State vultures circle over fresh carrion

MuckRaker
the Zimbabwe Independent

State vultures circle over fresh carrion

THE Herald carried a story on Monday claiming a white farmer had ploughed
under 30 hectares of wheat "as revenge to the land committee that had
acquired his farm".

It is difficult to know who used the expression about "revenge" because, as
is often the case in the state media, the quotation could well be the
invention of the journalist writing the story. It certainly doesn't sound
like the farmer, Doug Taylor-Freeme, even though it is designed to implicate
him.

What is significant about this episode is that Taylor-Freeme was among those
paraded recently as beneficiaries of the state's largesse in distributing
tractors and agricultural equipment. He has often been regarded by his more
radical colleagues as somebody who was prepared to work with the government
in its resettlement programme.

Now he has learnt the hard way that there are no rewards for collaborators.
The government has no regard for farmers wanting to assist the resettlement
process and will evidently target every single white farmer remaining.

And do you remember all those statements by President Mugabe and ministers
in 2000 that "we just want to share the land"? They were designed to impress
international opinion. Any white farmer who had more than one farm would be
asked which one he wanted to keep.

What deceit!

But we feel sympathy for Taylor-Freeme, a transparently decent man who like
CG Tracey and all the others, has seen the real face of "land reform".


You would have thought that given the precarious situation the country is
in, any leader would want to find solutions. He or she would seek national
dialogue and engage the various interests that make up our economy so there
is consensus on the way forward. But instead we have a situation where the
ruling party is mobilising its followers against those engaged in legitimate
business so it can claim to be championing the people's needs.

This is populist demagoguery at its worse. The people will not be served by
shortages and a raging black market, nor will they be helped by measures
that destabilise the economy and scare off investors.

The international press has been full of reports of gangs of "consumers"
arriving at stores in the immediate wake of the price inspectors and filling
up their trolleys with goods.

Many of those items, we can safely assume, will now appear on the black
market. The international media has also been drawing attention to the
injuries suffered by supermarket managers, including a broken jaw in one
case, when they didn't respond quickly enough to the commands of
"law-enforcers".

Gideon Gono appears to understand that price-fixing won't work. But what do
Obert Mpofu, Didymus Mutasa and Sithembiso Nyoni know of how a modern
economy functions? They must be held accountable when the economy goes down
the tubes in a few weeks time.

Just as land was seized to provide electoral advantages ahead of the 2002
poll, so businesses will be taken and redistributed to the vulturine class
that cares not what damage it inflicts on the economy so long as it retains
political power.

The only difference with land redistribution and the current campaign is
that the farms were destroyed after they were taken. Currently businesses
are being wrecked before they have been seized. Predatory scavengers like
State Trading Corporation officials are advertising their interest in any
carrion that might be available.

It is extraordinary when you think of it that the same ruling class that has
crippled Air Zimbabwe, brought the railways to a grinding halt, sabotaged
Zisco and orchestrated power blackouts, now believes it can manage
Dairibord, Lobels, National Foods and Innscor. This is another disaster
waiting to happen.

Let us be clear about this. What we have here is the same military campaign
supported by Zanu PF's auxiliaries that we saw with land invasions and
Operation Murambatsvina. It is reportedly being masterminded by the Joint
Operations Command and represents a vicious assault upon law-abiding
individuals and their constitutional right to carry out their business free
of harassment and plunder by the state.


We were pleased to see Mugabe responding to our front page story last week
about price-slashing measures being illegal. There was a sudden realisation
in the government camp that there was no legal instrument to underpin the
attacks on businesses. The state rushed that day to provide a Statutory
Instrument legalising the intervention.

But that didn't cover all the assaults on businesses over the previous two
weeks. Those measures were manifestly illegal and, contrary to the advice of
the mealie-mouthed Callisto Jokonya, businesses should claim against those
who authorised the pillaging of their stock. This was theft, whatever
ministers might call it.

A source at a big international company in the industrial sites says his
employees watched as a coach with about 40 ruling-party price enforcers
aboard arrived last Thursday and began to impose reductions on products. But
their attention was soon diverted to easier pickings. They quickly
discovered the company's staff canteen and devoured the entire contents. The
company's staff had to go without their lunch that day!

By the way, what is the significance of June 18, the day that became the
benchmark for all price determinations? We are not sure. Usually the
beginning of the month is the date authorities use for pronunciamentos of
this sort. The Herald no doubt got wind of the impending change as it hiked
its cover price from $15 to $25 on June 14, just four days ahead of the
cabinet edict.

And why didn't Zimpapers CEO Justin Mutasa in his little homily on the cost
of inputs disclose that his company gets subsidised fuel from Noczim to run
its fleet of vehicles? Other newspapers could do with that sort of helping
hand!


Muckraker is sickened by the chorus of praise for Joshua Nkomo in the state
media. Is this the same Joshua Nkomo who was forced to flee into exile in
1983 because his life was under threat from the same gang who now claim he
was their patriotic hero?

The Standard has been serialising Judith Todd's autobiography.

She narrates how his driver and two others were shot dead in cold blood at
his Pelandaba home.

"The killers then rampaged through his home destroying all they could,
smashing the windscreens of three cars with their rifle butts and slashing
the upholstery."

Mugabe's subordinates were evidently making good on his injunction to
"strike the cobra at its head"!

Shortly afterwards the Zapu leader escaped into Botswana. Once he was safely
settled in the UK, he wrote The Story Of My Life, an account of the Fifth
Brigade terror that stalked the land with its blood-soaked footprints in
1982/3. It is an instructive memoir and should be read by all those
currently pretending they were his admirers.

Incidentally, what is the significance of the emphasis on his non-tribal
pedigree which earned him nicknames like Father Zimbabwe and Chibwe
Chitedza? Is this an indirect comment on somebody not fit to be Father
Zimbabwe? It is tribal to the core.


The Sunday News had a moment of triumph last weekend. Following a police
investigation, the paper was able to proudly announce that two individuals
claimed by the MDC to be casualties of Zanu PF violence in fact died of
natural causes.

This discovery, prompted by diplomatic inquiries, was paraded by the paper
as "liars exposed". This referred to organisations like the Crisis Coalition
and Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum who have been documenting human rights
abuses.

The death of Edward Chikomba was referred to in passing at the end of the
story. "Recently some media representative bodies locally and
internationally claimed that a cameraman who was found dead in Mashonaland
East was murdered by security agents."

The implication was that this was another opposition "lie".

If that is the case, perhaps the author of these "ruling party exonerated"
stories could tell us who the killers of Chikomba were and what has happened
to them?

And by the way, what progress have the police made into the assault on
Nelson Chamisa at Harare Airport?


We were intrigued by comments made by Caesar Zvayi in his Herald column on
Wednesday. He suggests that "a certain African government appears to have
bought all copies of New African's May edition that had a splash on
Zimbabwe".

"The jury is still out," Zvayi said, "on whether the government in question
bought the copies because of an unflattering article therein that questioned
its cosy relationship with the West, or whether it had to do with an attempt
to obliterate the truth about the situation in Zimbabwe."

So what do we have here? A fellow African government buying up all copies of
the May edition of Baffour Ankomah's propaganda vehicle containing a highly
deceptive "splash" on Zimbabwe? The world has thus been deprived of the
"truth" about Zimbabwe, Zvayi suggests.

You can imagine hordes of Africans roaming the continent complaining
bitterly how disappointed they were not to hear the "truth" about Zimbabwe
from New African's pages!

But the plot thickens. While many Ghanaians may have greeted President
Mugabe on his recent visit to Accra as a leader in the mould of their great
Redeemer, African governments, it is now clear, are giving him the cold
shoulder.

Zvayi, whose opinions often emanate from the Office of the President,
expressed open disappointment that "the AU failed where it matters most,
that is in condemning the illegal Western siege on Zimbabwe".

ZTV by the way carried excerpts from Mugabe's solidarity rally in Accra. His
inspirational presence didn't appear to prevent members of the audience from
talking loudly among themselves during his speech!

As for Zvayi's theory that travellers who want to go to Francophone West
Africa from Anglophone Southern Africa have to first pass through Paris or
through London if travelling from Francophone West Africa to Anglophone East
Africa, he should look at a Kenya Airways route map. They have dozens of
flights from West Africa to East Africa every day. Passengers can then
reconnect in Nairobi to Southern Africa or to other African destinations.

Ethiopian Airways offers a similarly diverse routing system. It is Air
Zimbabwe that is caught in the colonial nexus of its London route.


Have you noticed how we like our acronyms? No Zimbabwean organisation is
complete without one. There is Noczim, Zesa, Telecel, Econet, Nango, and
Potraz among a host of others.

But now we have a new set of words to add to our PC vocabulary thanks to the
Ecumenical Peace Initiative of Zimbabwe, Epiz.

Epiz has invented a new species of church workers called DOFs or district
outreach facilitators who are charged with promoting Epiz's national vision
process. Below them is a raft of WOFs or ward outreach facilitators.

But the most senior ranks of outreach facilitators are provincial outreach
facilitators - POFs!

Let's just hope the WOFs don't DOF the POFs!

And how's this for NGO-speak: There will be "training of Epiz officers in
effective group leadership and interpersonal skills to enable them to
maximise on their strengths, minimise on their weaknesses and function
effectively in group settings"? This will require three
"sensitisation/awareness workshops", we are told. Among those being
"sensitised" are several DOFs, WOFs, and POFs. Also attending, we gather,
will be their "para-church partners".

All very liberating. Anybody gate-crashing will of course be told to Epiz
off.


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