers upon layers of security – just in case one level fails – and shower security agents with perks and amenities. But in the end, they are hoisted by their own petards – overthrown by their own security apparatus.

The more an African head of state spends on security, the more likely he will be overthrown by someone from his security forces…. The Zanu-PF regime, in contemplating its imminent demise, should ask itself whether more investments in lethal weaponry and brutal repression will pay off.”

In Part 2 of The Zimbabwe Conundrum (September10, 2009), Ayittey notes that, in all of Africa’s post-colonial cases where intransigent autocrats refused to yield to popular demands for freedom and took hard line positions, the threat to the despotic regime did not come from the opposition parties.  It came from:

1. Within the despot’s own security apparatus / circle of officers / family members
2. Rebel groups
3. Invasion from a neighbouring country.

Ayittey explains that the insurgency often started with a small band of determined rebels and says it was relatively cheap to start a rebellion.

According to Ayittey, Zanu-PF has two choices:  The first is to maintain its hard-line stance – which he says is invariably a dead end – and the second is to adopt a more conciliatory approach.

“Political leaders who were willing to yield to the popular will and make amends saved not only themselves but their countries as well,” writes Ayittey.

Holding Zimbabwe to ransom – a clique of 200

In view of escalating dissatisfaction within the ranks of the armed forces, Zimbabwean commentators say it is fallacious to believe that Zimbabwe is being held to ransom by security forces who remain loyal to Mugabe.

Furthermore, they point out that the improvements within the economy – which are clearly understood to be the result of Finance Minister Tendai Biti (MDC-T)’s achievements – are already impacting positively on the lives of their families and communities.

The glimmerings of optimism that followed the signing of the Global Political Agreement are now being bolstered by the decisiveness and firm approach of South African President Jacob Zuma.

President Zuma, with the support of the Southern African Development Community, is clearly committed to solving the Zimbabwean crisis and restoring peace and democracy across the Limpopo.

The question that must be asked is this:  Who exactly is holding Zimbabwe to ransom and how strong is this grouping?

Political commentators believe that it’s a cabal of about 200 people comprising senior serving army officers, the members of Joint Operations Command and a clique of Mugabe cronies who have benefited substantially over the years from his patronage.

This ties in with a report released at the SADC summit in Kinshasa during early September by Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.  Comprising over 350 civil society organisations, Crisis said it had information that over 70 top military officers remained in the provinces where they were deployed after President Mugabe and Zanu-PF suffered a devastating electoral loss just after the March 29 poll last year.

Clearly they are crucial in the equation.  Crisis called on the inclusive government to immediately get the army out of the countryside and recall them to barracks.

Conclusion

In Part 2 of ‘The Conundrum on Zimbabwe”, Ayittey claims that the game is up for Zanu-PF.

“It has lost all credibility with the Zimbabwean people.  It has become an imposition – a cancer – on Zimbabwe’s body politic – a far cry from the liberation stature it once enjoyed. Fear and paranoia are driving the regime to cling to power at all cost – by force and with brutal repression,” he writes.

This changed scenario presents an opportunity for President Zuma, his South African negotiating team and the leaders of SADC, who have clearly lost patience with President Mugabe and Zanu-PF, and who want to see a speedy solution to the crisis.  The fallout on the entire region, while difficult to quantify, has been very significant.

To have found a peaceful solution to the Zimbabwean crisis in the period when Mugabe had the unequivocal support of a sizeable armed forces component would have presented a major problem.

To be faced instead with a clique of just 200 or so people who have brazenly amassed great wealth for themselves and their families while leaving the Zimbabwean people impoverished is totally different situation.

For a powerful country like South Africa, which holds all the trump cards, dealing with the dregs of a regime that has blighted the face of southern Africa suddenly becomes eminently manageable.

ENDS

GABRIEL SHUMBA
HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER

Executive Director

Zimbabwe Exiles’ Forum
E-mail:  gabmrech@yahoo.com

The Zimbabwe Times published this list containing the names of all the officers involved after it was leaked by disgruntled officers.

[2] War veterans: Independent estimates for 2009 are as low as around 10 000.

[3] This statement is open to question.  Update: Emmerson Mnangagwa’s faction, which is entangled in a bitter struggle for power with a faction led by former army general Solomon Mujuru, was ruthlessly crushed in Zanu PF’s November 2009 presidium nominations.

• Zanu-PF pre-Congress provincial nominations reveal a widening rift within the party.  Vice-president Joice Mujuru has been nominated to retain her position, representing a defeat for the man even insiders call ‘the cruellest one’ – Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa. John Nkomo is set to become the second vice-president, replacing the late Joseph Msika. Nkomo’s vacated post of Zanu-PF national chairperson will then go to Simon Khaya Moyo, Zimbabwe’s ambassador to South Africa. Meanwhile the Zanu-PF Congress, which was scheduled to be held in early December, has been postponed, reportedly due to lack of funds.

• Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was invited to Tripoli for a meeting with Libya’s Colonel Gaddafi, current head of the African Union (AU), and was received with full military honours. Colonel Gaddafi has been a strong supporter of President Mugabe.

• The three principals in the transitional government resumed negotiations on Monday to resolve outstanding issues after the first deadline last week, set by the SADC Troika, was missed. The talks yesterday were attended by all teams from Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations. Meanwhile South African President Jacob Zuma has postponed his scheduled Dec. 5 visit to assess progress after the parties missed last week’s deadline.

• Malawi has been highlighted in a petition to the EU which calls for punitive action against SADC countries which “support Mugabe’s tyranny”.  The Zimbabwe Vigil pressure group presented the petition to the EU’s Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Karel De Gucht, in Brussels this week. “Why, for instance, should Malawi get £70 million in balance of payments support this year from the UK alone when its people face starvation because of a reckless loan to Mugabe, which predictably has not been repaid?” reads the petition.

• Zimbabwe has been selected to host the 26th Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Forum of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Officials said most of the group’s 14-member countries were expected to take part in the session, scheduled for next week in Victoria Falls.

Governance

• Zimbabwe’s civil service audit is on. Public Service Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro told reporters on Wednesday that the US$4 million needed to bankroll the audit, which is set to run from Nov. 30 – Dec. 18, has been provided through the Zimbabwe Multi-Donor Trust Fund, a World Bank administered fund. The audit, to be conducted by independent auditors, will physically confirm the number of genuine civil servants.  Critics say the 300 000 strong public workforce is overrun with supporters of Mugabe, who allegedly receive salaries each month without actually serving the state – and that in addition there are close to 20 000 ‘ghost’ workers. The audit, which will exclude the uniformed security forces, comes amid allegations that Mukonoweshuro also announced civil servants will be getting bonuses this year.

• Parliament on Wednesday unanimously approved the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill, which aims to reduce the bank chief’s powers by appointing an independent board. This is the first major law to be passed by parliament since the formation of the transitional government. The catch? One of the amendments was a clause giving the bank governor and employees immunity “for anything done in good faith and without negligence.”

• Zimbabwe’s co-Home Affairs Minister Giles Mutsekwa is looking for technical expertise and financial resources to overhaul the country’s voters’ roll. MDC MP Tongai Matutu tabled evidence supporting his motion in parliament that the voters’ roll used in last year’s disputed elections contained gross irregularities. These included 74 021 voters above 100 years old, and 82 456 between the ages of 90 and 100 in a country where life expectancy is just 35 years. The roll also includes significant numbers of deceased people who had been registered to vote.  Zimbabwe is expected to hold fresh elections next year.

Business

• Tourism received a boost when a number of Western countries lifted warnings against travelling to Zimbabwe after the transitional government was formed. Zimbabwe Council of Tourism president, Emmanuel Fundira, said 362 000 people had visited the country by August compared to 100 000 visitors the year before. Zimbabwe is hoping to benefit from the Soccer World Cup to be held next year in South Africa.

• On the list of most corrupt nations, Zimbabwe this year improved from number 14 to number 34 out of 180 countries, according to the Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI). TI said Zimbabwe’s position was still of concern due to the breakdown of the rule of law. The CPI measures the perceived levels of public office corruption in a country and is a composite index, drawing on a number of expert and business surveys.

• National coal producer, Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) will this week receive the first consignment of haulage excavating equipment worth US$5 million from a South African company to augment its ageing mining fleet and supplement the massive open-cast dragline, which has been inactive for months.

Diamonds

• Zimbabwe has started withdrawing troops from the country’s eastern diamond fields to meet Kimberley Process (KP) reforms over human rights abuses, state media reported on Thursday. “We have done a lot since the last review by the [Kimberley Process] as part of our efforts to comply with their recommendations as well as towards achieving and fulfilling compliance,” the state-run Herald quoted Mines Minister Opert Mpofu as saying. The withdrawal of soldiers comes as the government, through its mining arm Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation, signed a joint venture with two South African firms to mine diamonds in Marange.

Diaspora

• Xenophobic attacks against Zimbabwean asylum seekers in South Africa has reignited, this time in the poverty-stricken town of De Doorns, 150 km from Cape Town. Nearly 2,700 asylum seekers evacuated their shacks last week after local mobs chased them out, claiming they were robbing them of jobs. They are currently residing in a temporary safety camp.

• People Against Suffering Suppression, Oppression and Poverty (PASSOP)’s Braam Hanekom on Friday accused local authorities of not doing enough to prevent the attacks. He said the tensions in the community have been building since a week prior, tensions he said police and government officials were “more than aware of.”

• South African based MDC party officials have angrily denied a story carried by the state-run Herald newspaper, that their entire executive had been sacked for misappropriating funds. Information secretary Sibanengi Dube charged, “It is obvious to everyone the Herald is on a mission to discredit the MDC-T.”

• A 24 year-old Zimbabwean man has been held inside an immigration detention centre in Portsmouth, UK,  for over a year, awaiting deportation. Tatenda Jera was taken into custody by the UK border agency for violating his visitor’s visa. His asylum claim has been denied three times.

Media

• Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has launched a public broadcasting report published by the South African-based Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project (AFRIMAP) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA). The report urges the repeal of Zanu-PF-led legislation repressing freedom of speech. At a meeting chaired by the Media Institute of Southern Africa’s Zimbabwean Chapter, Tsvangirai said the media industry should be self-regulated, and called for editorial independence.

• Tsvangirai on Wednesday dismissed recent media reports suggesting that former Media and Information Commission (MIC) chairman Tafataona Mahoso had bounced back as head of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ). “The final composition (of BAZ) has not yet been decided upon despite the premature announcement to the contrary,” he said.

Humanitarian Crisis

• About 1.6 million Zimbabweans will need food aid between now and the end of December, said the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET) in a new food security report carried out in September. The US-based organisation found that around one million of those at risk live in the rural areas, and the remaining 600 000 in the cities. The assessment cites poverty and unemployment as contributing factors to the continuing food insecurity in the country.

• One hundred children die every day in Zimbabwe, while one in every four is an orphan, according to a UNICEF official. Dr Peter Salama, the UNICEF representative to Zimbabwe, said HIV/Aids remains the number killer of children. “Around one in 10 children today die before the age of five. “While the rate of under five mortality has dropped all over the world, it has gone up in Zimbabwe by more than 20 percent,” said Salama.

• The Family Support Trust Clinic at Harare Central Hospital said more than 30 000 cases of child sex abuse were reported in the last four years. Zimbabwe accounts for at least 1 million orphans under 17 years, according to a UNAIDS report of 2008.

• The Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria has extended the availability of some US$38 million in unused grants to the country, hoping to speed implementation of programs not implemented due to the political and economic turmoil of recent years.

Economy

• Zimbabwe’s state power firm, ZESA Holdings, has increased power cuts, resulting in unscheduled cuts in most cities for the past three weeks, at times lasting for 12 hours. The cuts are due to insufficient power imports, low generation capacity and heightened vandalism. Industrial output has increased from 10 percent at the start of the year to 40 percent after the formation of the coalition government. With this increased industrial demand for power, the electricity cuts are hurting the recovering economy. Power cuts have also caused water shortages in Harare.

• ZESA on Monday said foreign investors were reluctant to provide funding badly needed to boost power generation because of uncertainty about the country’s future political and economic direction.

Legal

• The State has invoked the controversial Section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act (CPEA) to defeat the bail order given to MDC employee Pascal Gwezere, who is accused of breaking into a military armoury and undergoing military training in Uganda. “This is just an abuse of the section and you know we are challenging it at the Supreme Court,” said Gwezere’s lawyer Alec Muchadehama. Gwezere, who was abducted by state security agents from his home two weeks ago, was severely tortured and denied medical treatment.

• Meanwhile Alec Muchadehama, a leading human rights lawyer, is himself is being harassed: A Harare magistrate on Tuesday removed Muchadehama from remand. He is being charged with contempt of court for allegedly causing the unlawful release from custody of his MDC clients, Kisimusi Dhlamini, Gandhi Mudzingwa and Andrison Manyere, who were abducted at the end of last year and severely tortured.

• The Roy Bennett High Court trial: First the judge barred the prosecution from submitting evidence obtained under torture, then on Monday the state’s first witness admitted that evidence brought against Bennett was insufficient to secure a conviction. Chief Superintendent James Makone admitted that several weapons displayed as evidence in court had no connection to Bennett, and that he was yet to uncover other incriminating evidence. Bennett is being tried on terrorism charges, which he denies. Bennett’s defence lawyer, Beatrice Mtetwa, has ended each court day trying to secure a promise from the court that Bennett will not be rearrested, further heightening concern that more spurious charges will be brought against her client.

Violence

• Four MDC activists from Muzarabani South have fled their homes after they were tipped of a death threat on their lives, following a resolution at a Zanu-PF meeting on 13 November to eliminate all MDC party position holding activists. Youths are allegedly being recruited as officers on the Zanu-PF payroll to carry out acts of violence to destabilise the MDC ahead of next year’s elections.

• A well-known Catholic priest in Banket has been savagely beaten by soldiers for hesitating at a road-block. A revered humanitarian, Father Wolfgang Thamm is in his late sixties. The German ambassador in Harare has lodged an official complaint.

• Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) provincial officials in Zaka on Tuesday said they were living in perpetual fear following abductions of their members in recent weeks. MDC councillor for ward 23 in Zaka West constituency, Mungoni Mazhindu, was on Friday last week abducted and severely tortured before being dropped off again near his home. Mazhindu said his assailants told him that he was getting the ‘sweet’ reward for supporting MDC-T.

• Peace activist group WOZA (Women of Zimbabwe Arise), has received the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. WOZA co-leaders Magodonga Mahlangu and Jenni Williams accepted the award from President Barack Obama in a ceremony also attended by the late senator’s widow, Ethel Kennedy.

Farming Sector

• Zimbabwe and China are negotiating arrangements for contract farming as the Asian giant steps up efforts to ‘assist the country’s agrarian reforms’. However observers say that Chinese investments in contract farming will not assist the country’s food situation, as crops grown under such a system will be exported.

• Residents of Inyathi have rallied behind a local farmer, Glen James, whose land has been forcibly seized by a Bulawayo High Court Judge, submitting a petition for the farm to be left in peace. The Judge’s hired thugs, believed to be Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives, have been using government equipment, including tractors, and also weapons, to plunder the land and stop farming activities. Locals explained that James is a vital part of the local community, helping with development projects and allowing local cattle herders to water their animals on his land. Even local members of the War Veterans Association, who have notoriously led farm invasions over the years,  expressed their support for James, whom they say is part of the community.

• While the main rainy season has commenced, small-scale and communal farming communities are still battling to obtain seed maize and fertiliser. Oxfam and other NGOs are providing urgent assistance in several provinces, but analysts say it will not be enough to produce a large enough harvest to feed the nation next year.

Source:   Zimbabwe Democracy Now

www.zimbabwedemocracynow.com