Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe appeared intent early in 2011 on holding elections later in the year, in a bid to end an unhappy coalition with Morgan Tsvangerai, but a number of factors are reported to be slowing down his drive, Zimbabwe news sites are reporting 28 April. His wife Grace’s poor health and possibly his own failing health, growing pressure from neighbouring countries to resolve Zimbabwe’s political situation, and splits within his Zanu PF party are cutting into the 87-year-old leader’s plans. But the oddest blow of all might be that thrown by the country’s finance minister, Tendai Biti, who says Zimbabwe can’t afford the $400,000 needed to hold a general election, with a deficit of $150 million and all revenue targets for the year missed, to date.
Links to other sites: allAfrica/The Standard, allAfrica/Daily Nation
Tsvangirai says the country should keep its distance
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ‘s visit to Harare, Zimbabwe met with a cheering Zanu-PF party welcome at the airport, while Morgan Tsvangirai’s shared government party, Movement for Democratic Change, has criticized the Iranian leader’s state visit. Ahmadinejad is officially opening the Zimbabwe International Agricultural Fair in Bulawayo. Iran has invested heavily in agriculture and textile projects in Zimbabwe. The two presidents this week signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a joint company to develop industry and energy projects in Zimbabwe.
Links to other sites: AllAfrica/the Herald (official newspaper), Independent, UK, Morning Star, UK
South Africa, in a case that could set precedents, has awarded a Cape Town house that belongs to the Zimbabwe government to white Zimbabwe farmers whose land was confiscated under President Robert Mugabe’s land reform programme. Other commercial property including jets, owned by the Zimbabwe government but rented out, is reported to be under threat of confiscation by South African courts. The farmers are turning to a court in South Africa because, reports the BBC, “in 2008, the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) court ruled that the group of more than 70 Zimbabwean farmers should be allowed to return to their farms unhindered.” Collum Makumbirofa, head of the Zimbabwe Foundation for Reason and Justice, says in an AllAfrica report “that the Mugabe regime regards the Sadc ruling as ‘nonsense and of no consequence’ demonstrates the extent to which the Zanu (PF) government pays scant regard to the rule of law.’”
Rough cut diamonds, covered by Kimberley Process. Photo, Wikipedia
Switzerland told to take lead in toughening Kimberly Process rules
Update 22:45 Basel, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called on Switzerland to take the lead in tightening diamond trade rules designed to stem the flow of conflict diamonds, often called blood diamonds. HRW has timed its appeal to coincide with the opening of Basel World, Switzerland’s premier watch and jewelry show in Basel. More than 100,000 people are expected to attend the show, which opened 18 March and runs to 25 March.
HRW in June 2009 published a report on the Marange district in Zimbabwe, where diamonds were discovered in 2006. Members of the Zimbabwe government are involved in exploiting local people to work the mines, according to the report. HRW documents a massacre of 200 people in the area in 2008.
Fair trade groups are also focusing on the Zimbabwe situation at BaselWorld: the annual Rapaport Fair Trade Conference has as its topic this year the issue of human rights and the jewelry industry, with a special focus on the situation in Zimbabwe. President Robert Mugabe was reported by Rapoport 5 March to be ready to sell diamonds now that the Kimberly Process has a monitor: the Kimberley Process, currently chaired by Israel, announced 1 March that a monitor for Zimbabwe would visit the area and report on the situation, according to a work plan submitted by the Zimbabwe government. Abbey Chikane, the monitor, was formerly the chief executive officer of South Africa’s State Diamond Trader.
Update 6 January 09:40 Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss food multinational Nestlé’s Zimbabwe operations have begun to process milk again, two weeks after suspending production because of government pressure. Government-run newspaper The Herald says workers were back in place and milk was being processed normally after a “misunderstanding” that closed the plant 23 December. The Nestlé operation is one of Zimbabwe’s largest suppliers of milk and has been running for more than 50 years.
Nestlé’s Swiss head office provided GenevaLunch with the following statement Tuesday 6 January, confirming that processing has begun again: “On 19 December 2009, Nestlé suspended the activities at its Harare factory (Zimbabwe) as normal business was no longer possible and the safety of its employees could not be guaranteed. Since then, the local Nestlé management has been in regular contact with the Zimbabwean authorities to find a solution.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Food multinational Nestlé says it has closed its milk production plant in Zimbabwe after the government pressured it to take milk from a non-contracted supplier 19 December during a surprise visit from government officials. Two days later, Monday, two of the plant’s managers were called into the Harare police station for questioning, then released. President Robert Mugabe and his unity government partner Morgan Tsvangirai have both reacted with dismay to the closing, and observers in southern Africa are calling it a setback for the unity government, which has been working to convince foreign investors and aid groups to return to the country.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe struck a defiant note at a political rally Sunday 13 December in the capital Harare, telling his supporters that they must pull together to ensure they win elections next time around. His Zanu-PF party Saturday had elected him as its leader for another five years. Mugabe reminded them that the power-sharing arrangement, forced up them by the party’s poor showing at the last election, has only another year to run, and then the party should take control again. But the party meeting ended without an agreement on how Mugabe’s successor will be named, a sign that dissent runs deep, according to the Daily Nation, on AllAfrica.
Links to other sites: AllAfrica, BBC, Voice of America
The UN General Assembly has approved 114 to 18, with 44 abstentions, the controversial Goldstone report into atrocities in the Gaza war in the winter of 2008/09, and recommended that the Security Council act if both Israel and the Palestinians had not conducted their own investigations within three months. CNN, New York Times
Honduras‘ former President Manuel Zelaya says the agreement reached one week ago that would have led to a power-sharing government and his reinstatement as president is dead, after the two sides failed to agree on the government by Thursday, 5 November. The Supreme Court still needs to make a recommendation to the Honduran Congress on whether Zelaya may complete his term. Al-Jazeera, BBC
Morgan Tsvangirai says he will end his three-week boycott of the Zimbabwean unity government “effective immediately”, and has given Robert Mugabe 30 days in which to implement his side of the bargain that led to the deal. Tsvangirai walked out after Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party began to harrass Tsvangirai’s MDC party members. Al-Jazeera, BBC, The Guardian
A UN official in charge of investigating charges of torture who was invited to Zimbabwe is on his way to Johannesburg, South Africa Thursday 29 October after being denied entry to the country at the airport in Harare. Manfred Nowak, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, told reporters that his invitation had been rescinded by the Zimbabwean ministry of foreign affairs when he arrived in Harare late Wednesday evening 28 October. Immigration officials would not let him into the country despite an invitation from Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
The government of Zimbabwe has been split since Tsvangirai walked out two weeks ago, complaining of a concerted campaign of violence by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF supporters against Tsvangirai’s MDC party members. A team from the regional grouping Southern Africa Development Community was expected in Harare to mediate the political crisis Thursday. AP,BBC
Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai met for four hours, the first meeting since Tsvangirai pulled out of the coalition government in mid-October, and his spokesperson says the talks ended with no agreement. “We are worlds apart on fundamental issues,” the BBC quotes him as saying. The pullout and failed meeting effectively leave Zimbabwe without an elected government: the coalition was formed in February 2009 under pressure from outside the country after election results showing Mugabe as winner were contested.
Links to other sites: AllAfrica, AP/Yahoo, BBC,
Harare, Zimbabwe / Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The government in Zimbabwe Sunday 11 October announced that it may have found two “irregular” transactions in the accounts of Nestlé, which has a Zimbabwe subsidiary. The company’s five bank accounts were blocked Sunday, Zimbabwe’s finance minister told the Associated Press. The Zimbabwe Independent reports that the accounts have since been unfrozen.
A week early, 4 October, the company stopped buying milk from a farm owned by Grace Mugabe, the wife of President Robert Mugabe.
Vevey, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Nestlé subsidiary in Zimbabwe buys milk produced on Gushunga Dairy Estate farms seized from their owners between 2002 and 2004, the UK’s Sunday Telegraph reports 26 September.
The dairy farms are part of an estimated 4,800 hectares of prime agricultural land reportedly owned by Robert and Grace Mugabe. Both are on what the EU has labeled “targeted sanctions” lists, with visa and some trade restrictions set for more than 20o individuals and some 40 countries. These were first imposed in 2002 in the wake of the seizures of lands owned by white farmers, part of Mugabe’s land reform. They were extended following the disputed presidential elections in June 2008.
Switzerland also adopted targeted sanctions, in line with those of the European Union [ed. note: UK media have incorrectly reported that Switzerland does not have sanctions because it is not part of the EU], but the Gushunga Dairy is not on the identical EU and Swiss government list of blacklisted businesses. A spokesperson at the finance ministry in Bern told GenevaLunch Monday that the ministry contacted Nestlé when it became aware of the milk sales and it has been assured that the sales are entirely the business of its Zimbabwe subsidiary. “Nestlé confirmed that no individuals or companies in Switzerland were in any way involved in the relevant transactions. Therefore, no further investigations are planned at the moment.” The Bern office noted that the “Swiss legislation on international sanctions, including the sanctions against Zimbabwe, deploys its effects only in the territory of Switzerland. Foreign subsidiaries of Swiss companies are not subject to the Swiss legislation. The dealings of Nestlé Zimbabwe (Private) Ltd are therefore not in violation of the Swiss sanctions regulation against Zimbabwe.”
Swiss and EU sanctions involve only transfers of money or transactions with companies outside Zimbabwe: Even if Gushunga Dairy were on the list, the sanctions would not apply.
Targeted sanctions on leading Zimbabwe government officials, in place since disputed presidential elections in 2002, will not be lifted soon, according to a high-level delegation from the European Union (EU) which ended a two-day mission to Zimbabwe 13 September.
After a meeting with President Robert Mugabe, Gunilla Carlsson, Sweden’s international development minister, said “The political agreement was an important step forward, but much needs to be done. The key to re-engagement is the full implementation of the political agreement“. Mugabe has called for a lifting of the EU sanctions, arguing “sanctions are serving no humanitarian purpose, they are causing lots of suffering among the people right at the bottom”.
The EU is Zimbabwe’s main donor and its aid budget is currently frozen at €90 million. A Southern African Development Community (SADC) meeting 8 September called for Western sanctions to be lifted. Al-Jazeera, The Sunday Telegraph
Southern African nations meeting in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo,8 September called for an end to Western sanctions on Zimbabwe. Sanctions have been in place since before a unity government was formed in 2008 with President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). The call to lift sanctions is seen as a significant victory for Mugabe, who says that the country urgently needs $10 billion in development aid. Tsvangirai has called for the full implementation of the accords before sanctions are lifted.
Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa and a key member of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), said at the beginning of the conference that he hoped the Zimbabwe government’s divisions could be healed quickly in order for foreign aid to be resumed. At the end, he said that he now sees no reason why conditions should be imposed before lifting sanctions. BBC, Reuters, AllAfrica
South African President Jacob Zuma is in Harare, Zimbabwe today 27 August to meet with members of Zimabwe’s unity government and to convey South African displeasure with the lack of progress in implementing an agreement between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of Morgan Tsvangirai. He is conveying a message from the South African ruling party ANC, African National Congress, that criticizes Mugabe for his “adolescent and deviant” behaviour. Discord between the two sides in Zimbabwe’s government has left ministerial posts unfilled, and some MDC members of parliament are still in jail. There are rumours that Mugabe is ill and being treated in a clinic in Dubai. He has not been seen in public since Tuesday 19 August. AllAfrica, Mail&Guardian,The Times
Morgan Tsvangirai called it “the darkest day” while Robert Mugabe said he hoped for a new round of talk, but South African mediators say that 12 hours of final talks have led to no agreement. BBC
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government has added 11 names to its Zimbabwe black list, bringing it to 182: bank accounts and any other assets held by individuals on the list are frozen and they do not have the right to enter or transit Switzerland. Anyone in Switzerland who is approached about handling funds for those on the black list must, immediately contact Seco, the Swiss ministry for the economy. Failure to do so is considered a serious crime.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon led a Security Council meeting on Zimbabwe, the first since July, and said that “We continue to witness a failure of the leadership in Zimbabwe,” as the number of cholera cases listed by the UN rose 25% over the figure a week earlier, and the political iimpasse continued. The BBC reports that “the meeting ended without agreement on a motion to censure Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, which a diplomat present said was due to opposition from South Africa.”
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe thanked outside aid sources for helping with the cholera epidemic in his country, which he now says is “stopped,” with more than 800 people having died from the disease. The United Nations disagrees, saying the number of sick and dying is rising, and it called 10 December for a campaign to raise $6 million in emergency funds to fight the epidemic. All Africa, PlusNews Global (Aids and HIV news) Reuters
