Posted on 12/24/2002 3:45:05 AM PST by backhoe
From News24 (SA), 23 December
Beit Bridge traffic 'manageable'
Pretoria - Truck traffic at the Beit Bridge border post between South Africa and Zimbabwe was backed up for kilometers on end on Monday, but not quite as bad as it was in the past two days, the home affairs department said. "The lines are long, but manageable," spokesperson Leslie Mashokwe said. On the South African side of the border post, trucks were standing still for about 4km at noon. On the other side, the line was "much longer", Mashokwe said. Visitor traffic was also busy but not congested, he added. "We are able to cope." The border post was open from 07:00 to 16:00 for trucks, and 24 hours for visitors both ways. During the past two days, officials were unable to cope and many truck drivers had to spend the night at the border post. Mashokwe said about five additional staff were brought in to help on the South African side to try and relieve the congestion. Also, commando members in the Musina area had volunteered to help and were conducting traffic patrols. Traffic was stopped at certain points and let through a few at a time in an orderly fashion. Mashokwe said the current congestion was not normal, even for the festive season. It had been blamed partly on the petrol and food shortages in Zimbabwe. The delays were worsened by the fact that access control on the Zimbabwean side of the border post was still being done by hand, while South Africa used computers, Mashokwe said.
From News24 (SA), 23 December
EU concerned about Zim arrests
Copenhagen - The European Union expressed its "profound concern" on Monday over the arrest of 10 trade unionists in Zimbabwe and allegations of mistreatment during their detention. A statement from Denmark, current holder of the EU presidency, said the arrests followed "a number of other acts of intimidation and violence committed against trade unions in recent months. "Free trade unions play a vital part in a normal society. By attempting to intimidate the trade union movement by arresting its leaders, the Zimbabwean police have acted in a partisan manner," it said. The statement recalled that as a member of the International Labour Organisation, the government of Zimbabwe was committed to respecting fundamental principles and rights at work. "The economic crisis in Zimbabwe is intensifying. The European Union urges the government of Zimbabwe to engage in a political dialogue with civil society and to respect the rights of trade unions," the statement added.
From The Times (UK), 24 December 24
Mugabe's land of penury and propaganda
From Michael Hartnack in Harare
The light of the African dawn breaks through the canopy of umbrella thorns, and a skein of ibis wing overhead. Guinea fowl and Heuglin’s robins call from surrounding gardens. The idyll is dispelled by the sound of radios from the cars queueing for petrol. For the third morning I have arrived at a service station in suburban Harare hoping to find fuel. It is 4.30am and there are 70 vehicles ahead of me. The previous day, 12 hours’ queueing for a turn at the pumps yielded nothing. At 5am the drivers turn down the hymn of hate against whites Chave Chimurenga! (Civil war has come) - Our land is our prosperity!" which state stations are ordered to broadcast every 20 minutes. Some with shortwave switch to the BBC, or to a religious station broadcasting carols about goodwill, humanity, love, compassion, peace. There is no mention on the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation news of the threat to eight million Zimbabweans of starvation, the 22 years of corruption and mismanagement that have caused the crisis in what used to be called "Africa’s breadbasket".
The young mother ahead of me is desperate for petrol to seek presents for her two young sons. "We just haven’t got the money to have a proper Christmas this year," she says, although her husband, a vet, earns enough to stave off the worst deprivation. For many families in the capital’s crowded townships Christmas dinner will be sweet potatoes with peanut butter and spinach followed by mangoes. With inflation officially at 175 per cent, most cannot pay black market prices for maize meal, bread and cooking oil. President Mugabe’s "return to socialism" has now brought the withdrawal of meat from the shops after the state ordered it to be sold at prices 30-50 per cent below cost. Like other scarce goods, including petrol, diesel and paraffin (used for cooking), it is sold under the counter for up to 20 times the controlled price.
After so much queueing the battery in my car has given out and it is necessary to push when, miraculously, a tanker arrives. The attendants start serving at 6.30am, by which time 100 cars are jostling for position behind mine. A 4X4 containing four burly young blacks who are waving beer bottles and evidently drunk tries to push ahead of me, but, encouraged by the drivers behind me, I frantically close the gap. "Hey, white man! You must ******* move your car quicker, you ******* useless old ****!" the four men shout at me. A middle-aged black woman tears them off a strip while an angry knot of motorists, all black. back her up. The would-be queue-jumpers roar off, leaving a powerful feeling of social solidarity that banishes any sense of racial antagonism left by the loudmouths. "They should make Mugabe’s ministers queue like this for petrol and bread," the woman says. "Then they would learn about this country."
We talk about the Kenyan elections which bear an ugly resemblance to our rigged polls, in which the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was cheated of office. "They will go to any length to get power and keep power," a man in his thirties says, "but when they have got it, they aren’t competent to exercise it." He is a doctor finishing a master’s degree in surgery. This Christmas he will be on duty in a government hospital struggling to cope without adequate supplies. Even in Botswana, he could earn 30 times the 60,000 Zimbabwean dollars (£30 at a realistic exchange rate) he takes home each month. The bonds of the extended family keep him here, together with a feeling that he is gaining far more clinical experience than would be available in somewhere like Britain. "You feel needed - your work has value," he says. After three and a half hours we near the front of the queue. Our stomach muscles tighten with fear lest the attendants say the tanks are empty, but our luck holds. It feels like the dissolution of a longstanding comradeship when we leave. We shake hands and wish each other well.
Comment from The Zimbabwe Standard, 22 December
Merry Christmas - at home
Over the Top by Brian Latham
Over the Top wishes all its readers in the troubled central African country a wonderfully merry Christmas-at home. It will have to be at home because a petrol shortage has struck the troubled central African country, leaving the population stranded. The fuel crisis that has gripped the troubled central African nation is interesting because it seems to have been everyone's fault-except, of course, members of the Zany party. After years of blaming imperialists, the British, white people and other economic saboteurs, the Zany party has now blamed its own No Oil Company for the lack of fuel. "Like a hungry jackal eating its pups, they've realised there is no one else to blame," said a man who had spent three days queuing for the commodity. Meanwhile economists told OTT that the fuel shortage spelt a bleak Christmas for citizens of the troubled central African country. "So will the bread shortage, the shortage of mealie meal, the lack of cooking oil, the disappearance of sugar, the unavailability of beef, the scarcity of salt, the absence of milk and the non-existence of foreign currency," said one economist who said he would take a drastic step and buy a bicycle, even though he knew it would make him look ridiculous.
Meanwhile fuel queues around the country, some stretching for as long as five kilometres, became impromptu More Diesel Coming (you'll be lucky) party rallies. As tens of thousands of distressed former motorists pushed their aging cars under the blazing sun or through torrential rain, there was consensus that the fuel shortage was not the fault of the No Oil Coming company, nor of white people, British people, the European Union or anyone else on the troubled central African nation's growing "Enemies of the State List". Still, the Enemies of the State List grew mightily last week when the troubled central African country's Zany top cop announced that many businessmen and shop keepers were conspiring with enemies of the state by charging unreasonable prices for their goods. This is because the troubled central African country's industry and finance ministers have decided that any price that brings in a profit is unreasonable, no matter how small the profit.
The economic principles of vanguard socialism dictate that all business should run at a thundering loss. It was this economic system that made places like the former Soviet Union, China, Cuba and North Korea such economic powerhouses, they explained. When it was pointed out that citizens of North Korea live (if they're lucky) on a diet of grass seeds while their insane leader imports Big Mac hamburgers, a spokesman for the troubled central African country's finance ministry dismissed this as western propaganda. Another angry businessman who once made a living by selling beef, said that it seemed curious to emulate Cuba. "The only reason there's anyone left there is because there aren't enough inner tubes to make rafts for the rest of the population to escape," he shouted. This was dismissed as imperialist nonsense by a government spokesman who said he had been to Cuba himself and knew for a fact that there were lots of spare inner tubes. "Most of the cars there have no engines, so the tyres and tubes are used for many things, but it is ludicrous western misinformation to suggest anyone has even tried to escape the socialist paradise of Comrade Castro's Cuba," he said. Later in the week, the troubled central African nation's energy minister said he had been energetic in his efforts to end the fuel crisis. There would be ample petrol in the country soon, he promised. The promise was treated with scepticism by most motorists who were interviewed while they pushed their cars through the streets. They pointed out that it had become traditional for spokesmen to promise fuel "by the weekend", though the promises never resulted in anything.
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