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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 11-04-2001

PART #4/4 - From SOUTH AFRICA to ZIMBABWE

* South Africa. Police fire at court protesters — South African police fired rubber bullets at angry black demonstrators on 5 April after a court abandoned a bail hearing for a nine white rugby players accused of beating a black teenager to death. «The court proceedings were disrupted by the crowds who got a bit rowdy,» police Captain Ronel Otto told Reuters. The South African Press Association said about 1,500 people sang protest songs and did the «toyi-toyi» protest dance outside the Pietersburg courthouse before the hearing was due to start. Magistrate Rassie du Toit ordered the courtroom doors opened to allow spectators in but chaos erupted when hundreds of people poured in and could not find seats. Du Toit abandoned the hearing and ordered the Noordelikes Rugby Club members detained overnight for a new hearing on 6 April. Witnesses said the suspects were led from the courthouse with towels over their heads and taken to an armoured truck that sped away past a yelling throng. Otto said blacks demanding the whites should be denied bail threw stones at private and police vehicles, smashed shop windows and marched on a filling station owned by one of the accused. «The police fired a few rubber bullets, but we have not had any reports of anyone being injured,» she said. Rocks and half bricks rained down on another police riot control truck as officers tried to disperse the crowd. The hearing will be on again tomorrow and there will be much tighter security,» Otto said. The nine accused, aged between 19 and 34, are alleged to have beaten 19-year-old Tshepho Matloga to death two weeks ago after they found him and two friends hunting rabbits on a farm. One of the survivors was shot in the leg but managed to escape. Five dogs used in the hunt were found shot near Matloga’s body. Officials and witnesses said police were called to the scene and found Matloga’s body but the body disappeared when police left it unattended. It was later found in a farm reservoir about 200 km away, weighed down with a gatepost. The demonstration in Pietersburg was the latest in a series of protests against apparent racial attacks in South Africa’s rural areas. In a separate case on 5 April, about 50 white farmers demonstrated outside a court in Warmbaths, demanding that two black men accused of attacking and robbing a former white politician and his wife be denied bail. South Africa’s biggest farming body, Agri SA, says at least 30 white farmers were killed in January and February, allegedly by black attackers. (CNN, USA, 5 April 2001)

* South Africa. Arms fraud probe gathers pace — South African officials said on 5 April they were investigating at least 24 individuals and 68 statutory bodies in connection with allegations of fraud and corruption in the country’s biggest post-apartheid arms deal. «This may well end up in court... At this stage, it seems to us that there might very well be some criminal prosecutions,» National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka told editors at a briefing. Ngcuka, Auditor General Shauket Fakie and Public Protector Selby Baqwa are heading an inquiry into the award of a 43 billion rand ($5.35 billion) arms contract to companies in Britain, Germany, Italy, Sweden, France and South Africa. Pressed to say whether the possibility of prosecutions meant the award process was flawed, Ngcuka said: «At this stage, we are not in a position to say all is not well.» Fakie said 30 full-time staff helped by outside auditors were probing allegations of conflict of interest, bribery and process violations in the purchase of ships, submarines, helicopters and fighters. Ngcuka said investigators had seized bank and other records of 68 statutory bodies and 24 individuals under investigation in connection with the deal but that it was too soon to say whether any crime had been committed. Fakie said a critical issue was to establish a link between gifts received and the allocation of contracts, adding that investigators hoped to publish a substantive report by the end of July. He said criminal corruption and unethical behaviour would be covered in the report. Fakie said investigators had started looking into the controversial acquisition of a luxury car by the parliamentary head of the ruling African National Congress, Tony Yengeni, weeks before the issue was raised in the media. (CNN, USA, 5 April 2001)

* Afrique du Sud. Attaques contre les fermes — Rien que pour cette année, l’Afrique du Sud a enregistré 19 meurtres et 128 raids contre les fermes d’après l’organisation Agriculture South Africa. La récente série de raids et ceux de l’année dernière, dont le nombre serait supérieur à 800, ont suscité l’ire des partis politiques. Le ministre de la Sécurité, Steve Tshwete, a qualifié les fermiers de “colonne vertébrale de l’économie” et indiqué qu’ils devaient être protégés. Un comité a aussi été chargé d’enquêter sur les causes et les mobiles de ces attaques. (PANA, Sénégal, 6 avril 2001)

* Sudan. US Bishops and Sudan — Following a two week fact finding mission to North and South Sudan, a delegation of US Bishops said on 6 April that the United States must take bold steps to bring about a just and lasting peace in war torn Sudan. A peace in Sudan can no longer go unattended by the international community, said Bishop John Ricard, President and Chairman of the Board of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), who led the delegation. The judgement of history will be determined by the courage and determination of the international community to take bold steps now to help bring this cruel war to an end. The delegation, consisting of US Bishops, various advisors from the US Catholic Conference (USCC) and the Executive Director of Catholic Relief Services, met with senior government and religious leaders in Khartoum before travelling to South Sudan to see firsthand the effects of the war there. (USCC, 6 April 2001)

* Sudan. Rebels threaten oil workers — Sudanese rebels have threatened to attack international oil workers operating in the wartorn south of the country. The SPLA rebels, who are fighting for autonomy or independence in the south, said the Sudanese Government was using money from oil exports to finance its military operations. A number of foreign companies, including Britain’s Rolls Royce, have been brought in by the Sudanese Government to help exploit the country’s vast new oil reserves. The rebels have targeted oil installations since Sudan began exporting oil in 1999. International human rights organisations have accused foreign oil companies of fuelling the conflict in which an estimated two million people have been killed. The rebels accuse government troops of waging a brutal scorched earth policy to drive civilians from the oilfields. In the flat, parched plains of southern Sudan, the talk is of famine and oil. Gaunt men emerge from their mud huts to search for berries. Last year’s drought means food stocks are now dangerously low. Oil has been discovered in the region, enough oil to re-energise a tired civil war that has dragged on for almost two decades. Government troops have already secured some of the oilfields, driving thousands of civilians out in the process. (BBC News, UK, 8 April 2001)

* Soudan. Au Sud, le massacre continue — Pour s’assurer le contrôle de régions pétrolifères au sud du Soudan, le régime de Khartoum en chasse les populations d’origine et y installe des colons venus du nord. La responsable de la section Afrique d’Eglise en détresse, Christine du Coudray, revenue d’un voyage de trois semaines dans le Sud-Soudan, a dit notamment au journal La Croix: «Les compagnies internationales nord-américaines, chinoises, malaisiennes, britanniques et françaises qui se sont vu concéder des droits d’exploitation tentent de mettre en avant leur contribution au développement économique de ces régions. En fait, elles contribuent indirectement à financer la politique du Front national islamique au pouvoir à Khartoum qui consiste à exterminer ou à contraindre au déplacement les populations du sud et à installer des migrants du nord disposant d’une autorisation gouvernementale. Selon des sources ecclésiales à Nairobi, les bombardements de l’aviation gouvernementale contre les civils se sont intensifiés depuis l’été dernier sur toutes les zones d’exploitation pétrolifère du sud-ouest et du sud-est. Sur le terrain, les maisons et les cultures sont brûlées, les hommes massacrés, les femmes violées et les enfants emmenés en esclavage par les milices progouvernementales. Dans la seule région de Bahr-el-Ghazal, depuis janvier, on estime que 55.000 Nuers ont été chassés». (La Croix, France, 9 avril 2001)

* Sudan. Govt. allegedly encouraging slavery — The Sudanese government is allegedly encouraging slavery by delivering arms to Arab kidnappers in return for their support in the civil war. According to European officials, the Khartoum government has broken its promises to the West that it would address allegations of slavery. Instead, it has hampered efforts by UNICEF and Save the Children UK to win the release of tens of thousands of women and children, mostly from Christian and animist Dinka tribes. The government makes matters worse by shipping arms and supplies to Arabic tribes in the Bahr al-Ghazal province of southern Sudan, say Western sources and Dinka leaders. The Dinkas, an indigenous southern Sudanese tribe, say that Khartoum has dropped all pressure on the Arabs to end the slave trade. James Aguer, head of the Dinka tribal committee, said: «The government has given the green light for more abductions as a gift to the Arabic tribal militias that support the military’s war against the Dinka.» Until last summer, Mr Aguer’s committee, working through the Khartoum government, had helped free more than 350 people held captive in southern Sudan. Mr Aguer made his accusation surrounded by members of the Dinka committee as well as a dozen former captives, boys and girls, who are living in a mud-brick home on the edge of Khartoum awaiting reunions with their families in southern Sudan. He said: «We know where to find the slaves, but we can’t work. The government cannot face up to the tribes and demand the slaves be returned because the tribes support the army and the army gives them guns.» (Daily Telegraph, UK, 9 April 2001)

* Swaziland. Slow pace of political reforms — The United States said on 5 April it was «dismayed» by Swaziland’s failure to effect far-reaching political reforms and warned that its support for programmes in the tiny kingdom depended on it replacing its current political order, under which party politics are banned and the monarchy wields absolute power. The US embassy in Mbabane said Swaziland’s commitment to a transition to democratic rule and respect for human rights and the rule of law was «the principle goal of the US mission» in the country. However, the US government was «dismayed» by the slow pace of the reform process and concerned about its possibly limited scope. «We note that the constitutional review commission was established in 1996. Its report is overdue and the US government is dismayed by this delay,» embassy public affairs officer Bruce Lohof told IRIN. «My government will not comment on the commission’s report until it is made public, but we find it difficult to understand how a new constitution that retains the old order can help Swaziland build strong public institutions and a healthy civil society,» he added. He was responding to an announcement made at the weekend by the constitutional review commission that effectively ruled out reforms in the country’s political structure beyond the introduction of a Bill of Rights. Commission chairman Mangaliso Dlamini on 1 April told a meeting of the Swaziland Society, a Mbabane-based civic organisation, that the constitution his team had drafted retained the existing power structure. (IRIN, Southern Africa, 5 April 2001)

* Tanzania. Opposition takes to the streets — An unprecedented protest by Tanzanian opposition groups over the weekend highlights growing political tensions in what had hitherto been regarded as one of Africa’s most stable countries, diplomats believe. An estimated 60,000 opposition supporters marched through Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania’s main city, on 7 April, demanding a new constitution, the establishment of an independent electoral commission and the re-run of last October’s controversial elections in Zanzibar. The ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) has held power since independence. After many years as a one-party state, opposition parties were allowed to contest the 1995 and 2000 polls. However, they are poorly resourced and divided, and were soundly beaten. On the islands of Zanzibar, which enjoy a measure of autonomy from the mainland, the Civic United Front claims fraud and rigging robbed it of victory on both occasions. Dozens of Zanzibaris were killed in clashes with security forces in January after demonstrations against the last election. A further 2,000 fled to neighbouring Kenya, where they remain in exile. «We are gaining momentum» John Cheyo, chairman of the United Democratic Party, told the Reuters news agency. «It is our intention to keep up this unity, to keep up the pressure...until the next elections.» President Benjamin Mkapa says dialogue is the best way out of the present impasse, an offer officials hope will prove sufficient to ease concerns amongst donors, who provide substantial amounts of aid to one of Africa’s poorest countries. (Financial Times, UK, 10 April 2001)

* Tchad. Gouvernement remanié — Le président tchadien, Idriss Déby, a limogé de son gouvernement de coalition tous les ministres issus de l’Union nationale pour le développement et le renouveau (UNDR), a informé l’AFP. Le limogeage fait suite à la décision de l’UNDR de faire du numéro deux du gouvernement, le ministre de l’Agriculture, M. Saleh Kebzabo, son candidat aux présidentielles du 2 mai prochain. Les autres personnalités en lice sont le président de l’Assemblée nationale, M. Wadal Abdelkader Kamougué, et l’ancien Premier ministre M. Kassiré Coumakoye. (IRIN, Abidjan, 9 avril 2001)

* Zambia. Another Kaunda heads UNIP — The opposition United National Independence Party (UNIP) says it has chosen the son of the former president and party leader, Kenneth Kaunda, as its new leader. The spokesman said Tilyeni Kaunda was appointed at a lengthy meeting of the leadership. His predecessor, Francis Nkhoma, was suspended as party president several months ago. (BBC News, UK, 6 April 2001)

* Zambia. Ten miners feared dead in copper mine accident — Ground movement caused a slope in an open-pit copper mine to collapse on 8 April, burying 10 mine workers in sand, a mine spokeswoman said. The miners were feared dead, Anglo American spokeswoman Anne Dunn said in a statement. The accident happened on the afternoon of 8 April at the Konkola Copper Mines in Chingola, some 185 miles north of Zambia’s capital, Lusaka. (CNN, USA, 8 April 2001)

* Zambie. Kaunda fils à l’UNIP — Tilyenji Kaunda, fils de l’ex-président Kenneth Kaunda, est devenu le nouveau président du Parti unique pour l’indépendance nationale (UNIP), le plus vieux parti de Zambie. Dans son discours inaugural, M. T. Kaunda a promis de rebâtir le parti dans la perspective de l’élection présidentielle et a exhorté les membres de l’UNIP à taire leurs différends et à serrer les rangs. Secrétaire général de l’UNIP, T. Kaunda a pris le contrôle du parti la semaine dernière des mains de Francis Nkoma, qui a été suspendu de son poste à l’issue d’une réunion du comité central tenue le 5 avril. (PANA, Sénégal, 9 avril 2001)

* Zambie. Accident minier — La Zambie a fait appel aux services d’experts sud-africains en vue de retirer les corps de 10 mineurs coincés depuis le 8 avril dans la mine à ciel ouvert de Nchanga, située dans la ville de Chingola. Les 10 mineurs ont été enterrés en même temps que leur lourd matériel dans cet accident considéré comme l’un des pires de l’histoire minière de la Zambie. Les causes de l’accident ne peuvent pas être déterminées immédiatement, mais selon des sources, les fortes précipitations qui sont tombées cette année dans la zone, pourraient être un facteur. (PANA, Sénégal, 10 avril 2001)

* Zimbabwe. Press freedom under attack — 5 April: Three independent Zimbabwean journalists have been charged with criminal defamation for articles implying that President Robert Mugabe is involved in corruption. Daily News Chief Editor Geoff Nyarota and two reporters, Sandra Nyaira and Julius Zava, wrote a series of pieces at the end of last year about the building of a new airport terminal. They alleged that the company that won the tender paid kickbacks to leading politicians and businessmen. The defamation charge comes at a time when the independent media is under increasing pressure. Mr Nyarota said that the newspaper would not be intimidated: «There is nothing criminally defamatory about these stories. Let then sue for civil defamation, if they want, and we believe we are more than prepared to defend ourselves.» The journalists face a possible jail sentence if found guilty. The charges against the journalists were made on the same day that Zimbabwe’s parliament passed a broadcasting law that could limit criticism of the government. 6 April: The Committee To protect Journalists calls on President Mugabe to drop the defamation charges. 9 April: Opposition Movement for Democratic Change member of Parliament Welshman Ncube says the new Broadcasting Bill is «a ridiculous piece of legislation, to be contested in court of signed by the President». (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 10 April 2001)

* Zimbabwe. Veterans change tactics — Zimbabwe’s war veterans are to switch their offensive from white-owned commercial farms to urban areas in preparation for next April’s presidential elections, according to the veterans’ chairman, Mr Chenjerai Hunzvi. He told an independent newspaper that his group would set up «structures» in every urban constituency to campaign for President Robert Mugabe in next year’s poll. In the parliamentary elections last year, Mr Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party was effectively wiped out in urban areas. Mr Hunzvi says the war veterans have «an aggressive plan» to win back the support lost last year. The move coincides with reports that groups of war veterans have been taking the law into their own hands in urban areas intimidating employers and managers and forcing them to reverse retrenchment decisions. In one incident managers were beaten up before being taken to the headquarters of ZANU-PF where after three hours they agreed to reinstate workers who had been dismissed. Following the incident on 2 April, the business was closed for the week. (Financial Times, UK, 5 April 2001)

* Zimbabwe. Civic groups prepare for «mass action» — On 3 April, Thoko Matshe, head of the National Constitutional Assembly said that civic groups in Zimbabwe, demanding a new national Constitution, are willing and able to take on the government. «We’re talking mass action and civil disobedience on a wide scale, if government ignores the people», Matshe said. A recent conference organised by a broad coalition of civic groups and attended by hundreds of campaigners called for a new Constitution that lays out a proper bill of rights, limits the presidency, promotes freedom of expression and gives women equal rights. (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 6 April 2001)

* Zimbabwe. Student killed in Harare as violence spreads — Violence in Zimbabwe has spread to the university campus in Harare with the death of a student and clashes with the police on 9 April. The police said the student died in a «stampede» while they were restoring order during disturbances at the University of Zimbabwe campus in Harare over the weekend, but students say their colleague was studying in his room in the early hours of the morning when police stormed the campus. Student leaders say the student was beaten and killed, after which the police took away property from his room covered in bloodstains. Police intervention on the campus followed unrest related to student demands for increased grants from the government. These turned violent when some students stoned motor vehicles, including one belonging to an opposition member of parliament, Learnmore Jongwe, who was visiting the campus. Students blame government supporters on the campus who they say damaged Mr Jongwe’s car because they knew he was a leading member of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Following the weekend violence, student demonstrators clashed with police on 9 April on the main road from the university to the city. Most of the students were turned back by police using teargas, but some found their way into the city centre. (Financial Times, UK, 10 April 2001)