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Zimbabwe - A Year in Review

In September, 2003 Zimbabwe government shut-down the country's only independent daily newspaper. Since then it has become nearly impossible to find credible news about what is going on inside Zimbabwe. However, Catherine Buckle, author of African Tears, maintains an excellent website with the "truth about Zimbabwe." In her most recent newsletter she lists the following highlights from this past year:

January 2004 saw inflation hit 622% and international aid organisations saying that seven and a half million Zimbabweans would need food aid during the year.

In February 100 people were arrested after demonstrating in Harare for a new constitution and the only daily independent newspaper, The Daily News closed down permanently following a Supreme Court ruling.

67 alleged mercenaries were arrested at Harare airport in March and this story swamped almost all other news during the month. The Zimbabwe Institute in Cape Town reported that more than 90% of MDC MP's had been arrested by the present government ; 25% had survived assasination attempts; 16% had been tortured in police custody and in 616 incidents recorded, not one perpetrator had been arrested, charged or imprisoned.

In April the UN Human Rights Commission again adopted a No Action Motion when it came to discussing abuses in Zimbabwe and in that same month 1500 workers and their families were left squatting in the bush after the government seized Kondozi Farm in Odzi.

May saw Zimbabwe's Minister of Finance being arrested; the Minister of Education closing 45 private schools and the Minister of Social Welfare declaring that the country was no longer in need of world food aid.

In June the country's email providers were told they would have to sign contracts allowing tracing facilities for what the government called "malicious mails". Vice President Nkomo announced that all farm land was to be nationalized and parliament passed a Bill allowing the State to compulsorily acquire farm equipment and material - regardless of whether or not the owner wanted to sell his personal private property.

July saw the government closing the Tribune newspaper and parliament passing new detention laws allowing a person to be held by police for 23 days with no rights to either a court appearance or bail appeal.

In August figures were released of 8871 human rights violations that had been reported and documented in Zimbabwe in the last two years.

September saw 14 people being shot at the Marondera Agricultural Show when the army staged a mock battle and somehow live bullets were used. During the month telephone costs increased by 485% and countrywide peasant farmers were thrown off farms to make way for what the government called A2 farmers.

In October the South African Trade Union organization COSATU were deported from Zimbabwe in the middle of the night and dumped at the Beitbridge border post. 50 WOZA women were arrested for walking 440 kms to protest the impending NGO BIll.

Life expectancy in Zimbabwe dropped to just 35 years in November 2004 and the government pushed the NGO Bill into its final stages.

In December, just weeks before the next elections, the new budget was presented and it awarded just over one billion dollars a day to the country's secret police. In December 2004, just two days after an earthquake and Tsunami in the Indian Ocean killed over 125 000 people this Christmas, President Mugabe, his wife and their two children left for Malaysia on their annual holiday.

Far from being a liberator, Mugabe terrorizes Zimbabweans, prohibits free speech and implements policies that are destructive to his country. Unfortunately, the plight of this once prosperous country continues to be under-reported in Western media.

Posted by tim at January 1, 2005 4:10 PM

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