A month after Zimbabwe's government declared a state of emergency over HIV/AIDS to allow the importation and manufacture of generic drugs, not much action has been taken and there are still a lot of unanswered questions, Zimbabwe's National Network for People living with HIV/AIDS (ZNNP+), told PlusNews.

In the aftermath of the deeply flawed March 2002 presidential election, Zimbabwe has dropped off the radar screen of most policy-makers and media but its crisis is deepening:

- the ruling ZANU-PF party and the government are systematically using violence to intimidate the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and civil society in order to punish and compel them to accept the results;

- the economy is further deteriorating as foreign investment and food both become scarce commodities; with regional drought compounding the land seizure crisis, UN agencies warn of possible famine; and

- as the opposition considers mass protests, the prospect of serious internal conflict is becoming imminent, with grave implications for the stability of the wider Southern African region.

The international response has been mixed and inadequate. South Africa and Nigeria, who made possible the Commonwealth's suspension of Zimbabwe in the immediate aftermath of the election, have attempted throughout the spring to facilitate party-to-party talks between ZANU-PF and the MDC. Many African governments, however, have given barely qualified if slightly embarrassed approval to President Mugabe's re-election while trying to minimise Zimbabwe's relevance to their efforts to construct new economic relationships between the continent and the rest of the world.

Most Western countries have done little except repeat rhetorical condemnations that appear, counter-productively, to have persuaded Mugabe that their policies are "all bark, no bite" and to have increased sympathy for him in much of Africa. The European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.) have meaningfully expanded neither the target list of affected individuals nor the scope for the sanctions (primarily travel restrictions) they imposed on senior ZANU-PF figures before the election. Key G-8 countries have signalled in advance of their 26-27 June 2002 summit that they may be prepared to relax the requirement that African states apply serious peer pressure on Zimbabwe as a precondition for advancing the New Program for Africa's Development (NEPAD) initiative on which the continent pins its hopes for integration into the world economy.

The party-to-party talks initially made progress. An agenda was agreed, and the facilitators had begun to explore ideas, built around a transitional power sharing arrangement, to pursue constitutional reform and restructure the presidency to require new elections while finessing the MDC's requirement for a rerun of the March poll and ZANU-PF's insistence Mugabe's victory be accepted. However, the talks collapsed in May when ZANU-PF withdrew, demanding that the MDC drop its court challenge to that result.

The substantive gap is considerable, and ZANU-PF is carrying out repressive actions around the country that heighten tension and damage the environment for any negotiation. The MDC entered talks despite considerable scepticism at its grassroots - based on those actions and earlier history - that the governing party intends anything except to destroy or co-opt it. Serious internal fissures and pressures now threaten to radicalise the MDC's strategy. Its leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has begun to speak of switching to mass public protests within weeks if there is no movement toward new elections. Every indication is that this would produce a sharp ZANU-PF response that would set off a cycle of much more serious domestic conflict, refugees across borders, and further economic decline.

In these circumstances, it is vital for the international community to focus its efforts with renewed urgency on defusing the immediate crisis. The most promising avenue, if only for lack of any realistic alternative, is presented by the party-to-party talks. South Africa and Nigeria need to become much more assertive in encouraging ZANU-PF to return to the negotiating table and both sides to pursue genuine compromises. In particular, they need to use more of their considerable political leverage to push the governing party to improve the negotiating environment by ending the widespread violence for which it is responsible. By so doing they will also gain credibility with the MDC that can be used at a later stage to broker agreements.

Other African states should give full support and make clear that President Mugabe will be isolated if he does not end the political violence and negotiate in good faith. The Africans should also use Qadhafi's desire to be accepted as a statesman to encourage Libya to cut off material support that encourages Mugabe's intransigence.

His fellow African leaders, especially Presidents Mbeki of South Africa and Obasanjo of Nigeria, have most of the real leverage that can influence Mugabe. However, the EU, U.S. and other friends of Zimbabwe can play important roles by focusing on helping the facilitators get the party-to-party talks back on track within the next several weeks. They should mute the rhetoric but toughen and extend targeted sanctions; make clear there will be no progress on NEPAD at the G-8 Summit unless Africans put more pressure on ZANU-PF; and (especially the British) pledge anew to contribute significantly, in the context of an overall settlement, to land reform in Zimbabwe - which is a genuine issue though one cynically abused by the ruling party.

They should also offer assistance that strengthens civil society and helps provide unemployed young people with economic alternatives to joining the ruling party's militias. These middle and longer term objectives, however, must be subordinated to the immediate priority of heading off an increasingly dangerous confrontation this summer.

Zimbabwe is not a lost cause. Conflict prevention based on democracy, rule-of-law, and a functioning economy can succeed, but only if the key international actors, led by the Africans themselves, throw their full weight behind a genuine negotiating process before the grievances are taken into the streets.

Three Daily News staffers arrested on Sunday 16 June are still languishing in police cells and medical attention has been denied to them and a number of other people arrested on the same day. Daily News reporter Guthrie Munyuki, photographer Urgunia Mauluka and driver Shadreck Mukwecheni were arrested while they covered an opposition gathering that the police brutally clamped down on. The three were beaten by the police resulting in Munyuki sustaining a fracture on his right hand wrist. Mauluka's elbow was swollen according to a doctor who was granted access to the three on Sunday. The police have since denied medical attention to the three and many other opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party supporters who were arrested on Sunday.

The trial of the Guardian Zimbabwe correspondent Andrew Meldrum is likely to hit a brick wall as the state faces the dilemma of proving whether Meldrum published the story in Zimbabwe or not as the article in contention was downloaded from the internet. The defence in the case has amounted the trial to an attempt by the Zimbabwe government to inflict its repressive media laws on the rest of the world. The dilemma that the state finds itself in is based on the fact that the Guardian newspaper is unavailable in Zimbabwe, but the prosecution insists that its criminal courts have jurisdiction over editors and journalists abroad whenever their "falsehoods" are downloaded by intelligence officers who surf the net looking for "law breakers."

The International Federation of Journalists, the world's largest organization of journalists, today called for a leading journalist on trial under draconian new press regulations to be freed and for the Government of Zimbabwe to end its "deplorable vendetta against press freedom." The IFJ says the trial of Andrew Meldrum, the Guardian's Harare correspondent, is "victimization of a respected professional."

The recent warning that six million Zimbabweans face hunger could be the final straw for the country, already reeling from high inflation, daily food shortages and political instability. A regional food assessment puts almost half of Zimbabwe's population at risk of having no food mainly because of a drought and the country's land reform programme.

Reduction of provider downtime (time absent from the clinic, time spent unoccupied, or time not otherwise used productively) at family planning clinics in the developing world could increase capacity to provide services with a minimal rise in costs. Poorly paid providers, however, may require financial incentives to increase their workload.

Riot police used teargas and fired shots in the air on Sunday to halt a Zimbabwe opposition rally held to mark South Africa's youth day, arresting more than 30 activists and a freelance television journalist. A freelance journalist at the scene said police armed with batons, guns and teargas attacked the rally of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) 20 minutes after it had begun.

The government has placed a crack army battalion and riot police units on high alert in Harare and directed them to crush any opposition mass action meant to force a fresh presidential election, security officials said this week. They said the government's Joint Operation Command (JOC), a think-tank of top military and security officials, had mapped out a broad security plan to stamp down on the mass action that is being planned by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), which accuses President Robert Mugabe of stealing the March vote.

Andrew Meldrum, a foreign correspondent for the British paper, The Guardian, went on trial in Harare this week accused of publishing a false story in a test case for the state's restrictive media laws. Meldrum, 50, is US citizen and Zimbabwean permanent resident who has lived in the country since 1980. He pleaded not guilty.

Forty thousand people - mainly children - in Zimbabwe's western Binga district will not receive their food aid after a food distribution programme run by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace was closed by police on Wednesday. Father Tom McQuillen told IRIN that as trucks were being loaded with food in the morning, war veterans arrived and put a chain and a padlock around the gate of the church grounds and wouldn't let them leave.

The Minister of Information and Publicity, Professor Jonathan Moyo, seems to have kept his word that the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act will put to silence what he termed “gutter and trash journalism”. The Act has indeed been invoked over 12 (twelve) times to date, however not against gutter and trash journalism, but on the contrary, to silence the Zimbabwe private media from performing its constitutionally guaranteed duty of informing the public. The Act hovers over the operations of each man and women working in the private media in Zimbabwe, as literally anything written or published can be “criminal”. The coming of the Act has seen the arrests of journalists at a frequency that has never been experienced in independent Zimbabwe. And the arrests are for virtually anything one’s mind can fathom.

The Media Monitoring Project views with grave concern the recent appointment of commissioners to the Media and Information Commission as provided for in the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. MMPZ notes that firstly, the Commission itself is not an independent body since it is appointed by a government minister and is directly accountable to him. Secondly, that while the Commission purports to encourage and enforce ethical and professional journalistic practice; the functions of the Commission serve to restrict the public’s constitutional rights to freedom of expression and limits those wishing to exercise these rights. Thirdly, the composition of the Commission is not representative of Zimbabwean society. And finally, the Commission has been constituted within an Act that is in fact designed to restrict the free flow of information and opinion, and the people’s rights to these fundamental freedoms.

Sanctions against Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe and his regime must be stepped up, Labour MEP Glenys Kinnock has told the European Union. As Mr Mugabe attended a United Nations conference in Italy, despite an EU visa ban, Mrs Kinnock called on European nations to increase the pressure for change in his country. She said: "Mugabe is using these UN meetings to parade himself in Europe in defiance of our ban, while the people in his country suffer because of his policies."

The Zimbabwe government is to investigate allegations that cabinet ministers, officials from the ruling ZANU-PF and war veterans have extorted millions of dollars from white commercial farmers to avoid eviction or the sale of their land.

On the 3 June 2002, the President and Secretary of the Law Society were arrested and detained by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police. The offices of the Law Society, the Secretary’s law practice and the private residences of both the President and the Secretary were subjected to search and official law society documents were seized. The two were charged with contravening section 5(2)(b)(1) of the Public Order and Security Act.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) is particularly alarmed at the apparent attempts to compromise the independence, effectiveness and integrity of the Law Society of Zimbabwe, and the personal attacks on its Secretary and President. The arrest of the President and Secretary come as the latest in a campaign to silence criticism of the government. ZLHR fears that the arrests of the President and the Secretary may herald a plan to compromise our justice delivery system and the safety of human rights defenders.

Based on the charges and the submissions of the state representative at the hearing of an application for the release of Messrs Moyo and Mapombere, we consider that the charges were palpably false, unfounded and apparently malicious for the following reasons:

1. There is no section 5 (2)(b)(1) in the Public Order and Security Act;
2. It is alleged that the President of the Law Society of Zimbabwe organised a meeting on 4 March 2002 to plan “peaceful” “mass action” in support of the MDC and at which meeting it was agreed that the MDC ceases reconciliation talks with ZANU PF. It is an undisputable fact that on 4 of March 2002, Presidential elections had not yet been held and the MDC had not engaged ZANU PF in any reconciliation talks and there had been no talk of mass action;
3. In light of the accused persons’ denials; the highly questionable authenticity of the letters supposedly written by the accused and the impossibility of the facts of the offence alleged, no “reasonable suspicion” of an offence having been committed could remotely have arisen. In any event, the right to peacefully demonstrate, assuming the letters are authentic, is protected under Sections 20 and 21 of the Constitution which guarantee the right of freedom of expression and freedom of association and assembly;
4. Further, the whole of Section 5 of the Public Order and Security Act is arguably unconstitutional as it severely restricts the exercise of the right to freedom of expression.

The apparent persecution of the Law Society of Zimbabwe and its secretariat comes after vitriolic and unfounded attacks on the person of the President of the Law Society by the government through its Minister of Information and Publicity in the President’s Office, as reported in the Herald of 18 April 2002, for statements made in his official capacity.

Meanwhile it has come to the attention of Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights that the government may have intentions to introduce legislation to give it control over the Law Society Council. We hope that the unjustified arrests of the President and Secretary of the Law Society will not be used as an excuse to pass such legislation.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights is extremely concerned at the attempts to undermine the republican and democratic principles underpinning the Constitution of Zimbabwe. There seems to exist a systematic suppression of the plurality of opinion and the growth of democracy. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act severely controls the activities of the print media and practitioners. The Broadcasting Services Act constructively prohibits the creation of competing private radio and television stations. The Public Order and Security Act severely limits every citizen’s freedom of expression, association, assembly and protection of the law. In 2001 the Executive caused the resignation of a number of judges, in an attempt to compromise the independence of the Judiciary. The executive had also systematically ignored court orders. Parliament continues to be compromised by the appointment, directly or indirectly, of thirty members by the President which gives the party of the President effective control over Parliament.

Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights is outraged at the perverse use by the executive of the criminal justice system. We call upon every lawyer, and every patriotic Zimbabwean to denounce the treasonous intentions of subverting citizens’ rights. Every Zimbabwean should jealously guard our liberation values and the fruits of our hard won independence for which tens of thousands of our fellow countrymen perished.

Zimbabwe's only privately owned broadcasting station, Joy TV, started in July 1998, closed down on 31 May 2002, bringing down the curtain on Zimbabwe's botched experiment with broadcasting diversity and carrying the same dream down with it. Joy TV closed down after a lease agreement it had with the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation was cancelled on the grounds that it violated the Broadcasting Services Act, which was enacted in 2001.

This book examines the dialectics of political liberalisation in Zimbabwe, over time, from the settler period to the late nineties. The study takes in theoretical parameters for political and economic concepts and assumptions; and provides a historical overview of settler rule, civil society reactions, and political developments from 1945-1979. The author reveals stark historical continuities during this period. He argues that the post-independence state has sought, like its settler predecessor, to impose its hegemonic position by limiting the level of political space in which civil society could operate; corporatist structures and policies have militated against the establishment of a fully-fledged democratic society. The final chapter, which analyses structural adjustment and liberalisation, and the legacy of settler rule, offfers an assessment of the prospects of a lasting democractic process in Zimbabwe, and likely obstacles.

Women in the Southern Africa region have mandated the Women and Land in Zimbabwe organisation to represent them at regional level in championing for women's land rights.

Zimbabwe's world renowned female sculptor, Agnes Nyanhongo's work deals with the standing of women in traditional and contemporary African society. She is a staunch advocate of the freedom of women.