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 306
28 October - 3 November 2006


CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE: Rights group says govt repression is intensifying
ZIMBABWE: Election monitors allege food was used to influence vote
ZIMBABWE: Grain marketer dispels food security concerns
ZAMBIA: DRC's election results make its neighbour nervous
ZAMBIA: Refugees cling to the only home they know
ZAMBIA: Getting street kids to stay on the straight and narrow
ZAMBIA: Govt moves in to check human trafficking
ANGOLA: Refugees wary about their return
BOTSWANA: Daggers drawn over death penalty
MALAWI: Show us the money, says UN AIDS envoy
SWAZILAND: Government stops grants for the elderly
SWAZILAND: Gender activists welcome new woman deputy prime minister



ZIMBABWE: Rights group says govt repression is intensifying

Violent repression of civil society organisations has intensified in 
Zimbabwe in the past three years, claimed a new report from an 
international rights body. The 28-page report, "'You Will Be Thoroughly 
Beaten': The Brutal Suppression of Dissent in Zimbabwe", from Human 
Rights Watch has documented alleged systematic abuses against rights 
activists, including excessive use of force by police during protests, 
arbitrary arrests and detention in the past year. Zimbabwe's Minister 
for State Security Didymus Mutasa rubbished the Human Rights Watch 
report as, "Damn lies".

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56137


ZIMBABWE: Election monitors allege food was used to influence vote

As Zimbabwe's ruling party romped home to victory in the recent rural 
district council elections, an independent election monitor has 
expressed concern over the alleged hold traditional leaders had over 
voters. "The influence of the traditional leaders over voters was 
widespread. In many areas they abandoned their neutrality in the 
community," claimed Reginald Matchaba-Hove, chairman of the Zimbabwe 
Election Support Network (ZESN), an electoral monitoring organisation.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56184


ZIMBABWE: Grain marketer dispels food security concerns

Zimbabwe's state-owned Grain Marketing Board (GMB) said this week that 
it had only collected 480,000 metric tonnes of maize, about 25 percent 
of the country's requirement. But GMB chief executive Samuel Muvhuti 
dispelled any concerns of food security arguing that the grain collected 
so far was a reflection of the surplus attained and not all the 
harvested maize. Next month heralds the critical lean season, when the 
farming season starts and lasts until March 2007. During this period 
households traditionally have limited access to food stocks and lack the 
money to buy food even if it is available.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56185


ZAMBIA: DRC's election results make its neighbour nervous

The Democratic Republic of Congo's (DRC) anxious wait for the outcome of 
the presidential election run-off is putting its neighbour Zambia on 
edge where currency dealers are stocking up on kwacha, the local 
currency, and dumping the DRC's Congolese franc.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56239


ZAMBIA: Refugees cling to the only home they know

Mutumwenu Kasimona is one Angolan refugee who doesn't want to go home. 
He says he is home. Born in Zambia to a mother who fled the Angolan 
civil war in the early 1970s, 29-year-old Kasimona has lived his entire 
life with thousands of other Angolan refugees, who on arrival at 
Africa's oldest refugee camp were provided with 2.5 hectares of land. 
Since the signing of a ceasefire in 2002 that ended almost three decades 
of bloodshed between the MPLA ruling government and the UNITA rebels, 
about 370,000 Angolans have voluntarily returned home from exile across 
southern Africa. Thousands more, including Kasimona, don't want to go 
'home', vowing they will never be forced to return to a place they have 
never known.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56188


ZAMBIA: Getting street kids to stay on the straight and narrow

Dressed in baggy trousers, caps and colourful T-shirts, the toughened 
teens of the "Back to School Project" were scared. The boys, all between 
the ages of 14 and 18, live on the streets of Zambia's capital, Lusaka, 
where they play, fight, gamble and do what they can to earn a little 
money for food and drink, sometimes raking in enough to help support 
their families. Each of the boys was to be tested for HIV that 
day.Despite a growing economy, political stability and the best efforts 
of foreign donors and non-governmental organisations, Zambia's rates of 
HIV have remained stubbornly high. About one in five sexually active 
Zambian adults are infected.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56147


ZAMBIA: Govt moves in to check human trafficking

Human trafficking is not a new problem in southern Africa, but 
governments like Zambia have only recently been willing to tackle the 
issue head on. With HIV/AIDS, food shortages, education and even 
military spending gobbling up vast amounts of the region's resources, 
little is left over to address the growing phenomenon of human 
trafficking, a process in which mostly older men recruit, transport and 
exploit mostly young, female victims by deception, coercion or force.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56130


ANGOLA: Refugees wary about their return

Ernesto,18, wants to finish school while Tashero, 20, hopes to find his 
family. The young friends, Angolan refugees who fled the country's civil 
war for safety in neighbouring Zambia, have finally come home after 
years in exile. The boys are among more than 370,000 Angolans who have 
returned home from refugee camps spread across neighbouring Zambia and 
other African countries after a 2002 ceasefire agreement ended three 
decades of war that killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions and 
destroyed Angola's infrastructure. But not everyone is willing to come 
home. Thousands more refugees remain in Zambia, some of whom have never 
even seen Angola, or were too young to remember anything of it when they 
fled.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.info/report.asp?ReportID=56235


BOTSWANA: Daggers drawn over death penalty

Botswana's leading human rights organisation has critisised the 
government for upholding the death penalty, rejecting comments by 
foreign minister Komati Merafhe that the policy is backed by public 
demand. In a statement the Botswana Centre for Human Rights 
(Ditshwanelo) said there were flaws in the country's legal system and 
the rendering of justice - particularly for the poor - which undermined 
the use of capital punishment.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56122


MALAWI: Show us the money, says UN AIDS envoy

A visiting UN envoy has accused the world's wealthiest countries of 
failing Malawi, which is struggling to care for more than two million 
orphans and vulnerable children. "Where is the money? At the G8 summit 
in Gleneagles in July 2005, rich nations promised to double financial 
aid to Africa, an extra US$25 billion by 2010. The Malawi government is 
struggling to support its people because there is no money," complained 
Stephen Lewis, the UN secretary-general's special envoy for HIV/AIDS in 
Africa.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56119


SWAZILAND: Government stops grants for the elderly

Government is blaming budgetary constraints for both its inability to 
provide education for the growing ranks of orphans and vulnerable 
children (OVC) and its failure to pay grants to widows and the elderly. 
Health and social Welfare Minister Njabulo Mabuza told parliament 
recently, "The financial control advised that there were technical 
problems, and therefore it was not possible to pay the elderly," the 
latest grant, although he did not elaborate on the problems which had 
prevented its distribution.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56131


SWAZILAND: Gender activists welcome new woman deputy prime minister

Swazi gender rights groups have welcomed the appointment of a woman to 
the post of deputy prime minister in a country that only this year 
granted women equal rights under the constitution. "I think it is about 
time we had capable women in that position," said Lomcebo Dlamini, 
director of the Swaziland branch of the non-governmental organisation, 
Women in Law in Southern Africa. Constance Simelane, who served as 
education minister, succeeds Albert Shabangu, who died last month, as 
deputy premier.

See report:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56115


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