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Corr.: Weekly anb03086.txt #6
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WEEKLY NEWS ISSUE of: 08-03-2001 PART #6/6
* Zambie. Les religieuses critiquent le gouvernement - Des religieuses
catholiques de l'Association zambienne des communautés religieuses (ZSA) et
de la Conférence des supérieures de Zambie ont diffusé, début février, un
manifeste pastoral qui reproche aux autorités zambiennes le déclin de
l'enseignement et la situation déplorable des soins de santé dans les
hôpitaux publics et autres établissements. Les religieuses reprochent aussi
au gouvernement de ne pas vraiement s'employer à réduire la pauvreté dans
le pays. La présidente de la ZSA, Sr Rose Doyle, a déclaré que les
religieuses avaient décidé exceptionnellement de diffuser leur déclaration
parce que le gouvernement zambien n'avait pas fait assez pour s'attaquer
aux problèmes sociaux du pays. (ENI, Suisse, 28 février 2001)
* Zambia. Chiluba's third term - A senior cabinet minister in Zambia has
added his voice against amending the country's constitution in order to
allow President Frederick Chiluba to go beyond his mandated two five-year
terms in office. In a press statement released on 5 March, Legal Affairs
minister Vincent Malambo called upon Zambians to stand up in defence of the
Constitution. He said that he regretted with sadness that a fundamental
clause in the constitution limiting the office of the presidency to two
terms was now being ejected through a partisan, non-inclusive process in
which those who hold different views must be targets of violence. Malambo,
a lawyer by profession, said the presidential term-limit was and still is
one of the fundamental principles upon which the ruling Movement for
Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was founded and that nothing has happened since
1990 to change this view. Malambo becomes the fourth senior government
official to reject calls to amend the constitution to allow Chiluba to seek
a third term of office. Zambia's vice-president Christon Tembo three days
ago called upon Zambians to respect the Constitution clause which limits
the office of the president to two terms. Tembo said the country should be
governed according to constitutional provisions without personalising
development in the country to one person. On 1 March, Zambia's Education
Minister Godfrey Miyanda, who is also the ruling MMD party vice-president,
issued a statement to ask Chiluba to lift the ban imposed on party members
wishing to campaign for the party presidency. He said there should be
ground rules to the ongoing third term debate to guide the discussions in
order for the nation to arrive at a credible conclusion. Chiluba last week
sacked Local Government and Housing minister Ackson Sejani and Deputy
minister for Home Affairs Edwin Hatembo who had campaigned against the
third term at a MMD provincial election in Southern province a week ago
which rejected the third term calls. (PANA, Senegal, 5 March 2001)
* Zambie. Famine chez les réfugiés - Plus de 250.000 réfugiés qui ont fui
les combats en RD-Congo et en Angola, sont confrontés à la famine dans les
six camps où ils sont hébergés en Zambie. Ils ont épuisé leurs vivres le 15
février. Le HCR a lancé un appel à la communauté internationale. Le
ministre zambien de l'Intérieur, M. Machungwa, a indiqué que le
gouvernement ne pouvait apporter une aide alimentaire aux réfugiés. "Nous
avons déjà fourni des terres et nous protégeons les réfugiés des violents
combats dans leurs pays. Pour l'aide alimentaire, le HCR doit s'adresser à
la communauté internationale", a-t-il déclaré. (D'après PANA, Sénégal, 6
mars 2001)
* Zimbabwe. Le président de la Cour suprême s'incline - Le président de
la Cour suprême du Zimbabwe, Anthony Gubbay, a accepté de partir en
retraite anticipée début juillet prochain (soit près d'un an avant la fin
de son mandat), aux termes d'un accord conclu avec le gouvernement et rendu
public le 2 mars. Cet accord met fin à une crise provoquée récemment par le
refus de M. Gubbay de quitter ses fonctions sous pression des autorités,
mécontentes de décisions de la Cour suprême notamment sur la réforme
agraire et les occupations de fermes appartenant à des Blancs. L'accord
pose comme conditions que les autorités ne feront quitter illégalement
leurs fonctions à aucun autre juge. Ces derniers temps, elles avaient fait
pression sur plusieurs magistrats pour qu'ils démissionnent. (La Libre
Belgique, 3 mars 2001)
* Zimbabwe, State-organised violence - The fast wanning popularity of
President Robert Mugabe's administration which is now subject to persistent
donor criticism due to the country's increasing political unrest and
chaotic economic environment, has seen the ruling ZANU-PF party resorting
to all sorts of human rights abuses in an attempt to stifle growing
opposition from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led Morgan
Tsvangirayi. In an attempt to strengthen its position, the government is
bolstering its security branches, especially the police, to suppress the
campaign for change. But there are signs that the situation will keep
growing tougher for 77-year old Mugabe. Human rights groups condemn his
record of shocking human rights abuses involving ZANU-PF, war veterans and
security forces. The Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture
Victims, the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims, and
Amani Trust --- a local rights watchdog organisation, charge that Mugabe's
record is littered with crimes against humanity. In their recently released
report: "Organised Election Violence in Zimbabwe 2001", they condemn the
violence surrounding the recent by-elections in Marondera west and Bikita
west, where opposition supporters were harassed and tortured. (Editor's
note: The author od this report comes from Malawi. He is presently on a
study visit to Zimbabwe, sponsored by the Namibia-based Media Institute of
Southern Africa). (Hobbs Gama, ANB-BIA, Malawi, 5 March 2001)
* Zimbabwe. Visite de Mugabe en Europe - Le président zimbabwéen Robert
Mugabe a été reçu, le 6 mars, à Paris par le président Chirac. La veille,
il l'avait été à Bruxelles par le Premier ministre belge Verhofstadt. Ces
visites ont été vivement critiquées en Grande-Bretagne et dans les rangs de
l'opposition zimbabwéenne, qui les a appelées "une gifle pour tous les
Zimbabwéens". La Belgique et la France voient cependant en Mugabe l'une des
clés à la solution du conflit en RD-Congo. A Bruxelles, M. Mugabe a indiqué
qu'il était disposé à retirer ses 12.000 soldats du Congo, à condition que
le dialogue intercongolais empêche tout vide juridique à la tête de l'Etat.
Toutefois, la situation intérieure au Zimbabwe a également été évoquée au
cours de ces entretiens. M. Chirac a notamment "souhaité que la voie du
dialogue sans exclusive, au Zimbabwe comme ailleurs, permette de trouver
des solutions dans le respect du droit". (ANB-BIA, de sources diverses, 7
mars 2001)
* Zimbabwe. Mugabe in Europe - 5 March: The European Commission said
today it would launch a political dialogue over human rights with Zimbabwe,
its first initiative with the Harare government since President Robert
Mugabe began his crackdown on civil rights seven months ago. The dialogue
was agreed after Poul Nielson, commissioner for development and
humanitarian aid, had been invited to lunch by Mr Mugabe who was on the
first leg of a trip that will also take him to Paris. The Commission issued
a short, vague statement saying the conversation "covered the main themes
in a frank and open way". It added that the dialogue would be anchored on
Article 8 of the Cotonou Agreement, which governs the European Union's
relations with its partners in the African, Pacific and Caribbean regions.
In particular, Article 8 contains a three-month deadline for completion of
the dialogue. However, a Commission spokesman said no timetable for the
dialogue had been set. "It will be an open ended dialogue that will cover
all the topics related to human rights." Some EU officials admit they have
little leverage over Mr Mugabe. EU aid is only about E10m ($9m) a year and,
besides, any sanctions would hit the poorest. Later Mr Mugabe met Guy
Verhofstadt, Belgian prime minister, and Louis Michel, foreign minister and
deputy prime minister. Belgium, the former colonial power of the now
Democratic Republic of Congo, says it wants to stabilise the regime of
Joseph Kabila, its president, by liaising with all the country's neighbours
in a bid to implement the UN-sponsored Lusaka peace accord. But Mr Mugabe
told his Belgian hosts that Zimbabwe wanted to withdraw its troops. The
problem was that an early retreat would "leave a military and political
vacuum in Kinshasa", he is reported to have said. Mr Mugabe also insisted
he had no intention of expelling foreign journalists. "Contrary to rumours
upon my return to Harare there will no such expulsions," he told the
Belgians. 6 March: Today, France's President Jacques Chirac stepped up
French efforts to help bring an end to the long-running conflict in the
Great Lakes region by holding talks with President Mugabe in Paris. French
officials stressed the decision to meet Mr Mugabe was in no way intended to
boost the Zimbabwean leader's credibility at a time when the opposition and
independent judiciary were under attack. "After weighing the pros and cons
of a meeting it was decided to go ahead against the background of there
being some new movement in the Democratic Republic of Congo," said an
official. (Financial Times, UK, 6-7 March 2001)
* Zimbabwe. Deteriorating situation - 1 March: As Zimbabwe's white chief
justice steered his Mercedes towards the gates of the supreme court on 1
March, he did not know if the policeman on guard would admit him or arrest
him. As it turned out, the officer saluted, the gates swung open and
Anthony Gubbay -- a Manchester-born lawyer described as quiet and even
timid by colleagues -- reluctantly found himself leading the struggle to
defend the last arm of state prepared to defy President Robert Mugabe. The
government tried to sack Mr Gubbay as the supreme court's chief justice
earlier this week after months of vilifying him as a racist because he
oversaw rulings which found Mr Mugabe's wholesale redistribution of
white-owned farms, and other misuses of power, illegal. Mr Gubbay had
already agreed to take early retirement in June but the government wants
him out of the way before then. He stands in the way of a grand plan to
purge the hierarchy of Zimbabwe's judiciary -- including the entire supreme
court and much of the high court -- to ensure that the government gets its
way over the land seizures and that the ruling party, ZANU-PF, retains
power. Zimbabwe's justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, had told Mr Gubbay
to vacate his office by 1 March. But the chief justice went to work anyway,
and forced Mr Mugabe to seek another way to seize control of the judiciary.
The same day, the British Government says it will withdraw a team of
military advisers and trainers from Zimbabwe because of the deteriorating
situation there. 2 March: The EU's Development Commissioner, Poul Nielson,
will receive President Mugabe in Brussels on 5 March. He will also be
received by Belgium's Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt the same day. The next
day, he will be received by France's President Chirac in Paris. Chief
Justice Gubbay agrees to take early retirement on 1 July after extracting
an assurance from the government that it would not embark on an immediate
purge of the judges. The deal was signed several hours after Mr Gubbay
received a visit from one of the leaders of the war veterans, Joseph
Chinotimba, who openly threatened him with violence. 4 March: Gunmen shoot
and kill the mother of a farmer murdered last year at the start of
President Mugabe's campaign to seize white-owned farms for redistribution
to blacks. 5 March: The police have launched a manhunt for the killers of
the woman. The five remaining white judges have been threatened with
violence by Chenjerai Hunzvi, leader of Zimbabwe's war veterans, unless
they surrender their posts immediately. 7 March: Zimbabwe's Justice
Minister insists that media reports that judges in his country have been
intimidated and that the rule of law is under threat, are "pure
fabrication". (ANB-BIA, Brussels, 8 March 2001)
Weekly anb0308.txt - End of part 6/6
THE END
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Un homme meurt chaque fois que l'un d'entre nous se tait devant la tyrannie
(W. Soyinka, Prix Nobel litterature)
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Everytime somebody keep silent when faced with tyranny, someone else dies
(Wole Syinka, Nobel Prize for Literature) *
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