Zimbabwe is hungry and broke, the country’s central bank governor has warned in a frank admission that President Robert Mugabe’s government is unable to provide adequate food supplies or maintain many basic services. Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono told a parliamentary committee that he was struggling to keep the country’s electricity on and the air force aloft.
The offices of Zimbabwe’s Voice of the People radio station have been destroyed by a fire bomb, its reporters have been beaten and jailed, its broadcasts jammed and now its directors face government charges that could see them jailed. Yet all involved in this plucky shortwave station remain committed to continuing their broadcasts of independent reports into Zimbabwe.
Once hailed as the pride of Africa, Zimbabwe’s education system has been engulfed from top to bottom by the country’s political and economic crisis. The University of Zimbabwe, once the prestigious pinnacle of the system, is now finding it almost impossible to keep functioning. Meanwhile, in schools teachers have been beaten, forced to attend ‘re-education […]
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/ 22 October 2004
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is almost desperate for a chance to dialogue with Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF and believes the acquittal of its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, on treason charges ”provides that opportunity”. MDC Secretary General Welshman Ncube said that had Tsvangirai been jailed, it would have created ”numerous obstacles for nation-building”.
Two South Africans acquitted by a Zimbabwean court of charges related to the alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea are to be questioned on Monday by the South African authorities. Harry Carlse and Lourens Horn were cleared of trying to buy weapons in Zimbabwe when their British leader, Simon Mann, was convicted. They were freed on Saturday and flew back to South Africa.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe admitted for the first time this week that members of his family had been affected by HIV/Aids. Mugabe told a conference on Aids that unnamed members of his family had become ill from the disease. Describing HIV/Aids as ”one of the greatest challenges facing our nation”, he said, ”and that includes the extended family of the president himself”.
The Zimbabwean government has announced that it intends to nationalise all farmland, a step that its critics fear will hasten the collapse of agriculture when millions of people depend on food aid. ”This is not in the best interests of Zimbabweans, black and white,” said the director of the pressure group Justice for Agriculture.
”In the year since I was forced to leave the country, the situation in Zimbabwe has worsened in every respect. More people are going hungry, with nearly two-thirds of the population reliant upon international food aid in recent months.” A year ago this week Andrew Meldrum was expelled from Zimbabwe. From the Ramokgwebana border post in northern Botswana, he reports on the country he called home for 20 years.
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/ 6 February 2004
Zimbabwe’s land seizures have escalated with the government’s confiscation of the country’s largest sugar producer, Hippo Valley. The vast estate in the south-eastern corner of the country annually produces 236 000 tonnes of sugar, said to be worth about R519-million.