Plunging into the abyss

Newsday

As its government gains strength, Zimbabwe nosedives into economic despair

BY XAN RICE
SPECIAL TO NEWSDAY

January 1, 2006

MASVINGO, Zimbabwe - The metallic snakes of vehicles that stretched out of
gas stations during the regular fuel crunches and came to symbolize the
country's decline have disappeared. There is no gas being sold legally
anywhere in Zimbabwe, and has not been any for more than two months.

The government has run out of foreign currency needed to import fuel, and of
ideas on how to revive the crumbling economy. Unemployment tops 70 percent.
Inflation in November reached 502 percent. A U.S. dollar, which fetched $8
per Zim, or Zimbabwe dollar, a decade ago, is now worth $79,042 in Zimbabwe
dollars.

 The queues that remain - for bread, for maize meal, for sugar - show just
how far this southern African country, once regarded as the breadbasket for
the region, has sunk.

To drive through Zimbabwe - only possible with numerous cans of black market
gas in the trunk - is to witness a nation gripped in a fierce malaise: Women
wait forlornly for public transport, young men huddle on street corners,
knowing there is no way to make money.

"Things have never been this bad before," said Innocent Maregere, 36, who
owns a food and liquor store in the small southern town of Mhandamabwe and
whose business has been plagued by stock shortages and spiralling prices.
"Obviously, we blame the government. Who else is to blame?"

But there has been no political fallout for President Robert Mugabe, whose
controversial program to forcibly redistribute land from white farmers to
black peasants precipitated the economic crisis. Since 2000, more than 4,000
white-owned commercial farms have been seized - only a few hundred remain -
and gross domestic product has almost halved to $4.3 billion.

During parliamentary elections in March - discredited as fraudulent by
European Union and U.S. observers - the ruling Zanu-PF party achieved a
two-thirds majority, enabling it to pass laws to clamp down on dissent. A
strong performance in elections for the new senate on Nov. 26, which were
partially boycotted by the main opposition party, further entrenched Zanu's
hold on the government.

Indeed, Mugabe, 81 and in his 26th year as president, is as defiant as ever.
He said last month that his party, which began as an independence movement,
was growing "bigger and bigger, stronger and stronger." His confidence has
been buoyed by in-fighting in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC), sparked by the decision of its leader, Morgan Tsvangarai, to boycott
senate elections.

David Coltart, the MDC's head of justice and legal affairs, said the
wrangling had deepened the gloom in the country by fraying the "residual
hope that at least there was an alternate force in the country. The MDC is
in deep trouble; there is no denying that," he said.

Ordinary Zimbabweans are in deep trouble too, since the economy seems
destined to plunge further. With the collapse of the agricultural sector,
there is little to export and thus little prospect of solving the foreign
currency crisis. Mugabe's appeals for loans from "friendly" countries such
as South Africa and China so far have been spurned.

Even people with jobs are finding life increasingly difficult. The Consumer
Council of Zimbabwe said recently that a family of six needs the equivalent
of $147 U.S. dollars a month to get by. Police, teachers and nurses
typically earn monthly salaries of $40.

Others earn even less. Richard Mutami, 32, a security guard near Chivu,
south of Harare, makes $11 a month. In a country with no free education, he
can no longer afford to pay school fees for his two children. "Our money is
so low and things are just getting worse," he said. "Next year, I will have
to try to go to South Africa to find work."

More than 3 million countrywide are expected to require food aid in the
coming months - a result of the crippling drought and ruinous economic
policies. In the southern Masvingo province, one of the worst-affected
areas, Samson Gwaruya, 27, a subsistence farmer, said: "If it stays like
this, people are going to have to eat roots and leaves."

Until now, there has been no evidence Zimbabweans are planning a "people's
revolution" like the one in Ukraine in 2004. Yet Mugabe knows his people's
patience is not infinite and has put in place plans to ensure dissent is
quickly quashed. A law passed recently allows authorities to confiscate the
travel documents of anyone deemed to be anti-government. In recent weeks,
the law was used to seize the passports of a prominent newspaper publisher,
a senior MDC official and a top trade unionist.

Within his own party, Mugabe has consolidated power within a faction headed
by Gen. Solomon Mujuru, the former head of the army, and his wife, Joyce
Mujuru, a former freedom fighter whom Mugabe appointed vice president last
year.

The armed forces have been organized around the Joint Operation Command,
which includes the chiefs of the army, police and Central Intelligence
Organization. The Command is playing an increasing role in government
decisions - from hatching plans for the army to take over farming on
unproductive land to overseeing the brutal Operation Clear Out Filth, which
left 700,000 people homeless, without work or both.

"Never before in Zimbabwe has the role of the military been so great," said
Peter Kagwanja, Southern Africa project director for the International
Crisis Group think tank, based in Pretoria. "And never before has the state
felt so insecure."

But given the weak opposition and powerful state security apparatus,
analysts say Mugabe should be able to retain power until 2008 - if he can
keep his soldiers fed and paid - when he is expected to hand over the reins
to Joyce Mujuru.

By then, said Tony Hawkins, a Harare-based economist, "We will be a
non-country like Myanmar or something. Nobody in the international community
seems to care about Zimbabwe anymore. Everyone is just watching it fold."

Top priority at UN: Replacing rights panel

      By Warren Hoge The New York Times

      SUNDAY, JANUARY 1, 2006

      UNITED NATIONS, New York UN officials have decided they must act
within weeks to produce an alternative to the widely discredited Human
Rights Commission to maintain hope of redeeming the UN's credibility in
2006.

      The commission, based in Geneva, has been a persistent embarrassment
to the United Nations because participation has been open to countries like
Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe, current members who are themselves accused of
gross rights abuses. Libya held the panel's chairmanship in 2003.

      "The reason highly abusive governments flock to the commission is to
prevent condemnation of themselves and their kind," said Kenneth Roth,
executive director of Human Rights Watch, "and most of the time they
succeed. If you're a thug, you want to be on the committee that tries to
condemn thugs."

      Mark Malloch Brown, chief of staff to Secretary General Kofi Annan,
noted that there are two other crucial steps toward reform in place - a new
peacebuilding commission to help countries emerging from war, and a biennial
budget under an arrangement laying the groundwork for major management
change by June. But, he said, the rights commission has taken center stage.

      "For the great global public, the performance or nonperformance of the
Human Rights Commission has become the litmus test of UN renewal," he said.
"We can't overestimate getting a clear win on this in January."

      Annan begins his last year in office with a mandate to bring
fundamental and lasting change to the beleaguered institution, which has
struggled through a period of scandal and mismanagement.

      Negotiators have been struggling for months over the terms of a new
Human Rights Council that Annan proposed last spring to replace the
commission. A hoped-for agreement in December did not materialize.

      Negotiators resume talks on Jan. 11 and must settle on a resolution
for the new council soon after to have it in place by March, when the
commission reconvenes in Geneva.

      "The commission should hold that meeting with the understanding that
it is going to be its last meeting," said Ricardo Arias, the ambassador of
Panama, who is one of the leaders of the group drawing up the new Human
Rights Council.

      The current commission has 53 members serving staggered three-year
terms and elected from closed slates put forward by regional groups. It
meets each year in Geneva for six weeks.

      The proposed council would exist year-round, be free to act when
rights violations are discovered, conduct periodic reviews of every
country's human rights performance and meet more frequently throughout the
year.

      Still in dispute are the council's size, the procedures for citing
individual countries, how often the panel would meet, a possible two-term
limit for membership and whether members would be chosen based on agreed
criteria of human rights performance or by a two-thirds vote of the General
Assembly as a way of weeding out notorious rights violators.

      The proposal envisions votes on each individual candidate for
membership rather than on regional slates.

      As with most of the changes being proposed, the rights council has
drawn suspicion from the poorer and less developed countries of the
191-member General Assembly. They say they fear that the new council may be
yet another way for wealthier and more powerful countries to intrude in
their affairs.

      Abdallah Baali, the ambassador of Algeria, said the main concern of
objecting countries was "whether or not this council will impose both its
measures and its views on a member state or will it seek their cooperation
in order to improve their human rights records."

      That said, he added that Algeria supported the proposed council.

      UN diplomats singled out Egypt and Pakistan as countries that were
leading the resistance to the proposed council.

      In introducing his recommendation for a new council last March, Annan
cited the flaws in the current commission and the consequences for the
United Nations of not reforming it.

      The commission had been undermined, he contended, by allowing
participation of countries whose purpose was "not to strengthen human rights
but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize others."

      Roth of Human Rights Watch was more blunt.

      "If the governments of the world cannot get together on human rights
at the UN, then it is a shameful act for the entire organization," he said.

      Kristen Silverberg, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for
international organizations, said the priorities were "to improve the
membership so that countries like Zimbabwe and Sudan were not eligible" and
"to make sure the council can act."

Zimbabwe Vigil Diary – 31st December 2005

Support from an unexpected source got the New Year’s Eve Vigil off to a good start.  A Zimbabwean family now living in Aberdeen (millions of miles north in darkest Scotland) came to see us.  Marion has been communicating with the Vigil and it was wonderful to have her and her husband (and four sons and girlfriend) spend some time with us at last. 

With a strike on the Underground, we were pleased that so many supporters managed to get to Zimbabwe House to help Ephraim open the Vigil – including four from Luton.   The Strand was very quiet because of the tube strike but we were entertained by a late Santa joining in our dancing.  (We know he is not really Father Christmas but a Big Issue seller who has become a good friend of the Vigil.) 

We got the usual questions from passers-by – “Do you think you are achieving anything?”  Our reply is “Isn’t it better than doing nothing”. 

We know things are desperate but we were cheered by the presence of three English girls, Melissa, Belinda and Jude, university students who spent 5 months of their gap year in Bulawayo.  They were volunteers with the Baptist Church They arrived in Zimbabwe in April and shortly afterwards found themselves in the thick of the tragedy of Murambatsvina.  We could see that in spite of everything they saw, they came back aglow with the spirit of Africa.

The Vigil wishes everyone a happy New Year and will continue to work for change to end the suffering back home.

FOR THE RECORD: 22 supporters plus the Vigil dog came today.

FOR YOUR DIARY: Monday, 9th January 2005, 7.30 pm, first Zimbabwe Forum of the new year.   ADVANCE NOTICE: Monday, 16th January 2006, 7.30 pm, MDC Central London Branch Assembly meeting, in place of the usual Monday Forum.   All members of Central London Branch are invited to attend.  Both meetings will be upstairs at the Theodore Bullfrog pub, 28 John Adam Street, London WC2 (cross the Strand from the Zimbabwe Embassy, go down a passageway to John Adam Street, turn right and you will see the pub – nearest stations: Charing Cross and Embankment).

Vigil co-ordinator

The Vigil, outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, 429 Strand, London, takes place every Saturday from 14.00 to 18.00 to protest against gross violations of human rights by the current regime in Zimbabwe. The Vigil which started in October 2002 will continue until internationally-monitored, free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. http://www.zimvigil.co.uk

Zimbabwe Axed From EU Support

Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)

December 24, 2005
Posted to the web December 31, 2005

A Correspondent
Brussels

Zimbabwe's poor human rights record and the deteriorating political
situation have rendered the country ineligible for developmental aid from
the European Union (EU), a top official has said.

Amadeu Altafaj, the spokesperson for Louis Michel, the commissioner in
charge of development and humanitarian aid, said until the economic and
political situation in Zimbabwe improves the 25-member bloc would not fund
any development projects.

Addressing journalists from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries
who attended an EU conference on Combating Extreme Poverty and HIV/Aids,
Alfataj said they would however continue funding humanitarian aid projects,
administered through non-governmental organisations.

Altafaj said: "We discuss developmental projects with governments. With the
current political situation in Zimbabwe, we can't fund any of these
projects."

He said there were differences among EU member states on policies relating
to the Zimbabwean situation. "Africa is lagging behind in the race to meet
the Millennium Developmental Goals, hence the need to accelerate development
in the health and education sector," Alfataj said.

Plans were also underway, Alfataj said, to improve road networks and
telecommunications systems in order to build efficient regional markets.

Recently, the General Affairs and External Relations Council endorsed the EU
Strategy for Africa hailed as a milestone in EU-Africa relations expected to
boost Africa's sustainable development. Discussions have started on turning
this strategy into concrete projects, to increase stability, boost economic
growth and reduce poverty.

Correspondence re Mrs Sally Mugabe's application to remain in the UK in the early seventies - released under UK Freedom of information act

Stop the rot in education system

The Chronicle

Comment

THE rot in the country's public examination system needs to be checked with
immediate effect because if affects the credibility of our education system.

It also erodes confidence in our system and this has far reaching
consequences on the future of our children. Since the localisation of
Ordinary and Advanced Level examinations five years ago, the system has been
fraught with bungling with examinations being leaked, mixed up or lost in
transit and this has tended to blight all the strides that have been made in
improving the running of our examinations. There is no doubt that
localisation of O and A level examinations was a positive and welcome move
but this needed to be followed up with strategies to tighten security and
measures to ensure that the system was watertight and averse to corruption.
When the examination system changed from the Cambridge Schools Examination
syndicate to the Zimbabwe Schools Examination Council, this was all part of
Government efforts to wean the country's education system from our colonial
masters in Britain and ensure that our children are taught and examined by a
system that is closer to home and understands the needs of our children and
the country. In an article published in Chronicle on 12 March 2001, Dr
Isaiah Sibanda, the then ZIMSEC Director said: "We are doing everything
professionally and there is no need for anyone to think that the Cambridge
examinations would be better than ours. We have a good education system and
our certificates will be just as acceptable as the Cambridge ones". He was
commenting on apparent anxiety by parents and school administrators that the
switch to locally-administered O and A level examinations would result in a
drop in setting, marking and certification standards. His words would echo
loudly today as we take stock of the progress made since then. While the
standards of the examinations might not have plummeted dramatically, the
bungling and mixing up of examinations is a cause for concern. ZIMSEC has
for the past few years come under increasing fire for laxity in
administering our public examinations. Its officials have come out in the
media to pontificate about measures and strategies being put in place to
arrest the situation but so far their efforts seem to have come to naught as
evidenced by the frequency with which examinations are bungled. Chronicle
yesterday published a disturbing article in which scores of O level pupils
at Mzingwane High School in Esigodini were in November made to sit for a
wrong Geography paper Two examination. This was after the original paper had
leaked resulting in ZIMSEC re-setting it. After realising their mistake
school authorities allegedly connived to keep the issue under wraps until
results are out sometime next year. But it also turns out that ZIMSEC might
also be sucked into the matter as the paper is yet to be marked despite the
fact that results will be out in less than two months. What is happening
here? Are authorities at ZIMSEC aware of the bungling? Are they working on
measures to speedily redress this issue? We await answers to these questions
as we muse on Dr Sibanda's words that ZIMSEC would do everything
professionally and safeguard the integrity of our schools examinations
system jealously. While in 2001 we would have expected ZIMSEC as a nascent
administrator of public examinations to have flaws and hitches here and
there, surely we expect better four years down the line. It should therefore
immediately institute a thorough investigation into the circumstances
surrounding the apparent bungling of the Geography examination paper at
Mzingwane and take swift action to remedy the situation. The parents and
pupils who sat for the paper deserve an explanation because their lives
depend on that.

Zimbabwe's HIV patients lack access to needed drugs

Baltimore Sun

By Robyn Dixon
Originally published January 1, 2006
BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe // When they named their daughter Progress, the parents
showed a touching faith in the future. But six years later, the girl has
lost them both to AIDS.
With no one willing to care for her, Progress Sibanda lives in a nursing
home filled with terminally ill AIDS patients in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's
second-largest city.

The girl has no visitors and few possessions - the clothes she wears and a
comb her father gave her before he died this year. She never shows any
emotion, the staff says.

The medical staff says Progress displays symptoms typical of AIDS, but she
has never had an HIV test, let alone lifesaving antiretroviral medicines.

Zimbabwe has one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the world. More than 20
percent of the population, or about 1.8 million people between the ages of
15 and 49, is infected. That is down from 24 percent two years ago, a recent
United Nations study found, partly because of changes in sexual behavior.

The country's economic collapse, marked by hyperinflation of more than 500
percent and unemployment estimated by trade unions at 70 percent, has left
critical shortages in all basic areas. Food and fuel are in desperately
short supply, and so are medicines - particularly antiretroviral drugs that
can save the lives of AIDS patients.

According to the World Health Organization, 95 percent of Zimbabweans who
need antiretroviral drugs cannot get them.

Zimbabwean health officials blame the lack of antiretroviral medicines on
the country's critical shortage of foreign currency. The currency shortage
has prevented a local manufacturer from importing components of the drugs,
they say.

In addition, Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa said recently that most
equipment at state hospitals was either out of order or obsolete.

Despite Zimbabwe's high HIV/AIDS rate, the country has not received much
international aid for the crisis - until recently, it amounted to $4 per
HIV-infected person a year compared with $74 for the rest of southern
Africa. (The U.N.'s Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria said
Zimbabwe's application for aid was initially rejected because it did not
meet requirements.) In April, the Global Fund announced a $10.3 million
grant for AIDS programs, followed by an additional $62 million in October.

Zimbabwe's economic crisis and the AIDS pandemic have left the nation with
the one of the lowest life expectancy figures - 38 - in Africa; only
Swaziland and Lesotho fare worse. Since 1990, Zimbabwe has seen the fastest
increase in infant mortality rates anywhere: a 50 percent surge to 113
deaths per 1,000 boys and 133 per 1,000 girls.

Nurse Priscilla Mac-Isaac said Progress Sibanda's relatives rejected her
three months ago, knowing that keeping her would soon mean unaffordable
medical bills, and probably funeral costs down the line.

"My granny used to come, but she's no longer coming. No one's coming. I'm
not even thinking about my granny," the child whispered. "I don't want to
see her."

Thembelihle House, where Progress lives, is a charity institution set up as
a halfway house in 2003 to treat HIV patients referred by the city's
hospitals before sending them home. But it has become largely a
terminal-care facility. Few patients recover and go home, because they can't
afford the antiretroviral medicines that might save them.

A ward full of full of dying people is no place for a child. Progress
recently fell ill with pneumonia, and doctors fear she probably will catch
other AIDS-related infections unless she gets the antiretrovirals.

Asked about Progress' future, Mac-Isaac looked grave and shook her head,
gazing at her. "It's only that I can't afford it, otherwise I would adopt
her," she said. "All she needs is somebody to take her in and provide for
her. But people cannot afford nutrition for their own children."

"She needs to be commenced on antiretrovirals, before something very bad
happens to her. But we are unable to do that at the moment," she said,
explaining there was no staff available to escort Progress to and from a
treatment clinic.

Thembelihle House, which relies on private donors, can accommodate 70
patients but only has a skeleton staff because of lack of funding, and can
treat only 17 people.

"It's extremely difficult working here. Each patient has a unique story
which is quite heartbreaking," Mac-Isaac said. "There are just a few who
have a straightforward life and everybody around them."

Thin and frail, Tsepi Ndlodu, 18, another patient at Thembelihle, became
infected with HIV when she was raped in 2003. She didn't report the crime to
anyone, terrified of taunts and shame.

Her mother died in 1999, and she has no father. When she fell ill and sought
treatment at hospitals and clinics in Bulawayo last year, no one told her
about antiretroviral drugs and what they could do. Like most people, she has
no way to buy the medications.

Mark Dixon, a doctor at Mpilo Hospital in Bulawayo, said that there was a
six-month waiting list for AIDS treatment and that many patients arrived at
his facility so ill they died before they could be admitted.

"There are only so many people you can see each day. Usually when we lose
people it's in the first couple of months, and they're usually coming in too
late," he said. About one-quarter of those getting treatment are health
workers or their families, who get priority.

About 16,000 people are on antiretroviral drugs in Zimbabwe, according to
the World Health Organization.

"But if you look at the need, we are still only treating a tiny percentage
of those who need treatment," Dixon said.

Robyn Dixon writes for the Los Angeles Times.