Category: News Feeds

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The MDC says that the African Union must take action before the situation in Zimbabwe spirals out of control. It urges the organisation to exercise the UN recognised ‘right to protect’.

The party’s deputy spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said the situation provided a test for Africa. ‘Our brothers and sisters on the continent cannot just watch while citizens are brutalised and harassed by their own government when they have adequate legal safeguards to take action.’

In a letter to the African Union, the MDC says that, under the AU’s own constitution, it has the right to intervene in a member state in grave circumstances.

‘Grave circumstances are an apt summation of the situation in Zimbabwe. It is our humble submission that there are crimes against humanity being committed by the State in Zimbabwe, given the abduction of innocent citizens, the proscription of the right to demonstrate and the callous murder by State security agents of over 20 citizens on August 1, 2018 and in January 2019,’ the MDC said.

For his part, a US spokesman has repeated American concerns over the Zimbabwe situation. He said: ‘We have great concerns over the space that’s available for democracy and governance in Zimbabwe. We have been alarmed at how the government has treated its own citizens.’

If, as suggested, Zimbabwean bank notes are introduced next month they will soon show the real rate of inflation. The Vigil remembers that its barely a decade ago when wheelbarrows were used to go shopping – not to bring back goods but to carry the bank notes. The wizards at the finance ministry and the reserve bank must explain how you can import if you don’t export, except with the money we in the diaspora send home or foreign aid and loans.

Among those feeling the pinch is former Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko who has gone to the High Court seeking payment of his pension. Mphoko, who was in office for three years until last year, said that so far he hadn’t received a cent in pension and was now owed US$308,000. We hope he doesn’t get a bean because some time ago one of our activists said he was a family friend but had raped her.

Other points

• Next week marks the 17^th anniversary of the Vigil – 17 years outside the Embassy every Saturday . . . and the situation at home gets ever worse.
• Special thanks to Rosemary Maponga and Heather Makawa who brought a brilliant new banner which reads: To save Zimbabwe, Zanu PF must go. No to Zanu PF – no to abductions and torture.’
• Thanks to those who helped set up the front table and put up the banners today: Jonathan Kariwo, Patricia Masamba, Tarisai Matambanadzo, Joyce Mbairatsunga, Washington Mugari, Tsitsi Nyirongo, Hazvinei Saili and Rudo Takiya. Thanks to Hazvinei and Tsitsi for looking after the front table, to Tarisai and Patience Chimba for handing out flyers, to Delice Gavazah and Rangarirai Chivariro for drumming and to Patricia and Jonathan for photos.
• For latest Vigil pictures check: http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimb88abwevigil/. Please note: Vigil photos can only be downloaded from our Flickr website.

FOR THE RECORD: 25 signed the register.

 

EVENTS AND NOTICES:

• The Zimbabwe Vigil’s 17^th Anniversary. Saturday 12^th October from 2 – 5 pm outside the Zimbabwe Embassy, London. The Zimbabwe Vigil started on 12^th October 2002 so this will be 17 years to the day that the Vigil has protested against human rights abuses and for democracy in Zimbabwe. Please join us for this auspicious anniversary.
• ROHR general members’ meeting. Saturday 12^th October from 11.30 am. Venue: Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, Belvedere Road SE1 8XX. Contact: Ephraim Tapa 07940793090, Patricia Masamba 07708116625, Esther Munyira 07492058109.
• ROHR fundraising dinner dance. Saturday 2^nd November from 6 pm till late. Venue tba. ROHR is hosting a dinner dance to raise funds for a Zimbabwe peace building initiative. Tickets £25. Contact: Esther Munyira 07492058109, Hazvinei Saili 07857602830, Margaret Munenge 07384300283, Pamela Chirimuta 07762737339.
• The Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR) is the Vigil’s partner organization based in Zimbabwe. ROHR grew out of the need for the Vigil to have an organization on the ground in Zimbabwe which reflected the Vigil’s mission statement in a practical way. ROHR in the UK actively fundraises through membership subscriptions, events, sales etc to support the activities of ROHR in Zimbabwe. Please note that the official website of ROHR Zimbabwe is http://www.rohrzimbabwe.org/. Any other website claiming to be the official website of ROHR in no way represents us.
• The Vigil’s book ‘Zimbabwe Emergency’ is based on our weekly diaries. It records how events in Zimbabwe have unfolded as seen by the diaspora in the UK. It chronicles the economic disintegration, violence, growing oppression and political manoeuvring – and the tragic human cost involved. It is available at the Vigil. All proceeds go to the Vigil and our sister organisation the Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe’s work in Zimbabwe. The book is also available from Amazon.
• Facebook pages:
  Vigil: https://www.facebook.com/zimbabwevigi
  ROHR: https://www.facebook.com/Restoration-of-Human-Rights-ROHR-Zimbabwe-International-370825706588551/
  ZAF: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Zimbabwe-Action-Forum-ZAF/490257051027515

Post published in: Featured

1 Lack of key water treatment chemicals forced Harare’s water treatment plant Morton Jaffray to halt production on 23 September 2019, leaving over one million people without running water. 2 Harare City Council (HCC) cited foreign currency shortages as the reason for the shutdown. Deputy Mayor, Enock Mupamawonde urged government to declare the water situation a national disaster, enlisting that the local authority needs at least 40 million Zimbabwe Dollars (US$2.7 million) a month for water chemicals, against revenue of 15 million Zimbabwe dollars they collect per month. The World Health Organisation (WHO) stipulates that ideally, every person should access between 50 and 100 litres of water per day to ensure the most basic needs are met and the outbreak of disease is prevented.4 With the serious shortages of this precious and life- saving liquid many citizens in Zimbabwe fall far short of this standard. Citizens need clean water for drinking, personal sanitation, washing of clothes, food preparation and personal and household hygiene.

Sustainable Development Goal 6 urges duty bearers to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. In the current situation this goal remains a pipe dream unless there is more commitment and political will on the part of local and central government to improve the situation.

Even at the continental level, Africa is also concerned by the water deficits most citizens face on the continent and the N’gor Declaration by Africa Water ministers is hinged on highlighting the importance of accessibility of clean and affordable water.

Some residents have resorted to drilling boreholes to access clean water, however, these boreholes require electricity to pump water, something which is a challenge considering the constant power cuts lasting up to 18 hours daily. Generally, many local authorities throughout the country cannot pump running water to residents due to power cuts.5 Those with water tanks on their properties rely on individuals or privately-owned water companies to pump water into the tanks at a considerable cost often pegged in USD.

Residents are mostly dependent on city or donor-drilled boreholes. These water sources are sometimes unclean due to poor sanitation as evidenced by the September 2018 cholera outbreak which resulted in over 30 deaths.6 These boreholes have been monopolised by some unscrupulous individuals who are extorting residents in order for them to get water. In Chitungwiza in Zengeza 4 (Zengeza West constituency) ZPP recorded a truck selling a bucket of water at $1.50 ZWL. Desperate residents are left with no option but to purchase the water.7 In Epworth Constituency, Ward 2, three youths are manning a borehole and forcing residents to purchase two buckets of water at $1.50 ZWL.8 Women and children especially young girls bear the brunt of the water crisis. This group spends most of their days looking for water and there have been unconfirmed reports of men soliciting sexual favours from women so that they easily access water at boreholes. School children spend long hours in water queues resulting in them getting to school tired as they at times queue up to the early hours of the morning.

Without water, the chances of them attending school and learning productively are compromised. The water and sanitation crisis places millions of residents at risk of contracting waterborne diseases. Residents have often resorted to drinking water from shallow, unprotected wells that are contaminated. The crisis has brought about issues of extortion, exploitation and school absenteeism. ZPP is also concerned about the conflicts that erupt at the watering holes as citizens jostle to get their buckets ahead of the many hoping to get the precious liquid ahead of everyone else.

ZPP calls upon government and local authorities to ensure the right to water is protected and upheld. Every citizen must enjoy the right to clean and safe water. Law enforcement agents should bring to book those responsible for the extortion of citizens, particularly the exploitation of women and children especially young girls. The peace and security of women and young girls who spend countless hours waiting in long queues to draw water is unfortunately not guaranteed. ZPP also calls on the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission to seriously investigate the acute shortages of water faced by citizens in most urban centres.

Compiled and published by the Zimbabwe Peace Project

Post published in: Featured

The Harare resident said she had been referred to Parirenyatwa General Hospital, the capital’s largest medical center, “but there is no help. We are just gathering here in pain, in shame and in agony.”

An untold number of Zimbabweans have been turned away from public medical facilities since Sept. 3, when just more than 500 junior doctors, paid less than $200 a month, went on strike, demanding better wages as well as equipment and supplies for treating patients.

Hundreds of senior doctors with the same complaints joined the strike Thursday, further diminishing treatment options in the southern African country of 14 million.

Government offer rejected

On Friday, labor groups representing the doctors rejected the government’s offer of a 60% salary increase. It would have been paid in Zimbabwe’s devalued currency and not the U.S. dollars that the doctors sought.

“They’re asking the government to match their salaries with what they were earning” before the country’s economic collapse, explained Dr. Fortune Nyamande, spokesman for the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights. His group does not represent labor nor is it involved in negotiations, but Nyamande was apprised of Friday’s developments.

The government has threatened to withhold the pay of striking doctors. Dr. Paulinus Sikosana, chairman of its Health Services Board, said it won’t pay someone who won’t work.

The World Health Organization’s representative to Zimbabwe, Dr. Alex Gasasira, encouraged negotiations between the striking doctors and the government.

“We hear that many patients are being turned away, some of them with very serious conditions,” Gasasira said in a phone interview. “So we are concerned that the most vulnerable people … would not be able to access the services that they would require.”

An ailing health system

The strike has paralyzed the public health system.

“We know that something terrible is happening. We are hearing of pregnant women dying, victims of road traffic accidents dying,” Nyamande said, adding that he doubts the accuracy of government statistics on health and mortality.

Zimbabweans such as Mbofana gauge the health system based on personal experience.

Her back hurts and her prospects are poor. Turned away from public health care, “I was advised to go and seek treatment from private clinics or surgeons,” Mbofana said. “But how do I raise the money?”

Patients admitted into public hospitals before the strike have no guarantee of quality care, either, given gaps in staffing and shortages of medical equipment, such as diagnostic tools, surgical gloves and pain medicine.

A woman who identified herself only as Kukuwe said her sister’s health is worsening while at Parirenyatwa.

“No doctors are coming to see patients,” Kukuwe said. “The patients are stranded and are not receiving help because there are no doctors to write prescriptions.”

Doctor in care

Senior doctors last month had joined their junior counterparts in demonstrating for the release of Peter Magombeyi, who had led the strike as acting president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association. He allegedly had been abducted from his home Sept. 14, resurfacing several days later outside of Harare, dazed and in pain. He initially told VOA in a phone interview that he remembered “being electrocuted at some point.”

The group Human Rights Watch says it has confirmed at least 50 abductions of activists and government critics so far this year.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration and Zimbabwe police have denied any involvement in Magombeyi’s disappearance.

Zimbabwe police had blocked Magombeyi from leaving a Harare private hospital but ultimately heeded a high court’s order to allow the doctor to seek care in South Africa. He reportedly is being treated at an undisclosed medical facility there.

Rutendo Mawere reported for VOA’s English to Africa Service from Harare. Gibbs Dube of VOA’s Zimbabwe Service reported from Washington.

Post published in: Featured

In eastern Zimbabwe’s parched Buhera district, Omega Kufakunesu’s family has been forced to scale down daily meals to just a portion of vegetables and sadza, a thick maize-meal porridge.

In the morning only the children get the porridge, and everyone skips lunch.

“During the day we have wild fruit collected by the children, and at night we have smaller portions of sadza with vegetables,” harvested from the communal village garden, said Kufakunesu, sitting outside her thatched round hut.

A palmful of shumha, a drought-resistant wild fruit, is all she will eat during the day until dinner time.

“We have reduced our food portions so that its enough for everyone,” she said.

But there are days when “my husband and I don’t eat at all” to make sure the children have some food, she said.

Zimbabwe is experiencing one of the worst droughts in history, blamed on the effects of the El Nino weather cycle.

In addition, the former regional breadbasket is in the throes of its worst economic crisis in a decade with inflation estimated to be over 900 percent.

‘More hungry people than ever’

Because of the combined effect of drought and an ailing economy, more than five million rural Zimbabweans, nearly a third of the population, are going to face food shortages before the next harvest in 2020.

A disturbing feature of this year’s food shortages is the increase in the number urban poor who are vulnerable.

The government estimates that up to 2.2 million people in towns and cities are struggling to feed themselves.

WFP country representative Eddie Rowe said there are “more hungry people than ever before in Zimbabwe”.

In August, the United Nations extended its appeal for aid – from $234m February to $331m to feed the combined total of over seven million Zimbabweans, roughly half the country’s population.

Buhera is home to around 300 000 people and experiences dry spells even during good rainy seasons. It is one of the areas hardest hit by the drought.

To make matters worse, it was in the path of Cyclone Idai which devastated Mozambique and parts of eastern Zimbabwe earlier this year.

‘Bartering wire mesh for food’

According to the UN, most of Zimbabwe’s 60 districts will have exhausted their staple maize stocks by October.

The Kufakunesu family and neighbouring villagers have been lucky to have boreholes to draw water for drinking, washing and watering the garden – but the water is drying up due to the heat and scanty rain.

The UN’s World Food Programme has been handing out food parcels – cooking oil and porridge for children under five – and US$8 in cash per month for every family member. But the payouts are only restricted to the so-called lean months.

At Joni, a neighbouring village, 49-year-old Fungai Mugombe, one of three wives and a mother of seven, used the money set up a simple wire mesh making project.

“People buy the mesh wire for fencing, and we make a small profit. I sometimes exchange the fences with food,” Mugombe said outside a cluster of huts where a red bougainvillea adds colour to a bleak dusty landscape.

Freeman Mavhiza, the district administrator, said the government was providing villagers with irrigation facilities and seed for drought resistant crops such as millet and sorghum.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said the government had budgeted $120m for the production of “strategic crops, such as maize, soya beans and cotton”.

Post published in: Business

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