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Zimbabwe:

The countdown to Chaos

For a number of years, the rapid decline of Zimbabwe was there for all to see.

However, very little was done and most of the time, too little, too late. The biggest culprit (other than Mad Bob himself) in this diplomatic disaster must be South Africa's Thabo Mbeki who did........ nothing (other than giving his nutcase neighbour tacit support!)

I'm afraid the damage done to Zimbabwe is now unfortunately irreversible. This is how it happened as reported by Daily Telegraph, IOL, Zimbabwean News (ZWNews) and Amnesty International....

Timeline 2001

Timeline 2002

1997

August

September

The land seizures and veteran payouts are calculated to win popular approval, but the government cannot afford them--a fact that is considered proof that in almost 18 years of rule the Mugabe government has taken Zimbabwe from being the potential breadbasket of Southern Africa to an African basket case.

1998

January

With unemployment at 50% and the collapse of the Zimbabwe dollar, real incomes are lower than they were 20 years ago under Ian Smith's Rhodesia.

February

Zimbabwe announces the purchase of a "back-up" fleet of 50 Mercedes cars costing $3.3 million--the third such purchase in three years. Every cabinet minister already has a Mercedes, not to mention a four-wheel drive for upcountry trips.

90% of Zimbabwean tax revenue is paid out in civil service salaries and debt repayment. One leading economist for Zimbabwe's Chamber of Commerce, John Robertson, describes the country as "teetering on the edge of a major melt-down."

2000

January

February

15   In spite of his promises of free land to supporters, voters reject dictator Robert Mugabe's proposals that would have given him even more authoritarian powers, including the right to confiscate private land without compensation.

Almost immediately self-styled "war veterans", many born after 1980, start invading white-owned farms.

March

31   The UN Committee On Elimination Of Racial Discrimination concluded its fifty-sixth session and "regretted that very little progress had been made in respect to land redistribution in Zimbabwe". It recommended that Zanu-PF "consider the possibility of communal access to commercial farm land"

April

6    Zimbabwe's Parliament approves constitutional amendment allowing government to seize white-owned farms -- without compensation -- and redistribute them to landless blacks.

12    Parliament dissolves at midnight ahead of upcoming elections.

13    High Court orders eviction of squatters, but Mugabe orders police not to enforce the order, saying land redistribution was a political, not legal, issue. .

"The courts can do what they want. They are not courts for our people and we shall not even be defending ourselves in these courts" - Dictator Bob Mugabe

"Britain would support a genuine land reform programme which would benefit the rural poor and provide fair compensation to those farmers willing to sell land"

15    Occupations turn violent and the killings begin: white farmer David Stevens sought help from officers at the local police station, who did nothing to stop him being abducted and dragged into the bush, where he was tortured and shot. During the trial of his murderers in October 2002 a shocked courtroom was told:

"One of them knelt over Stevens's body and brought a container filled with blood which they mixed with alcohol and shared among themselves."

18    20th anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence from Britain; Martin Olds becomes the second white farmer killed when 70 armed militia attacked his farm. Police prevented neighbours to come to his aid and no-one was ever arrested.

19    High Court finds squatter leader Chenjerai Hunzvi guilty of contempt of court for inciting his followers to occupy the white farms after the invasions were declared illegal.

20    I sent a letter to the the South African Government condemning their "quiet diplomacy" that was destined to fail and warned them of the dire consequences for an "African Renaissance"

22    In a private meeting with Mbeki, Mugabe is reported to have agreed to order war veterans to end their occupation of farms, hold free and fair elections and tone down his inflammatory rhetoric.

27    Talks in London between British and Zimbabwean representatives fail to bring resolution.

28    South African Government refers me to the "agreement" as reported 22 April.

May

3    Commonwealth rebukes Zimbabwe over farm occupations, violence; Britain imposes export controls.
I write an open letter to the UN, asking them to define racism. I never got any reply.

5    Thabo Mbeki walks around hand-in-hand with Mugabe at the much diminished 20th Zimbabwe International Trade Fair in Bulawayo. Opening the fair Mbeki said:

And so here we are together in Bulawayo, during the month when all of us will celebrate Africa Day, on May 25th, with both of our countries free of the yoke of white minority rule.

As neighbours and peoples who have shared the same trenches in the common struggle for freedom, it is natural that we must now work together to build on the victory of the anti-colonial and anti-racist struggle.

Practically, together we must decide what we have to do, again sharing a common trench of struggle, to address an agenda which includes:

• overcoming the legacy of colonialism and apartheid;
• achieving a better life for the masses of our people;
• protecting the achievements we have scored to ensure that ours is a region of freedom, democracy, peace and stability;
• expediting the process of balanced and mutually beneficial regional integration; and,
• ensuring that the process of globalisation does not result in our marginalisation and the underdevelopment of our people and countries, but reinforces our efforts to achieve social and economic progress.

As H.E. President Mugabe has stressed, for us to achieve all these regional objectives, it is necessary that we restructure the institutions of SADC to ensure that it becomes a more effective instrument for real change.

Land dispossession was one of the most iniquitous results of the colonisation of Zimbabwe. As we grew up as activists of our own liberation movement, we knew that among the objectives of our struggle were the repeal of the Land Act in South Africa and the Land Apportionment Act in this country.

Both of our countries, which experienced extensive land dispossession of the indigenous majority by those who colonised our countries, are confronted by the challenge to address this colonial legacy. Our peoples, on both banks of the Limpopo, both black and white, have a responsibility to recognise the fact that the land question constitutes an important part of the national agenda.

Accordingly, they must commit themselves to work together to address this central question, to advance the common good.

To you, the people of Zimbabwe, I would like to convey the message that the overwhelming majority of your brothers and sisters south of the Limpopo, share with you the hope that the land question in Zimbabwe will be addressed successfully.

15    Mugabe announces elections set for June 24-25.

June

2    Zimbabwe announces immediate start to seizure of more than 800 farms for redistribution; U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan postpones planned visit.

8    High Court refuses opposition request to postpone elections.

19    Patrick Nabanyama, a former member of ZANU-PF, working as a polling agent for the MDC in Bulawayo is abducted by a group of so-called "war veterans". The "war veterans" went to his house and abducted him in the presence of his wife and children. To date his whereabouts remain unknown and he is presumed dead.

22   An Amnesty International mission to Zimbabwe documents widespread human rights violations including arbitrary killings, torture and ill-treatment. These are believed to have caused a pervasive atmosphere of fear and intimidation which in turn is hampering the rights to freedom of assembly, association, movement and expression.

"The state-sponsored terror that characterized the run-up to the elections should not be allowed to continue," Maina Kiai from Amnesty International said.

"The current climate of terror in Zimbabwe is creating an atmosphere in which free and fair elections are not possible"

24-25    Amid reports of violence, vote-tampering and poll-worker abductions, Zimbabweans go to the polls in record numbers. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change finishes surprisingly strong, dramatically shrinking the ruling ZANU-PF party's majority. Mugabe already changed the constitution giving him the right to undemocratically appoint an additional 30 cronies to parliament. This helps secure a majority.

28    In Kwekwe, an MDC ward chairperson -- Mutyanda Mandishona -- is beaten to death. Edwin Mushoriwa, the MDC MP for the Harare constituency of Dzivarasekwa, and MDC supporters are also beaten by members of the army. At a rally authorized by the police, around 100 MDC supporters were celebrating their election victory when a truckload of soldiers arrived and beat them with rifle butts. At least five MDC supporters were hospitalised.

Now that the elections are over in Zimbabwe, the government must move the country forward by fully investigating the human rights violations in the run up to the elections and bringing the perpetrators to justice, Amnesty International said.

Zimbabwe has a long history of impunity for human rights violations: from the amnesty at independence; through to the unpunished and uninvestigated atrocities in Matabeleland in the 1980s; through to the arbitrary killings, torture and ill-treatment that occurred before the latest elections.

"The scores of victims of arbitrary killings, torture and ill-treatment in the run-up to the election deserve justice. "The vicious circle of impunity that has been common in Zimbabwe before and after independence will only be broken if the new government -- regardless of its composition -- acts promptly."

30    Amnesty International is concerned that Mugabe's history of inciting his followers to violence could lead to retaliation against known or suspected supporters of Zimbabwe's opposition political parties in the aftermath of the parliamentary election, Amnesty International said today.

"Threats of, and actual violence have been the hallmarks of President Mugabe's leadership. The new Zimbabwe after the elections must see a stop to such practises that result in human rights abuses."

July

20    Mugabe swears in new Cabinet.

30    Mugabe announces plan to seize 3,000 farms.

August

2    The Daily News publish evidence of a government assassination plot against Geoffrey Nyarota, its editor-in-chief.

2-3    Massive strike, supported by farmers, labour unions and opposition, paralyses Zimbabwe for a day. In the wake of the strike, Mugabe pledges to remove squatters from farms not slated for redistribution, but denies he did so the following day. White farmers go to court to challenge plan to seize 3,000 farms.

10    Zimbabwe banks shut off new loans to embattled white farmers.

16    Zimbabwe's High Court invalidates all the mail-in votes cast in the June elections. Most were cast by Zimbabwean soldiers aiding the Congolese government in its 2-year civil war.

18    Government adds 229 more farms to redistribution list.

September

3   More than half a million farm worker have already lost their jobs and source of income, without gaining any of the redistributed land, the developmental journal Bistandsaktuelt reported.

October

Amnesty International challenges the international community to meet its obligations to end impunity and bring to justice those responsible for gross human rights abuses by condemning unambiguously this executive order. ''The international community should expressly acknowledge that the amnesty seriously undermines the obligations of Zimbabwe under international human rights law"

There is no more foreign exchange, fuel has almost run out, foreign aid has been curbed and the bread prices have increased threefold only this year.

25    According to an opinion poll published by the Helen Suzman Foundation, 56 per cent of Zimbabweans want Mugabe to be impeached and 51 per cent believe he should face criminal proceedings for his conduct in office. A remarkable 74 per cent say he should step down.

MDC attempt to impeach Mugabe in parliament in terms of section 29 of the constitution which provides for the removal of the president of Zimbabwe

President Thabo Mbeki says preventing Zimbabwe's economy collapsing completely was more important than criticising Mr Mugabe over land seizures.

"We have to battle to avoid a collapse in Zimbabwe. This conflict is wrong, the taking of land is wrong, abuse of the rule of law is wrong, but the principal focus has to be to avoid collapse."

November

Soon after, hundreds of thugs from Mugabe's Zanu-PF thugs stormed the court, dancing behind the judges' benches and chanting: "Kill the judges." Police stood by, and no one was arrested.

21   Zimbabwe, this year, sold a record tobacco crop of 236.8 million kg but will see a much reduced output next year as a result of work stoppages on farms invaded by self-styled "veterans". The total seasonal mass sold was about 236.8 million kg with a value of 19.2 billion Zimbabwe dollars or 350 million US dollars. Although this year's crop is a record high, it could have been higher were it not for disruptions on some tobacco farms by war veterans who invaded tobacco farms and burnt tobacco burns.

December

2001

January

"I wonder whether the leadership of southern Africa understands the gravity of the situation. Constructive engagement seems to have failed."

Mr Hain was relieved of his duties by Mr Blair within days.

22    ZIMBABWE'S Chief Justice has made a formal appeal for the government to protect judges from militant supporters of Mugabe. Chief Justice Anthony Gubbay wrote to Vice-President Simon Muzenda after the Liberation War Veterans' Association, which has spearheaded the violent occupation of white-owned farms, gave the five Supreme Court justices 14 days to resign or face unspecified consequences.

The government ignored his plea and launched a new attack on white judges.

24    Militant supporters of Robert Mugabe's government marched on the offices of The Daily News to show their anger at its coverage. One reporter was assaulted.

25    Police arrest and question three senior journalists from The Daily News. Chenjerai 'Hitler' Hunzvi, the self-styled leader of the country's "war veterans", said his pro-Mugabe followers would ban the newspaper. He appears to have been infuriated by its description of his followers as a "rent-a-crowd".

26    Jonathan Moyo, the so-called "Information" Minister, condemns The Daily News for its "cynical" attitude to "anything and everything that is nationalistic, Zimbabwean or African". He said:

"It is now only a matter of time before Zimbabweans put a final stop to this madness in defence of their cultural interest and national security."

the blast was the logical consequence of incitement by Mr Mugabe and his ministers. He said: "You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see who did this. This has cowardice and desperation written all over it."

The government, who blames the MDC for the bomb blast, proposes to register journalists, penalise newspapers that are the subject of persistent public complaints and strengthen the law of criminal libel.

February

"We were told very nicely and very politely that we should go, take our leave and go, otherwise anything can happen. It was said very frankly that they didn't want us to come to any harm."

11    ZIMBABWE'S government has apparently panicked in the face of a rapidly growing economic crisis by announcing and then rescinding a decree seizing hard currency earnings from exporters. The move came as the country was hit by a fuel shortage. The streets of Harare were choked with queues of hundreds of vehicles at the few petrol stations which had supplies. An announcement from the central bank carried in the official press would have forced companies to sell all of their American dollar earnings to the government.

Payment would have been at the official exchange rate, well below what is offered by the burgeoning "parallel" market.

Diplomats at Zimbabwe's embassies abroad have not been paid for months and their plight is believed to have triggered the decision. Observers believe that £13.5 million is needed to clear the embassies' debts.

14    ZIMBABWE'S state electricity company announced national blackouts yesterday amid a deepening economic crisis. The price of bread also increased for the second month running and petrol stations were running dry. With no hard currency to buy imports, Zimbabwe's economy is facing paralysis. Most factories are working a three-day week, investment has all but disappeared, and the unemployment rate is around 60 per cent.

16    ZIMBABWE'S opposition leader faces the prospect of abandoning his challenge to Mugabe and spending up to 14 years in jail after he is charged with "incitement to violence". A ferocious crackdown has been launched against all opponents of Mr Mugabe, real or imagined, and the appearance of Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, in a Harare magistrate's court marked the most serious escalation of this campaign. In a five minute hearing, Mr Tsvangirai was charged under the notorious Law and Order (Maintenance) Act, which was passed by the British colonial government to jail black nationalists, including Mr Mugabe, and gives the authorities sweeping powers to act against any dissidents.

18    SOUTH AFRICA is to confiscate a white farmer, Willem Pretorius' land in the first Zimbabwe-style property "redistribution" amid fears that the country is starting down dictator Robert Mugabe's road to lawlessness.

A BBC correspondent is taking refuge in the British high commission in Harare after a gang of men attacked his home. Joseph Winter, 29, the correspondent for the BBC's Africa Service, was woken at 1.40am yesterday when four intruders hammered on his door and shouted for him and his family to come out. The attack came shortly after Mr Winter and a correspondent for a South African newspaper were ordered to leave Zimbabwe on Saturday in an expected crackdown on foreign correspondents before an election.

PRETORIA should end its subsidy of Mugabe's regime in protest at the threatened expulsion of foreign journalists, according to Tony Leon. Leon also criticised the deal to provide electricity to Zimbabwe at a 25 per cent discount and on credit and said it should be stopped. He accused Mr Mugabe of "megalomania" and called on leaders of the Southern African Development Community, the regional grouping, to strip him of the current chairmanship of its defence group.

Mr Leon's calls received no immediate reaction from the South African government of President Thabo Mbeki which has stuck doggedly to its controversial policy of "quiet diplomacy" towards Harare. While Britain was swift to condemn Zimbabwe yesterday, Pretoria made no statement. This was entirely consistent with Mr Mbeki's policy of avoiding outright condemnation of Zimbabwe over the last 18 months in spite of the steady erosion there of the rule of law.

Criticism of Mr Mbeki's policy has been building up. George Soros, the financier who is a friend of Mr Mbeki and member of a regional investment committee set up by him, said investor confidence in the region was being badly damaged by a policy that tolerated Mr Mugabe.

"Mugabe has poisoned the neighbourhood. This is one point where I am actually critical of the policy followed by President Mbeki. It is doing damage to South Africa. Yet South Africa continues to help Mugabe stay in power."

21    BRITAIN urge the Commonwealth to take action to halt Zimbabwe's slide towards despotism. Robin Cook:

'Britain's concern at the situation in Zimbabwe will be widely shared in the Commonwealth'

24    Mugabe used an address to party faithful celebrating his 77th birthday to deliver an uncompromising defence of his controversial land reform policy. Before a rapturous gathering of the 21st February Movement, a North Korean-style personality cult, he made a thinly-veiled attack on British criticism of the farm seizure policy when he denounced "evil forces in the world who seek to perpetuate their colonial hold".

27    Mugabe's attempt to bring Zimbabwe's judiciary under his control receives a setback when the Chief Justice refuse to accept his dismissal from office. Instead Anthony Gubbay said he was now "reconsidering" his previous agreement to retire early. After months of pressure and vilification, Chief Justice Gubbay had agreed to go on leave from March 1 and formally retire on June 30. He is officially due to step down in April next year.

He first learned that he was now to be dismissed from yesterday's edition of The Herald, the government newspaper. Under the headline "Gubbay to leave office tomorrow", were extracts from a letter written to him by Patrick Chinamasa, the justice minister. Mr Gubbay had never received such a letter.

March

Under the constitution, a chief justice can be removed only after an independent tribunal has been convened to investigate charges of misconduct. Presided over by Chief Justice Gubbay, the Supreme Court has infuriated the government by striking down Mr Mugabe's "fast track" land seizures. Lawyers believe that the judge has fallen victim to a political vendetta being pursued regardless of the law.

Prof Jonathan Moyo, the so-called Information Minister, had warned Chief Justice Gubbay that police would prevent him from entering his office because it would be "like someone sitting in the middle of the street".

3    LAWYERS were mourning the "death" of the independent judiciary in Zimbabwe yesterday after Mugabe succeeded in his campaign to force out Anthony Gubbay, the Chief Justice.

4    Another white farmer, the elderly mother of Martin Olds who was murdered April 2000, is ambushed and murdered on her farm.

April

8   Batanayi Madzidzi, a 20-year-old science student of the University of Zimbabwe in Harare, is beaten to death by riot police during anti-government riots. Another 30 students were treated for injuries after the protest.

May

"We not only discussed the economic crisis. I concentrated on the political crisis caused to a large extent by the actions of President Mugabe."

"The two things together are leading to a crisis that will spill over the borders and affect South Africa itself. Action has to be taken to stabilise the situation and persuade Mr Mugabe to act in a more democratic fashion."

Mrs Zuma indicated that South Africa shared many of America's concerns. She said:

"We view the situation in Zimbabwe as very critical and we are very worried both as neighbours and as people who do a lot of trade with Zimbabwe."

June

Although few figures are available, there is clear evidence of the scale of the exodus. According to the Ministry of Health, 16,000 Zimbabwean nurses left to work in British hospitals last year. More than 45,000 people were caught by the authorities last year as they made illegal attempts to reach South Africa by fording the Limpopo river. Perhaps five succeed for every one whose attempt is foiled.

Packing companies have recorded an enormous surge in business. In 1999, Prime Forwarders, a leading freight company, helped two families to leave for Britain. It now makes this arrangement at least 10 times a week. Bernard Chimedza, the company's director, said: "It's mainly the black Africans who are leaving." According to figures supplied by removal companies, about 300,000 of Zimbabwe's 12 million residents have fled the country. Most have gone to South Africa. Britain appears to be the second most popular destination, while Australia and New Zealand have also taken large numbers.

4   CHENJERAI "HITLER" HUNZVI, dies of AIDS. He rose to inglorious prominence as head of Zimbabwe's War Veterans' Association; his mixture of inflammatory rhetoric and street-brawling thuggishness brought the country's political temperature to boiling point.

He masterminded the invasion of nearly 1,700 white-owned farms last year and personally led numerous occupations, rousing followers with vitriolic attacks on whites, typically delivered with a clenched fist and accompanied by blood curdling songs from the independence war. He also played a key role in delivering a narrow victory for Mugabe's Zanu-PF party in parliamentary elections last June. Hunzvi implemented a brutal onslaught on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change that claimed 37 lives and forced more than 10,000 people to flee their homes. A master of inflammatory rhetoric, he damned MDC leaders as "traitors", "dogs" and "puppets of the whites".

7   Philemon Matibe became THE first black commercial farmer to become a target of dictator Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe when he had his farm illegally seized and his livelihood destroyed after he stood as an opposition candidate in parliamentary elections. He was ordered off his farm, where he grew 1,600 acres of tobacco, wheat and soya beans, by an 80-strong mob, led by the district administrator and four policemen. Mr Matibe unsuccessfully contested the seat of Chegutu for the MDC in elections last June.

July

August

"Many people have fallen victim to this monster," said the letter. "We are witnessing murders, rapes, beatings and abductions."

26    Mr Mugabe denies that his supporters have been responsible for any violence. In an interview with a Nigerian newspaper, the Guardian, he says: "We are the victims. The offenders are the whites and the opposition, who are banded together to weaken Zimbabwe."

September

Zimbabwe pledge to the Commonwealth in Abuja, Nigeria, that it would restore the rule of law in its country. These promises are soon broken. Indeed, Zimbabwe appeared to increase the state-sponsored violence after the Abuja agreement, including through the deployment of further military-trained militias under the guise of a Youth Service.

2   At the UN Conference of Racists in Durban, there is a hero’s welcome for Robert Mugabe, taking time out of his hectic schedule of terrorising white farmers to deliver a stirring attack on the evils of racism.

7   Amnesty International cautiously welcomes the agreement reached by the Commonwealth delegation and the Zimbabwean government in Abuja, Nigeria, in which the Zimbabwean authorities pledged commitment to the 1991 Harare Commonwealth Declaration. The Declaration calls on Commonwealth countries to work for "the protection and promotion of the fundamental political values of the Commonwealth," including the rule of law and all fundamental human rights.

"For the Abuja agreement to be successful, the Zimbabwe government should provide an atmosphere in which all people, including opposition candidates and supporters, are free to express their political beliefs, peacefully assemble and campaign without the fear of violence", Amnesty International said.

The human rights climate in the next by-election, due on 22 and 23 September in the Chikomba constituency in the Mashonaland East Province of Zimbabwe will be the first true test of the willingness of the government to abide by Thursday's agreement to end political violence.

17-18    Amnesty International welcomes the initiative by SADC when it held an extraordinary two- day summit in Harare to help facilitate dialogue to ease the Zimbabwean political crisis. The Summit's opening statement, and the subsequent action by the regional heads of state, constituted a positive initiative to reverse the drift towards the indiscriminate political assaults that has emerged there.

October

30   Ministers of lands from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have said equitable land reform is the platform on which southern Africa can resuscitate its economies, as this should bring peace and political stability in the region. (See Aug 2000) In a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting, the ministers said land reform programs should benefit blacks because white farmers had unfairly acquired most of the region's best land under European colonial rule.

The ministers reiterated the need to develop a race and gender sensitive system of land tenure that provides security to all landholdings and creates opportunities for development.

Sam Nujoma said there was urgent need to address the land problems in order to maintain regional peace, stability and foster social and economic development. He said that in Namibia white farmers owned more than 30,4 million hectares of commercial farm land and only 2,2 million hectares were in the hands of blacks.

November

More than 1.4 million people in Matabeleland and Masvingo, where the poorest are grubbing in the bush for edible tree roots, have registered with the government for food aid. Dr Makoni has issued a warning, however, that government stocks have been depleted and that there is no money to import more.

The Southern African Development Community's famine early warning system network (Fewsnet) says Zimbabwe must import 200,000 tons of food immediately if it is to avoid famine. Altogether, it adds, Zimbabwe needs to import 846,000 ton of food by the middle of next year to see it through to the next harvest. Dictator Mugabe's controversial fast-track resettlement programme has seen about 80 per cent of the country's commercial farms earmarked for state acquisition. As a result of the violent land invasions, the commercial maize crop has dropped by more than two thirds in the past two years, with many other crops suffering a similar fate. The Zimbabwean economy, which has already shrunk by 7.3 per cent in 2001, is expected to decline further. The finance minister predicts that it will shrink by at least another five per cent next year. Already Zimbabwe's supermarket shelves are emptying as food shortages and unworkable price controls take effect.

Traditionally the country has been an exporter of food, able to feed itself and most of its southern African neighbours, but officials from the World Food Programme say they are considering moving 40,000 ton of maize from neighbouring Mozambique, one of the world's poorest countries, to stave off imminent disaster in Zimbabwe.

13   The Zimbabwean government has accelerated its "land resettlement programme" and at the same time issued a decree, amending the country's Land Acquisition Act. White farmers now can be forced off their land with immediate effect and the takeover is legitimised faster.

17   ZIMBABWE'S commissioner of police Augustine Chihuri and his wife arrive at Woodlands Farm, Shamva, 60 miles north-west of Harare, in one of the richest agricultural areas in the country, and introduced himself to Mike Butler, the farm owner. Chihuri, who supports the ruling Zanu-PF party, told Mr Butler that he and his wife would be arriving soon to take up residence in the homestead and the farm.

December

10-12   SADC ministerial task force visits Zimbabwe. In the final communique it states that:

SADC "welcomed the improved atmosphere of calm and stability" and expressed their gratification to learn that "violence on the farms had reduced significantly, and that the few reported incidents were being dealt with under the criminal justice system, in accordance with the rule of law, irrespective of the political affiliation of the alleged perpetrators".

19   With the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) teleconference set for 20 December, Amnesty International reiterates its call for all possible international influence to focus on persuading the Zimbabwean government to reverse its policy of political violence and intimidation.

"The situation in Zimbabwe is getting worse day by day as the Presidential elections draw nearer. The government of Robert Mugabe is determined to remain in power by any means, including harassment, arbitrary arrests, assaults and killings of anyone who stand in their way," the organisation said. "This is not about land reform but about rampant torture by the state and its proxies to bludgeon dissent."

Amnesty International concludes that the government of Zimbabwe is using informal, but state-sponsored militia -- comprising land occupiers, so-called 'war veterans' and supporters of ZANU-PF -- as proxy forces to brutalize and displace farm workers and to assault real or perceived members of the opposition.

COMMONWEALTH ministers deliver an ultimatum to dictator Mugabe to halt the political repression of opponents in Zimbabwe within a month or risk suspension from the organisation.

21    ZANU-PF youth in Karoi stabs Titus Nheya, 56, a veteran politician and trade unionist to death. He had contested the Zvimba South parliamentary seat for the opposition. The group was reportedly led by a well known war veteran. When the MDC reported the incident to the police, the war veteran was arrested but later released without charge. The case appeared to have been closed.

23    Mugabe has failed to abide by the terms of the accord reached in the Nigerian capital, Abuja. In the latest diplomatic initiative, European representatives said that they had had a "difficult" time with Mugabe in a 90-minute meeting. Louis Michel, Belgium's deputy prime minister; Chris Patten, the European Union commissioner for external relations, and Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, left empty-handed and sombre after their meeting.

23    Opposition political member Rambisai Nyika is killed in Gokwe, in western Zimbabwe, allegedly by militant supporters of ZANU-PF. To Amnesty International's knowledge, no investigation into the killings has been carried out.

26    Opposition activist Laban Chiweta, dies in hospital from burns and head injuries. National Youth Service members allegedly attacked him in the town of Trojan Mine near Bindura on 6 December. Opposition officials said the attack on Chiweta and others took place in the presence of police officers who neither intervened nor arrested the assailants.

31    Trymore Midzi, 24, dies at the Avenues Clinic in Harare after being stabbed on 29 December in Bindura by ZANU-PF supporters and young trainees from the Border Gezi Youth Training Centre.

2002

January

9   Gen Vitalis Zvinavashe, commander of the armed services, said the forces would "never support, let alone salute" any presidential candidate who had not fought in the war against white rule of the 1970s - a thinly veiled reference to Mr Tsvangirai.

10   The passage of the Public Order and Security Act criminalizes non-violent political protest, and metes out prison sentences to those "insulting the president" or "disturbing the peace".

11   Zimbabwe promises the European Union, during talks under Article 96 of the Cotonou agreement, that it would allow observers into the country, and stated that they would shortly issue invitations.

The EU raised the following concerns:

• full respect for human rights, including the right to freedom of opinion, association and peaceful assembly for all individuals;
• the commitment to investigate fully and impartially all cases of alleged political violence in 2001 and action to do so;
• a Zimbabwean Electoral Supervisory Commission which is adequately resourced and able to operate independently, the accreditation and registration of national independent monitors in good time for the elections;
• a timely invitation to, and accreditation of a wide range of international election observers;
• commitment to freedom of expression as guaranteed by the constitution of Zimbabwe;
• reaffirmation by Zimbabwe of its practice of allowing national and international journalists to cover important national events, including elections, on the basis of its laws and regulations;
• commitment by the government of Zimbabwe to the independence of the judiciary and to the rule of law;
• and the transfer by the government of Zimbabwe of occupiers of non-designated farms to legally acquired land.

Tony Blair telephones South Africa's President Mbeki to discuss the deepening political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said: "Both leaders take it seriously. It is clearly deteriorating in a way giving everyone cause for concern."

13   MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, leader of the Zimbabwean opposition, plead for sanctions to be imposed on his country before the presidential election in March. His call came as police arrested 22 members of his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, in Kwe Kwe, following violent clashes with supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF party who had burned down an MDC office.

Mr Tsvangirai said that after two years of "softly-softly" diplomacy by Zimbabwe's neighbours, which had failed to stop President Mugabe's abuse of the rule of law, it was time for genuine sanctions.

Targeted measures should be imposed immediately to freeze money and assets held overseas by Mr Mugabe and his associates, while South Africa should impose a fuel, transport and electricity blockade.

"I think SA will have to go it alone and do something effective on the ground," he said. "The threat to undermine the elections by the military and the president himself should send shockwaves to South Africa.

"And South Africa should say, 'OK, under those circumstances we are going to cut fuel, we are going to cut transport links'."

Mr Tsvangirai said that SADC was too incoherent and divided to have any genuine effect on the Zimbabwean situation.

The SADC summit is given a circus air as Mr Mugabe arrives claiming "God is on our side" before launching a personal attack on Mr Blair, accusing him of being a liar.

14    Zanu-PF, has begun its presidential election campaign using a new torture weapon, barbed wire raked across the feet of farm workers. After a day of violence, scores of farm workers were left unable to walk after the soles of their feet were injured on barbed wire. Workers are forced to attend all-night Maoist "pungwes" - political indoctrination camps. Mugabe's militia rampaged across white-owned farms, beating workers, ransacking thousands of tons of stored maize, seizing cattle and crops. In the last 24 hours dozens of farmers in Mashonaland have been told to leave their land.

Four Zimbabwean human rights activists, hoping to tell southern African leaders in Malawi about this worsening political violence in Zimbabwe were arrested in the capital, Blantyre, jailed and deported. The four were arrested, on the orders of Zimbabwean intelligence agents, before a meeting of the Southern African Development Community, SADC.

Amnesty International said Zimbabwe human rights organisations had reported about 50 politically-motivated killings since early 2000, some of them during parliamentary by-elections in 2001. In its latest report, Amnesty said it had been told of up to 10 people killed by state-sponsored militias in recent weeks.

"The deteriorating human rights situation in Zimbabwe places in real jeopardy the possibility of free and fair elections . . . and raises the spectre of such violent repression of political opposition degenerating into civil war," its memorandum said. "The time has come for SADC to send a strong and consistent message that the situation in Zimbabwe has grown worse; that the Zimbabwean authorities should not allow human rights to be violated with impunity."

"The right of citizens to participate unhindered in political activities in the country of their birthright is a non-negotiable basic principle to which we all subscribe... We collectively cannot remain silent when political or civil movements are harassed and suppressed through harsh state action."

"The SADC Presidents should deploy immediately a credible presence of human rights monitors -- in addition to election monitors from the SADC Parliamentary Forum to observe the presidential balloting in March 2002 -- to avert further political killings, "disappearances", torture and mass displacement of rural people," Amnesty International said.

Mugabe is attacked by the veteran anti-apartheid campaigner Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The South African Nobel Prize winner said: "Mugabe seems to have gone bonkers in a big way.

"It is very dangerous when you subvert the rule of law in your country, when you don't even respect the judgments of your judges.

15   SADC's final communiqué from the Summit listed human rights undertakings pledged by Zimbabwe, including full respect for human rights, commitments to freedom of expression and to independence of the judiciary, and agreement to accredit a range of national monitors and international observers. Mugabe also pledged his commitment to freedom of expression and to allow freedom both domestic and international journalists to operate.

"Summit welcomed the following actions to be undertaken by Zimbabwe: full respect for human rights, including the right to freedom of opinion, association and peaceful assembly for all individuals;
the commitment to investigate fully and impartially all cases of alleged political violence in 2001 and action to do so;
a Zimbabwean Electoral Supervisory Commission which is adequately resourced and able to operate independently, the accreditation and registration of national independent monitors in good time for the elections;
a timely invitation to, and accreditation of a wide range of international election observers;
commitment to freedom of expression as guaranteed by the constitution of Zimbabwe;
reaffirmation by Zimbabwe of its practice of allowing national and international journalists to cover important national events, including elections, on the basis of its laws and regulations; commitment by the government of Zimbabwe to the independence of the judiciary and to the rule of law;
and the transfer by the government of Zimbabwe of occupiers of non-designated farms to legally acquired land".

15    Zimbabwe's trail of broken human rights promises should make members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) wary of taking at face value the commitments made at the organisation's 14 January Extraordinary Summit in Malawi, Amnesty International said today.

"'Quiet diplomacy' should not become silent acquiescence to continuing gross human rights violations in Zimbabwe," Amnesty International said. "President Robert Mugabe has made promises of human rights reforms to the Commonwealth, to the European Union (EU) and now to SADC - but there is no sign that the war of killings, torture and intimidation against the political opposition is slowing. Will SADC verify the promises they have received - and if so, how?"

Amnesty International also noted that when in September 2001, Zimbabwe had pledged to the Commonwealth in Abuja, Nigeria, to restore the rule of law in its country, those promises were soon broken. Indeed, Zimbabwe appeared to increase the state-sponsored violence after the Abuja agreement, including through the deployment of further military-trained militias under the guise of a Youth Service. President Mugabe seems sure that the Commonwealth will neither properly monitor nor take effective action with regard to these broken promises. Instead, the Commonwealth should insist that its Ministerial Action Group - blocked from visiting the country - be allowed in.

"The commitments made at the SADC Summit risk becoming another set of empty promises", Amnesty International said. "SADC should indicate how it will ensure there is independent monitoring of action taken by President Mugabe to meet his commitments made in Malawi. SADC should also demand that Zimbabwe invite the United Nations' Special Rapporteurs on human rights as independent investigators of allegations of political killings, torture, threats to journalists and subversion of the judiciary."

27   INTENSIFYING violence yesterday forced Zimbabwe's opposition to abandon all its public rallies in the presidential election campaign. The decision by the MDC came after one of its supporters died and several others were critically injured at the weekend. The MDC had decided to abandon political rallies until foreign observers arrived. They said: "We have to give four days notice to the police, and this puts our supporters at risk. We will be holding small house meetings in future for which we do not need official permission."

27   THE European Union decided last night to impose "targeted sanctions" against dictator Robert Mugabe and his cronies within a week if Zimbabwe refuses to admit independent European observers.

29   Mugabe was struggling to contain a rebellion within his party last night after Zimbabwe's parliamentary legal committee, dominated by MPs from the ruling Zanu-PF, criticised his draconian media bill as "dictatorial and unconstitutional".

31   Mugabe's regime pushed the draconian media bill through Zimbabwe's parliament which will effectively stamp out freedom of the press, by making it impossible for journalists to work without state approval.

February

The reality of the land grab is starkly evident on the fertile highveld north of Harare. Fields in which the maize crop should be chest-high at this time of year are instead overgrown in grass and weeds as land seized by Mugabe's regime goes untended.

The Supreme Court overturned new election laws the opposition said disenfranchised their supporters and made vote rigging easier. The regime calls the ruling "a rotten fish", and days later, Mugabe reinstated the laws with a presidential decree. Under these laws, he was declared the victor in March elections that many international observers condemned as intentionally biased to ensure his victory.

1   As the World Food Programme estimates that 558,000 of his people need emergency food supplies, Mugabe launched his re-election campaign in familiar fashion blaming Britain for all of Zimbabwe's problems and branding the black opposition "puppets of the whites".

Fresh from passing the media law, Prof Jonathan Moyo, the so-called information minister, announced that British journalists will not be allowed to cover the election. He added that the army would not tolerate a Tsvangirai victory. Defending his media law, which imposes some of the strictest curbs on the press anywhere in the world, Prof Moyo argued that newspapers are an unnecessary hindrance for governments.

"Thomas Jefferson said it was better to have newspapers without government," he said. "He was very wrong. It is far better to have government without newspapers."

Prof Moyo also backed Gen Vitalis Zvinavashe, commander of the armed services' threat of not accepting an MDC victory:

"It would be a mockery to them [the army] and the cause they fought for if they were made to salute one of the people they fought against . . . we don't expect the Jews to salute the Nazis."

"People can read whatever they want in it . . . we should not demean the African struggles for liberation with the fiction of democracy."

11   Dictator Mugabe defied the European Union last night, announcing that its observers would not be allowed to monitor Zimbabwe's presidential election.

15   BRITISH Jesuits working in Zimbabwe condemn state-sponsored violence, offer refuge to victims, and liken conditions in Zimbabwe to Hitler's Germany.

One exhorts young Zimbabweans to resist attempts to recruit and train them in illegal and criminal activities. It says: "All this reminds us of . . . other times . . . for example, during Hitler's rule in Germany."

"We have got to get rid of this rotten, corrupt and evil regime," said Fr Nigel Johnson, 57, one of the Britons, in an interview in today's Catholic Herald.

For the first time since a devastating drought 10 years ago, Zimbabwe has been forced to seek help from the World Food Programme, which estimates that the country has a maize deficit of around 500,000 tons and more than 550,000 people need emergency supplies.

17   A mob of supporters of dictator Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party surrounded the Ward Five chairman of the MDC, Mr Sibindi's house in the tiny town of Sipepa in the Tsholotsho constituency and demanded he give himself up. Brick by brick the mob started knocking the house down until Mr Sibindi was crouching in the last remaining corner of the house.

"Then the corner collapsed and all that stuck out from the rubble was his head so they cut it clean off", according to eye-witnesses.

No observer believes Mugabe would win a free and fair vote and with Zimbabwe's urban population likely to vote as one for the MDC, Mugabe has unleashed his anger on the rural areas. Across Mashonaland, the Midlands, Manicaland and Matabeleland, Mugabe's dirty work is being done by the gangs of so-called "war veterans" and bands of "youth militia". The procedure is for the youths to set up camps outside towns and villages before setting about their work. They identify leading community figures and pay them a visit, demanding to see a fully paid up, valid Zanu-PF identity card. If the victim cannot produce one they are beaten. Anyone with a connection to the MDC runs the risk of being killed. Another ploy is for the militia to set up a road block on a rural road. All taxis, buses and minivans are stopped and the occupants asked for their identity papers. These papers are then confiscated which effectively gets rid of the problem for Mugabe. Without an identity card, a Zimbabwean cannot vote in the election and as the chaotic home affairs ministry takes months to reissue cards, all of the victims of this scam are out of the equation for the presidential poll.

Mugabe's regime has also written to more than 90 per cent of white voters to inform them they have lost the right to vote.

22    A 200-STRONG mob of Mugabe loyalists armed with clubs and iron bars, massed outside the MDC office in Kwe Kwe before it stormed the office and attacked 30 people, including two South African election observers. The observers were not seriously injured, but four MDC members were taken to hospital. A vehicle used by the monitors was wrecked. It was the first time that South African observers had been assaulted while covering an election anywhere in the world.

The latest incident cast doubt on repeated statements by Mr Mugabe that African election monitors are welcome. Observers from the rest of the world have been banned from the country.

Hours before the observers were attacked police fired on a convoy carrying Morgan Tsvangirai. No one was injured, but Mr Tsvangirai was forced to abandon his rally.

Despite the violence, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, visiting Sweden, argued that a free and fair election was possible.

South African diplomats are privately critical of their government's failure to take reports of violence seriously. One said: "We've been telling them for ages about this, but they wouldn't listen."

March

4   Mbeki Addresses the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Coolum

Clearly, for the Commonwealth to keep pace with the rapidly changing world and remain a relevant and influential organisation, we must intensify our work in promoting democracy, good governance, sustainable development and ensure that we are forever at the forefront of the struggle against racism, racial and gender discrimination and xenophobia, drawing on the invaluable lessons of our work as a family of nations as well as the rich experience of our sister organisations in the international arena.

9-10   Mugabe "re-elected" in presidential "elections" condemned as seriously flawed by the opposition and foreign observers. Amongst other things he:

• purged the voter's roll of opposition supporters
• detained hundreds of opposition leaders
• decreased polling stations in opposition strongholds
• opened polling stations late in those areas
• dispersed opposition voters with tear gas and batons who qued for hours in the vain attempt to vote
• inflated voting figures in his support areas
• accredited too few observers to cover all the stations
• fire bombed opposition papers
• curbed press freedom
• gave himself more than 80% of election airtime on state radio and television, all positive
• gave the opposition less than 20% airtime, all negative
• broke up dozens of opposition rallies
• trained thugs to abduct and physically attack opposition supporters
• gave the army a 100% pay rise and deployed them across the country during the "election"
• did not allow any observers in numerous counting stations
• fired independent minded judges and replaced them with party hacks
• to name but a few...

Mugabe's regime claimed the vote was free and fair, adding it is a mandate to pursue its controversial land reform programme.

Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition candidate, dismissed the result as "illegitimate", calling it "daylight robbery". He said his party, the Movement for Democratic Change, would challenge the result in the Zimbabwean courts.

"It is the biggest electoral fraud I have ever witnessed in my life," he told a press conference in Harare after an emergency meeting of the MDC leadership.

The mood across the country was sombre with little sign of celebrations for Mr Mugabe.

13   The poll is condemned as fraudulent by key Western powers, including the European Union and the United States, southern African parliamentarians and the Commonwealth.

Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, accused Mr Mugabe of a systematic subversion of democracy and said Washington was considering new sanctions. A senior State Department official said Washington was expected to freeze any US assets held by Mr Mugabe and his close associates.

The 70-member Southern Africa Development Community Parliamentary Forum condemned the election, citing systematic government violence and interference.

"The electoral process could not be said to have adequately complied with the norms and standards for elections in the SADC region," said G D Lefhoko, a parliamentarian leading the observer mission.

"The presidential elections failed to meet key, broadly accepted criteria for elections"

Some African governments and the Organisation of African Unity endorsed Mugabe "victory" and South African observers called the polls "legitimate".

An Organisation of African Unity observer mission said the elections were "transparent, credible, free and fair".

He acknowledged that there had been violence during the campaign, that some voters were turned away and that new election laws "threaten the integrity of the electoral process". But he called most of the problems "administrative oversights".

14    Mbeki's deputy president, Jacob Zuma, claimed his country's observers had judged the elections as having been free and fair -- something they pointedly did not say -- during a meeting with Mugabe.

The ANC declares on its official website:

"While the process was clearly not perfect, the ANC believes that the people of Zimbabwe have spoken."

15    Several African presidents, including Kenya's Daniel arap Moi and Tanzania's Benjamin Mkapa, as well as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) have warmly congratulated Mugabe for Wednesday's victory. Other leaders to have deemed the election "legitimate" are South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki in addition to Nigeria and Namibia. Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade gave a rare note of African concern.

He said: "From what I know, these elections do not conform to the norms that I would expect for elections." But he added that "he would not be in a position now to know if they should be considered invalid."

Morgan Tsvangirai accused African countries of losing their "integrity" by supporting a result which he said was "daylight robbery."

"In my view what the African brothers are doing is to undermine their integrity and their credibility in the face of the world by endorsing Mugabe's election victory. He singled South Africa out for particular criticism and said he had hoped it would be an honest broker in helping resolve the political crisis. The crisis has not gone away, it has deepened. It is unfortunate that South Africa will get its credibility put into question.

Tsvangirai said: "We will not be party to any Caesarian operation by South Africa. We are not going to have short-cuts...and force issues on Zimbabweans."

Reflecting Western dismay at apparent African solidarity with Mugabe, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "I hope very much he is coming under the most intense pressure from the people who have the greatest ability to put him under pressure, namely his African neighbours."

A black security guard, known only as Darlington, is killed at a farm outside the town of Marondera. He was badly beaten at the farm where he worked by a group of war veterans and died on the way to hospital. His employer, white farmer John Rutherford, injured in the same incident, is in intensive care.

Both men were active members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

15-16    Violence breaks out in Zimbabwe's second city Bulawayo as pro-regime war veterans goes on the rampage attacking MDC supporters.

Many people are injured in the incident as police reportedly stood by refusing to intervene.

17   Mugabe is sworn in for another six year term. He has already misruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.

In a fiery speech at his inauguration Mugabe promises to accelerate his land "reforms".

19    Switzerland introduce travel restrictions and a freeze on financial assets against Mugabe and 19 other members of his regime to protest the widespread fraud and state-sponsored violence during the "elections". Weapons shipments to Zimbabwe are also forbidden.

20   A 55-year-old farmer, Terry Ford, was murdered before dawn as he tried to flee his farm near Norton, 27 miles west of Harare. His murder came after two years of harassment and threats from self-styled veterans. Mr Ford had spent an anguished night phoning neighbours and the police as Mugabe's militants surrounded his home. The police said they could not assist as their driver was asleep. Mr Ford was the 10th white farmer to be killed since the Zimbabwean leader launched his violent seizure of commercial farms two years ago.

MORGAN TSVANGIRAI , Zimbabwe's opposition leader, is charged with treason and thousands of police are deployed to disrupt a general strike

22   Ben Kirstein, a 64-year-old dairy farmer abandons his farm near Featherstone, about 80 miles south of Harare. "I can't take the strain any more, it has been going on for two years," he said. Terry Ford's murder was probably the last straw, and so we are going." Like Mr Ford and many others, he was told to stop farming crops two years ago and his cattle were allowed to graze in only one field, as the so-called "settlers" said the rest of the farm belonged to them. Mr Kirstein has produced more than 200 gallons of milk a day for the past 35 years. Many shops and hotels in Zimbabwe are now rationing milk as dairy farmers have, like the rest of the commercial farming sector, been disrupted. "I am going to Harare," he said. "I can't leave Zimbabwe, we are all born here, but we don't know what to do."

22    BISHOP Desmond Tutu speaks of his distress over South Africa's ambivalent stance towards the disputed presidential election in Zimbabwe. The former archbishop of Cape Town and winner of the Nobel peace prize, said that, after such a long fight for democracy in South Africa, it was simply unacceptable to stand by as democracy was crushed in Zimbabwe.

"I am deeply, deeply, deeply distressed and deeply disappointed that our country could be among those who say the election was legitimate or free," he said on television.

"Where democracy is not being upheld, we ought for our own sakes to say it is not."

April

The renewed terror campaign, which compares with the worst violence before the poll, coincided with the opening of negotiations between senior figures in the ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Working from a network of 120 base camps spread across Zimbabwe, Zanu-PF gangs have hunted down MDC supporters. In the three weeks since the election human rights groups have recorded 13 murders and hundreds of cases of torture, abduction, rape and assault. Most offences have been committed by the 30,000 members of the National Youth Service Force, a paramilitary outfit made up of unemployed teenagers. Anyone who worked as an MDC polling agent or campaigned for Morgan Tsvangirai, Mugabe's defeated opponent, has been singled out.

14   THE children of destitute opposition supporters in Zimbabwe are being refused food aid in the latest round of reprisals after Robert Mugabe's disputed election victory last month. Pro-regime thugs are driving children from feeding centres in drought-hit areas because their parents are suspected of supporting the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

19    The United Nations' top human rights forum throws out a European Union call for Zimbabwe to allow a UN probe into human rights violations committed in the country after African nations blocked a planned resolution.

The UN Human Rights Commission voted by 26 votes to 24 not to take action on a draft resolution presented by European Union countries, which had urged Harare to invite UN rights experts to visit the country. The draft had also expressed concern at "violations of human rights by the government of Zimbabwe".

Introducing the "no-action motion", Nigeria rejected the EU's move as "politically motivated", and said it had failed to take into account the root causes of Zimbabwe's human rights problems. "There can be no debate on human rights without first focusing on the issue of land," Nigeria's delegate told the commission.

"The resolution presented by the EU today, which is set totally out of context is counterproductive and produces a serious danger of subverting progress being made in several African initiatives," he added.

"It's scandalous that there was no action. On top of that it was not a strong resolution," Loubna Freih of Human Rights Watch said

29    Mbeki and Obasanjo fruitlessly meet Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai separately to try and convince the latter to sell out his supporters and join a so-called "government of national unity" under the Zimbabwean dictator.

30    Zimbabwe is suspended for a year from the councils of the Commonwealth for the "high level of politically motivated violence" that marred the presidential elections. The decision by Howard (Australia), Mbeki (South Africa) and Obasanjo (Nigeria) falls short of expulsion. The African leaders wanted to "give Mugabe more time", but Howard insisted they stick to their brief from the Commonwealth which forced them to act on the damning report by its own observers.

The Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe declares a "state of disaster" in Zimbabwe, with hundreds of thousands of people facing severe food shortages and some aid agencies predicting people would starve to death.

May

10    Addressing the Diakonia Council of Churches in Durban, South African Defence minister Terror Lakota admits that 'silent' diplomacy failed.

We failed. The government of Zimbabwe would not listen to us. We asked them to do something to stop the looting of farms and not to follow the route of lawlessness, but we failed.

Mugabe's presence in New York has shocked and angered opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. In a statement he said:

"We are left wondering what message Mugabe can possibly have for the children world-wide when his illegitimate government in Zimbabwe is a living example of how not to treat children.

"The party he leads has set up militia bases countrywide where people with a different opinion to ZANU-PF are abducted and tortured. Most of the people in these camps are youngsters below the age of 20 who are being trained to brutalise their fellow Zimbabweans."

24   Almost 300,000 acres of prime land seized from white farmers in Zimbabwe has been handed out to dictator Mugabe's closest allies, including 10 cabinet ministers, seven MPs and his brother-in-law. Land has also gone to key officials who supervised the widely condemned presidential polls in March, when Mugabe "won" re-election after a violent campaign. Zimbabwe's army commander, its police chief and the civil servants placed in charge of the land seizures have rewarded themselves with farms.

26    The supplementary feeding programme for 30 000 children, run by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe (CCJPZ) in famine-stricken Binga in remote northern Zimbabwe, is closed when war veterans accused the organisation of supporting the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In parliamentary elections in 2000, voters in Binga voted overwhelmingly for the MDC.

26   A quarter of Zimbabwe's 12 million people are starving. Zimbabwe had been an exporter of maize and wheat before Mugabe's mobs embarked upon their campaign of violent farm seizures just as the worst drought in half a century began.

June

2   Charles Anderson is the 12th farmer to die since government-backed seizures of white-owned land began. He was shot dead by intruders outside his home.

According to the official Herald newspaper, his 740-acre tobacco farm has been "awarded" to Ngoni Masoka, permanent secretary in the department of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement.

7   ZIMBABWE has been overtaken by several African states in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) and its economy will soon be only half the size of those of Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Kenya, the Economist Intelligence Unit reports. It says total GDP - predicted at US$5,4 billion in 2003 - is now smaller than previously less prosperous economies such as Ghana (US$6,2 billion), Tanzania (US$9,2 billion), and Uganda (US$6 billion). Zimbabwe's GDP in 2001 was estimated at US$9,3 billion. (The EIU says its figures were arrived at by using the official conversion rate. If the parallel market rate had been used for its 2003 forecast the contraction would be even more dramatic.)

9   Mugabe evades EU travel ban to attend food summit in Rome

14   

21   

• 95% of land held by CFU members has been listed for acquisition.
• 51% of the above have received a section 8 order; of these, 1024 are single-owned farms.
• 873 farms are subject to section 7 orders, but reports from lawyers indicate that 1500 applications for confirmation have been filed in the Administrative Court. The gap in the two figures is because there are long delays in serving section 7 affidavits to land owners.
• 302 cases have been heard by the Administrative Court.
• 72 title deeds have received at least partial compensation.
• 27% of all operating farms have been shut down, but operations on the remainder are either wholly or partially in place. Mashonaland Central is the most affected (39%) and Manicaland the least (12%).
• At least 653 farm owners/manager families and 15 200 farm worker families have been evicted since February 2000 with no possibility of return.
• Moveable assets valued at Z$7.9 billion have been seized, impounded or looted from 632 farms.
• Nearly 390 000 head of cattle have been destocked.
• Tourism losses in the agricultural sector run to over Z$6.3 billion. This is a conservative figure.
• It is estimated that there are nearly 25 000 ha of winter cereals in the ground now (CFU members, which excludes ARDA).
• Commercial cropping intentions for 2002/3 are 29 000 ha of flue-cured tobacco and 41 000 ha of maize.

Source: Commercial Farmers' Union

21   The regime rejects applications from farmers for an extension of the farming deadline to allow them to finish grading their tobacco, which used to provide 30 per cent of Zimbabwe's foreign currency.

22   At Raffingore, 80 miles north-west of Harare, Jean Simon, 42, a tobacco and poultry farmer, is still desperately hoping that she can cling on. She was kidnapped and forced to run through the bush for 10 miles by thugs loyal to Mugabe in May 2000, beaten up two years later, imprisoned for a night two months ago. "I hope the hens remember to stop laying on Monday," she said. "I am supposed to shut down but I have only graded 20 per cent of my tobacco.

"My family has been in Africa for 200 years. I am a Zimbabwean. I don't want to be told to go to Britain."

"I will never build anything in Africa.

When this madness ends we will carry on farming, but nothing will be the same. My folks were forced to leave a month ago. The war vets moved into my house. My parents' home is still intact, but they can't live there. My mother has sent the horses away. My father is really stressed. We have been through it for more than two years, the abuse, the destruction, the theft of what we have built up. We are so tired.

We tried to do a deal with the war vets. We planted about 150 acres of wheat for them because they don't know how to farm. We were supposed to share the profits, but they forced us off. They are using our equipment, our dam, our irrigation system, our pumps and our workers - who we pay. We recently wrote out a huge cheque for two senior war vets now living in our houses. Each farmer does what he thinks will help him survive. They have been milking our dairy cows and now they are dry, and they still pull away at their udders.

The farm is a wasteland."

23   At midnight the lights effectively went out for nearly 3,000 white farmers as the final notices of acquisition which gave them 45 days to wind up their operations come into effect under terms of a land-acquisition law passed in May. Farmers affected are ordered to stop working their land. Some 60 per cent of Zimbabwe's remaining white farmers have to close down or be arrested and face up to two years in jail.

Even before this, half of Zimbabwe's white farmers have had their operations disrupted or closed down by dictator Robert Mugabe's shock troops, since the so-called veterans of the war of independence launched violent invasions of white-owned farms 28 months ago. On top of that, over 400 more have been forced off the land since Mugabe's disputed election victory in March, and regional representatives of the Commercial Farmers' Union report that hundreds more are packing up to leave. And now, in the latest blow to the dwindling members of one of the most successful food-producing communities in Africa, the authorities are forcing through the consequences of the law, which was drummed through parliament 45 days ago.

The passing of the deadline could not come at a worse time, as the agricultural economy has all but wound down, forcing hundreds and thousands of farm workers out of jobs, and fuelling closures of nearly 1,000 companies. Nearly half the population is on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and most farmers are not allowed to grow food. Although Zimbabwe has no hard currency to import food, farmers are tomorrow forced to stop grading tobacco.

July

The World Food Programme launch an appeal for US $507 million amid warnings that 12.8 million people face food shortages in Southern Africa. Up to six million of these people are in Zimbabwe - half of the country's population. As food stocks start running low, the organisation and NGOs are warning that there will be breaks in the food pipeline if donations don't come in urgently. Poul Nielson, the EC Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, said: "Direct food aid is urgently needed on top of our well-established longer-term action to improve food security and prevent widespread starvation 18 250 mt of food (worth US $10.2 million) from the Regional Emergency Operation (EMOP) of the World Food Programme (WFP). start to reach the population.

3   Mugabe has orders the powerful Central Intelligence Organisation to compile a list of possible gay ministers and officials. Mugabe is well-known for his hatred of gays and lesbians and has described them as being worse than "pigs and dogs". Sources said Mugabe was finding it difficult to reconcile his homophobia with the reports of gay activities of people within his administration.

One of Mugabe's key propagandists during the March presidential elections and the former chief executive officer of the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation, Alum Mpofu, resigned from his post after allegations of homosexuality were levelled against him. Allegations have also been made that he had a homosexual affair with the dictator's controversial chief spokesperson, the so-called "Information Minister" Jonathan Moyo.

20   Nigel and Clare Hough are now the only white farmers left in Marondera, once the richest tobacco growing area in Zimbabwe. Their 23 neighbours have all left. Next month, the Houghs will be breaking the law if they remain on their farm.

"People are stealing the cows, one every week now," explained Mr Hough. "We find the skeletons in the morning, all the meat pulled off. It's what happens when there is no rule of law." The cows are however not all that is disappearing. The pumps have gone and last week the electrical cable was stolen, plunging the farm into darkness.

The inclusion of the Hough farm is a vivid illustration of the lunacy of Robert Mugabe's land reform programme. The couple bought the farm in 1996 with money made raising ostriches in China and Indonesia and built it up from nothing. Within months they had given half of it to a local black mechanic, a Mr Chirashi. He had repaired their tractor and had nowhere to keep his dairy cattle. Mrs Chirashi, said:

"Nigel has treated us like a brother. He charges us only Z$1 [about 1p] per beast per month for land and nothing when we have no money. He arranged us a loan to buy a truck. Whoever takes over will evict us."

Mr Hough, 39, was born in Marondera and comes from a farming background. Of the 36 farming families he is related to, only three are staying. Marondera has experienced some of the worst violence in the country. David Stephens, the first of 12 white farmers to be murdered, was shot in the head in April 2000 at his tobacco farm just down the road.

Although the family will remain on the farm after the deadline, Mr Hough has resigned himself to leaving, probably by the end of the year.

"Even if I go to court and win the farm, we'll never be secure," he said. "The moment some big guy takes a fancy to the place we'll be thrown off.

I did everything possible to be a model farmer. I pass on all the government's criteria for what they say they want. Ours is a small farm with only 30 hectares [74 acres] of arable land. It's the only farm I own. We train people in skills and what we produce goes for export. I've done all I could for the local community. On every single thing I pass except for one thing - I'm white."

20   A letter from Mugabe's office demanding £400,000 from the funds of the National Aids Council to host Miss Malaika (a pan-African beauty pageant) is leaked

21   The weekly independent Standard newspaper quote the deputy foreign minister, Abednico Ncube, telling hungry villagers in south-west Zimbabwe:

"You cannot vote for the MDC and expect Zanu-PF to help you."

22    The European Union extends "targeted sanctions" against Mugabe's regime by adding 20 more names to a list of people who are banned from visiting EU states and whose European-based assets have been frozen.

Mugabe himself tops the list of those under a foreign travel ban imposed on top Zimbabwean officials in February, mainly because of serious pre-electoral violence. However, the travel ban has not prevented Mugabe from attending UN-organised functions.

23   Opening the parliament, the Zimbabwean dictator Mugabe said some quarters were seeking to tarnish the regime's image by "falsely claiming the government is using food as a political weapon by distributing it only to supporters of the ruling party".

Mugabe also tells parliament that his regime would not devalue the Zimbabwe dollar despite growing pressure to do so to help an economy in its worst crisis in decades. The Zimbabwe dollar, which Makoni has said should be devalued, is officially pegged at 55 to the US dollar, but is trading at around 600 on the black market. "Devaluation is sinister and can only be advocated by our saboteurs and enemies of this government. Devaluation is thus dead," Mugabe said to applause from the regime benches while Makoni sat stony-faced. Mugabe said economic recovery would depend on his controversial land redistribution programme.

One of Zimbabwe's most distinguished novelists and poets, Chenjerai Hove, flees to Paris after being harassed by the authorities.

"You live for 24 hours in fear," said the award-winning author. "The threats were becoming unbearable. People were phoning my house saying I would disappear."

25    Zimbabwe has hiked import duty for "luxury goods" by 500%, effectively devaluing its dollar for calculation of the tax. The move is part of a supplementary budget announced to parliament by Finance Minister Simba Makoni to raise an extra Z$53bn ($958.4m) to finance farming inputs, food relief and wage increases, the newspaper said.

The Zimbabwe economy is in its fourth year of recession, with record high inflation and unemployment and a severe food shortage. Aid agencies say six million Zimbabweans - nearly half the population - need emergency food aid. Parliament approves the exchange rate for calculating the luxury goods tax to be adjusted to Z$300/US$1 from Z$55/US$1.

According to Makoni the regime had been forced to revise its budget up by Z$52.9 billion because of severe food shortages caused by drought and the need to support new farmers being settled on land seized from white commercial farmers.

Zimbabwe's main opposition leader is to be charged with undermining the country's "president" under newly passed security laws, according to police. Wayne Bvudzijena told state radio the charges against Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC, were based on allegations that he told a party rally in May that Mugabe would have to quit office. The new security laws make it an offence to undermine the "office of the president" and offenders face a maximum 20-year sentence.

August

"Many farmers don't want to sack workers, but they are forced to. They have to pay terminal benefits, determined by the government, and some have not grown crops for two years and have no money.

We try to mediate. Workers know they'll have no jobs next week, and they want as much as they can get now. It's extortion. There is no law and order."

3-5   Mugabe, barred from visiting Europe or the United States visit Malaysia along with his wife and a 36-member delegation. He and his wife Grace is infamous for their penchant for expensive shopping trips while millions of his people need food aid.

6   Granting Zimbabwe 35 million euros in extra emergency food aid the European Commission warns Harare that it must ensure that the food reaches those in need. The EC allocation would fund the purchase of around 90 000 mt of maize (worth US$31.3 million).

7   According to the United Nations Programme on Aids (UNAIDS), Zimbabwe has 780,000 children of 14 or under whose parents have died of HIV and the numbers are rising faster than in any country in the world. The UN estimates that 240,000 of these orphans are infected with HIV. Thirty-eight per cent of the population is already infected, the second highest rate after Botswana. The lack of food and foreign exchange to buy drugs caused by Mugabe's policies which have crippled farm production, sent unemployment to 70 per cent and caused the country to run out of the staple maize, means that they are dying far faster than they should be. With many communities already surviving on wild berries and baked elephant dung, aid agencies predict that 300,000 to 400,000 children will die in the coming months.

According to an official from Safaids, the Southern Africa AIDS Information Dissemination service, life expectancy in Zimbabwe plummeted from 61 to 38 in the last decade

The suburb of Naeta a stronghold of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change is denied food aid by Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF. When Litishe Keswe, the local councillor, went to the state-run Grain Marketing Board for the 50 bags of grain supposed to be available to each councillor for needy families, he found his name struck off the list, replaced by the name of the ZANU-PF man he defeated.

There is little prospect of treatment. The National Blood Transfusion Service has had to suspend collection on several occasions recently because it has no money to import blood bags. Last month, Harare Central hospital began handing out cigarettes because it ran out of money for drugs.

Hundreds of doctors and nurses are leaving the country as part of the escalating brain drain to escape the spiralling violence and poverty, many moving to Britain, prompting Mugabe to last week accuse the British government of "coming at the dead of night to steal our people".

8   Political violence is again intensifying ahead of Zimbabwe's September local elections, human rights groups are reporting. There are "deep concerns" that the "pattern of using violence against the political opposition and abusing the neutrality of the police by government and state-sponsored 'militia' will be repeated."

9   Fear gripped white farmers in Zimbabwe last night as a deadline approached for the mass eviction of 2,900 of them. The enforcement of the eviction is expected to be another sad milestone in the history of whites in Africa after the expulsion of Belgians from the Congo in the 1960s and the pell-mell withdrawal of the Portuguese from Angola in the 1970s.

Switzerland extends sanctions against Zimbabwe by introducing travel restrictions and a freeze on financial assets against over 50 people. The new measures concerns members of Zanu-PF, the Swiss State Secretariat for the Economy said.

11    A group of about six officials of the local "land identification committee" accompanied by a senior policeman and seven armed soldiers visits five farms at the Middle Sabi irrigation scheme in the remote south-east of the country and questions the farmers on why they were still on the farms as they had been issued with section eight eviction orders (under the controversial Land Acquisition Act)

"They said we must get off the farm. They gave us until 08:00 on Monday. They said if we were still there the next day they would arrest us. "They were not listening to any reasons. They were aggressive and threatening," a farmer said.

If they don't abandon their farms, they face a maximum penalty of two years in jail and a fine of Z$20 000 (about R2 150).

12   The move by the Mugabe regime in June to order nearly 3,000 commercial farmers to stop planting and vacate their farms by 9 August was "a complete abdication of their responsibility to feed the population during an acute food crisis that is rapidly evolving into a famine affecting all parts of the country," the MDC statement says.

Mugabe said he would stick to an August deadline for giving white lands to blacks "We shall keep a watchful eye on what is happening on the farms," he said, warning whites not to seek "another war." He also repeated his "one farmer, one farm" policy, whereby farmers with only one farm will not be evicted.

Mugabe also appeals for international aid to combat drought and starvation in his country.

13    New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark calls for Zimbabwe to be expelled from the Commonwealth and threatened tougher sanctions against Mugabe's regime. Clark, an outspoken critic of Mugabe, said she was "very, very shocked" by Mugabe's comments and angry that the international community was being asked to help out an "outrageous" government.

Zimbabwe "should have been suspended (from the Commonwealth) some time ago and I would be very happy to see them suspended now," she added.

A Zimbabwean cabinet minister accuse the white farmers of bringing in impostors to evict them from their farms, in order to attract attention and paint a bleak picture of the situation in the country.

"We are fully aware of the gimmick that is going on and these impostors are being made to pose as if they were war veterans," Lands and Agriculture Minister Joseph Made said.

South Africa acknowledges that it doesn't have a clue what to do about the rapidly deteriorating political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe. "What is it that we are expected to do?" Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad asked journalists as they repeatedly pressed him on what South Africa was doing about the crisis across its border.

"In all our consultations with the international community and our colleagues on the continent, the question always comes up - 'What can be done more than what is being done now?' "

Pahad admitted the only idea Pretoria could come up with was to continue to join its Commonwealth partner Nigeria in pressing for a resumption of the stalled talks between Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

15    Nelson Chamisa, the national youth chairperson of the MDC has been arrested on accusations of trying to unseat Mugabe's regime according to police.

"He is alleged to have been holding private meetings where subversive material was discussed," said police spokesperson Andrew Phiri. "We are questioning him with a view to charging him under POSA"

16    A Zimbabwean court ruling invalidates hundreds of eviction orders. But like so many other court rulings, this one is completely ignored by Mugabe's regime. Top Cabinet ministers continue to demand farmers immediately leave their land.

Since political violence mainly blamed on government supporters began in 2000, Zimbabwe's once respected judiciary has been utterly marginalized. The regime has ignored a raft of rulings it dislikes and pressured judges it considers critical of its policies to resign. Most other judges have stopped ruling against the regime, local legal observers said.

"The independence of the judiciary is gone," said Lovemore Madhuku, head of the National Constitutional Assembly, which is fighting for constitutional reform in Zimbabwe. "I think some judges genuinely fear for their lives."

"Any judge who has been brave enough to take positions against government institutions has been harassed and intimidated into resigning," said Ashwin Trikamjee, a member of the International Bar Association's human rights institute. Now, on the rare occasions when the courts rule against the regime, it is usually in cases too obvious to have been decided any other way, many local lawyers said.

The regime has ignored those rulings anyway.

17    Up to 100 white farmers, including an elderly woman, are arrested in Zimbabwe for defying a government eviction order as Mugabe's controversial land reform programme threatened to reach a violent climax as half the country's population of 12 million was on the verge of starvation.

Hundreds of police and war veterans stormed white-owned farms around the country and arrested those accused of defying government orders to quit their land. One farmer, who had moved off his land, was beaten unconscious and sustained a broken leg after pro-Mugabe activists tortured a member of his staff into revealing his employer's new address. He is also in custody.

According to Mugabe: "There are those who believe that the land reform programme can be reversed . . . this is not reversible. This is not [Tony] Blair's land, this is Mugabe's land"

17    John Matthews, 78, of Iron Mask farm is arrested and then released after being told he had 48 hours to pack up and get out.

He and his elderly wife Eva were loading their possessions on to the back of a truck when Mugabe's 38-year-old wife arrived.

"First Lady Grace Mugabe marched on to my land surrounded by a small army of police, government and ruling party officials and thugs, and announced: 'I am taking over the farm.'"

When a black worker asked: "What is going to happen to us?" she told him: "You can go and live by the river over there."

The farm was created and developed by Mrs Matthews and her first husband from 1967.

20    Ex-Zanu-PF cabinet minister, Godfrey Chidyausiku, who became Zimbabwe's Chief Justice when his predecessor was forced from office blamed the chaos and unrest in Zimbabwe on the white farming community.

"Because the commercial farmers resisted the move, the situation exploded," he said, "We are doing our best, we haven't succeeded as much as we could, but we'll keep trying."

Police said 207 white farmers have been arrested since Thursday in a crackdown on people who defied government orders to leave their homes and clear the way for black settlers. Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa told state media that settlers should move onto the farms, even though court cases for the arrested white farmers and other cases challenging the land reforms may not be completed for months.

At least 59 people have been killed in political violence since the start of the year, while thousands more have suffered torture, rape and intimidation, according to rights groups.

22   John Matthews, 78, leaves his Iron Mask farm near Harare. The farm is being stolen by the Zimbabwean dictator's own wife.

Mugabe has said nearly 3 000 white-owned farms are being seized so the land can be returned to impoverished blacks - but many are being handed to Mugabe's cronies and party insiders. Apart from his wife, Mugabe's sisters, his brother-in-law and wife's nephew have already been handed properties.

One official of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party has seven farms, the head of the Central Intelligence Organisation was given the farm of a white opposition MP, and former vice-president Simon Muzenda has two farms.

About 200 white farmers have already been arrested and many charged for resisting the unlawful and illegitimate evictions.

With six million people facing starvation because of drought and Mugabe's policies, there is no evidence that any of the land taken from whites is being farmed. A farm group, Justice for Agriculture, said that in many cases seized farms are reverting to bush.

23    Didymus Mutasa, the organisation secretary of Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF Party said:

"We would be better off with only six million people (out of a total 12 million), with our own people who support the liberation struggle."

25    Reports surface of hundreds of women and girls being raped in rural Zimbabwe by Mugabe's youth brigades. Girls as young as 12 are being raped, tortured and forcibly kept as concubines in camps in what human rights lawyers have branded "systematic political cleansing" of the population.

A former militia member interviewed by the Sunday Telegraph claimed he and others received orders to attack the wives and daughters of opposition sympathisers, the report said. Human rights activists say the use of rape is part of a drive to terrify all opposition into submission.

"They are raping on a mass scale," Frances Lovemore, member of the Harare-based Amani Trust which monitors torture, told the paper.

Lovemore claimed girls were being systematically taken and used and abused because of their families' political views.

"We're seeing an enormous prevalence of rape and enough cases to say it's being used by the state as a political tool," said Tony Reeler, a director of the Amani Trust.

Victims living in hiding told the London Daily Telegraph how they had been gang-raped by police and war veterans and had their genitals burnt with iron rods.

They said the abuse was punishment for their parents not supporting Mugabe in the March presidential poll which returned him to power amid widespread allegations of fraud and voter intimidation.

The report told of one 12-year old girl, in the Vumba mountains in eastern Zimbabwe, who was gang-raped by war veterans and policemen while her mother and younger sisters were forced to chant Mugabe's praises and watch the ordeal. She was raped because her father supports the country's main opposition group, the Movement for Democratic Change.

Other victims were severely beaten, and some claimed brigade members urinated on their food supplies - a ter