Bujumbura (Burundi) – Journalists are targeted, poor peasants whipped into frenzies of protests, and the roughly 400 gay people living in Burundi find themselves Target No. 1 in their own land.

For the past month or so, this tiny country long forgotten by most of the world has been in the spotlight for the one thing people may have never suspected � a mirage-legislature rising up against both the president and the allies � the missionary churches dotted throughout the country.

There are few things as unpopular in Africa as homosexuality. It is seen as a particularly virulent and sinister strain of the West’s unwelcome foray around here. To be gay is to be evil, criminal, and un-African. You can lose your family, livelihood, and sometimes your life.

There just happens to be no law against it in Burundi. It hadn’t made much of a difference until one was proposed by the president and defeated by his senate. It was a blow to the president, and a temporary confidence-booster for people who live in secrecy and fear.

An article in an amendment to the national penal code that would have made homosexual acts punishable by up to two years in prison was pulled out by the Senate on February 24. It was a shock to the system in Burundi, where legislatures more often than not are rubber stamps of the head of state. President Pierre Nkurunziza took it as a slap in the face.

The president’s power is weakening, said Pancrace Cimpaye, chairman of the opposition party and member of senate. We must take advantage.

Burundians are deeply religious. The church and the Word of God are transcendent. That includes President Nkurunziza, who attends the local Church on the Rock in Bujumbura. Though founded in Texas, much of the Church on the Rock operates abroad, in places like Burundi, Third World states where fates and livelihood still hinge on the mercies of nature. From Rwanda to Brazil to the Philippines, these modern-day missionaries have found converts and a powerful voice.

So, in the past weeks, the government, together with this and other churches, has gone on an all-out campaign to reverse the Senate’s decision.
Just the other day, roughly 15,000 people marched in protests led by factions of the government against the senate’s decision.

If we love our country, if we love our culture, we must ban this practice that will draw only misfortune, said the chairman of Burundi’s ruling party, Jeremie Ngendakumana. The protests were organised using radio advertisements and cellphone text messaging.

This was a huge manipulation of the people, said Mr Cimpaye. “It was demagogic.

The albinos wanted a protest last week because they are being killed. They wanted to have a demonstration, but the government refused, saying it would take away from the working day, said an anonymous NGO worker in Bujumbura. But when 15,000 march against gays on a working day, it’s okay.

Being albino may be one of the unluckiest things in this part of the world, where people are hunted for their skins, sought for magical protection by bush-doctors. To be one of Burundi’s approximately 400 gays isn’t much better.

We have so many children who have been rejected by their family because of being gay or lesbian, and many of them are forced to work as sex slaves to make money, says George Kanuma, co-ordinator for ARDHO, Burundi’s only gay advocacy group. This law would make it all the worse for them.

But a fighting spirit remains. Use my name, says Kanuma. To see it in the newspapers is protection for us. That’s exactly where those names have been. Since the protests, homosexuality has been on the tip of tongues of the country.

Parliament, which received the amended legislation from the senate, swiftly put the article criminalising homosexuality back into place.

Churches and non-governmental organisation have held press conferences, radio shows, and television programmes on the issue.

It is political propaganda ahead of the 2010 elections, says Christian Rumu, vice-president of Burundi’s gay association.

In the National Assembly, a heated debated rages on, with opposition leaders calling for a national referendum on the issue. According to the constitution, if the two sides cannot come to agreement, it will be parliament that makes the decision. Few here believe the president will allow the law to pass without criminalising homosexuality.

As the story makes larger waves around both the region and world, the government’s forces are clamping down on journalists. Although one newspaper editor was released recently, two more journalists were arrested.

We are in danger, and must work in secret, says a stringer in Burundi for the international press. The government does not want reporting on the homosexuality. We are supposed to write only good things.

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Source.The East African (Kenya)

Harare (Zimbabwe) – Zimbabwe’s economy has always been agriculturally based, and land tenure is central to resuscitating the economy. The widespread farm invasions have destroyed food production and the displacement of tens of thousands of farm workers has created a mass humanitarian crisis. The population of commercial farmers has dwindled from 4 500 to 100, in just the last 10 years.

Those at the forefront of the latest wave of farm invasions include senior ZANU PF officials, police, army officers and war veterans, all in gross violation of the Global Political Agreement.

All farmers in the Lowveld, Zimbabwe’s prime sugar growing area, are currently in hiding after confirmation that arrest warrants had been issued for them all. The driving force behind the problems in the Lowveld is Deputy Police Commissioner Admore Veterai. In January 2008 he violently took over a Lowveld farm and the owners have been held virtually hostage since that time. Last week he looted their property when they were away. They returned and removed his possessions so Veterai took his anger out on their innocent employees.

Chiredzi farmer Gerry Whitehead said: “That evening Veterai returned and he got his hired thugs to beat up the Nesbitt’s remaining staff with knobkerries shouting that Veterai was the owner of the house now and that everybody had to leave, at the same time he (Veterai) removed the Nesbitt’s furniture again.”

The Deputy Police Commissioner carries an AK assault rifle and a pistol on his hip at all times. Whitehead said a report was made to Chiredzi police “but it is unlikely that they will act against the Deputy Police Commissioner of Zimbabwe.”

Farm evictions have escalated since the formation of the inclusive government, however the Minister of Lands, Dr Herbert Murerwa, says there are no fresh farm invasions taking place, just ‘disturbances’ caused by former farm owners who are resisting occupation by new farmers with genuine offer letters.

The state controlled Sunday Mail newspaper also quoted ZANU PF provincial governors stating that people must not be under any illusion that because there is a new government there will be a stoppage to the land reform programme. There was no mention of the extreme violence that has accompanied these illegal takeovers and the statements were made by ZANU PF governors whose very appointments are under dispute in the coalition government.

The statements came a couple of days after Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai warned the invaders to stop the illegal activities or risk imprisonment.

Tsvangirai said: “This government is aware that most of the ongoing disruptions of agricultural production, which are being done in the name of the land reform process, are actually acts of theft using fraudulent offer letters. Those continuing to undertake these activities will be arrested and face justice in the courts.”

The Prime Minister was speaking at the opening of the Stakeholders Summit in Harare on Friday, which was attended by members of the business community and civil society.

In his closing remarks at the same function, Dr. Albrecht Conze, the German Ambassador to Zimbabwe, said securing donor and investor confidence hinged on the issue of respecting property rights.

He said the continued farm disruptions are sending out the wrong

signal: “This may be an internal affair as long as legislation and practice only affect citizens of this country. But it becomes a bilateral issue for all those countries that have concluded investment protection agreements with Zimbabwe, and whose investors are being unlawfully molested and disrupted in their business affairs.”

“Countries far bigger than Zimbabwe have broken down in the 20th century because their ideology had abolished respect for property rights. Such mistakes should now be a matter of the past. At the very moment where the donor community is taking its first steps to substantial re-engagement in Zimbabwe, the continued farm disruptions are sending out the wrong message,” Ambassador Conze warned.

Commercial farmer Ben Freeth said no one was taking any notice of the Prime Minister’s statements at Friday’s meeting, as farm invasions continued this past weekend. He said in Chegutu alone at least three farms were invaded by senior ZANU PF officials. He said Chegutu lands officer, Clever Kunonga, broke into Reydon Farm owned by Kevin Dudoil, while a ZANU PF Senator looted property at the Meredith’s Farm. Freeth asked: “Does an offer letter give someone the right to destroy people’s property?”

A return to the rule of law and secure land tenure is absolutely critical if there is to be any real change in Zimbabwe. But when police, land officers and senators are going around, illegally invading farms, while looting and beating, who is going to arrest them?

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source.SW Radio Africa (UK), by Violet Gonda

Harare (Zimbabwe) – The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum said it recorded more than 430 cases of rights violations in February and warned of simmering political tensions waiting to explode unless a thorough national healing and cleansing process is undertaken.

In a report that casts a pale shadow over the sustainability of Zimbabwe’s fragile coalition government formed last month, the forum said there was a 457 percent surge in the total number of violations against government critics between January and February this year. There were only 78 violations reported in January compared to 435 cases last month.

The formation of the inclusive government did not bring an end to civic repression as witnessed by the continued heavy-handedness with which the police handled the protests that took place in the month of February, the Forum said in its Political Violence Report for February 2009 released last week.

Attacks on freedoms of expression and movement registered the largest single increase during the month at 460 percent.

There were 94 arrests in February after the police broke up peaceful marches by students or members of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) pressure group. Only two arrests were made in January, according to the Forum which is a coalition of 17 rights groups operating in Zimbabwe..

There were 105 unlawful arrests and detentions in February compared to 21 the previous month, according to the human rights forum.

The forum also reported an upsurge in cases of political discrimination, intimidation and victimisation since the formation of the unity government between President Robert Mugabe and former opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in February. At least 110 incidences of political intimidation and victimisation were recorded compared to just 26 in January.

The Forum blamed most of the violations on the police, the army and militant supporters of Mugabe’s ZANU PF party. It condemned the violent manner in which the police reacted to the protests and urged the police to exercise restraint when dealing with unarmed protestors and to act in the spirit of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) signed by Mugabe and Tsvangirai last September.

The Ministry of Home Affairs is also called upon at this time when the GPA is starting to be implemented, to institute reforms that will ensure respect for civic liberties and all human rights as well as the implementation of internationally accepted policing standards by members of the ZRP, said the forum.

It warned that optimism in the unity government has waned due to an upsurge of fresh farm invasions and the harassment and forced eviction of commercial farmers, particularly in the Chegutu area of Mashonaland West province.

It said ZANU PF youths had illegally settled on white-owned farms disrupting farming activities while at least three farmers who were part of the group that won a court battle against the Zimbabwe government at the SADC Tribunal were arrested and later released without charge.

“The continued farm invasions as well as the harassment of the applicants in the case, is in complete disregard of regional mechanisms and treaties and sets a bad precedent for Zimbabwe’s efforts for regional and international integration as well as for economic recovery, in which agriculture is key,” the NGO coalition said.

The upsurge of retributive violence and violence erupting after attempts by MDC supporters and activists to claim property lost to known ZANU PF supporters during the 2008 elections was another worrying trend that had soiled the inclusive government, the forum observed.

Reports of MDC supporters taking the law into their own hands and instituting “justice” against those who perpetrated violations against them during the 2008 electoral period are on the increase.

The Human Rights Forum is deeply disturbed by the selective application of the law manifested through the arrest of MDC supporters only when it is clear � even from state media reports � that the violence is from both sides and at times, provoked by ZANU PF supporters, it noted.

The forum said clashes between Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change and ZANU PF supporters in Harare’s Mbare low-income  suburb was an indication that partisan tensions are far from appeased with the formation of the inclusive government.

Retribution is an indication of the dire need for national healing and also an indication that a blanket amnesty for the perpetrators of the gruesome crimes committed during the 2008 electoral period and before will only serve to intensify deep rooted tensions and polarisation, the body said.

It urged the inclusive government should establish mechanisms to ensure reparation and justice to bring about national healing.

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source.ZimOnline (Zimbabwe/UK)