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COMPASSION RESPONSE NETWORK CIRCULAR No 31
Humanitarian Disaster Unfolds in Zimbabwe
Information for this circular collated through the assistance of Zim News, http://www.zwnews.com/
Politics and the Rule of Law
In the Zimbabwe general elections of 29/March/08, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won a surprising victory over the Zanu PF party, which had governed Zimbabwe for the past 28 years with Robert Mugabe as President. It was surprising because the ruling Zanu PF party was intolerant of any opposition, and would savagely repress any party that gained popularity, threatening its hold on power. The electoral win was not officially counted as an absolute majority, and thus a presidential follow up election was required under Zimbabwe law.
In the month that followed, the ruling Zanu PF party devised a plan of coercion, intimidation, beating, murder and displacement, and in May/June there followed a reign of terror, especially in those electorates that had switched from voting for Mugabe to voting for the MDC opposition. During that period, more than 80 opposition supporters were dead, hundreds were missing, thousands were brutally injured and hundreds of thousands were displaced and homeless. By the time the presidential run-off election was eventually called for 27/June/08, the level of violence and terror was so extreme, that the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was forced to withdraw and permit Robert Mugabe to win unopposed. The opposition disputed the legality of the runoff because it was not a free and fair election.
International pressure, though never placing any military or decisive pressure on Robert Mugabe, nevertheless forced him to engage with Morgan Tsvangirai and minor party leader Arthur Mutambara in prolonged discussion to negotiate a government of national unity. Robert Mugabe blocked any movement for real power sharing at every turn, knowing that talks facilitator Thabo Mbeki was reluctant to put any significant international pressure on him. Eventually, the leaders on 15/September/08 agreed upon a power sharing agreement which on President Mugabe’s insistence remained vague as to specifics, and in particular did not specify who would control which ministries. The agreement instead nominated seven "priority tasks", each of these areas necessitating shared government between Zanu PF and MDC parties. These seven priority tasks were;
Adoption of a new Constitution for Zimbabwe
Rule of Law
Restoration of Economic Stability
The Land Question
State Organs and Institutions
Delivery of Social Services
National Healing, Cohesion and Unity
For a little while, there was cautious hope among the people that a genuine power sharing arrangement would emerge. After five weeks of discussion over ministries during which time Robert Mugabe refused to concede sharing of any major portfolio, Robert Mugabe unilaterally declared that all key posts, including the Home Affairs Ministry, bringing with it the control of the police, will go to Zanu PF. Opposition Leader Morgan Tsvangirai would be permitted to preside over some minor ministries and have the right as nominal Prime Minister to consult with the President. His role would become effectively irrelevant sidelining him as having no true influence on government, despite his party winning in the March elections. In particular, with Zanu PF retaining both Ministries relating to Rule of Law, Defence governing the army and Home Affairs governing the police, there would be no power sharing on the critical Rule of Law issue. Robert Mugabe would retain absolute authority to continue his authoritarian repression of the people through coercion and intimidation, and there would be no check to ensure just and impartial enforcement of law.
Morgan Tsvangirai announced that his MDC party would play no part in such an arrangement, because Robert Mugabe had violated the spirit of the Sep/15 agreement by refusing to share power.
In response to the breakdown of the talks, leaders of the southern African nations held an emergency summit with the Zimbabwean party leaders, held in a Harare hotel. On Monday 27/Oct, around 100 students supporting a call by the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, peacefully demonstrated outside the hotel. Police in full riot gear fired teargas and then baton charged the students. Fifty demonstrators had been arrested, according to a Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition spokesperson. Four other people were abducted by Zanu PF militia youth. The body of one of these, Osborne Kachuru from Mbare was later claimed by relatives at the mortuary. Friends claimed he had been brutally assaulted at Zanu PF headquarters.
On the same day, around 300 women from the Women’s Coalition also took to the streets, demanding a unity government be formed urgently. WOZA leaders, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu, were also arrested for peacefully demonstrating, and had to endure three weeks detention in jail under appalling conditions before eventually being granted bail on 6/Nov.
Two days later on 29/Oct, youth militia loyal to President Robert Mugabe attacked a group of opposition MDC supporters, 20 of whom were injured and required medical attention.
Zimbabwe Peace Project said in its latest report that cases of political violence and human rights abuses in Zimbabwe shot up by 39% from August to September, "with incidents of murder, rape, kidnapping, assault, looting, harassment, displacements …maintaining a disturbing visibility after the signing of the 15 September power-sharing Agreement."
On 6/Nov, opposition MDC claimed that Mr Mugabe's party had "unleashed a new orgy of brutality and assaults across the whole country".
On 9/Nov, opposition MDC rejected a South African-backed proposal to share the Ministry of Home affairs that commands the country’s police force and controls its electoral machinery. The opposition are preparing to face a government crackdown.
An emergency weekend (8-9/Nov) summit of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) failed to break the deadlock in talks on Cabinet posts
On 11/Nov, President Robert Mugabe's police broke up anti-government demonstrations across Zimbabwe, arresting some people and beating up others, according to the opposition. The demonstrations had been organised by the independent National Constitutional Assembly. Their spokesperson had claimed that 1,000 people had protested across the country.
On 14/Nov, opposition MDC officially withdrew from the 15/Sep power sharing deal, rejecting a resolution passed by leaders of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on 9 November, urging the formation of an all-inclusive government to save the faltering agreement. The opposition believe that such an arrangement as approved by SADC would sideline the MDC and make them politically ineffective, and subject to continuing intimidation and arbitrary imprisonment by the Zanu PF administration.
Great concern is being expressed for the welfare of 12 activists who were arrested during early morning raids at their homes in Banket more than three weeks ago and have not been heard from since. This is despite an urgent High Court order demanding the abducted people be brought to court.
Zimbabwe’s opposition MDC party said on 21/Nov police had banned it from holding two rallies in Harare over the coming weekend citing a cholera outbreak that has hit the capital and several other parts of the country. The Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC heavily relies on rallies and other public events to reach its supporters because President Robert Mugabe’s government does not allow the opposition access to state-owned media.
The Zimbabwean government remains ineffective to tackle the vast humanitarian crisis now sweeping the country, partly because of the total collapse of the Zim economy, partly because of the refusal by Zanu PF hard-liners to facilitate a genuine power sharing agreement, and partly because of the fear among Zanu PF hard-liners that a true sharing arrangement would mean an end to the patronage system which channels the nation’s wealth to the Zanu PF elite. Even now, a necessary constitutional amendment has not been enacted to legalize the 15/Sep power sharing agreement.
On 13/Nov, Radio VOP reported that over 250 MDC activists have been brutally murdered by suspected Zanu PF militia and State security agents since the March election.
Violence is increasing in other areas. Police regularly shoot at or maul with police dogs, illegal diamond miners. It is a common occurrence for illegal diamond miners to be shot dead.
Zim OnLine (SA) reports that on 15/Nov police set up a roadblock near Harare airport and robbed passengers of foreign exchange and, in one case, credit cards. . . . President Robert Mugabe has been careful to keep his top police, army and other security commanders well fed but with his government virtually broke he has struggled to look after the ordinary police constable or army private.
From SW Radio Africa comes the disturbing report (21/Nov) that soldiers viciously went around the suburb of Mutare beating up people indiscriminately and bundling them into their trucks. The soldiers also went to a nearby nightclub and beat up patrons there, leaving a trail of broken limbs and furniture. There was no evident motivation for the attack.
The Sunday Independent (SA) reported that an estimated 20 prisoners were dying in Zimbabwean jails every day, victims of disease and malnutrition.
The Economy and Corruption
Since the year 2000, the Mugabe government has been seizing white owned farms and gifting them to Zanu PF elite, who have been incompetent to administer them well. As the farming sector became unproductive, and with other sectors beginning to fail, the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank financed its elite through regular overproduction of bank notes. This in turn has led to hyperinflation, and by the end of October/08 the Zim dollar was losing about 100% of its value daily. In an effort to deal with hyperinflation, the Reserve Bank has introduced higher denomination notes and lopped a total of 13 zeros off the currency - 3 zeros in August 2006 and 10 in August 2008 - but it has continued to lose value. Trade within Zimbabwe in foreign currencies has been illegal, but shops no longer could survive and became unable to constantly mark up prices. In the last week of October, as a desperate survival measure, supermarkets throughout Zimbabwe refused to trade in Zim dollars, considering the currency now worthless. They now accept only South African rand or US dollars. When previously supermarket trade had been in Zim dollars, the supermarket shelves had been virtually empty because the entire economy had stalled. There were also chronic shortages of drugs, fuel, spare parts, and most basic goods. Now in November, the supermarkets are once again well stocked with goods, through the price is four or fives times compared with the price in South Africa. Most Zimbabweans however are too poor to buy anything.
Most employed people spend at least part of each day in a queue to withdraw their salaries, bit by bit, as central bank governor Gideon Gono limits how much people and companies can take from their accounts each day.
The only way of getting foreign currency these days is on the black market. You cannot go to a bank any more. You used to have to be very secretive, going undercover. Now, you just walk up to a black market seller, ask for the going rates, and make the exchange. Now it is completely out in the open, and even if a policeman walks by he won't give a second glance.
With the Zimbabwean economy at the point of total collapse, the nation continues to survive through the patronage system. The greatest fear by the Zanu PF elite and why they so strongly oppose any true power sharing, is that such an arrangement would lead to a wholesale change in attitude with a subsequent breakdown of the patronage system.
This year, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, has bought all the seed from producers and had centralised the distribution of agricultural inputs. The commander of Zimbabwe's defence forces, General Constantine Chiwenga, assisted by senior military officials, has been given the responsibility of identifying the beneficiaries of agricultural inputs, and maize seed and fertiliser have been handed out at Zanu PF rallies to party members and senior government officials.
Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank, has been spending large sums this year on a range of things, according to reports in Zimbabwe's state-owned media. Gono gave the country's judges new vehicles, satellite dishes and televisions and allocated 79 vehicles for the Information Ministry. He announced the provision of 3,000 tractors, 105 combine harvesters and 100,000 plows for the country's farm mechanization program.
There exists a thriving parallel market throughout Zimbabwe. Many in the security sector say most of the racketeering on the parallel market is being led by senior government and opposition officials who have access to foreign currency. They continue to get rich while the poor get poorer.
According to The Times (UK, 21/Nov) "The only state organisation that was working this week was the riot police who yesterday beat up doctors and nurses protesting at the shortage of drugs and linen for their hospitals."
Harare economist John Robertson says (VOA News, 13/Sep) the ruling Zanu PF elite have discarded the Zimbabwe dollar. "The government gives the privilege to the senior people in the form of foreign currency, but they are not admitting it, because they are not the ones standing in bank queues. They have found another means around the problem," said Robertson. Robertson says the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe obtains foreign currency it needs by raiding exporter's bank accounts.
On 25/Oct, Golden Valley gold mine closed after failing to pay its debt with the state-owned electricity firm ZESA Holdings. The mining company blamed the central bank subsidiary Fidelity for delaying payment for the gold sold to it by the firm. Fidelity is the sole purchaser and refiner of gold in Zimbabwe.
Gold mining companies are obliged by law to sell their gold to the central bank, but for the past two years it has been falling behind on payments. Some mining companies had not been paid for a year, the chamber said. Annual production had fallen from 30 metric tons annually in 1999 to a forecast of less than 3 metric tons this year. This has been happening because the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank has failed to pay for gold delivered, resulting in all the mines being unable to sustain production. The entire gold mining industry in Zimbabwe, formerly representing 30% of the nation’s economy, is now upon the point of total collapse.
In the first week of November, Zimbabwe’s largest gold mining firm, owned by South African mogul Mzi Khumalo, shut down all its mines in the country due to viability problems triggered by a US20-million debt the company is owed by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.
(From Daily Telegraph, 14/Nov) For years, analysts and opposition politicians have predicted that the economy would prove to be Mr Mugabe's downfall, but Prof Hanke, who is professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, said that Slobodan Milosevic survived for almost eight years in Yugoslavia after hyperinflation peaked. "Milosevic and Mugabe are similar in more ways than one: the restrictions on liberty of all sorts; Milosevic carrying on just like Mugabe that it was the foreign sanctions that were ruining the economy. It's very similar."
Famine and Food Relief
In mid October, the United Nations warned that a third of Zimbabwe's population of 12 million is now hungry and in need of food aid. A million children have lost one or both parents. About 140,000 people died of AIDS there last year. Nearly half the population would depend on emergency food aid by next year.
In a report from Sky News of 24/Oct, secretly produced films showed proof that Robert Mugabe is using his security forces to try to hide the crisis from the world. In one hospital ward in the eastern province of Manicaland they saw 15 children suffering from severe malnutrition. Mothers clutching their thin infants told them they were getting sicker in the hospital because there was no food there, just milk. One girl, aged four, could no longer stand because she was so weak. The hospital is one of several across the country which have been targeted by Zimbabwe's police force as part of an organised campaign to "cover up" the true impact of Mugabe's rule. One officer, speaking to us anonymously, told us he was among a team ordered to "intimidate and harass" the senior staff into concealing the number of starving children they are treating. A nurse said anonymously, that most malnourished children are dying at home because their parents know Zimbabwe's crippled health system cannot help them.
(From IRIN (UN) report, 29/Oct) The World Food Programme (WFP) said in a recent statement: "A large number of farmers harvested little – if anything – this year, and have now exhausted their meagre stocks. Many hungry families are reportedly living on one meal a day, exchanging precious livestock for buckets of maize or eating wild foods such as baobab and amarula." In this year of shortages and dizzying prices for all basic foodstuffs, the fruits and roots foraged from the bush are keeping many alive. School children are no longer going to school but spend the whole day looking for the wild fruits. Households that still have maize-meal can stretch it by mixing it with ground cassava tree roots.
(Report from Bloomberg, 5/Nov); The US based agency Famine Early Warning Systems Network said that Zimbabwe has 19 percent of the corn seed required to meet its planting plans, and even if it is able to import more, the country is unlikely to be able to get it in the ground in time. Corn is traditionally planted in the last two weeks of November and the first week of December, to coincide with the onset of the rainy season. Zimbabwe is also facing a fertilizer shortage, with current stocks standing at 1 percent of requirements.
(Report from IRIN (UN), 5/Nov); "Desperate entrepreneurs are scouring rubbish dumps, abattoirs and poisoned waterways for scraps of food to eat or sell to other equally hungry Zimbabweans in a bid for survival."
(Report from Associated Press, 19/Nov); Mhangura, a town of about 3,000 people, has had no running water for months. Power outages happen daily because of a lack of cash to maintain utilities. People walk about three miles to a dam to fill pails or gasoline cans. "There’s nothing here. People are dying of illness and hunger. Burial parties are going out every day," said Michael Zava, a trader in Mhangura. The hospital that serves the district is closed, and so is its small morgue, so there’s no way of telling how many are dying, Zava said. Children’s hair is discoloring, a sign of malnutrition. Adults are wizened and dressed in rags - they have no cash for new clothes.
Mugabe's government banned the work of international aid groups for almost three months during the election season earlier this year, accusing them of backing the political opposition. The ban was lifted on Aug/29. But when Gideon Gono governor of the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank cancelled inter bank transfers, he made no exception for humanitarian agencies.
(From Sunday Telegraph (UK), 19/Oct); The operations manager of one of the top three distributing agencies, working in Zimbabwe for the last 16 years stated, "We cannot get money from the banks to pay people to distribute the food, it is as simple as that. We can't pay our staff hotel bills, or buy food for our field workers, or even advertise for people we need to hire to distribute food," he said. "We have enough food in the warehouse to ensure no one starves, and we have enough money in the bank to finance our operations, but the Reserve Bank (of Zimbabwe) will not give us access to it".
(Report from IRIN (UN), 14/Nov); The UN estimates that in the first quarter of 2009 more than 5.1 million people, nearly half the population, will require food assistance, although many humanitarian workers privately fear the extent of malnutrition may be deeper than first thought. World Vision is covering six of the seven districts in Matabeleland South Province. Rations have been cut to below the recommended monthly calorific minimum in response to dwindling food supplies, as international donors have failed to heed a US$140 million emergency appeal by the UN World Food Programme (WFP). At current rates, WFP has sufficient food supplies to last until the end of December. Each person now receives a monthly ration of 10kg of maize, 1kg of beans and 0.6 litres of cooking oil, in a bid to stretch resources. Recipients were previously given 12kg of maize and 1.8kg of beans.
Catherine Braggs, the UN's deputy emergency relief coordinator, said, (Associated Press, 27/Nov) just under 4 million people need food aid "and that number is going to rise as we go into the hunger season, traditionally between January and April. Without massive assistance this situation is going to get much, much worse, not just food insecurity but across many sectors."
Education
(Report from IRIN (UN), 20/Oct); Harare - The collapse of Zimbabwe's education system, once heralded as sub-Saharan Africa's finest, is being compared to a situation usually experienced by countries at war. "It is difficult to imagine the meltdown in the education sector happening in a country that is at peace. You only see this kind of degeneration in countries that are experiencing civil strife or a full-fledged war," Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of the Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ), told IRIN. "When Zimbabwe attained its independence 28 years ago, the new government inherited an education infrastructure that had been ravaged by war and it was almost like starting afresh, but children managed to attend classes, teachers taught, and examinations were written. Virtually all that has stopped," he said. Now the education system, once so highly regarded, has disintegrated, with an estimated 45,000 teachers leaving the profession since 2004. "There was no learning that took place this year, which opened with teachers embarking on industrial action because of poor salaries."
Health
(From Sunday Telegraph (UK), 26/Oct) Parirenyatwa Hospital once was Zimbabwe's showpiece teaching hospital with 1,000 beds - but now it is a shell of a building, filthy, crumbling, and mostly empty. It has almost no drugs or working equipment, and the handful of doctors who have not fled abroad have pretty much given up trying to treat the trickle of patients who still come. A blood trail from an accident victim meandered from beneath a wheeled stretcher, in a ward whose plaster walls were crumbling. Patients writhe in agony, begging listless doctors for help. Many lie there for days without treatment. But when The Sunday Telegraph spoke to the medical staff, they insisted that they could not help unless patients brought their own medicines. Last week some of the remaining doctors, a dwindling and demoralised band who are themselves struggling to survive financially, told the health ministry that they could no longer work there.
The Cholera Epidemic
Cholera has started to be reported throughout Zimbabwe throughout October/08. In a report from IRIN (UN), 27/Oct; Rodgers Matsikidze, a human rights lawyer and resident of Budiriro, a high-density suburb in the capital Harare, told IRIN that persistent sewer pipe bursts had exposed the community to disease, especially cholera. "Our dilemma is that we have not had running water for close to a month. In addition we had sewer pipes bursting, resulting in untreated effluent flooding most parts of the community. As you can obviously tell, there is an unpleasant smell in the air. As to be expected, many residents have dug shallow wells to try and access clean water. The danger is that sewage is seeping into the shallow wells, and with the rains that have been falling, the result could be an outbreak that could be difficult if not impossible to control. Right now every home has members who are suffering from diarrhoea. Children are also at great risk, as they are exposed to sewage effluent while playing in the streets." He said reporting burst sewerage pipes to the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA), the water parastatal, never elicited any action.
(From the Sunday Times (UK) 23/Nov); There is sewage flowing in the streets, endless mounds of rubbish, a broken water supply "and a cholera epidemic that has Zimbabwe’s Health Minister admitting that he is scared. It is a picture common all over the country, with the World Health Organisation saying that by late last week about 300 people had died from cholera and 6,000 had been infected. Medecins Sans Frontieres, the international health charity, estimates that 1.4 million people are at risk. According to a senior member of another international medical charity the numbers may be far higher. "The 300 deaths all occurred in hospitals," the official said. "The number of deaths in the community must be up to 400 per cent higher." In six weeks the epidemic has spread to nine out of ten provinces, according to David Parirenyatwa, the Health Minister. "I am scared," he said. "We cannot control cholera as long as there is no water." The situation had been made significantly worse by the heavy rains that had just started, he said. Cholera was being washed into the shallow back-yard wells that were the main source of drinking water.
(From the Star (SA), 22/Nov); In Zimbabwe, the chairperson of the Hospital Doctors' Association, Dr Amon Severegi, on Friday said cholera was still spreading; "But there is little we can do because most hospital workers are on strike and hospitals are closed. There is no medicine and no equipment." Ministry of Health officials confirmed anonymously that there had been new outbreaks - some in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo. There, they feared, it might spread faster than in Harare or Beitbridge because sewage was flowing in the streets and the water shortage was worse than elsewhere.
From the Mail & Guardian (SA), 26/Nov; The United Nations said on Tuesday (25/Nov) that more than 50 cholera deaths were reported in Zimbabwe in the past day alone, bringing the toll to 366 since August, with most in the last two weeks. The worst is yet to come as the rainy season sets in with a vengeance. Rain is lashing the capital, Harare, and other parts of the country, washing raw sewage through the streets and into the drinking system.
WOZA Receive Amnesty International Award
(From Sapa, 15/Nov); Berlin - The pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) is to receive Amnesty International's 2008 human rights prize at a ceremony in Berlin on Sunday evening. The award, worth €10 000, will be presented to a delegation led by the group's two spokesperson, Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu. Co-founder Williams and her organization are being honoured for "their tireless struggle for human rights," the German chapter of Amnesty said ahead of the presentation. Since its inception in 2003, Woza has managed to provide Zimbabwean women, regardless of social status or class, a united voice to speak out on issues affecting their day-to-day lives. Williams and Mahlangu are the movement's most visible leaders, and have played a key role in encouraging women to stand up for their rights and freedoms. The group has campaigned for better access to food and medicine as well as launching protests against the mass eviction of slum dwellers and restrictions on public gatherings and free speech. But their commitment has regularly brought them into conflict with President Robert Mugabe's heavy-handed police. Williams, 46, has been arrested 32 times and spent four months in prison, including a 37-day between May and June this year. "I am aware they are trigger-happy but they will never manage to arrest us all," Williams once said. "The prison cells in Zimbabwe cannot accommodate all of us. Civil disobedience will remain very much part of our game unless the regime addresses our concerns." With more than 35,000 members, Woza is one of the few organizations that has dared to stand up to Mugabe, whose policies have led to food and cash shortages in Zimbabwe.
WOZA website: http://www.wozazimbabwe.org/
Let us Pray
A massive humanitarian disaster involving famine, a cholera epidemic and total economic/political/social breakdown, is impacting Zimbabwe, with its major force to be felt over the coming six months. Your prayers, meditations and subjective support are vitally needed at this time.
Let us identify unconditionally with the Zimbabwean peoples at their time of great need. Let us share in their pain and their sorrows, yet also their glorious future. For as surely as we have faith in God’s Law of Great Love and Great Mercy, so surely also will the future for the Zimbabwean children be peaceful, healthy, vibrant and abundant. The situation over the coming six months is one of impending disaster of global impact, yet also it is a time of opportunity. A bountiful future can only come about if we who are aware of the facts of this situation, offer ourselves as God’s hands and feet for the implementation of the subjective and objective steps to manifest our dreams.
Let us therefore visualise that over the next six months, there will emerge a prompt and sufficient international aid response to the famine and cholera epidemic, and that law and order is restored to the people through the granting of the Home Affairs ministry governing police to the opposition MDC party, and that other obstacles impeding the transfer to a true power sharing government are removed.
When our strength of purpose is strong enough and our love for the Zimbabwean people is deep enough, then nothing can stop the dreams of our heart from manifesting. We hold the answer to all things within ourselves. May we understand the limitlessness of God’s Love, and of His supply of all things. May we see the best and manifest the best. Thus shall we find our consciousness expanding, seeing everything that is beautiful, everything that is perfect, and by so doing we draw it to us.
Yours in love and light,
David Keane,
Secretary, Compassion Response Network