1998-2001
SUITE NOUVELLES ZIMBABWE

Thousands of people have attended the funeral of Zimbabwean Vice-President Joshua Nkomo in Harare.
The BBC's Grant Ferrett: President Mugabe used the ceremony to denounce the IMF
Speaking at the ceremony, President Robert Mugabe described Mr Nkomo as the founder of the nation.

But as foreign dignitaries paid their last respects there were also concerns that old political and ethnic rivalries may resurface following his death.

Mr Nkomo was able to control the simmering discontent in his home region of Matabeleland against the political and economic dominance of the Shona-led Zanu (PF) government of President Robert Mugabe.

Joshua Nkomo: Controlling influence
In Matabeleland many people, especially the younger generation, believe it is time for a new wave of politicians.

A new movement Zapu 2000, has been formed - named after the group originally founded by Mr Nkomo. Although Zapu 2000 denies an ethnic dimension to their party most of their supporters are from Matabeleland.

And political commentators say the choice of Mr Mkomo's successor could be critical to Zimbabwe's future.

Mr Nkomo, who with Mr Mugabe led the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe, died last Thursday aged 82, after suffering from prostate cancer.
A Matabele warrior led the procession
Tens of thousands of people, both VIPs and ordinary Zimbabweans, filed past Mr Nkomo's body as it lay in state - many of them weeping openly.

Thousands more lined the streets as a hearse carried Mr Nkomo to his final resting place, Heroes' Acre - a national shrine dedicated to leaders of Zimbabwe's war of independence.

Many had travelled on special trains and buses from other parts of the country.

Requiem Mass

On Sunday, thousands of people including President Mugabe packed Harare's Catholic cathedral for a special requiem Mass to remember the veteran independence fighter.

Mr Nkomo, who for most of his life had been an inactive member of the London Missionary Society church, became a Catholic earlier this year.

Pope John Paul II sent a message of condolence to Zimbabwe.

AOUT

The International Monetary Fund has approved a loan of nearly two-hundred-million dollars for Zimbabwe after pressing the government to give details of its military spending.

The Finance Minister, Herbert Murerwa, revealed that Zimbabwe's military involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo was costing three-million dollars a month.

Reinforcements were sent there in June to boost a force of some ten-thousand troops supporting the government in Kinshasa, in a venture which the IMF said posed a risk to Zimbabwe's economy.

The IMF has withheld payments from previous credits because of concern over prices, land reforms and the budget.

ZIMBABWE'S protracted negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ended this week when the IMF finally disbursed a new 14-month stand-by arrangement worth US$193,1-million.
While the funds have been widely welcomed in Zimbabwe, the disbursement falls far short of what the country needs to turn around its ailing economy.

For more than a year, officials from the Zimbabwean finance ministry have been shuttling between Harare and Washington to secure the much needed-funds, without success.

The IMF had sought clarifications on who was funding Zimbabwe's involvement in the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and demanded the lifting of price controls by the government.

Unconfirmed reports say Zimbabwe is spending up to US$2-million US dollars a month in the DRC to back the government of president Laurent Kabila against rebel forces. But this figure has been rejected by government.

Zimbabwe's finance minister Herbert Murerwa said on Tuesday the approval of the funds is based on the Memorandum of the Economic Policies of the Government as agreed with the IMF.

He told journalists in the capital Harare that the disbursement of the funds "marks the beginning of a process that will see the rebuilding of foreign exchange reserves as well as putting the economy back onto a sound economic reform track".

Murerwa hopes to use the IMF money to bring inflation under control, and stabilise the exchange rate. Inflation reached an all-time high last month when it hit 55%.

Under the macroeconomic goals of the programme for 1999 as contained in the letter of intent to the IMF, inflation should be reduced to 30% by the end of the year.

Gross reserves are expected to increase to 1,6 months of imports by the end of the year. At one time this year, import cover was reduced to one week's cover, which fueled speculation and price increases.

While the disbursement of the funds is good news, local economist Edmore Tobaiwa is somewhat concerned that the government may still go down the road of fiscal indiscipline. "We have received such disbursements before ... and we have nearly seen the bottom of the abyss," he said.

Tobaiwa said most structures in government that have not been performing are still in place. "For example, privatisation [of state corporations] has been at a painstakingly slow pace. There is no guarantee that it will be expedited," he said.

Nhlahla Masuku, president of the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce also welcomed the disbursement, but with misgivings.
Masuku says he fears the impact of the disbursement could be insignificant and urged Zimbabweans to "be masters of their own salvation".

President of the Zimbabwe Indigenous Business Development Community, Ben Mucheche, also welcomed the move but said it falls far short of the country's requirements.

According to Tobaiwa, there is a need to reform government and its way of doing business on a day-to-day basis.

"More meetings between the treasury, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the tax department are crucial if economic fundamental targets are to be met. There is need to monitor targets on a weekly basis as well as inflows and outflows," he added.

Murerwa has assured the nation a tight fiscal stance will be maintained, allaying fears the money will be channeled for the upkeep of Zimbabwean soldiers in the DRC.

"Efforts to sustain prudent fiscal policies will be complemented by the satisfactory progress made in resolving the SADC allied forces involvement in the DRC and current peace initiative, which will certainly translate into a reduction of related expenses," Murerwa explained.

Zimbabwe, Angola and Namibia, all members of the Southern African Development Community, have sent troops to the DRC to back Kabila against the rebel forces.

Murerwa also said government has no intention of imposing widespread price controls.

"Price controls on maize meal were introduced as temporary measures for socio-economic reasons and these will be removed once the monopolistic and oligopolistic practices have been addressed," he said.

Under this week's agreement between the IMF and Zimbabwe, there will be four programme reviews, one by mid-November this year, and February, May and August next year respectively.

-- IPS, August 4, 1999.

ZIMBABWE is waking up with a shock to a hidden cost of the Aids pandemic: declining food production. Too many adults are sick or dead. Their surviving relatives are too old or too young or too busy nursing the sick to farm.
This week, the Commercial Farmer's Union put figures to the decline of Zimbabwe's agricultural food output: maize by 61%, cotton by 47% and vegetables by 49%.

Why? Because of the loss of workers and workdays due to HIV/Aids -- even allowing for heavy rains in the last rainy season and price controls that discouraged planting cash crops.

Kerry Kay, the Aids co-ordinator at the Commercial Farmer's Union, castigated the government for spending Z$70-million a month on the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo and only Z$1-million a month on Aids prevention -- 10 years into the pandemic.

African peasant agriculture will never be the same after Aids. But it is taking too long for ministries of agriculture, donors and NGOs to adapt to the grim reality.

Aids is usually seen in terms of public health costs, loss of skilled labour and loss of workdays in industry. But its effects on smallholder agriculture, although less obvious, are equally severe.

"Global and regional Aids conferences held since the mid-1980s rarely focus on the impact of the epidemic on rural livelihoods," concluded a conference on Aids and African smallholder agriculture held in Harare last year.

Declining life expectancy makes headlines. Declining food security among rural people does not -- not until it has an impact on total food production.

In Zimbabwe, more than half of the staple maize and of the export crops of cotton and tobacco are grown by smallholders.

So is Uganda's main export, coffee. The coffee-growing areas near Lake Victoria have the highest HIV/Aids prevalence, hence fewer adults. Around Masaka and Rakai districts the unkempt plantations tell the story.

In northern Uganda, millet and sorghum are left overgrown because labour goes into caring for the sick. Among pastoralists in the east, adults are dying before they can transmit skills in herd care.

Zimbabwe's irrigated maize and tobacco do not suffer as much. But Aids widows in the communal areas are growing less food because they lack money to hire tractors, ploughs and casual labour. Their savings, tools and animals paid for medical and burial expenses for Aids-stricken husbands.

"From the time one adult family member is bedridden, Aids compromises the nutrition and food security of the whole family," says Godfrey Ssewankambo, deputy director of Uganda's Women's Effort for Orphans.

The cycle goes like this: a man is taken ill. While nursing him, the wife can't weed the maize and cotton fields, mulch and pare the banana trees, dry the coffee or harvest the rice. This means less food crops and less income from cash crops. Trips to town for medical treatment, hospital fees and medicines consume savings. Traditional healers are paid with livestock.

The man dies. Farm tools, sometimes cattle, are sold to pay burial expenses. Mourning practices forbid farming for several days. Precious time for farm chores is lost.

In the next season, unable to hire casual labour, the family plants a smaller area. Without pesticides, weeds and bugs multiply. Children leave school to weed and harvest.

Again yields are lower. With little home-grown food and without cash to buy fish or meat, family nutrition and health suffer.

If the mother becomes ill with Aids, the cycle of asset and labour loss is repeated. Families withdraw into subsistence farming. Overall production of cash crops drops.

"The bottom line is that Aids causes an acute shortage of labour and tremendous dependency on households headed by females and the elderly," says Gary Howe, director for Africa at the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

Ministries of agriculture, donors and NGOs are not reaching their new clientele -- women and youth. They need stronger hoes and lighter ploughs; farming techniques that require less labour, like zero tillage; and instead of expensive pesticides, natural pest control.

On the political side, a shift from customary land tenure to freehold could lead to distress land sales when the man falls sick. Says Paul Richards, from Wageningen Agricultural University in the Netherlands: "If land tenure reform is pursued aggressively in rural regions at high risk of HIV/Aids, survivors may join the swelling ranks of a landless class, a phenomenon hitherto unknown in Africa."

A new study by the United Nations on the responses of sub-Saharan rural households and communities finds some coping strategies, like income diversification, share-cropping and labour-saving technology such as mixing crops, are beneficial.

Also, communities are evolving ingenious responses, such as sharing farm chores, house repairs and child care, and changing cultural practices like expensive funerals.

But, warns the study, "community resources are stretched to breaking point".

-- The Mail & Guardian, August 16, 1999.

DURING this week's Heroes' Day and Defence Forces' National Day public holidays, Zimbabweans took a break from their harsh daily realities, but the politics did not stop. As they boarded buses to go home, the talk was about the newest challenge to the ruling party, Zanu-PF.
Last weekend, trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai's candidacy for president in 2000 took a big step forward when the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions launched the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The MDC is right on target in perceiving the need for a broad-based movement to challenge President Robert Mugabe.

A new party linked to the trade unions has long been in the pipeline. Workers are hurting from inflation, shrinking purchasing power and repression. The MDC will probably perform well in next year's election. Tsvangirai and Sibanda are gifted speakers, popular and untouched by corruption. The unions have a nationwide, disciplined membership.
Workers went home on this holiday, and spread the word. The 2000 election campaign has effectively started. The MDC's manifesto should be ready by August 21 and the new party launched by September. The new party's biggest challenge -- and hope -- lies in knotting strategic alliances with Zimbabwe's fragmented opposition.

"With all the thinking people who believe the government has failed the Zimbabwean people, especially the working class, we can put up a formidable front to remove corrupt leaders and fulfil the struggle to liberate Zimbabwe," says Sibanda.

The other top challenger appears to be Zapu 2000, the reincarnation of the old Zapu. It has successfully run primaries in Bulawayo and Victoria Falls in the run-up to local elections.

Independent MP Margaret Dongo has lost her national profile, although she still has strong support in Harare. Her party recently split.

The intelligence services may be behind that split, as they are in the current battle for the soul and the chequebook of human rights monitor Zimrights. A new chair took over, allegedly in rigged elections, and has sown chaos and dissent among the members of the well-respected group.

Sowing dissent is a more sophisticated approach than the one tried with the trade unions. In 1997, Tsvangirai was bludgeoned on the head by assailants. The blunt message, however, failed: the unions did not shut up and will contest the elections in 2000.

-- The Mail & Guardian, August 16, 1999.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has - for the first time in his 19 years of power - refused to approve bills passed by parliament.
The Speaker of Parliament, Cyril Ndebele, said Mr Mugabe had withheld his assent to two pieces of legislation: the War Veterans Amendment Bill and the Public Order and Security Bill

Under the constitution, parliament can only put the bills forward again if it can muster a two-thirds majority to pass them within six months.

If the president continued to refuse to sign the bills, he would have to dissolve parliament within three weeks.

Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party has 117 out of 120 members of parliament.

Journalists charged

The Public Order and Security Bill is aimed at replacing the draconian Law and Order Maintenance Act which was used by the former white regime to suppress black nationalism.

However, according to local newspaper reports President Mugabe withheld assent because the new law was indequate in dealing with the media.

Two journalists are still awaiting trial charged under the existing law with publishing false news likely to cause "alarm and despondency."

The War Veterans Amendment Bill is aimed at including those who were detained as political prisoners during Zimbabwe's independence struggle in the same category as war veterans which would entitle them to receive benefits.

COALITION of opposition parties and human rights groups is to go to court to press Zimbabwe's government to compile a new, more accurate, voters' roll for the general election scheduled for next March.
"Our audit of the voters' roll proves that it is a shambles," said Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, of the Foundation for Democracy in Zimbabwe (Fodezi). "In some cases up to eight people with identical names are registered at the same address, each with a different national registration number. This degree of error is unacceptable. It gives ample opportunity for voting fraud."

President Robert Mugabe's government has become highly unpopular as a result of declining living standards and its participation in the Congo war. Although several opposition parties have widespread support, their chances of election success are viewed as slim because the government has control of the voting process.

The opposition coalition took the results of their audit to the minister of home affairs, Dumiso Dabengwa, in August, but he refused to order a new roll, according to Fodezi.

"The government's decision to take no action to correct the voters' roll forces us to take the matter to court," Misihairabwi-Mushonga said. The costs of a court case will be an onerous burden for the small parties. Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF receives Z$65-million (R110-million) a year under the political parties finance act, but opposition parties do not receive any public funds.

"They have a concrete case from their survey," said John Makumbe, political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe. "If this voters' roll is used in 2000, it will call into question the fairness of the whole election process."

The audit, conducted by Fodezi and four opposition parties, examined eight voting wards in urban and rural areas. Over 25% of the registered voters they visited were either unknown, at the wrong address, dead, had moved or were registered more than once, according to the report.

The coalition called on Zimbabwe's international donors to monitor the voter registration process and scrutinise the roll. "Such faulty voters' rolls would not be acceptable in the donor countries. Why should it be acceptable here," Misihairabwi-Mushonga said. "With such a bad voters' roll, sending electoral observers on voting day is tantamount to shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted."

Zimbabwe's 1990 and 1995 parliamentary elections were marked by complaints about voter registration. Nevertheless, Mugabe has retained Tobaiwa Mudede as registrar-general. Opposition groups claim Mudede is blatantly biased towards the ruling party.

Zimbabwe's courts have previously ruled on poll fraud. Margaret Dongo, an independent MP, kept her seat in 1995 because the high court ruled the electoral process was full of irregularities.

-- The Guardian, September 3, 1999.

SEPTEMBRE
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has agreed to curb the huge expenditure of his government in order to comply with conditions set down by the International Monetary Fund.
The fund is lending Zimbabwe US$193 million over 14 months.

At the root of the economic problems, the worst since the country gained independence from Britain 19 years ago, is soaring inflation, now at just under 70%. This has largely been caused by government overspending, which has also led to a shortage of foreign currency and a loss of international confidence.

The central bank asked the commercial banks to impose a pegged exchange rate to stop the slide of the Zimbabwe dollar, which lost half its value in three months. At the same time borrowing rates for the public have been hiked steeply, while the central bank has raised the borrowing rate for commercial banks.

Industrialists are worried that tight monetary policies will lead to massive job losses and a fall in consumer spending.

"What the policy is succeeding in doing is pushing our members out of business," says Nhlanhla Masuku, president of the National Chamber of Commerce.

The bank rate will be maintained at five percentage points above the treasury bill rate, fixing it at over 50% from a stagnant 46%, fixed after an inflation panic last May.

Howard Sithole, an economist with Kingdom Financial Holdings, says the deal between the government and the IMF means that the authorities will have to keep a tight grip on monetary policy.

By year's end, Zimbabwe has to bring down inflation to 30%, a target many think is over-ambitious, given the government's reputation for profligacy.

Industrialists are worried. The high interest rates have meant that a number of businesses have closed down, shelved expansion plans or downsized. Economists say those hurt most are highly indebted and smaller enterprises that cannot access cheap offshore financing.

"We are concerned that increased government borrowing from the domestic market through treasury bills is the major cause of high money supply growth. In other words, without curbing government recourse to the domestic market, we do no see how the battle on money supply growth and inflation will be won," says Masuku. He notes that the policy of increasing interest rates will not achieve intended results unless there is a drastic cut in government expenditure.

"It is also high time that the Reserve Bank was given legal powers to set inflation and money supply targets. Without the central bank having powers to limit government domestic borrowing, it will be difficult to control money supply growth," Masuku says.
The budget deficit for the first quarter of the year was US$100-million against a target of US$90-million. The government has said it will eliminate its overdraft facilities with the central bank. Although many critics remain sceptical about the government's commitment to this undertaking, given the need to finance its widening budget deficit, others say that if it does so, real progress will be made in restoring the country's battered finances.

The economy has experienced its worst economic fall-out since economic reforms were first launched in 1990. Unemployment is believed to have reached a record high of around 55%, and about 80% of the country's more than 11-million people live in poverty.

The release of the money by the IMF, after 18 months of postponement, means that donor countries are likely to follow suit.

The World Bank is expected to release US$140-million next month and the Africa Development Bank US$130-million. The European Union has also confirmed its support.

Finance ministry permanent secretary Charles Kuwaza says the government will soon begin to take steps to cut spending.

"We believe that the revenue measures, coupled with the disbursement of money from the World Bank and the African Development Bank and a decline in expenditure, will go a long way towards assisting us to achieve this position," Kuwaza says.

The budget deficit has to be cut to 5,3% of GDP, the size of its civil service must be reduced, monetary growth contained to 10% and the privatisation and divestiture programme accelerated. The government has also agreed to remove price controls and make regular public disclosures on its military cost in the DRC war.

John Makamure, chief economist with the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce, says the country now needs to create an aggressive export programme.

"In the long term our salvation lies in exports," Makamure says, adding that over-reliance on donors will not create growth to the country?s economy.

-- AIA, September 6, 1999.

 CHANGE!" was the buzzword last Saturday at the launch of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Zimbabwe's new opposition party.
It is backed by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the National Constitutional Assembly, churches, NGOs, women's and human rights activists.

An impressive array of leaders of Zimbabwe's increasingly outspoken civil society gathered to address the crowd at the Rufaro stadium in Harare.

"Chinja-maitiro [Go for change]!," greeted the speakers. "Change now!" echoed the stands, filled with some 15 000 people.

On Friday evening, security guards posted by the MDC at the stadium witnessed an arson attack on the power transformer by a group of young people who poured petrol on it and set it alight.

The launch was delayed by a couple of hours until a portable generator was found. Some people in the crowd burnt copies of The Herald newspaper while they were waiting, saying it published misinformation about the MDC.
State-owned newspapers have been running anti-MDC stories, saying it is fund-raising among "Rhodesians" based in South Africa, that the ZCTU did not consult its membership about the new party and that it is a puppet of foreign powers.

On Monday, The Herald reported that Zanu-PF called for the deportation of a Danish trade union official posted to the ZCTU by a Danish aid agency, as proof of the involvement of foreign agents in Zimbabwean politics.

Top trade unionists Morgan Tvsangirai and Gibson Sibanda dismissed the stories as "nonsense". "The government is frightened," said Sibanda.

Sibanda is chair of the MDC, with Tsvangirai as secretary general, until its congress in December. It is expected that eventually both will resign from the ZCTU, where Sibanda is president and Tsvangirai secretary general.

The MDC is the biggest challenge to Zanu-PF to emerge in Zimbabwe. With a wide, disciplined trade union following, backed by well-known activists and led by popular figures like Tvsangirai and Sibanda, it could ride the wave of deep dissatisfaction in the country.

While the crowds were cheering at the stadium, about 300 striking workers from the catering sector swarmed over shopping centres in Harare, forcing their non-striking colleagues to close takeaways and cafés.

The strikers are demanding an increase of 70% to offset inflation, now running at more than 50% a month. "We are suffering and the MDC is our only hope for change," said a young striker who requested anonymity.

Zimbabwean disillusionment with politics was evident in the recent municipal elections where less than 5% of eligible voters cast their ballots in some wards. "We are fed up, sick and tired. We have no money for school fees or medicines. Harare hospital was without power and water yesterday. Patients have to bring in their own drips, or they die.

"Change the government now!" demanded Patricia Chisa-kuwara, an unemployed mother of five who had come to the MDC launch.

She was expressing the feeling of many Zimbabweans. In the words of one speaker: "We have come to grab our destiny from the looters and kleptocrats of Zanu (PF). But let's not underestimate the struggle ahead."

-- The Mail & Guardian, September 17, 1999.

SOUTHERN AFRICAN states reined in Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's aggressive regional foreign policy under an undisclosed agreement between heads of state at their summit in Maputo last month.
Under pressure from other leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Mugabe agreed that he would not act in the name of the SADC's Organ on Politics, Defence and Security without first consulting President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique and President Sam Nujoma of Namibia. The three presidents are, respectively, the past, present and future chairs of the SADC.

This agreement, which was kept out of the communiqué at the end of the Maputo summit, appears to have ended Mugabe's use of the organ as an instrument of his own foreign policy. His manipulation of the organ had severely strained relations between Zimbabwe, on one hand, and particularly South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia, on the other, over the past three years.

The status of the organ has been the subject of a long-standing dispute. Although SADC states agreed in 1996 to set up an organ on politics, defence and security, they have never been able to agree its mandate or a legal framework for it. A draft protocol for the organ, drawn up in 1997, was never ratified by SADC member states.

But Mugabe, who was to be its initial chair, behaved as if the organ was operational. He retained its chair, and purported at various stages to speak and take decisions on behalf of the SADC on delicate matters such as the wars in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Various attempts to get him to stop failed.

What the Maputo summit did was to indulge Mugabe by agreeing, in the words of the communiqué, that "the Organ on Defence, Politics and Security should continue to operate and be chaired by President Mugabe of Zimbabwe".

But the other SADC heads of state put a six-month deadline on this and required Mugabe to consult Mbeki, Chissano and Nujoma before purporting to do anything in the organ's name, according to well-placed sources. This requirement and the six-month deadline were, however, diplomatically left out of the script of the communiqué.

The summit also decided that "the Council of Ministers should review the operations of all SADC institutions, including the Organ on Defence, Politics and Security", and report back within six months. Other SADC member states are determined that any political and security arm of the SADC which may arise out of these consultations should be clearly and firmly tied in to the economic bloc's procedures in a way that makes it impossible for any single head of state to act alone in its name in future.

Observers see this as one motivation behind the increase in talk from South African Minister of Defence Mosioua Lekota about the need for a regional defence or security pact.

On his return to Zimbabwe after the Maputo summit, the Zimbabwe government presented Mugabe's retention of the chair of the organ on politics, defence and security as a victory for him.

-- The Mail & Guardian, September 17, 1999.

FOURTEEN Zimbabwean opposition parties have decided to boycott President Robert Mugabe's constitutional reform exercise and embark on a parallel process, public and independent media said on Monday.
The decision to reject the exercise, being undertaken by a 400-member commission appointed by Mugabe, came at a weekend conference. Opposition parties also resolved to embark on an alternative constitutional-making process.

The government of Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party plans to hold a referendum on the newly drafted constitution before the end of the year, in preparation for the next general elections which are due early in 2000.
"Parties here present have resolved to mobilise members of the public to engage in mass action against the institution of a referendum by President Mugabe should he decide to adopt the ...draft constitution," conference co-ordinator Lovemore Madhuku told the Daily News.

Nearly 100 teams of constitutional commissioners held more than 5,000 public meetings throughout the country over the past month. The commission completed hearing public views last week and has begun compiling verbatim reports of the public's submissions.

"The nationwide meetings, which started on August 16, have ended on a resounding success with members of the public from all walks of life asking the commission to extend the hearing period," acting commission chair, Grace Lupepe, said.

The 14 opposition parties resolved at their weekend meeting in the midlands town of Gweru that a broad-based alliance of civic and political groups, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), highly opposed to the current process, should lead an alternative process.

"The parties endorsed and mandated that the NCA should lead the alternative constitutional-making process," Madhuku was quoted as saying by by ZIANA news agency.

Madhuku said the NCA was the only organisation legally mandated to oversee the drafting of the new constitution to replace the British-crafted one of 1979, because it had the blessing of all the opposition groups in the country, unlike the current commission which was dominated by ZANU-PF officials.

Mugabe and his party have dominated the country's political life since independence in 1980.

Of the 400 commissioners appointed to draft the new constitution, 147 are members of parliament from Mugabe's party, while the rest are individuals named either in their personal capacity or representing other civic groups.

The new constitution is to replace the current one born out of a compromise during the transfer from minority British colonial rule to majority black rule.

-- AFP, September 27, 1999.

CORRUPTION and maladministration were exposed in Zimbabwe's government health service on Tuesday while a strike by junior doctors entered its eighth day.
Millions of dollars have been lost through fraud and dubious drug purchases, according to a splash report on the front page of the state-controlled Herald newspaper.

Government medical stores recently ordered 60,000 units of an injectable antibiotic for sexually transmitted diseases -- enough for 75 years -- but the drug had an expiry date of October 1998, the paper said.

The Herald quoted the parliamentary chief whip of President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party, Moses Mvenge, as saying that the health delivery system is "on the verge of collapse, if it has not yet collapsed."

He said a recent visit to government medical stores had revealed that new beds and wheelchairs were the left in the open to rot.

"The department had an allocation of more than 450 million (11 million US dollars), but no audit was done.

"Fraud has resulted," said Mvenge, pointing out that some senior officials run their own pharmacies.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for more than 400 junior doctors in government service told AFP on Tuesday that they would remain on strike until the government meets their demands.

Apart from pay increases, the doctors want a complete overhaul of the health system and their working conditions.

The president of the Hospital Doctors Association, Nyasha Masuka, said representatives of the strikers met Tuesday with Health Minister Timothy Stamps.

"He agreed we are badly treated, that our working conditions are poor and said our demands are reasonable," Masuka said.

"The minister said he would appeal at a cabinet meeting later today for the finance ministry to release extra funds for health.

"Until we hear the results, the strike continues."

Doctors say the exposure of widespread corruption in the government health service lends weight to their demands for an overhaul of the whole system.

The strike has seen the country's biggest hospitals discharging patients, and only emergency cases being handled by expatriate and senior staff.

-- AFP, September 28, 1999.

OCTOBRE
Several hundred striking junior hospital doctors in Zimbabwe say they will continue their action despite government calls for them to return to work.
The doctors, who have been on strike for almost two-weeks, are demanding higher pay and better conditions.

They say a lack of basic supplies such as drugs, syringes and surgical gloves means they cannot carry out their duties.

The dispute has led to major hospitals throughout Zimbabwe turning away all but emergencies.

President Mugabe has acknowledged that the doctors have a case, but has urged them to return to work and stop putting patients' lives at risk. Mr Mugabe has announced that Cuba has agreed to send 100 doctors to help.

But the government has come under strong criticism over its handling of the dispute.

The ruling party's chief whip, Moses Mvenge, accused the government of getting its priorities wrong in an apparent reference to the fact that more than 1,200 Zimbabweans are dying each week as a result of Aids.

Mr Mvenge said those who allocated resources did not seem to realise that the war back home was more serious than the war in the Congo.

Zimbabwe's junior doctors are the latest group to go on strike as workers try to keep pace with an annual rate of inflation of nearly 70%.

Junior doctors earn about 15,000 Zimbabwe dollars ($400) a month.

THE Democratic Republic of Congo faces a new form of colonisation -- this time from its ally, Zimbabwe, which last year intervened in the war to save President Laurent Kabila from being ousted by rebel forces. Now it's payback time for the broke government of President Robert Mugabe.
If a deal for the Zimbabwean Defence Force to become a major partner in the Mbuji Mayi diamond mine goes ahead, Zimbabwean companies will acquire control of all Congo's state mining companies, Kabila's chief source of revenue.

Zimbabwean entrepreneur Billy Rautenbach is already chair of Congolese metals and minerals parastatal Gecamines. The Zimbabwean Defence Force is also establishing ventures to buy gold and diamonds from small producers.

Faced with an unaffordable war, the Zimbabwean solution has been to create military business interests in Congo. On both sides, the conflict is now funded by minerals, particularly diamonds.

Zimbabwean's reasons for involvement with Congo have always been thought to be economic rather than political. But participation in the war has brought the Zimbabwean economy to the brink of collapse, with interest rates of 63% and high inflation forcing down the value of the Zimbabwe dollar.

However, joint military business ventures between the Congolese defence force and Zimbabwe have grown since last year, supporting analysts' beliefs that foreign troops will remain in Congo because of the new vested business interests. This includes Zimbabweans on Kabila's side and Rwandans based in Kisangani, from where diamonds flow to Kigali.

Mbuji Mayi is one of the projects under consideration by Zimbabwean Defence Force company Osleg, whose existence was confirmed to Business Day by Zimbabwe's Minister of Defence, Moven Mahachi.

The Zimbabwean army now controls access to Mbuji Mayi, since Angolan troops were withdrawn. But the large kimberlite mine is likely to prove a major white elephant for any would-be investor after years of neglect.

A mining analyst flew to the region for an expert assessment of the mine's potential and investment needs, but the results were not encouraging. Last year Mbuji Mayi produced only about $80-million of low-quality industrial diamonds. Most of the better stones are lost to theft and smuggled to Antwerp.

The mine is barely functional and described as being on the verge of collapse. Because of a lack of investment needed to get the mine back on its feet, mining equipment is discarded as it breaks down, leaving small-scale digging as the only alternative. Smuggling from the mine has increased so much that it is thought that official sales have plunged to a new low of only $500 000.

The mine, a joint venture between Belgian company Sibeka and the Congolese government, needed tens of millions of dollars to become fully functional again, and Kabila's government has been looking for new business partners. But there is no way the mine can be made profitable now, and it seems it has reached the end of its life. A major problem will arise if Mbuji Mayi is left to collapse -- the mine provides the local infrastructure to the region: water, power and employment.

A more profitable route is under discussion by Osleg: buying Mbuji Mayi's diamonds. The defence ministries of Congo and Zimbabwe would capitalise Osleg's gold- and diamond-buying ventures.

The head of Zimbabwe's Mineral Marketing Corporation is a shareholder in Osleg. A joint gold- and diamond-buying venture between Osleg and the Congolese army's Comiex has already been set up.

Zimbabwe's involvement in cobalt- and copper-producing Congolese parastatal Gecamines is also not providing the expected revenue. Rautenbach has been taking payments in cobalt recently in lieu of repayment of money owed to him by Kabila's government.

Rautenbach's own 70%-owned Ridgepointe company mines and markets cobalt from concessions in Katanga province.

-- The Mail & Guardian, October 1, 1999.

The World Bank has cancelled a meeting on Thursday at which it was to have discussed a one-hundred-and-forty million dollar loan to Zimbabwe.

A spokesman said the move was because Zimbabwe had not kept to a programme agreed with the International Monetary Fund.

He said it was not linked to reports that Zimbabwe had misled the IMF over its military spending in support of President Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Zimbabwe has denied the reports.

Correspondents say Zimbabwe is badly in debt and urgently needs funds to prop up its economy.

THE World Bank suspended a $140m (£87m) loan to Zimbabwe yesterday after reports that President Robert Mugabe's government had lied about how much money it was spending on the war in Congo.
In addition, the International Monetary Fund has ordered an audit of the government's books to help it decide whether to suspend a $193m loan.

The loans are of immense economic and political importance to Mr Mugabe's government. Inflation is running at 70%, his people are feeling the pinch, and parliamentary elections are due in five months. The money could help to tide him over until after the polls.

A government memo leaked to the press shows that Harare has been spending nearly 10 times more on the Congo war than it told the IMF and the World Bank: $28m a month from January to June.

It has repeatedly told its donors that it is spending only $3m a month.

Military experts dismissed that as a completely unrealistic amount to support the 10,000 soldiers Zimbabwe has in combat more than 600 miles from home.

Nevertheless, the IMF and the World Bank accepted the figure and agreed to lend the government the funds it desperately needs.

The Zimbabwean finance minister, Herbert Murerwa, tried to explain the discrepancy by saying that the leaked document referred to the amount the army had requested for the war.

The World Bank was to have authorised its loan on Tuesday, but has postponed it until the IMF investigation is completed.

The IMF has other sums to investigate as well. In the agreement for the $193m loan, signed on August 2, the Mugabe government promised to meet several targets which are clearly unattainable.

In the past the IMF and World Bank have turned a blind eye to the government's misrepresentations of its finances, but public scrutiny, both at home and abroad, may force them to hold it accountable.

"The World Bank and IMF only have themselves to blame," said Trevor Ncube, editor of the Zimbabwe Independent.

"No other economists believed the government's figures, so why should they?

"Their loans are helping to keep the Mugabe government in power as they loot our economy and cause the common man to suffer."

-- The Guardian, October 7, 1999.

NOVEMBRE
ZIMBABWE'S costly military intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo is widely seen by the public, western diplomats and other analysts as a catalyst for the country's growing political and economic crisis.
Two decades have now passed since the euphoria of the liberation war, when President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) party came to power after finally shaking off white rule, and going on to win every legislative and presidential election since with resounding majorities.

Nowadays, however, cracks in this popularity are starting to show. A thriving opposition press regularly blasts his tenacious refusal to pave the way for retirement. It cites examples daily of how the man and his party are in fact tightening their grip on power, with little regard for the plight and rights of the ordinary citizen. Yet the printed press remains free to criticise, even if the broadcast media are tightly under Zanu-PF control.

When these issues were put directly to his spokesman, George Charamba, one of the few government officials still willing to receive reporters with unwelcome questions, he said: "I suppose we are defensive, that we are over-protective. It is our liberation war psychology."

The Congo intervention, a catalyst for change

Zimbabweans are quick to point out that they supported the country's seven-year military intervention in neighbouring Mozambique, where, Charamba says, Zimbabwe helped bring peace to the country, enabling it to climb out of a vortex of war and violence which had engulfed the country for some 20 years after independence in 1975. Western diplomats largely agree.

But the anti-Mugabe sentiment in Zimbabwe rose after September last year, when he sent troops to DRC intervene on behalf of President Laurent-Desire Kabila.

"I remember advising my government a year ago that the country was on the brink of a major change, that Zimbabweans had had enough, and that was before the DRC intervention," said a western diplomat. "I still find myself saying that something is going to happen, that it simply cannot carry on this way. Yet people here are resilient, resourceful and peaceful. There is unlikely to be a revolution or an overthrow, but come the election next year, if it is free and fair, the chances of a Zanu-PF victory remain to be seen."

The next presidential election is scheduled in 2002. When asked in May this year whether he intended to run, Mugabe discounted reports that the Zanu-PF Politburo had agreed that he would not contest the next presidential election.

"I know the door through which I came into politics and I know the door I should use to go out of politics." No one, he added, would dictate the way he should retire.

In Zimbabwe, there is currently no viable opposition to the governing party and its leadership. Analysts say the cracks now showing have been widened by inflation, currently running at 70%; unemployment, estimated at 55%; rising rural poverty in the countryside, where most of the country's 12,8-million people live; low productivity; a debt trap; and structural problems with the economy.

All are problems, they say, which were there before the Congo intervention. The military intervention, however, has given the opponents of Mugabe and Zanu-PF a new platform from which to raise these issues and heap on the criticism.

The intervention in figures

According to official government figures obtained this month, Zimbabwe currently deploys in DRC about 10 000 troops, armoured vehicles and aircraft, making up roughly a third of its defence force. The government says 39 Zimbabwean soldiers lost their lives in the conflict.

The Zimbabwean army is holding an estimated 300 prisoners of war at various base camps in Congo. A further 49 Rwandese POWs have been transferred to Zimbabw,e where they are held in military detention. A total of 36 Zimbabwean POWs are being held in Rwanda. The International Committee of the Red Cross said it has been visiting the POWs.

Controversy over the cost and donor concerns

Charamba said the operation is costing US$3-million a month, with most of the expenses met by the DRC government, and that a series of economic deals had provided Zimbabwe with favourable business opportunities and access to the DRC's mineral wealth.

But the major donors, such as the European Union, and international lending agencies like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have said they are concerned that the cost of the Congo operation is in part responsible for outstripping Zimbabwe's ability to sustain development in key social sectors such as health, farming and education.

Last month, the IMF and the World Bank put aid programmes together worth over $340-million "under review". An IMF team, headed by Anupam Basu, deputy director of the Africa department, left Zimbabwe last week saying only the matter would be discussed at follow-up talks in coming months.

"A lower budget deficit than that presented to parliament is needed for 2000 in order to reduce upward pressure on prices and interest rates and increase the resources available to finance private-sector activities," the IMF office in Harare said. In a terse statement, it added: "Another fiscal issue covered in the discussions [Basu held with Reserve Bank, Central Bank and finance ministry officials] was the need to assess and clarify the costs of the war in the DRC."

An EU diplomat in Zimbabwe said: "Aid for structural budgetary support could be a problem. It is likely we would follow the lead here set by the IMF and the World Bank. What we do not know is how much the DRC intervention is costing or when it will end. There is no doubt that this is a complicating factor."

The controversy reached a head with the publication last month of a report in The Financial Times of London quoting leaked finance ministry documents disclosing a cost closer to $27,7- million a month. "This figure remains very difficult to verify independently," a diplomat said.

The IMF should 'shut up' - Mugabe

On learning of the IMF decision, Mugabe reacted by telling a news conference in Paris last week: "The IMF should shut up its mouth. Yes, we have spent money in DRC, but we have not died because of that. We continue to be productive."

Mugabe also accused the IMF of attacking Zimbabwe's presence in the DRC even though it was not the only country which had sent in troops to save Kabila and his government in a war against Ugandan and Rwandan-backed rebels. Charamba explained that thet intervention has full Southern African Development Community backing, and that it was launched as assistance to a fellow SADC member invaded by external powers, in this case Uganda and Rwanda.

Mugabe also told the news conference that IMF and World Bank-backed economic programmes since 1991 had caused "untold suffering for the majority of Zimbabweans".

No date for a withdrawal from Congo

"Our soldiers will go out of the DRC when the right stage comes for us to get out," Mugabe said. "There is very little fighting in the DRC now, but we need a facilitator for more dialogue in which the people of Congo must also participate."

The budget and the economy

These statements coincided with the release last month of the country's national budget for 2000. Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa said the 70% inflation rate had become the "number one enemy" in the fight against poverty and unemployment.

He denied media reports in recent weeks that the government had misled the IMF on the cost of its DRC intervention.

At a current exchange rate of 40 Zimbabwe dollars to the American dollar, Murerwa said the budget deficit for the year 2000 would be 3,8% of GDP or Z$11,4-billion. Defence spending would rise 58% to Z$8,2-billion, second only to the Ministry of Education, Sports and Culture, which was allocated Z$14,6-billion. Health and Child Welfare was allocated Z$6,2-billion.

Western economic experts in Harare said they fear that the finance ministry is often overruled by higher government authorities on key fiscal and budgetary spending issues, and this is another reason for the reticence of the big lending agencies.

At the same time, an analyst in Zimbabwe said the country's ability to service its foreign debts is under threat from a "critical" foreign currency shortage. Dumisani Ndlela, said this shortage "has plagued the market of late amid reports the country's foreign reserves, which should be ideally at three months' import cover, are now almost depleted". Although banks were said to hold over US$120-million on their foreign currency accounts (FCAs), this is not a component of Central Bank-held reserves.

Currency held in FCAs is only available to the market once it has been exchanged for the Zimbabwe dollar. The central bank, he added, has not been able to build "meaningful" foreign currency reserves this year from the country's main export earner, tobacco. The tobacco trading season ended in September.

The impact

The situation in Zimbabwe has resulted in a series of strikes, leading to clashes on the streets of Harare. These are predominantly over salaries that fail to keep pace with spiralling inflation, and regular food, electricity, and fuel price increases.

Ndlela said the foreign currency situation is being felt by big national import corporations such as Noczim, the national oil procurement company, and Zesa, the main electricity supplier.

In May this year, the SADC Regional Early Warning Unit raised another problem. It said that Zimbabwe's food security is hanging in the balance because of the economic crisis and drought in areas producing the country's staple, maize. Once a net exporter of maize, Zimbabwe is currently importing grain from South Africa and is expected to import maize from the United States at an estimated cost of US$260 000. Zimbabwe is forecast to produce about 1,5-million tons of maize this year, short of its 1,8-million ton requirement.

The country's millers have complained that they are being driven out of business by government attempts to control the politically sensitive price of maize meal.

Another economist, John Robertson, said the problem lies with the government's "interference with prices over the last couple of years". Farmers have responded to low maize prices set by the Grain Marketing Board by switching to more lucrative crops, forcing the government to import maize.

The response from workers is likely to be still higher wage demands. "Wage demands of 50% to 60% may sound extravagant, but workers need that sort of increase to put them back to where they were a year ago," Robertson said. "Average wages in the country have slipped by 70% since 1990."

The health crisis

In an action which graphically illustrates the crisis, wage demands by striking doctors, angry at the shortage of drugs and medical equipment, brought the country's public health system to a virtual stop.

On September 21, 400 of the country's junior and middle-level doctors - there are 800 doctors in Zimbabwe altogether - staged a six-week strike. The government has pledged a review, but insisted that doctors would not be paid for the period they were on strike.

Meanwhile, the Community Health Working Group has said that the national budget failed to allocate sufficient funds for Zimbabwe's basic health needs. Dr Rene Loewenson of CHWG said there "is little to give confidence" in a health and child welfare budget which allocated approximately US$13 per capita, against defence spending of US$19 per capita.

"It is inconceivable that in a country which has faced a cholera epidemic, severe malaria outbreaks, among other serious and fatal environmental diseases, that we continue to give so little priority to preventive health services. An allocation of about 14% of the health budget would have been closer to appropriate levels, reducing the share allocated to administration," she said.

According to estimates by UNAids, local health authorities, and Mugabe himself, about 1 200 people are dying weekly in Zimbabwe of HIV/Aids-related causes. The number of people being infected is calculated at 2 000 per week. Zimbabwe now has a population of approximately 300 000 Aids orphans.

The government announced a new 3% "Aids levy". But its critics in the health service, besides the media and opposition politicians, view the move as simply passing the burden onto the taxpayer without transparent, democratic accounting, Loewenson said.

Referring to the Congo intervention, she added: "The problem is with our priorities. We could surely afford to do without the expenditure on the Congo war."

Simeon Mawanza of Zimrights, an NGO funded by the international donor community, asked: "Why do I need US$19 for my defence next year? This is a country at peace, we don't have a quarrel with anyone and I don't need any defence. But if someone outside here gets hit by a car, will there be a doctor at the clinic to treat that person? Will the necessary drugs and equipment be available?"

A crisis in the countryside

In a country where 70% of the population is rural, another major issue of contention is over the allocation of land. Since Mugabe came to power on pledges of allocating the rural community land once owned by wealthy white farmers and corporations, the programme has been flawed from the start, according to those questioned.

To this day, two decades after independence, some 11-million hectares of prime land is owned by around 4 500 mostly white commercial farmers. More than six million black Zimbabweans are crowded onto barren communal areas, reinforcing rural poverty and reflecting an unchanged colonial legacy.

Last year, the government threatened to requisition 1 471 listed farms and pay only for infrastructure but not the land itself. At a land conference in September, donors pledged financial support for reform if government policy met transparency and poverty-alleviation criteria, with the land purchased at market rates. A new Inception Phase Framework Plan, to be part funded by donors, calls for the resettlement of 77 700 rural families on a million hectares over two years.

"The crisis in the countryside is getting worse by the day," said ZimRights's Mawanza.

A new political movement is born

In a bid to boost the chances of what political opposition there is in Zimbabwe, a new coalition was established in February this year. Called the Movement for Democratic Change, it is led by Morgan Tsvangirai, a 47-year-old father of six and one-time nickel miner who rose to become the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.

Tsvangirai is widely viewed by western diplomats as the most vocal, if not the only serious opposition leader, even though the MDC still lacks the organisational and financial clout needed to bring the government down in legislative elections scheduled next year. He has publicly urged the EU, the IMF and other donors to get tougher with the government.

Any further aid grants, he said in an exclusive interview, should be conditional on good governance, transparency, the rule of law and human rights. He cited widespread corruption, a lack of accountability, and rule by a presidency which has vested itself with too much power. It is "wasting" millions of dollars of taxpayers money on an "unpopular and unwanted military adventure" in Congo.

"The trouble is that after 20 years of rule under President Mugabe, we have no idea where the country is going or what there is to show for it. We are dealing with a government which rules by force and fraud. Corruption is now the biggest scourge."

He said the country's economy is not simply in a state of crisis, but in a free fall, with 75% of Zimbabwe's 12-million people living

When Zimbabwe became independent nearly 20 years ago, it was with a constitution negotiated at Lancaster House in London, as part of a peace agreement ending years of civil war. The negotiations lasted less than four months.

Now Zimbabwe is once again racing through the constitution-making process. Just six months after the creation of a government-appointed Constitutional Commission, a final draft is due to be presented to President Robert Mugabe on 29 November. The cause of the urgency is that the new legal framework is due to be in place before elections, scheduled for next April.

The commission's spokesman, Professor Jonathan Moyo, acknowledges that the timetable appears ambitious.

"Looking back though, at the degree of participation and enthusiasm," says Professor Moyo, "it now seems as though somebody was working through divine guidance."

Long awaited

Reforms since independence have increased President Mugabe's powers

In spite of the current rush, the need for constitutional reform has long been recognised by all sides. The ruling party, Zanu-PF raised the matter at its annual conference two years ago. And inaugurating the Constitutional Commission at the end of May, President Mugabe said, "Every sovereign people is entitled to give birth to its own constitution."

But critics of the government have been the most enthusiastic in their demands for constitutional reform.

A broad alliance of opposition parties, church groups, trades unions and civic organisations, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) was formed nearly three years ago to highlight what they believed to be the shortcomings of the amended Lancaster House constitution.

Power to the president

The NCA points to the fact that the 15 constitutional amendments passed since 1980 have had the effect of concentrating power in the hands of the president. The post of prime minister was scrapped in favour of an executive president in 1987. The upper chamber of parliament, the Senate, has been abolished.

A leading NCA figure, the trade union leader and head of the newly formed Movement for Democratic Change, Morgan Tsvangirai, has denounced President Mugabe for abusing the current constitution.

"Zimbabweans found that when we put all the authority in one man in 1987, we believed in him and not in the institution," says Mr Tsvangirai.

"Robert Mugabe has deceived us all. The man does not believe in anything but himself."

Boycott

But when the government hurriedly set up a Constitutional Commission earlier this year, the NCA refused to participate. Its concerns centred on the fact that all of the nearly 400 commissioners were picked by President Mugabe.

Although some high-profile government critics were sworn in, the vast majority were members or supporters of Zanu-PF. Moreover, the president has the right to amend or completely ignore the commission's findings, as he has with previous commissions of inquiry.

Professor Moyo dismisses such fears.

"Because this has been such a public process, it's difficult to imagine that once it goes to the president, suddenly things will start disappearing."

Wide consultation

Professor Moyo's confidence is based largely on the fact that hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans have taken part in public consultation exercise organised by the constitutional commission. At meeting after meeting the message has been the same:
the powers of the president must be reduced
his term of office must be limited
the size of his cabinet - currently about 50 - must be scaled down.
Unusually for Zimbabwe, such views have been reported in the tightly controlled state-run media on an almost daily basis. The effect has been to create the impression of a general opening up to debate.

But one well-known government critic, Lupi Mushayakarara, is more sceptical.

She joined the commission in the belief that President Mugabe, 75, was looking for a dignified way to step down. Several months on, she's changed her mind: "The constitution is just a piece of paper," Ms Mushayakarara says. "It won't transform Zimbabwe into a democratic society."

"Zanu-PF may well produce a constitution which appears to address the concerns of the people, but its main concern is power. Unless there's a miracle, Zanu is assured of remaining in office after next year's elections."

Several high-profile members of Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party have called for blacks to use violence to counter what they say is increasing racism in the minority white population.

Racism is a constant source of debate in Zimbabwe, not least because although the white population makes up less than 1% of the total, it continues to control large parts of the economy nearly 20 years after independence from Britain.

The current controversy was provoked by a number of apparently racial incidents, which have been highlighted by the state-run media.

In one, a white farm manager is reported to have urinated on a sleeping black worker.

'Instant justice'

Speaking in parliament, three prominent MPs complained bitterly of racism among whites.

One of them - the outspoken chief whip, Moses Mvenge - said the time had come for instant justice to be meted out.

Mr Mvenge added that he was not calling for the beating up of all whites - just those guilty of racist acts.

Other MPs said racists should receive a taste of their own medicine and said they had lost faith in the courts.

Human rights organisations have condemned the comments as shocking and disgraceful - they have appealed for the rule of law to be respected.

But the parliamentarians appear to be taking their cue from an embattled President Mugabe, who regularly seeks to raise the racial temperature.

He has frequently claimed that a white conspiracy, led by Rhodesians at home and abroad, is seeking to overthrow his government.

For many Zimbabweans, though, there are more pressing problems.

Annual inflation has climbed to a record 70% and an officially estimated 1,700 people are dying each week from Aids-related illnesses.

NOUVELLE CONSTITUTION

CRITICS are having a field day with the draft constitution to be debated at the plenary assembly of the government-appointed Constitutional Commission.
It is hard to believe that with just days to the new millennium the Zimbabwean government could come up with such an antiquated document that pays no respect to accepted tenets of democracy, says human rights lawyer Tendai Biti.

It skirts issues of governance, corruption and checks and balances, and concentrates power in the hands of one person -- the very issues that led to calls for constitutional review.

Like its Russian model, this draft creates a titular, non-executive prime minister as a buffer to an all-powerful executive president. It makes it harder to remove the president than it is today. The senate is elected according to proportional representation but Parliament is not. It recreates emergency powers as a tool of frequent use.

The draft has no provision for an independent Reserve Bank or any other provisions to ensure financial discipline and transparency -- major problems besetting Zimbabwe.

In 1997, a coalition of trade unions, NGOs and churches known as the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) started the process of reviewing the Constitution. As the idea caught the imagination of Zimbabweans, the government launched its own parallel process.

The NCA refused to join in a process it judged flawed and open to manipulation by the ruling party. One fear was that the final product would misrepresent the opinions voiced by Zimbabweans from all walks of life. It would entrench Zanu-PF hegemony and grip on power.

The review has fuelled bitter, sometimes comic disputes between the government and NCA supporters. It soon became Zimbabwe's favourite soap opera. Donor money was allegedly deposited in accounts where it should not have been.

The constitutional process was a healthy exercise for Zimbabwe. People spoke openly on everything, from polygamy to abortion, from corruption to the president.

Today, the NCA's suspicions of manipulation appear proved. The draft does not represent the summaries from the provincial reports made public. It suspiciously mirrors Zanu-PF's submissions.

Also unclear is whether the draft constitution will be taken to a referendum as promised. It has not been budgeted for and remains conspicuously absent from official speeches these days. Equally confusing is whether the new Constitution will be ready before parliamentary elections to be held before April 2000.
-- The Mail & Guardian, November 26 1999.

DECEMBRE
GOVERNMENT announcement of substantial pay rises for cabinet ministers, members of parliament, local chiefs and headmen as Zimbabwe's economy faces its worst crisis in two decades drew angry protests on Wednesday from critics of President Robert Mugabe.
An Extraordinary Government Gazette on Tuesday also said the salary rises and perks will be back-dated to July. Local headmen and chiefs were awarded increases ranging from 500% to over 750%, MPs were given 300%, and cabinet ministers 200% rises.

Zimbabwe is in the midst of an unprecedented economic crisis which has seen inflation go up to 70%, interest rates go up more than 60% and an unemployment rate of over 50%.

"We are simply reeling with shock at this announcement, given the priorities in this free-falling economy, the health crisis, the land problems, the massive HIV/Aids emergency and growing poverty," said Bidi Munyaradzi, the director of Zimrights. "We have our fingers on the pulse in this country, and when we urge people to moderation, diplomacy and restraint, they are now telling us they can no longer accept it. It will not be long before people take to the streets."

The increases were also condemned by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU): "We cannot accept it when civil servants were denied 20% cost of living allowances earlier in the year," said Nomore Sibanda, spokesman for the union group.

Public doctors last month ended a six-week strike over low salaries, outmoded equipment and lack of medicines. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other foreign donors have suspended aid to Zimbabwe's government, citing economic mismanagement and confusion over the cost of its military intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Newspapers said that under the newly gazetted increases, an MP's salary will go up to Z$426 000 (US$11 240) a year while a cabinet minister's increases from Z$213 000 ($5 620) to Z$640 000 ($16 886).

"By raising the salaries of local chiefs and headmen, the government is seeking to buy votes in next year's general election. By giving the cabinet and the other elite a huge pay rise, they are trying to ease tensions within the ruling Zanu-PF party," Munyaradzi added. "While the elite are getting richer, the majority of people in this country approach the new millennium poorer than ever with frustrations and tensions mounting. It is not a healthy situation."

-- Irin, December 2 1999.

NATIONWIDE marches planned this weekend by Zimbabwe's opposition in protest over a new draft constitution have been dismissed by the government as likely to be a "non-event".
The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), which has boycotted the government's constitutional reform process, "is visible in the media but is not there on the ground," presidential spokesman George Charamba said on Thursday.

He denied opposition allegations that the reform exercise, begun by the government in May, was hijacked by the ruling party Zanu-PF when the draft constitution was finalised and presented to President Robert Mugabe last week.

"I don't think Zanu-PF is any happier with the document," he said. "There are many areas in which Zanu-PF's position is not what was spelled out in the draft."

Charamba said the controversy over the retention of an executive presidency, contrary to what was apparently reflected in a national public survey run by the government-appointed constitutional commission, was one of "interpretation".

The survey report was presented to Mugabe on Thursday, and only when it is made public "can we judge the accuracy of the draft," Charamba said.

But he added that he was "surprised" over denunciations of the entire reform process, conducted by a 400-member commission the opposition has pointed out was weighted heavily in favour of Zanu-PF. "A draft, by its very nature, means that it is open to debate," Charamba suggested.

He said the next step would either be a referendum on the entire document, or for it to be broken down and the public "asked to pronounce on its controversial areas". The presidential spokesman added: "If there is such a strong feeling around a particular clause, why not discuss it?"

-- Irin, December 10 1999.

Riot police in Zimbabwe have used tear gas and truncheons to disperse a march protesting against the country's new draft constitution.

Draft constitution: Main points
President may serve only two terms
Power shared between president and PM
Proportional representation
Anti-corruption commission
Electoral commission
No land seizures without compensation
The draft, presented to president Robert Mugabe two weeks ago, has been widely criticised for ignoring the people's wishes to strip the president of his powers.
The police ignored a court order allowing the march in the capital, Harare, to go ahead and fired dozens of rounds of tear gas to disperse the protestors.

Those who refused to go were beaten with truncheons.

This was the first organised response to the draft constitution, but, partly because of heavy rain, there were only around 100 demonstrators and almost as many riot police.

When shown the court order, the officer in charge said he had no choice as he was acting under orders from his superiors.

Dictatorship

The march was organised by a coalition of church groups, trade unions and opposition parties unhappy with the way the draft was written.

After six months of speaking to people throughout the country, the government appointed commission rejected the wishes of many Zimbabweans to have a ceremonial president.

Instead, the head of state retains considerable powers, if less than under the current system.

One of the organisers of the march told the BBC that the behaviour of the police demonstrated the need for a new democratic constitution.

However, he also said it showed that everything depended on the people implementing it. If the police and the government ignore the law, he argued, then we are living in a dictatorship.

Zimbabwe's foreign exchange reserves have reportedly dwindled to the point that they now cover only a few days' imports.
A United Kingdom Government report which was leaked to the Financial Times newspaper says Zimbabwe's substantial debt arrears could worsen significantly if its economic policies are not changed.

The report says Zimbabwe registered an outflow of nearly $430m between January and October this year, leading to the desperate shortage of forex.

It also notes:

Inflation exceeding 70%, in contrast with the year-end target of 30% set by the International Monetary Fund
An expected budget deficit of 10% for this year, as opposed to 5.4% agreed with the IMF
Attempts to fund the deficit by printing banknotes
Government and state enterprises in arrears to almost all creditors
Loan not implemented

In August, the IMF agreed a $193bn stand-by loan for Zimbabwe, which has not been implemented mainly because of the high cost of military spending brought about by Zimbabwean involvement in the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The UK report was intended for internal use and is not going to be published. But British officials have expressing growing concern over the state of Zimbabwe's economy.

One official told the Financial Times that the Zimbabwean economy was "near implosion".

Peter Hain, the UK Foreign Office Minister dealing with Africa, said this week that it was important for the whole of Africa that Zimbabwe should succeed.

President Robert Mugabe plans to impose price controls on essential foods, despite saying Tuesday that the
 worst of Zimbabwe's economic crisis is over.
     ``The challenges we face are by no means insurmountable if there
 is unity of purpose,'' Mugabe told lawmakers in an annual
 state-of-the-nation address. ``I am convinced we have gone past the
 worst patch.''
     But, embracing policies his government had abandoned seven years
 ago for free-market reforms, Mugabe told a South African newspaper
 his government will reintroduce price controls.
     In an interview with The Star of Johannesburg, Mugabe said
 prices of corn meal, bread and beef will be fixed by the state to
 cushion the poor from further hardships.
     ``We definitely want to restore controls,'' Mugabe said ``We
 have already started'' by preventing corn millers from raising
 their prices without government permission.
     He ruled out providing government subsidies to the food
 producers to compensate for their inability to raise prices.
     Price fixing was abandoned when Mugabe's government adopted
 market-led economic reforms in 1992, ending a decade of socialist
 economic policies.
     The change could be aimed at preventing protests over the
 collapsing economy. In 1998, six people died in riots triggered by
 a 25 percent increase in the price of corn meal.
     Economic woes are seen as the biggest single threat to Mugabe's
 hold on power before parliamentary elections next year. Inflation
 is high and unemployment exceeds 50 percent.
     Mugabe told The Star that economic liberalization came to
 Zimbabwe as calls for economic and democratic reform swept the
 continent with the end of Cold War alliances in Africa. By
 abolishing price controls, inflation soared and the poor were
 plunged deeper into poverty, he said.
     Imposing price controls will likely upset Western donors, the
 International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions that
 have backed market-linked reforms. The IMF and the World Bank
 earlier this year froze some aid, saying economic reform targets
 were not being met.

Zimbabwe is to delay parliamentary elections to allow time for a referendum on a controversial constitutional reform, a senior cabinet minister has announced.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa said the move was to allow the election to be conducted under a new constitution, due to be voted on next month.

The delay, pushing the election from March 2000 back to June, would also allow time to compile a new electoral register in light of United Nations criticism of the current roll, he said.

Dead voters

Zimbabwe's existing register was described as "flawed" by the United Nations, after it was highlighted that a quarter of the voters were dead and an estimated two million had changed constituency.

Draft constitution: Main points
President may serve only two terms
Power shared between president and PM
Proportional representation
Anti-corruption commission
Electoral commission
No land seizures without compensation
Government officials say they will need the extra time to fine-tune the draft constitution into an acceptable form.

But the delay is likely to draw strong criticism from opposition groups who have already staged violent protests against the new constitution, which they say ignores the people's wish to strip President Robert Mugabe of his powers.

Only last week Mr Mugabe's majority Zanu-PF party passed a bill to allow referendums to be held on national issues.

And the delay is likely to be seen as an undemocratic attempt to further manipulate Zimbabwe's political system to further Mr Mugabe's aims.

Stiff challenge

His party is likely to face its stiffest challenge yet when the country next goes to the polls.

The labour-backed Movement for Democratic Change has drawn considerable support in the wake of the country's worst economic crisis in two decades - largely blamed on government mismanagement.

Mr Mnangagwa said in an interview on state radio that postponing an election is permitted under Zimbabwean laws.

"The March date is definitely out because we cannot fit elections into March.

"The life of parliament expires about April and our desires would have been to have elections in March going into April but the law allows us to extend for a further four or so months," he said.

Source :
BBC Africa
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Continental

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