BBC News
Tuesday, 21 January, 2003, 01:09 GMT 
Famine plagues Zimbabwe
Up to seven million Zimbabweans face starvation
By Fergal Keane 
BBC correspondent in Zimbabwe 

Posing as tourists, we evaded President Robert Mugabe's
police and his army of spies and found, hidden from the
world, a nation's tragedy. 

Hungry people queue for the meagre rations offered by church
workers - their children's hair already changing colour from
malnutrition. 

The elderly too are beginning to suffer terribly - not much
food and not much hope of it either. 

Misrule, corruption and drought are combining to make a
catastrophe. 

Scavenging 

Among the poorest of the poor, some compete with wild
animals for what they can scavenge. 

Many people have abandoned their homes in search of food and
work. 

"For three days I haven't eaten, because of this I have no
energy, that is why you see me here," explained one man that
we met. 

Yet the commercial farms that could have provided much of
the food needed are lying abandoned, their owners forced
out. 

Jenny Parsons, one such farmer, and her children, tried to
visit their family farm and were attacked by government
supporters. 

"Every time I tried to get back to the truck to protect the
kids more of them came and started punching me and kicking
me into a hallway," she recounted. 

Even the children were not spared. 

"They were trying to treat me like a dog, as if I were
dirt," explained one of her sons, tears streaming down his
face. "It was really scary." 

Torture chambers 

Fear now rules Zimbabwe. 

Harare, the capital, now has secret torture chambers. 

Being caught filming could mean up to two years in jail. 

As the economic crisis gets worse so does the level of
government repression. 

Nobody who opposes the government now is safe from torture,
from arbitrary imprisonment. 

We met a group of people, many of them high profile, who
have just been released from police custody. 

In this country even members of parliament and human rights
lawyers can end up in torture chambers. 

All of those we met said they had been subjected to electric
shock torture. 

"They electrified me on my genitals, on my toes, in my
mouth, and they said 'this is the mouth you use to defend
human rights,'" said Gabriel Shumba, a human rights lawyer. 

"The world must know of the kind of life that the people of
Zimbabwe are living under. It is terrible," Job Sikhala, an
opposition member of parliament, said from his hospital bed,
where he is recovering. 

'Land of empty plate' 

Petrol queues throughout the city are a symptom of the
crisis. 

The England cricket squad will see them when they visit, but
the government will crack down hard on any demonstrators. 

That is just one reason why the mayor of Harare, Elias
Mudzuri, wants the England cricketers to stay at home. 

"How many more people are likely to be dragged into the
cells because they think they are perceived to be disturbing
the cricket and the cricket people must be seen to be seeing
that Zimbabwe is a good destination?" he asked. 

Back in the rural areas the people gather wild plants, a
traditional meal in times of hardship. 

The United Nations warns that seven million people now face
starvation. 

This is my third undercover trip into Zimbabwe in the last
12 months and the situation has deteriorated drastically. 

Yet nobody here seems to doubt that change is coming. The
only question is whether it will be peaceful or violent. 

This land of the empty plate attracts little attention from
the powerful nations of the world, but they could soon find
themselves facing a dramatic crisis here. 

Friday January 17, 06:34 PM
Zimbabwe MP accuses police of torture
By Cris Chinaka

HARARE (Reuters) - A Zimbabwean opposition politician says
he was tortured by police after his arrest this week in
possession of what state media called "subversive
documents", a newspaper has reported.

A police spokesman declined to comment on the torture
allegations made in a Harare court on Thursday by Job
Sikhala, a member of parliament for the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC).

Sikhala was arrested on Wednesday after he was allegedly
found with documents linked to the burning earlier this week
of a bus owned by a state-owned transport company.

Police have accused the MDC of planning to cause civil
unrest ahead of World Cup Cricket matches scheduled to be
played in Zimbabwe next month in order to force a change of
venue.

The MDC, which poses the strongest challenge to President
Robert Mugabe's rule since he led the country to
independence from Britain in 1980, has dismissed the charge.

The privately-owned Daily News said Sikhala told Harare's
Magistrate Court that while in police custody he was clubbed
under his feet and tortured on his genitals by electric
wires.

He said he was also forced to sign a document saying the MDC
was planning an uprising against the government.

"I cried and asked why God had forsaken me," said Sikhala,
who was released on bail on Thursday. Sikhala and his lawyer
were not immediately available for comment on Friday.

The England and Wales Cricket Board said on Tuesday the
England team would play its February 13 match against
Zimbabwe, rejecting government pressure to boycott the match
in protest at Mugabe's policies and Zimbabwe's human rights
record.

The MDC sharply criticised the decision.

"It's a shame that there are people that believe Zimbabwe is
a safe country in which to play World Cup cricket," the MDC
said in a statement condemning Sikhala's incarceration.

"The World Cup authorities must know that they bear the
responsibility for the current terrorisation of Zimbabweans
by the Mugabe regime in a last-ditch effort to silence its
critics before the start of the World Cup," it said.

GOVERNMENT CRACKDOWN

Sikhala told the court that he passed out because the
torture was so severe. "When I regained consciousness one of
the officers urinated on me and I also urinated," he
recalled.

"Then I was ordered to roll on the urine until it dried up".

Police Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena told Reuters:
"We are not commenting on the matter because it's still in
the court and the court has not said anything on these
allegations."

The MDC says Sikhala's arrest, which the state Zimbabwe
Broadcasting Corporation said was in connection with his
possession of subversive documents, is part of an ongoing
government crackdown on its opponents.

Mugabe defeated MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai in March
elections condemned as fraudulent by several Western
nations.

Mugabe dismisses the MDC as a puppet of the West, led by
Britain, which he accuses of seeking to oust him for seizing
white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks. 

Thursday January 16, 06:20 PM
Mugabe under renewed attack
By Stella Mapenzauswa

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, back in
the international spotlight this week following reports of
an "exit plan" for the embattled leader, has come under
renewed attack from two very different quarters.

First, the country's High Court nullified results for two
parliamentary seats won by his ruling party in 2000, saying
violence prevented a free and fair poll, a privately-owned
newspaper reported on Thursday.

Then, the country's influential army chief denied
involvement in the alleged exit plan for Mugabe, but
acknowledged there was an urgent need to tackle Zimbabwe's
deepening economic crisis.

"First we must admit there is a crisis. Everyone can see
that...so we must do something about it," army general
Vitalis Zvinavashe said in a rare interview published in the
privately-owned Business Tribune newspaper.

"In my view it is not right to keep quiet and let nature
take its course," he added.

Zimbabwe is grappling with its worst economic crisis in
decades, with shortages of many basic consumer goods.

Nearly half the country's 14 million people are threatened
with food shortages which Mugabe blames on drought but which
critics say has been worsened by state seizure of
white-owned commercial farms for redistribution to landless
blacks.

The programme was stepped up after parliamentary elections
in 2000 that were marred by accusations of widespread
violence.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) narrowly
lost to Mugabe's ZANU-PF party in the elections and went to
court to challenge 37 results.

In a ruling delivered on Wednesday, High Court Judge Rita
Makarau nullified the election of ZANU-PF's Eleck Mkandla
and Jaison Machaya as members of parliament for Gokwe North
and Gokwe South respectively.

Makarau said the two results were nullified because polls
were not free and fair, the Financial Gazette reported.

COURT RULINGS

The latest court ruling brings to seven the number of
ZANU-PF victories overturned by the courts. Three ZANU-PF
election wins have been upheld.

"Properties were destroyed and burnt as part of the
intimidation. In my view, the evidence before me can only
lead to the conclusion that free franchise was affected in
the constituency and therefore corrupt practices were
committed in the election of the respondent," Makarau said
in her ruling.

ZANU-PF currently holds 95 seats in the 150-member
parliament, its majority boosted by 30 presidential
appointees. The MDC holds 53 seats and two other seats are
vacant.

The ruling party is appealing the seven results nullified by
the courts.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai is also challenging Mugabe's
victory in March 2002 presidential elections which the
opposition and many Western countries condemned as
fraudulent.

Media reports at the weekend suggested Tsvangirai, and
senior ZANU-PF officials, as well as South Africa and
Britain, were pushing for Mugabe to retire before his term
ends in 2006 in a bid to end Zimbabwe's crisis.

Zvinavashe said Mugabe would finish his presidential term.
"I will support what is right and I will never support
anything that is wrong," he said, blaming a "British
propaganda machine" for media reports of the alleged scheme
to retire Mugabe early.

The MDC and civic groups say ZANU-PF has stepped up a
campaign of violence against its supporters in the run-up to
a parliamentary by-election in Harare this month to replace
a legislator who died last year. 

 

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