Weekly Round-Up - IRINSA-26: 30-Jun-00</table> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#000000" VLINK="#408080"> <img src="http://www.cidi.org/images/cidi-logo-075.jpg" alt="CIDI"> <hr align=left width=600> <PRE> 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: <A HREF="mailto:irin-sa@irin.org.za">irin-sa@irin.org.za</A> <h3>SOUTHERN AFRICA Weekly Round-up 26 24-30 June 2000 </h3> CONTENTS: ZIMBABWE: Watershed election result ZIMBABWE: Mixed reviews from observers ZIMBABWE: Problems in the media ZIMBABWE: Opposition designates parliamentary leader ANGOLA: Focus on peace prospects ANGOLA: Insecurity stalls aid to northern Angola ZAMBIA-ANGOLA: Security officials meet MALAWI: Focus on the land issue SOUTHERN AFRICA: Focus on health crisis AFRICA: Focus on conflict diamonds MOZAMBIQUE: Weapons recovery programme a success MOZAMBIQUE: EU aid for health care MOZAMBIQUE: Grain to be imported COMOROS: OAU mission arrives for talks SOUTH AFRICA: SA to pay for DRC mission ZIMBABWE: Watershed election result For the first time in 20 years of power since independence from Britain, President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party are facing a credible opposition in parliament following the outcome of legislative elections at the weekend. People in the capital Harare, and the second city of Bulawayo, began dancing in the streets from dawn on Tuesday as the results in a race for 120 of the 150 seats in the house trickled through overnight. By the time the final count was in at around 11:00 a.m. (0900 GMT), analysts across the political divide were agreed that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had changed the face of politics in Zimbabwe forever. The labour union-based MDC formed just nine months ago had captured 57 seats against 62 for ZANU-PF and 1 clinched by an independent, the veteran African nationalist, Ndabaningi Sithole. In the outgoing legislature, ZANU-PF held all but three seats. Half a dozen of Mugabe's senior cabinet ministers lost their seats, while Morgan Tsvangirai, the 46-year-old leader of the MDC also failed to win in his marginal home constituency. Commentators described the outcome as a vote for change that showed the mood of the country after weeks of pre-election violence and intimidation - mostly blamed on ZANU-PF by local and international monitors - in which at least 32 people lost their lives and 6,500 were forced to flee their homes. "The big question on everybody's minds right now is whether President Mugabe will see sense and go for a government of national unity," Masipule Sithole, professor of political science at the University of Zimbabwe, told IRIN. "We have to see whether Mugabe will have the sense to appoint a government of national unity." For more details see: ZIMBABWE: Mixed reviews from observers The head of the Commonwealth observer group in Zimbabwe, General Abdulsalami Abubakar said on Wednesday there had been shortcomings in the preparations and arrangements of Zimbabwe's fifth parliamentary election at the weekend. The former Nigerian leader who led a team of 44 observers making up the second largest international monitoring group, said in a preliminary statement: "We would draw attention, in particular, to the inability of a substantial number of electors to cast their ballots, inconsistencies in polling day procedures, last minute changes to the electoral laws, and the late accreditation of the domestic election observers." In a report largely similar to that released earlier in the week by the European Union, he noted "with concern" the failure of the media, especially the state broadcasting services, to provide balanced pre-election coverage. Like the EU, he said he felt the presence of the observers had helped reduce tensions in the final run-up to the poll. "Our major concern during the time we have been in Zimbabwe has been the nature, duration and scale of politically-motivated violence and intimidation," he said. "This violence and intimidation was most serious in some rural areas, where we have observed a climate of fear and uncertainty amongst the people. In some districts intimidation prevented open campaigning, notably by opposition parties and candidates." For more details see: ZIMBABWE: Problems in the media The way the official media in Zimbabwe have covered key problems facing the country has been so biased towards the government that the public was amazed this week to detect a slight change of attitude. As it became clear in the early hours on Tuesday that the new opposition MDC was set to take nearly half the seats in parliament from a government which until this week had held all but three of them, the official 'The Herald' announced the change under a banner headline: "Tsvangirai loses in Buhera North". By the next day, however, 'The Herald' announced the final results under the headline "Zimbabwe on firmer ground". It was a quote from a speech by President Robert Mugabe which the paper then ran in full. A speech in which he called for reconciliation after weeks of violence and bloodshed in the run-up to the election, but in which he stopped short of saying whether his next government would be one of national unity. Diplomats and monitors of the print and broadcast media had all expected a headline saying something like, "ZANU-PF sweeps to victory". Wednesday's headline, they agreed, was definitely toned down from the usual diet. For more details see: ZIMBABWE: Opposition designates parliamentary leader The MDC on Wednesday named party vice-president Gibson Sibanda as the leader of the opposition in parliament. Morgan Tsvangirai, president and founder of the party, failed to win his Buhera North seat in parliamentary polls at the weekend. In a statement released by the party, the MDC said it was taking 10 cases of "electoral irregularities" to court. ANGOLA: Focus on peace prospects Nineteen months since full-scale fighting resumed in Angola, the prospect of peace remains distant. A successful government offensive last year, which led to the historic fall of UNITA's central highland headquarters, has reaped limited results in terms of ending the conflict. "The dream of a knock-out blow after Andulo and Bailundo is evaporating," comments Alex Vines, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch and long-standing observer of Angola. Fears about military instability have soared this week due to warnings that UNITA has threatened to kidnap foreign aid workers. Diplomatic sources in Angola say the warning came from senior officials in the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA). Intelligence sources in the FAA learned that a senior UNITA general told rebel troops that the time is ripe to kidnap all expatriate humanitarian workers. Fears that the FAA's favourable military position is receding, say some observers, is putting more pressure on the government to find a political solution to halt the conflict. Last week, hopes were raised when the state-owned daily newspaper, 'Jornal De Angola', reported that President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos "admits possibility of pardoning Savimbi". During a speech in Bengo province, Dos Santos said: "We advocate a policy of forgiveness for all who seek the path of reason, for all who repent ... Maybe even Savimbi himself." The President's words, says Vines, reveal "a slight shift in position". He may be moving away from his long-held view that war is the only way to achieve peace. A senior diplomat in Luanda said the speech is encouraging for the international community. However, if the words are to be taken at face value, the government will have to follow up with some concrete steps. For more details see: ANGOLA: Insecurity stalls aid to northern Angola Insecurity in northern Angola has severely disrupted an humanitarian aid initiative by UNHCR, Kris Janowski a spokesman for the refugee agency said on Tuesday. Speaking at a media briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Janowski said: "The UNHCR relief operation in northern Angola, which began just weeks ago, has virtually come to a standstill because of a deteriorating security situation. The UNHCR emergency team deployed in the main town of Angola's northern Uige province on 19 June is now confined to within a 2 km radius of Uige, following attacks on two nearby villages, allegedly by UNITA rebels." He added: "The attacks on 20 June on the villages of Mateus and Kikaya, about 10 km from Uige, have made several pockets of displaced people unreachable for emergency assistance, raising the spectre of further displacement in a province which already has more than 150,000 people uprooted by civil war." Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) also 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". ZAMBIA-ANGOLA: Security officials meet Zambian and Angolan security officials met on Thursday in Lusaka to discuss the situation along their common border ahead of a ministerial meeting aimed at reducing tensions between the two countries. The joint Security and Defence Commission began talks on Wednesday to prepare the ground for a meeting between defence and home affairs ministers on Friday, sources close to the talks told IRIN. The dialogue follows Zambia's accusations in May that Angolan troops had repeatedly crossed the border and terrorised local communities in a campaign aimed at flushing out UNITA rebels from eastern Angola. Some 10,000 villagers in western Zambia have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the insecurity. For more details see: MALAWI: Focus on the land issue Chronic land scarcity in Malawi and accompanying land degradation presents the government of President Bakili Muluzi with a dilemma: How to accommodate the land needs of citizens while preserving the agro-export base of the economy. The legacy of colonial land ownership means that the most fertile land is occupied by a largely settler community who own the estates that produce the cash crops on which Malawi's struggling economy depends. Malawi has a land area of 118,484 square km for its estimated 10 million people. Of this total, only 18 percent is arable land, and the tea and tobacco estates occupy the most fertile parts. In recognition of the chronic land scarcity, Muluzi appointed a commission late last year to investigate the problems relating to land ownership and usage. The commission, charged with making recommendations on land reform policy, recently released a report in which it said "original settler acquisitions in Malawi were fraudulent". However, the commission said that for political and economic expediency, "titles derived from Certificates of Claim held by the settlers should not be disturbed". It recommended that a social development fund be set up instead, "for the alleviation of poverty and land pressure among the indigenous populations in the areas affected by the Certificates of Claim". For more details see: SOUTHERN AFRICA: Focus on health crisis Southern Africa has the worst performing health care systems in the world, the UN's World Health Organisation (WHO) says in its latest report. In 'World Health Report 2000', WHO noted that countries in the region were "least likely to provide their citizens with a long and healthy life". According to the report, HIV/AIDS was among the major causes of ill-health and that the AIDS epidemic had dramatically cut life expectancy in the majority of the countries in the region to 40 years or less. "Health life expectancy in some African countries is dropping back to levels we haven't seen in advanced countries since medieval times," Alan Lopez, coordinator of the WHO Epidemiology and Burden of Disease Team said. For more details see: AFRICA: Focus on conflict diamonds As part of an initiative to stamp out the trade in "conflict diamonds", industry officials from key diamond importing countries met in London on Wednesday to coordinate proposals to tighten controls. The meeting brought together trade officials from Belgium, India, Israel and the United States - countries that up until now have played a relatively minor role in the growing consensus on the need for international action on the flow of diamonds from conflict zones. "For the first time, both government and diamond industry representatives from all the key importing countries of rough diamonds will be able to sit down together to work constructively on ideas to stamp out the illicit trade in blood diamonds," Foreign Office Minister for Africa, Peter Hain said. The British initiative follows a similar approach by the South African government and the diamond giant De Beers for a global system of certification and regulation following meetings in South Africa and Angola in May and June, attended by southern African producers. For more details see: MOZAMBIQUE: Weapons recovery programme a success A campaign by the Mozambican Christian Council (CCM) to exchange weapons for agricultural and other tools has so far collected more than 55,000 weapons of war, media reports said. The project, which aims to collect weapons used in the country's 16-year civil war which ended in 1992, has spent about US $600,000 in the southern provinces of Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane and in the central Zambezia Province. The reports said the campaign will be expanded to other provinces. MOZAMBIQUE: EU aid for health care The European Union is to give the Mozambican government an estimated US $38 million to fund the expansion of health networks in the central province of Zambezia, news reports said on Wednesday. According to Zambezia's provincial governor, Orlando Candua, an international tender has already been launched to select a consultant who will advise on the building of an unspecified number of new health units, and the rehabilitation and refurbishment of about 30 existing ones. MOZAMBIQUE: Grain to be imported Mozambique will have to import about 444,000 mt of grain from now to April 2001, to cover the deficit in national production, mainly caused by the floods that hit the southern and central regions of the country in February and March. The country's leading newspaper 'Noticias' on Tuesday quoted the government's domestic trade directorate as saying that because of lower production this year, the country would have to import, as food aid or commercially, 144,000 mt of maize, 242,000 mt of rice and 194,000 mt of wheat. COMOROS: OAU mission arrives for talks An OAU mission led by special envoy Francisco Madeira of Mozambique arrived in the Comoros island on Sunday to assess progress in returning the Indian Ocean islands to constitutional rule, Reuters reported on Monday. The team would also assess the impact of the OAU trade embargo on the breakaway island of Anjouan, one of three in the archipelago, which declared itself independent in 1997. The island's rulers have defied international pressure to negotiate a new power-sharing deal that would give Anjouan and Moheli greater autonomy from the main island Grande Comore. The OAU has threatened military intervention if the Anjouan secessionists do not sign an OAU brokered agreement by next month when the body holds its annual summit. SOUTH AFRICA: SA to pay for DRC mission South Africa will have to fork out US $860,000 for its upcoming peace mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) said on Wednesday. The SANDF director of joint operations, Brigadier-General Jan Lusse, said at briefing in Pretoria that the United Nations would reimburse South Africa for only 25 percent of the cost. This meant that the South African taxpayer would have to pay the bulk of the costs of the country's peacekeeping duties in the DRC. This would include a special allowance of about US $785 a month for each of the 165 SANDF members that would take part in the mission, Lusse said. Johannesburg, 30 June 16:25 GMT IRIN-SA - Tel: +27-11 880 4633 Fax: +27-11 447 5472 Email: <A HREF="mailto:irin-sa@irin.org.za?subject=Re:%20Weekly%20Round-Up%20%20-%20IRINSA-26:%2030-Jun-00&replyto=Pine.LNX.4.04.10007010556320.20803-100000@lan.vita.org">irin-sa@irin.org.za</A> [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: <A HREF="mailto:irin@ocha.unon.org?subject=Re:%20Weekly%20Round-Up%20%20-%20IRINSA-26:%2030-Jun-00&replyto=Pine.LNX.4.04.10007010556320.20803-100000@lan.vita.org">irin@ocha.unon.org</A> or Web: <A HREF="http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN">http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN</A> . If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. 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