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 Weekly Round-up 25 17 - 23 June
CONTENTS: ZIMBABWE: Preview of the parliamentary elections ZIMBABWE: Focus on election monitoring controversy ZIMBABWE: Focus on relations with South Africa ZIMBABWE: High court dismisses electoral commission petition ZIMBABWE: Journalists' car attacked ZIMBABWE: Government to deploy 30,000 police ZIMBABWE: Economist optimistic ZIMBABWE: Growing shortage of essential drugs ANGOLA: Journalist faces eviction ANGOLA: UNICEF condemns nurse's murder ANGOLA: Insecurity hampers relief SOUTHERN AFRICA: POWs return home MOZAMBIQUE: Flood victims return home NAMIBIA: Cereals shortfall for 2000-2001 ZAMBIA: Fuel shortages hit Zambia MALAWI: Malawians poorer than two decades ago SOUTH AFRICA: Land reform hamstrung by cash shortage ZIMBABWE: Preview of the parliamentary elections Zimbabweans go the polls on Saturday and Sunday to elect a new parliament in a country reeling from political violence and intimidation and facing the worst economic crisis economists can remember. An estimated 5.1 million registered voters out of the country's 12.5 million population will elect 120 candidates for the country's 150-seat parliament. Under the constitution, President Robert Mugabe nominates the remaining 30 MPs. Twelve of those seats go to traditional chiefs, eight to provincial governors and the remainder to anyone else he wishes to appoint. Despite the rural violence which has claimed at least 32 lives - the latest being an opposition supporter murdered on Wednesday - since Mugabe lost a referendum on seizing white-owned land in February, analysts and commentators across the political divide are agreed on one thing: That this election will pose the most serious challenge Mugabe, 76, has faced in the 20 years he has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980 A detailed special report on the elections can be viewed on: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/zimbabwe ZIMBABWE: Focus on election monitoring controversy As Zimbabweans prepare to vote in parliamentary elections this weekend, local and international observers have expressed concern at the level of intimidation and violence and an accreditation process that has caused delays and prevented some observers from monitoring polls. In separate interviews with IRIN, the former Nigerian leader, Abdulsalami Abubakar, who heads a 44-member Commonwealth observer team, and Pierre Schori, a former Swedish government minister who leads a team of 150 observers from the European Union (EU), said their teams had received reports of violence and intimidation almost on a daily basis. But they also said the presence of international observers in clearly marked vehicles had served to curtail some of the rural violence which has claimed 31 lives, mostly of opposition supporters, since the government of President Robert Mugabe lost a national referendum on land and constitutional reform in February. Detailed reports on the run-up to elections can be viewed on: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/zimbabwe ZIMBABWE: Focus on relations with South Africa Meanwhile, on the eve of Zimbabwe's parliamentary elections, analysts have criticised South African President Thabo Mbeki's strategy of not publicly condemning the political violence unleashed by supporters of President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party. While President Mugabe has been pilloried internationally for his attempts to suppress a lively opposition movement, Mbeki has settled for a "softly-softly" approach towards his influential neighbour. Said Laurie Nathan of the Cape Town-based Centre for Conflict Resolution: "President Mbeki's assumption that shouting from roof tops would not help the situation in Zimbabwe is correct. However, the assumption that quiet diplomacy would influence President Mugabe to halt farm invasions and prevent violence and intimidation was incorrect." A detailed report is available on: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/zimbabwe ZIMBABWE: High court dismisses electoral commission petition Zimbabwe's High court this week dismissed a petition by the Electoral Supervisory Commission for the restoration of its powers. The commission had accused Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa of bypassing the constitution by taking over the functions of the elections commission. Under the Zimbabwean constitution the commission has the authority to supervise the registration and election processes. Elaine Raftopoulos, a member of the commission, said the High court's decision "was a disaster". She added: "It seems they disregarded the whole rule of law in this case." ZIMBABWE: Journalists' car attacked Meanwhile, a group of 20 suspected ZANU-PF supporters attacked a car carrying four foreign journalists at a tobacco farm this week. The four journalists - one from AFP, two from South Africa's e-tv and one from the Sowetan newspaper in South Africa - escaped unhurt, but their rented car had its windows smashed. The journalists said the assailants - dressed in orange work suits with one wearing a ruling ZANU-PF T-shirt - attacked the car with stones and knobkerries after an MDC team distributed campaign leaflets at the farm. ZIMBABWE: Government to deploy 30,000 police Zimbabwe's Home Affairs minister this week said the government would deploy 30,000 police officers ahead of this weekend's parliamentary polls. Dumisa Dabengwa said the deployment was needed to guarantee "peaceful voting". "We need to ensure that there will be sufficient security across the country," he said. "We will ensure that all voters are protected and are allowed to exercise their right to vote in a peaceful atmosphere." Dabengwa added that 20,000 police officers would be supported by 10,000 reservists. "We might also have to ask for the assistance of the army in certain areas where we have a shortage of policemen and women." ZIMBABWE: Economist optimistic One of Zimbabwe's leading economists has said he expected the country to gradually return to normality after the parliamentary elections this weekend. Eric Bloch told IRIN this week the main issue facing a new government would be to resolve the country's decades-old land ownership crisis. This crisis, he said, has been highlighted by the occupation of more than 1,400 white-owned farms by independence war veterans and supporters of President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party. "Our present economic crisis cannot be blamed on this government alone," he said. "It dates back to the break-up in 1961 of the then British Federation which incorporated modern-day Zambia, Malawi and Zimbabwe and exchange control regulations which have been in force on and off since then." ZIMBABWE: Growing shortage of essential drugs A senior government official warned this week that Zimbabwe's foreign currency deficit threatened to paralyse the country's health delivery system. David Mbaya, director of pharmaceutical services at the health ministry, said the government now had only 30 percent of required essential drugs in stock, while vital life-saving equipment at government clinics had broken down. Speaking to the official daily, the 'Bulawayo Chronicle', he said, however, there was "no need to panic". Another senior official at the ministry, Martin Nhorivo, said the shortages of spare parts for medical equipment had become critical. Their remarks followed a similar warning earlier this month by the health minister. "The situation is very critical because major hospitals cannot operate properly without this kind of equipment," said Nhorivo. "We approached the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe about three months ago for foreign currency to purchase spare parts and to engage technicians from abroad to service the equipment, but we are yet to get a response." ANGOLA: Journalist faces eviction An Angolan journalist based in the Kwanza Norte provincial capital Ndalatando has been served with an eviction notice to leave his home because he allegedly uses it to report for independent media, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) told IRIN this week. Isidoro Natalicio, according to MISA, is a freelancer journalist who reports for the Voice of America, the Catholic radio station Radio Ecclesia and the Portuguese news agency LUSA. He is also a correspondent the state-owned 'Jornal de Angola'. MISA said it views the action against Natalicio as a campaign by the province's governor, Manuel Pedro Pacavira, to drive out independent journalists from the province. "It was this campaign which also led to the prolonged detention and criminal proceedings against fellow journalist, Andre Domingos Mussamo, who was eventually acquitted of the charges against him," said MISA. ANGOLA: UNICEF condemns nurse's murder UNICEF said at the weekend that Luis Felipe Gomes, Chief Nurse of Belize Municipal Hospital in Angola was killed in an ambush on Saturday 10 June. UNICEF said that the murder took place during the first of three scheduled rounds of the National Immunisation Days (NIDs) in Angola, to immunise children against polio. "While driving with companion health workers Gomes was ambushed and killed, in an unprovoked, armed attack," UNICEF added. "The death of Gomes adds one more name to a tragic toll of humanitarian workers wantonly struck down as they went about the work of seeing that the rights of all the world's children are honoured. This vicious murder and others like it confer a badge of shame on those who will not lay aside arms even for a single day to allow the work of saving children's lives to proceed," UNICEF said. ANGOLA: Insecurity hampers relief The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has warned in its latest update that small-scale ambushes and attacks throughout the country continue to undermine the humanitarian relief effort. WFP said in its 14-21 June report that in the central Bie Province, the roads between Kuito-Andulo and Kuito-N'Harea continued to be unsafe. In the northeastern Kwanza Norte Province, reports of insecurity in the locality of Ambaca have caused people to flee into neighbouring Uige province. In the northern Malange Province, WFP said that the road between the provincial capital, Malange and Lombe/Calandula "is considered insecure as a result of an attack on the village of Kingles on 15 June". It said that WFP in Malange had to postpone a planned assessment of humanitarian needs in Calandula. In the central highland province of Huambo, 10 trucks were ambushed on 12 June on the road between Catala and Cuima. All goods on the trucks were stolen. WFP said there have been continued reports of insecurity near the provincial capital, Huambo. WFP said that the food aid pipeline continued to be "very weak" with no large contributions confirmed in recent months by donors. It added that between 12-19 June, WFP transported 1,791 mt of food commodities and 368 mt of non-food items by air. SOUTHERN AFRICA: POWs return home The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Regional Delegation for Southern Africa based in Harare, said this week that 177 former prisoners of war (POWs) of Rwandan, Zimbabwean and Namibian nationality returned home at the weekend. "On 16 June 2000, an ICRC aircraft brought 35 Zimbabweans and 11 Namibian former POWs from Kigali in Rwanda, to the Congolese capital Kinshasa before returning to Kigali with 88 Rwandan ex-POWs on board," the ICRC said. "On 17 June another ICRC plane took the 35 Zimbabweans from Kinshasa to Harare. The 11 Namibian ex-POWs were repatriated from Kinshasa to Windhoek by the Namibian authorities using their own aircraft," the statement added. "An additional 43 Rwandan ex-POWs were transported by an ICRC plane from Harare to Kigali. ICRC delegates were aboard all ICRC flights." MOZAMBIQUE: Flood victims return home The Instituto Nacional De Gestao De Calamidades (INGC) in Mozambique said in its latest report that over 90 percent of people displaced by the floods earlier this year have left the accommodation centres. "Some people have returned to their home areas while others have moved to resettle in safer areas. A smaller number of people remain in the accommodation centres for lack of material conditions for resettlement," the INGC said. It said that large numbers of families who had not yet left the accommodation centres were headed by women who lacked the necessary resources to build their own homes. The INGC said that in the southern Gaza province where 248,143 people were displaced, 234,145 had already been resettled. In Gaza and Maputo provinces it said 28,222 households still needed to be resettled. The report added that WFP had between the 8-13 June delivered 1,233 mt of food to affected areas in the southern and central parts of the country. NAMIBIA: Cereals shortfall for 2000-2001 Namibia will have to import more than 137,000 mt of cereals from South Africa to prepare for a shortfall in the 2000-2001 season, despite the moderate rainfall experienced by the Southern African region. The disappointing harvest was caused by dry spells during the rainy season, especially between January and March, Namibia's Early Warning and Food Information System said. Commercial mills have reportedly imported 19,000 mt of wheat and 21,200 mt of white maize. Namibia, with an estimated population of 1,8 million, has an average per capita cereal consumption of 135 kg. ZAMBIA: Fuel shortages hit Zambia Zambia was this week hit by fuel shortages as dealers hoard petrol in anticipation of price hikes. Reports said that most suppliers were out of petrol on Tuesday, with the capital Lusaka worst affected. Faides Simunza of Zambia's Energy Regulation Board (ERB) said: "We are aware that international petroleum prices have gone up and discussions on the effects of this to Zambia are ongoing." MALAWI: Malawians poorer than two decades ago Poverty in Malawi is more prevalent today than it was two decades ago, according to a report commissioned by the Council for Non-Governmental Organisations (CONGOMA). The report said most Malawian workers were earning 8 percent less than what they earned in 1982. "While on paper the money workers get today may look more, most of its value is eaten away by inflation and a high cost of living," the report said. "Poverty in Malawi is more prevalent today than two decades ago and its income distribution is extremely inequitable," it added. The average per capita income in Malawi is US $200, the lowest in the 14-member Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), where the average per capita income is around US $360. SOUTH AFRICA: Land reform hamstrung by cash shortage A shortage of funds was severely hampering the redistribution of South Africa's mainly white-owned commercial farm land to its rural poor, South African Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs Thoko Didiza told delegates at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Durban this week. "The aim of redistributing 30 percent of the land has faced delays because we still need the funds to redistribute the land," Didiza said. The government has said it plans to resettle 70,000 black commercial farmers on two million hectares of state-owned land over the next 15 years. About US $42 million has been allocated to the programme. A shortfall of funds needed to compensate commercial farmers for selling their land has meant that only 4,000 claims have been settled out of 65,000 since 1994. The 65,000 claims date back to 1913, when the then white government began seizing land from blacks. 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: 07/09/00 EDT