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Click here for news from
Africa posted after June 27, 2002
African
Rulers Toughen Laws to Muzzle Press
(Matthew Green, Reuters, May 2, 2002)
Africa's "Big Men" are using new media laws to introduce
a subtler form of censorship than the brutal tactics often
favored in the past. . . . "They have a lot to hide,
they have skeletons in the closet, but they can't get away
with murder." . . . editors say countries as diverse
as Zimbabwe, Kenya, Gambia and Swaziland have passed or are
planning laws to restrict press freedoms. . . . 2001 was the
worst year for African journalists since the early 1990s,
with 180 reporters arrested compared to 150 in 2000. . . .
The laws range from measures to introduce state-run
media councils to oversee the press to outright bans on criticism.
. . . Watchdogs say one of the most glaring deteriorations
in press freedom is in Zimbabwe, where the government passed
a tough new media law ahead of March elections that forced
journalists to seek licenses from a state-appointed commission.
. . . Perhaps the most dramatic crackdown has come in the
Red Sea state of Eritrea, where President Isayas Afewerki
belongs to the old school of dealing with criticism. He simply
closed all the independent media in September and arrested
staff, quashing calls for democratic reforms despite howls
from donors.
Zimbabwe
Police Block Civic Protests Against Election Results, Arrest
22
(Angus Shaw, Associated Press, Apr 6, 2002)
Zimbabwe (AP) - Police cracked down on planned Saturday demonstrations
against the disputed presidential elections, arresting at
least 22 people in the capital and blockading strategic locations
in towns across Zimbabwe. . . . On Saturday, small groups
of demonstrators - some waving banners demanding democratic
reform - were prevented from reaching the site of a planned
march through downtown Harare. Police closed off downtown
with rodblacks, and riot police were posted in many areas.
. . . Television journalist Edwina Spicer and her husband
were arrested and briefly detained Saturday, apparently after
filming truckloads of police deploying in the capital. Also,
354 activists arrested Thursday were freed on bail Saturday.
. . . Critics of Mugabe said Saturday's actions to quash demonstrations
were the latest examples of his efforts to turn Zimbabwe into
a police state. . . . Mugabe, who has ruled for 22 years,
rejected calls for another election. . . . "The next
poll will be held six years hence. Let that sink in to Britain
and its surrogates in the MDC," Mugabe told party members
Friday.
Zimbabwe
Police Detain British Reporter
(Reuters, March 28, 2002)
Zimbabwe police were on Thursday holding a correspondent of
the London Daily Telegraph and lawyers said they had been
denied access to the reporter arrested for contravening tough
new security laws. . . . Critics say the security act is aimed
at stifling political debate and criticism of Mugabe. . .
. Thornycroft, 57, the Telegraph's Harare correspondent since
July, was arrested by members of the Central Intelligence
Organization in Chimanimani, 186 miles southeast of Harare.
. . . She was investigating reports of a campaign of retribution
against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, whose
leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, lost to Mugabe in the election.
. . . Thornycroft was handed over to Chimanimani police early
on Thursday. . . . "The charges against her are without
foundation and are the latest cynical act by a regime intent
on crushing anyone who dares to question it," Alec Russell,
the Telegraph's foreign editor, was quoted as saying on the
newspaper's Web site. . . . A reporter for another British
newspaper, The Independent's Basildon Peta, has said he fled
Zimbabwe for South Africa last month after being briefly held
under the security laws.
STOP TALKING AND ACT !
An urgent appeal
from a South African with relatives in Zimbabwe
I am a white Zimbabwean who
was born in this country, as were my parents. I do not have
any claim to any other citizenship in the world. Unlike most
of my white country folk I do not have anywhere else to go
and I do not want to leave my country and the people both
black and white that I love.
This week I have had countless
black friends, colleagues and employees literally break down
and weep over the result of this election. I have been a political
activist for the past 2 years. Now I speak to you all with
a desperate plea from my shattered heart over the terrible
news of having Mugabe rule us for six more, tyrannical years.
We cannot survive three more months. As just an ordinary,
peace loving person I cannot understand, like many of my countrymen
many things.
Do not believe for a moment
that the rural people voted for Mugabe. They simply did not
vote so Mugabe's men did for them. Quite easy when you have
arranged that there is no MDC representation at 42% of polling
booths, so there is no check on the boxes. The road to the
polling station is lined with militia (with red berets) And
the CIO are conducting things their way. There was a large
element of his terror tactics working, mentioned later in
this document. How do you explain an 80% poll anywhere in
the world but they managed it in Mashonaland East. The area
of greatest intimidation in Zimbabwe. That means they had
to process 14 votes per minute. I voted in one of the more
efficient urban stations and by the time a voter was checked
off the voters roll, had is I D checked been given his ballot
paper, had it explained how to fold it, mark it and a present
it to the polling officer the entire process took approximately
1 person per minute.
Why can't the international
human rights bodies, governments, United Nation, Commonwealth
do more to help us?. You have talked and talked ? we need
drastic action. As with Hitler, is the world going to continue
to talk to this maniac. Are you in 50 years time still going
to be trying to charge him and his cronies for human rights
violations - are you going to continue to turn another blind
eye, or just verbally condemn what is going on but do nothing.
Isn 't the 1980's Gukurahundi enough evidence of ethnic cleansing
to demand more than talk ? now twenty years later!! Why would
sanctions worry a man who has absolutely no moral fibre at
all. The international community's handling of this man is
like a mother with a spoilt brat throwing tantrums and the
mother feeding it sweets in the hope it will shut up and behave.
As soon as the mother's back is turned the child taunts her.
Sanctions won't worry them
because you can be sure they will have so much money hidden
away under other names you don't worry them. I doubt it is
even bothering them that their children have to leave their
universities. You also gave them so much warning of your sanctions
they have had ample time to make a plan.
I know it is not international
policy to interfere in the courts and laws and running of
another country but surely the time has come now to change
that before we have a million dead Zimbabweans. You can only
play by the rules if both sides know them. Thus there is no
point in suggesting a coalition government because Mugabe
does not even listen to the parliament he has, having bought
a comfortable majority of ministers on his gravy train. People
who have already seen enough of their colleagues killed in
mysterious car accidents because they tried to be brave and
speak out. There is no point in taking this to court in Zimbabwe
because he has fixed that with bought judges. Funny that some
of his new judges are suddenly the owners of lovely new farms!!!
You know he stole the majority
in parliamentary elections rigging 30 seats that were rightfully
MDC and what have the by-elections of those likely to bring
but more rigging and deaths. We are as helpless as the Jews
were in the concentration camps and I can promise you much
of the 'seen support' for ZANU PF is poor innocent people
being led to believe they will live and see their starving
children fed. Do not underestimate the power of the gods in
the beliefs of the black man. Mark my words they have used
these evil powers fully. Can you imagine, as a small child,
seeing your parents and brothers and sisters being herded
into a hut and burnt to death (just close you eyes for a minute
and hear the screaming). Now 15 years later as a young adult
a troop of the same terrifying men in the same red berets
arrive and at gun point march you to a polling station. I
defy anyone to take anything but the line of peaceful resistance.
I know because in 1982 I was marched off into the bush with
my sister at gun point whilst I left my 6 month old baby in
the car being prodded by a man in a red beret with his bayonet.
We were very lucky and were rescued but I can assure you there
is no fear like it.
Ask the BBC for a copy of
the film shown on Sunday 13 March at 8.05pm. Panaroma called
"The Price of Silence" Look at your pompous High
Commissioners and Foreign Diplomats, with the hot potatoes
in their mouths. I quote their interviews on this film "Reports
of FAIRLY brutal" "It is a pity", "Reports
rather blown up" "Steer clear of it" "Not
risk a row with" "Use quiet diplomacy" "We
talk nicely to them but they wouldn't listen so we left and
DID NOTHING". The Foreign Office told Prince Charles
"It was all exaggerated". The Deputy High Commissioner
"We condemn it but have no right to interfere" "It
was a side issue" Shame on all of you, people like you,
share the blood on Mugabe's hands. How can you comment "it's
a pity" as if a child spilt the milk, when, in fact,
a bunch of hired, carefully trained maniacs brutally cut the
foetuses out of pregnant women's stomachs. I'm sure if it
was your wife "it's a pity" would hardly be your
comment. How DARE YOU comment so pompously when 10 s of thousand
of the most innocent people in this world were and still are
being massacred. ? Wake up ? this man has no morals. Listen
to people like Bishop Pius Ncube and please protect him, he,
above all people needs to be awarded a bravery award of the
highest level. When ARE YOU going to arrest Perence Shiri
for his crimes against humanity like you have done with Milosovic.
Mugabe is worse than
Hitler because he leaves the maimed behind to serve as a constant
reminder to the rest of the village of what he is capable
of. Death from his wrath comes to the lucky ones. There are
thousands of reports, all documented by the Amani Trust for
anyone who has the gut to read even a portion of it. Your
silence is deafening. Why can't one of you arrest this man,
and charge him in an international court of justice for human
rights violations. After all he has ordered rape, murder,
burnt our houses, stolen land for his people (I don't mean
his recent redistribution but the farms taken from farmers
as far back as the 1980's) and given it to his cronies instead
of the people who have waited 20 years for him to deliver.
Land that now stands derelict and unused. If we could see
that land given to the people was producing food for the people,
farmers would happily give more and help poor peasant farmers
get started. What is the point of giving to war vets? A true
war vet in this country should be facing retirement because
if he made a substantial contribution to the liberation war
he should have served that for at least 5 years of his adult
hood must make his age at least 45 years old. The land must
be made available to young (at present unemployed) Zimbabweans
coming out of Agricultural college, together with soft loans
to develop and make economic progress with it. But please
use what you have already stolen before you grab more.
We cannot rise up in Zimbabwe
because, contrary to Mugabe's belief MDC does not have weapons
. If the people were to rise he would simply gun them down
with his ridiculously huge army which has drained our resources
for years. We don't want a bloody Sunday. We can't do a sustained
stay away because the average Zimbabwean is living hand to
mouth so cannot afford to put away enough food to survive
it. Aside from which Mugabe has made it abundantly clear he
couldn't care less about the economy, therefore the economic
effect of a long stay away would only affect the people. Most
of his army are our relatives anyway, people forced to do
what they don't believe in or they face death and death to
their extended family. Oh yes!! If I was brave enough to stand
up on my own my whole family would be punished.
My friend was arrested this
weekend ( together with at least 1 300 others) for carrying
a catapult (sling shot) ? a toy most little boys carry from
the age of six!!. He is still in prison ? or shall I say in
a Zimbabwean concentration camp. Unlike the prisons in Europe
they do not get a T.V to watch or a book to read. The prisons
have absolutely NO form of amusement, education or rehabilitation
therapy. They have no working toilets, you are only allowed
to use the toilet twice a day outside. The blanket you might
be offered is so full of human faeces you would rather freeze
than use it. You are not allowed to wear underwear, you are
not given or allowed to receive from outside basic human needs,
sanitary towels (Yes let your imagination run wild, HIV etc),
soap, toothpaste, toilet paper. So a prison sentence for any
woman is a death sentence. You are given two small bowls of
maize porridge with a small raw leaf of rape a day. There
are 20 people in cells designed to house six. To sleep you
have to all turn over at the same time. Does this not ring
a few bells of Germany in the war!!!! And they all come equipped
with their own torture chambers. Bear in mind that many people
are in prison at the moment are only guilty of love of his
country. I keep toilet paper, toothpaste and soap in my bag
all the time. What a joke they probably wouldn't let me keep
it anyway.
Please do not insist on another
election and then let Mugabe run it. The evidence is all there,
how this election was mastermind of rigging. Why didn't the
international community insist that SADCC run these elections.
We have to have Perspex ballot boxes, that are held outside
the country until the day before and watched from the minute
they arrive here. Ballot papers need to be printed by an independent
body and the layout, colour of paper etc kept absolutely secret
until the minute the first voter arrives. There needs to be
an army of well-trained observers to ensure that the pre-election
groundwork is not carefully orchestrated long before monitors
arrive
Start looking now (especially
South Africa) for observers who have some guts and will go
out to rural areas and actually see for themselves the villages
surrounded by militia, instead of sipping Gin and Tonic in
your hotel then ambling off to an urban, low density polling
station at 4.00 in the afternoon. There were more than enough
people around to show you where to look!! What? were you on
some sort of sight seeing safari!!
Mr Mudede's voters roll is
a joke. No doubt [names of] the Zanu PF supporters (leaches)
probably appear 6 times each. Mind you I suppose if I saw
my children starving before my eyes I might be inclined to
go to rallies and chant songs and beat up a few people on
the way for five hundred dollars a day and a bag of unobtainable
mealie meal. We should all be allowed to vote if we have any
form of Zimbabwe identification ? even someone who has only
just got his Zimbabwean residency has a concerned interest
in how he is ruled. Why can't Zimbabwean's living outside
this country vote when they are probably economic exiles who
long to come back to live here. They probably have a bigger
concerned interest in the recovery of their country because
they are prisoners elsewhere.
South African's it's time
for you to ask questions about how this affects you?
- Your state funds last week provided a very luxurious
holiday in the Sheraton hotel in Harare for your hand picked
observers, nice and safe and far away from any real trouble.
- What is your president's agenda with his quiet open support
of Mugabe and quite obviously your observers were primed
to find this election 'free and fair' to suit some other
political agenda.
- Have you ever asked, which is your right, for an audit
of Sasol and Eskom's Zimbabwean debt. Somebody is paying
for it and it sure as hell isn't us. Are you happy that
you continue to pay my electricity and fuel bills? Note
that NOCZIM paid the hotel bills for Mugabe's militia staying
in the top Harare hotels before and during the elections
? Money that should be going towards paying the ever-increasing
debt to South Africa.
- Above all else you need to consider that if your president
continues to turn a blind eye and his observers can blatantly
ignore what is happening in Zimbabwe , what is his future
plan for South Africa.
What can you do?
Send this to anyone you know
who would be remotely interested in Zimbabwe and ask them
to sent it to their M.P/senator anywhere in the world and
ask them to take it to parliament. Send it to anyone you know
who has connection with The Hague, U.N., E.U., NATO, SADCC,
Commonwealth and any newspapers. If possible follow them up
with a phone call next week and ask them "What have you
done??". Bombard Embassies with it and demonstrate (peacefully),
photocopy it and dish it out, Cause mail overload, phone and
physical pressure and when you have done all this PRAY FOR
US. We are as helpless as the Jews were during the 2nd world
war. Wasn't the man Chenjerai 'Hitler' Hunzvi enough to raise
at least international suspicions of who this man's role model
is.
PUT ALL THIS PRESSURE ON these
bodies ? THE MESSAGE IS STOP WASTING TIME TALKING. WHAT WE
NEED NOW IS ACTION AND FAST!!!
I face two years of imprisonment
for expressing these views in this country, so I'm forced
to use a pseudonym - but many of you will know who I am
Thank you all for your support
True Zimbabwean
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