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 59
16 - 22 February 2002


CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE: Tension rises as poll nears
ZIMBABWE: IRIN Chronology of EU sanctions
MADAGASCAR: Week ends with 'coup'
ANGOLA: Chiefs call for ceasefire, national conference
ZAMBIA: EU considers response to new government
MOZAMBIQUE: Warning over funding shortfall - WFP
MALAWI: Poor ill-served by health care
SWAZILAND: Focus on social impact of AIDS

ZIMBABWE: Tension rises as poll nears

The week in Zimbabwe ended with shots fired on Friday at the convoy of
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and the injuring of two South African
election observers by ruling party militants. Observer groups from both
South Africa and the Southern African Development Community (SADC)
expressed concern at the violence and intimidation in the run-up to March
presidential elections.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22309&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE

However, despite the violence, an analyst told IRIN on Thursday that it
was unlikely Zimbabweans would be cowed into voting for a candidate they
were opposed to. President Robert Mugabe faces his toughest challenge to
two decades of rule in the form of Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for
Democratic Change (MDC).

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22093&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE


Mugabe on Thursday dismissed European Union (EU) sanctions imposed on him
and his inner circle, as the United States edged closer to applying its
own restrictions on the country's political leadership. "What is Europe?",
he asked.

The EU applied "smart sanctions" on Monday, 18 February, which include a
freeze on the overseas assets of Mugabe and 19 senior officials, as well
as a ban on travel to the 15-nation bloc. The move was in reaction to
setbacks over accreditation for EU election observers ahead of the 9-10
March presidential poll. Mugabe denies having any assets in Europe.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22094&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE

Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) on Thursday said they had
begun emergency food aid distributions in Zimbabwe, but there was concern
that generalised food shortages across the country means that the planned
supplies may not cover all those in need.

WFP's distribution started on Wednesday with a one-month ration of
maize-meal to 40,000 people threatened by serious food shortages in
Hwange, Matabeleland North. It was being carried out by WFP's partner, the
Organisation of Rural Associations for Progress (ORAP), as part of WFP's
larger operation to deliver one-month food rations to more than 100,000
people over the next two weeks, the agency said.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22089&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE

On Wednesday Amnesty International expressed concern that the pull-out of
European Union (EU) observers could result in an escalation of human
rights violations in Zimbabwe.

"The decision to withdraw EU observers will give the green light for
further serious human rights violations in Zimbabwe," the rights
organisation said.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21762&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE

IRIN Chronology of EU sanctions

A chronology of events over the last two months that have culminated in
the EU withdrawing its election monitors and imposing sanctions on leading
members of the Zimbabwean government.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21891&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE

Zimbabwe's Deputy High Commissioner to Pretoria on Tuesday rejected
allegations, contained in a report by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR),
that opposition supporters were denied healthcare at state institutions.

The report was authored by Shari Epple of the Amani Trust, a
non-governmental organisation that documents torture, and Dr Hans
Draminsky Petersen, a founder of PHR in Denmark. They had documented cases
of severe torture and harassment of MDC supporters, allegedly by ruling
ZANU-PF militants, in rural Zimbabwe.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21662&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWE

The suggestion that opposition supporters were not given equal access to
healthcare came on the heals of allegations that opponents of the
Zimbabwean government were being abducted to "torture centres".

"Violence on an organised basis has continued without decline throughout
the country," the latest Zimbabwe Human Rights Forum report on political
violence said. "In most cases victims are abducted to bases where they are
tortured and then released. These bases are springboards for militia
operating in the area and also serve as torture centres."

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21829&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZIMBABWEobi

MADAGASCAR: Week ends with 'coup'

The mayor of Antananarivo declared himself president of the island nation
on Friday, and citizens anxiously await reaction from the government, the
international community, and the military. Marc Ravalomanana's 'swearing
in' as head of state dashed hopes of a negotiated settlement to the
dispute over the results of December's presidential elections.

Ravalomanana has contended that he beat President Didier Ratsiraka in the
poll by more than 50 percent of the vote. The high court, however, ruled
that official results of the election did not support his contention and
ordered a run-off election, which was to have taken place this weekend.

UN Development Programme Resident Representative in Antananarivo, Adama
Guindo, told IRIN on Friday that the city was quiet and there was no
deployment of security forces at Ravalomanana's 'inauguration'.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22092&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=MADAGASCAR

ANGOLA: Chiefs call for ceasefire, national conference

Angola's traditional leaders this week added their voices to the call for
an immediate ceasefire and the creation of a sovereign national conference
to discuss the country's political future.

More than 100 traditional chiefs and kings attended a meeting in Luanda
organised by the Open Society Foundation to discuss the role of civil
society in the resolution of the long-running Angolan conflict.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22270&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ANGOLA

ZAMBIA: EU considers response to new government

The European Union (EU) criticised Zambia's general elections in December
as seriously flawed, but is not rushing to impose sanctions on the new
government of President Levy Mwanawasa. "There is more than one way to try
and influence a situation for the better," an EU official in Brussels told
IRIN. "You can encourage best practice by encouraging talking."

However, the government, dependent on donor funding for 50 percent of its
revenue, has extendend an olive brabch to Brussels.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21881&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZAMBIA

Meanwhile, the World Bank has drawn up a tentative plan to rescue Zambia's
troubled economy as the country's strategic copper mining industry totters
towards what analysts fear could be inexorable collapse.

The Bank's resident representative in Lusaka said Bank staff had been
discussing a plan with government officials to diversify the economy as
the copper industry shrinks on the back of falling international prices
and rising production costs.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22269&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=ZAMBIA

MOZAMBIQUE: Warning over funding shortfall - WFP

The UN World Food Programme on Tuesday announced a US $3.2 million funding
shortfall for an emergency operation aimed at reaching 170,000 people
still facing severe food shortages in Mozambique after two consecutive
years of floods.

WFP in January extended its emergency operation to the end of March, at an
additional cost of US $4.1 million. However, "funding to this latest phase
of the operation has been sluggish, whereas WFP's appeal last year for US
$9.2 million to feed flood victims was fully funded," an agency statement
said. WFP has so far received approximately US $900,000 towards the new
programme.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=21664&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=MOZAMBIQUE

MALAWI: Poor ill-served by health care

Poor rural Malawians, especially women, have less access to healthcare in
Malawi than any other group, IRIN has learnt. Access to health is a
universal human right, yet in Malawi access to healthcare is largely
influenced by whether the person in need of care is male or female, urban
or rural and rich or poor.

Mindful of this problem, Malawi's ministry of health recently hosted a
meeting on "gender and equity in health".

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22098&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=MALAWI

SWAZILAND: Focus on social impact of AIDS

"Panic breeding" is the inelegant term given to a response by some Swazis
to an AIDS epidemic that is decimating the population of the small
Southern Africa kingdom. The impulse to make-up for AIDS deaths by having
more babies is exacerbating both the health crisis and the kingdom's
ongoing problem with overpopulation.

"People are reacting hysterically to the swath of AIDS deaths that are
cutting through the population. Every weekend brings a traffic jam of
funerals for young and middle-aged people who die of mysterious 'lingering
illnesses', as the newspaper death notices say," explained Alicia Khumalo,
a nurse at Raleigh Fitkin Memorial Hospital, the main medical facility in
the commercial town of Manzini, Swaziland's most populous urban centre.

More details:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=22271&SelectRegion=Southern_Af
rica&SelectCountry=SWAZILAND


IRIN-SA
Tel: +27 11 880-4633
Fax: +27 11 447-5472
Email: IRIN-SA@irin.org.za

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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2002


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