The International Red Cross has launched an urgent appeal for funding in response to a new hunger crisis in Zimbabwe.

Some 2.8 million Zimbabweans - almost a third of the population - are in need of food aid, and the number is expected to rise as a result of a widespread drought.

Across Masvingo province, in the centre of the country, the parched fields are full of dead or dying maize.

Sky News found a family of four orphans picking through the weeds on their land around their homestead, trying to find something edible.

Ernest Mheti, 17, is caring for his two brothers, aged nine and seven, and his 13-year-old sister.

He was relying on his now-shrivelled crop, planted alongside the mounds of earth that mark the graves of his parents, to provide them with food for the next six months.

Travelling through Masvingo you would be forgiven for thinking that people had already finished harvesting. The fields are empty because the rains failed.

“I cannot sleep at night because I know they are suffering because I cannot find food,” Ernest said.

The Red Cross has set up feeding programmes to try to support the most vulnerable, but a lack of funding means only limited help.

At one of the centres, more than 60 children under the age of five queued up to get their plates filled with a pile of maize meal porridge and beans.

They are all orphans, and the two meals a day they are given at the centre are all they get to eat. Sometimes the money - and the food - runs out.

“When we don’t feed them, they just get water at home,” project co-ordinator Musa Gumbo said.

The Red Cross is facing a shortfall of $23.9m (£15.9m) for its programmes in Zimbabwe, which include home care for those infected by HIV.

Hunger is impacting the efforts to provide anti-retroviral treatment to the sick because the medication has to be taken on a full stomach.

“We have seen people default on their treatment because the drugs are too toxic without food,” Emma Kundishora, secretary general of the Zimbabwe Red Cross, said.

Zimbabwe’s year-old national unity government, led by president Robert Mugabe and his old rival Morgan Tsvangirai, has so far done little to address the widespread poverty that was largely caused by Mugabe’s years of misrule.

(Source)

President Mugabe’s young wife, Grace is at it again. First she grabbed Iron Mask Farm in Mazowe about 40km from Harare area in 2002 where she personally ordered John and Eva Matthews, both in their seventies, out of their 29-room house on the nearby 2,500-acre. Now, she is ordering a village to move for another project.

Grace, known for her extravagant lifestyle went about building an orphanage named Amitofo Care Centre- which is still to be completed. However, she has ordered the demolition of 100 homes close to the farm to accommodate the orphanage expansion.

The villagers have been issued with notices to leave the area as land has been promised for them elsewhere. Most of the affected people bought the residential stands as far back as 1998 and no compensation is being talked about. And local authority officials have been barred from commenting on the ‘sensitive issue”

At the weekend soldiers were seen patrolling the now heavily guarded area.

The orphanage was initially set to be officially opened in 2008 but was put on hold as construction was still underway.

“I had already finished building my house but she is forcing me out,” said a middle-aged woman, who requested anonymity for fear of victimisation. “She is making economic orphans to make way for other orphans” she said.

The council’s chief executive officer Liberty Mufandaedza would only say the affected ‘will soon be showing them where they will be relocated,”.

According to the orphanage plan, when complete it would consist of 30 five-bed houses. Each would accommodate 20 children under the care of two foster parents.

The centre to take up more than 48 hectares on completion will have a children’s home, a nursery and a school. A hospital, supermarket, restaurant and some guesthouses are on the plan and funds generated from the activities would assist in the upkeep of the orphans.

The Chinese Embassy and Chinese nationals based in Zimbabwe have offered to build a primary school at the farm.

(Source)

The embattled South African president Jacob Zuma has failed to persuade Gordon Brown to lighten sanctions on Zimbabwe on his state visit to Britain.

South African president Jacob Zuma has failed to persuade Gordon Brown to lighten sanctions on Zimbabwe on his state visit to Britain.

Mr Zuma hit back by refusing to withdraw previous comments about Britain’s “colonial” attitude to his polygamous lifestyle.

The pair addressed journalists in Downing Street after meeting for breakfast talks, as Mr Zuma’s three-day state visit as a guest of the Queen drew to a close.

After reaching agreement on climate change, nuclear non-proliferation and the importance of the World Cup in reducing poverty in South Africa, the two leaders struggled to find consensus on the EU’s sanctions against Zimbabwe.

Mr Zuma, along with other regional leaders, wants to persuade the EU to reduce the sanctions.

“We are agreed we should all put our heads together to put a solution to Zimbabwe,” he said.

But the British government remains steadfastly behind the sanctions, which it argues are targeted at individuals who are responsible for violence and businesses linked to them.

“We applaud the efforts of President Zuma to bring stability and change to Zimbabwe,” the prime minister said.

“We, however, must be absolutely sure that progress is being made… We must be moving from what is a unity and transitional government to free and fair elections. There can be no excuses for delay.”

Mr Zuma responded: “We are very positive that as we work harder we will certainly be able to make the position clear.

“There has been a greater understanding of what we are trying to do in Zimbabwe and we are moving closer.”

The South African president has received criticism from some sections of the British press for his polygamy. His third and newest wife accompanied him on his trip.

“Who gave authority to others to judge others?” he asked, before adding: “We’re not trying to condemn the British, or whatever.

“I’m sure you know that the colonial life by Africans has been viewed by Africans in a very particular way. I’m sure we’re making a comment in that particular way.”

(Source)

Zimbabwe, when I was growing up there, was the breadbasket of Africa and had one of the best education systems in Africa if not the world.

The healthcare system was great, too.

For a child born in apartheid-era South Africa, as I was, it was a land of opportunity. After my mother moved to Rhodesia, I received a first-class education, and graduated from university in post-independence Zimbabwe.

It is startling how quickly a society can fall apart.

My film, Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children, follows the stories of a number of children struggling to survive in the country today.

Zimbabwe has become a very hard place to be poor, and poverty is ugly. Conspicuous consumerism is very evident, and greed is also very visible.

I shot the film undercover, after getting a permit to make another film, about my childhood and how it has shaped me.

I was raised as a child of the ZANU party. My stepfather’s cousin Nabaningi Sithole, founder of ZANU, was a prominent politician, and my cousin Edison Sithole the first doctor of law in southern and central Africa - he disappeared in 1975, abducted by Ian Smith because he was a human rights lawyer and political activist.

But while I was making this film the Zimbabwean government launched Operation Murambatsvina (Remove the filth) - a slum clearance programme that left thousands of people on the streets.

This made me resolute to make another film, about Zimbabwe’s children.

I focus mostly on three stories.

There are Michelle and Grace, who live with their father Joseph. Joseph dreams of saving enough money to pay for his children’s education, but for now they all work - by digging bones from a rubbish heap and selling them.

“What I am doing is child abuse really,” he says. “They should not be working like this. It hurts me.”

There is Esther, who looks after her mother as she dies of Aids, and also her younger brother, Tino.

After her mother dies, Esther’s life becomes simpler. “It’s much easier to look after Tino now, because I don’t have to look after mum as well,” she says.

Esther’s case is not an unusual one in today’s Zimbabwe. It’s a common scenario.

There are also the street children.

When I lived in Zimbabwe in my twenties, there were hardly any street children in Harare.

Children are now not only living on the streets, they are giving birth on the streets. A second generation of street children is growing up.

The system was supposed to take care of its people, but it has failed.

In less than a generation, the country has changed beyond all recognition.

Xoliswa Sithole is a South African film-maker based in Johannesburg. She was awarded a BAFTA, for her role in producing the BBC/True Vision documentary Orphans of Nkandla, chronicling the effects of Aids in Africa. Zimbabwe’s Forgotten Children can be seen BBC Four, at 2245 on Wednesday 3 March, or on the BBC iPlayer.

(Source)

More than 100 political activists packed into a village hall to discuss the future of Zimbabwe.

The conference, in Quorn, was to find a democratic way of overthrowing Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe.

Despite its rural location, it proved so popular that organisers had to turn people away at the doors.

Members of the opposition Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) met at the unlikely venue on Saturday afternoon for the general meeting of the European branch of their party.

The activists spent the afternoon listening to lectures on how the country could move forward, and discussing how its different tribes could work together to create a fair and democratic government.

Provincial vice-chairman Nkosana Mthimkhulu, who lives in Birstall, said: “It was a very successful day.”

He said local people had been surprised at the choice of Quorn for the meeting but it had the “right atmosphere”.

“Zimbabwe has a lot of quiet villages, they are where many people live.”

Addressing an inter-branch leadership meeting at a packed Lobengula Hall in Bulawayo on Saturday, February 20, Dabengwa said ZAPU was Zimbabwe’s last hope.

He said people look up to the country’s mother party, ZAPU to pick up the pieces and steer the country back to prosperity.

“I was in Murewa and people there told me that they have also been affected by Gukurahundi like the people of Matabeleland through ZANU PF’s violence.

ZAPU is now everywhere, even in President Mugabe’s home province Mashonaland West. All of the territory from Karoi to Plumtree was a ZIPRA front during the war and the people want their party like never before,” he said.

Dabengwa warned that the opportunity could be lost if ZAPU supporters allowed themselves to be diverted by spoilers.

“ZANU PF thought that they would not worry about ZAPU outside Matabeleland and they are now discovering that they were wrong.

The MDC thought Matabeleland was their stronghold but have since discovered how much they fooled themselves and are panicking and resorting to trying to hijack the people of Matabeleland’s Zambezi Water Project,” said the former ZIPRA military intelligence supremo.

(Source)

Zimbabwe’s premier spy agency, the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) has recruited hundreds of youthful street vendors and illegal street dealers as informers, a report revealed.

Sources within the spy agency said hundreds of street vendors, particularly airtime vendors and others have been recruited to monitor the activities of Movement for Democratic Change Officials and supporters, as well as diplomats and members of  civil society including trade unionists.

The source said the youths have received ZANU PF ideological training and were now considered as a reserve militia.

The move is a caricature of former Romanian Communist dictator Nicolai Ceausescu who employed the tactics of husband and wife spying on each other. In the end kicthen utensils where bugged with eavesdroping gadgets. In 1980, after independence, Robert Mugabe’s intelligence officers and military pilots were trained in Romania.

“They have  been deployed along  streets, at shopping malls and outside hotels and restaurants where they will be able to observe the activities of unsuspecting  targeted individuals,” he said.

The CIO source said most of the recruited youths have been issued with police special constabulary identity cards which empowers them to make arrests in the event of something happening.

A cellphone airtime vendor operating in Harare City Centre confirmed to Zimdiaspora that he was recruited by the CIO as an informer.

He said he was tasked with informing  authorities whenever demonstrations are being held by members of civil society and political parties other than ZANU PF.

“We were told to infiltrate all demonstrations involving MDC and civil society members,” said the Vendor. “Whenever possible, we are expected to hijack such demonstrations by causing violence in order to discredit the demonstrators.”

An illegal foreign exchange dealer at Harare’s Roadport who now offers cross-rates for the United States dollar  and  South African Rand following last year’s demise of the Zimdollar said he was forced to become an informer after he was threatened with arrest.

“I was arrested together with my colleagues for illegal foreign currency dealings and  taken to CIO’s provincial offices at Harare Central Police Station. They gave us  an option of going to jail or becoming informers. We chose to become informers because they told us that if we refuse,  we will not be able to operate in any city or town in the country,” he said.

The vendors were part of ZANU PF youths who this week marched in Harare against Western imposed sanctions and the so called pirate radio stations.

The marchers threatened unspecified action against Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai if the sanctions are not removed immediately. MDC has already called on the police to arrest the ZANU PF youths for threatening the life of Tsvangirai and the office of the Prime Minister.

The youths recruited as informers by the  CIO said they have been promised jobs in the police force, army, CIO and other government departments.

Zimbabwe’s CIO and the military have been accused of gross human rights abuses and in the run up to the June 2008 Presidential run-off, led a ZANU PF terror campaign which saw hundreds of opposition supporters and officials murdered, tortured and assaulted.

Despite the formation of a Government of National Unity between ZANU PF and the MDC which won the March 29, 2008 harmonised elections,  the military and the intelligence have remained partisan, largely refusing to recognise the Global Political Agreement.

(Source)

(Video) The polarised lives of Zimbabwe’s rich and poor

One year on from the power-sharing deal between ZANU PF and the MDC, Newsnight’s Sue Lloyd-Roberts travels to Zimbabwe to see how the country is faring and witnesses a yawning gap between rich and poor.

Broadcast on Wednesday 10 February 2010

A car traveling back from the Beitbridge Border about 30 km from the border was seen traveling extremely slowly on the wrong side of the road and then stopped in the middle of the road. Another vehicle traveling towards the border drove very cautiously alongside in case it was a HIJACK attempt to discover the driver was covered in blood so they stopped to help. It transpired he had stopped at a lay bye to relieve himself and had been attacked by robbers. They broke both his arms and one leg and beat him severely around the head, they then stole all his luggage, his laptops, mobiles and even the shoes off his feet. They then stuck him back in the driver’s seat and left. The victim then managed to proceed slowly along the road till found. He was thankfully taken to Beitbridge hospital for treatment … how he managed to drive in his injured bleeding state is a wonder.

This is NOT the first incident that has been  reported along this road… Please be very careful and vigilant and DO NOT STOP on the side of the road or in lay byes you are a sitting target!

(Source: by email)

Senior freelance journalist Stanley Kwenda has reportedly fled the country after he was allegedly phoned and threatened with death by a senior police officer.

Kwenda fled the country over the weekend after he was phoned on his cellphone on 15 January 2010 by the alleged senior police officer over a story reportedly published in The Zimbabwean newspaper.

The police officer allegedly told him that he would not survive the weekend. Kwenda who is a member of MISA-Zimbabwe’s Harare Advocacy Committee, is the director of the Artists for Democracy Zimbabwe Trust (ADZT).

MISA-Zimbabwe condemns this development as yet another serious threat to media freedom and the right of journalists to conduct their lawful professional duties without fear or hindrance from any quarters.

MISA-Zimbabwe urges the inclusive government and the Police Commissioner General to unequivocally guarantee the safety of journalists and to assure Kwenda of his security pending full investigations into the alleged threats.

(Source)

Two cabinet ministers accompanied by senior police officers last weekend forced Swiss multinational firm Nestle to take in milk supplies from a farm owned by the wife of President Robert Mugabe, it has been revealed.

Empowerment and Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere and Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made, all senior members of President Mugabe’s ZANU PF party, descended on Nestle’s factory in the capital Harare last Saturday and demanded that the food manufacturer takes in a tanker of milk from Mugabe’s farm.

Kasukuwere and Made, who also serve as President Robert Mugabe’s farm manager were accompanied by two senior police officers namely Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge and Detective Inspector Henry Sostein Dowa.

Makedenge, the officer commanding the Law and Order section of the Harare Police Station and Dowa have been associated over the years with the arrest of opposition politicians, journalists and human rights activists.

Also in town was Farai Mutamangira, the Affirmative Action Group (AAG) Vice President and Harare lawyer. The AAG has in the past threatened to take over Nestle if it continues to refuse to take milk from Grace Mugabe’s Gushungo Farm.

The delegation which had a heated exchange with some Nestle officials at the factory accused the Swiss owned company of supporting “economic sanctions” imposed by Western governments on President Mugabe and his lieutenants by stopping the purchase of the milk from Gushungo Dairy Farm which is owned by Grace Mugabe.

The Nestle officials reportedly told Kasukuwere and Made that they were taking the milk supplies under duress and not out of their own volition.

No Nestle officials were available to comment on the latest turn of events.

It is reliably understood that officials from Gushungo Dairy Farm delivered a second tanker to the Swiss multinational firm last Sunday.

Reports that an official from Nestle had been arrested on Monday could not be confirmed late Monday.

The multinational company stopped buying milk from Grace Mugabe’s Gushungo Dairy Estate in October. At the time of the termination of milk purchases, the food manufacturer stated that it had bought the milk supplies to help the country as its dairy industry neared collapse.  Nestle also stated that it had been buying milk directly from Gushungo after local processors could no longer do so.

Nestle’s purchases of milk from Mugabe’s farm provoked outrage in Britain and South Africa with a rights group in Zimbabwe’s southern neighbour starting a campaign for a consumer boycott of the firm.

Grace Mugabe is subject to European Union and American sanctions barring the transfer of funds to her.

Nestle has been operating in the troubled southern African country for the past 50 years, working with the population of Zimbabwe and striving to maintain a long-term viable operation in often challenging conditions.

(Source)