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Mutasa threatens Independent
HARARE - Didymus Mutasa, the Minister of State Security has threatened to sue the privately-owned Zimbabwe Independent over the publication of statements made in an open court.Mutasa threatened similar civil action against the area prosecutor for Manicaland Levison Chikafa accusing him of defamation when he said in an open court:“Didymus Mutasa tampered with the justice system. What he did was unlawful. The fact that he has not been brought to trial does not mean that he is not coming … Mutasa is a powerful person … his wings must be clipped to the greatest extent”. – Staff reporter

Desperate need for media credibility
BY MARIVADZE NDUDZO
HARARE - Zimbabwe’s public mass media have lost credibility and readers/listeners/viewers confidence in the years since government began to use them as tools of cheap propaganda and repression. The heavy coverage of government and ruling party business is blatantly positive while the sanctioned reporting of opposition activities is always negative. Government’s incompetence and official corruption are swept under the carpet in the name of sovereignty and patriotism. State media peddle falsehoods and outright lies in order to destroy both the opposition and critical civil society organizations, and to consolidate the disastrous land reform.The Smith regime adopted a similar information policy in the 1960s and 1970s: racist, repressive, propagandist. But the black majority did not believe the local media back then. Instead they relied on external broadcasters like the Voice of Zimbabwe in Maputo, BBC, Radio Moscow, etc. History seems to be repeating itself.To fend competition off, the Zimbabwe government denied the only private daily newspaper, The Daily News, an operating license in 2003. A few months ago, the High Court ordered the controversial Media and Information Commission (MIC) board to recuse itself from the case because of its chairman Tafataona Mahoso’s bias. No action was taken.In some parts of Manicaland province, the distribution of licensed private weekly newspapers is reportedly not allowed, violating those people’s constitutional right to information.Private broadcasters and community radio stations have been refused licenses, forcing them to broadcast from outside the country’s borders. Those broadcasts have become popular as they tell the truth and expose government’s excesses.In 2003 parliament unashamedly passed the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), a draconian piece of legislation which has since turned its chief architect, Jonathan Moyo into a victim. Using this law, government has persistently harassed and intimidated journalists employed by the private media by taking them to court for trumped up charges and denying them licenses. Interestingly, the information ministry set up at independence in 1980 was headed by a renowned journalist, Nathan Shamuyarira, who transformed the mass media from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe. State media earned credibility and public confidence, which grew gradually over time.Shamuyarira is also credited with establishing in 1981 the national news agency, ZIANA which soon established local and international credibility because of its accuracy and balance. Government also formed the Zimbabwe Mass Media Trust to create a buffer between officialdom and the state print media to curb interference. The Trust played a pivotal role in shaping and guiding the state media until it was dismantled 23 years later by Jonathan Moyo. The disastrous effect is abundantly clear for all to see.In 2000, experienced journalists stressed to the new official managers of information the crucial importance of credibility in the media industry, but their advice fell on deaf ears.Instead officials embarked on a crusade of firing most experienced staff and hiring college “greens” who dance to the tune of their employer and flout the most basic principles of the profession. The ministry of information is characterized by political intolerance, aversion to criticism and covering up official corruption and incompetence. But it is generally accepted that able and democratic leadership feeds on criticism. Those who tolerate criticism perform better and become popular. And one way of fighting corruption and incompetence is exposure through the media. Corrupt officials shun publicity. Prosecuting or firing corrupt leaders is another way of curbing corruption.Journalism as a profession has been regressing from Zimbabwe to Rhodesia since 2000. Today, when professional journalists read state newspapers, listen to the radio and watch television, they bow their heads in shame. They know that the public does not believe a word. AIPPA should be repealed and the MIC abolished without delay. And because competition generally breeds improvement, the country needs more newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations.

Outrage at Zimbabwe’s prison squalor
BY DZIKAMAI CHIDYAUSIKE
HARARE - Inmates of Zimbabwe's prisons are suffering appalling levels of chronic illness and high mortality rates. Packed into squalid and overcrowded cells, the majority of those in the prison system are HIV positive, with many suffering from AIDS-related illnesses like tuberculosis.
“I saw at least three bodies a day being taken out,” said former inmate Roy Bennett, who was imprisoned in Harare's notorious Chikurubi prison for eight months, after he shoved Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa on the floor of parliament. “The poverty in the prisons is terrible. Sometimes food is only a cup of porridge, with no sugar or salt, served in the morning.”
“The prison guards plunder the oil, sugar, salt and other goods meant for prisoners because they are too poorly paid to survive.”
Bennett said he was given an excrement-soiled uniform when he arrived at Chikurubi with the crotch of the shorts torn out. He said that the situation of his fellow prisoners was infinitely worse.
Torture in prisons is common, Bennett saw people crippled by beatings on the soles of their feet. “If you are too slow in sitting down or squatting - because you can't talk to the guards standing up, you have to grovel on the floor to talk to them - you are beaten.”
Beatrice Mtetwa, a leading human rights lawyer, said that once someone has been arrested anything can happen. “You can get beaten up. You can be tortured,” she said in an interview with the Public Broadcasting Service of the United States. “It's just so dehumanising. It's not enough that you've been put in custody. They really, really want to break your spirit.”
Nixon Gandanzara, 42, developed tuberculosis while in prison for armed robbery. He told IWPR. "I slept on cold dusty floors for the six years I was at Chikurubi." He shared a cell measuring three-square metres with 33 others. A hole in the floor served as the communal toilet. It was flushed only intermittently because the flush handle was outside the cell. Guards wanting to impose punishment would refuse to flush it.
A parliamentary committee who recently visited the country's 42 prisons say they were designed for 16,000 but house more than 25,000. They reported cooking pots and other kitchen equipment so filthy they were “not fit to carry food for human consumption”.
A report by Zimbabwe's independent Institute of Correctional and Security Studies estimates that 52% of the country's prisoners are HIV-positive. However, Blessing Mukumba, a doctor who works with former prisoners in Harare, said he believed the true HIV infection rate of released prisoners is nearer 60%. Detainees are denied condoms, though homosexual activity is widespread in prison.
While no figures are available for AIDS deaths, prison authorities host a daily five-minute programme on state radio appealing to relatives to collect the bodies of their loved ones.
Zimbabwe's economic crisis also means that women with small children who are sent to prison often have no choice other than to bring their children with them.
The Zimbabwe Association of Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation, an NGO dealing with the welfare of prisoners, estimates there are more than 300 children in the country's prisons, the majority who are less than two-years-old.
The prisons department's budget does not cater for the hundreds of children also doing time, and they have to share their mothers' own paltry rations. That includes a breakfast of maize porridge, an early afternoon meal of more maize with a boiled vegetable. Meat and beans are given only on national holidays.
The babies cuddle together with their mothers beneath one blanket on concrete floors - even in the depths of Zimbabwe’s short but sharply cold winter.
“I had no clothes for my baby,” Thenjiwe Ncube, the mother of a three-week-old child in Mlondolozi Prison, near Bulwayao, told workers with the Prison Fellowship of Zimbabwe (PFZ). Sympathetic prison officers chipped in and donated what they could because there are no provisions for babies at the prison.
Prison regulations stipulate that children must be released into the custody of relatives or the Department of Social Welfare once they reach the age of two. But PFZ administrator Emmanuel Nyakasikana said: “The extended family concept is dead as people struggle to obtain the basic necessities.” He added that social welfare homes were stretched beyond limits by the influx of tens of thousands of children orphaned by AIDS.
Justice Minister Chinamasa has dismissed all international and national concerns about Zimbabwe's prison conditions. “Prison by its nature is not supposed to be a cosy place,” he said. “It should not in any way bear resemblance to a hotel. These places should at least teach offenders that committing a crime can burn their fingers.” - IWPR

3 steal from Grace
HARARE - Three people are in remand prison for stealing from Zimbabwe’s First Lady, Grace Mugabe. Brian Marange, Makhosini Khoza and Fimas Bvunzawabaya have appealed to the High Court to be granted bail after a lower court turned down their application last week. The ages of the three could not be ascertained. According to court papers the three, who were employed as managers at Iron Mask farm in Bindura, face charge of theft by conversion involving fuel and farmequipment in June this year. They deny the charges.The first lady took Iron Mask farm from John and Eva Mathews, an elderly white couple, a few years ago, sparking widespread condemnation.Government officials said the farm would not benefit the ‘first family’ but would be converted into a children’s home under the Zimbabwe Children'sRehabilitation Trust (ZCRT). Grace is the founder and patron of ZCRT. Up to now, the ‘first family’ continues to grow crops on the farm, earning billions of dollars. Speculation about their intention to keep the farm to themselves was fuelled by recent reports that the farm has been renamed Gushungo Diary Estates. – CAJ News

Police accused of corruption
HARARE – Police commissioner Augustine Chihuri has ordered the immediatewithdrawal of police officers stationed at the country’s border posts following serious allegations of corruption.The police officers were deployed at the border posts last week to block individuals from attempting to smuggle back into the country huge amounts of money following recent monetary changes by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).Sources within the police said Chihuri was forced to act after RBZ governor, Gideon Gono, complained to him in a strongly worded letter this week that senior police officers were throwing spanners into the government operation.“Several senior police officers have been caught shielding their tycoon friends from having their cash confiscated at police roadblocks, a development that has infuriatedChihuri,” said a source. Police spokesman, Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed that the withdrawal of the police officers at the border posts but denied that the withdrawal was due to corruption.“This operation is being done in good faith and is targeting every corrupt individual whatever position they hold in society. The fact that some police officers have been arrested shows this is a transparent process,” he said.The Law Society of Zimbabwe and other local human rights groups this weekcondemned the cash seizures by President Robert Mugabe’s government sayingthey were a violation of human rights. - ZimOnline

Severe bread shortages to come
HARARE - An international organisation that monitors food supply trends has warned that Zimbabwe faces severe bread shortages this year predicting that the country's wheat harvest will fall below 35 percent of the national requirements.In its latest report for July which was released this week, the United States-based Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWSNET), said Zimbabwe will harvest about 135 000 metric tonnes of wheat, higher than last year's120 000 metric tonnes.But the harvest will still fall short as it will only be enough to cover about 34 percent of the country's national requirements.FEWSNET said they expected President Robert Mugabe's government to cover thedeficit through wheat imports. Zimbabwe needs at least 400 000 metric tonnes of wheat per annum for national consumption.Although the Harare authorities had earmarked 110 000 hectares to be put under the wheat crop this winter, only 57 000 hectares have been planted as the chaos in the agriculture sector continued. - ZimOnline

Energy sector opened up
BULAWAYO - Zimbabwe will soon open up the energy sector to private players as the government prepares to deal with an unprecedented power crisis that is expected to worsen next year. The principal director in the Ministry of Energy, Engineer Munyaradzi Munodawafa, said the government was moving to deregulate the energy sector to deal with looming power shortages.He said the Zimbabwe Electricity Regulatory Commission had already granted electricity generation licences to Hippo Valley Limited in Chiredzi and Rusitu Power Company in Chipinge.
Meanwhile, three of Zimbabwe's thermal power stations stopped generating electricity about three weeks ago due to a shortage of coal supplies, according to a senior official at the state-owned Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) power firm.The general manager for Western Region, Simbiso Chimbira, said the recent power shortage in the country was due to lack of activity at three of the country's thermal power stations after running out of coal.
Chimbira was addressing a consultative meeting called by business leaders to look into the power crisis."The thermal power stations are not running at the present moment. The massive coal shortages at thermal stations are so much that we now face an additional deficit of 450 megawatts from the deficit we been facing all along," Chimbira said.Zimbabwe's sole coal mining firm, Hwange Colliery Company, has been battling to meet local demand over the years due to lack of foreign currency to buy spares and replace ageing equipment. – ZimOnline

Fuel rationing returns
HARARE - Zimbabwean filling stations were extending fuel rationing on Monday in response to an acute fuel shortage that has crippled public transport and prevented many Heroes Holiday family reunions.Oil industry sources said emergency imports were flowing in to ease the crisis, but shortages were still serious and thousands of motorists and people who had travelled to their rural homes for the holiday were stranded in towns across Zimbabwe.Government admitted failing to ensure adequate fuel supplies for thousands of people to travel over the Heroes period.Long and winding queues of cars formed at a few petrol stations that had the scarce commodity in the capital on Sunday while the majority went dry."I have to admit that the situation is bad," Mike Nyambuya, minister of energy, told state radio.Even burials had had to be postponed because mortuaries were running out of fuel for their hearses.But Nyambuya said on Sunday that Zimbabwe's state oil procurement monopoly NOCZIM had released nearly three million litres of petrol onto the market on Saturday and Sunday.He said another 1.9 million litres would hit the streets on Monday and Tuesday, and that NOCZIM would go on importing fuel to ease the fuel shortage.But industry officials have said the fresh supplies are too scanty to cover Zimbabwe's needs, let alone an outbreak of panic buying, and nobody believes ministerial promises any more. In the capital Harare, about a dozen filling stations had fuel on Monday and bus stations were choked with commuters looking for transport to their rural homes. Despite promises by the government last week that it had acquired supplies to ease the shortages over the Heroes holidays, petrol remained critically scarce in Harare, selling for up to Z$750 000 a litre.– Gift Phiri

Pro-senate MDC protests extension of inquiry deadline
HARARE - The Mutambara-led MDC has opposed to the extension of the mandated deadline of the independent commission investigating the savage attack on Harare North legislator Trudy Stevenson and other members of the faction early last month. The faction said it was opposed to any attempts to grant the extension because “justice delayed is justice denied.”But commission officials said there was no way to finish their work on time, because of lengthy delays in getting access to court documents and other evidence. The commission announced on Friday that it was seeking an extension of its deadline to complete the investigation until at least end of August. The commission, chaired by Advocate Happias Zhou, was set up following the gruesome assault on Stevenson and other members of the Mutambara faction of the MDC on July 4 in Mabvuku.The victims fingered the Tsvangirai-led MDC for masterminding the attack, a allegation that the group rejects. “We have told our principals that we need to do the best possible job,” said the panel’s chairman, Zhou, a respected advocate, in announcing the decision to seek an extension. “Much work remains, and some hard work in finalizing our report.”He said the panel was “mindful of the politics” of an extension, “but if we do not have the extra time, we would not have as many hearings as we would like.” The commission said it had so far interviewed the victims and those that have been accused of the assault, including Mabvuku MDC Member of Parliament, Timothy Mabhawu.MDC Secretary general Tendai Biti, said that, once completed, the report would go to the MDC national executive and be made public. – Own correspondent

Mugabe rages over ‘New Look’ Zanu docBY GIFT PHIRI HARARE - A rejuvenation discussion document presented at Zanu (PF)’s politburo meeting last week called for “fundamental changes” to the party’s ideology and leadership to stem voter decline and ensure the ruling party’s survival.The document has angered President Mugabe to such an extent that he has recalled all copies after the meeting and ordered that members of his Soviet-style politburo do not consider it or leak it to the media.This is despite the fact that the author of the document, justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, was requested by the party’s leadership to write and present a discussion paper on the party’s rejuvenation in the face of growing anger against the regime.“It is brutally honest,” said a politburo member speaking on condition of anonymity. “It opened a few eyes to the fact that you can’t change if you want to keep on doing the same thing.”Several politburo members who have read the document provided a detailed summary of the two-part document. The first part addresses “the party’s image problem and resultant voter loss.” It gives a meticulous historical account of the party from its formation in Highfields in 1964 to the present.“The paper notes that at some point the party began to make strategic mistakes because it misread the evolving politics of the late 90s,” said a politburo member.The paper asks, for example, whether it was correct for the party not to have joined forces with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change in 2003 during inter-party talks.The second part of the document is what raised Mugabe’s ire, said politburo members. The document suggests that the party is perceived as a “personality cult” and asks questions about whether it is appropriate that Zanu (PF) leaders are “more popular than the party.”It also questions the tribal balancing act in the presidium and the narrow zezuru ethnicism of the party, which have contributed to the party’s declining support since 2000. The document suggests that the ruling party should “reposition to connect with wider constituencies and move away from regionalism that has come to characterize Zanu (PF)”.It notes that the party needs to manufacture a new image “that connects with the people,” insinuating that it has lost touch with the needs of its voters. The paper states that the ideological stance should shift from its narrow ethnic base and adopt social democratic principles.Party spokesman Nathan Shamuyarira confirmed that Zanu (PF) was working on plans to update its socialist ideology. “We are going to produce an updated ideology for the party, we have had the ideology of socialism, but it needs to be updated in line with the changing times.”
Holland takes charge of HarareBY OUR CORRESPONDENT HARARE - The Movement for Democratic Change has re-organised its party revitalisation programme by appointing National Executive Committee (NEC) Members to be responsible for each of the 12 provinces in Zimbabwe. Party sources say the programme, which was initiated soon after the party's Congress, has been a huge success in the rural areas. Sources close to the latest developments say the new strategy of placing members in provinces they do not originate from is meant to expose the leadership to other areas they may not be familiar with and to develop a national profile of the MDC leadership.Professor Mukonoweshuro is now responsible for Mashonaland East and Dr Mufandaedza Hove goes to Manicaland, while Kwekwe medical practitioner Dr Madzorera takes over Midlands South, and Gweru Mayor Sesel Zvidzai takes over midlands North. Media guru, Sipepa Nkomo who is from Tsholotsho has been placed in Matebeland South, while Seiso Moyo of Beitbridge supervises Bulawayo. Deputy appointments include among others, journalist Grace Kwinjeh who remains in Manicaland with Lawyer Jessie Majome going to Mashonaland Central, while former UZ Chancellor Professor Gordon Chavhunduka is deputy for Harare province. A real scoop for MDC women is the appointment of media trainer and war veteran, Sekai Holland who takes charge of Harare Province. This is considered the eye of the storm, in the event that the party launches its non-violent peaceful Democratic Resistance Campaign for change. Sources say Holland has started work to re-energise this once vibrant MDC tronghold. She has already invited key people to chair strategic committees dealing with issues such as business, religion, sports, youth and women.

Zim crisis derails regional plans
GABORONE - The effects of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown are beginning to be felt by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) amid fears the bloc could miss its regional integration targets.The Zimbabwe crisis threatens to derail the region's plans to move towards a free trade area by 2008 and a customs union two years later. The majority of member states have managed to tighten their monetary policies and maintain low inflation rates at single digits.Countries such as Angola and Zambia, which used to have high inflation rates, managed to halve inflation on the back of less expansionary fiscal policies and currency appreciation."Zimbabwe, on the other hand is going the opposite direction. In fact, the effects of its high inflation on the region are such that the regional average shot to 23 percent against 10.8 percent if the country's figures were not factored in," a senior SADC official told ZimOnline on condition he was not named.The average real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth of five percent in 2005 indicates an overall increase in the macroeconomic performance of SADC countries despite the disparities among member states.Angola had the highest growth rate at 15.6 percent, followed by Botswana at 8.3 percent, Mozambique at 7.7 percent and Tanzania at 6.9 percent GDP growth. - ZimOnline