U N I T E D N A T I O N S Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Integrated Regional Information Network for Southern Africa Tel: +27 11 880 4633 Fax: +27 11 880 1421 e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.zaSOUTHERN AFRICA IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 19 6 - 12 May
CONTENTS: ZIMBABWE: Devaluation could increase inflation ZIMBABWE: Farmers meet Mugabe ZIMBABWE: Two government supporters arrested ZIMBABWE: MDC considers poll boycott ZIMBABWE: State body says violence endangers fair elections ZIMBABWE: Mbeki urges Mugabe to end violence ZIMBABWE: Mugabe says he is open to more dialogue ZIMBABWE: Britain will finance "fair" land reform programme ZAMBIA: Miners face retrenchments ZAMBIA: Villagers to make way for dam ZAMBIA-DRC: Refugee repatriation examined ZAMBIA: Lusaka accuses Angola of border raids LESOTHO: Violence threats scare workers BOTSWANA: No compensation for flood victims NAMIBIA: UNITA pursued into Angola SOUTH AFRICA: Strikers give government ultimatum SOUTH AFRICA-DRC: Military advance team to Kinshasa MALAWI: Tobacco growers face ruin ANGOLA: Savimbi interview in Luanda newspaper ZIMBABWE: Devaluation could increase inflation As bankers in Zimbabwe lobbied the government of President Robert Mugabe to abandon its fixed exchange rate for the local currency, economists warned this week that any devaluation could push the country's spiralling inflation further out of control. Such are the constraints on an economy desperately short of foreign exchange, that they saw little hope the government would agree to a devaluation. The economists also said that any change to the exchange rate would bring higher prices, and further social unrest in a country where tensions are already high over political campaign violence. The local Zimbabwe dollar has been fixed at 38 to the US dollar since January last year. The country's bankers, industrialists and tobacco farmers see a rate of 46 to 48 as more realistic. But with inflation running at close to 60 percent and foreign payments arrears already estimated at some US $400 million, there is little room to manoeuvre. ZIMBABWE: Farmers meet Mugabe The director of the predominantly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU), David Hasluck, this week met President Robert Mugabe in an effort to quell escalating violence on farms occupied by independence war veterans and supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF party. But Hasluck told IRIN: "We have now frankly run out of options. I just don't know where we go from here or where this situation will lead." So far the violence has claimed at least 18 lives, the majority of them members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Hasluck said more than 700 white-owned farms were now occupied. After visiting several of the farms in recent days with Chenjerai Hunzvi, leader of the Zimbabwe National War Veterans' Association in a bid to stop the violence, Hasluck said: "We have stuck to the letter of the truce we agreed with President Mugabe on 19 April that the violence would end. Instead, it is spiralling out of control and the violence against farm employees is growing." Hasluck was speaking after a white farmer died on Monday after being beaten up by suspected liberation war veterans leading the seizure of white-owned farms and attacks against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Police said the farmer, Alan Dunn, a regional organiser for the MDC, had been beaten unconscious on Sunday when suspected war veterans called at his farm some 60 km southwest of the capital, Harare. At the same time, an MDC spokesman said a dozen other serious assaults had been reported to party headquarters on Sunday after a rally addressed by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in Masvingo, some 300 km south of the capital, Harare. Tsvangirai, meanwhile, was detained for nearly six hours on Friday at a police station in Masvingo. No reasons were given for his detention. ZIMBABWE: Two government supporters arrested On Sunday, two ZANU-PF supporters were detained by police during a scuffle at the Masvingo rally. Tsvangirai, who criticised the police for failing to provide sufficient security, said his party would not be intimidated by ZANU-PF, which was trying to stop him campaigning. ZIMBABWE: MDC considers poll boycott Tsvangirai later in the week said the MDC was considering a boycott of parliamentary elections because a free and fair poll was unrealistic given the level of political violence directed at his party supporters. "We have already maintained that boycott is not an option, but we have now reached a stage where we have to review that," he said. ZIMBABWE: State body says violence endangers fair elections The government-appointed Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) this week warned that any hope of holding free and fair general elections could fade if mounting pre-election political violence was anything to go by. "If what is reported in the media is anything to go by, then the trend is such that we may soon reach a situation which is not conducive to the holding of free and fair election," the commission said. The ESC, appointed by President Robert Mugabe, is responsible for supervising voter registration and the conduct of parliamentary elections. ZIMBABWE: Mbeki urges Mugabe to end violence Meanwhile, South African President Thabo Mbeki, after talks with Mugabe at the weekend, said both countries had experienced "extensive land dispossessions" and faced similar challenges. Mbeki said: "We are convinced that it would be best that this important matter is dealt with in a cooperative and non-confrontational manner among all the people of this sister-country." ZIMBABWE: Mugabe says he is open to more dialogue Mugabe, meanwhile said he was open to more dialogue with Britain. In remarks after meeting Mbeki, he said although talks with Britain the week before had failed to yield positive results, they opened the way for further talks and the normalisation of strained relations between the two countries. "The fact that the meeting took place was a positive development in itself," Mugabe said. ZIMBABWE: Britain will finance "fair" land reform programme Peter Hain, the British Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, has said Britain will help finance a "fair" land reform programme in Zimbabwe. He told 'The Namibian' during a visit to Windhoek this week: "We have put 36 million pounds (about US $57 million) on the table." But he emphasised that "this can only be provided if President Mugabe ends the illegal farm occupations, restores law and order and stops the violence which is devastating the country." Detailed reports on Zimbabwe can be viewed on: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/zimbabwe ZAMBIA: Miners face retrenchments More than 900 workers from the newly privatised Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) will be retrenched between now and the end of this year, further worsening unemployment in the Copperbelt region, according to reports by the mining giant Anglo American. According to the report, Konkola employed a total of about 3,438 workers in its underground mines and concentrator plant at the beginning of this year The Anglo subsidiary Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), the new owners of about 70 percent of ZCCM mines, plan to reduce its workforce at the Konkola and Nchanga mines to about 9,462 by the end of the year from the current 10,379. Konkola employed a total of about 3,438 workers in its underground mines and concentrator plant at the beginning of this year when KCM bought the mines from state-owned ZCCM. ZAMBIA: Villagers to make way for dam More than 700 people near Chililabombwe in Zambia's Copperbelt region are to be removed from the vicinity of the Konkola mine to make way for the expansion of a tailings dam, according to Anglo American. Anglo says that the Lubengele tailings dam, which services the Konkola mine, needs to be expanded. The three settlements earmarked for removal are situated within 10 km of Chililabombwe. It said 443 people from 74 households in Kawama township are to be moved. The township accommodates about 4,000 people, 75 percent of whom are subsistence farmers whose monthly incomes range between US $8 and US $245. Detailed reports on Zambia's copper mines are available on: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/zambia ZAMBIA-DRC: Refugee repatriation examined A government delegation from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) visited Zambia this week to examine the prospects of repatriating the 21,000 DRC refugees sheltering in Zambia, UNHCR spokesman Dominic Bartsch told IRIN. The delegation, led by Katanga provincial governor Augustine Mwanke, visited Mwange refugee camp in northern Zambia to talk with the refugees, who fled fighting in Katanga between government and rebel forces in the protracted DRC conflict. "For official repatriation you need a tripartite agreement between both governments and UNHCR - this could be the first step in that direction," Bartsch said. Over the past few months there has been a steady trickle of new refugee arrivals from Katanga, until as recently as a few weeks ago. ZAMBIA: Lusaka accuses Angola of border raids Zambian Defence Minister Chitalu Sampa this week accused Angola of launching cross-border air and ground attacks in Zambia's Western and North Western Provinces. Sampa said the attacks had included the dropping of incendiary bombs on a Zambian village and the killing of a Zambian soldier by Angolan troops who had crossed into the country. "The Zambian government has expressed its concern about this state of affairs to the Angolan government through its embassy in Lusaka," Sampa said. Citing the deterioration of the security situation in the two provinces which share over 1,200 km of border with Angola, Sampa said the military incursions into Zambia had been accompanied by "banditry, looting, abductions, thefts of food and livestock, loss of lives and property". LESOTHO: Violence threats scare workers Lesotho's political tensions escalated this week when an anonymous group distributed leaflets calling on Basotho workers to stay away from work on Wednesday to support demands for the holding of elections and the establishment of a government of national unity. Political observers told IRIN that threats of violence against workers who fail to heed the stayaway forced some of them to stay at home. The threats in the leaflet included the burning of homes of those who did not support the call. Puseletso Salae - an activist with an NGO running employment creation schemes for retrenched Lesotho miners - said it was difficult to assess the extent of support for the stayaway call. "Those workers who stayed at home did so out of fear," Salae said. At the same time, members of a Commonwealth team were reported to be holding meetings on Wednesday with members of the multiparty Interim Political Authority (IPA) and government representatives to try and broker agreement on the holding of new elections. BOTSWANA: No compensation for flood victims The Botswana government has told the 160,000 people whose mud homes were destroyed in the recent floods that it would not compensate them to rebuild, a United Nations official told IRIN. The country's deputy minister for presidential affairs and public administration, Tebelelo Seretse, announced in a government bulletin this week that, unlike in previous floods, the government is unable to offer help in reconstructing flood-damaged dwellings because of a lack of funds. The official said the majority of the people affected by the floods - situated in the poor central district of the country - form the bulk of the 47 percent of Botswana's population of 1.5 million that lives below the poverty line. NAMIBIA: UNITA pursued into Angola Namibian forces have set up bases inside Angola in an operation aimed at ending UNITA rebel raids in northeastern Namibia, a move a local human rights group has condemned as a dangerous escalation in Windhoek's involvement in the Angolan conflict. Last week the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) confirmed that its troops had launched operations inside Angola. President Sam Nujoma told a rally in northern Namibia on Friday that the Angolan government had been informed of the cross-border campaign, and that "every Namibian patriot should be ready to be called to fight the bandits". Describing the military operation as a "mistake", Namibia's National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) said the NDF was operating 60 km inside Angola from former UNITA bases at Calai, Kakuchi and across from the Caprivi Strip near Omega. "We are extremely worried that this is going to drag Namibia much deeper into a conflict which is not Namibia's business," NSHR director Phil ya Nangoloh told IRIN. SOUTH AFRICA: Strikers give government ultimatum As much as half of South Africa's workforce, alarmed at plunging post-apartheid employment levels, joined a 24-hour nationwide strike for jobs on Wednesday, the South African Chamber of Business (SACOB) said. Willie Madisha, the president of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), told the marchers in Johannesburg that the government of President Thabo Mbeki had six days to respond to COSATU's memorandum on retrenchments and unemployment. Madisha warned: "If you don't listen we shall be back after six days and fight until we win. This strike is about poverty, joblessness and the greed of capitalism. These are issues we as workers are confronting. The workers will not sit down and say we are tired. We shall fight until we win." SOUTH AFRICA-DRC: Military advance team to Kinshasa South Africa is to provide military logistical assistance for a planned UN ceasefire monitoring mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a military spokesman told IRIN this week. President Thabo Mbeki said on Wednesday that an advance assessment team would be sent to the DRC following a request from the United Nations for South Africa to contribute to the proposed deployment of 500 unarmed UN military observers and the 5,000 troops that will protect them. Mbeki said in parliament that South Africa's role would be limited to logistics and headquarters functions and would not include ground troops. "The role of the advance team is to determine what MONUC (the UN mission) expects from us, to identify tasks and be prepared," the military spokesman said. MALAWI: Tobacco growers face ruin The majority of Malawi's estimated 86,000 tobacco growers face financial ruin if the buyers of the crop continue offering low prices at this year's main auction floors in the capital, Lilongwe and in Blantyre, industry sources said. Alex Kavinya, an official of the growers body, the Tobacco Association of Malawi, told IRIN this week that the growers owe the association an estimated US $5.3 million in unserviced loans from two years ago. He said the buyers have been offering between US 90 cents and US $1.03 per kg for this year's crop since the auction floors opened on 17 April. "These prices are the lowest in 10 years. The growers need to sell the leaves for at least US $1.50 per kg just to break even," said Kavinya. He added that the main worry is that should the buyers not improve on their offer, many of the growers will go under. ANGOLA: Savimbi interview in Luanda newspaper The leader of Angola's UNITA rebel movement, Jonas Savimbi, told a Luanda newspaper in a controversial interview this week that a summit meeting between himself and President Jose Eduardo dos Santos could bring an end to the country's 25-year civil war. "It is possible to end the war at any point and for that a summit meeting between the two parties is essential," Savimbi told the bi-weekly newspaper 'Folha 8' on Monday. But publication of the interview on Monday drew an immediate riposte from the News Media Ministry in Angola which called it a "fake" and "another provocative action" by 'Folha 8'. Johannesburg, 12 May, 11:00 GMT IRIN-SA - Tel: +2711 880 4633 Fax: +2711 447 5472 e-mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za [This item is delivered in the English service of the UN's IRIN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations. For further information, free subscriptions, or to change your keywords, contact e-mail: irin@ocha.unon.org or Web: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer.] Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2000 distributed by - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Volunteers in Technical Assistance Disaster Information Center lists: www.vita.org/listsub.htm sitreps nat-dsr web: www.vita.org fireline - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Southern Africa - http://www.vita.org/humanitarian/safrica
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