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Source: Large scale mining companies culpable in the Battlefield disaster | The Herald 25 FEB, 2019

Columbus Mabika Herald Reporter
Large scale gold mining companies should be held accountable for the Battlefields mine disaster that left over 24 artisanal miners dead because they failed to obtain certificates of abandonment as required by the Minerals and Mines Act after they abandoned their unutilised claims.

Presenting a report titled “Gold Capitalism and Disaster Preparedness in Zimbabwe, A Preliminary Critical on the Battlefields Mines Disaster” in Harare on Friday, People and Earth Solidarity Law Network (PESLawyers) lawyer Mr Lenin Chisaira said the Battlefield accident exposes many hidden malpractices in the mining sector and in environmental integrity as many large scale miners are exploiting the nature of property rights in the gold mining sector.

PESLawyers is a non-profit making organisation of legal and policy researchers, lawyers and activists standing up for environmental, climate and economic justice in Zimbabwe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

“The role of large scale gold miners should be investigated for they are the ones who continue to retain these gold claims where many people have been killed,” he said.

“For instance RioZim owns over 200 claims in Mashonaland West which they cannot mine, at the end when they abandon these claims without applying for certificates of abandonment as required by the Mines and Minerals Act, artisanal miners and small scale minors take unauthorised entry,” he said.

Mr Chisaira called on the Government to provide adequate legal and environmental support systems to deal with the disasters and exploitation of artisanal miners and small scale miners by large scale mining entities. He called on Government to look into the nature of property rights in the gold mining sector and ensure that disaster response systems are evaluated and adequately funded.

The report, Mr Chasaira said, has been forwarded to Government and relevant institutions and stakeholders in the gold mining sector, calling for an inclusive, free and open inquiry into the Battlefields disaster.  He applauded the contribution of artisanal miners and small scale miners to the national gold output.

“Artisanal miners and small scale miners’ contribution to the national gold out should not be taken for granted, statistics show that three quarters of gold delivered to Fidelity is coming from them,”

Mr Chasaira said PESLawyers will continue to work with relevant authorities in making recommendations aimed at improving the welfare of artisanal miners and small scale miners.

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Source: Open letter to Ramaphosa | Daily News

HARARE – Greetings from Zimbabwe, Your Excellency.  I hope I find you in the best of health. Incidentally, this letter is all about health.

I, like so many others am grateful for the huge role that Zanu PF and Zapu played in the liberation of our country through Zanla and Zipra respectively, a liberation that also quickly facilitated the liberation of South Africa through the ANC’s Umkonto we Sizwe and Namibia’s freedom through Swapo’s armed wing, PLAN.

Our liberation movements will forever be one solid, united front against all forms of external aggression. Aluta continua.

Your Excellency, today I bring to you a special request on behalf of our leaders, the same leaders who liberated us almost 40 years ago.

As you are aware, our country has been going through a serious economic crisis caused by unjustified sanctions against our sovereign nation of Zimbabwe.

I am so happy that you at least are doing your best to have these sanctions removed as soon as possible. And when you pay your first official visit to our beloved country, we shall receive you with open arms.

My humble request is related to the recent incident where some misguided Zimbabweans, domiciled in South Africa, saw it fit to abuse your hospitality by making monkey noises outside Cape Town’s Groot Schuur Hospital ostensibly to force the hospital authorities to remove our ill vice president, Constantino Guveya Chiwenga, whom they thought was receiving attention there. But he was not.

Our leaders deserve the best care possible out there because of the demanding nature of their jobs.

We certainly cannot risk their lives with mediocre medical attention.

That is why they now fly out of the country to get specialist treatment, whatever it takes.

Our parlous hospitals are in such a sorry state that some medical staff have resorted to using condoms as gloves.

Medical staff is always on strike for better wages.

All the major hospitals are so under-equipped, patients are sometimes referred elsewhere.

Even the food leaves a lot to be desired.

Drugs are either in short supply or are expired.

Mortuaries are overcrowded as relatives cannot afford to claim bodies of loved ones.

As I write, those patients who don’t want to pay their medical bills after being discharged are detained in the hospitals by the hospital authorities.

They want to leave without even paying a cent, imagine!

Are these the medical facilities that our leaders should be treated in?

A resounding NO! What would the world think of us, a sovereign nation?

I beseech you, Your Excellency, to consider the following request.

Please build a hospital that will exclusively give the best medic treatment available to our leaders.

Instead of chartering expensive jets to be flown to places like India, they could be flown in these jets straight to this hospital.

If a new hospital cannot be built, at least consider setting aside one hospital with modern facilities exclusively for the benefit of our leaders, their immediate family members, and other close relatives.

This can be a government-to-government thing.

The patients currently being treated in that hospital can then be treated elsewhere.

If the need arises, the hospital can also accommodate other African leaders when they fall sick.

This is what African solidarity is all about. Pan Africanism, nay, Ubuntu, at its best.

Let’s shame our detractors once and for all! I pray that you will consider my humble request.

I remain yours sincerely in solidarity

A very humble and patriotic Zimbabwean.

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Source: Biti blasts false poll results conviction | Daily News

Former Finance minister and senior opposition politician Tendai Biti has said his conviction on charges of unlawfully and falsely announcing the results of last year’s presidential election was a flagrant abuse of the court process.

Biti, vice chairperson of the main opposition MDC, was fined $200 after being hauled before the courts last year on charges of announcing that MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa had won the presidential election. Biti, who fled the post-election military/police crackdown in Zimbabwe, was later deported by Zambian authorities after a failed asylum bid. He has vowed to continue “fighting tyranny and illegitimacy” in the country despite his conviction.

The Harare East member of Parliament was convicted by Harare magistrate Gloria Takundwa who fined him $200, or alternatively spend seven days in prison for the offence.
He paid the fine.

His lawyer Alec Muchadehama said they will be appealing on the grounds that the trial was full of contradictions in the manner in which it was handled.

Following his conviction, the Harare East legislator and lawyer said he was unfazed by the conviction, which could be ominous for him.
It remains to be seen if the Law Society of Zimbabwe will renew his practicing certificate after the conviction.

“I am innocent, absolutely innocent but the problem is the person leading the country is a very unstable predatory person in the name of Emmerson Mnangagwa. I am just a symptom of the bigger challenges affecting the country led by a very unstable person,” Biti said.
“Throughout history, autocrats have always abused the law to further the cause of power retention and aggrandisement,” Biti said.
“The conviction will not deter us. It will not break us. No bullet, bomb or prison will stop our resolve to end tyranny, illegitimacy and fascism in Zimbabwe.

“I think that it will be so critical for the leadership of our party, advocate Nelson Chamisa and for everyone else in the leadership, that we provide the necessary leadership to guard and protect our people …,” Biti said.

Chamisa also said Biti was one of the pillars of his movement who was “being targeted for telling the truth and was aware of targeting of lawyers, doctors for human rights and even with (Robert) Mugabe at his worst we never saw such attack on human rights.”

“This is why we have said there is a political problem where politics is contaminating the justice delivery system.
“We are continuing to challenge that and we are not shaken as a movement and are so committed to ensure that Zimbabwe is a democratic society.
“We are reasonably confident that Sadc will come to support the people of Zimbabwe.
“We are also going to knock at the doors of the United Nations and the international communities at large to make sure those issues are resolved,” he said.Biti blasts false poll results conviction.

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Source: VP Chiwenga returns | Daily News

VICE President Constantino Chiwenga is back from India where he was receiving treatment for an abdominal ailment, a government official has confirmed.

Chiwenga travelled to India with his wife Marry and Health deputy minister John Mangwiro about two weeks ago.
Speaking to the Daily News yesterday, Mangwiro said they had a safe journey back to the country, adding that Chiwenga had recovered. “He is well and everything is okay,” Mangwiro said, without giving further details.

According to reports from India, Chiwenga’s trip back home was delayed on Friday after the plane, a Boeing 737 with registration mark A6-RJX, developed a problem soon after taking off, forcing it to return to the terminal.

The plane, which is believed to cost $500 000 to charter from India to Zimbabwe, is said to be kitted with medical equipment inside.
Citizens have often castigated government officials for routinely seeking medical help abroad, shunning the local public health system, which has collapsed with hospitals struggling to provide medicines to patients.

Chiwenga was last seen in public on February 5, 2019, when he appeared on national television while attending President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Cabinet meeting. On the same day, he dismissed reports that he had been airlifted to neighbouring South Africa for treatment, castigating the social media for wishing him ill.

“There are determined to hear that I am sick, they want me dead, but that cannot be, I am very fine and well, I am actually doing my job as a politician,” he was quoted saying. Chiwenga is one among a list of Zimbabweans who have been trooping to India for private health care.

India has become popular because of its advanced healthcare system, drawing foreigners from Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, for complex paediatric cardiac surgery or liver transplants — procedures that are not done in their home countries.
They also come from the United Kingdom, Europe, and North America for quick, efficient, and cheap coronary bypasses or orthopaedic procedures.

India ranks among the top 20 of the world’s countries in its private spending, at 4,2 percent of Gross Domestic Product.
In October last year, deputy chief secretary to the President and Cabinet George Charamba disclosed that Chiwenga was on special diet because of the delicacy of his intestines which had been affected by acids.

“Apparently, you have to give it time to allow internal body tissues to heal both large and small intestines were attacked. But he must also remain calm and rested to ensure that there is no relapse into excessive secretion of acids in the body. He is on a special diet because of the delicacy in his stomach,” Charamba was quoted as saying.

Since leading the coup that toppled former president Robert Mugabe in November 2018, Chiwenga has become a larger-than-life character in the country’s politics.
Despite his domineering political profile which is loved and hated in equal measure, his health has been a source of bother.
The former Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander early last year traced his health woes to the days when he orchestrated Mugabe’s fall.

He claimed that he was suffering from “nhuta,” something he claimed caused his skin to lighten and triggered speculation that he was bleaching his skin.
“It was during that time that I fell ill. I had this skin sickness (nhuta) that affected my whole body from beneath my feet to my back and the journalists started saying I was using skin lightening creams, but that was not the case.
“I was sick. I have decided to talk about it because that is what you see, but you should know that everything that happens comes with a price. We then sent everything to South Africa to find out what was causing the sickness, but they failed to treat it.

“It was then that my (late) sister Margaret approached Sister Redemptor (Roman Catholic nun) and was given herbs that I began taking until I was healed. But before I took the medication they also prayed for me,” Chiwenga said at the burial of his sister Margaret.
The 61-year-old ex-soldier has appeared in public with swollen hands and in some instances with a cannula on his hand, and has also shown signs of irritation in public.

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South African company, Kings and Queens Funeral Services, says it will will take legal action over the ‘damage to its reputation’ after a South African pastor Alph Lukau used its hearse while performing a stunt in which he claimed to have resurrected a dead person. “We would like to distance ourselves from the supposed resurrection […]