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.za


SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 25
30 June - 6 July 2001


ZIMBABWE: Nationwide strike over fuel prices
ANGOLA: Warring parties ignore humanitarian crisis - MSF
NAMIBIA: Farmers unite against land grab
SOUTH AFRICA: Free water allowance for 23 million people
SOUTHERN AFRICA: SADC free trade process to begin in August
ZAMBIA: Civil servants end strike before OAU summit


ZIMBABWE: Nationwide strike over fuel prices

Shops and factories were closed and riot police patrolled townships on
Tuesday as Zimbabwean workers began a two-day general strike to protest
against fuel prices, agencies reported. President Robert Mugabe's
government urged workers to ignore the strike, sparked by a recent fuel
price hike of nearly 70 percent, denouncing it as a challenge to its
authority by unions aligned to the country's main opposition party, the
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Harare's central business district
was partly paralysed by the strike, with some banks and building societies
closed. But the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange was open and trading normally,
officials said. Teachers at some Harare schools said students had not
turned up for classes, and some schools closed for the day. Reports from
Mutare in the east, Masvingo in the south and second city Bulawayo in the
southwest said many businesses were shut, although government offices were
functioning. The government declared the strike illegal and promised
protection to workers who ignored it, while self-styled war veterans
threatened to evict foreign companies closing during the strike. "We want
to identify such people and if they are not citizens of this country we
are going to deal with them... (make) them evacuate our country within a
day," war veterans' leader Joseph Chinotimba said in remarks on state
radio. In April and May, war veterans stormed private firms and aid
agencies, forcing them to either reinstate sacked workers or award them
compensation deals.

Arrested journalists freed

Three journalists detained while reporting on the strike were released on
Wednesday, 24 hours after they were threatened with violence by riot
police brandishing batons and tear gas, AP reported. No charges were
filed. The three were arrested on Tuesday on accusations of hindering a
police probe into attacks on three bakery delivery vans by strikers in
Budiriro, a poor western Harare township. According to the report,
officials at the Attorney General's office found no evidence to support
the accusations. The men arrested were Chris Mazivanhanga, 31, a cameraman
with Associated Press Television News; Cornelius Nduna, 31, a reporter for
the independent Zimbabwe Standard newspaper; and Tsvangirai Mukwhazi, 25,
a photographer for the independent Daily News newspaper. The journalists
said they were held in overcrowded, filthy police cells at the main Harare
police station after denying the charges. Their lawyer Innocent Chagonda
described their detention overnight under minor "miscellaneous offenses"
laws, carrying a fine of around US $9, as "most unusual and unwarranted".
"In all my years in practice, I have seen nothing like it. The charges
were unsustainable from the start and the state obviously agrees by
releasing them," he said. "It is a clear case of wrongful arrest and
deliberate harassment of the press." Chagonda said the arrests appeared to
be aimed at stopping the trio from covering the two-day strike. The
journalists were among 16 prisoners in a cell designed for six, the report
said. There was no room to lie down and they crouched on a concrete floor
all night without receiving blankets, the report added.

More stayaways loom

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) was in a quandary after its
two-day stayaway on Wednesday, over its next move to force the government
to scrap sharp fuel price increases. At the same time, its leadership
faced pressure from its members to plan indefinite mass action, including
demonstrations against President Robert Mugabe, the 'Financial Gazette'
has reported. The ZCTU was due to convene a meeting soon to evaluate the
impact of the mass action and to plot its next moves, the weekly newspaper
said on Thursday. The ZCTU estimated that more than 80 percent of workers
heeded the call to stayaway.

Meanwhile, a Reuters report on Thursday quoted analysts as saying that
Mugabe's unexpected restraint during the strike had fuelled speculation
that his government was divided on how to deal with its political
opponents. Riot police were deployed during the strike, but police did not
crack down on strikers as they had done in previous labour actions, the
report said. "I don't think Mugabe's slight restraint is a case of a new
political conviction. I think what we saw here was a new crisis over a
campaign strategy for the presidential elections," political analyst
Masipula Sithole was quoted saying. He said the ruling ZANU-PF party
leadership was split between the hawks who favoured last year's violent
campaign on the opposition, and doves who believed the party "will not win
by wielding the stick and using the fist and knobkerrie". Chenjerai Hove,
a leading political commentator, said a change of strategy in ZANU-PF
would take time to implement. "I don't think they know exactly what to do
at this stage. There are two major groups in the party with very strong
beliefs, one advocating violence and another saying violence is proving
counter-productive," he was quoted saying.

ANGOLA: Warring parties ignore humanitarian crisis - MSF

The government and Jonas Savimbi's UNITA were "turning a blind eye to the
obvious, serious and often acute humanitarian needs of the Angolan
people", Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said on Monday. "Both the
government and the UNITA rebel movement are guilty of this negligence. The
medical and nutritional emergencies that MSF encounters due to its
projects in the field are not just a logical consequence of the ongoing
war. To a large extent they are caused by the near-total neglect towards
populations, the disrespect of international humanitarian law, and the
military strategies of the parties to the conflict," the international
medical organisation said in a statement. Angola's 26-year-old civil war
has forced almost four million people from their homes and has isolated
scores of communities. More than one million people rely solely on food
rations from the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) to survive and
according to official estimates, more than 500,000 people - possibly in
desperate need of food and medical care - cannot be reached because of the
ongoing war. MSF-Belgium representative in Angola, Erwin van der Borght,
told IRIN: "We decided to highlight this issue publicly because of the
lack of progress in terms of (the government and UNITA's) operational
response. A lot has to do with prioritisation and taking responsibility
for the population. A lot can be done in spite of the fact that there is a
war going on."

For the full IRIN story:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/angola/20010703.phtml
For the full MSF statement see: http://www.msf.org

UNITA revamps structure, seeks peace

UNITA rebels have announced the formation of five new teams designed to
end their international isolation and to resolve the country's 26-year
civil war, one of Africa's longest-running conflicts, Reuters reported on
Wednesday. In a statement sent to Reuters in Johannesburg, UNITA said the
co-ordinating commissions - covering political, administrative, judicial
and military issues - were formed at the party's recent annual congress.
Leading the five groups are UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi, party
vice-president Antonio Sebastiao Dembo, secretary general Paulo Lukamba
Gato, UNITA lawyer Celestino Kapapelo and army chief General Geraldo
Ukwachitembo Abreu, the report said. The statement condemned the ruling
MPLA government for intimidating "all patriots who defend the need for
debate as a way of identifying the root causes of our national problems".
It said the five commissions would address ending UNITA's international
isolation, caused mainly by United Nations sanctions. "One of the priority
roles is the diplomatic struggle for the total or partial lifting of
sanctions imposed on UNITA members and their closest families to
facilitate dialogue to bring peace in our country," Reuters quoted the
statement saying. The UNITA statement also called on church groups in
Angola, rich in oil and diamonds, to help seek an end to the war that has
killed more than one million people and uprooted almost four million more
from their homes. "The church has an important role to play in order to
end hatred and the culture of violence," the statement said.

Shantytown tense after two killed in riot

Armed police patrolled a tense Luanda shantytown on Monday, a day after
two residents were shot dead during a riot by local people defying an
official order to move out of their homes, AP reported. The clashes
erupted on Sunday when heavily armed riot police attempted to forcibly
remove thousands of people from their mud-brick huts because the area is
susceptible to landslides. Groups of youngsters threw rocks at the police
and erected barricades along the filthy shantytown's alleyways. At least
18 people were reported injured. Police said they came under gunfire
during the riot and returned fire, killing two men who were not
identified. Local people disputed the police claims, alleging police shot
at unarmed rioters. More than 40,000 people are believed to live in the
vast shantytown called Boavista, including many who fled the countryside
due to the civil war.

NAMIBIA: Farmers unite against land grab

Black and white Namibian farmers joined forces on Monday to put pressure
on the government to speed up land reform to avoid Zimbabwe-style farm
invasions, 'The Namibian' reported on Tuesday. "Although many of our
people ... need land to improve their living conditions, political
anarchy, violence, land-grabbing and farm invasions and mismanagement
should be avoided at all costs," Moses Katjiuongua said at the launch of a
farmers' group called Beyond 2000 Movement.

where hundreds of mainly white-owned farms have been seized by veterans of
the 1970s liberation war with the support of President Robert Mugabe's
government.

Although Namibia has suffered no farm invasions, farmers fear landless
people will soon grow impatient with the slow pace of reform. Since
independence from South Africa in 1990, only about 35,000 Namibians have
been resettled on commercial farmland. Some 243,000 are still waiting for
land and to resettle them the government needs millions of dollars to buy
9.5 million hectares. Namibia has 4,045 commercial farms. About 30.5
million hectares of land is owned by white farmers and only 2.2 million
hectares by black farmers, according to government statistics. Indigenous
Namibian tribal groups, such as the Hereros and Namas, lost almost their
entire arable land during the 1904-07 colonial war with Germany. Namibia,
formerly South West Africa, became a South African protectorate when
Germany lost World War One. Katjiuongua said his movement would push for
taxes on surplus or excessive land and wants the government to engage
independent evaluators for a willing-seller willing-buyer plan.

SOUTH AFRICA: Free water allowance for 23 million people

More than half of the South African population began receiving a free
basic water allowance from 1 July, according to news reports. In a
statement issued to mark the official start of the government's policy to
supply households with a basic six kilolitres of water for free each
month, Water Affairs and Forestry Minister Ronnie Kasrils said 23 million
people already enjoyed the benefit. A further 15 million South Africans
lived in areas where municipalities had either not yet decided to
implement the policy, or were in the process of doing so, he said. "The
department will now be focusing on assisting those local authorities still
having to implement the policy," Kasrils added. Provincial support units
were in place to help in this regard. "I need to emphasis that consumers
should continue paying for water until their respective local governments
have informed them of their arrangements. In many of the rural areas, the
department is still the water service provider, and although water is
provided free, there is often inadequate control over the actual usage.
The department will continue to transfer water schemes to local
authorities, assisting them to manage these schemes, but also to enable
them to provide free basic water," Kasrils said.

SOUTHERN AFRICA: SADC free trade process to begin in August

Implementation of the commercial protocol to establish a free trade zone
in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) should begin in
August, according to Mozambican trade and industry minister Carlos
Morgado. SAPA reported on Tuesday that Morgado made the announcement on
the sidelines of yet another negotiating round on the application of the
protocol. The talks were attended by his 13 SADC counterpart ministers,
the report said. According to the report, the ministers met to ensure that
the protocol's application would be made on a "real and practical basis",
so that it could be launched within the set deadlines "which should be no
later than 7 August", said Morgado. He specified that the Mozambican
government had already approved the application of the protocol and
various amendments, and had informed the SADC that it would be ready to
begin the process on 1 August. The SADC commercial protocol anticipates
free circulation of goods via the elimination of customs duties among
member-countries within eight years' time. It was signed in August 1996
and followed by negotiations on tariffs, some details of which are still
under discussion.

ZAMBIA: Civil servants end strike before OAU summit

Civil servants ended a six-week strike on Monday after the government
agreed to hefty pay rises to avert a stand-off during an Organisation of
African Unity (OAU) summit in Lusaka next week, Reuters has reported.
Nearly 150,000 public sector employees, including teachers, local council
and court employees, would receive pay hikes ranging from 81 to 91 percent
in terms of the agreement, the report said. "The strike has been called
off with immediate effect," Civil Servants' Union leader Leonard Hikaumba
was quoted saying. Hikaumba, however, also warned the government not to
renege on its agreement after the OAU summit, which begins with a
ministerial session on 7 July. The heads of state converge on the Zambian
capital on 9 July.

The unions had demanded salary increases of between 100 and 250 percent,
but union leaders said they would probably call for further adjustments
later in the year. Zambia was one of the poorest countries in the world
and civil service salaries averaged between US $50 and US $71 a month, the
report said. An average monthly bill for water and electricity is US $60,
it added. The strike had hit public services hard, with hospitals manned
by skeleton staff, court cases postponed and teachers staying away from
schools. Senior OAU officials were quoted in the report saying that they
had urged Zambian President Frederick Chiluba to resolve the strike
because it posed a security threat to the summit.

Key politician assassinated

The former campaign manager of Zambian President Frederick Chiluba has
been murdered in front of his horrified wife, Reuters reported on Friday,
quoting his lawyers and family. Paul Tembo, 41, was due to give evidence
on Friday at a tribunal investigating corruption and abuse of office by
three cabinet ministers. "The killers forced their way into the compound,
roughed up Paul, led him to his bed, made him lie on it and then shot him
in the back of the head," Mr Tembo's lawyer Mutembo Nchito told Reuters.
"They made his wife watch," Mr Nchito added. Tembo headed President
Chiluba's re-election campaign in 1996 and led a failed bid by the
president to extend his time in office to an unconstitutional third
five-year term.


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