Tutu on death penalty

SAfrica's Tutu calls for global ban on death penalty ahead of UN vote

LONDON (AFP) - The death penalty is a violation of fundamental human rights, and it should be abolished around the world, South Africa's Desmond Tutu wrote in a comment piece in The Guardian on Tuesday.
Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former archbishop of Cape Town, was writing ahead of a vote on a draft resolution at the United Nations General Assembly calling for a moratorium on executions with the ultimate goal of abolishing the practice later this month.

"I am delighted that the death penalty is being removed from the globe," Tutu wrote, referring to steadily rising numbers of countries that have abolished capital punishment in either law or practice.

"The death penalty ... says that to kill in certain circumstances is acceptable, and encourages the doctrine of revenge.

"If we are to break these cycles, we must remove government-sanctioned violence."

According to Giuseppe Manzo, a counsellor at Italy's UN mission, 72 countries co-sponsored a draft resolution on the death penalty which was circulated earlier this month, ahead of a vote by the full 192-member assembly.

"The time has come to abolish the death penalty worldwide," Tutu wrote.

"The case for abolition becomes more compelling with each passing year."

Two previous attempts to secure adoption of such a resolution in the General Assembly failed in 1994 and 1999.

According to human rights group Amnesty International, 133 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or practice, while 64 countries and territories retain and use capital punishment, although the number of countries which actually execute prisoners in any one year is much smaller.

"In country after country, it (capital punishment) is used disproportionately against the poor or against racial or ethnic minorities," Tutu wrote in The Guardian.

"It is often used as a tool of political repression. It is imposed and inflicted arbitrarily. It is an irrevocable punishment, resulting inevitably in the execution of people innocent of any crime.

"It is a violation of fundamental human rights."

Zim gov's belief in n'angas defies logic

“THE government and the President believe in African culture, we believe in spirit mediums. She said the diesel was coming from our ancestors, so we had to pursue it. The second reason is the current fuel problems. If we had not pursued it, she was going to blame the government.”
These were the words of Mashonaland West governor Nelson Samkange answering questions on why the government invested so much faith in claims by a Chinhoyi spirit medium that she had powers to produce fuel out of a rock.
To many, this came as a big surprise, because nowhere in the world had diesel been squeezed out of a rock. Had this hoax come true, it could have been the first such miracle in the world.
Pictures of barefooted government officials attending diesel rituals have been published in the press, raising questions about ruling ZANU PF party’s ability to steer the country out of the current political and economic quagmire.
It is the seriousness with which they followed the proceedings that will leave even a primary school kid worried about the future.
What if the trusted spirit mediums die?
To many, the pictures drew a lot of laughter. But behind the humour lies desperation, which calls for serious introspection into how the country is being governed.
At a time many Zimbabweans are looking for a few pennies to make ends meet, one can easily wake up and claim to the gullible ZANU PF government to have discovered a rock where United States Dollars, British Pounds and South African rands can be extracted.
At this level of desperation, any such claims can be taken seriously. Why not, when the spirit medium managed to enjoy royal status amounting to $5 billion dollars. Prosecutors are taking her as a mental case. But what about those who she took for a ride?
Two government taskforces, made up of no less than six cabinet ministers were set up to investigate the existence of the manna from heaven.
Serious questions must be asked. Is it through spirit mediums, or through proper political processes, that a country can be governed?
“The problem is that the government justifies everything that it does by quoting the liberation struggle, which it claims to have been led by spirit mediums. But this spirit notion does not apply today. It’s either you discover oil, or you don’t. From a scientific point of view, you have to discover it and not try and find it through some strange prayer,” said political analyst Takura Zhangazha.
But Minister of State for National Security, Lands, Land reform and Resettlement in the President’s office Didymus Mutasa, government’s front man in the diesel saga, said he believed the spirit medium because of the role they played during the liberation struggle.
Spirit mediums offered guidance and counselling to freedom fighters, he told The Standard, and “could manage miracles and strange happenings, anyone who was or claims to be part of this country’s liberation will tell you of the very important roles performed by our spirit mediums.”
So is it now government policy to govern on the basis of advice proffered by spirit mediums?
“It is very unfortunate, but it only shows the level of desperation of the government. Discovery of oil has been tried and tested. Where has diesel ever been found in its refined form? If a government goes to the extent of not being able to make its own analysis of a claim, then it would have run out of ideas. The diesel story is the clearest evidence of that so far,” said a political analyst who requested anonymity.
“It has something to do with the reported succession issue. These people who believed in the spirit medium thought that by doing so, they would make themselves legitimate successors to the President through the discovery of diesel.”
University of Zimbabwe political analyst, Eldred Masunungure, said the ruling party’s latest move to consult a spirit medium over the country’s complex economic and political problems is the latest signal of the levels of desperation to which they have sunk.
“I am not surprised by the government’s behaviour. It simply shows that the leadership is stranded and hopeless. They are now trying to invest their faith in miracles as a solution. They are hoping for some kind of salvation, divine intervention,” said Masunungure.
“Ordinary people can turn to sangomas and prayers but when a state does the same it really defies logic. How can the highest policy making body consult a n’anga for solutions? All it tells us is that they are looking for some psychological satisfaction to the problems. The diesel story is only a tip of the iceberg, there might be other cases of n’angas that are yet to be put onto the public sphere.”
The ruling ZANU PF party’s traditional beliefs were last year taken a gear up when it moved to “Africanise” parliament by erecting a granite chair in the house of assembly which will be used by President Mugabe. The "cultural reforms" makes the parliament look more like a safari lodge. A stuffed leopard and two antelope heads hang on the walls and a leopard skin adorns the granite chair used by Mugabe and two elephant tusks.
Aneas Chigwedere, the Minister of Education, Sports and Culture, who was charged with spearheading the reforms in the house last year, said parliamentary reforms where in line with our traditional beliefs.
He said, “In our traditional society, the Mutapa or Mambo or Nkosi
was the Head of the Legislature, Executive and Judiciary. In this context,
the Speaker of parliament or president of the Senate simply represents the
jinda or induna [headman] of the State President. The chair or seat he
operates from is therefore, in essence, the State President's chair."
He said the chair represents a lion, which in turn symbolises power and authority in line with African culture.

END///

RIGHTS-ZIMBABWE:Activists Outmanoeuvred - But Undeterred

Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Oct 24 (IPS) - Anti-death penalty activists in Zimbabwe are keeping up their campaign, despite a police clampdown on their meetings and ever-lengthening food queues, power cuts and the relentless rise in prices of many essential items.

"It is now very difficult to obtain police clearance to hold gatherings. Everything we try to do to bring people together is viewed by the police as a political event," John Chinamurungu, Amnesty International's chairperson in Zimbabwe, told IPS. "It's very difficult to get campaigns going."

Amnesty and the Zimbabwe Association for Crime Prevention and the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Zacro) have been co-operating closely to rally public support for the abolition of the death penalty and to get the issue on the national political agenda.

Zacro’s new engagement follows an opinion article by an official of the organisation in the state-owned daily, 'The Herald', last January. This announced the opening of a carefully-scripted Zacro campaign, details of which were later outlined to IPS by Edson Chiota, the organisation's national co-ordinator.

The plan included carrying the message of abolition to Zimbabwe's 13 million citizens with the printing and distribution of millions of posters and pamphlets.

But campaigning has been hit by the speed and scale of the unfolding economic crisis. In January the year-on-year official inflation rate was 1,600 percent. In September it reached 7,982.1 percent, according to the government's Central Statistical Office. Unofficially, the rate is said to be approaching 25,000 percent.

Paper and fuel, essential for a nationwide campaign, are almost impossible to obtain.

The struggle to exist from day to day is now uppermost on people's minds. In the capital, Harare, hour-long queues for bread are normal. Earlier this month, the agriculture ministry announced that the wheat harvest was two-thirds of what was required. Shortly afterwards, the official price of bread was increased by 300 percent.

"There are millions in Zimbabwe who need food assistance," Richard Lee of the United Nations World Food Programme, said in August. It was estimated then that some 3.3 million would require the agency's help to survive over the coming months.

Authorities have responded to any street protest or show of dissent by rushing in riot police, creating an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

But despite the unfolding catastrophe, Amnesty and Zacro have refused to be cowed into calling off their sensitisation workshops on the death penalty.

Amnesty's local vice-chairperson, Francis Mweene, has been a notable participant, having survived death row. He was sentenced to death in white-ruled Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was known before it gained independence in 1980.

"It was a big surprise to me that I found myself able to live again…It was because Amnesty Zimbabwe stood for my right to life," he told IPS, recalling how the organisation’s international contacts helped pull him back from the jaws of death.

"It is through testimonies that I think people can be sensitised and understand why we are advocating against (the) death (sentence)."

Mweene's leading of the testimonies clearly makes it difficult for the authorities to step in and ban such meetings. Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, led a liberation war against the Ian Smith regime and would certainly have ended up on death row like Mweene had he been captured.

Alongside these meetings, Amnesty has been issuing T-Shirts emblazoned with anti-death penalty slogans.

In July, Zacro tried to persuade traditional leaders in the Council of Chiefs to support its anti-death penalty campaign. The chiefs were holding their annual meeting in Harare and the northern resort of Victoria Falls.

But politicians were clearly not willing to see this happen. They stepped in to prevent the death penalty issue being tabled at the meeting, according to sources.

"We hoped to start with the chiefs and use them as leverage to get this issue into the House of Assembly and eventually seek out an audience with the head of state," Chakanyuka told IPS.

The chiefs could have raised the issue in parliament, where they sit by appointment.

Zacro's focus on the chiefs fitted into the initial thrust of the campaign, which argued that the death penalty was "alien and contrary to traditional African concepts of justice and beliefs".

The meeting also showed that opinion among the officially-supported chiefs was divided on the death penalty issue.

"You should be given a sentence in accordance with your crime. If you deliberately kill, you should also be killed," Chief Makoni told the meeting, according to a press report at the time in the privately-owned 'Financial Gazette'.

It has been suggested that the chiefs might have been less than enthusiastic about being associated with such a controversial issue and bringing it before Mugabe, for fear of losing their privileges. They are essentially on the government payroll.

"With the elections coming there is no chance we will be able to talk to the chiefs again until afterwards," a disappointed Chakanyuka said.

The polls -- presidential, parliamentary and local government -- are expected to be held in six months.

Zacro is now planning to circulate a nation-wide petition calling for abolition of the death penalty.

"We want to present a petition to President Mugabe since he is the man who has been vested with all the powers to decide if one should be sent to the gallows or not," Chakanyuka said.

Mugabe has resisted all calls for the repeal of the death penalty, which dates back to the colonial era, in his 27 years of rule -- and is unlikely to change his mind now, in the twilight of his beleaguered regime.

But by campaigning on this issue now and associating the retention of capital punishment more closely with his name, it may be hoped that one of the first measures to be adopted by his successors will be the abolition of the death penalty.

Zacro is also hoping that its campaign will stimulate public interest in further penal reforms.

The last execution in Zimbabwe was carried out in 2004. Since 1999 seven people have been executed by hanging, according to Zacro. (END/2007)


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TRADE-ZIMBABWE: Multilateral Still Better Than Bilateral Talks

By Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Jul 31 (IPS) - Kumbirai Katsande, the managing director of a top Zimbabwean horticultural company, is in a buoyant mood. He hopes that his firm, Ariston Holdings, will make a big break in the lucrative European horticultural market where it sells its products.

''Our dream is to increase the volumes of flowers and fruit that we export to Europe. We have set ourselves a target of sending a full cargo load of our products to Europe within the first week of summer in Zimbabwe,’’ said Katsande with a broad smile.

But while he is optimistic, Katsande is very much aware of the pitfalls of the skewed game of international trade. These may well prevent his dream for his company from becoming true.

‘‘Although we are producing probably one of the best flower breeds in the world we still have no choice when it comes to determining the prices of our product on the international market. This is done by merchants in Europe and we do not know what will happen there,’’ Katsande told IPS.

It is against this background that the Zimbabwean government, as part of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries, has been engaging the European Union (EU) with a view to doing away with unfair trade imbalances through the EU’s proposed economic partnership agreements (EPAs).

The Zimbabwean government says it supports the ongoing EPA negotiations between the ACP and EU countries.

Minister of Industry and International Trade Obert Mpofu told IPS in an interview that the Zimbabwean government supports the EPA talks but also supports the efforts of Brazil and India to level the playing field in international trade in the World Trade Organisation.

‘‘We have bilateral trade agreements with European countries but when it comes to international trade issues we will support the multilateral route, which is why we hold memberships to the various international bodies. We do not believe that the bilateral route will not take us very far in international trade,’’ said Mpofu.

Added Deputy Minister of Information and Publicity Bright Matonga, ‘‘at least we are to negotiate as part of a big bloc, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Europeans will not be able to choose a preferred customer. When we try to negotiate as individual countries, we give them the ammunition to divide and discriminate against us’’.

‘‘There are serious structural issues which are overcome by negotiating as a bloc. For example, Zimbabwe’s impasse with the United Kingdom was made an EU issue. For them, what is bad for one country is bad for all of them and that is exactly what we are saying with regards to these trade issues.

‘‘There should not be any discrimination and if the EU comes with any prescribed measures on who to trade with and who not to trade with, then African countries as a bloc should take a common stand.’’ Matonga is adamant that Europe should not be given the leeway to choose who it wants to do business with.

‘‘We support the collective approach to trade issues. As long as trade is approached from an African perspective, Zimbabwe will support the talks. We understand that there are standards that have to be adhered to.

‘‘We welcome these as long as they do not discriminate against certain countries,’’ he said in apparent reference to rich countries’ punitive measures against the Zimbabwean government, taken in an effort to influence its policies.

Like other developing countries, the Zimbabwean government is also worried about the issue of agricultural subsidies in large markets such as the US and EU.

Zimbabwe is one of the African countries which have benefited from preferential trade agreements between the ACP and the EU over the years. The Lome agreements allowed unrestricted access to most of Zimbabwe’s exports to the EU, including products such as beef and flowers.

The EU and the ACP’s Cotonou trade agreement of 2000 was ratified by Zimbabwe’s parliament on November 15 2002. One of the objectives of the agreement is the eradication of poverty to enable the creation of stable economies.

The ACP countries and the EU also decided to act together and negotiate the EPAs to better integrate ACP countries into the global economy.

Zimbabwe introduced export processing zones (EPZs) as a way of boosting the country’s export earnings. The country’s export earnings have been poor for many years due to the worsening political crisis. Under the EPZ programme, exporting companies are given various incentives such as a five-year tax holiday and a low import duty of 15 percent at first, to be replaced by duty free importation of capital goods and machinery after a set period.

Some of the farms in the EPZ were acquired under the controversial land reform programme in 2000. Some of the notable companies affected by the land reform programme were Kondozi farm and Charleswood Estate in eastern Zimbabwe. Both produced world-class fruit and flowers for export.

Jabusile Shumba, a Harare-based researcher who has attended World Social Forum (WSF) meetings, warned that Africa should not wait for ‘‘manna from heaven’’ in the current EPA negotiations.

‘‘We need an African programme with which to achieve what the Asian tigers have achieved with minimal resources. We should make ourselves globally competitive by adding value to our products.

‘‘Take a look at developing countries that produce coffee beans which are sold for two US cents but when it returns, it is coffee which will be sold for two dollars. The ACP-EU negotiations are very necessary but they should be done within a legal context to ensure that no country, poor or rich, break the agreed rules.’’ (END/2007)


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TRADE-ZIMBABWE: A Balancing Act Between China and the EU

By Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Oct 18 (IPS) - The Zimbabwean government’s isolation from the international economic arena has forced it to turn right while indicating left.

The country’s deputy minister of industry and international trade, Pheneas Chihota, recently made a startling admission when he said that the European Union (EU), which imposed targeted sanctions against the Zimbabwean political elite over its blighted human rights record, still remains the troubled southern African country’s key trade partner.

The Zimbabwean government stands accused of a string of human rights abuses, including the arbitrary arrest, detention and random assault of perceived enemies of the state.

The minister’s remarks, made in the parliament’s house of assembly, came as a surprise to some since the government had in the past year earmarked the Asian continent, particularly China, as its trade partner of first resort. China has been granted approved destination status (ADS), which gives the Asian country easy access to Zimbabwean markets.

The government even went a step further, launching the ‘‘Look East'' Policy which was designed to find new markets for the country’s products. But this move is yet to bear fruit, as former Zimbabwean ambassador to China, Chris Mutsvangwa, has admitted.

He said that ‘‘local business people are reluctant to partner Chinese business’’.

Chihota’s candid comment was seen as an admission by the government that the ‘‘Look East Policy’’, derisively dismissed by Zimbabweans, has failed to contribute any meaningful development to Zimbabwe’s crumbling economy.

The government has seemingly realised that the EU remains a crucial market for Zimbabwean products.

‘‘The country is benefiting from trade with the EU and the EU is by far the most important donor to this country,’’ Chihota told the house of assembly before the presentation of Zimbabwe’s supplementary budget by Finance Minister Samuel Mumbengegwi last month.

‘‘Zimbabwe exports 55,000 tons of sugar to the EU every year. Our companies are benefiting from sugar exports,’’ Chihota added. He expressed support for the economic partnership agreements (EPAs) currently being negotiated between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.

Chihota’s comments come at a time when the EU’s EPA offer includes the phasing out of duties and quotas on sugar from ACP countries. The minister used the time to rally parliamentarians around this process, which is scheduled to start in January 2008 if the EPA talks are concluded.

Zimbabwe is a major exporter of sugar from its gigantic plantations in the southwest of the country. Accepting the EPA, Chihota said, would ensure that the country could export sugar at improved terms. The EU says low cost producers like Zimbabwe and Malawi stand to benefit immensely from the proposed liberalisation of the sugar trade market.

However, the cutting of duties and quotas also coincides with the EU's decision to cut its minimum guaranteed price for sugar. The EU price will drop by 36 percent between 2006 and 2009, which will bring it in line with the world sugar price.

Producers in Malawi and Mauritius have expressed concern about the effect the drop in prices will have on new investment which is planned in the industries to capitalise on the lower duties.

IPS has reported that sugar prices could fall from 400 to 500 euros per metric ton to just 335 euros per metric ton. The drop may continue even further in 2009 when duty-free access will be extended with safeguards. Quota and duty requirements will only be scrapped in totality in 2015.

Despite the political standoff with the EU and the U.S., official statistics indicate that Zimbabwe's imports from the United Kingdom and Germany totalled about 330 million dollars in 2006.

The EU was once the largest consumer of Zimbabwean beef, with more than 9,000 tons per year being exported at the peak of the bilateral trade relations. It has since set stringent conditions for the importation of Zimbabwean beef products.

Last month, the ministry of lands and agriculture suspended all efforts to resume trade with the European beef market, saying that it was not worth trying because it will not get a fair deal.

Exports to the two countries totalled about 100 million dollars last year, while tourist arrivals from the EU and the US closed the year at about 140,000 in 2006. This figure is four times that of arrivals from the East (including China), which recorded only 37,000 arrivals during the same period. (END/2007)

A family home submerged in sewage in Harare

DEVELOPMENT-ZIMBABWE: Water Shortages in Capital Leave Residents Desperate

By Tonderai Kwidini*

HARARE, Jul 31 (IPS) - Taps in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare, are running dry even though the city’s main supply dams are more than 60 percent full, according to figures from the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA). With more than half of Harare's three million inhabitants now experiencing water shortages, residents are resorting to desperate measures to find supplies.

Carrying a large bucket to work has become a daily task for Tedious Marembo, employed as a cleaner at a block of government offices in the city. This building is never without water, because it houses three government ministries. So Marembo fills his bucket at work to provide water for his wife and two children who live in Kuwadzana, a poor suburb in the south-west of Harare.

"My wife has to walk a long distance to get water at a church in my neighbourhood where a borehole was sunk, (and) she has to pay 50,000 dollars for a bucket. The only way I can help her cope with household chores is to carry with me a 20-litre bucket to bring water from my work place," he said.

At the official exchange rate, 50,000 Zimbabwe dollars is worth 200 U.S. dollars; at the black-market rate, however, it would only buy 36 U.S. cents at the time of writing. On average, civil servants earn four million Zimbabwe dollars -- a little over 22 U.S. dollars per month, at unofficial rates.

Harare has experienced intermittent water shortages for some two years now, due mainly to poor management and ageing infrastructure. Water experts from a Scandinavian development agency who preferred to remain anonymous said ZINWA management was inadequate because the water authority was not run by professionals, but rather by political appointees hired by Water Resources and Infrastructural Development Minister Munacho Mutezo.

The experts believe the capital's water distribution system, built long before independence in 1980, has gone without proper maintenance for many years. Critically important pumps that have an expected lifespan of between 15 and 20 years had not been replaced since they were installed, for instance.

Sanitation has gone the way of water provision, as members of the Mashapa household -- also in Kuwadzana -- can attest. A blocked pipe caused a fetid pool of sewage to build up around their house, and this outflow now slowly winds its way through the suburb to a nearby stream.

"We are locking children in the house. They can no longer play outside because of the danger of contracting diseases. Cholera is right in our midst; we have reported to ZINWA and they came…but as soon as they left the problem started (again); we now don’t even know what to do and who to tell," said Olivia Mashapa, mother of the family.

While the Mashapa children may be kept away from the sewage, others are not: primary school children who use a path alongside the Mashapa home are obliged to pick their way through waste matter, while other children play in the effluent -- and are exposed to water borne diseases.

At the far end of the suburb, still more residents are at risk, as they buy vegetables from vendors who sell their wares right next to open sewage. Many toilets in this area are blocked and can no longer be used.

"I did not bath today; I have been up and down the suburbs looking for water. Sometimes we get the water from the main local authority office, but today they are refusing to let us into their premises to fetch water, although we are still paying our water bills in full," said Memory Mucherahowa, an elderly street vendor.

For the fortunate few who can afford membership for the city centre gym, visits there have become a necessity -- not only for exercise, but also for a shower.

The frequency of service delivery problems increased significantly after the management of Harare’s water system was transferred earlier this year from the City Council to ZINWA. Opposition party members believe the transfer was based more on political considerations than managerial criteria.

Two reports tabled recently in Zimbabwe’s House of Assembly by the parliamentary portfolio committee on local government made it clear that ZINWA, a parastatal, lacked funds, equipment and above all, the expertise to run the city’s water affairs.

"Although ZINWA reiterates that it has the capacity to take over the entirety of water and sewerage services in the country's urban areas, local authorities and the public feel that ZINWA is not able to undertake this task," one of the reports stated.

"In view of the evidence gathered, the committee recommends that the cabinet reconsider the directive as the takeover of the services from the city of Harare has proved that ZINWA has no capacity."

Government has however not implemented recommendations for the city’s water management to be returned to the council, and ZINWA is in the process of extending its reach to other cities and towns including the country’s second largest city, Bulawayo.

IPS was not able to get comment from ZINWA about the complaints made against it.

The water shortages constitute just one of many difficulties confronting Harare, and Zimbabwe as a whole. Runaway inflation and high unemployment have driven many into poverty -- and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) estimates that just over two million of the country's approximately 13 million citizens will experience food shortages "as early as the third quarter of 2007".

This figure "will rise to 4.1 million at the peak of the crisis in the months before the next main harvest in April 2008," the WFP website goes on to say.

Economic difficulties are paralleled by a political crisis that has resulted in a number of disputed elections, and widespread human rights abuses.

* This feature is the first in a two-part series on water shortages in Zimbabwe. The second item, 'DEVELOPMENT-ZIMBABWE: The City of "Passport Size" Ablutions', focuses on the water situation in Zimbabwe's second largest city, Bulawayo. (END/2007)
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Stampede for Water in Harare

ZIMBABWE: A Water and Sewerage Crisis That Goes "Straight to the Grave"

By Tonderai Kwidini

HARARE, Sep 30 (IPS) - A young Zimbabwean couple glances furtively around before settling on a bench in a bare patch of ground that used to be a recreational park in Glen View, a sprawling, high-density suburb of the capital, Harare. It’s a Monday morning, and the two of them are struggling to come to terms with a strange sickness that has gripped their family. Every move they make in the direction of the Glen View One Satellite Clinic shows they are in great pain.

"We are going to the clinic to seek medical attention. We have been twisting and turning all night and we don’t know what has hit us, but I suspect it’s the untreated water that we are drinking," Charles Nemukundu tells IPS as he leads his partner to the clinic, where waterborne diseases are being treated for free.

A water shortage and dilapidated sanitation works have caused Harare to become stifled by pools of open sewage and filthy public toilets.

Groups of women with buckets on their heads have become a common sight around streams that many residents of the city now use as their main source of water. Various toxic substances are deposited into the streams on a daily basis; yet the prospect of contracting diseases does not prevent people from drawing water there.

As a result, the incidence of waterborne diseases such as dysentery, diarrhoea and cholera has increased to such an extent that the Harare City Council (HCC) is obliged to offer free treatment.

The city’s health department last month warned of an imminent disaster in the capital if the water situation was not addressed. "The cases of diarrhoea reported and being treated at our clinics are increasing daily. We are treating 900 cases daily," an official at the HCC who preferred to remain anonymous told IPS.

Those living in the more affluent suburbs have also been caught up in the water crisis.

"Since the start of the problems, I have been buying mineral water from the shops for my children, but now I can’t do that any more because there is nothing left in the shops and I don’t know what to do now. I have tried boiling the water but it’s not helping either," said Gladys Mtombeni, a resident of Hillside, one of Harare’s more upmarket areas.

The current health crisis intensified when the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) took over the running of the city’s water affairs from the HCC. The takeover was met with considerable public opposition that went largely ignored by the authorities.

"The government has vowed it will go ahead with the project even as health officials show that recent deaths are due to the incompetence of ZINWA and that whole urban areas are threatened because ZINWA cannot be relied upon to provide water regularly," commented the weekly Standard newspaper in an editorial.

"Just how many more people must die in order to convince the government that this is a man-made catastrophe?"

A resident of Harare voiced similar sentiments in a letter to the editor published in a daily newspaper.

"Things might be hard, but it does not mean we have to accept living with our own waste in our kitchens. I suggest we declare the current water and sewer problems a national disaster. A stitch in time saves nine, lest we head for a catastrophic health situation," wrote the resident.

ZINWA says it is struggling to provide water and sewerage services to residents of the capital because ageing infrastructure has not been properly maintained. The lack of maintenance means that sewerage pipes burst repeatedly.

The country’s foreign currency shortages exacerbate the problem, making it difficult to import the raw materials needed to produce chemicals for the treatment of effluent. With an official inflation rate of 6,600 percent and an unofficial rate of almost twice that figure, many Zimbabwean companies that used to produce water treatment chemicals have been forced to suspend their operations. ZINWA now has to import the chemicals directly from overseas.

While Zimbabwe's economy continues its downward slide, it will probably be all but impossible to raise the funds required to restore normal water and sewerage services to all urban areas in the country.

The government of President Robert Mugabe has been accused of demolishing the economy through -- amongst others -- an ill-advised land reform programme. In the most recent case of mismanagement, an edict from government instructed retailers to cut all prices by fifty percent. This instruction, in an economy already crippled by rampant inflation, made it difficult for store supplies to be replenished -- and has caused many businesses to stop trading.

Noted Jabusile Shumba, a senior programmes officer for the Combined Harare Residents Association: "…we are in a crisis which has reached health menace status. This is certainly a national disaster which other people have made and are allowing to continue straight to the grave." (ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/AB/DC/WW/TW/HE/PD/MD/DV/SK/SSL/JH/07) (END/2007)

Luciano and Mickey General in Harare

Benjani rules ok

Sniper Riper

Hatidzokere shure

Highway Africa Mafikizolo show

The day the Messenger came to Zimbabwe

Stanley chilling out at the Hre International Airport