Zimbabwean doctors, who routinely strike for more pay, are bitter that President Robert Mugabe's government has awarded them paltry monthly salary increases equivalent to the price of three loaves of low-quality bread. The Hospitals Doctors Association (HDA) said it was now consulting its membership with a view to staging more industrial action.

On International Peace Day, Wednesday September 21, the feisty protest group, Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA), staged a peaceful demonstration in Harare, demanding "Peace not Poverty". Until the riot police intervened with batons it was an entirely peaceful, orderly and good-natured protest. A short distance from Town House the protesters were intercepted by baton-wielding riot police who lashed out at them without mercy. Most of them managed to escape arrest on this occasion, though not to avoid bruises and cuts from the police batons. It is believed however than three of their number were detained by the police. Human rights lawyers are seeking to establish the whereabouts of the three and the nature of any charges brought against them, but at the time of filing this report the lawyers had not been able to make contact with them.

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe had wife- battering charges against his spokesman George Charamba thrown out to avoid damaging his office's reputation, it has emerged. Government officials said Mugabe's office covered up charges that Charamba had allegedly assaulted his wife, Rudo, during a row over a missing gun on February 24 last year. The incident allegedly took place at the couple's Mandara home in Harare. Charamba is said to have a black belt in karate. The officials said the case was dropped against the will of police commissioner Augustine Chihuri after Mugabe intervened.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it will take part in the Senate polls due to be held before the end of the year, The Standard can reveal. Professor Welshman Ncube, the MDC secretary-general told The Standard that there were differences between circumstances leading to the Senate elections and the 31 March Parliamentary elections. "There are fundamental differences between the March Parliamentary elections and the position we are in right now. It is very clear that the national council lifted the suspension on election participation and that position has not changed. The operative resolution of the council is that we are in the elections," Ncube said.

Seventeen employees of Zimbabwe's state-run oil procurement company have been suspended following investigations into the theft of tens of thousands of litres of fuel, the Sunday Mail has reported. The state-run newspaper, quoting unnamed sources, said 38 000 litres of petrol and diesel had disappeared on one day recently and that millions of litres could have been stolen since the beginning of the year. The oil depot has had to cancel night shifts in an attempt to prevent theft. The stolen fuel had supplied the black market, where it sold for prices way above those set by the government, the newspaper said. It had also been smuggled into neighbouring countries

A new wave of land seizures has hit Zimbabwe as the government enters the final stage of a campaign to evict the last remaining white commercial farmers from their properties after nationalising the country's land. The latest wave has hit eastern Zimbabwe, especially Chipinge district, where farmers are now being forced out. Gangs of Zanu PF militia backed by police overran at least two farms this week, beating and threatening farmers and managers before chasing them off the land.

Skinning the Skunk refers to a saying in Shona, kuvhiya kadembo. The Zimbabwean writer Stanley Nyamfukudza uses it here to illustrate how important problems, like the legacy of violence, are avoided in Zimbabwean public discussion. Terence Ranger writes on the new policy of rewriting the history of Zimbabwe, in the name of "patriotic history", through which the Zanu-PF government tries to assert hegemony and achieve "a total change of the mindset". To talk about Zimbabwe today also means to talk of the large diaspora. Beacon Mbiba presents a study on what is colloquially called "Harare North", that is London (and the rest of the UK).

Only immediate and drastic political and economic reforms, including President Robert Mugabe leaving power - now and not after two years - could pull Zimbabwe from the brink, analysts said on Monday. Reacting to comments by Mugabe in an interview on Sky news at the weekend that he would step down to rest when his term expires in 2008, the analysts said an earlier departure by the veteran leader would more than lift crisis-sapped Zimbabwe’s fortunes.

Zimbabwe's controversial slum clearance campaign has disrupted programmes aimed at treating HIV/Aids in the country, says New York-based Human Rights Watch. The disruption to treatment programmes could also spread resistance to drugs and lead to more infections, it says. The group say the demolitions have also exacerbated food shortages by making it harder for aid agencies to help.

Based on the values and principles of the social forum(s) one is encouraged with their emphasis on participation, popular initiatives and democratic, people centred social and economic processes that fulfil Shivji’s assertion for “popular livelihoods, popular participation and popular power” (Shivji 2004). In challenging anti-democratic forces and extending participation to people the possibility of social emancipation becomes obvious and the chains of nationalist authoritarianism and global apartheid can be broken.

In its policy of forced evictions and mass displacement, the Zimbabwean government has violated the human rights of hundreds of thousands of its citizens, Human Rights Watch said in a report released this week. Over the past two weeks, the Zimbabwean authorities have compounded the suffering by refusing to fully cooperate with United Nations agencies and humanitarian groups working to assist the evicted population. On August 26, President Robert Mugabe’s government rejected the terms of a draft U.N. emergency appeal that would have helped hundreds of thousands of those hardest hit by the evictions.

Harare has made an urgent appeal to South Africa to finalize a loan agreement under discussion and release funds amid reports that Zimbabwe’s economic crisis has only deepened with the government’s payment of $120 million in scarce hard currency to the International Monetary Fund to stave off the loss of membership. A senior official at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe said the country desperately needs an infusion of hard currency to purchase fuel, food, and essential inputs for agriculture and manufacturing.

A magistrate in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, acquitted a journalist on criminal charges of working without accreditation for the now-banned Daily News, according to his lawyer. Observers say the ruling in favor of Kelvin Jakachira could set an important precedent for several other former Daily News journalists facing the same charge. Jakachira was accused of working for the paper between January and September 2003 without the government license required by the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA). The Daily News, Zimbabwe's only independent daily, was forced to close in September 2003 after the Supreme Court ruled that it was operating illegally under AIPPA.

An increasing number of Zimbabweans are turning to traditional healers for inexpensive medical care as health costs continue their upward trajectory. Under-resourced state hospitals and clinics charge around Zim $20,000 (US 8 cents) per consultation, but the cost at better-equipped private hospitals is around Zim $500,000 (US $20) and patients can quite easily run up a bill of Zim $15 million (US $615) in a week.

Zimbabwean human rights activists condemned sweeping constitutional amendments approved by parliament on Tuesday, arguing the government has undermined basic freedoms. Describing the proposed changes to the constitution as the "worst piece of legislation yet", Joseph James, president of the Law Society of Zimbabwe, said lawyers "across political and ideological lines" had, for the first time, taken a stance against the new legislation.
Related Link:
Serious concerns over ammendment bill
http://www.zlhr.org.zw/media/releases/aug_04_05.htm

Operation Murambatsvina (Restore Order) cost some 700,000 Zimbabweans their homes or livelihoods or both and otherwise affected nearly a fifth of the troubled country's population, says the International Crisis Group in a recent report. "Its impact, as documented in a scathing UN report, has produced a political shock that has returned Zimbabwe to the international spotlight and made the quality of its governance almost impossible for its regional neighbours to ignore, however difficult they find it to be overtly critical." Effort on three parallel tracks is required to resolve the crisis - the maintenance of overt international pressure, support for building internal political capacity and active regional diplomacy to facilitate political transition.

"Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) notes with grave concern that over 1500 families previously at Caledonia Transit camp, Hatcliffe Extension and Porta Farm were forcibly relocated to Hopley Farm along the Masvingo Road on the understanding that they will be allocated stands and become beneficiaries of the government’s purported “Operation Garikai”. For the past one week or more the families have gone without a decent meal, clean water and sanitary facilities, or temporary shelter; they have had to resort to using nearby bushes for purposes of relieving themselves. They have been subjected to the most dehumanising conditions in total disregard of the instructive and critical findings of the United Nations Special Envoy on Human Settlements Issues in Zimbabwe." - August 05 press release from Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe failed to win the $1-billion loan he desperately needed from the Chinese government this week to buy essential imports such as food, fuel, electricity and drugs. While visiting China, he won diplomatic points against the West with a pledge from Beijing to veto any tough United Nations security council resolutions on Zimbabwe. However, China failed to prevent the council debating Mugabe's controversial campaign to "clean up" shacks and hawkers. But in cash terms, Mugabe returned largely empty-handed.

That Zimbabwe's ruling party, ZANU-PF was able to win the March 2005 Parliamentary Election, despite the massive economic decline under its governance, seems to defy logic and invites an investigation as to whether the election was fair, whether people were able to cast their vote freely over the voting period, and whether the announced results accurately reflected the vote. This is the beginning of a July report from the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum that analyses the allegations of rigging in relation to the voting process and whether the process was free and fair. "Three issues are of concern: whether the process was fair, whether people were able to cast their vote freely over the voting period, and whether the announced results accurately reflected the vote," says the report.
Related Link:
* Development Denied: Autocratic Militarism in Post-election Zimbabwe
http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/jul28_2005.html#link27

Evictions in Johannesburg have sparked protests from civil rights groups, who accuse South Africa of copying Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's controversial urban clearance programme, in which hundreds of thousands of homes have been demolished by government officials. Johannesburg is accused of relying on apartheid-era laws to evict people to make room for inner-city regeneration plans ahead of the 2010 Soccer World Cup.