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 35
1-7 September 2001


CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE:
Breakthrough land deal in Abuja
Government accepts land offer from white farmers
Growing calls to help destitute farm workers
Severe food shortages in Midlands and Matabeleland South

ANGOLA:
WFP warns of food shortages
Mortality rates remain high
More than 30 die in ambush

SOUTH AFRICA:
Tourism uplifts rural communities
Commitment as important as resources say teachers
Concern over farm attacks
The problem is housing not land - Mbeki

MALAWI:
Food shortages affecting large parts of the country

ZAMBIA:
Maize exports banned
Violence mars by-election

NAMIBIA:
Troop pull-out applauded

SWAZILAND:
Court victory for newspaper

ZIMBABWE: Breakthrough land deal in Abuja

Commonwealth leaders have welcomed Zimbabwe's promise to take sweeping
measures to halt the violent occupation of white-owned farms that has
alarmed the international community, agencies reported on Friday. Under
the agreement, reached in the Nigerian capital Abuja, Zimbabwe has been
promised funding for its land redistribution programme in exchange for
restoring the rule of law. The deal was reached after African nations
added their voices to international concerns about the situation in
Zimbabwe. The crisis in Zimbabwe, says the agreement, poses a threat to
the stability of the entire sub-region and the continent at large.

But Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon told the BBC that while it
was good news in principle, the government in Zimbabwe now had to act on
its promises. McKinnon said: "It is a matter now of ensuring
implementation of the deal and that means a greater grip on the rule of
law." Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of Zimbabwe's opposition Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC) party, said: "I believe that everyone is agreed
that land reform is imperative, but under the conditions of law and order.

The agreement sets the stage for next week's Southern African Development
Community (SADC) meeting in Harare. Lindiwe Sisulu, chief director of
equatorial Africa and Indian Ocean islands in South Africa's foreign
affairs department, told IRIN: "Abuja created a better environment for the
Harare meeting. They (leaders meeting there) don't have to go back to the
issues that were discussed in Abuja. They now actually have to look ahead
and say (to Zimbabwe) 'you have agreed that this is what you are going to
do, how is this going to happen'?"

The leaders gathering in Harare were directed by the SADC summit in
Blantyre last month to meet various stakeholders in Zimbabwe with the aim
of resolving its economic, political and social crises. South African
President Thabo Mbeki is expected to be joined by the presidents of
Botswana, Malawi, Angola and Namibia. Senior officials from their
governments were in Harare last week paving the way for the meeting. "The
SADC meeting will have to be a practical one. It will have to be about
cementing the agreement in Abuja and emerging with a programme
satisfactory to all," Sisulu said. There was hope that the leaders would
leave Harare "with a concrete plan", she said.

For the full text of the agreement, see:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_1530000/1530132.stm

Government accepts land offer from white farmers

The Abuja deal followed an agreement over land on Wednesday between the
Zimbabwean government and white farmers, Reuters reported. In May the
mainly white Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) had offered to sell about one
million hectares of land to resettle about 20,000 black families,
according to the report. After government declined the offer several
times, Zimbabwean Vice President Joseph Msika said on Wednesday that most
of the 531 farms offered by the CFU were already earmarked for acquisition
under the government's fast-track resettlement programme.

But, according to the report, the CFU had offered to drop legal challenges
to the acquisitions and to help organise financing for resettled farmers
as part of the deal. "This means precious time will not be wasted in
needless legal battles which only serve to polarise our society and cost
us dearly through loss of production time," Msika was quoted as saying.
The government has earmarked about 5,000 white-owned farms for acquisition
and redistribution to black peasants and has said it wants about 8 million
hectares of land. "This (CFU offer) is a complementary programme. We are
pursuing our fast-track resettlement programme, but we are happy to
establish this new understanding with our farmers," Msika was quoted as
saying.

According to the report, the farmers said their proposal would allow
Zimbabwe to lay out a land reform scheme acceptable to international
donors. Mugabe has said his government can only pay compensation for
white-owned land if it receives donor funding. "We know that much still
needs to be done, but what we are saying is that we can work within this
framework," CFU spokesman Malcolm Vowles was quoted as saying. Zimbabwe
has been in crisis since February last year when self-styled war veterans,
encouraged by President Mugabe's government, invaded hundreds of
white-owned farms across the country. The land invasions have crippled
agricultural production and worsened Zimbabwe's economic recession, now in
its third year.

Growing calls to help destitute farm workers

While the two agreements reached this week over land could be a solution
to the crisis in Zimbabwe, the situation in rural areas steadily worsened.
The growing number of farm workers displaced by land invasions has
prompted agricultural groups to call for immediate humanitarian assistance
to deal with the crisis. "There's certainly a role here for international
organisations, these people urgently need feeding programmes and shelter,"
Godfrey Magaramombe of the Farm Community Trust (FCT), a Harare-based NGO,
told IRIN on Tuesday.

Magaramombe said that those evicted were now living in appalling
conditions in makeshift camps and squatter settlements along main roads.
Evicted farm workers have told FCT that after being labelled opposition
supporters by war veterans, they are then told not just to leave the
farms, but to leave the area completely. The Commercial Farmers Union
(CFU) told IRIN that it was also extremely concerned about the plight of
evicted farm workers. The organisation has begun collecting donations from
its members to try and offer some support to the growing number of
displaced. "We've got some food, blankets and (plastic) sheeting up to
them in Hwedza but it's a drop in the ocean," Ewen Rogers of the CFU's
labour bureau said.

Rogers wants to see agencies like the World Food Programme (WFP)
initiating feeding schemes in places like Hwedza. "If there was a natural
disaster to blame for this crisis, the international community would
respond, so why not in this case?" he asked. Other CFU officials told IRIN
that the Zimbabwean government was unlikely to agree to international
humanitarian assistance because it "would show the world the human cost of
Mugabe's land policy". In a statement released on Wednesday, UNDP and the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs said they have agreed that: "UNDP would
consider facilitating formulation of a programme for relief and immediate
social needs of vulnerable groups in rural and urban areas for possible
support by donors".

For the full IRIN story:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/zimbabwe/20010904.phtml

Severe food shortages in Midlands and Matabeleland South

Concern is also growing over the food situation in rural Zimbabwe. World
Vision International (WVI) said on Wednesday that severe food shortages
were affecting large parts of the Midlands and Matabeleland South
provinces, with the Bulilimamangwe district in Matabeleland South near the
Botswana border being one of the worst affected areas. "The food shortages
have been largely drought induced," Marko Ngwenya from WVI in Harare told
IRIN. "First we had cyclone Eline and then the drought, so for quite some
time the area has not experienced consistent rainfall," she said. "We have
to remember that we are talking about communal farming areas, not
commercial farms. So most farming is done for subsistence purposes, so if
there is no rain there is no food."

During a recent food assessment mission to the two provinces, WVI found
that in seven districts targeted by WVI for food assistance, over 50
percent of the population had no livestock, no reliable source of income,
no agricultural implements, and with very little grain production taking
place. "We have been unable to carry out a detailed nutrition survey, but
from very rudimentary findings we can say that the nutrition situation is
quite bad obviously because of the lack of food," Ngwenya said. WVI said
in its food assessment that it recommended that some form of food
distribution begin in September until May, when most people would begin
harvesting their crops. "We are currently in discussion with other
agencies to see how we will go-about the food distribution, but our
intension is to begin as soon as possible," Ngwenya added.

ANGOLA: WFP warns of food shortages

The UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned on Friday that unless relief food
donations are pledged within the next four weeks for Angola, food supplies
will start to run out, threatening at least one million people with
serious malnutrition over the months ahead.

Insecurity in many parts of the country has forced thousands of people to
flee their homes, or to remain in temporary shelters, where they have
limited access to arable land, and are consequently unable to feed
themselves, WFP said in a statement. In addition, in the last months, an
increase in military activity in the country's interior has severely
limited WFP's access to areas outside the provincial capitals, where
nutrition levels have reportedly declined. This has caused the steady
influx of people to the nation's main urban centers where there is some
degree of security, and where WFP's presence offers the possibility of
food aid, the statement said.

"It is a sheer battle - every month - to secure enough food to prevent
people from going hungry," noted Ronald Sibanda, Country Director for WFP
Angola. "Looming ahead is a massive hole in our supply line which will hit
hard in January next year. It will be impossible to avoid hunger becoming
rife malnutrition unless donations come rapidly forward."

Mortality rates remain high

In a related development, the UN's Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its monthly report this week that
mortality rates in Angola remained high in July, especially among
displaced populations in crowded camps and transit centres where access to
adequate water and sanitation systems are limited. On malnutrition rates,
OCHA said that communities with access to agricultural land benefited from
the seasonal harvest, although the nutritional status of vulnerable
populations in many areas remained "fragile".

"Malnutrition rates tended to be highest in areas with large influxes of
newly displaced populations, as indicated by nutritional screenings
conducted in Kuito, Cuima in Huambo province and Luena in Moxico
province," the report said. It added that according to a Medecins sans
Frontieres-Belgium nutritional survey on 2 July, the average global
malnutrition rate of IDPs in Kuito remained high, at 13 percent. "Malaria,
acute respiratory infections and diarrhoeic diseases remain the most
prevalent illnesses and cause of death. The precarious health situation
continued to be exacerbated by limited supplies of essential medicines and
understaffed health facilities," the report said.

OCHA said that relief agencies also continue to face logistical
constraints. According to OCHA, the "extremely poor condition" of the
runway in Kuito continues to hamper the delivery of humanitarian
assistance. In Kuando Kubango, insecurity, poor road conditions and the
lack of transport delayed the resettlement of about 14,000 IDPs from Kuito
Kuanavale to other areas. In Malanje a lack of fuel in July continued to
restrict humanitarian activities, mainly demining and resettlement.
Flights to Uige had to be reduced, hampering the delivery of humanitarian
assistance, because airstrips in Uige city and Negage were being repaired.

More than 30 die in ambush

A suspected UNITA rebel attack on a convoy of civilian buses on Saturday
killed at least 38 people and wounded 52 others, Angolan state radio
reported. The BBC said on Monday that the attack took place near Sumbe in
Kwanza Sul, about 300 km from the capital, Luanda. Twelve soldiers were
killed in an attack on a military vehicle on the same road last week and
UNITA claimed responsibility for another attack not too far away on a
train three weeks ago. More than 250 people died in that attack.

A survivor of Saturday's ambush told state news agency Angop that a group
of men, some of them in uniform, had attacked their convoy of two buses
and a minibus about 48 km from Sumbe. The survivor was quoted as saying
that about 20 armed men opened fire on the convoy and robbed passengers of
their possessions before setting alight the three vehicles.

SOUTH AFRICA: Tourism uplifts rural communities

Game reserves are often viewed by people living in the vicinity as rich
playgrounds amid a sea of poverty. They may provide employment, but
traditionally that's where the relationship and benefits stop. But
organisations like CCAfrica and its non-profit making offshoot the Africa
Foundation, have shown that with careful management, international tourism
can integrate with rural people in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Turning this philosophy into sustainable programmes has not been easy, but
it is clear that where it has worked, it has brought tangible benefits to
many villages inside or next to some of South Africa's most prestigious
wildlife reserves.

At the village of Luphisi, near Bongani reserve in Mpumalanga province,
school principal Elphus Mhlanga told IRIN that the school has just opened
a media centre, complete with computers and a video that he hoped would
enable the isolated settlement to connect to the global village. "Some
Canadians staying at the lodge visited us, saw the need and went home and
fundraised for these computers, it's going to change our village " he
said. "We're so lucky to have computers, no other school has anything like
this," one Luphisi pupil told IRIN. Chief for the area, Chief Sicelo
Nkosi, said the school could now be classified as one of the best equipped
in the country. "

I think more tourists who want this kind of experience also want to see
the realities on the ground and in some cases give something back,"
visiting African-American Viv Jones told IRIN. It's this kind of
interaction that has led to more than US $1 million worth of investment in
rural communities adjacent to the 17,000 hectare Phinda reserve in
neighbouring KwaZulu-Natal. "Communities around Phinda have done very well
out the kind of projects started by the Africa Foundation," Angus Begg,
editor of a leading South African travel website told IRIN. He pointed out
that one community next to Phinda was about to open it's own small reserve
"with accommodation and game vehicles, now that's progress".

For the full IRIN story:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/southafrica/20010906.phtml

Commitment as important as resources say teachers

In a related development, South African teachers told IRIN this week that
commitment was as important as resources. With two months to go before the
start of South Africa's school-leaving matric examinations, education
authority tests show widespread failures in mathematics, physical science
and biology. The tests were written at schools that had under 50 percent
passes in last year's exams.

Department officials in the province of KwaZulu-Natal told IRIN that
despite intervention programmes, the combined effect of poor resourcing,
under-qualified and under-motivated teachers and underprivileged students
for many of whom English is a foreign language, result in low pass rates.
Education accounts for the highest proportion of social services spending
in South Africa. However, the historical legacy of under-funding means
deep structural inequalities. In 1994 black schools received only about
one-fifth of state funding enjoyed by white schools.

The impact of these differences are felt most in rural areas where
crumbling school buildings and overcrowded classes are common. But some
rural schools are bucking trends and producing startling matric results
with few resources. One of them is Myeka Secondary School, which lies at
the end of a 30 km dirt road in Inanda, outside Durban. It is an
institution that against the odds is producing consistently high matric
results. The school even has it's own computer centre, powered by solar
electricity - connected to the internet via a cellphone. "We've had huge
problems here, but in the end it comes down to our great teachers," Melusi
Zwane, principal of Myeka school, told IRIN.

Zwane is part of a growing group of educators in South Africa who believe
that committed teaching staff with a shared vision can surmount many of
the obstacles in the way of academic success. Bongi Peyana is principal of
a school in the impoverished Eastern Cape that had an appalling 3.3
percent matric pass rate in 1997. Last year, 93 percent of his pupils at
Sandi Secondary School near Umtata passed the exam. He told IRIN that
stunned provincial education officials could not understand how he had
managed to turn the school around in just three years.

For the full IRIN story:
http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/sa/countrystories/southafrica/20010903.phtml

Concern over farm attacks

Farm attacks and other crimes in South Africa's Northern Province "could
increase" if former Zimbabwean farm workers currently living in the area
are repatriated in line with a Home Affairs ruling, SAPA reported security
personnel as warning.  The Home Affairs department ruled that
approximately 16,000 foreign farm workers, currently in possession of
valid work permits, must be sent back to their country of origin by 15
October. The department said they must make way for unemployed South
Africans. But Colonel Tol Snyman, commander of the Soutpansberg Military
Area, alleged that repatriating the workers could put 16,000 potential
criminals on the streets.

"Until such time as something is done about Zimbabwe's economic situation,
it will be useless to repatriate these people," he insisted. Snyman said
that in reality the ruling means that the workers will return to South
Africa to find work illegally elsewhere.

The problem is housing not land - Mbeki

Meanwhile, South African President Thabo Mbeki said that at the weekend
that illegal land occupations in the country were because of a shortage of
houses and not a demand for land as was the case in Zimbabwe. "The issue
that we have seen more recently in South Africa with regard to this has
not been a land question - it's been a housing issue," Mbeki told Reuters
in an interview.

Speaking on Sunday on the sidelines of the UN World Conference Against
Racism (WCAR), Mbeki said poor people in urban areas needed homes, not
land. "They are not looking for land as land, they are looking for a place
to pitch a house ... If there had been houses somewhere else then that
would not have happened. In reality it's because of the particular
evolution of the South African situation that you do not have in South
Africa as strong a demand for land as you would find for instance in
Zimbabwe," Mbeki said.

MALAWI: Food shortages affecting large parts of the country

World Vision International (WVI) said this week that food shortages were
affecting large parts of Malawi. "So far we know of districts in the
north, south and central parts of the country that have been affected by
these food shortages," Elton Ntwana, the Relief and Rehabilitation Manager
for WVI in Malawi told IRIN. "At the moment there is very little maize on
the commercial market and what little there is very expensive, so people
are really struggling to feed themselves. We do know that the Malawian
government has put in an emergency order of 150,000 mt to South Africa to
help relieve the shortages." WVI said in its latest food assessment of
Malawi that the food shortages were brought on by a severe drought and the
resulting poor harvests in large parts of the country.

Harvesting in Malawi is normally done between late June and early
September. "We have requested our people and partners in the field to send
us information on the nutritional status of people in their areas. So we
are working on trying to get a more accurate idea of the nutritional
status of the population. But the food security situation is very very
bad," Ntwana said. "We have heard of acute hunger in some of the districts
where we have our area development programmes." Ntwana said that it was
not possible to say how many people have been affected. "We are looking at
a very large area, but until we get more information we cannot say how
many people."

ZAMBIA: Maize exports banned

Zambia's government this week banned the export of maize, the country's
staple food, because it anticipates severe domestic food shortages. An
official statement at the weekend said that the country needed to
stockpile as much as it could. "These measures to suspend the export of
maize and maize meal are backed by ... the laws of Zambia and are in line
with emergency measures embodied in the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
agreement to which Zambia is a signatory. To ensure sufficient stocks
during the shortfall period which will be between November and April 2002,
the country must start stockpiling now," read the statement which was
signed by Agriculture Minister Misheck Chiinda and Commerce Minister Yusuf
Badat.

A news report said that according to the local farmers' union, the country
was expected to experience a maize shortfall of between 150,000 and
200,000 mt. It also said that according to government estimates, about 2
million people in the country were likely to face hunger because their
crops had been washed away by devastating floods which swept through much
of southern Africa at the beginning of the year. "Government is very
concerned about the maize shortfall and will do everything possible to
avoid prices escalating," the statement said. A committee was created
early this year to work out ways of averting food riots by ensuring that
enough grain is stored in the country.

Violence mars by-election

Meanwhile in a separate development, violence broke out in Zambia's
Kabwata urban constituency on Sunday as voters prepared for a crucial
legislative by-election in four days' time, AFP has reported. Quoting
police sources, the report said there were no reports of casualties from
the clashes involving the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD)
and the newly formed opposition Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD).
However, a senior police official was quoted as saying: "We have arrested
one FDD member who assaulted some MMD cadres last night (Saturday)."

Kabwata, a densely populated constituency which houses mostly government
workers, is situated in the capital, Lusaka. According to the report,
three political parties are contesting the by-election which was called
after MP and Vice President, Godfrey Miyanda, left the ruling MMD to form
his own Heritage Party. The former ruling United National Independence
Party (UNIP) is also fielding a candidate.

Another legislative by-election would take place the same day in Isoka
East, a rural constituency in the Northern province of Zambia, the report
said. The seat became vacant after Bob Sichinga, an independent MP, joined
the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND). Members of
parliament automatically lose their seats when they switch parties. Other
leading opposition parties have boycotted the two by-elections on grounds
that they are too close to the presidential and parliamentary elections
expected to be held by early November, the report said.

NAMIBIA: Troop pull-out applauded

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has applauded the withdrawal of Namibian
troops last month from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a
positive sign for the peace process after three years of conflict.
Speaking in Kinshasa at the weekend, Annan said that the pullout of
Namibian forces, the first to be carried out by a signatory country of the
Lusaka ceasefire agreement, needed to be matched by other foreign forces
as soon as possible.


Amid domestic criticism, Namibia sent some 2,000 soldiers to the DRC in
1998 - alongside the more substantial forces of regional allies Angola and
Zimbabwe - to prop up the government against Rwandan and Ugandan-backed
rebels. On 24 July, Windhoek's Independence Avenue came to a standstill
when hundreds of people flocked to the city centre to welcome home the
Namibia Defence Force (NDF) soldiers, marking the end of their
controversial deployment in the central African country.

Namibian Defence Minister Erkki Nghimtina confirmed that at least 30
soldiers died during their tour of duty while many others were reportedly
injured. Back home, President Sam Nujoma and his government faced intense
flack from opposition parties, as well as international donors. Western
governments, especially European countries, were concerned over whether
development aid was being used indirectly to help fund Namibia's
deployment in the DRC. At the height of the tussle, Nujoma branded the
European Union (EU) as "selfish imperialists and liars". "We cannot allow
Africa to be ruled by foreigners. Africa must be controlled by Africans.

SWAZILAND: Court victory for newspaper

Independent weekly, the 'Guardian', won a major victory on Friday when,
after a four-month court battle, it had the banning order against it
overturned, the Media Institute of South Africa (MISA) said in a statement
on Monday. Justice Jacobus Annandale said Swazi Public Service Minister
Mntonzima Dlamini had acted wrongly when he banned the 'Guardian' because
it had complied with all the requirements of the law. Dlamini invoked the
Proscription Act of 1968 - which allows for the banning of newspapers -
saying the paper was in unfair competition with other publications because
it was unlawfully registered. "Nowhere in the Proscription Act of 1968 is
there any provision for the minister to regulate competition in the
industry by banning of publications," the judge said. "If the newspaper's
non-compliance with the statutory requirements are deemed to be against
public interest, there are penalties under the appropriate Acts which may
be imposed," he added.

Swazis face economic difficulties

Swaziland was facing a possible economic crisis as two South African
companies operating in the country prepared to retrench large parts of
their work force, news reports said on Monday. South African paper and
pulp group Sappi said in a statement at the weekend that it was
considering liquidating its Usutu plant and retrenching 1,500 workers if
the mill was unable to reduce its costs by US $8.3 million within the next
three months. Masterfridge, the already liquidated refrigerator and
freezer manufacturer, is expected to go under the hammer this month too.
According to reports, more than 1,000 jobs could be lost if the company
can not be sold as a unit. Reports said that the Swazi government had
requested the auctioneers to sell Masterfridge as a going concern in order
to save as many jobs as possible. But Rael Levitt of Auction Alliance,
which is handling the auction, said he did not think this would be
possible. Sappi and Masterfridge are two of the largest employers in
Swaziland.


IRIN - SA Weekly
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Fax: +27-11 880 1421
E-Mail: irin-sa@irin.org.za


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