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/ 11 September 2006
Mass protests are planned across Zimbabwe on Wednesday, in the first test of strength among opponents of President Robert Mugabe since a bitter split in the ranks of the Movement for Democratic Change. Leaders of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions insist they are ready to defy tough security laws and government threats with a series of marches.
Zimbabwe’s rights record was under the spotlight on Wednesday with critics blasting a proposed surveillance Bill and the failure to resettle hundreds of thousands whose homes were razed last year. In a further blow, the economically ravaged country’s once-vibrant tobacco sector hit a new low on the last day of the auction season with sales expected to plummet 31%.
Zimbabweans struggled to dispose of their soon-to-be worthless cash Monday as shops and businesses refused to accept old bank notes ahead of a deadline to convert to a new currency. In a move aimed at fighting runaway inflation, Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank slashed three zeros from its currency on July 31 and set a 21-day ultimatum for old notes to be handed in.
Zimbabwean rights groups are preparing to fight a new Bill that would allow state agents to eavesdrop on private conversations and monitor faxes and e-mails. The Interception of Communications Bill is the latest in a series of laws critics say are meant to crush government opponents and emasculate the country’s once-vibrant independent press.
As Zimbabwe reels under a world-record inflation of 1 042,9%, many are forsaking meals and walking or cycling for scores of kilometres to work every day in a tortuous battle to survive. Zimbabwe is going through the seventh year of economic recession characterised by four-digit inflation, shortages of basic foodstuffs while at least 80% of the population lives below the poverty threshold.
Zimbabwe is ready to allow the return of white farmers who were driven off their farms under President Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme, the agriculture minister told Agence France-Presse on Wednesday. But minister Joseph Made denied that the new openness toward white farmers marked an about-face in land-reform policies that have been widely criticised as a failure.
Zimbabwe’s veteran opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was on Sunday elected for a fresh tenure to lead his splintered party which has posed the most serious challenge to President Robert Mugabe’s long rule. ”The president has been nominated unopposed,” declared Movement for Democratic Change national chairperson Isaac Matongo after a two-day convention in the capital.
Chipo Mapako, a village head in the eastern Zimbabwean district of Nyanga, does not remember when he last had a square meal. ”The daily struggle for us is to find enough food to stave off hunger,” says Mapako, who heads a village in the district renowned as much for its picturesque mountain ranges as for its dry, stony fields.
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/ 17 January 2006
Feuding factions of Zimbabwe’s main opposition are to hold separate congresses in coming weeks to elect new leaders, officials said on Tuesday, in a move that would confirm the split within the party. The Movement for Democratic Change has become mired in infighting over leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s decision to boycott Senate elections last November.
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/ 28 December 2005
Zimbabweans are heading for a dismal new year, with food shortages and an economic crisis expected to worsen while prospects for political change appear dimmer than ever, analysts say. While President Robert Mugabe’s government is forecasting growth of up to 3,5% in 2006, economists and ordinary Zimbabweans are bracing for more hardship.