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

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SOUTHERN AFRICA
IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 31
4-10 August 2001


CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE: White farmers arrested
SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: Mbeki says he failed on Zimbabwe
SOUTH AFRICA: Troop pledge for Burundi
ANGOLA: Government tries to identify five million children
ZAMBIA-ANGOLA: IRIN Focus on border trade
ZAMBIA: UNHCR tackles HIV/AIDS in refugee camps
COMOROS: Soldiers oust separatist leader in Anjouan
SWAZILAND: King calls meeting on constitution
MALAWI: Corruption could endanger HIPC support
NAMIBIA: Defence ministry admits to deaths against UNITA


ZIMBABWE: White farmers arrested

The situation in Zimbabwe deteriorated even further this week when 21
white commercial farmers in the town of Chinhoyi, 120 km northeast of
Harare, were arrested and charged with inciting public violence following
clashes on a white-owned farm occupied by war veterans and ZANU-PF party
supporters. The 21 were once more remanded in custody until Friday when a
magistrate will rule on their bail application. Reports on Friday said
that white families were fleeing their farms. Between 10 and 40 families
are reported to have left their homes near the town of Chinhoyi after
being attacked by groups of government supporters.

On Wednesday supporters from President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party
threatened to attack the farmers if they were set free. "Chinhoyi and the
surrounding districts are very volatile, it's a virtual no-go area for
whites right now," Lewis Machipisa a journalist at the hearing told IRIN
said. "A mob of about 200 youths chased away white foreign reporters from
the court premises before the hearing, threatening to beat them up," he
added.

Fears of a state of emergency

On Thursday the 'Financial Gazette' said that the government was
considering declaring a state of emergency if a threat by the
international community to impose sanctions against Mugabe and senior
government officials goes ahead. The newspaper alleged that the approval
last week by the US Senate of the Zimbabwe Democracy Bill had re-ignited a
debate within the cabinet as to whether or not a state of emergency should
be declared. The Zimbabwe Democracy Bill has yet to be endorsed by the US
Congress and President George W Bush. The bill specifically targets Mugabe
and senior government officials for the alleged role in the promotion of
violence and lawlessness.


Home Affairs Minister John Nkomo told the newspaper that the government
hadn't ruled out a state of emergency and if Zimbabwe came under "siege"
it would have to "devise strategies to survive".  "We hope the situation
won't reach the sanctions level, but if we are under siege, we have to
employ strategies to survive. We cannot lie and down and mourn," he said.
"As for declaring a state of emergency, I cannot say anything at the
moment. We will cross that bridge when we reach it."

Civic groups lambaste Mugabe

Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's leading civic groups at the weekend called for an
end to political violence, economic decay and land reforms and stressed
the need for free and fair presidential polls next year.  At the end of a
one-day conference on Saturday called "Crisis in Zimbabwe" an estimated
500 delegates from development agencies, professional associations, church
and human rights groups, labour and student unions urged Mugabe to set a
programme that would guarantee a free and fair poll. They agreed that the
crises facing Zimbabwe needed to be resolved immediately before the
country slid into an abyss.

"The conference believes that the crises in Zimbabwe must be resolved
immediately before the country descends into chaos," a resolution by the
group was quoted as saying. "We reserve the democratic right to engage in
civic action, including civil disobedience, if government refuses to
accede to the demands of this conference or to engage in meaningful
discussion on these demands." Conference spokesman Brian Raftopoulos was
quoted as saying that the "chances of an internationally acceptable
presidential election taking place in Zimbabwe (were) looking bleak".
"Therefore the need for intensified pressure at national, regional and
international levels for the creation of conditions for a legitimate
election process to take place in Zimbabwe in 2002, is of paramount
importance," he said.

By-election not free or fair - MDC

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) claimed this week that
last weekends' by-election, won by the ruling ZANU-PF, in the rural
constituency of Bindura, 35 km north of Harare, was neither free or fair.
The MDC's secretary general, Welshman Ncube said that voters in Bindura
were "enclosed in concentration camp like conditions". "The commercial
farming of Bindura was a no-go area for us," Ncube said. He said that MDC
supporters were beaten up and that the party was prevented from
campaigning in the area. The Zimbabwean deputy high commissioner in South
Africa, Danson Mudekunye, denied the reports of intimidation and the
allegation that elections were not free and fair. He pointed out that
European Union (EU) monitors were present during the elections: "If the
MDC had won, then the election would have been free and fair," he was
quoted as saying. ZANU-PF's Elliot Manyika defeated MDC candidate Elliot
Pfebve by polling 15,864 votes, 6,408 more than his rival.

Bread prices double since January

The bread price increased again this week, the seventh price hike in as
many months. The price of bread is now double what it was in January. A
standard loaf of white bread now costs around 50 Zimbabwean dollars (US
$0.90) up from 23 Zimbabwean dollars (US $0.42) in January this year. The
consumer council condemned the bread price hike, which bakers blame on
rising cost of inputs - flour, sugar, yeast, labour and fuels. "Consumer
Council (of Zimbabwe) strongly protests against unjustified monthly price
hikes of basic commodities," said CCZ director Elizabeth Nerwande. A 30
percent hike in the price of bread sparked riots in the capital in October
last year.

Prices of basic commodities, including fuels have also doubled, in some
cases tripled in the last 18 months as Zimbabwe goes through its worst
economic crisis. "Consumers cannot finance the economic crisis forever,"
said Nerwande in a statement.

South Africa to assist with maize supplies

South Africa's agriculture department has confirmed that if necessary, it
would assist Zimbabwe with supplies of maize and wheat. SABC radio
reported that in a written reply to a question in the National Assembly,
Agriculture and Land Affairs Minister Thoko Didiza said her department had
been informed of expected food shortages in Zimbabwe. Didiza said South
Africa would have 9,000 mt of maize ready to be exported to Zimbabwe and
the country may be able to export 54,000 mt of wheat besides its normal
export commitments.

Independent press lashed again

Information minister, Jonathan Moyo has again lashed out at the
independent media in Zimbabwe accusing the editor and journalists of the
'Zimbabwe Independent' of "colluding" with foreign correspondents
especially journalists from the BBC, the Media Institute of Southern
Africa (MISA) said in an update on Thursday. MISA quoted Moyo as saying
that BBC was "colluding" with the newspaper in sourcing its stories and
"tarnishing" the government. According to MISA Moyo alleged that the
editor of the 'Zimbabwe Independent' Iden Wetherell had published an off
the record conversation that Moyo had with the BBC. "The newspaper he
edits is forever flippant insulting in all its coverage of Africans except
sell outs and uncle Toms. Even their senior reporters like Dumisani Muleya
write stories in which nouns are always personalised and in which all
verbs are replaced by insulting adjectives," Moyo was quoted as saying. A
spokesman from the media monitoring project in Harare told IRIN on
Thursday that Moyo's latest "attack" on the independent media was "part of
a campaign by the minister to justify upcoming legislation to discredit
the independent media". "This is part of a campaign by Moyo to place even
more restrictions on independent journalism in Zimbabwe," he said.

SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE: Mbeki says he failed on Zimbabwe

South African President Thabo Mbeki said in an interview broadcast on
Monday that his efforts to avoid political, social and economic collapse
in Zimbabwe had failed. Mbeki told BBC's 'Hard Talk' that the total
collapse of Zimbabwe was the greatest threat to South Africa and the rest
of the region. Mbeki added that he hoped a new Commonwealth initiative
would help Zimbabwe. "We sit across the border from Zimbabwe, and critical
for South Africa must surely be that we don't have a situation that the
IMF warned about at the beginning of this year: a meltdown in Zimbabwe."
Mbeki said he did not know why his efforts to persuade Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe to moderate his actions had not been effective. "What I know
is that we can't afford the complete collapse of Zimbabwe on our borders,
so we have got to try and do whatever we can," Mbeki said.

The president added that sanctions against Mugabe, who is facing
presidential elections next year, could hasten the collapse of the
country. "Sure, time is running out. Which means we have got to act
quickly and continue to say it is important to respond positively to these
issues," he said. "There is a land problem in Zimbabwe, there is need for
land redistribution, but it must be handled differently, without violence,
without conflict, within the context of the law, bearing in mind the
interests of all Zimbabweans, both black and white."

SOUTH AFRICA: Troop pledge for Burundi

South Africa is considering sending soldiers as part of a peacekeeping
force for Burundi - regardless of whether armed rebels agree to a
ceasefire or not, news reports said on Thursday. Deputy President Jacob
Zuma was quoted as saying that ex-president Nelson Mandela had asked that
South Africa join a peacekeeping operation in the central African country.
The general role of the force would be "to ensure that nobody violates the
peace", Zuma said. Zuma added that he was "very hopeful" that negotiations
with the two rebel groups for a ceasefire would succeed before a peace
force is deployed by 1 November. "That is really what we are looking for,"
Zuma said. However, Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota is still discussing
the details with his counterparts from Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal, who
have also agreed to contribute troops to the force, reports said.

ANGOLA: Government tries to identify five million children

The Angolan government on Tuesday launched an 18-month campaign to
register and identify an estimated five million children and teenagers,
many of them separated from their families by the civil war.  Justice
Minister Paulo Chipilika said the government intended to issue birth
certificates and other identity documents to everyone aged up to 17. More
than three million people, about a quarter of Angola's estimated
population have been driven from their homes by the two-decade war between
the army and the UNITA rebel group. Many people have lost their documents
and the rebels have ransacked government offices in towns and villages
across the country, destroying public records, Chipilika said. Continued
fighting in rural areas will likely hinder the campaign. About half of
Angola's population is aged under 18, according to UNICEF. Almost three in
every 10 Angolan children die before they are five, mostly due to
malnutrition and disease, UNICEF estimated.

In an interview this week Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF told
IRIN that the Angolan government had to take the lead in investing in the
future of the country's children. Bellamy said that donors,
non-governmental organisations and the UN should continue to play a role -
even if humanitarian intervention could provide only a short-term
solution.

"There is a failure of adequate investment in basic services - education
and health," Bellamy said. "This is a government that needs to do more.
That being said, it's a country that's been at war," the UNICEF Executive
Director continued. "War has taken on a new face in the world today - a
civilian, human face, not a military face, because war hits children and
women the hardest."

"The registration of a child may be on one the cornerstones of ensuring
that the rights of children are ultimately realised," Bellamy said,
pointing out that a lack of registration meant children missed out on what
health and education services were available - as well as becoming
vulnerable to being drafted into the armed forces.

For IRIN's interview with Carol Bellamy please go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/safp.phtml

New refugee influx in Cuanza Norte

About 1,100 civil war refugees have crossed into Angola's Cuanza Norte
province, fleeing military instability and food shortages in their home
areas of South Cuanza province. Reports indicate that many more refugees
are on the way, coming from the villages of Munenga and Cabuta in the
Libolo district of Cuanza Sul. The new arrivals have concentrated on the
outskirts of the Cuanza Norte town of Dondo, about 150 km southeast of the
capital Luanda, where they have yet to receive any humanitarian
assistance, reports said. The soba (traditional authority) of Cabuta,
Antonio Lucas, said on Monday that food, medicine and shelters were
urgently needed. "The people are fleeing from hunger, but mainly from
frequent skirmishes between government forces and UNITA (rebels)", he
said. Elsewhere in Cuanza Norte, 900 refugees fleeing fighting in the
Samba-Lucala and Samba-Caju districts have in the last few days reportedly
reached the town of Lucala, about 270 km east of Luanda. Cuanza Norte
province currently shelters about 135,000 civil war refugees, most of them
from the neighbouring provinces of Uige, Malange and South Cuanza.

Reports this week also said that there had been heavy fighting in the
northern part of the central highland's province of Bie. They said that
fighting was concentrated around Gamba, a village in the Nharea district
about 100 km north of the provincial capital, Kuito. One report quoted
humanitarian sources as saying that more than 3,000 residents had fled
Gamba in recent days. Meanwhile, the official news agency Angop said that
two children were killed by an explosion on Tuesday in the central Angolan
city of Huambo. Another child was seriously injured in the blast, the
report added. There were no details on the origin of the explosion.

ZAMBIA-ANGOLA: IRIN Focus on border trade

An IRIN focus report this week looked at the cross-border trade between
Zambia and Angola. Historically, Angola's remote eastern provinces of
Moxico and Cuando Cubango have been rebel strongholds. UNITA soldiers
share kinship ties with communities across the border in Zambia, and up
until Angolan independence in 1975, Lusaka backed Jonas Savimbi's rebel
movement. The unsubstantiated stories in Mongu - 280 km away - are of
senior UNITA officers seen shopping for supplies, and the alleged
endurance of the unofficial links between UNITA and senior Zambian
officials has been repeatedly protested by Luanda.

Shangombo, in western Zambia, is one of the places along the long border
where UNITA-mined diamonds are brought into Zambia and traded. It is
difficult to get an accurate assessment of the scale of a business which,
as a subject of international sanctions and Angola's extreme annoyance, is
necessarily clandestine. But official sources who asked to remain
anonymous told IRIN that the trade this year has been modest, with only
small, low quality stones available and in most cases no buyers were
found. What passes for legitimate trade in Shangombo is mostly barter.
Officially, around 20 or 30 Angolan peasants a week cross into the town to
grind their corn or sell maize, sometimes swapped for second-hand clothes.
Previously, rebels would also come in for medical treatment or to buy
drugs. But what is clear from the two-hour bone-rattling journey in a 4x4
from the Zambian settlement of Nangweshi on the western bank of the
Zambezi river to Shangombo, is that people do slip across the porous
border. And judging by the way they dart into the bush when approached,
would prefer to remain undetected.

"There are too many spontaneous refugees in the area, and we are afraid
because we don't know what they are carrying - they could be carrying
weapons," Shangombo's District Administrator Dominic Simuchinga told IRIN.
"They are very free, they move from the refugee camps, do some odd jobs,
but really we don't know what they are doing." He admitted that the local
authorities, despite the bolstered presence of the Zambian army along the
border, were "intimidated" by UNITA, who in the past have abducted Zambian
villagers. "If we say nobody can cross there could be trouble for us,"
Simuchinga said flatly. Another government official noted that Zambia was
"trying to maintain our neutrality" by avoiding contact with the rebels
all together. "The [military] situation is not as good as we would want,
in fact it's bad," acknowledged Manuel Armando Chibia, deputy consul in
the Angolan consulate in Zambia's western provincial capital of Mongu.
"Moxico's population is very small and the province is very vast. It makes
it very difficult to control the border areas."

An IRIN focus report on Zambian-Angolan cross-border trade can be found
at: http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/zambia/20010809.phtml

ZAMBIA: UNHCR tackles HIV/AIDS in refugee camps

No scientific studies into the prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection among
refugees has been carried out so far, but experts assume that displaced
people separated from their families and with no independent source of
income, may be more susceptible to the threat of HIV/AIDS than other
groups. the refugee population has so far being excluded from
interventions aimed at slowing down the rate of HIV-infection. A concerted
campaign targeted at the youth in Zambia that is credited with curbing the
rate of HIV-infection among urban teenagers, for example, has not been
extended to the refugee camps.

Consequently, UNHCR in Zambia has embarked on an aggressive anti-AIDS
campaign targeted at slowing down the rate of HIV-infection in the refugee
camps. Working with an initial budget of US $200,000, the UN agency will
conduct studies into the prevalence of HIV/AIDS infection among refugees.
It will also conduct a concerted awareness campaign to discourage the
spread of HIV/AIDS in the camps. "Among other things, we will set up youth
clubs to educate the refugee population about HIV/AIDS and reproductive
health. We will also intensify the condom distribution exercise in the
camps," UNHCR public information assistant Kelvin Shimo told IRIN. Several
other humanitarian organisations, including Care International and the
local Family Health Trust are working with UNHCR in the anti-AIDS drive
among refugees.

Zambia has the highest number of refugees in southern Africa, most of them
from Angola and the DRC, and the numbers continue to rise every month as
fighting in the two countries persists. According to new statistics
released by UNHCR in June, the total number of refugees in the country
rose by around 3,000 to around 258,000 over the past year. The refugees
include some 200,000 Angolans and around 50,000 Congolese, as well as
several thousand from Burundi and Rwanda. Most of them live in long-term
refugee camps in northern and western Zambia.

For a more detailed IRIN report on UNHCR's efforts please go to:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/zambia/20010809a.phtml

COMOROS: Soldiers oust separatist leader in Anjouan

The army on the break-away island of Anjouan have deposed colonel Said
Abeid, who this year entered into a reconciliation agreement with the
federal authorities in Comoros, diplomatic sources in the Comoros capital
of Moroni told IRIN. One diplomatic source said the diplomatic community
met on Friday morning at the Organisation for African Unity's (OAU) office
to exchange information and decide on a joint move. "The participants of
the meeting then went to the Prime Minister's office to have the official
views and position of the government in Moroni on the situation," he said.
"The authorities displayed a lot of serenity and informed the diplomatic
community that they were in contact with the committee in Anjouan and with
Lt Colonel Abeid who is safe and involved in finding a solution."

SWAZILAND: King calls meeting on constitution

Reports said on Friday that thousands of Swazis had heeded King Mswati III
call for a national gathering to discuss the country's constitution.
Meetings called by the king at the Ludzidzi cattle kraal are traditionally
meant for announcements of national importance. Mswati was expected to
deliver a report on constitutional changes recommended by his hand-picked
Constitutional Review Commission of royals, loyalists and politicians seen
as strong supporters of his autocratic regime.

The umbrella organisation of People's United Democratic Movement is
campaigning for the boycott of the gathering. The movement's spokesperson,
Sandile Phakathi said on Thursday his organisation had rejected the CRC
since its inception in 1996 as an unrepresentative body and that there was
no way they would support Mswati's Friday gathering. Phakathi said the
commission's activities were done behind closed doors and organisations
were not allowed to make contributions. The movement has been calling on
the Swazis to stay away from the gathering which it says will only be
representative of royalists.

Mswati issued a decree in June that stripped the courts of their
independence, allowed newspapers to be banned without reason and
prohibited people from criticising the monarchy. Following international
pressure, Mswati last month cancelled many of the decree's harsher
provisions.

MALAWI: Corruption could endanger HIPC support

World Bank Resident Representative in Lilongwe Robert Liebenthal has said
that there is a need for government to adhere to established poverty
reduction programmes. Liebenthal emphasised that any serious departure on
International Monitory Fund (IMF) and World Bank supported poverty
initiatives will put Malawi's Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative
(HIPC) qualification in jeopardy. He was speaking at a HIPC Initiative
Conference in Lilongwe on Friday which was convened by the Economic
Association of Malawi (ECAMA) in conjunction with UNICEF to discuss the
effects of HIPC relief that Malawi is supposed to enjoy. Civil society
organisations at the meeting last Friday took government to task for it's
failure to properly account for the money. Deputy Finance Minister Jaan
Sonke said HIPC money had been used in purchasing drugs, training nurses
and for primary health care, civil organisations said the information was
not comprehensive enough.

NAMIBIA: Defence ministry admits to deaths against UNITA

The Namibian ministry of defence has admitted that two Namibian soldiers
died fighting suspected UNITA rebels in southern Angola last month, 'The
Namibian' said on Monday. The newspaper said that the ministry made the
revelation in a press statement responding to a claim by the National
Society for Human Rights (NSHR) that eight Namibian Defence Force (NDF)
soldiers had been killed in combat with UNITA on 21 July. "The true fact
is that, only two NDF soldiers died and three [were] wounded contrary to
NSHR report," NDF spokesman Vincent Mwange was quoted as saying. "There is
absolutely no truth" in the NSHR report that "injured soldiers and the
dead were carried for seven days to a place where they could be picked up
by a helicopter. The NDF has a well-trained and equipped force with all
the military components in place," Mwange added. "Our dead and wounded
soldiers were evacuated on time and not after seven days as alleged by the
NSHR press release."

Last week the NSHR said in a statement that eight NDF soldiers were killed
at Licua in southeastern Angola about 150 km northeast of the Namibian
border town of Rundu.


IRIN-SA - Tel: +2711 880 4633 Fax: +2711 447 5472 e-mail:
irin-sa@irin.org.za


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