Messages From Zimbabwe

Drug supplies at Zimbabwe’s public hospitals have increased by 70 percent in the past few months, Health Minister David Parirenyatwa has announced here.

Parirenyatwa on Tuesday said that the increased drug availability would ease the plight of patients requiring ant-retroviral drugs and treatments for other diseases such as kidney ailments who have faced shortages of life-saving medicines.

The drugs were imported through funding from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which responded to a plea by the cash-strapped public hospitals.

Until the arrival of the new drugs, some public hospitals were only admitting critically ill patients while sending others to private doctors.

Government critics blame the poor service delivery at public health institutions on perennial under-funding of the sector and an exodus of skilled personnel in search of greener pastures in neighbouring countries.

Drug supplies at Zimbabwe’s public hospitals have increased by 70 percent in the past few months, Health Minister David Parirenyatwa has announced here.

Parirenyatwa on Tuesday said that the increased drug availability would ease the plight of patients requiring ant-retroviral drugs and treatments for other diseases such as kidney ailments who have faced shortages of life-saving medicines.

The drugs were imported through funding from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, which responded to a plea by the cash-strapped public hospitals.

Until the arrival of the new drugs, some public hospitals were only admitting critically ill patients while sending others to private doctors.

Government critics blame the poor service delivery at public health institutions on perennial under-funding of the sector and an exodus of skilled personnel in search of greener pastures in neighbouring countries.

(Source)

Mugabe may call for Bush to be tried for violations but these two cases are very distinct from each other.

Bush’s people are not afraid to speak out and there are no militias beating people and the country feeds itself and feeds Zimbabwe as well.  Bush’s people can wear opposition T-shirts without persecution and they can mock him in his face on TV without consequences.  They can also hold rallies and protests almost at will.  None of these can be said for Mugabe.

His people live in fear and his party kills opponents. His people are always being killed, disappearing, imprisoned or tortured.  Women are always raped by the militias.  Bush does not beat his people to vote for him, he has no operation “Mavhotera Whatever”. Neither does he use rape as a weapon.  He also has no food or currency shortages, not to mention sanitary wear for women.

Both men are similar in that they love to export war. Bush took the war to Iraq and Afghanistan and dreams of invading Iran, way after Mugabe took war to Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Of course, he started at home with genocide, beat people up, killed his own comrades and fed the CIO to be a terror. This is not to disagree or agree with any of the wars.  Bush also enjoys watching the Palestinians getting beaten up. He hunts for non-existent weapons of mass destruction inasmuch as Mugabe seeks non-existent enemies and diesel where n’angas directs him in Chinhoyi.

Disagreeing with either man renders one unpatriotic and a threat to national security, although in Bush’s country you may live to argue about it.

For Mugabe to compare Bush to himself (I hear it all the time) is not too far from the truth but there are major differences as well. Bush will be gone in 40 days, when is Mugabe going?  Even he doesn’t know!  Even those who tried to give him a red card don’t know!  Mbeki is gone and so is everyone around him except Dos Santos.

Mugabe is no Bush and Bush cannot be Mugabe. Thing is though, the Americans may not be so willing to hand over Bush, but is the vast majority of Zimbabweans willing to protect Mugabe?

(Source)

The United States has warned Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe not to go back on a power sharing agreement with the two factions of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

Washington has said it will impose new sanctions if President Mugabe fails to abide by the recently signed power sharing agreement.

Both sides signed a power sharing agreement last week to form a unity government aimed at resolving the country’s economic crisis.

But it has recently been reported that an impasse exists between the ruling party and the opposition over cabinet posts.

There have been concerns within opposition circles that if the US were to go ahead with sanctions, Mugabe’s party would portray the opposition as lackeys of the West.

Some Zimbabweans have also expressed concerns about the power-sharing agreement after the resignation of the mediator; South African President Thabo Mbeki, who steps down this week.

(Source)

The ouster of South African President Thabo Mbeki could weaken his mediating role in crisis-torn Zimbabwe but may also nudge Robert Mugabe to quickly agree to a power-sharing cabinet with the opposition before a new leadership settles in Pretoria, analysts said.

Mbeki was forced to resign at the weekend, just five months before the end of his term, clearing the way for Jacob Zuma who has openly criticised Mugabe while his main backers in South Africa’s COSATU labour movement have long called for a tougher approach towards the Zimbabwean leader.

Mbeki pulled a foreign policy coup when he successfully mediated a political settlement between Mugabe and his chief political rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, who leads the larger group of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

But the deal, which was signed on September 15 amid hope by millions of struggling Zimbabweans, could yet unravel as Mugabe, Tsvangirai, and their negotiators have failed to agree on the allocation of Cabinet ministries.

“Robert Mugabe will be wise to reach a settlement with the MDC because the longer he takes the more he is likely to come under pressure from the new South African leadership,” John Makumbe a University of Zimbabwe senior political science lecturer said.

Makumbe said some leaders in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which appointed Mbeki as mediator, viewed Mbeki as not doing enough to pressure Mugabe to end his political excesses.

The MDC has previously said it had no confidence in Mbeki’s mediation efforts while Mugabe’s ZANU PF has rallied behind him.

Mugabe has come under pressure from ruling party hawks to try regain lost ground in the talks and is demanding that his ZANU PF party takes control of all key ministries. Under the political agreement, his party is entitled to 15 cabinet posts, Tsvangirai’s MDC 13 and a rebel opposition faction three seats.

MDC officials say Mugabe can take control of defence and state security, now a department in the presidency, but in return would want home affairs, which controls the police and the key finance ministry to re-assure donors it will influence economic policy.

Political analysts said while SADC was likely to keep Mbeki as mediator in Zimbabwe, his standing would now be significantly weakened.

“He is significantly weaker now without the presidency and this will be tested if he is asked to resolve the deadlock over the allocation of ministries,” Eldred Masunungure, a leading political commentator said.

“But I believe Mugabe is noticing that the bells have tolled for Thabo Mbeki and there is no reason why they should not toll for him. He (Mugabe) would be advised to settle for a deal now,” Masunungure said.

Zimbabweans are in the grips of a serious economic crisis, shown by the world’s highest inflation, unemployment and shortages ranging from food, fuel and foreign currency. The political deal had brought hope in the former prosperous country.

(Source)

The policy of “one man one farm” has to be enforced in a transparent fashion and all Zimbabwean farmers disadvantaged by the 2000 fast track land programme have to be embraced in a new all inclusive land reform programme.

Land reform in Zimbabwe as a means of reducing poverty is an absolute economic and political imperative. The agricultural and non-agricultural sectors have a direct impact on foreign trade and any reform needs to be cognisant of the ramifications caused by the disruptions to organised agriculture.

Prior to the archaic land grab, commercial agriculture used to contribute 40% of market delivery of maize, cotton, groundnut; 90-100% of market delivery of wheat, soyabean, tobacco, coffee, tea and sugar cane; 80% of all commercial beef sales and virtually all milk deliveries. A third of the raw materials to local manufacturing were sourced from the farming sector and contributed 50% of all export earnings through the export of tobacco, maize, cotton and beef, in the normal seasons.

Organised agriculture was 16% of Zimbabwe’s GDP providing employment for 70% of the population and accounting for 40 to 45% of the country’s merchandise exports before ZANU (PF) opted to invade farms as a way of appeasing an agitated rural electorate.

The idea of nationalizing all productive farmland in Zimbabwe, abolishing of all title deeds and replacing them with 99-year leases was ill advised and counterproductive.

If all the agricultural land in Zimbabwe were equitably distributed amongst its 12 million citizens, each person would receive 2.75 hectares of land.

Yet most politically connected people who belong to ZANU (PF) have grabbed over five thousand hectares of prime land each for speculative purposes.

Zimbabwe has a total land area of about 39 million hectares of which 33.3 million hectares are suitable for agricultural purposes and the remaining 6 million hectares reserved for National parks as well as Wildlife and Urban settlements. At independence, agricultural land was divided along racial lines as follows: 6 000 white large-scale commercial farmers controlled about 15.5 million hectares, almost half the total agricultural land in the country, while 840 000 communal area farmers controlled about 16.4 million hectares.

The mainly white commercial farmers held title to about 51% of the land outside urban areas and national parks, including most of the land in Natural Regions I, II and III. This constituted 44% percent of the total land in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe’s agrarian structure, four different land tenure systems, communal areas, resettlement areas, large-scale commercial farms, and small-scale commercial farms, operate across its five natural regions.

Region I, 613 233 hectares, 1.56% of total land, receives more than 1000 millimetres of rain per year and is suitable for dairy farming, forestry, tea, coffee, fruit, beef and maize production.

Region II, 7 343 059 hectares, 18.68% of total land, receives 750-1000 millimetres of rain per year and is suitable for intensive farming based on maize, tobacco, cotton and livestock.

Region III, 6 854 958 hectares, 17.43% of total land, receives 650-800 millimetres of rain per year is a semi-intensive farming region where severe mid-season dry spells are common. Suitable for livestock production, together with production of fodder crops and cash crops under good farm management.

Region IV, 13 010 036 hectares, 33.03% of total land, receives 450-650 millimetres of rain per year and is a semi-extensive region subject to periodic seasonal droughts and severe dry spells during the rainy season.

Suitable for farming systems based on livestock and resistant fodder crops.

Forestry, wildlife/tourism.

Region V, 10 288 036 hectares, 26.2% of total land, receives less than 450 millimetres of rain per year and is a farming region suitable for extensive cattle ranching or game ranching. Zambezi Valley is infested with tsetse flies.

Forestry, wildlife/tourism.

1 220 254 hectares of land constituting 3.1% of Zimbabwe’s land is nsuitable for any agricultural use.

Almost all member of the ZANU (PF) Central Committee and Politburo have grabbed all the productive farms in Natural Regions I,II and III.

Natural regions IV and V, which are arid and semi-arid and where 75% of Zimbabwe’s poorest people live has been carved into 45 hectare plots for the masses.

These areas present a negative cost-benefit scenario for current resettlement models coupled with an uneconomical livestock carrying capacity for subsistence farming.

Forty-nine percent of Zimbabwe’s total land is forest and woodlands while 12.5% is grazing. Only 8% of Zimbabwe’s total area is arable meaning that about 3 080 000 hectares of land are suitable for agriculture. Only 3.5% of the cropland is irrigated and of this land 120 000 hectares is under full irrigation.

Forty-three percent of the arable land is earmarked for cereal production - 1% wheat, 32% maize, 7% millet 3% sorghum. In 1996 with 26 000 tractors, Zimbabwe used 185 000 metric tonnes of fertiliser and was ranked 46th in the world with a total area of 2 057 685 hectares under cereal cultivation which equates to 5.2 % of the total land area of Zimbabwe.

In 2000 Zimbabwe produced 2 108 100 metric tonnes of maize, 85 600 metric tonnes of sorghum and 320 000 metric tonnes of wheat. This healthy food surplus has since been replaced by a 1 000 000 metric tonne maize deficit and a 400 000 metric tonne wheat deficit due to antediluvian agrarian reform policies.

Of the 243 centre pivots irrigation (CPI) that were in use in 2000, satellite imagery reveals that only 60 are in partial and active use in Zimbabwe today. A CPI is a self-propelled sprinkling irrigating apparatus that can irrigate about 150 hectares from a pivot point that supplies water and electricity. The model of CPI’s that were imported into Zimbabwe cost an average of US$95 000.00. Equipment worth 18 million dollars and capable of irrigating 50 000 hectares is now unaccounted for.

The government announced that it is about to fork out US$ 10 million dollars for vehicles to give to the 280 senators and MP’s. As soon as Mugabe appoints his full cabinet, another 10 million will be required for vehicles for ministers and other gravy train riders. This combined amount is more than what is required to restore our national center pivot irrigation systems to their pre-2000 level.

If these missing center pivots were operational and competent farmers appointed to manage them, Zimbabwe would easily harvest 500 000 metric tonnes of early-planted maize grain that would be germinating by September 15 after the wheat harvest. The remainder of the maize crop, 1.2 million metric tonnes would be harvested from another 250 000 hectares. With supplementary irrigation, yields would average of 5 metric tonnes per hectare. A total of 300 000 thousand hectares divided into 1000 hectare farms managed by less than 300 agricultural professionals could produce our national grain requirements.

Contrary to popular belief, Zimbabwe is in its fourth land reform and resettlement programme (LRRP). All of which were dismal failures due to corruption, cronyism and partisan allocation of land to incompetent individuals.

The first phase from 1980 to1997, redistributed 3,498,440 million hectares to 71,000 families and the second phase lasted from 1997 to December 2004.

LRRP2 was in the second phase and acquired 5 million hectares between September 1998 and December 2004.

Then there was the catastrophic fast track resettlement phase from July 2000-December 2001 which sought to redistribute 9 million hectares creating 160,000 model A1 communal farmers and 51,000 small to medium-scale ‘indigenous’ commercial farmers.

Four thousand white farmer families have since been displaced together with their 600 000 worker families to make way for 127 000 resettled new farmers through invasions backed by nefarious legislation. Commercial agriculture has been ruined and the poor landless are now poorer than when they started.

The solution to Zimbabwe’s food security lies with its competent farmers, politicians have no business owning agricultural land.

(Source)

When Robert Mugabe was a young boy, he was shy, prone to worry, and desperate to please his mother. A recent biography tells of his amazing rise from a village upbringing to become an African statesman, leader of a people’s long struggle for independence, and then, tragically, his dismal failure in office: an angry and suspicious old man, haughty, ruthless, and desperate to please only himself. Mr Mugabe will be remembered for the ruin he has inflicted on Zimbabwe. True freedom for the people still awaits.

Whether Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, can help Zimbabwe escape the yoke of Mr Mugabe’s rule is not yet clear. The two bitter rivals have signed a power-sharing deal, a complicated arrangement that leaves Mr Mugabe as President, makes Mr Tsvangirai Prime Minister, and promises a joint cabinet for decision-making. The army stays under Mr Mugabe’s control, while Mr Tsvangirai apparently has the job of fixing the devastated economy. With inflation running wild, at a rate which makes the local currency effectively worthless and drives Zimbabwe’s people ever deeper into poverty, that task is daunting.

Mr Mugabe may see this deal as a strategic concession, part of a tangled scheme to cling to power, and indeed, the early signs offer little encouragement to believe he is surrendering much. After only a week, talks have already stalled on which of the two parties will control important government portfolios.

Nor will the weekend ousting of neighbouring South African President Thabo Mbeki help to secure a stable government in Zimbabwe, at least for now. Mr Mbeki had been roundly criticised in the West for treating Mr Mugabe too gently, but in the end, he brokered the deal with Mr Tsvangirai. With Mr Mbeki the victim of his own power struggle at home, what little authority he carried to make demands of the notoriously defiant Mr Mugabe has disappeared, even if he stays on as mediator. Without a credible person to steer the deal through the difficult days ahead, the arrangement could collapse.

Yet Mr Mugabe may worry that Jacob Zuma, the man likely to eventually take over as South Africa’s president, will bring a tougher approach. After all, up to 1.5 million Zimbabwean refugees are estimated to have fled across the border, so South Africa has enormous interests at stake. Mr Zuma has shown little nostalgia for Mr Mugabe’s history of fighting white minority rule, instead, lambasting the regime for “riding roughshod over the hard-won democratic rights of the people”. If Mr Mugabe wants to foster a situation where he can leave office, free from prosecution, the current deal offers his last and best chance.

It certainly rankles that for all his crimes, Mr Mugabe could escape punishment. In this, Mr Tsvangirai’s dilemma is acute. He has consistently refused to call for a popular uprising against the regime, fearing the terrible toll this would take on an already battered people. Yet he has been derided abroad for running from a fight. His own safety has been under threat - last year he was bashed before a political rally, and this year he pulled out of presidential elections, citing fears of an assassination plot. Yet he is unwilling to simply wait for the 84-year-old Mr Mugabe to expire, and in the meantime allow the people’s suffering to go on.

Instead, Mr Tsvangirai has taken an enormous risk, to strike a deal with a man who deserves little trust. Any moves to prosecute Mr Mugabe will derail the precarious agreement. The blithe calls for justice by outsiders is fine sentiment, but does little to end Zimbabwe’s crisis. As Mr Tsvangirai explained during a visit to Melbourne last year, there are conflicting emotions on Mr Mugabe: “Land and race are intricately linked issues in Africa, so you find some people supporting him, not because he’s right, but because he’s one of our own.”

While Mr Mugabe will be at the United Nations in New York this week, no doubt denouncing Western imperialism as a way of distracting from his chronic misrule, the world should keep its attention on Mr Tsvangirai. He will need support to begin the painful task of building Zimbabwe, with food, supplies and sensible advice. There are risks. He cannot be seen as a Western stooge. Equally, if the world hangs back for too long, waiting to see who is really in charge, whatever opportunity this deal offers will vanish.

Zimbabwe needs an escape from Mr Mugabe’s tyranny. Even if this deal comes unstuck, importantly, it has shown change is possible. Better it comes sooner - Zimbabwe’s people have waited enough.

(Source)

Even if all goes well, it could take more than 12 years for Zimbabwe’s economy to recover peak levels of per capita income reached in 1991, according to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) report published yesterday.

The report, Comprehensive Economic Recovery in Zimbabwe , was researched and written by five Zimbabwean economists. It is the first economic assessment to be published in the wake of this week’s power-sharing agreement between Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai, now prime minister-designate.

Over 239 pages the report charts the radical and, in many cases, painful policy measures necessary to revive the country’s fortunes following a decade of crisis.

A minimum of €3.5 billion in foreign aid, including debt relief, will be needed over the next five years if the government is to plug financing gaps, revive infrastructure and stave off hunger among the five million Zimbabweans threatened by starvation.

This would make it one of the largest recipients of aid in Africa.

Those figures would be significantly higher if pensioners were reimbursed for savings eviscerated by the collapse of the currency, and thousands of white farmers driven from their land by Mr Mugabe’s resettlement programme compensated.

“Without substantial foreign assistance sustainable economic recovery will be impossible,” the report says, adding that the manner in which Zimbabwe tackles structural problems at the outset could determine whether it becomes aid-dependent or able, in the long term, to sustain its own development.

Farm production has more than halved in a decade, starving the manufacturing sector, once among the most developed on the continent, of raw materials and creating conditions for mass starvation. Tourism has petered out, while the HIV-Aids pandemic has contributed to reducing life expectancy from 57 to 37 years.

At least two million of the 12 million population have emigrated to South Africa, the UK, Botswana and other countries, many of them skilled workers and professionals. Eighty per cent of medical personnel trained since 1980 have left the country.

A prerequisite for recovery will be plugging vast budget deficits financed in recent years by money-printing and credit creation. This has driven inflation to a world record of about 40 million per cent and created a nation of pauperised trillionaires.

The mechanisms used to tackle hyperinflation could make the difference between a short-term bust followed by recovery and a near-term consumption boom followed by recession.

In a “lost” decade Zimbabwe’s economy has contracted 37 per cent, while the rest of sub-Saharan Africa made average gains of 40 per cent. It would take uninterrupted growth of 5 per cent annually until 2020 to recover peak per capita income levels. A more likely average is less than 4 per cent, the report’s authors suggest.

Bilateral donors could step in quickly, one senior western official said, if they are convinced the new government is able to carry out reforms. However, this will be dependent on clear signs that Mr Mugabe, in power since 1980, and whom they blame for the crisis, has been sidelined.

Longer-term budgetary support - of the type the UNDP suggests will be vital to stabilise the economy - will be dependent on Zimbabwe agreeing a programme with the International Monetary Fund.

Donors have yet to allocate specific funds for Zimbabwe, and recovery plans, of the Multi-Donor Trust Fund (MDTF) administered by the World Bank, are still at draft stage.

(Source)

Yesterday I spent close to 2 hours in and out of a bank queue trying to withdraw my $1000 for the day. I stood so long I began to shiver slightly from both hunger pangs and exhaustion. Soon as I got my one leaf, I proceeded straight to Libby’s and bought myself hot chips for exactly $1000. They were the cheapest meal on the menu. I told my partner and since then he won’t stop making fun of me. He says it’s a whole new meaning to the term hand-to-mouth. It’s simply ridiculous and defeats logic that I spent so long to get such little cash and when I did, I immediately used it all on lunch. The reasoning was had I not spent so long in the queue, I wouldn’t have felt faint in the first place. Which makes me think of the way South African politics work. When they feel someone is not doing their job properly, they shout from the rooftops if they have to and actively advocate having that person removed with immediate effect. Currently, that is what’s happening to President Mbeki, despite his so-called victory on the Zimbabwe mediation.

Recently the ANC mass mobilized to demand that all charges against Jacob Zuma be dropped citing unfair treatment by the NPA. They went out of their way to demonstrate in front of the courts, they even threatened to ‘crush’ anyone who blocked Zuma’s path to the presidency. Frankly it was my first time to witness a group of people actually advocate for a criminal to be set free. The courts probably gave in and acquitted Zuma, and now the heat has been turned onto Mbeki. The ANC is blatantly and unashamedly using the ANCYL President Julius Malema to communicate the fact that Mbeki is no longer wanted within the ANC and to demand his resignation. Although Malema does this under the banner of representing the position of the youth league even those with half a brain can figure out that the silence of the ANC whiteheads speaks of their collective opinion.

Although I do not completely subscribe to the ANC strategy of doing things I sometimes wish we had similar kinds of behavior in Zimbabwe, more so within the ruling party. That’s the way a democracy should be, for the people, and not the individual to be in control of things and to decide who stays and who goes. But in Zimbabwe, it is taboo and even if some members of the politburo were disgruntled about the leadership, they would never dare to explicitly register their disapproval. I guess it’s a question of socialization and this culture of inherent resignation threatens to prevail over all deliberations in this country as long as Bob lives.

Right now barely 48 hours after the contentious signing of the agreement, another deadlock has been reported over the allocation of Ministries and who gets what portfolio. Those clowns squabbling about whether or not the key ministries of Finance, Agriculture, Foreign affairs, Local government, Justice and Information should still be under ZANU PF patronage or not is the last thing we need. It has been as plain as day that the previous cabinet, which by the way, Mugabe himself called the worst ever, failed to run this country and its clear that for any economic progress to prevail, such posts must exchange hands into those of younger, more capable ones.

As long as Mugabe and his people retain these key positions, this will not only be egg in Tsvangirai’s face but there is absolutely no way this country will turn around. The international community has indicated it is not prepared to inject any funds where there is a likelihood of them being squandered again by the chefs in their insatiable appetite for self-enrichment while intended beneficiaries, who are ordinary Zimbabweans, continue to live in abject poverty. I would suggest that as long as selfish interests still prevail over practicality and simple humanity, Tsvangirai must just call it quits. If he decides to give in to ZANU PF’s impossible demands, then we know we’ve got ourselves another wolf out to fatten his stomach - at the expense of the poor taxpayer.

It worries me how people can spend so much time arguing over what obviously needs to be done when the country is at an advanced state of emergency and needs serious economic rehabilitation. Haven’t these ruling party politicians made enough hay while the ZANU PF sun still shone brightly, especially in the years they looted from the whites under the banners of land reform and reclamation of sovereignty? Have they not stolen enough, even from the mouths of the poor - to last them a lifetime? We desperately need a change of tactics and Tsvangirai and his people are our only hope so far. Only the selfishness of an egotistic few now stands between Zimbabweans and the road to economic renewal. This arrangement will only work when individuals involved are prepared to do without unnecessary opulence and to work together for the benefit of the majority.

(Source)

Zimbabwe prime minister-designate Morgan Tsvangirai was quoted on Wednesday as saying some senior members of President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party could face trial over political violence, but not the veteran leader himself. “I don’t think Mugabe himself as a person can be held accountable. But there are various levels of institutional violence that has taken place and I’m sure we’ll be able to look at that,” Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper.

“Let the rule of law apply… We all cry for the rule of law, and if somebody’s committed an offence he should be prosecuted.” In an interview with The Times newspaper, also published on Wednesday, Tsvangirai said the new government was committed to ensuring there would be no repeat of the violence, which he described as “the darkest period in our history”.”It can never be allowed to happen again,” he said.

Tsvangirai will become prime minister under a power-sharing deal signed on Monday with Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe for nearly three decades, and Arthur Mutambara, who leads a small breakaway faction of the MDC. The agreement followed weeks of tense talks to end a deep political and economic crisis compounded by Mugabe’s unopposed re-election in a widely condemned vote in June. Tsvangirai pulled out of the poll citing violence against his supporters. Zimbabweans hope the deal will be a first step in helping to rescue the once prosperous nation from economic collapse. Inflation has rocketed to over 11 million percent and millions have fled to neighbouring southern African countries.

(Source)

The Harare government Saturday dismissed the decision by Canada to impose targeted sanctions as ‘misinformed and unfortunate’, saying it will further hit ordinary Zimbabweans.

On Friday Canadian Foreign Minister David Emerson announced that his country had imposed targeted sanctions against Zimbabwe saying it was a protest against ‘intimidation and state-sponsored violence’ against opposition supporters by President Robert Mugabe’s government.

The Canadian government said it was banning arms exports, freezing the assets of top Zimbabwean officials and banning Zimbabwean aircraft from its airspace or landing in Canada.

Zimbabwe Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa, speaking to Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa, said: ‘It is clear where they are taking a cue from. It is an unfortunate decision and an unjustifiable action. There is no opposition that is being intimidated. We are negotiating with the opposition that Canada claims to be saying is being intimidated.’

It was an apparent reference to the power-sharing talks between the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and ruling Zanu PF party to which Chinamasa belongs.

The MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said he will not agree to any settlement with Mugabe unless it gives him the authority to govern Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in a March 29 election but fell short of enough votes to avoid a June 27 run-off election. Mugabe won the second round that Tsvangirai pulled out citing massive violence and intimidation against his supporters. The opposition claimed that Zanu PF militia killed about 100 of its supporters between the two elections.

The run-off was not recognized by many countries around the world and attracted sanctions from Western countries - such as the EU and the US whose support is pivotal for reviving Zimbabwe’s economy that is on a free-flow.

Responding to the imposition of sanctions by Canada, Nelson Chamisa the MDC spokesperson said: ‘This is strictly a matter between the two (those targeted by the sanctions and Canada), but we can comment in detail further only after digesting the statement by Canada.’

(Source)