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SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 208 for 4-10 December, 2004 - OCHA IRIN

Sunday 16 January 2005


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IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 208 for 4-10 December, 2004

[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

CONTENTS:

ZIMBABWE: Mujuru sworn in as vice president
ZAMBIA: Opposition plans protest over constitution delay
ANGOLA: Independent electoral commission vital to poll credibility
SOUTHERN AFRICA: Childhood under threat, warns UNICEF
MOZAMBIQUE: Opposition demand election re-run
SOUTH AFRICA: Economic progress slow, says SADC secretary
MALAWI: Health sector gets funding boost
SWAZILAND: More police to curb rising crime in Manzini

ZIMBABWE: Controversial NGO Bill passed

Charity groups in Zimbabwe have adopted a wait-and-see approach since a controversial bill placing severe restrictions on the activities of foreign-funded NGOs was passed by parliament.

The Non-Governmental Organisations Bill sailed through parliament on Thursday and now awaits the president's assent before becoming law, according to the official Herald newspaper.

The new legislation will ban foreign NGOs concerned principally with "issues of governance", and NGOs receiving foreign funding for "promotion and protection of human rights and political governance issues" will be denied registration.

In the weeks leading up to tabling of the bill, humanitarian groups raised concerns that the definition of "political governance" was too wide and would seriously impact on the operations of a host of organisations involved in charity work, including animal welfare and environmental advocacy.

Full report

Mujuru sworn in as vice president

Joyce Mujuru was sworn in as Zimbabwe's first woman vice president on Monday.

Her path to the vice presidency was cleared by a ZANU-PF congress resolution at the weekend, which stated that one of the party's two deputy presidents had to be a woman. Mujuru, a liberation war hero, was picked for the post.

President Robert Mugabe reportedly said, "When you choose her as a vice president, you don't want her to remain in that chair do you?" - a suggestion that Mujuru, a long-standing cabinet member, was in the running as his successor when he retires in 2008. Joseph Msika, his other vice-president, turns 82 this week.

Full report

Women activists to appeal for domestic violence legislation

Zimbabwean women activists were to petition parliament on Friday to approve a four-year-old Prevention of Domestic Violence Bill.

The activists, frustrated with continued delays in the bill's approval, have chosen the last day of the worldwide campaign dubbed "16 Days of Gender Activism against Domestic Violence" to make their appeal.

Earlier attempts to lobby the justice minister, Patrick Chinamasa, who is also the leader of the house, had been unsuccessful, the activists reported.

Director of the Musasa Project for abused women, Sheila Mahere, told discussants at a recent round table conference called to sensitise parliamentarians to gender violence, that according to Chinamasa the bill would not see "the light of day" before the March 2005 elections.

Full report

Consulting the ancestors to bring political peace

Traditional leaders and civil society in Zimbabwe have united in a call for calm and restraint as fears mount over a possible surge in violence ahead of parliamentary elections in March 2005.

Political violence has been a feature of Zimbabwean elections since independence in 1980. But it reached a new level in the polls of 2000 and 2002, when President Robert Mugabe and the ruling ZANU-PF faced their first real challenge in the form of Morgan Tsvangirai and his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

In its latest report, the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum noted that tension and political violence have continued to rise ahead of next year's parliamentary election.

Full report

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ZAMBIA: Opposition plans protest over constitution delay

Zambia's main opposition, the United Party for National Development (UPND), will demonstrate against the government's decision to delay a new constitution until after elections in 2006.

"We are planning to stage non-violent demonstrations with civil society throughout the country because of President Mwanawasa's recent statements that we cannot demonstrate against his decision to enact the new constitution in 2008," UPND spokesperson Patrick Chisanga told IRIN on Tuesday.

"We believe it is the constitutional right of all Zambians to demonstrate in a peaceful manner. He [Mwanawasa] has shown a lack of willingness to negotiate, and respect for the will of the people," he added.

Full report

Belt-tightening draws criticism from teachers

Zambia's National Union of Teachers (ZNUT) has accused the government of backtracking on a promise to recruit 7,000 unemployed teachers in January next year.

In an interview with the private Post newspaper at the weekend, education minister Andrew Mulenga said although the department would eventually employ all the educators, only 1,000 teachers would be given posts at the start of the 2005 academic year.

He explained that the K48 billion (US $10 million) donated by the Netherlands government earlier this year to assist in hiring new teachers would, firstly, be spent on employing educators in rural areas.

Full report

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ANGOLA: Independent electoral commission vital to poll credibility

Setting up an independent electoral commission to oversee Angola's first post-war elections was critical to the credibility of the poll, analysts said on Tuesday.

"Although peace has been achieved, Angola remains politically polarised. It is vital that a new, independent commission be established to ensure that voters buy into the process - without such a body, one can expect to see numerous challenges to the eventual results," Martinho Chachiua, of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, told IRIN.

The country's main opposition party, UNITA, this week reiterated its call for the creation of an independent national electoral body, saying it should be an "immediate task" for lawmakers, who were preparing to debate electoral reforms.

Full report

50,000 refugees return home

About 50,000 Angolans of a targeted 90,000 returned home this year, either under their own steam or with the help of the refugee agency, UNHCR.

"We were unable go ahead with our plans to repatriate Angolans to the [northern] provinces of Lunda Norte and Uige because of lack of access - landmines, slow reconstruction process [of roads and bridges], lack of essential services and insufficient presence of civil society, which will remain serious challenges for the repatriation programme in 2005," Jose Samaniego, UNHCR's officer-in-charge in Angola, told IRIN on Tuesday.

The number of Angolans to be repatriated this year had been scaled down to 33,593 in September by the UNHCR, partly because of a lack of funds.

Full report

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SOUTHERN AFRICA: Childhood under threat, warns UNICEF

The HIV/AIDS pandemic has already created millions of orphans throughout sub-Saharan Africa, but the worst is yet to come, warned Per Engebak, UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) regional director for Eastern and Southern Africa.

Marking the release of UNICEF's report 'State of the World's Children 2005: Childhood Under Threat', Engebak told IRIN that sub-Saharan Africa already has 15 million orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) and this figure is likely grow to 25 million by 2010.

The report identified HIV/AIDS as "one of the greatest threats to childhood in the world today", noting that sub-Saharan Africa is the "the epicentre of the HIV/AIDS pandemic" and the only region where orphan numbers are increasing.

Full report

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MOZAMBIQUE: Opposition demand election re-run

RENAMO, Mozambique's main opposition party, has alleged widespread fraud in the recent presidential and parliamentary elections and is demanding a re-run.

Election manager Eduardo Namburete told IRIN on Friday that RENAMO believed both the voting and the subsequent counting process, which has now been delayed, were substantially flawed.

He alleged that 40,000 voters in parts of the country traditionally sympathetic to RENAMO were denied the opportunity to cast their ballots, "because the CNE [the Portuguese acronym for the National Electoral Commission] did not provide voting material on time".

Full report

International observers praise election

International observers have praised the way Mozambique's presidential and parliamentary elections were conducted last week, but expressed concern at a turnout markedly lower than in previous years.

Early unofficial results indicated a decisive victory for FRELIMO, the former liberation movement that has been in power since independence in 1975, reversing the trend of increased support in previous polls for its arch rival, the former rebel group, RENAMO.

Full report

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SOUTH AFRICA: Economic progress slow, says SADC secretary

The lacklustre performance of Southern African economies over the past year has been attributed to the AIDS pandemic, political instability in some countries, and the negative effects of prolonged drought.

In his annual report, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) secretary, Prega Ramsamy, noted that regional economic growth had stagnated, jeopardising progress towards achieving the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The MDGs cover eight major commitments to be achieved by 2015, including halving poverty.

Full report

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MALAWI: Health sector gets funding boost

Over the next six years Malawi's health service will receive a £100 million (US $193 million) shot in the arm from the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID), IRIN reported on Thursday.

The aid package "will help provide free antiretroviral treatment for more people living with HIV from next year", DFID said in a statement, as well as fund "measures to reduce mother and child deaths, and invest in better training and higher salaries for doctors, nurses and other health workers".

Full report

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SWAZILAND: More police to curb rising crime in Manzini

Chronic unemployment and overcrowding are to blame for the steady rise in violent crime in Swaziland's largest urban centre, Manzini, according to the city's residents.

While the media continue to report incidents of attacks against prominent figures - a robber recently stabbed a former health minister seven times at the local post office - local leaders and the police are stymied for a solution.

The city made international headlines earlier this year when bus conductors enforced a ban on women wearing miniskirts at the bus terminus by gang-raping an 18-year-old girl.

Full report

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[ENDS]

Other recent SOUTHERN AFRICA reports:

Small island nations need trade, conference finds, 14/Jan/05

IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 213 for 8-14 January 2005, 14/Jan/05

SADC to focus on food security in 2005, 13/Jan/05

More than food aid needed for recovery - Yearender, 12/Jan/05

SADC offers assistance to small islands, 12/Jan/05

Other recent reports:

MIDDLE EAST: MIDDLE EAST: Weekly round-up Number 4 for 8-14 January 2005, 14/Jan/05

SOUTHERN AFRICA: IRIN-SA Weekly Round-up 213 for 8-14 January 2005, 14/Jan/05

HORN OF AFRICA: IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 226 for 8-14 January, 14/Jan/05

CENTRAL & EASTERN AFRICA: IRIN-CEA Weekly Round-up 261 for 8-14 Jan 2005, 14/Jan/05

LESOTHO: New trade regime threatens economy, 13/Jan/05

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