CPJ – New York, January 20, 2010—Freelance journalist Stanley Kwenda, left, a contributor to the private weekly The Zimbabwean, fled the country on Friday after he said he received a telephone threat from a high-ranking police officer, according to the paper’s editor, Wilf Mbanga. 

The reporter identified the caller as Chief Superintendent Chrispen Makedenge, Mbanga said. The caller allegedly said that Kwenda would be dead by the weekend in connection with an article in The Zimbabwean, according to news reports. Kwenda had quoted relatives of Makedenge’s late wife making critical comments about the senior police officer, Mbanga said.

Phone calls made by CPJ to Makedenge went unanswered. Police spokesman Wayne Bvujzijena told CPJ that no complaint had been filed and no investigation opened. He said police knew only what had been reported online.

Read more – http://cpj.org/2010/01/journalist-flees-zimbabwe-after-death-threat.php

ZimEye -If ZANU-PF  insists on its demand for the Movement for Democratic Change(MDC) to denounce sanctions imposed on its officials by the international community, MDC will call for their (sanctions) replacement with international arrest warrants  for all perpetrators of political violence, an MDC official has said.

In an exclusive interview with ZimEye on Sunday MDC Director of Security Kisimusi Ndhlamini said his party was going to call for the arrests of perpetrators of political violence if ZANU-PF continues to pressure his party to denounce sanctions.

ZANU-PF youths early this month marched in the city centre and gave MDC up to 24 March as an ultimatum for the party to engage the west in the lifting of sanctions which were imposed on its senior officials.

“As a response to that call we have decided to embark on a world-wide campaign demanding that those who committed crimes against human rights be given warrants of arrest and tried in the international court of justice.

“Sanctions were put as a result of human rights abuses. We have complained that those who committed such crimes be arrested and nothing has happened.

“We are saying ZANU-PF should respect the laws of the land in dealing with issues. The issue of sanctions is in the GPA and will be dealt with by the principals in the government not by supporters of MDC, whom ZANU-PF is threatening. We are worried because they are moving around threatening our party members with the June 27 2008 atrocities if sanctions are not lifted by 24 March.

“We know that they want to lure us into their traps of violence and I want to say we won’t fall into that trap. Instead we go legal if they want to do anything that threatens us,”said Ndhlamini

More than 200 MDC supporters were killed in 2008 by state sponsored terrorists. The perpetrators who include soldiers and state security agents are still freely walking in the streets despite the MDC’s calls for their arrests.

Civic organizations who were the most victims of the 2008 terror have produced a number of documents exposing human rights abuses that occurred during that time.

A recent report of that nature was launched last week by Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition titled ‘Cries from Goromonzi: Inside Zimbabwe’s Torture Chambers’.

ZANU-PF accuses MDC of calling for sanctions which resulted in more than 200 of its members having their international assets being frozen. MDC rejects that allegation arguing that the sanctions were a reaction by the west to human and property rights abuses that occurred in 2000.(ZimEye, Zimbabwe)

NEWZIMBABWE – Switzerland on Saturday extended travel restrictions on senior Zimbabwean officials as part of efforts by Western countries to force President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party to agree to political reforms in the country.

The Swiss Foreign Ministry said it was renewing a set of sanctions slapped on senior officials of Mugabe’s previous regime in March 2002.

“The measures include a prohibition on supply of military equipment and materials which might be used for internal repression and targeted financial sanctions such as freezing of assets owned by the 160-plus individuals in Switzerland,” the ministry said in a statement.

Individuals on the sanctions list are also prohibited from entering Switzerland or transit through the country.

The EU as well as the United States, Australia and New Zealand have maintained visa and financial sanctions against Mugabe’s government since 2002.

Both the EU and the US last month renewed the sanctions against the ZANU PF officials and some companies linked to the party insisting more needed to be done to facilitate reforms in the country.

Mugabe has demanded the complete removal of the sanctions, blaming them for the country’s near-economic collapse over the last decade.

The veteran leader has also used the sanctions to slow down implementation of a power-sharing pact he signed with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara in 2008.

Mugabe accuses Tsvangirai and his MDC-T party of not doing enough to get their Western allies to remove the sanctions.

His Zanu PF party has since vowed not to make any further concessions to its coalition partners in ongoing inter-party talks until the sanctions are removed.

ZimEye – President Robert Mugabe has revealed that Zimbabweans might go for elections next year when the two-year period for the shaky government ends.

Mugabe said he would contest in the elections. He said the fresh elections would be held even if a new constitution is not in place.

Mugabe said he would contest in the elections if given the chance by Zanu-PF, a party that gave him a five-year term at the December congress.

“Yes I will contest the elections if Zanu-PF says yes. I will go for the elections,” said Mugabe.

Mugabe told editors of various media  organisations at Zimbabwe House Thursday that it was highly likely that elections will be held in 2011.

The polls will be harmonized just like the shamed 2008 March elections but Mugabe hinted that local government elections would be suspended.

Read more – http://www.zimeye.org/?p=14351

It has been a difficult few weeks for the Tories – the Ashcroft affair, talk of splits, erratic poll numbers and doubts over their economic policy. But at last they can enjoy some good news: no lesser global statesman than Robert Mugabe has offered David Cameron his endorsement.

“We have always related better with the British through the Conservatives than Labour,” Zimbabwe’s president said today. “Conservatives are bold, [Tony] Blair and [Gordon] Brown run away when they see me, but not these fools, they know how to relate to others.”

Mugabe fell out with the British government when, under his land reforms, he encouraged Zimbabweans to seize the farms of British descendants. After Mugabe was accused of rigging the 2002 election, Blair imposed sanctions on the Zimbabwean leader and some of his associates, banning their travel ban and freezing bank accounts.

Today Brown restated the British government’s position telling the visiting South African president Jacob Zuma, involved in brokering Zimbabwe’s unity accord, that the sanctions would not be lifted#

Read more – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/04/robert-mugabe-david-cameron-conservatives

  NEWZIMBABWE – PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has urged western countries to remove “all sanctions” on Zimbabwe, in the same week that the United States extended sanctions by another year.

Tsvangirai is growingly frustrated by western countries’ publicly-expressed doubts over the power sharing government he formed with President Robert Mugabe in February last year.

After meeting Soren Pind, Denmark’s Minister for Development Cooperation, on Monday, Tsvangirai said countries wishing to help Zimbabwe should do so through the unity government.

“If you want to support the people of Zimbabwe you have to support the coalition government,” Tsvangirai said in comments carried by state television.

Read more – http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-1945-PM+wants+all+sanctions+lifted/news.aspx

IRIN – Zimbabwe’s still-limping economy can provide few essential services, so children living along the border cross into South Africa to attend school during the day or even to see a doctor, often at great risk to their personal safety.

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) regional child protection advisor for East and Southern Africa, Cornelius Williams, said the movement of unaccompanied child migrants from Zimbabwe was one of the biggest problems confronting humanitarian agencies in the region. Between 3,000 and 15,000 Zimbabwean children are known to move into and out of their country every month.

“Unfortunately, governments continue to devote most of their resources to child trafficking, where much smaller numbers of children are involved,” Williams told IRIN at a meeting of officials from 15 countries in Pretoria from 23 to 25 February to discuss ways of strengthening cross-border co-operation to protect children at risk.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88249

(NEWZIMBABWE) SOUTH African President Jacob Zuma will tell Britain to lift sanctions on Zimbabwe when he arrives in London for a state visit next week, he said in an interview published Thursday.

Zuma suggested European Union sanctions, largely instigated by former colonial power Britain, were now being used by President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party to “maintain tension” in the lead up to a new election.

The United States has also imposed its own set of sanctions on Zimbabwe, and the South African leader told the Financial Times these measures have made it more difficult to establish a viable coalition government in Zimbabwe.

“What have sanctions done to help the situation?” Zuma said. “Zanu PF says [it is] in a cabinet of this unity government. But part of the cabinet can go anywhere in the world for their work and part [the Zanu PF members] can’t go out of the country. This unity government is being suffocated. It is not being allowed to do its job by the big countries.”

Read more – http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-1902-Lift+Zim+sanctions,+Zuma+to+tell+UK/news.aspx

(PlusNews) – A new Zimbabwean short film on multiple concurrent sexual partnerships (MCPs) runs for just 24 minutes, but the producers are hoping that its message will last much longer.

The film, “Big House, Small House” is the latest offering from the OneLove Campaign, which works to reduce HIV prevalence and MCPs in 10 southern African countries. The title refers to the colloquial expression “small house”, used to denote long-term, illicit sexual relationships in Zimbabwe.

The film was produced by the Action Institute for Environment, Health and Development Communication (ACTION), a local NGO, in partnership with the Soul City Institute for Health and Development Communication, a South African NGO, and Zimbabwe’s National AIDS Council (NAC).

Television stations around southern Africa will air the movie as part of a series of 10 films – one from each of the campaign’s focus countries – highlighting the dangers of MCPs.

MCPs have been identified by both UNAIDS and regional leaders as one of the key drivers – along with inconsistent condom use and low levels of male circumcision – of southern Africa’s HIV epidemic and Zimbabwe is no exception. Although the country has experienced a decline in HIV prevalence within the last decade, attributed to mortality and behaviour change, HIV prevalence remains high at about 15 percent, according to UNAIDS.

Read more – http://www.plusnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88169

(IRIN) – A measles outbreak has hit 28 of Zimbabwe’s 62 districts and is still spreading, but efforts to vaccinate people in some quarters is being hampered by religious convictions.

According to the latest World health Organisation (WHO) Epidemiological Bulletin, “Nearly 1,200 suspected cases were reported since the start of the outbreak in October 2009 … 221 cases have been confirmed … 50 community deaths have been reported.”

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) as well as other organizations in the health sector have embarked on an intensive vaccination programme. “The campaign is targeting all children between the ages of six months and 14 years,” UNICEF’s Zimbabwe spokesperson, Micaela Marques de Sousa, told IRIN. In eastern Zimbabwe, in the Buhera district of Manicaland Province alone, more than 25,000 children had been vaccinated against measles.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88199