From The Times of India, 24 October

Zimbabwe rejects EU ultimatum

Harare - Zimbabwe's government has rejected an ultimatum issued by the European Union to decide whether to allow EU observers in the country during 2002 presidential elections, foreign minister Stan Mudenge said on Tuesday. Mudenge said Zimbabwe would have considered an offer for observers, but will not accept "demands" from other countries because it is a "sovereign state". He vowed that Zimbabwe would not allow European states to play a "Milosevic" game try to remove Mugabe from office, under the guise of election observing. The minister spoke shortly after arrival from Brussels where he had talks with Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel on Monday during which the EU offered to deploy election observers and a pre-poll evaluators. Zimbabwe had been asked to give its response by Sunday ahead of an EU council of ministers meeting next on Monday. "They demanded that Zimbabwe should accept an EU pre-election commission ...and that Zimbabwe should accept EU observers during the presidential elections," Mudenge said. "I told him (Michel) that Zimbabwe does not accept demands… we are a sovereign and independent state," Mudenge told news conference. "If we start to go into the habit of receiving demands we lose our sovereignty," he said.

Zimbabwe is due to hold elections early next year when President Robert Mugabe's current term expires. The foreign minister said had the offer been made in good will it could have been considered. "If it had not made an ultimatum, it would have been good." Mudenge said he told Michel that he suspected there was "poison" in the demand and vowed that he would not allow EU countries to sponsor opposition parties in Zimbabwe. "We want them to stop it and we want to tell them don't try the Milosevic in Zimbabwe... we will not allow it to happen in Zimbabwe," he vowed. He said western nations went into Yugoslavia early before elections on the pretext of evaluating and observing polls yet they were organising and sponsoring the opposition to remove Milosevic. "We don't want them to undermine the situation (here). We don't want to give them the opportunity to play that mischief here," he said. The Zimbabwe government has always accused the former colonial power of funding the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in a bid to oust Mugabe. Mudenge said while the Commonwealth had made an offer to help Zimbabwe with observers the EU is making "demands and orders, threats and ultimatums."

From The Daily Telegraph (UK), 24 October

Black farm workers are new victims of Mugabe

Marondera - While the world's attention has been diverted by events elsewhere, Robert Mugabe's campaign of political intimidation in Zimbabwe has changed in character. The Mugabe loyalists who enforced his push to evict white farmers from their land have begun to terrorise black farm workers, disenfranchising them and forcing them from their homes by threat of violence. Panaka Muzama and his wife, Edna, have packed their possessions ready to leave the only home they have ever known. They are the latest victims of President Robert Mugabe's land grab in Zimbabwe. Mr Muzama, 29, works for a commercial farmer, Henry Harris, 36, on a mixed farm near Marondera, 55 miles south-east of Harare. Four months ago Mr Mugabe's loyalists invaded the land and halted farming. Now they have ordered Mr Muzama and the other workers to leave. Mr Harris's 200 workers and their families will be replaced by 91 Mr Mugabe supporters and their families. As well as clearing the land for the invaders, this will make it near impossible for the Muzamas to vote in the forthcoming presidential election. Mr Muzama said: "I want to stay here on the farm. I have nowhere to go. Our future is not bright."

All workers in the farm village have been packing their goods fearing violence if they missed the deadline this week set by the Mugabe supporters. Three days earlier their friends on a neighbouring farm were attacked with axes, whips, clubs and chains, and 16 men and six women were injured, one of them critically. The Muzama family will join 75,000 people evicted in the past three months, often violently, from commercial farms. They lose their jobs, homes, schools and health care. When Mr Mugabe launched his land invasions last February, the farm workers' welfare was not on his agenda, and they have become internal refugees, said Kerry Kay, welfare officer for the Commercial Farmers' Union. "Many of them have disappeared."

Mr Muzama and his wife face losing their Zimbabwean citizenship because their parents were born in Malawi. He said: "I don't know where they are and I have never been to Malawi." Mr Muzama, like hundreds of thousands of others, has until Jan 6 to renounce his right to a foreign passport or lose his Zimbabwe citizenship. Observers said Mr Mugabe's regime passed the legislation to deprive whites eligible for British passports of citizenship, without considering the effects on immigrant workers and their families. The Muzamas, like others displaced in the past 18 months, are unlikely to be resident in the constituencies in which they are registered to vote for the presidential election early next year. More than two million people live on the commercial farms, and human rights activists have given warning that vast numbers have been disenfranchised as a result of farm invasions and political violence. A mile away, Memory Dairo, 35, has moved into a new hut with a plot on the Harris farm given in thanks for her husband's support for Mr Mugabe in the war of independence. She said: "We came here because we were starving. I know it is wrong to use this white man's fields and his fertiliser, but what can we do?"

From Business Day (SA), 23 October

SADC's Trading Route Derailed

While Spoornet will not charge for lengthy detour, delays will affect trade in the region

Trade between SA and other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries faces disruptions following the closure yesterday of the main railway link between SA and Zimbabwe, the SA Chamber of Business (Sacob) has warned. Spoornet said it would take up to six weeks to re-open the rail link, which was badly damaged after a goods train bound for Zimbabwe derailed and exploded at Lilliput Bridge near Messina on Sunday. Sacob CEO Kevin Wakeford said that, although trade between SA and Zimbabwe had been declining recently, the latter remained a critical inland route to other SADC countries. He said: "Any form of delay has a negative effect on the overall trading environment." Countries like Malawi and Zambia would be greatly affected by delays in the delivery of goods. "It is all about managing time these days, and delays will be negative for trading between SA and other SADC countries like Zambia and Malawi," Wakeford said.

The train was pulling 30 wagons, 20 of which were filled with diesel and 10 others with containers. It derailed at about 2pm on Sunday. There were no reports of injuries or deaths. Emergency workers, and municipal workers and soldiers from Messina, worked throughout Sunday night to contain the fire. Spoornet spokesman Mike Asefovitz said the bridge that goes over the Sand River was badly damaged by the fire, and about 55m of railway line was also damaged in the derailment. "We have no estimates on costs as the impact to the bridge has yet to be assessed by structural engineers," he said. It was also not yet known what caused the train to derail. Spoornet will, in the meantime, divert goods trains to Zeerust, through Mafikeng and then to Botswana, while it transports passengers between Louis Trichardt and Messina by bus. There would be no extra charge to long-distance passengers and goods customers, Asefovitz said.