International Herald Tribune

By Michael Wines
Published: August 2, 2007

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe: Earlier this month, shortly after President Robert Mugabe proposed legislation mandating a gradual transfer of ownership of all businesses to “indigenous” citizens, a Zimbabwean businessman received an unexpected telephone call.
The caller, a stranger, said that he represented a group of indigenous investors. The investors, he said, would like to discuss the merchant’s plans for complying with the coming ownership law.

There is a flip side to Zimbabwe’s incrementally unfolding human tragedy, and this is it: as 11 million or more people descend into destitution, a tiny slice of the population is becoming ever more powerful and wealthy at their expense.No one outside of Mugabe’s inner circle, of course, can say with certainty why he has pursued a series of policies since 2000 that have produced economic and social bedlam. For his part, Mugabe says Zimbabwe’s chaos is the product of a Western plot to reassert colonial rule.

Among many outside that circle, however, the growing conviction is that Zimbabwe’s descent is neither the result of paranoia nor Mugabe’s longstanding belief in Marxist economic theory. Instead, they say, Zimbabwe is fast becoming a kleptocracy, and the government’s seemingly inexplicable policies are in fact preserving and expanding it.

“Their sole interest is in maintaining power by any means,” David Coltart, a Bulawayo lawyer and politician, said this week. “I think their calculation is that the rest of Africa is not going to do anything to stop them, and the West is distracted by Iraq and Afghanistan. The platinum mines can keep the core of the elite living in the manner they’re accustomed to – just in a sea of poverty.”

Coltart, a member of the Zimbabwean Parliament, is both white and a leader of Zimbabwe’s minuscule political opposition, which may make his opinion appear both cynical and suspect. And there surely are other views. One influential member of the ruling ZANU-PF party – the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front – says that Mugabe, now 84, is rushing to empower black Zimbabweans before he dies.

This, he said, explains why the government seized thousands of white-owned commercial farms early this decade, and why Mugabe ordered manufacturers and merchants this month to slash their prices by 50 percent and more. It explains why he now proposes to require that every Zimbabwean business be controlled by native Zimbabweans.

“The old man wants to leave a legacy,” said that politician, who insisted on anonymity. “He’s in the twilight of his life, and he wants it to be remembered that he left something to Zimbabweans.”

Yet in interviews in Zimbabwe this week, Coltart’s harsh view was widely shared by blacks and whites alike, many with no political ax to grind. Even the ruling party politician acknowledged that whatever the aims of Mugabe’s policies, their execution as gone terribly awry.

Zimbabwe’s farm seizures destroyed the country’s rich agriculture industry, and vast tracts of land were handed over to party elites in the form of patronage. The looming takeover of businesses is expected to produce the same result.

“Some of these people, his cronies, are being greedy,” the ZANU-PF official said. “That’s the tragedy of this country. Those who benefited from land reform are also going to benefit from this takeover.”

And in fact, the circumstantial evidence that Zimbabwe’s decline has become a zero-sum game, in which one side’s loss inevitably is the other’s gain, is not easy to ignore.Zimbabwe’s plummeting currency – 200,000 Zimbabwe dollars now buy a single American dollar on the black market – has rendered the salaries of working Zimbabweans worthless. Yet the official exchange rate is not 200,000, but 250. Those with connections to the government’s reserve bank are widely said to ply that influence to buy American dollars cheap, sell them dear and reap an 800-fold profit on currency transactions.

Mugabe’s own government declares currency trading illegal, but regularly dumps vast stacks of freshly printed bills on the black market, still wrapped in plastic, to raise foreign exchange for its own needs.

The country’s extraordinary hyperinflation, last pegged at 10,000 percent a year, would seem to benefit no one. Yet after the government ordered merchants in July to slash their prices in half, cadres of police and soldiers moved into shops to enforce the new controls, scoop up bargains, and give friends and political heavyweights preferential access to cheap goods.

Should the price controls continue, they are widely expected to force many businesses into insolvency. Coincidentally or otherwise, Zimbabwean business officials say, viable but bankrupt businesses will be prime targets for well-placed persons seeking to benefit from Mugabe’s new law placing enterprises under so-called indigenous control.

“After all,” said the business executive who was approached to sell his firm, “if you can’t make a company viable, you might as well sell 50 percent of it and make what you can.”

By Clemence Manyukwe Staff Reporter
Financial Gazette
2nd August 2007

THE collapse of opposition unity talks is like manna from heaven for President Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF and creates an unimpeded path for them to march to victory in next year’s polls, analysts say.

Arthur Mutambara, leader of one faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), at the weekend attacked factional rival Morgan Tsvangirai, describing him as an “intellectual midget” and a “weak and indecisive leader”.Blaming his rival for the failure of attempts to re-unite the two groupings, Mutambara vowed his party would field its own candidate against Tsvangirai and President Mugabe when harmonised elections are held next year. “If Morgan Tsvangirai is such a weak and indecisive leader who cannot embrace what ordinary Zimbabweans are demanding (unity), is he worthy of the presidency of this country? Zimbabweans deserve better leadership.”

Explaining why his faction pulled out of the Save Zimbabwe coalition of opposition groups, Mutambara said the grouping had “become a vehicle to solely advance the perverted agenda of Morgan Tsvangirai”.

However, at a rally in Kuwadzana the following day, Tsvangirai said he remained committed to unity, although he will launch his election campaign in September.

Negotiations collapsed after Tsvangirai refused to publicly endorse a code of conduct ending hostilities and leading to a coalition pact, Mutambara claimed.

The latest mudslinging comes after months of bickering between the factions, which began when the MDC split into entities in October 2005 over disagreements about participating in senate elections.

Analysts say the undoubted beneficiary of the bickering is President Mugabe and his party.Lovemore Madhuku, chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), said those who understood the MDC had never expected the two factions to re-unite because of what he termed “fundamental personality differences” between its founding figures.

Madhuku, seen as an ally of Tsvangirai, charged that Mutambara was a mere figurehead, and that real power lay with the faction’s secretary general, Welshman Ncube and David Coltart, secretary for legal affairs.

But he conceded the acrimony would further cripple the opposition.“If you have both disunity and the absence of a fair electoral playing field, the result is sure defeat,” Madhuku said.He said voters would have to contend with the current opposition leaders, as it would be impractical to replace them before next year’s polls. But he said upon defeat, both rival leaders should resign to make way for new leadership committed to unity.

Madhuku, whose NCA is part of Save Zimbabwe, denied the grouping was “championing Tsvangirai’s cause”.“I got the impression — from listening to what Arthur was saying and from reading the press statements — that it appears they entered Save Zimbabwe in order to leave it.”

Political analyst John Makumbe said Mutambara has more to lose as a result of the rift.“I think the majority of their candidates will lose some seats in Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South and Bulawayo,” said Makumbe.“There is also the fact that Mutambara is not a quarter as popular as Morgan Tsvangirai, anywhere in Zimbabwe.”The opposition would lose some seats it currently holds to ZANU PF, Makumbe said, but the losses would be limited.“ZANU PF may gain some seats, but it is unlikely to be widespread,” Makumbe said.

However, Tsholotsho independent MP Jonathan Moyo does not believe the split seriously weakens either faction, especially considering that they had split back in 2005. The only new factor was Mutambara’s withdrawal from Save Zimbabwe.
Save Zimbabwe’s purpose had always been to forge a broad alliance around Tsvangirai, says Moyo.“If there are people who say the purpose was not to build a broad based alliance around Tsvangirai, then those people were not part of the alliance. Their denial is inconsequential.”

He added that the Mutambara faction might now even be better positioned for the polls, as they have not yet announced their presidential candidate.The person that will emerge to stand on the faction’s ticket could well prove to be acceptable to the electorate, Moyo says.Both factions might yet emerge stronger from the split.“When ZAPU split in 1963, it did not weaken the nationalist movement. ZANU and ZAPU became formidable forces. There is a possibility of both factions, or either one of the factions, becoming a potent opposition force after the split.”

Coltart on Tuesday described as “nonsense” Madhuku’s claim that Mutambara was a mere figurehead.

He also denied that his faction was responsible for the collapse of unity.“If you look at the resolution passed by (his party’s) national council, it states that we are prepared to adhere to the April agreement. The blame does not lie with us.”
But he described the failure to reach an agreement as “regrettable”, and conceded the split favoured ZANU PF.

Voice of America
July 29 2007

By Peta Thornycroft

There has been no mealie meal in Zimbabwe’s second city Bulawayo for the past week.Not a single bag has been available in any of the city’s supermarkets and even blackmarket supplies have dried up.

“We are very worried and we are not yet ready to increase food distribution until September,” said an executive with a top non-government organisation in Harare, who asked not be named.

David Coltart, opposition member of parliament for the Bulawayo South constituency, says he is “alarmed” at the disappearance of mealie meal. “I have been trying to source mealie meal for the past two days and have gone to a wide variety of supermarkets around town. I have also approached wholesalers and it is simply unavailable.”I have been to my own constituency every day in the past week, and there is no evidence of any international or domestic NGOs distributing food for the needy.”We are at a point where people on the margins are starving.”

Traditionally relief agencies stop supplying food to people under threat of starvation from the onset of the maize harvest, usually May until September.

Another NGO worker said on Thursday: “We know the situation in the south is particularly bad, but believe me it is bad in lots of places and I am not sure we have the right numbers of people who will need food aid before the next harvest in 2008.”

The World Food Programme estimated that about 4.1 million Zimbabweans, or more than a third of the population, will need emergency food aid before the next harvest.

Until the seizures of white-owned farms which began in 2000, Zimbabwe has only needed donated food once since independence in 1980 during a catastrophic regional drought in 1991/92.

Since 2000, relief organisations have provided food aid continuously for between 300 000 and five million people a year in rural areas.

“Each homestead in my district is suffering two funerals a day, mostly very young and old people and that is because of hunger. There are only wild fruits and dried water melons to eat, but no maize, no mealie meal at all,” said Abednico Bhebe, opposition Movement for Democratic Change MP for Nkayi in Matabeleland.”The health of those suffering from HIV and Aids is exacerbated by the lack of food,” he said.

Zimbabwe is importing maize from Malawi but none is available to millers in Bulawayo.

A leading national supermarket chain in Zimbabwe has not received any deliveries of mealie meal for more than a week.

Beef is not available and small supplies of chicken and pork are far too expensive for about 80 percent of the population, even after enforced price cuts over the last three weeks.

“I think the government has known for some time there would be shortages, but this catastrophe may not be countrywide as subsistence farmers in the north had good rain, but here, in the south, the situation is dire, and the government has been derelict in its duty,” Coltart said.

Independent On Line/SAPA
July 25 2007

Bulawayo – Hundreds of residents in Zimbabwe’s second city thronged
the cathedral on Wednesday for prayers in support of outspoken Roman
Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube who is being sued for alleged adultery.

“The purpose of the prayer was mobilising and giving moral, spiritual,
mental and physical support to Archbishop Ncube,” said Effie Ncube – no
relation to the cleric – who is chairperson of The Pius Ncube Solidarity
Coalition, a clutch of non-governmental organisations, church groups and
political parties.

“We also want to ensure he gets a fair hearing consistent with
international human rights and judicial standards as well as countering
state propaganda regarding the lawsuit,” he added after attending the prayer
service.

Last week state media published pictures they claimed depicted the
Bulawayo archbishop, a fearless critic of President Robert Mugabe, having
sex with a married woman in his bedroom.

They claimed the pictures were taken secretly with cameras set up by a
private investigator hired by the woman’s husband to secure evidence of the
alleged adultery. The husband is now suing Ncube for 20-billion Zimbabwe
dollars (about R1,1-million).

Mugabe last Thursday rebuked the cleric for “snatching other people’s
women.”

Effie Ncube said that Zimbabweans had “seen through the machinations
of the state and are standing behind the archbishop.”

“This state-driven scandal cannot be allowed to deprive Zimbabwe as a
nation of its strongest and most consistent voice,” he added.

“Archbishop Ncube has spoken fearlessly on behalf of us all, and
whatever the truth or falsity of these allegations, we will not allow this
great activist to be silenced.”

Among high-profile people at the lunch-time prayer meeting were
opposition Movement for Democratic Change lawmaker David Coltart.

Effie Ncube said the coalition was concerned about the manner in which
state media covered the archbishop’s case from the time he was served with a
summons to court to answer the adultery lawsuit.

He said the coalition had also drawn up a petition to protest “the
brazen display of pornography by the public media” and said over a thousand
people had signed the document the group intends to present to parliament
and various government departments. – Sapa-AFP

Leader
Saturday July 21, 2007
The Guardian

It was presented as medicine, but the shock therapy being applied to Zimbabwe is poison. Three weeks ago President Robert Mugabe ordered that prices be cut by at least half. It was a panic response to galloping inflation, which had reached the point where the price of some goods was rising threefold each week. But Mugabe’s decree is crucifying retailers – filling stations are being forced to sell petrol for less than half what they have to pay for it. In the ensuing summer sale, widescreen TVs, clothes, coffee, meat – almost everything except staple foodstuffs – have disappeared from the shelves.

While some Zanu-PF loyalists made a killing, thousands of shopkeepers were arrested for profiteering. Restocking has become near-impossible. Oil, soap and salt have run out in rural areas. On Thursday buying petrol with foreign currency coupons was barred, removing one of the last ways of filling up the tank. With arbitrary prices already set for basics from milk to cement (anything from 20% to 50% of the cost of production), the next step, according to the opposition MP David Coltart, is to militarise the economy. Zanu-PF are doing to businesses what they did to the white farms, and the effect will be just as grim. The price cuts were ordered by a committee of army, intelligence and police officers chaired by Mr Mugabe and gangs of thugs are implementing them by force.

None of this makes sense for those members of Zanu-PF with any stake in the future. The rationale behind the South African-sponsored talks with members of the opposition was that Zanu-PF stalwarts had more to lose from a collapse of the existing order than did those outside the party. Better to talk now and manage transition than lose all, the optimists argued. Since then the talks in Pretoria have gone nowhere, and last week one side failed to turn up. The whole operation appears to have been a delaying tactic, with South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki outfoxed by Mr Mugabe. What then is the party’s grand strategy? Zanu-PF bosses own many businesses that are losing billions of Zimbabwean dollars in the chaos, so why did they allow fellow party members to drive what was left of the country’s economy off a cliff?

There are no clear answers. Even if Zanu-PF becomes a military regime, it will not be able to feed the people. Thousands of Zimbabweans are fleeing to South Africa, and there will be more as basic foods run out. The last thing South Africa needs is millions of starving refugees, and yet that prospect is still not concentrating minds in Pretoria. The US ambassador to Harare may be right when he claims that Zanu-PF is committing regime change on itself. But Zimbabwe may have further to fall before it finally slams into the ground.

A NATION IN CRISIS: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s bid to curb runaway inflation by decree has resulted in a countrywide run on consumer products

THE GUARDIAN, LONDON
Tuesday, Jul 17, 2007

Zimbabweans are shopping like there’s no tomorrow. With police patroling the aisles of Harare’s electrical shops to enforce massive government-ordered price cuts, the widescreen TVs were the first things to go, for as little as US$41. Across the country, shoes, clothes, toiletries and different kinds of food were all swept from the shelves as a nation with the world’s fastest shrinking economy gorged itself on one last spending spree.

Car dealers said officials were forcing them to sell vehicles at the official exchange rate, effectively meaning that a car priced at US$15000 could be had for US$30 by changing money on the blackmarket. The owners of several dealerships have been arrested.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has accused business interests of fueling inflation, running at about 20,000 percent, to bring down his government.

Economists say the price cuts will only deepen the national crisis, leaving many shops bare because they will not be able to afford to restock while official retail prices remain lower than the cost of buying wholesale or importing. Mugabe has dismissed such warnings as “bookish economics.”

Some businesses fear that the operation is intended to pin the blame on the private sector for Zimbabwe’s economic problems as a step towards seizing control of many companies in the way that white-owned farms were expropriated at the beginning of the decade, sparking the crisis.

Parliament is expected to pass legislation in the coming weeks that will effectively give a controlling stake in all publicly traded companies to ruling party loyalists and others chosen by the government.

The impact of the price cuts was felt almost immediately as fuel virtually disappeared from sale after garages were forced to sell gasoline for US$.23 a liter, less than they paid the state-owned supplier. By Saturday, most minibus taxis had gone from the roads because drivers could not find gasoline. Workers waited for hours trying to get to or from their jobs.

“Factories must produce. If they don’t, we will take you over. We will seize the factories,” Mugabe said.

Last week, the government said it was reviving the State Trading Corp, shut down two decades ago because of mismanagement, to take over businesses that collapse or are seized. But many factories are unable to produce goods because electricity and water are unavailable for much of the day.

David Coltart, an opposition member of parliament, said the move was essentially a means for the ruling party and military to take over the economy.

US Ambassador to Harare Christopher Dell recently said that Zanu-PF was committing regime change on itself with its economic policies and that Mugabe would be gone by the end of the year.

By Peta Thornycroft
Voice of America
17 July 2007

Zimbabwe’s state-controlled media are carrying explicit photographs of a man they claim is Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, allegedly taken with a naked woman inside his bedroom. Peta Thornycroft reports for VOA the outspoken critic of President Robert Mugabe is being sued by a civil servant who said the cleric destroyed his marriage.

Archbishop Ncube, sounded weary on the telephone from his home in Bulawayo. He said the pictures were part of what he called “a long-term strategy.” He said many people had shown him support and he is praying a great deal.The pictures, allegedly taken by a secret camera in the Archbishop’s bedroom, show a naked man the state press says is Pius Ncube and a woman in a bed in the same room.

The state media was on hand Monday when the sheriff of Bulawayo served a summons on the Archbishop at St. Mary’s Cathedral.
The summons says a technician at the National Railways of Zimbabwe, Onesimus Sibanda, claims his wife Rosemary worked at the cathedral and was having a two-year affair with the archbishop. Sibanda has demanded about $100,000 in damages.
Rosemary Sibanda, told Zimbabwe state media she was separated from her husband at the time she began a sexual relationship with the archbishop.

A founder of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, attorney David Coltart, founding said the revelations in the state press and the summons appeared to be a well co-ordinated campaign to embarrass the outspoken government critic.
Coltart said he does not believe a state-employed railway technician could have afforded a sophisticated operation like the one that produced the lurid pictures published in the state press and on television.

He said Archbishop Ncube was President Mugabe’s most consistent critic, and the state had felt restrained from arresting, torturing or killing him, as happened to many others who opposed the present government.He said President Mugabe had obviously known in advance of the revelations as he referred to priests on July 7, saying, “Some of them have sworn to celibacy but they sleep around.”

Coltart said it is hypocritical for the government to focus on this issue because President Mugabe had children with a married woman when his first wife, Sally, was dying.

Coltart said he and many of his colleagues and friends would support Archbishop Ncube, regardless of whether the allegations contained in the summons or in the state press proved to be true or not.

A lawyer for the archbishop, Nicholas Mathonsi, said in his years as a lawyer in Bulwayo he had never seen a summons delivered with a crowd of state journalists in attendance.

A long-time parishioner in the archbishop’s church, said she was not concerned about what he might or might not have done in his private life. “He has never condemned human frailty, but he has always condemned evil,” she said.

Over the years, several senior Catholic clerics in Zimbabwe have had children and remained in the church, despite their vows of celibacy. This is the first time a Catholic cleric’s alleged sexuality has been made public in Zimbabwe.

International Herald Tribune

The Associated Press Published: July 16, 2007

HARARE, Zimbabwe:
Zimbabwean Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube was named
in an adultery case Monday in what his lawyers called an “orchestrated
attempt” to embarrass the outspoken government critic.

Attorney Nick Matonzi said Ncube was in his office in the second city of
Bulawayo when documents were delivered by court officials accompanied by a
state television crew alleging he was involved in a two-year affair with a
secretary in his office whose husband was demanding damages in a civil suit.
Matonzi said Ncube will deny the allegations in the civil court when it
convenes at an unspecified date.

State radio reported in its afternoon bulletins that the woman, identified
as Rosemary Sibanda who worked at Ncube’s St. Mary’s Cathedral, “admitted
the affair to” the state broadcasting company.

Matonzi said “a sort of press conference” was held in the cathedral
courtyard by court officials.

“The case is unique. From the manner the papers were served, you can see it
is some kind of orchestrated attempt to embarrass the Archbishop,” he said.

State radio said the woman’s husband, Onesimus Sibanda, was demanding 20
billion Zimbabwe dollars (about US$160,000; ?118,000 at the dominant black
market exchange rate) in damages.
At the legal official exchange rate the damages demanded – one of the
highest demands in the nation’s legal history – would exceed US$1.3 million
(?1 million).

Ncube has repeatedly accused President Robert Mugabe of human rights
violations and called for him to step down. The cleric has also urged
Zimbabweans to take to the streets to demonstrate against the government
amid the nation’s worst economic crisis since independence.

Earlier this month, Mugabe urged his ruling party militants to disregard
church leaders who have called for his forced ouster while criticizing the
chaotic and often violent seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial
farms that disrupted the economy since 2000.

He accused Ncube and other church leaders of “peddling falsehoods about
Zimbabwe’s governance.”

“Where is the godliness? Don’t listen to what they say …. One cannot tell
the difference between a bishop and a layman anymore. Some of them have
sworn to celibacy but they sleep around,” Mugabe told supporters on July 7.

David Coltart, a Bulawayo attorney and longtime friend of Ncube, said the
archbishop’s integrity had never before been questioned.

“Fascist dictators have used this means to attack opponents through the
ages. The law is used as a weapon,” he said.

Ncube has demanded disclosure by Mugabe on the massacre of thousands of
civilians in the western Matabeland province by troops who crushed an armed
rebellion against Mugabe’s rule there after independence in 1980.

He has said Mugabe was responsible for economic policies that have led to
acute food shortages and starvation among children, the elderly and other
vulnerable groups across the nation.

In March, Ncube said he was ready to lead a popular uprising against Mugabe.

A pastoral letter by the nation’s nine Roman Catholic bishops circulated at
Easter calling for an end to state oppression angered Mugabe, 83, a
self-avowed Catholic.

The state media described the bishops, including Ncube, as leaders of “the
settler church” with origins in the colonial era that backed Mugabe’s
opponents and Western governments campaigning against him.

Police and Zanu-PF lead bargain hunt after officials order shops to act

The Guardian
By Chris McGreal in Harare
Monday July 16, 2007

Zimbabweans are shopping like there’s no tomorrow. With police patrolling the aisles of Harare’s electrical shops to enforce massive government-ordered price cuts, the widescreen TVs were the first things to go, for as little as £20. Across the country, shoes, clothes, toiletries and different kinds of food were all swept from the shelves as a nation with the world’s fastest shrinking economy gorged itself on one last spending spree.

Car dealers said officials were trying to force them to sell vehicles at the official exchange rate, effectively meaning that a car costing £15,000 could be had for £30 by changing money on the blackmarket. The owners of several dealerships have been arrested.

President Robert Mugabe’s order that all shop prices be cut by at least half, and sometimes several times more, has forced stores to open to hordes of customers waving thick blocks of near worthless money given new value by the price cuts. The police and groups of ruling party supporters could be seen leading the charge for a bargain.

Mr Mugabe has accused business interests of fuelling inflation, running at about 20,000%, to bring down his government. A hotline is in place to report “overcharging”, and retailers who flinch at slashing prices are being dragged before the courts. Several thousand have been arrested for “profiteering” over the past week, including the chief executives of the biggest retailers in the country, some of them foreign-owned.

Economists say the price cuts will only deepen the national crisis, leaving many shops bare because they will not be able to afford to restock while official retail prices remain lower than the cost of buying wholesale or importing. Mr Mugabe has dismissed such warnings as “bookish economics”.

Some businesses fear that Operation Reduce Prices is intended to pin the blame on the private sector for Zimbabwe’s economic problems as a step towards seizing control of many companies in the way that white-owned farms were expropriated at the beginning of the decade, sparking the crisis.

Parliament is expected to pass legislation in the coming weeks that will effectively give a controlling stake in all publicly traded companies to ruling party loyalists and others chosen by the government. The impact of the price cuts was felt almost immediately as fuel virtually disappeared from sale after garages were forced to sell petrol for 23p a litre, less than they paid the state-owned supplier.

The police and army broke the locks on petrol pumps at some garages and tanks ran dry amid panic buying. Now petrol is available only on the blackmarket, at more than seven times the official price and three times what garages had been charging. By Saturday, most minibus taxis had gone from the roads because drivers could not find petrol. Crowds of workers were left on kerbs for hours trying to get to or from their jobs.

The riot police had to be called out to the South African-owned Makro super store in Harare after thousands of people stormed the shop after it was forced to slash prices. The scenes were replicated in stores throughout Harare. The Bata shoe chain’s shops were stripped bare in two days by people snapping up pairs for as little as 20p.

Food is still available, although bread, sugar, cornmeal and other staples are hard to find, and meat has all but disappeared because livestock owners say it is now uneconomic to slaughter their animals. Much of the meat that is available is goat slaughtered in backyards and sold in informal markets.

The rest of the food supply – already severely undermined by drought and lack of production on land seized from white farmers – is also under threat after Mr Mugabe threatened to take over manufacturers if they shut down their plants on the grounds that they were uneconomic. “Factories must produce. If they don’t, we will take you over … We will seize the factories,” he said.
Last week, the government said it was reviving the State Trading Corporation, shut down two decades ago because of mismanagement, to take over businesses that collapse or are seized. But many factories are unable to produce goods because electricity and water are unavailable for much of the day.

The price cuts were ordered by the joint operation command, a committee of army, intelligence and police officers closely tied to the ruling Zanu-PF and chaired by Mr Mugabe. The government despatched security personnel and party cadres, including its notorious “green bomber” thugs, to enforce the price cuts, in some cases by beating up shop managers who did not implement them quickly enough.

“Zanu-PF is at heart a military organisation and that’s exactly how it’s gone about this, as a military operation,” said David Coltart, an opposition MP. “The benefits will only last a few weeks at most and then we’re going to have to live with the consequences. They believe they can dictate price cuts and print money with gay abandon but ultimately it will rebound. Not ultimately, very soon.”

Business leaders say one reason for the price cuts is to quell unrest in the security forces, which saw a dramatic increase in inflation last month wipe out a 600% pay rise in May. They also fear the campaign is a step towards doing to private companies what was done to white farmers. Mr Mugabe is pressing a law through parliament in the coming weeks that will require all businesses to be at least 51% Zimbabwean owned and managed.

Zanu-PF has dressed up the move as an affirmative action measure to help previously disadvantaged black people. But firms will not be able to choose their new partners. They will be selected by the government. The measure will be paid for by taxing the same businesses forced to hand over control.

Mr Coltart said the move was essentially a means for the ruling party and military to take over the economy. “We can’t expect a rational policy to emerge. You will see the military in charge of manufacturing. We’ve already got the military in charge of railways and grain marketing and the electoral process. There are military men now involved in all sorts of other businesses. The militarisation of the state will continue,” he said.

In a letter to the cabinet the governor of Zimbabwe’s central bank, Gideon Gono – until recently considered one of Mr Mugabe’s closest allies – said that price controls must be scrapped and foreign investments and property rights protected to put the country on the path to economic recovery. He also said that the seizure of white-owned farms had been counterproductive because it cost Zimbabwe foreign currency earnings by losing tobacco exports and scaring off investors.

Many of Mr Mugabe’s opponents agree with Mr Gono but they are quietly heartened by the latest upheaval. They are fond of quoting the US ambassador to Harare, Christopher Dell, who recently said that Zanu-PF was committing regime change on itself with its disastrous economic policies and that Mr Mugabe would be gone by the end of the year.

International Herald Tribune

By David Coltart
Published: July 13, 2007

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe:

As I marched in protest with a handful of fellow Zimbabwean lawyers in Bulawayo recently, I looked into the eyes of the riot police and believed that I saw the beginning of cracks in the regime.

The Law Society of Zimbabwe called a strike in protest against recent attacks on and arrests of members of the legal profession, so we gathered here at the High Court on June 27th to march to the offices of the governor of Bulawayo to present a petition.
The riot police stood on the steps of the High Court and told us that the march was illegal and that we had to move away. Approximately 15 of us then started a three-block march to the governor’s office – followed by a stately procession of police vehicles that included members of the “Law and Order” political section.

As we – the 15 dangerous lawyers – arrived at the governor’s office, the riot police spread out, with shields raised and batons drawn. We were ordered to stop, told that our march was illegal and that we should disperse immediately or be dispersed by force.
We explained that we wanted to deliver a petition protesting against the persecution of our colleagues in Harare. The commanding officer was not interested. He threatened us again, called for reinforcements and ordered us to disperse. Further detachments of riot police officers and other policemen had arrived, bringing the strength of their forces to around 40. We asked the commanding officer to take our petition to the governor, but he refused.

So we left our letter at his feet and turned to march back to the High Court. Once more, we were ordered to disperse, and once more we ignored the order. Shortly after that, another truck-load of about 20 policemen arrived, armed with shotguns and FN military rifles. Our group walked a block, followed by this truck and the other riot policemen. Then we were stopped again and told to disperse under threat of force.

Again we ignored the order and walked a further block, almost as far as the High Court building. At this juncture we noticed further reinforcements arriving and, having decided that we had made our point, we dispersed to our offices.Let me remind readers that our march could not be filmed by any television station because there are no independent TV stations in Zimbabwe. Nor was it covered by any independent journalists because there are no independent daily newspapers left and foreign reporters are severely constrained.

Our march was conducted with the knowledge that, over the last seven years, not a single police officer has been prosecuted for any of their assaults against law-abiding Zimbabweans exercising their constitutional right to demonstrate peaceably.
We knew that the police officers who recently attacked the Law Society’s president, Beatrice Mtetwa, have not been arrested or prosecuted, nor will they be. We all knew that the police know that they have absolute license to bash whomever they like as hard as they like.

As President Robert Mugabe said in September after the arrests of labor union activists: “Some are crying that they were beaten. Yes, you will be thoroughly beaten. When the police say move, you move. If you don’t move, you invite the police to use force.”
Nearly all the lawyers who took part in the march have represented many exceptionally brave political and civic activists who have been demonstrating for years and who have been brutally assaulted and tortured by the police. To that extent the actions of this band of lawyers is not remarkable. But it still took great courage to go outside the relative security of their offices show solidarity with others who have stood for their rights and the rights of all the people of Zimbabwe.

My abiding memory of the events is the expressions on the faces of the riot police. Although they were brandishing batons and could have harmed us, when I looked into their eyes I saw no enthusiasm for what they had been ordered to do. In fact, if I sensed any emotion it was pity. The officer in charge was hesitant and almost apologetic. Most of his men were in tattered uniforms and many looked malnourished. When we avoided a violent confrontation they looked relieved and when they followed us they were not menacing.

On the other hand, the police reinforcements were threatening, but they were probably core loyalists. It struck me that we now may be up against a paper tiger, that the regime is only protected by a thin veneer of die-hard loyalists, and that the vast majority of the police officers understand that change is coming.

I remembered Arthur Hugh Clough’s “Say not the struggle naught availeth:”

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main.”

Despite all the fear and depression in Zimbabwe today, I sense that the tide of popular opinion is silently flooding in and that this dreadful regime will find itself overwhelmed from within.